Ocean: The Sea Warriors

by Brian Herbert

  The rear of the passenger compartment was filled with a crack Seal team that had taken custody of Vinson Chi’ang and Emily Talbot in the last half hour—while leaving behind the three Sea Warriors who’d been guarding them. Still amped up from the unusual capture, the men chattered excitedly as they changed out of their wet clothing.

  Riding outside in special moisturized slings below the helicopter, the sedated, comatose prisoners bore hardly any resemblance to human beings any more. They had not moved since Fuji prepared sedative needles and fired them into their carapaces from a safe distance

  Now she watched them on a projection screen mounted on the forward bulkhead. Their dangerous, oversized claws were constricted by heavy bindings. She thought the hybrid crustaceans’ red, bulbous eyes were the strangest feature of all—the way they reflected the souls of creatures so alien that they did not seem to belong on this planet. Down on the atoll she had been looking into their eyes when the drug took effect, had watched the red rage in them fade from embers into coals, and then go out entirely.

  She shifted in her seat, stared through the porthole beside her at the turquoise blue water. “I hope they don’t wake up and cut their way loose from those slings with their claws,” she said.

  “An unpleasant thought,” the Governor said. “I’m sure the Seals would not like to jump in after them.” He mused for a moment. “I wonder who would win in a fight between the Navy’s best commandos and those two monsters.”

  “Hard to say, not knowing the capabilities of unknown creatures—but those big claws are razor-sharp and dangerous, and who knows how fast the prisoners can summon help.”

  The helicopter skirted wide of the entrance to Pearl Harbor, and the ongoing standoff there. Fuji watched through high-powered binoculars, saw a large submarine that had been beached like a whale, and she wondered how that had happened. Around the cordon of large sea creatures, the water was thick with schools of fish, and a helicopter hovered over several trapped Navy warships, which were prevented from moving by large-bodied marine animals.

  Her own aircraft descended and hovered over the base’s recreational center and its swimming pool, so that she could no longer see the ships or the cordon of marine animals. Below, she saw at least a hundred armed U.S. Marines circling the pool. She watched while the slings were lowered into the shallow end of the water, immersing the prisoners. Swimmers removed the slings from the sedated monsters, while others attached equipment to check the vital signs, and white-smocked medical personnel supervised.

  It was only a temporary holding tank, Fuji knew, to be used until a more permanent facility could be constructed to house them under the highest security.

  Carrying walking sticks, Jeff and Preston Ellsworth walked through a grove of royal palm trees that arched gracefully toward the sea. A large purse crab scuttled up the trunk of one tree, going after a coconut.

  It was shortly after a lunch that Jeff had shared with his grandfather, during which the old man lectured him about how disappointed he was in the younger man’s behavior and decision-making. Jeff hated diatribes like that, but he’d gritted his teeth and not said much—while wishing he had the nerve to talk back. Now his grandfather was repeating himself, apparently not remembering what he’d already said at lunch. There seemed to be no end to it.

  Jeff felt a tightness in one of his jeans pockets, under the loose tails of his Hawaiian shirt, where he concealed the snub-nose .38 caliber pistol he’d taken in the fight on the boat. In his other pocket he had a small clip of extra bullets he’d stolen from the security office at the hotel. With everything that had been occurring recently, he needed to feel the assurance of being armed.

  “I’m not happy about paying that large insurance deductible for a new helicopter,” the old man said. “By rights I should deduct it from your pay, because you should have visually confirmed the fuel level before taking off. That’s part of any basic pre-flight inspection, and you failed to do it. You must have had something else on your mind, and forgot that the air is unforgiving of any mistakes. You’re lucky you weren’t killed, and lucky you didn’t have passengers aboard when you went down—or they could have been killed, too.”

  Jeff took a deep breath. Then: “Yes, Grandfather. I’m sorry, as I’ve tried to tell you. I promise I’ll be more careful in the future.”

  “You’re my only grandchild now, Jeff. I’m going to disown Alicia, so this ranch and all of my holdings will be yours. But I need you to be much more responsible in your actions. You can’t run my businesses if you don’t consider consequences, if you don’t think everything through carefully before doing it.”

  “I’m being more careful about my pre-flight inspections.”

  Abruptly, a uniformed police officer emerged from behind a tree and stood in their way. Jeff and his grandfather knew the man, Eddie Puiki, because he worked security at the ranch on a part-time basis, to earn extra money.

  Staring at Jeff, the smaller man unclipped his sidearm, but didn’t draw it. Then Puiki said to him, “Mr. Ellsworth, I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Marshall Hunter on his boat. We have you on a surveillance camera bashing him over the head with a drawer, killing him.”

  “The man was drunk, and firing at me wildly. I was just protecting myself.” He met his grandfather’s shocked, angry gaze.

  “That’s not what the surveillance tape shows, but you’ll have your day in court to explain why you were plundering the boat, and why you killed that guy.” He removed a pair of handcuffs from his belt, stepped toward Jeff with them, and commanded, “Turn around.”

  Jeff didn’t comply, said angrily, “Aren’t you supposed to read me my rights before discussing the details of a case? You sound like judge, jury, and police officer, all wrapped in one. You’ve already made up your mind about me, haven’t you?”

  “Turn around, Mr. Ellsworth. Now.”

  Having decided not to draw his own concealed weapon, Jeff made a motion as if he were complying, then lunged into the smaller man and struggled to overpower him and take his weapon away. The pair tumbled to the ground, punching each other and grappling for the officer’s hand gun, a .45 caliber automatic.

  In the background, Jeff heard his grandfather yelling. “Jeff, what are you doing? Stop this immediately!”

  The officer’s gun went off in an ear-splitting explosion. Jeff heard his grandfather groan, knew he hadn’t pulled the trigger himself.

  With a burst of angry strength, Jeff finally wrenched the weapon away and used it to hit the officer on the head with the butt, but not too hard. The man fell back: appeared to be unconscious.

  Leaning over his grandfather, Jeff called his name. The old man had a bleeding head wound, and looked dead. In shock and terror, Jeff turned and ran along the seashore, hurling the .45 in the water, but keeping the .38.

  A mile away, he ran inside a seashore cave that local fishermen sometimes used. The dirt floor of the lava-rock interior was littered with beer cans and torn food wrappers, and there was evidence of a cook fire just outside the entrance. He cleared a spot at the back of the cave, where he curled up and cried, filled with so much sadness and remorse that he could hardly face going on with his life. His emotions were raw, and he had brought no medications with him.

  Jeff spent the night there, sleeping fitfully and listening to the sounds of the sea. In the morning, he saw two scuba divers walking on the pebble beach and wading into the water, a man and a woman. Slipping outside, Jeff concealed himself behind shrubs, and noticed that they had left a Jeep parked on the road. When the pair submerged, he checked their vehicle. The keys were still in the ignition, so he started the motor and sped up a road that led to the top of the volcano. He wasn’t sure what he would do next, only knew that he needed some time to think.

  Suddenly his prior worries seemed like nothing, and he felt great shame for what he’d done, and forever wishing his grandfather would die. He missed the old man, wished that things might have been different, and that he’d nev
er made such terrible decisions.

  ***

  Chapter 25

  Early that morning, sunlight sparkled on whitecaps that danced off the southern shore of Oahu, making the water look like soft melted gold.

  Inside the cordon of large-bodied sea creatures ringing the island, the struggle for access to Pearl Harbor continued. The U.S. Navy, having placed only skeleton crews on their three trapped warships, found themselves unable to stop the Sea Warriors from moving the vessels into position across the entrance to the harbor, stretching them bow to stern and holding the ships in place with plesiosaurs, giant octopuses, and giant squids. Whales, giant groupers, dugongs, and sunfish filled in any gaps that remained on the surface, so that now there were two barriers preventing the Navy from using the seaway freely—blocked by their own commandeered vessels on the inside and by the outer wall of the cordon itself.

  On the ocean side of the barricade, Alicia, Kimo, and Dirk swam inside a protective escort of killer whales, with the gray, lumpy Gwyneth riding on the back of one of the animals. Some of the creatures spouted water from their blowholes, which Alicia had always considered to be a beautiful sight.

  She saw a flotilla of civilian boats approaching from the sparkling western sea—four converted fishing boats, an old wooden pleasure craft, and a cobbled-together patchwork boat—all with their decks thronging with people, and their rigging adorned with colorful flags. The Sea Warriors had been expecting them to arrive this morning. The actress, Monique Gatsby, had told Kimo that her environmental activist friends from Southern California had arranged for a demonstration. Unable to mobilize boats from any of the Hawaiian Islands because of the cordons, they had been forced to bring vessels full of protestors from Fiji, Tahiti, and other islands, supplementing them with local Hawaiians who managed to find a way to get aboard. News helicopters flew overhead.

  As the flotilla approached the blocked entrance to Pearl Harbor, they slowed and put out sea anchors, then rafted the vessels together. When the boats were snugly side by side and tied deck to deck, people moved from boat to boat, and presently two huge banners were hung across the entire width of the raft, proclaiming “RESCUE THE OCEAN” in huge red letters. Activist leaders manned loudspeakers and bullhorns, chanting demands at the Navy:

  “Scuttle the Navy! Rescue the Ocean! … Scuttle the Navy! Rescue the Ocean! … Scuttle the Navy! Rescue the Ocean! … Scuttle the Navy! Rescue the Ocean!”

  Within minutes, a destroyer outside the cordon steamed toward them. Over its loudspeaker, a voice boomed: “You are ordered to disperse for your own safety. This is an illegal demonstration in a danger zone. Your safety cannot be guaranteed.”

  Undeterred, the demonstrators continued their chants, while the Navy repeated its command.

  “Kimo, shall I send blue whales and sperm whales to push that ship away?” Gwyneth asked, in her peculiar, throaty voice.

  “Or I could help her,” Dirk Avondale said, “using dolphins to push the rudders out of position.”

  “I could also try a wave,” Alicia said. “I’ve been practicing the vee-waves, which might work, but maybe one of my mini-tidal waves would work best.”

  “Three feet high?” Kimo said. He looked skeptical.

  “A little higher than that now,” she said, “and importantly, I think I can generate more thrust. Shall I give it a try?”

  “All right. Let’s see what you can do.”

  Immersed in the water, Alicia envisioned the largest possible wave—an immense wall of water. Moments later, a wave formed ahead of her that was only a fraction of that, but it was larger than previous attempts, perhaps three and a half feet high and forty feet wide.

  Before sending it toward the naval vessel, she tried something new, bringing in the sides of the wave so that it was only half as wide. This had the effect of raising the level of the water by another foot or foot and a half, and now she directed it at the bow of the ship.

  When it approached the vessel, men on the decks shouted and pointed down at the water, as if they had seen a torpedo. General alarms sounded and crews ran to their battle stations.

  The mini-wall of water slammed into the bow of the ship and—as she had hoped—it did not dissipate or pass underneath the hull, only lifting the level of the destroyer in the water. Instead, as she focused her thoughts, the mini-tidal wave kept pushing against the side of the bow, causing the destroyer to turn completely around. Then she did it again, while sailors ran frantically on the decks, not knowing what to do in response. Now she realized that she had created more than a wall of water; it was like a big, raised whirlpool in which the warship was caught.

  When she had the vessel pointed away, she released the whirling wall of water and gave the ship a hard push from behind, shoving it half a mile away from where it wanted to be. When it tried to come back, she repeated the procedure, this time sending the destroyer even farther out to sea—until finally the crew gave up.

  Satisfied, she released her mental grip on the seawater, and allowed the molecular energy to dissipate, so it was as if it the event had never occurred at all. In a few moments the water around the destroyer looked normal, with small waves that barely formed into whitecaps in a breeze.

  Although the prisoners were in federal custody, the Governor of Hawaii felt considerable responsibility for them. It had been his recommendation to imprison them on a remote Pacific island he’d discovered years ago, during his active Navy days. One side of the island, rising almost three thousand feet above the level of the sea, was an extinct volcano with a fully-enclosed crater. Inside the crater, the government had constructed a large tank with thick glass walls, floor, and roof—a tank they filled with seawater and the nutrients necessary to keep two large crustaceans alive—Vinson Chi’ang and Emily Talbot.

  Taking the better part of a day to get there, Governor Churchill hired a long-range seaplane, leaving at midnight and arriving the following afternoon. At the prison island, he climbed the arduous trail to the top of the volcano, a trek in hot sunlight that made him glad he’d stayed in shape. He passed through a guarded security gate, noting that the entire crater was encircled in high, electrified barbed wire. At the center of the dry caldera, the area around the glass tank had guards and dogs on patrol.

  A tall female guard escorted him through the compound, and described the facility’s advanced, multi-sensor alarm system. Then she said, “Our government wants to keep these unique prisoners alive, while fully realizing how very dangerous they are. For that reason there are powerful, megaton explosives rigged around the entire caldera. In the event of a problem, this thing will erupt like a real volcano. We would all sacrifice our lives, but at least the prisoners could not possibly escape.”

  “That’s comforting to know,” Heinz said. “Let’s hope there are no problems while we’re here.”

  “You’re right, sir. We had other visitors yesterday, a team of scientists that took genetic samples from the prisoners and collected observational data. No one seems to understand how the two of them got the way they are, or how any of the Sea Warriors metamorphosed in the varying, radical ways they did. There are stories going around that they’ve been magically transformed by a sea goddess, but that doesn’t make any sense. Still, however they got the way they are, it’s an unprecedented opportunity for scientific inquiry.”

  “A silver lining on the dark cloud.”

  “Right, sir.”

  Heinz considered telling her that all Sea Warriors were not evil, but the Federal Government was close to declaring them a terrorist organization, so he didn’t think anything favorable he might say would be received well. It would probably be reported up the line, and could put him under suspicion. He’d already received enough criticism about his wife working with the radicals as an associate member. Initially, he’d had major disagreements with her over this, but day by day she’d managed to whittle away at him, and now he was able to see the Sea Warriors in a more balanced light. He had to admit, they were making a number o
f excellent points about the need to care for the ocean. It was just their methods that he found questionable.

  The guard led Governor Churchill onto a catwalk that encircled the tank. “We call this the aquarium,” she said, as they stopped at a viewing platform and peered through the thick glass at the prisoners as they scuttled around on the floor of the tank, at his level. Seeing him, Chi’ang scampered over to the glass and glowered. He reared up on his hind legs and raised his huge front claws threateningly, opening and closing the razor-sharp pincers that were obviously capable of ripping a man apart. Heinz stared back, not breaking gaze with the soulless red eyes.

  Chi’ang made a sudden lunge at the glass, but Heinz didn’t flinch.

  “You can tell what he’s thinking,” the guard said. “God help us if these two ever escape.”

  “Then you must make sure they don’t.”

  At the Pearl Harbor blockade, the Navy broadcasted a message simultaneously from all of its ships, both inside and outside the cordon, so that it sounded like a stereo effect to Alicia: “The Sea Warriors have formally been declared a terrorist organization, an enemy of the United States. The President, the Congress, and the Pentagon will not be coerced or extorted by a band of anarchists roaming the seas. Kimo Pohaku, the government does not agree to the demand you have made through the press. This harbor will be reopened by any means necessary, and we will not be deterred by your threat to expand blockade operations to the American continent.”

  Alicia had an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach. The conflict was only going to get worse.

  “We demand the unconditional surrender of the Sea Warriors within forty-eight hours of this announcement. All human beings who have become hybrids, listen carefully. Like your comrades Vinson Chi’ang and Emily Talbot, you will be given competent legal representation and fair trials. But you must cooperate. You will cooperate, or we’ll hunt you down, to the last man and woman.”