by Alan Spencer
"Anchor, you're the best cadet of your class. You take the main pilot's seat. I'll join Topper, Wolfe, Bright, and Olsen as your co-pilots. You direct traffic, Anchor. Our lives are in your hands. Everybody ready?"
Anchor didn't like the way Dr. Singer was taking charge. He also didn't like how the doctor made everybody nervous. The adrenaline was already running in their veins, pumping fear and jitters into their stressed out minds. The threat of murder by something other than Gargantuan and her spawn was the last thing they needed.
He had to set the crew at ease.
This required drastic action.
Anchor knew nothing of Dr. Singer's piloting abilities. There was risk in what Anchor was about to do, but it was an acceptable risk. Olsen, Wolfe, Topper, and Bright's faces were petrified.
"Dr. Singer. I'm going to ask you to stand down from the bridge. You can communicate to us from the other room. You can monitor everything we do from the equipment located in the backmost part of the bridge. The equipment's sufficient."
Dr. Singer's lips were drawn tight.
"Excuse me?"
"After breaking Kipper's neck, we're a little uneasy in your presence. I'm being direct because I don't want my pilots having nervous trigger fingers. I can do this without your assistance, Dr. Singer. You communicate with me directly, and only me. If you don't like it, you can try to break my neck, too. But I promise you, I won't go out like Kipper. I'll see you coming, and I guarantee you, you'll be the one who ends up dead. You want to help the mission, then you do as I suggest. Or are we going to waste time arguing?"
The screen showing the dark waters of the ocean suddenly switched to a different channel. There was Captain Mendel sitting in his office. He was alarmed by the scene taking place on the bridge.
"No, Anchor, you won't fight Dr. Singer. He's here to help. Dr. Singer needs to be right there with you on the bridge to ensure entry into Gargantuan is successful."
"Your scientist just snapped a man's neck," Anchor argued. "Yeah, Kipper was a jerk wad, but I'd say the punishment was a bit drastic, especially considering the circumstances. I don't trust the guy. I think I speak for everybody on that issue."
"It's not your job to question me, or Dr. Singer. Dr. Singer has worked very closely with us to ensure the mission is completed. You're in charge of your crew, Anchor, but Dr. Singer is in charge of you."
"I'm not taking orders from this murderer."
"Oh, yes you are." Captain Mendel's conniving smile spread across his louse face. He raised his hand. There was a black box with a blinking red dot. "I can end this mission right now if you and your crew don't plan on following orders. This black box can make The Annihilator go BOOM."
Anchor wanted to call the captain's bluff. That could prove dangerous, though. Captain Mendel had everything stacked in his favor.
Anchor could only say one thing.
"How can you reassure me and my crew that Dr. Singer won't try killing anyone else? If Gargantuan and her spawn are as deadly as they appear, this submarine is going to turn into a pressure cooker of nerves. I don't want my crew worrying about being killed while they pilot this thing."
Dr. Singer stepped in front of the screen. "I'll stay in the back of the bridge. I won't be in reach of your crew, Anchor. Look, we're wasting time here. I acted swiftly earlier in dealing with Kipper's unacceptable behavior. I'll keep my distance if it means getting on with the mission."
"Very good," Captain Mendel said, clutching the detonator with both hands. "If anything happens where I think this mission is compromised, I'll send you right in the direction of Gargantuan and turn this vessel into a kamikaze weapon. This is the best plan to fight Gargantuan for the moment. For the moment. There's always a Plan B. If our think tank comes up with a better idea, consider yourselves terminated."
Anchor heard the others gasp. Wolfe, Topper, Bright, and Olsen's eyes were glued to the screen. They couldn't see through the bullshit, Anchor thought. What a vote of confidence Captain Mendel was. The problem Anchor had with the threat, Captain Mendel did not intend to carry it out. The detonator was a toy. It probably operated his grandmother's dildo. He also noticed how Dr. Singer didn't stiffen up or change demeanor at the threat of being terminated. Dr. Singer and Captain Mendel were up to something. This was more than a seek and destroy mission, and Anchor would find out just what the hell was really going on here. In the meantime, he had to play along with the plan.
"He can stay on the bridge," Anchor said to Mendel. "He can be right in the thick of it with us. The catch, if someone does something punishable, I'm the one to dole that punishment out. Dr. Singer is not to lay a finger on any of my crew. Is that fair?"
"Fair enough," Captain Mendel said. Whether the guy meant it or not was another matter. "On with the mission. You're in close proximity to Gargantuan. Good luck completing the mission. The whole world is counting on you."
The screen switched back to the view of the ocean. The dark depth of the sea was suddenly bright with strange lights and moving shapes.
They were closing in on Gargantuan.
The shit was about to hit the fan.
Take Her In
"Take you battle positions," Anchor ordered, "everybody claim your assignment."
Topper, "Rear weapons."
Bright, "Front weapons."
Wolfe, "Right flank weapons."
Olsen, "Left flank weapons."
Dr. Singer, "Prime directive."
The crew was sitting in front of their control stations with their headsets on. Anchor was the maestro to this battle, sitting from the seat suspended from the ceiling in front of a control panel. He had to tell everybody what to do and when to do it. Anchor pressed his fingers on the panel so he could get a closer view of what was up ahead of them on the screen.
The Aqua Scope camera closed in too tight. Anchor was taken aback by the sight. A giant manta ray was floating in front of a wall of purple muscle tissue covered in black algae. That tissue wall was a section of Gargantuan. She was a meatball of gills, scales, bone, stringy flagellum, tracks of coral reef, and bubbles of fat, gnarly teeth with no mouth or apparent function, and reptilian plates. Craters, dips, and hollows without obvious function appeared; as if they were mouths disguised as innocent shadows. God took every deep-sea creature and waded them up into one nasty ball.
Anchor focused on the giant manta ray guarding Gargantuan. A slit opened in the algae wall of its underbelly, showing a pink recess. Once that recess opened wide like a mouth, holes in the manta ray's body forced out flaccid dead human corpses by the hundreds. The limp bodies were sucked inside Gargantuan by an invisible vacuum of air. The vacuum sounded like a note of rumbling thunder carried on for minutes at a time. Bodies kept leaving the manta ray's body and entering Gargantuan.
"Pan back Aqua Scope," Anchor said to Bright. "Let's get a wider view of this monster."
Bright did her job. The image on the large screen showed Gargantuan in her entirety. She was an even bigger ball of gnarly tissue covered in algae, jagged fish scales, and bone. The sheer size of Gargantuan was alarming.
Dr. Singer whistled. "She's as big as advertised. Gargantuan would take up twelve city blocks, and she'd be taller than three Sears towers combined. Gargantuan is tons and tons of power. Don't take her lightly."
"We weren't planning on it," Anchor said. "What are those tubes sticking out of her?"
There were long orange colored tubes. They resembled giant intestines that stretched for half a mile. From within the vascular tubes, bright lights were glowing. Those tubes were connected to other floating creatures that floated in circular fashion around Gargantuan.
"Those tubes feed energy to Gargantuan's spawn," Dr. Singer explained. "Let me adjust Aqua Scope so you can see it up close."
The tubes were shown in high clarity. The orange was amphibious skin. A gelatinous muck covered the tubes. Anchor imagined KY Jelly. Strange arteries and veins seemed to light up with sparks and jolts of visible blue electricity. Blue curr
ents surrounded Gargantuan's body in moving forks and branches of high voltage.
"That manta ray is feeding Gargantuan human bodies. Gargantuan processes the flesh and blood and turns them into food for her children. The moment anything approaches too close, Gargantuan will cut her children loose to protect herself from any harm. That electric force field you see now will surround her until the battle is done. She's a real work of biology."
"I bet she has a nice pair of legs beneath all of that hideous flesh and sinew," Anchor said. "Enough admiring this fish bitch. Let's grind her up into cat food."
Communication was coming in from Captain Mendel.
"A fleet of attack submarines are fast approaching. Hold your position until the force field can be breached. Our subs are tracking the energy fields around Gargantuan. We'll give you the coordinates on the best course of entry once the intelligence is in."
"Hold positions," Anchor told his crew. "Sit tight."
A fleet of attack submarines was an understatement. Every submarine the navy owned, it seemed, was coming in for battle. Hundreds and hundreds of speeding streaks of steel were ready to subdue the beast. Foreign vessels met up with American submarines to take on a threat everybody could agree needed to be destroyed.
Anchor could only view the battle on the screen.
The problem, this wouldn't be a battle.
This would be a slaughter.
Submarine Slaughter
Gargantuan came alive in the face of the submarine fleet. Anchor and the rest of the crew were blinded by the surge of retina-scorching electricity flowing and crackling around the monstrous ball. Currents of blue forks flowed around the beast like moving death threads. The threads kept flowing continuously at infinite speeds. The dark depths of the ocean were banished by the bright movements of energy. Anchor and his crew could only watch what played out on the battlefield from the sidelines. Each orange tube connected to Gargantuan's spawn retracted back into the body. The released spawn threaded through the lightning branches of electricity to take on the challenging fleet of submarines head on.
A squid the size of five hundred submarines put together, swatted its tentacle arms and exploded an entire wall of attack subs. Each vessel exploded with a muted BOOM followed by a short-lived ball of flames. A jellyfish creature appeared, shedding brilliant pink neon light onto the scene. Out from its clear body shot a net of pulsating pink color. That net wrapped around fifty submarines, collected them, and tucked the net back into its body. Anchor could see through the jellyfish's see-through mass, as submarines crashed against each other, blanketing one another in flames as steel crumbled under extreme cabin pressure.
"Holy fuck!" Olsen cried out. "Did you see that? Those subs were nothing against those creatures. We're like bathtub toys."
"We don't stand a chance," Topper rasped. He couldn't restrain the horror in his voice. "We're as good as dead. Gawd-damn."
Wolfe was frozen at his station. "The Annihilator's a joke. We're the ones that’s going to be annihilated. We're fish food. We're fucking done."
"Shut up," Anchor barked, "can't you see those subs are just a distraction? They're being used. We're not the kamikazes. They are. That's the real problem here. Nobody's life should be carelessly thrown away for any cause. There's always a better way."
"Everybody here is being treated like kamikazes," Bright said. She wasn't fearful. The tough broad was just like Anchor: pissed off and hating those in charge. "I'm not letting this happen. We have to help them. The Annihilator is equipped with higher power weaponry. We can take these things on, damn it. We're not a bathtub toy. This machine can sink any machine or monster."
Dr. Singer intervened. "Yes, that's correct, it can, but we stay with the plan. Once an opening appears in the force field, we forge right through it. We don't engage in battle. If this submarine is taken down, all of our work has been for nothing."
"And let more people die?" Bright questioned. "No, I refuse. Who's with me? I'm not sitting here and taking this shit."
Anchor knew Bright was correct.
They couldn't watch their fellow officers die in battle.
"Prepare to engage weapons," Anchor said. "Let's show these monsters what we can do. It's time to drop the anchor on these bastards."
Dr. Singer called Dr. Mendel on his headset. "They're not going with the plan, Captain. I can't reason with them. I mean, what else can I do to make them understand? We're on the brink of extinction, and—"
Anchor bolted up from his chair. Rushing to the other side of the bridge, he lifted Dr. Singer from his chair and head butted him. The scientist went unconscious instantly. He lay sprawled on the ground unmoving.
"Take a nap, ass wipe."
Captain Mendel appeared on the screen. "Anchor, you can't do this! We need Dr. Singer to advise you. This is not negotiable."
Anchor flipped Captain Mendel the finger. "Advise this. Sit on it and spin. I'll get inside that bitch, set off those charges, and save the day, but you can't expect me to watch this battle unfold without helping. Now get off my screen so I can get to work. I'm tired of looking at your sorry ass."
"I'll blow this ship up." Captain Mendel showed the detonator box in his hands. "Back down, or else. I mean it. You're not our only plan. You're just the best one for the moment. Go ahead and try me. I'll blow your submarine to pieces."
"The only thing you're going to blow is yourself," Anchor growled. "I don't have time for empty threats. Now get off my screen, you puke-faced pug-ugly motherfucker! This is my sub, and I'll do with it as I see fit. My mission, my results. Didn't you hear me a second ago? Go blow yourself."
"Canceling Captain Mendel from our network," Wolfe said, typing away at the computer keys. "He'll unscramble my blocker eventually. It still buys us some time."
"Good work. I'll take what I can get," Anchor said. "Now we're a team. Let's save some lives, people. This fish bitch won't know what hit her."
Anchor returned to his station, hit the red button on his console, and out from the steel panel, a steering wheel popped up. Anchor gripped the steering wheel and prepared himself for speed and destruction.
The Annihilator entered the theatre of battle. Anchor swung the sub right, avoiding another sub that had broken in half and was hurtling in their direction fast. Soon, Anchor dodged yet another concern. A three-headed tortoise towered over them. The turtleheads kept going in and out of their shells like violent whack-a-moles. They were chomping down on each sub in their path. Mini explosions turned their green heads into two-second glowing light bulbs.
Anchor steered over and down, dodging one mouth, then went up and right to avoid the other two maws that threatened to champ down through steel. A wall of air pockets sent The Annihilator belly up. Anchor worked quick to right the sub. The submarine was barely a quarter the size of one of the tortoises' heads. He had to do something quick or end up dead.
"Bright, fire a series of time delayed missiles at them. Use the Sinkers!"
"Yes, sir! Sinkers coming right up."
Bright unleashed three Sinker missiles in the direction of the three-headed beast.
DA-DOOM! DA-DOOM! DA-DOOM!
Each turtle extended their wrinkly necks to swallow the missile. The monsters gulped them down like vitamins.
"That was a billion dollars a piece you just swallowed," Anchor cheered, "and it's worth every penny. Imagine an atom bomb dissolving in your head, fuckers! It's time to put you in a box and bury your sorry asses."
Seconds later, the Stingers did their job. The tortoises' heads went POP POP POP. Anchor imagined a cork shooting from a bottle of champagne. Instead of sparking champagne, plumes of gore colored the waters. Their shells went up into thousands of pieces. Anchor could hear the shell shrapnel scrape the outside of the submarine.
"Dodging down," Anchor said, pivoting the wheel. "The last thing we need is a hole in our sweet machine."
An enormous manta ray was swooping after them in hot pursuit. Mouths beneath its belly were suckin
g up the submarines in its way and spitting them right back out in fiery steel flotsam.
"Whoa, yeah, I think you pissed it off, Bright," Topper cheered. "I guess they didn't realize who they were fucking with, did they? America's going to stick its gun up your asses and pull the trigger."
Olsen remained focused. "Manta ray's in my sights."
"Don't waste any more ammunition," Anchor instructed. "Wolfe, engage the blade. We're in science class, kids. It's dissection time. Only good, clean cuts. You open this fucker up, I'll give you an "A" for ass-kicking."
"Ready, Anchor!" Wolfe liked the choice of weapon, and it showed on his face. "Blade is engaged. Slice and dice. Your ass is sushi!"
Along The Annihilator's aerodynamic body, a long and thick blade appeared underneath the sub, giving the appearance of the bottom of an ice skate.
"Dropping down," Anchor said, engaging the submarine to lower five hundred feet in mere seconds. He tipped The Annihilator vertically and surged upwards. "Topper, rocket thrust. Triple speed. Engaging power cells. Rocket thrust, NOW!"
The submarine vaulted up the manta ray's belly, cutting open a long slit. Out came thousands of pounds of human skeletons and debris from cars and buildings. The manta ray sank down into the ocean, bleeding out.