An eternity later, Jude found the courage to retake Kat’s broken body and pull her close. He gripped her around the waist, holding her against him as best he could, while maintaining the overhead grip that kept him from joining her. As her lifeless head flopped like a rag doll’s atop his naked shoulder, the tears started.
“Oh, Kat . . . this is all my fault!” he wailed. “I ruined everything with my stupid f-fucking revenge schemes! I did this! I . . . I killed you!”
Jude hugged her like a life preserver, his plaintive sobs filling the nearly submerged cabin as his hot tears streamed down Kat’s cold cheeks. A sudden dizziness permeated him and time seemed to slow. He wasn’t sure if it was endorphins or he was bleeding out internally. Either way, it didn’t matter. He had gambled and lost and his best friend – worse, the woman he loved – had paid the ultimate price for his arrogance.
As the boat’s intermittent convulsions slowed, then stopped, Jude sniffled and looked up. Whichever giant predator had emerged victorious had stopped feeding. As a low swooshing sound vibrated Insolent Endeavor and the floundering vessel spun lazily at the surface, he lifted his face from Kat’s, avoiding her lifeless stare as best he could.
Suddenly, he spotted a hint of movement through the waterlogged porthole and what looked like a distant cloud of scarlet. Something was moving out there. Something big.
With an anguished moan, Jude released Kat’s body and started toward the porthole. It was almost completely submerged – a dire indication of how much air was left in the cockpit and how much time remained before Insolent Endeavor sank beneath the waves, carrying them both down into the abyss.
Grabbing onto rod butts and overhangs as he struggled closer, Jude had a brief flashback of playing on the monkey bars as a child. Ignoring the exquisite agony that continued to pulse through his broken ribs and back, he reached the porthole and peered into the greenish-gray murk beyond.
There was a hint of movement nearby: a huge, shadowy form and he recoiled in fear. Was it the pliosaur?
A sudden burst of crimson caused Jude to blink confusedly. He stared dumbly at it as the flash of color repeated itself. It had changed position, moving laterally toward his left. Now, it began to move off, growing steadily smaller. He exhaled and smiled wanly as he realized what he was looking at.
It was the strobe from Ursula’s locator. She had emerged victorious, after all.
Even better, he deduced as he wiped away the condensation on the porthole and watched the red blips fade away altogether, she was on the move. A quick glance at the sky above caused Jude’s weary smile to upgrade into a satisfied grin.
The Megalodon’s implanted programming had reasserted itself. And judging from the sun’s position on the horizon, she was headed for Rock Key.
She was going to Tartarus.
Jude held his side as he shook with laughter. The irony was sickeningly sweet. Kat was dead and he was dying, yet their ghosts would emerge victorious. Ursula would home in on Eric Grayson’s stronghold and when she got there would establish a huge hunting territory. Then she would do what she was designed to do – kill. She would wreak havoc on everything in the region: boats, pliosaurs, maybe even take out one of their fancy submarines.
In the end, they would have no choice but to put her down. And when they did, they would find the cybernetic implant he and Kat had affixed to Ursula’s cranium. They would bring it to their labs, where Grayson and his flunkies, including that punk Braddock kid, would identify the architect of their misery. They would recognize his handiwork and know that it was he who sent the Megalodon to terrorize them. They would know he had been right. And in the end, that they had been wrong.
A powerful sensation of light headedness suddenly came over Jude and he felt incredibly tired. It was no matter. Ursula was on her way and there was nothing more to be done.
Struggling to stay awake, he monkey-barred his way back to Kat, then lowered himself onto the submerged steering console so he could sit back and wrap his arms around her. He held her close, feeling her cool body against his bare chest. Thankfully, his shivering had subsided. In fact, he wasn’t cold at all now.
As Jude glanced outside at the setting sun, he realized it was finally time to go to sleep. Everything was going to be okay. He and Kat were together at last. Oh, sure. It was far from the romantic evening he had envisioned for them, but it was alright. All he needed was a little rest. A quick nap would do the trick.
He would just close his eyes.
Only for a minute . . .
CHAPTER
29
Garm Braddock’s lips bunched up as he and Sam Mot approached the end of the service corridor leading to Tartarus’s sprawling docks. It was the smell of the place that invariably nailed him like a stiff jab to the nose; a pungent bouquet of diesel fumes, seawater, Kronosaurus pheromones and excrement, and the omnipresent odor of the assorted fish and livestock they fed them.
“Whew, this place kicks!” Sam spouted, grimacing. “Or was that you?” he added with a sardonic grin. There was a low whirring sound as one of his expensive wheelchair’s bionic arms swung up, its silicone-tipped fingers deftly pinching his nose.
“Probably that poor nurse you took advantage of last night,” Garm shot back. Despite the initial awkwardness whenever he and Sam were together, he was glad they so easily slipped back into the prerequisite ball-busting that came with being lifelong friends.
“Dude, she was fucking amazing,” Sam said in low tones. His angular face took on a conspiratorial look. “She might be a bit on the ‘well-nourished’ side, but let me tell you, she can crack a walnut between those cheeks!”
“Tell me later,” Garm advised. They were approaching one of the facility’s guard posts and he could do without some ex-con eavesdropping on stories of Sam’s latest conquest.
Garm felt the dock’s warm breeze flow through his chestnut hair as he looked around. To his left, the black-clad guard – he couldn’t remember his name – gave a polite nod and resumed leaning against the nearby wall, his beefy arms folded across his chest. When he gave the guy a second glance he avoided eye contact. It was amusing; all of them were like that ever since his little throw-down in the gym. He wasn’t sure if it was the beating he gave Dwyer and his thug underling or the suspensions that followed.
Either way, it was all good. Fear was a great motivator.
“Hey, Big G; what’s that thing he’s guarding?” Sam asked as they passed into the main docking area.
Garm glanced sideways, scoping the yard-wide wall valve affixed to a riveted steel panel some five feet across. The entire assembly was vividly marked with red warning labels and covered with a padlocked Lexan cover, some three inches thick. It looked like a mixture of a captain’s wheel and one of those old-fashioned fire alarms, albeit on a titanic scale.
“That’s the release valve for all the paddocks,” Garm said, shrugging.
“The paddocks?”
“Yeah, those.” He pointed up and back.
“Whoa!” Sam’s green eyes practically plopped from of his head as his chair spun, turning him completely around. Soaring 100 feet straight up, the nearest pliosaur tank loomed over them, a gigantic saltwater aquarium incarcerating some of the world’s deadliest “fish.”
It was Romulus and Remus’s enclosure, Garm noted. But the two shell-brothers were too busy having a tug-of-war over the genetically-engineered, fifteen-foot tuna a humming hoist had just dropped to notice them.
“That’s nasty,” Sam said as billows of blood and entrails spewed from the eviscerated bluefin. “Release valve?”
“Yes. All the pliosaur paddocks and the dockside holding tanks for the fish we use as fodder have water-exchange conduits connecting them to the outside. In the event of an emergency, they can all be opened simultaneously, allowing the animals to escape into the sea.”
“You can let them go just by turning that big dial?”
“Or remotely, via the control panel in Grayson’s office.”
/> Sam was shocked. “So, you’re telling me someone could just turn that and release all those monsters back into the ocean?”
Garm inclined his head. “No, Sam. The valve is guarded 24/7. It’s authorized personnel only, and we’re talking only in the event of something disastrous, like a reactor meltdown. Besides, they all have control implants. They wouldn’t be going anywhere. Relax.”
Sam’s lips tightened but he nodded and spun back around.
They continued in silence for a few hundred feet, passing the occasional janitor pushing a broom or technician hauling a cart loaded with parts. Garm could see his old friend had gone melancholy and knew better than to press him.
Ahead, Tartarus’s docks continued into the distance. The two-hundred-foot-high dome covered a quarter square mile, all carved from the gray-hued granite comprising Rock Key. Above them, the steel-girder network that formed the relay system for the facility’s assorted cable lifts branched out like an immense orb weaver’s web. Despite the late hour, the silence was disrupted by the sounds of men, machines, and the occasional grunts and grumbles from the more cantankerous of their captive saurians.
Of course, Garm noted, the prisoners never got overly boisterous. Goliath made that mistake during her initial incarceration, but only once. A single, earth-shattering bellow from behind the towering black curtain to his right quickly cured her of any repeat performances. The big Gen-1 now sat docilely inside her 400-foot holding tank on the far side of the docks.
Garm snickered to himself. Tiamat was not to be challenged.
Fear . . . the great motivator.
As a MarshCat containing two security personnel zipped past, Garm clocked Sam with his peripherals, then looked ahead once more. Still a football field away, Gryphon lay poised in her berth, her hydraulic boarding ramps extended like the legs of some colossal insect, locking her in position. Around her, several members of his crew were standing around or hobnobbing with the submarine’s technicians as they completed their loadings. Behind his boat, and floating in the center of the three docking berths, Antrodemus was similarly positioned, her nose pointing at the Vault’s enormous, armored doors. Both subs had already made use of the base’s powerful 150-foot turntable to spin around before launch preparations began.
Garm shielded his eyes against the dock’s bright overhead lights as he studied Antrodemus. A lone loader pulled noisily away from the tail section of the crimson-hulled ORION-Class AB sub and her captain and crew were nowhere to be seen. He exhaled. Apparently, the damaged vessel was already prepped for departure. At least, as prepared as she could be.
“It’s a long walk, huh?” Sam mentioned, gauging the distance. “You know, you could’ve just hopped in one of those zippy ATVs. It would’ve been a helluva lot faster.”
Garm grinned. “And miss out on us holding hands in front of my crew?”
Sam chuckled as he pointed a mechanical finger. “Is that your bridge crew, all standing around doing a circle jerk?”
“Yep. A regular ‘McHale’s Navy,’ let me tell you.”
“Humph. I was thinking more like ‘Gilligan’s Island.’”
“Whoa, you calling me the fat-ass skipper?”
“Well, you’d make a pretty scary Mary Ann,” Sam quipped, arching one eyebrow. “Although with those dreamy moonstone eyes and that thick hair . . .”
“Keep it up, butt-boy, and I’ll have everybody calling you ‘Lovey’ for the entire tour.”
“Would that be a three hour tour?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
They were both chuckling as they approached Lieutenant Kyle Cunningham and Ensigns Rush, Ramirez, and Ho. Garm felt a tinge of apprehension as he got ready to do the introductions. Cunningham and Sam were old friends, but to the rest of his primaries, Sam was a complete stranger. And a cripple trapped in a wheelchair, to boot.
“Good to see you, Samwise,” Cunningham said, leading the pack. He bore a sympathetic look, poorly disguised by a strained smile as he bent at the waist and offered his hand.
“You too, you old horndog,” Sam replied. His LJ-3000 chair’s actuators whirred as its bionic right arm swung smoothly up and gave Cunningham “the grip.” “Now lose that hound dog expression.” He used both robotic arms to pat the sides of his chair and winked. “I may be half the man I used to be, but I’m still more than most.”
“So, you and Kyle know one another?” Ensign Heather Rush asked as she edged closer and stood next to Cunningham.
“We do, indeed,” Sam admitted. “But out of respect for you and any other ladies present, I won’t elaborate on just how well.”
Garm laughed. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about Rush. She’s ‘one of the guys,’ as they say.”
“That’s for sure,” the willowy blonde concurred. She brushed her cheeks with lithe fingertips. “See all these freckles? I got one for every curse I’ve heard onboard. And let me tell you, my freckles have freckles.”
Sam’s eyes lit up. “So then I can tell you about the time Kyle, Garm, and I were staying in Miami and he decided he wanted to--”
“Wow, it is getting late. No time for reverie!” Cunningham interjected. Garm watched with amusement as he wheeled around and gestured for Ho and Ramirez, who were still lurking in the background. “Hey, guys. Come on over and meet our new AWES operator!”
Garm smiled easily as his sonar tech and helmswoman approached. “Good to see you, Ramirez. How was shore leave?”
“Like my cock,” came the disgruntled reply. “Not long enough!”
“That’s for sure,” Ho lamented.
Garm’s head jerked back on his shoulders, both in response to his sonar tech’s uncharacteristically surly tone, and the sudden realization the two of them were sleeping together. Based on the non-stop bickering, he’d suspected that was the case, but now his suspicions were confirmed.
“Everything okay with you two?” he asked, his aquamarine eyes bouncing back and forth.
“Yeah, we’re just hung over,” Ramirez grumbled. “Sorry, boss.”
“It’s his fault,” Ho ratted. “Once I wouldn’t let him gamble, all I heard was ‘tequila, tequila, tequila!’”
Garm intently studied their faces. “Are you fit for duty?”
“Yes, captain,” Ho stated. She stepped sharply forward, directly in front of Sam’s chair, and extended her hand. “Ensign Connie Ho, Gryphon’s primary helmswoman. Any friend of Captain Braddock is a friend of mine.”
“Sam Mot, sadly sober civilian,” he replied. He smiled and his eyes took on an impish look. “Forgive me for not getting up in the presence of such an attractive young lady.”
To Garm’s surprise, Ho actually smiled and blushed. Totally out of character for her, he mused. Probably the combination of Sam’s disarming good looks and the fact that he was, well . . . “disarmed.”
Ho turned and gestured for her partner in crime. “Oh, and this is--”
“Ensign Adolfo Ramirez,” the mustached sonar technician said. He pressed the heel of his left hand against his temple as he offered Sam his free hand. “Sorry about being out-of-sorts. It’s a pleasure.”
Sam nodded, then swiveled his chair so he could take in the bridge crew as a whole. “Boys and girls, your distinguished captain has told me all about you. It’s an honor to be working with such an elite band of warriors. I’m fired up.”
Ho asked, “So, you’re going to be operating the new TALOS Mark VII?”
“That is correct.”
“I read your file,” she said. “Besides your obvious . . . qualifications, you don’t have any military background. No documented combat experience. Not to be rude, but it’s no hot tub soak out there; are you sure you can handle it?”
Garm’s eyes flashed and he cleared his throat noisily.
“Sorry, captain,” she said quickly. “I just want to know--”
“Before my ‘accident’ I was a master free diver,” Sam said. “I also had over ten years of martial arts training and a shitload of street fig
hts.” He smirked and glanced down at his missing limbs. “Some you win, some you lose. But we’re talking about handling a piece of underwater tech. It’s not exactly a cage fight, ensign. Know what I mean?”
Ho nodded. “Fair enough.”
“Speaking of our AWES, where the hell is it?” Garm asked, looking irritably around. It was almost high tide and they had to launch soon.
Cunningham held up a digital clipboard. “Captain Dragunova was here about it just before you showed up. The crate’s on a flatbed by the receiving dock. She and Lieutenant McEwan headed over to get it.”
Garm felt a dig of panic as he recalled Lara McEwan propositioning him the other day. He did a quick rewind and relaxed, remembering how he’d shot the CDF officer down. She didn’t strike him as the kind to blab, but if she did bring up their conversation, including his “rain-check,” he could justify it as him letting her down easy.
Besides, technically, that was true. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell Nat would buy it, but nonetheless . . .
As he looked back and caught Ramirez and Ho cradling their aching heads, Garm became annoyed. “Okay, you two. Onboard now, and take something for those headaches – something non-narcotic. I need you guys at 100%. We’re going life or death. There’s no room for mistakes.”
“Yes, sir,” came the synchronized reply as the two picked up their bags and trudged toward the nearest gangplank.
“Same goes for you guys,” Garm told Cunningham and Rush. “I want your gear stowed and the boat launch-ready in fifteen minutes. Understand?”
“Of course, sir,” Rush affirmed. Without another word, she and Gryphon’s Fire Control Officer high-tailed it to their belongings and prepared to board.
Behind Garm, Sam advised, “Here comes the package.”
Garm’s head swiveled toward the approaching flatbed heading purposefully toward them. Through the windshield, he could see Dragunova driving and McEwan in the passenger seat. Visible above the cab, and sturdily anchored to the bed behind it, was a hardwood crate some nine feet in height.
Kronos Rising: Kraken (vol.1): The battle for Earth's oceans has just begun. Page 58