For the first few days the wounded Kronosaurus did nothing, except stay alive and fend off the omnipresent sharks. The predators that sought to feast upon him ended up becoming the key to his survival. Too hurt to hunt, he played possum, feigning immobility until a blue shark or great white came close enough to take a bite. And then bite he did.
In a few days, the Ancient’s ragged wound had closed over. Within a week, his strength began to return. Still, he kept his distance, following the five hundred ton whaler, keeping just out of sight. Twice, the whalers unwittingly provided valuable nourishment for him. Peering over the side, they waited in vain for a stricken Minke whale to rise to the surface, not realizing their blubbery prize was being devoured fifty fathoms down.
Two weeks after he was attacked, just as the whaler’s crew was turning in for the night, the old bull retaliated. Wary of the metal vessel’s harpoon cannon and props, he struck from below. Over and over he rammed his gargantuan adversary, repeatedly breaching its thin metal hull until the mortally wounded vessel floundered and sank.
Of the whale killer’s fourteen-man crew, the first six died in the water. As their comrades struggled into the ship’s only lifeboat, their cries of alarm became gurgling screams of terror as, one by one, they were dragged under and devoured. The remaining survivors huddled together, soaked and shivering, scanning the water with hand-held lights and praying their distress call had been heard. A pair of rescue ships arrived within the hour, shining their bright beams upon the water. The lifeboat was gone, as if somehow spirited away.
It had been. The moment the survivors’ would-be rescuers appeared on the horizon, the Ancient clamped down on the lifeboat’s dangling bow rope and made off with it. The boat’s astonished occupants, shrieking en masse as they were hauled away, ended up traveling twenty miles in thirty minutes. When they were finally released, the soaked and bewildered whalers faced the coming dawn with no radio, little food or water, and a vengeful demon stalking them.
Over the next few days, the beast tortured the surviving crew members. He alternated between surfacing nearby and flashing his giant jaws, or spouting beside the boat and spraying them with icy seawater. Several times, he rushed past, nearly swamping the tiny boat and exposing the great mound of fresh scar tissue that adorned him like a hunchback’s hump. A hump they had given him.
On and off throughout the day the terrifying ordeal continued. And each night, the Ancient reared up over the side of the boat and took one or two of them.
By the fifth day, only two remained. Knowing their tormentor’s habit of coming for them shortly after nightfall, the terrified men took to huddling between the ribs in the bottom of the boat, hoping to escape notice.
The creature would not be fooled. Snorting loudly, he bullied the lifeboat, pushing and shoving the twenty-four foot vessel this way and that, threatening to overturn it. He kept it up until the two men, realizing that there was no escape and at least one of them was going to die, turned on one another. After a desperate struggle, the larger of the two – coincidentally the captain – emerged victorious. Tossing his beaten cook over the side, he screamed for the “djöfullinn” to come and claim its prize.
It did. Rearing silently up behind him, the Ancient pinned the stunned captain in his streaming jaws and, with surprising gentleness, held him aloft like a prize from some county fair. Then, he began to bite. Like a pair of giant vises, his monstrous jaws started to close, his huge fangs sinking oh-so-slowly into the captain‘s body, piercing him like a battery of swords, while he shrieked and flailed and vomited blood. The terrified cook watched through maddened eyes, struggling to stay afloat in a cloud of his own feces.
After swallowing the dying captain in a single gulp, the creature departed. The cook was left unharmed, at least, physically. Shaking uncontrollably, the shell that had once been a man managed to climb back aboard. For the next thirty-six hours he remained in the bottom of the boat in a fetal position, until a passing trawler found him. Filthy and dehydrated, his incoherent babblings about the “Midgard serpent” were disregarded as the ramblings of a lunatic.
With an angry snort that dismissed both his memory of the whaler and the throbbing ache in his hump, the Ancient considered the possibility he might soon be the last of his kind. It would not be the first time. For eons he had swum through oceans of time, alone and with nothing to do but feed and hide from the bipeds that prowled the surface. Then one day, to his astonishment, he detected one of his own. It was a potential mate, escaped from the fiery prison that kept their kind in check since the fall of the dinosaurs.
By the time he tracked her down, however, it was too late. Clouds of blood and fragments of tissue in the water told a sorry tale. Even so, he followed her trail to the bottom of the abyss until he finally found her. Her head was gone, her once mighty remains rent and swarming with scavenging hagfish and sleeper sharks. From the metallic smells emanating from her corpse, it was obvious she’d fallen victim to the warm-bloods and their noisy metal hosts.
To the Ancient’s surprise, however, it was not the end. The cow lay at least one clutch of eggs before her untimely death, and those eggs hatched. Within a few seasons, the oceans of the world once more resounded with the calls of young pliosaurs, hungry and growing fast. The old bull reveled in the knowledge their species would not die with him. He kept his distance from the tiny ones, keeping any innate competitive or cannibalistic instincts in check as he waited for them to grow. The endless parade of seasons continued and the hatchlings developed into adults. Soon, they began to breed and their numbers grew.
Finally, after an eternity, the surviving cows from that initial clutch matured into the apex predators Nature designed them to be. Stretching seventy-five feet or more in length and weighing over one hundred tons, they were at long last physically, and more importantly, sexually, compatible.
The Ancient mated with several of the big females and protected them to insure the passing of his genes. As was always the case, however, after the final clutch was laid, no bond remained between the pair. The young cows invariably went off on their own. Innately cunning though they were, they lacked the old bull’s experience when it came to stealth and concealment.
Most of the first-batch cows were dead. And the slaughter continued.
Trembling with pent-up rage now, the bull pliosaur sought something to appease not only his growing need for flesh, but his temper. His phenomenal sense of smell rewarded him with a fresh blue whale carcass. Most likely felled by a collision on the surface, he could smell the great cetacean’s blood permeating the water. It was a scent and flavor he knew well. Chancing a quick burst of sonar, he pinpointed the blue’s remains. It was three miles away and drifting with the tide. A mixed bag of sharks, squid, and caldera fish swarmed around it, but had not yet begun to feed.
The reason for their hesitation became apparent. Three bull pliosaurs had lined up at the trough and were sharing the enormous meal. They were all mature males, ranging from fifty to sixty feet in length. Normally hostile toward one another, the vast bounty before them had allowed any inter-species aggressiveness to be put on hold, letting them feed without risk of injury.
The Ancient’s scarred lips snarled slowly back, revealing his well-used arsenal of interlocking ivory fangs. As silent as the death that would one day claim him, he rose in the water column and accelerated to full speed, heading straight for the whale carcass.
And the young challengers that laid claim to it.
CHAPTER
5
Well, so far so good . . .
With the exception of some occasional knuckle-cracking, Captain Garm Braddock felt he was doing a pretty good job of maintaining a cool exterior. Not an easy thing, he acknowledged, when you were part of a team responsible for smuggling one of the ocean’s most lethal predators into a top secret facility, while trying to make sure you didn’t get blindsided by an even deadlier one.
“Sonar, where’s my update?”
“Sorry, cap
tain,” Ramirez replied. “I just had a quick hit and was triangulating. The sonar signature matches the one that wounded Antrodemus.”
Garm’s head snapped back on his shoulders. “Inbound?”
No, sir,” Ramirez rubbed one eye as he checked his screens. “Bearing is two, four, five . . . about twelve miles back. Signal is withdrawing.” He blinked hard to clear his vision. “Status update: all sonar systems – active, passive, and search-and-destroy – are online and fully operational. ANCILE is engaged at highest sensitivity. In acoustic terms, if someone drops a greenback on the deck of a cabin cruiser five miles away, I can tell you the denomination. There will be no surprises, sir.”
Garm grinned. “Good. Helm, what’s our status?”
“We’re a mile from the fence, captain,” Ho replied. “Current speed is twenty knots and we’re cruising at seventy-five feet. It’s getting shallow, sir, and the bottom’s pretty rocky. Recommend we adjust course to intersect Jörmungandr.”
“Concur. Give me right standard rudder, reduce speed to fifteen, and make your depth sixty,” Garm said. “Communications, extend photonics mast and update Antrodemus.”
“On it, sir,” Ensign Rush replied. She rolled her shoulders back and then shifted in her seat as she tapped away.
Garm frowned. His primary bridge crew was as tired as he was. He couldn’t blame them. They’d all been going at it fourteen hours straight. By the book, they should have been relieved two hours ago, himself included, but his team had requested permission to remain at their posts. He wasn’t sure if it was because they wanted to spearhead Gryphon’s triumphant return or if they knew the pickle they were in and wanted to make sure the job got done right.
It didn’t matter. As good as his second stringers were, Garm would take his exhausted primaries over Gryphon’s well-rested backup squad any day. Personality quirks or no, they just meshed better, and he knew he could count on each and every one of them in a pinch.
“Fire control, how’s it looking?” Garm asked.
Cunningham swiveled in his seat. “As requested, LADON gun system is trained on our six, with SODOME actively scanning for threats. Tubes one and four remain flooded, per SOP, and outer doors are open. I’ve adjusted our remaining two fish for infrared/ultraviolet homing only. Anything that tries sneaking up on us is going to be in for a rude awakening, sir.” He gave a lopsided grin, more befitting a man who just came from a less-than-respectable Oriental massage parlor than one who’d been in combat for fourteen hours straight.
“Excellent,” Garm replied. He envied Kyle’s energy. And, he was pleased he appeared to have rebounded nicely from his earlier mistakes. “Rush, send a message to Yeoman Perkins in the galley to bring up coffee and pastries for the bridge crew – make it the good stuff. You guys deserve it.”
“Thank you, sir,” Rush smiled amidst a backdrop of enthused whistles.
Garm held up a hand. “One second. Dr. Bane, how do you take your caffeine?”
“These days, in an IV,” Bane said with a smile. “But milk and sugar will be fine. And, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So, Captain . . . not that I haven’t enjoyed the assorted near-death experiences, but how far out are we?” Bane asked. Still pale from intermittent dry heaves, she got up unsteadily from her seat and moved beside his chair, taking in the swirling waters ahead as a school of brightly-colored Dorado exploded past their transparent prow.
“About twenty minutes,” Garm said.
“And are we--”
“Captain, we’re approaching Jörmungandr,” Ho announced. “The fence is 1,000 yards and closing.” She glanced at Bane, “Sorry, ma’am.”
The lieutenant nodded, but before she could continue, Garm cut in.
“Eyes front, doc,” he said. “You’ll find this interesting.”
As something big loomed in the distance, Bane squinted hard. She put on her glasses. “What is that?”
Directly ahead, the craggy opening of a 100-foot wide trench, cut directly into the seabed, gaped at them like a gigantic wormhole. It appeared endless, a ragged wound in the ocean’s bottom that carved through the surrounding reefs like a highway, relentlessly winding its way along. From their vantage point, the dark, seaweed-coated channel looked like an immense sea serpent, resting its coils on the ocean floor.
“That’s Jörmungandr, AKA the World Serpent, and our ticket home,” Garm announced. “We’ll fit with no problem, even toting that oversized lizard.”
“Good lord. You made this?”
Garm grinned. “The Naval Corp of Engineers gouged it out using mining rigs and underwater dredgers. It’s seven miles long – winds past Islamorada, all the way to Rock Key. Took them two years to do it.”
“Couldn’t you have gotten in without it?”
“Not without being seen by every yokel with a camera phone,” Garm remarked. “CDF or no, what we do is still clandestine. It’s pretty shallow in these parts. And with Gryphon drafting twenty feet up top and more than twice that submerged, well . . . let’s just say you don’t build a multi-billion dollar submarine and then drag her belly on the rocks.”
Bane gestured at the roughly excavated seafloor. “They damaged a lot of coral. I’m surprised you weren’t vilified.”
Garm shrugged. “We might have been, if anyone knew what was actually happening. But between cleaning up oil spills and building the fence, there was plenty of reason to cordon off the area,” he explained. “Besides, we’ve provided enough man-made reefs throughout the region to more than make up for the damage.”
“And that justifies it?”
He gave her a dry look. “I think if people knew what really goes on in Rock Key, they’d be more concerned about that than the tunnel our subs use to get in and out.”
“And what, exactly, are these mysterious “goings on” you’re referring to?” Garm arched an eyebrow. “Don’t you work there?”
“I’ve only been assigned to deal with a bacteriological issue, captain,” she replied. “You do know about the infections, yes?”
“Of course,” Garm said. You had to have your head under a rock these days to not know undercooked pliosaur meat contained lethal pathogens, or that consumption of it led to cerebral hemorrhaging and death. Many nations with established fishing industries had issued reports of widespread infections. He lowered his voice. “They’re abroad, right?”
“So far.”
“And you’re helping Grayson’s pharmaceutical division expedite a cure?”
“Hopefully.”
Ensign Ho cleared her throat. “Captain, approaching the fence. Shall I enter access code?”
“Proceed.”
Through the bow window, a series of metallic gray towers emerged from the murk like misty phantoms, reaching for the surface. Forty feet or more in height, and running like interconnected telephone poles to either side, they stretched as far as the eye could see. As the Gryphon drew closer, the rope-like netting that ran between each anchorage point became visible – a crisscrossing silvery web with mesh large enough to accommodate a grown man walking upright.
“Is that the pliosaur net?” Bane asked.
Garm nodded. “Rust-proof, titanium-polymer alloy. Almost indestructible. There’s a couple hundred miles of it, running in and around the Keys. Makes the tourists feel safer and helps keep the local fishing and boating industries afloat.”
“How much did that cost?”
“Don’t ask.”
“Is it effective?”
Garm smacked his lips. “Only against the adults. The big ones shy away for fear of being ensnared. But to prevent our surviving resident manatees, dolphins, and sea turtles from getting entangled, they had to make the mesh holes fairly large. Juvenile pliosaurs – still plenty big enough to kill you – can squeeze through the openings.”
“Or jump over it altogether,” Cunningham interjected.
“We have access, sir,” Ho advised.
At the point where the titanium b
arrier intersected Jörmungandr, its reinforced framework expanded to form a 100-foot wide gate, complete with a weighted mesh curtain that hung all the way to the seafloor. There was a low rumbling sound as the gate’s counterweight system activated and the mesh slid smoothly up, like a gigantic garage door opening. Ho’s timing was perfect, and the Gryphon traveled through the opening without having to adjust speed. Seconds later, they were past the gate and bulldozing their way through an enormous school of jellyfish before continuing.
“Nice job,” Garm said. “Sonar, how’s Antrodemus?”
“According to POSEIDON, she’s two hundred yards back and holding steady,” Ramirez replied. He indicated the fathometer screen. On it, a miniaturized version of their sister-sub, complete with a pixilated pliosaur lashed to its nose, trailed behind, moving slowly past the predator-resistant barrier.
“So far so good,” Garm muttered. “Helm, distance to Rock Key?”
“Two-and-a-half miles, sir,” Ho said.
“Maintain speed and depth.” Ahead, the Jörmungandr trench curved between jagged reefs before resuming a straight-line course. He glanced at Ensign Rush. “Extend photonics and transfer forward surface activity to the main. Let’s see what’s going on up there.”
“Yes, sir,” Rush replied. She checked her screens. “There’s a problem, sir.”
“Explain.”
“There’s a small flotilla of fishing boats cruising around in the immediate vicinity, including one directly above us.” Rush touched a key. “I can extend the mast in between them, but it’s going to be an up and down affair.”
“It’s day one of the annual Bulldog Fish Rodeo, sir,” Cunningham advised.
Garm nodded as pre-war memories of fishing with his dad popped into his head. Things around Florida were very different now. Their resident population of Xiphactinus audax – popularly known as the Bulldog fish – had exploded of late. Another byproduct of the collapse of Diablo Caldera, the fleet, silvery predators were among the largest bony fish known, topping twenty feet in length, and weighing up to four thousand pounds. Their size, speed, and ferocity when hooked made them immensely popular with big-game fishermen who, despite the risk, drooled at the prospect of slugging it out with a behemoth the size of an adult great white shark.
Kronos Rising: Kraken (vol.1): The battle for Earth's oceans has just begun. Page 9