Mega 6: No Man’s Island

by Jake Bible

  “Which is kill everything in sight,” Gunnar said.

  “Bingo,” Darren agreed. “And if it comes back, we kill it again.”

  ***

  Captain Marty Lake sat in his captain’s chair, his eyes on the instrument panel in front of him, his feet up on the same panel, as he watched the approaching ship turn broadside to the B3. Any other time, Lake would have been alarmed, but he’d been through so much since Ballantine’s very first proposal so long ago, that flying monkeys could come up out of the other ship’s hatches and Lake wouldn’t be surprised at all.

  Shit, he would have been surprised if flying somethings didn’t make an appearance in the next hour or so. They were due for an encounter with flying mutant anythings.

  While his thoughts of flying atrocities flitted through his brain, his hand held his weapon of choice: a Desert Eagle heavy-caliber pistol. Lake wasn’t one to mess around, especially as life got increasingly worse and more complicated since Ballantine came into the picture. He almost missed the days of chasing Darren’s white whale. More accurately, Darren’s impossible to be alive, extinct whale.

  Except it hadn’t been extinct. It had been one of Ballantine’s projects. Or something like that. Lake couldn’t keep track of Ballantine’s science experiments. Hence the expectation of actual flying monkeys coming from the ship that had finished positioning itself next to the B3.

  “What now?” Darren asked as he stepped onto the bridge. “What did Ballantine say to do?”

  “He said to sit tight,” Lake said then leaned forward and tapped the fuel gauge. “Not that we can go anywhere. Engines are on empty and the sails are shot after that last storm.”

  “Sit tight,” Darren said. “Classic. Yeah, we’ll sit tight while he decides the fate of everyone on board.”

  “Darren, he’s been doing that since the first night we met him,” Lake replied. “Hell, he decided our fate when he bought the Hooyah out from under us at the bank auction. We’re his nice little bitches and he knows it.”

  “I’m not anyone’s bitch,” Darren said.

  Lake raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m not,” Darren insisted.

  “Two words. Kinsey. Thorne,” Lake replied and held up a hand. “Don’t argue. It’s sad.”

  “Fuck you,” Darren snapped.

  Lake shrugged.

  “Doesn’t matter. None of us are gonna live through this shit anyway,” Lake said. “This time, Ballantine is going to get us killed.”

  “Ye of little faith,” Ballantine said as he walked from the inner hatch, through the bridge, and out the side hatch onto the upper deck.

  “God, I hate that man,” Lake said and gripped his Desert Eagle tighter.

  ***

  “I swear to everything holy I will kill you if you do not stop whining,” Lucy Durning snapped as she whirled on one of the B3’s techs. “We sit tight and wait to hear from above. If we end up doing nothing then that is a good thing.”

  Short, squat, with a thin, black Mohawk that had seen better care and maintenance, Carlos stood at the caged-in counter of the Toyshop, his arms crossed against his flabby chest. He wore a stained T-shirt with a faded TMNT logo on it. The look of disdain and contempt he threw at Lucy would have mentally bitch-slapped anyone.

  But Lucy couldn’t give a shit.

  “I know we have to wait, but do we have to be so unproductive? I have work to do,” Carlos spat. “Important work that your little brain wouldn’t understand.”

  “He’s trying to pirate porn from a satellite,” Ingrid interrupted.

  Tall, skinny, long red pigtails that were braided up around the back of her head, Ingrid wore a formerly bright yellow jumpsuit. Not so bright any more. Her eyes were almost white they were so blue. She was nearly as tall as Lucy, but not quite. Ingrid rolled her eyes as Carlos tried to sputter a denial.

  “Oh, shut up,” Ingrid said. “You’ve been hunting down that signal for weeks now. You’re like obsessed.”

  “Obsessed. Yes,” Moshi agreed. Of Asian descent with thick, short-cropped black hair and a painfully shy demeanor, it was rare for Moshi to chime in. “Freako.”

  “You too, Moshi?” Carlos sighed. “I am alone. So alone.”

  “Listen up, elves,” Lucy announced. Carlos bristled at the nickname; the woman smiled. “We sit tight and we stay ready. No porn projects, no projects of any kind. We wait for the signal. If we get the signal then you hand me inventions that go boom and bang and I run up top and boom and bang the bad guys.”

  Moshi tittered. Ingrid smirked.

  “I heard it,” Lucy said. “No, I am not banging the bad guys.”

  “You don’t bang guys anyway,” Carlos said. “Maybe you should try. Then you wouldn’t be such a grumpy bitch.”

  All eyes turned to Carlos. What had been annoyance quickly became genuine anger.

  “What?” Carlos continued, doubling down on his idiocy. A trait he was known for. “Sometimes a chick needs a man to put her in—”

  The hit was hard and fast. Right to Carlos’s crotch. He gasped, squeaked, and fell to his knees, hands covering his bruised nuts.

  Lucy and Ingrid turned and stared at Moshi with shocked expressions on their faces.

  “Dick,” Moshi said to a whimpering Carlos that had moved into the ubiquitous fetal position all men revert to when their privates have been kicked up to their tonsils.

  Moshi turned and disappeared into the gear-laden stacks of shelves that filled the Toyshop.

  “Damn,” Lucy said.

  “About time,” Ingrid said.

  The two women watched Carlos for another second then disregarded him. Ingrid went to a shelf and pointed at the three items that sat there.

  “This is all we have left,” Ingrid said. “Wave cannon which can produce a sonic blast strong enough to rip skin off a man’s body.” She glanced at Carlos, narrowed her eyes, shook her head, shrugged, and returned her attention to the shelf. “This is a highly unstable new type of grenade. The science is complicated, but it basically explodes then implodes. Weird shit.”

  “Why would I want it to implode? A big boom is all we need,” Lucy said.

  “Tight spaces. It destroys what you need destroyed then retracts on itself and contains the explosion’s blast radius by consuming its own energy. Again, the science is hard to explain. It’s one of Moshi’s.”

  “Science hard to explain,” Moshi said as she briefly appeared, hurrying from one set of shelves to the next.

  “And that? A spear? A harpoon?” Lucy asked, pointing to a long, thick rod. “Stun staff?”

  “You were closest on the last guess,” Ingrid said. “But more like a lightning rod for the ocean.”

  “Let me guess, the science is hard to explain?” Lucy said with a chuckle.

  “Kind of. Doesn’t matter,” Ingrid replied and nodded. “What matters is that it can kill anything in the water that generates bioelectricity. Which is pretty much every living thing. Drop this into the water and it locks onto a bioelectric signal. It can lock onto multiple signals if needed, but I haven’t had a chance to test that aspect. For now, it will auto-lock onto the largest signal and send a beacon to that signal.”

  “What’s the point of that?” Lucy asked.

  “Once the signal is close enough, the rod deploys a stun charge back at the target,” Ingrid explained. “The larger the bioelectric signal, the larger the stun charge. So, if we run into any genetically engineered ocean nightmares, this rod will incapacitate them no matter what.”

  “We killed all the giant sharks, Ingrid,” Lucy said.

  “Did we? Did Ballantine ever confirm that we did?” Ingrid asked. “Can we believe him even if he says we have?”

  “True,” Lucy agreed. “Good idea to make that.”

  “It was really all I could make with the supplies we have,” Ingrid said. “We have plenty of parts for repairs on current items and weapons, but new inventions aren’t happening anymore. We’re out of power supplies and new component
s.”

  “I have all the faith in you and Moshi to come up with something fast if we need it,” Lucy said.

  “Thank you,” Moshi called from way in the back of the Toyshop.

  “Screw…you,” Carlos whispered from the floor.

  “You wish, asshole,” Lucy replied.

  ***

  Ballantine’s polo shirt was clean, crisp, and perfectly tailored to his tan, golf pro frame. His khakis were pressed and he wore a new pair of deck shoes he unearthed at the bottom of a locker in his cabin. Finding those deck shoes had been a highlight of his morning.

  Seeing the ship settle in next to the B3 was far from a highlight. It was a serious risk. A calculated risk, yes, but a risk nonetheless. Ballantine had finally played all of his cards and everything he had was on the table.

  Almost.

  “What kind of threat are we looking at?” Thorne asked as he stepped up next to Ballantine.

  The two men stood there at the railing for a couple seconds before Thorne cleared his throat and turned to face Ballantine head on.

  “Ballantine? What kind of threat are we looking at? What security personnel did they bring?” Thorne asked.

  Ballantine sighed, but didn’t look at Thorne.

  “If it was me, which it has been in previous encounters, I’d bring all the security, Commander,” Ballantine said. “They know what Grendel is capable of. They know what I am capable of. They would be fools to bring less than a hundred men and women, fully armed and highly trained.”

  “A hundred? We can’t defend against that,” Thorne snarled.

  “Defend? Vincent, I think you have mistaken our situation for one in which we have control. We do not,” Ballantine responded. “My entire goal now is to keep every man and woman on this ship alive. It has been my goal from day one, despite your thoughts to the contrary. Now, more than ever, I have to deliver on that goal. Or everything I have done for the past decade will have been for nothing. I cannot live with that.”

  “What can you live with?” Thorne asked. “How many sacrifices are you willing to make to get yourself clear of your SNAFU?”

  “None,” Ballantine said. “I am no longer willing to make sacrifices. Other than perhaps myself.”

  “No one believes that,” Darby said. She’d been a silent figure a couple meters down the railing from the two men. She turned and locked eyes with Thorne. “Ballantine will do whatever he can to save his ass.” She tapped her head. “I’m beginning to see that clearer than ever.”

  “You are beginning to incorporate memories that are not yours, Darby. Ignore them. They are from a different time,” Ballantine said.

  “Ignore them?” Darby laughed. It was a chilling sound despite the warm tropical air they all stood in. “You have no idea how stupid that request is.”

  “I have a fairly good idea, actually,” Ballantine said. “I was simply trying to ease your anxiety regarding your mental travails.”

  “Mental travails,” Thorne snorted. “Jesus, you have a smug phrase for everything.”

  The other ship came to as much of a stop as it could in the open ocean while positioned next to another vessel. Massive ropes were thrown across the gap and deckhands on the B3, not that there were many left considering the brutal existence the entire crew had been put through, grabbed the ropes and secured them. Once that was done, a gangplank was shoved across to connect the two ships.

  “I’m counting a dozen heavily armed guards,” Thorne said into the open com.

  “Then there are another dozen you can’t see,” Ballantine stated.

  “I figured. Been doing this a while, Ballantine,” Thorne replied.

  The com crackled. “I have six shooters targeted,” Shane said over the com.

  “We,” Max added.

  “I assumed the two of you were included in that statement, Mr. Reynolds,” Ballantine said.

  “I never assume,” Thorne said. “Keep the intel coming.”

  “You sure you don’t want me up there?” Kinsey asked over the com.

  “Or me?” Lucy chimed in.

  “Should I answer that or you, Vincent?” Ballantine asked.

  “It’s Grendel, so I answer,” Thorne snapped. “You just stand there and look casual like you always do, Ballantine.”

  “I look casual? Excellent. Then my facade is working,” Ballantine said.

  “That made my guts clench,” Max said over the com.

  “Same here,” Shane said. “Knowing Ballantine’s casual is a facade is scary. Man, you gotta keep that shit to yourself, Ballantine. Let us believe you have this in hand, dude.”

  “Yeah, dude. Never break the illusion,” Max said.

  “Boys. Shut. It,” Thorne growled.

  “Yes, Uncle Vinny,” the Reynolds replied.

  A heavily armed man stepped onto the gangplank and fixed his eyes on Thorne as he walked across. In his mid-forties, at least, the man had that dead-eyed look of a long-time operator. He carried a highly modified M4 in a ready grip across his body while also packing two .45s in hip holsters, several combat knives on his belt and up and down his legs, and a row of grenades across his chest. Plus, the myriad gear that a soldier would carry that was just short of a full kit.

  “Here we go,” Ballantine said as he pushed away from the railing and walked to the gangplank to meet the man. “Sterling. It has been a long time.”

  “Ballantine,” the man replied. “Too long. I was hoping to have your head mounted over my pool table at least a year ago. But, you always surprise me.”

  The man again focused on Thorne.

  “Ah, yes, let me make the introductions,” Ballantine said. “Sterling Hill, meet Vincent Thorne.”

  “I know all about Vincent Thorne. I’d be a fool not to. One of the best BUD/S commanders in SEAL history,” Sterling said, letting go of the barrel of his M4 to offer his hand.

  “I remember you, Hill,” Thorne said. “You graduated BUD/S in ‘97. Spent five years with the teams then took off on your own.”

  “Money is better in the private sector,” Sterling said. “And I’m flattered you remember me.”

  “Don’t be,” Thorne scoffed. “You were a pain in the ass and always did what suited you best, not the teams.”

  “Which is one reason I left.”

  “No one was sorry to see you go.”

  “This is fun,” Ballantine interrupted. “I knew there was a chance you’d be acquainted, but to have such a tight, emotional bond already? Priceless.”

  “Whatever,” Sterling replied. “I’m going to need my men to check your ship over before I let her come aboard.”

  “No, I think not,” Ballantine said. “The first meeting is right here on this deck, not below decks. You may secure this area, but you do not step one foot through a hatch until we all come to an understanding.”

  “The understanding is it’s over for you, Ballantine,” Sterling said then shook his head. “Fuck, you don’t change.”

  “That is what they tell me which is why my parameters for the first meet should not be surprising,” Ballantine said. “Or do we call this off and see who lives through the next few minutes?”

  “We’re ready,” Shane said over the com.

  “Say the word and we drop those fucks,” Max added.

  Thorne grunted, but did not respond. Sterling’s eyes strayed to Thorne.

  “Coms? You talking to the one-eyed shooter in the crow’s nest and his idiot brother? We have them covered, trust me,” Sterling said. His eyes finally regarded Darby. “Darby. Good to see you again. I’m hoping we can catch up later.”

  “I don’t know who you are,” Darby stated. “But I will soon. It is slowly coming back to me.”

  Sterling’s eyes went wide then he began to laugh.

  “Oh, it finally happened! The great and powerful Darby has lost her mind! All that Ballantine tinkering has caught up to you!”

  He wiped at his eyes and glanced at the other ship.

  “She is going to love he
aring this.”

  Sterling put fingers to mouth and tore the air apart with a deafening whistle. Six guards crossed the gangplank and began to search the upper deck.

  “We talk up here first then below,” Sterling said. “Non-negotiable.”

  “Everything is negotiable,” Ballantine said.

  “Not anymore. Not with the mood she’s in,” Sterling said. “You know that mood, right? The one where people die without warning?”

  Ballantine sighed and nodded. “I know that mood too well.” He glanced at Thorne. “She gets that from her mother.”

  “Her mother? How well do you know this woman we’re about to meet?” Thorne asked.

  “Like blood,” Ballantine said.

  “He should,” Sterling said. “She is his daughter after all.”

  Chapter Three: Papa, Can You Hear Me Die?

  “What the fuck?” Kinsey snapped and turned to face Gunnar. They were both seated in the infirmary. Or Gunnar was. Kinsey had jumped to her feet and threw her hands up into the air. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “I doubt it,” Gunnar said and drew his hand down over his face. “It’s always a family affair with Ballantine.”

  “What now?” Dana Ballantine asked as she came into the infirmary. “What has my ex-husband done now?”

  “Are you really exes?” Gunnar asked. “Did the divorce happen? That’s a little fuzzy.”

  “Shut up, Gun,” Kinsey snarled. She sounded more and more like her father with each passing day stuck on the B3. “Your daughter, Dana? The person that will decide our fate is your fucking daughter? I thought your daughter was dead.”

  Dana froze in place. “That son of a bitch…”

  She balled her hands up and began to shake.

  “THAT SON OF A BITCH!” she roared.

  “I’m guessing Ballantine didn’t let you in on the whole plan,” Gunnar said. “Jesus, I need a drink. Sorry, Kins.”

  “Don’t be. Everyone deserves a fucking drink after this shitty reveal,” Kinsey said. “I’d join you if I wasn’t a fucking junkie.”