Lopez shrugged. “I think the more people I have splashing around, creating a commotion, the more likely I will be found by the other sharks.”
Nami got out of the way. She could see this Special Forces versus SEALs showdown coming a mile away.
* * *
Nassar pulled himself up to his full height. He was drenched and cold, but that did not give Lopez license to condemn his team.
“I assure you that SEALs do not flail around.”
“No, but your body heat and movement are going to attract hungry sharks,” Lopez shot back not seeming at all intimidated by Nassar’s height or stature. Quite the corporal.
“I would adopt a different tone or your CO will hear about this,” Nassar warned.
Lopez just chuckled. “That’s a good one. This, this, my friend,” Lopez said, indicating to the station. “Is the least of his worries. I am going alone. If you guys want to reduce my chances of success, you’ll come with me, how’s that?”
Nassar didn’t think that anyone had talked to him like that since he’d gotten his bars.
The corporal didn’t hesitate to move to the doorway. “Someone is going to have to close this door quickly behind me.”
His men didn’t move though. They were looking to him for his decision. Nassar weighed his options carefully. He had gone against Callum’s advice twice and his men had paid for it. Would he risk it a third time?
Lopez seemed so wholly assured as he opened the door. It was the girl, Nami that closed it behind him.
“If it’s any consolation,” the girl said. “I think you did the right thing.”
Nassar hadn’t realized he had made his decision until she spoke.
Did that make him a coward?
“Captain, I think I have an idea?" Ajax stated.
“As crazy as Lopez’s?”
Ajax nodded. “I do think I am channeling him.
“Go on.”
“He wasn’t wrong about the number of bodies in the water attracting sharks.”
Nassar felt himself stiffen, were even his own men doubting his abilities?
“And how about we do some flailing?” Ajax suggested. “I mean, draw the sharks away from Lopez? If he really can take down the Megalodon, shouldn’t we give him every chance?”
That was perhaps the most dangerous and ridiculous idea Nassar had ever heard. And the fact that he was contemplating must have meant he wasn’t a coward after all.
* * *
Shalie felt brutalized and she wasn’t even on the station.
A Megalodon? That was just crazy, right?
She still had no way to transmit to her team, but really what else could she say than “sorry?”
They were certainly in dire straits. Not even the QXs were effective against the Megalodon.
“You called for me?” a QX stated as it entered the room.
“Yes, I would like to do some experiments to see how we might help your brethren at the station.”
“Of course,” the QX stated. “Anything.”
Even though she wasn’t going to hurt the QX in any way. Not that the QX was programmed to feel pain as humans knew it, Shalie still felt a little Dr. Mengele. The QX was not a Jew and she was not a Nazi. The QX had consented and as she mentioned, the QX could not feel pain.
Then why was she hesitating?
She had to figure out how to optimize the QXs or everyone she loved would be dead.
Steeling her hand, Shalie attached a probe to the QX.
“We are going to see what we can do by rerouting some of your power.”
“Of course, doctor.”
The QX with its emotionless tone and odd cadence really wasn’t helping matters.
* * *
It did not take a shark expert to know that it wasn’t good when you were running from a shark, Callum thought. The water was calf high and they had run right into a school of baby great white sharks.
They may not have the size, but they made up for it in tenacity. They struck again and again. He could kick them with his titanium foot, hit them with an oar, but they came back for more.
Callum was regretting his decision to keep his ankle as human-like as possible. Tonaka had offered to trick the thing out with jet propulsion, tazers, a whole host of items, but Callum had been a purist wanting only a prosthesis and not a cyber ankle.
Yah, next time he was going for the cyber ankle.
Callum didn’t even have time to worry about Dillon or the rest. He’d lost track of them for at least ten minutes. His QX had gone down about five minutes into that. It now sat in the belly of a Greenland shark. Not that Callum wasn’t grateful. He was. If it hadn’t been for the QX, he never would have survived that attack.
In the more flooded sections, the giant Megalodon roamed, tearing out walls, attacking anyone who thought they’d found a safe hiding place.
Screams punctuated the sound of water roaring into the level. No pressure doors were going to help them now. Callum feared this was going to be a long, drawn out, deadly game of hide and go seek. The shark version.
Last time he saw, Tonaka, Dillon, Nami and Nick were still up on their QXs. They must have doubled back as they appeared at the end of the hall.
“Dad! Behind you!” Dillon yelled. A larger, more aggressive dorsal fin appeared down the hallway. That was no baby and the water was rising, past his knees now. Full grown great white sharks were known to attack in knee high water. Callum believed that Nami had lost her friend in that way.
“Hurry!” they encouraged.
Yep, trying. It was hard enough to run in water, try it some time with only one arm. He lost his balance a lot and nearly pitched face first into the water.
Dillon urged his QX toward him, but would he make it in time?
* * *
Nami realized that Dillon’s dad was coming in all wrong. He needed to get alongside the robot if he were going to mount Quax at a run. She and the SEALs had come around near full circle, trying to draw the sharks to them. Not exactly the plan she would have gone with, but you know how it was on a shark station. They had met up with her Dad, Dillon, Tonaka and now Callum.
The band was getting back together.
Although it didn’t look like Callum could outrun the shark, even with his artificial foot.
She knew what she had to do.
“When I jump,” Nami said to Dillon, have Quax turn to the right.
“Jump?” Dillon asked. “What are you talking about?”
Nami didn’t have time to tell him as Dillon’s father ran, just out of reach of the shark as it surged forward, getting ready to attack. Those sharks, they never quite got tired of hunting, did they?
And Callum was about to be this shark’s next meal.
Without a moment of hesitation, Nami jumped off her QX. Dillon did as instructed, getting Quax ready for Callum to jump on. That of course left Nami on the ground, in the water, but she was going too quickly to fix that as the shark changed course with a tilt of its fins.
“Dad!” she yelled.
Nami didn’t doubt her father. Ever. He came racing toward her, sliding the QX as it approached her. She grabbed a hold of the QX’s spine pulling herself up onto his back. Nami wrapped her arms around her father’s waist, putting her cheek against his back.
“Aren’t you glad you bought me all those horseback lessons?” she asked.
* * *
Nick patted his daughter’s hands. “Yes, yes I am.”
“That is how cowgirls do it,” Nami stated as they rushed through a hatch and Tonaka slammed it shut behind them.
Perhaps they could have a moment to rest.
Then the station shook, again. The Megalodon has to be at it.
“Why doesn’t it just leave?” Dillon asked. “If it can get in, it can get through the weaker gates. Why doesn’t it just leave?”
Callum sighed. “There is less prey “out there.” The Arctic Ocean is a stingy biomass environment.”
“So you mean the Meg
alodon won’t leave until we are all dead?” Nick asked. Like he didn’t already know the answer.
Callum didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
After Nami hopped off, Nick dismounted his QX. For a brief moment they seemed safe.
Nick knew it was an illusion, but one that he was going to believe anyway.
* * *
Nassar swam perhaps the hardest he had in his entire life. Who cared about how cold the water was when you were working this hard?
They had managed to attract not just one but two Greenland sharks and a Great White. They had only stayed ahead of the sharks by ducking into air vents and closing hatches behind them.
Always, though, always the sharks found them. He could only hope that this meant Lopez had a clear shot at the submersible. And helped whatever plan he was going to do with it.
Ajax suddenly surged ahead as another shark joined the chase, this one came at them from a side hall. How they were going to stay ahead of this one, Nassar wasn’t quite sure.
They passed by a door with a port window. Was that the Russian lieutenant?
The door sprang open and she aimed. Hitting the shark right between the eyes. That, of course, did not stop the shark, however there was now blood in the water and he knew what that meant.
Just as the Greenland tried to attack, he was jerked back down into the water by his brethren. It appeared that they weren’t picky whom they ate at this point.
Just as well as the Russian woman waved them into the room she was hiding in.
Nassar mainly sloshed his way in, carried on the wave of water that hit the floor. Panting he tried to say thank you, but just couldn’t muster it. Zoya and the other survivors closed the door just as a shark tried to poke his head in.
“What are you doing?” Zoya asked. “Get yourselves killed?”
Ajax smiled even though, he too was trying to catch his breath. “Pretty much.”
“Why?” Zoya asked.
“Lopez was headed the other way. He has a plan to kill the Megalodon.”
“How?” the Russian woman asked.
Ajax shrugged. “Hell if we know, but if it’s Lopez it is going to be pretty spectacular.”
CHAPTER 15
To Tonaka, finding a “safe” place to stay was turning out to be as hard to find as a non-radioactive fish near Fukushima. It didn’t help that every few minutes the structure creaked and moaned as the Megalodon forced its way deeper and deeper into the station.
“Maybe in here?” Dillon said as he opened a hatch.
No water flooding out, so that was good. What wasn’t so good was the room was clearly an observation room much like the boardroom at Salechii. The entire south wall was glass giving a beautiful view of the Arctic Sea. A smaller leopard shark zigged and zagged its way past the window. It might not be a threat now but give it about ten minutes.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Nick stated, pulling his daughter close.
Then a light caught everyone’s attention. It was the submersible. It listed to one side and drove in an irregular pattern.
What in the world was Lopez doing? It made absolutely no sense.
“Oh no,” Dillon murmured pointing to the far side of the glass. The Megalodon came into view.
Again, Tonaka was overtaken by just how big the shark was. You thought you knew. You saw the graphs and the charts, but nothing could prepare you to see one up close and personal. Not even the whale shark came close.
It swam in cautiously, its gigantic body undulating back and forth slowly. It seemed like even the giant shark thought Lopez’s actions were odd. However it wasn’t about to pass up a free meal either.
Its enormous snout passed them by, waving side to side trying to sense its prey. The shark’s jaw opened slightly, getting ready for the kill. That dead black eye tilting slightly to take them in. As if warning them they were next.
Tonaka knew they should flee, get out of such a weakly structured room. Callum thought so too, yet no one moved an inch. The sight ahead transfixed them all.
A full grown Megalodon on one side and a barely functioning submersible on the other.
* * *
Zoya made a right then a left. They all wanted to see what Lopez was up to. Their curiosity outweighed their fear. “It should be right through here…”
Nassar opened the door and they found the observation room she was looking for and joined the rest of the group. The group much smaller than when they had started out, just like her own. The other group’s people were intact but they only had half of the robots. Her group was short of people. Beside herself, there were only three other Russian survivors. Thank goodness for Pietrov and the SEAL team. But even with the SEAL team it had been cut in half, again.
“Hey,” Nick stated, coming over. “Glad to see you all survived.”
He shook hands all the way around until he got to her, then his hand fell to his side.
“And you,” she said, pushing her hair behind her ear. What must she looked like? A fright.
Nick backed away. “You guys are just in time.”
“For what?” Zoya asked then looked past his broad shoulder and witnessed a grave sight. The Megalodon was surging, with its massive bulk past the window, striking for the small submersible with Lopez at the helm.
“Do you guys know what he’s doing?” Nick asked.
Zoya shrugged. “Lopez said he was going out to kill the Megalodon.”
“In that thing?” Nami questioned.
“He’s got to have a plan,” Dillon said. “Right?”
Quax was the only one who nodded. No one really knew what the wayward corporal was up to.
The only thing that was fact was his aiming straight for the Megalodon, apparently unconcerned about the huge predator or those rows upon rows of sharp teeth.
Neither was slowing in this odd standoff.
The Megalodon opened its mouth wide, wider than the entire submersible and swam forward.
The submersible didn’t change course. As a matter of fact Zoya thought the craft actually sped up.
“Don’t look, baby,” Nick said, trying to tuck his daughter’s face against his chest.
* * *
Nami loved her father’s instinct to protect her, however she needed to see this. She pushed her father’s arm out of the way as the Megalodon swallowed the submersible.
Yes, swallowed. The sub went down smooth and easy.
What was Lopez’s play? She had thought he would shock the Megalodon or something awesome. Instead he’d just been eaten by it. The guy seemed reckless, but was alive to tell his tales, so it seemed that he had to have some kind of plan or else he never would have survived so long.
The Megalodon looked awfully pleased with itself as it cruised around the waters, making a slow victory lap until it turned and headed straight for the glass.
With stronger and stronger swipes with its tail, it swam for them.
It would have them. If not now, then soon.
“Come on,” her father urged, trying to get her to flee the room, but her feet stood planted.
This creature was the embodiment of her fears. Everything she loathed was swimming straight for her. Yet she felt an eerie calm. This shark couldn’t do anything to her that hadn’t already been done. Sure it might claim her life, but not her spirit.
As a matter of fact she stepped forward, right up to the glass and put her hand on the cold surface.
“Come and get me,” she whispered.
But then the confident, almost cocky shark twitched and slowed its pace.
It was still coming forward, but it was coasting now. However with that weight at that speed, even half speed, it was going to hit hard.
Then it thrashed to the side, then to the other, slowing itself further.
Nami was right there when she saw it. Through the shark’s open mouth blood sprayed out, coating the glass.
Lopez!
“He must be using the arc welder!” Nassar announced.
* * *
Nassar watched as the once great, unstoppable beast writhed in front of them. The commotion had attracted a number of other sharks, all circling, waiting to see how this pathos play panned out.
He had to give it to Lopez. Normally the Army Special Forces and SEALs argued about who were the ultimate warriors, but today, right now, Nassar was going to have to hand that title over to the corporal.
In its panic, the Megalodon’s tail smacked the glass, sending a crack up the middle. The window shook but held, at least for the moment. The side of the Megalodon lit up red as the arc welder finished its work, breaking through the shark’s thick side.
The other sharks that had been attracted by the commotion, took that as their cue to start the meal, swooping in, taking a bite of the giant shark, then darting back out again. Then caution turned to frenzy and soon the Megalodon was swarmed by the sharks. You couldn’t see the beast any more for the blood.
“What about Lopez?” Nami asked at the glass.
“There!” Ajax shouted, pointing above the fray.
And there was Lopez, in a dry suit, swimming straight for the surface.
“Come on, he’ll head to the bay,” Nassar said, moving everyone back out into the hall.
They raced down the hallways, no longer worried that a Megalodon was going to burst through the walls at any moment.
Reaching the bay just as Lopez’s head popped out of the water, Nassar rushed to the side, helping him up. Actually everyone gathered, helping the man from the water.
He popped his mask off. “That was off the hook! God, I wish Levont was here to see that one.”
Lopez held his hand up and got about as many high fives as Nassar had ever seen.
“That there just made the entire trip worth it!” Lopez exclaimed. “From now on we don’t say, play chicken, we say play Megalodon and let’s be clear, I’m the only person to ever win!”
The room filled with laughter, true laughter. Not the tittering nervous laugh of people in fear for their lives, but real laughter.
Apex Predator Thriller Series Collection (Including the blockbuster new shark park thriller, Salechii) Page 44