by Matt Betts
“I’ve got it, let’s go,” Ozzie said. When Cass turned around, he was already at the doorway, looking back, with his bag sealed. “Come on.”
As Cass ran after him, she bumped a small cover that was hanging open next to a terminal on the panel next to the wall. She didn’t remember it being open when they came in, but she didn’t have time to think about it, she had to get to the antechamber and wait for it to fill with water.
“The rest of you should go. We’re going to be cutting it close,” Cass said as the door slowly closed.
“We’ll leave you the drone. Mister Punchy should get you moving a little faster and save some time,” Takis said. “Everything okay, little brother?”
Everyone could hear Ozzie’s sigh of relief through their headsets. “We’re good. I’m just thrilled to be out of there right now. We got everything we should need, though.”
Cass didn’t say anything. She just wanted to get the supplies topside to stabilize Martin and get him somewhere safe. She watched as the water got up to her helmet and stood with her hand on the manual release to the outside.
33
“Approaching the USS Montenegro. Should be on the deck in two minutes,” the pilot’s voice came through the headphones.
“What’s the Montenegro? I haven’t heard of it,” Holli said.
Linden nodded out the window at the massive structure that was moving just ahead of them. “It’s a mobile battle platform, designed to be a base for naval operations far out to sea where support ships aren’t enough. Normally anchored a few miles off the Canadian coast, south of the Queen Charlotte Islands—been there for eight or so years now. It’s pretty slow, but it’s like its own fleet in some respects.” He’d seen it used toward the end of the war, and again in the search and rescue efforts to find the Cudgel. It was heavily fortified and, like the Cudgel, designed to withstand heavy winds and high seas for rescue ops. “It has landing pads for drones, aircraft, boats, submarines and just about anything else you can think of. Its armament includes traditional projectile weapons and more advanced laser and sound-based weapons. They have a good-sized infirmary onboard.”
“That’s impressive, it’s like a small city down there,” Holli said.
“Close. The Montenegro is about as wide as four aircraft carriers set end-to-end. Under normal combat conditions, it was about as heavily populated as a small city, too. But now, I’m guessing it’ll be at about a quarter of that compliment.” Lou had to shout to be heard over the massive rotors of the VTOL. “Given the short notice of deployment.”
As promised, they were on the ground in just under two minutes and met by the Montenegro’s executive officer, Lieutenant Ornn. “Gentlemen… Ma’am.” Ornn shook everyone’s hands in turn. Then he stopped to stare at Tsui, a man still wearing prison orange, with full shackles that extended from his palm, up to just below the elbows.
“He’s a prisoner with some knowledge of the creature we’re fighting,” Linden said. “I’m responsible for him.”
Ornn didn’t look convinced, but seemed in a hurry to get back, so they all talked while they walked away from the VTOL. “My commanding officer sends his regrets that he couldn’t meet you himself. He’s pretty overwhelmed by the information coming in. The first response from our forces was scattered and uncoordinated. We sent a squad of fighter jets in, and we lost contact with all of them. Just disappeared off the radar.”
Linden pointed to Tsui. “Our special friend here has some insight on that. He’s told us that the creature we’re fighting has the capability to drain the power from sources and use that energy to cloak itself and everything around it.”
“Seriously? A creature? They were right about that? It’s a giant of some sort?” The XO asked. They entered the XO’s small office, with a large window that looked down on a much larger control room, where sailors ran back and forth to different stations carrying tablets. It was a hive of activity, and Linden wondered whether his estimate about a small crew was correct.
Holli pulled her laptop out of her bag and set it on a nearby table. “What, you think those jets just disappeared on their own?”
“No ma’am, just hard to grip that it could be some kind of creature. They kind-of stopped teaching about sea monsters at the naval academy around General Washington’s time, I think,” Ornn said. “Whatever is out there, we can more than handle it. The Montenegro is moving ahead at top speed.” He pointed out the window to the left at a massive warship cutting through the water. “And that’s the USS Powell over there. One of the most modern warships the navy has to offer, hover capabilities, pulse cannons, max speed of thirty-one knots for short bursts—that kicks ass for a ship that size— and a full battery of missiles, both surface to air and ship to ship.”
There was another ship off to the left and Holli pointed it out. “What’s that one?”
“The Reynolds. Sub killer. Drops mines and depth charges to blow up anything that might be sneaking up from below.”
Linden looked around. “That’s it?”
The XO was taken aback. “You’re crazy if you think we need more. This platform is equipped with four armed VTOLs, and the Powell has an attack copter that…”
“It won’t be enough. Launch your gunships now, or they won’t get out of here in time. You should evacuate.” It was Tsui. He’d found an empty chair at a console in the corner and was sitting perfectly still with his hands still bound in front of him.
“Don’t touch anything,” Linden said. He stared off toward the horizon, looking for any reason that Tsui might have said what he did. “How long until contact?”
Ornn looked at the window that looked out at the control room. He reached up and tapped it, bringing a number of feeds to life. He expanded one that became a countdown clock. “Looks like another hour. Maybe forty-five minutes, judging loosely on the time between incidents out to sea.”
“You want to ask me, don’t you? How I know this battleship is in trouble?” Tsui leaned back confidently.
Linden, Holli, the XO, and Lou turned to look at Tsui. Linden nodded, trying not to be too sarcastic. “Yes, I would very much like to know.”
Alarms went off in the Montenegro and lights began to flash. In a moment the Reynolds rose from the water and was broken in half by the Lusca, then, both sections were dragged down by thick, winding black tentacles. There was barely enough time for the group in the conn to see the beast before the whole thing disappeared beneath the waves.
“Jesus,” Lou yelled.
“I know the Lusca has been sleeping. It was tired. It’s only waking up and getting faster as it does. Stronger. It’s recharging thanks to all the ships you’re sending that are just ripe with juicy power,” Tsui said. Though this time it wasn’t nearly as cocky.
The XO turned and grabbed a mic just as the lights flickered all around the room. “This is XO Ornn. Launch all craft and engage.” He clicked the mic again and again. “It’s dead.” To their right, the lights went out in the Powell, and below them, on the control room floor, the consoles and monitors blinked erratically until they went out.
Emergency lighting clicked on in the control room, and the klaxon began to sound again. Ornn turned to a junior officer. “We can’t raise anyone on the com. Run down to the deck and tell everyone to get in the air.”
“Aye, sir.” The officer left the room in haste.
“I told you,” Tsui said. “You didn’t listen. Those vehicles aren’t going anywhere.”
The Montenegro lurched as the front of the massive station rose. The Lusca came up in front of it, giving everyone a fair view of its fat, grotesque body, the huge head was smooth, with long tentacles that twitched and writhed as the sea water dripped off of it. Though most of its body was black and grey, its mouth was a bright pink and flanked on either side by light grey tusks. Long tentacles rose from the sea before it and began to slither onto the foredeck of the Montenegro. The eyes caught Linden’s attention—gigantic shiny black orbs on either side of the head t
hat seemed to take in everything. There wasn’t a pupil that Linden saw, but the more he stared at the eyes, he felt he could see light within or a glint from the sun. He was brought from his trance when Holli spoke.
“You believe us now, don’t you Mister Ornn?” she asked.
The ship’s XO didn’t take his eyes off of the beast rising before them. It was two hundred yards in front of the ship. “What the hell are those things falling of it?” Ornn pointed toward the deck and Linden came forward to see.
Rocks or coral the size of medicine balls dropped off the Lusca and onto the Montenegro. “I have no idea what those are.”
“Slags.” Tsui was standing right behind the others, looking over their shoulders at the red-black rocks landing on the deck, falling into the water. “It’s too late. Can we get to our craft and get out of here?”
Linden took Tsui by the collar and slammed him into the bulkhead. “We brought you here to help. So start talking.”
There was an explosion on the launch pad and everyone turned to see one of the VTOLs slam into the deck as it tried to take off.
“Slags are the byproduct of trying to create the Lusca. They were the early model, so to speak. In their creation, they bonded with the Lusca and they have somewhat of a symbiosis. They are terribly hard to kill; their shells solid like lava rock. “Look.” Tsui pointed to a group of the slags as they began to rock and shiver. In seconds, long crab-like legs spread out from beneath, and fins appeared on their backs which slowly split until at least four stalk-like tentacles appeared on top of each of the craggy shells. Approaching soldiers opened fire with side arms and automatic weapons, to no avail. The creatures began skittering across the deck with a speed that no one had expected. The lead sailor was impaled through the neck by one of the slag’s lumpy legs; the next man lost an arm to a swipe of one of the tentacles.
“It’s too late. You see? I said it was too late, it is too late,” Tsui said. Out on the deck of the massive mobile platform, a dozen or more of the slags were rushing about, attacking the crew and shaking off everything that the sailors attacked them with. “We have to go.”
“You said they drain power. Do you think our VTOL has any energy? It runs on battery power as well.” Holli looked around at all of the dead controls in exasperation. “Even my laptop is fucked. We’re dead in the water here.”
There was nothing Linden could say. He stared at the Lusca and traced the paths of the so-called slags as they zig-zagged around, attacking crewmembers and slashing at the structure of the ship itself. “We… we need to get to life boats or something, right? Those wouldn’t have power in them and wouldn’t be a target for the big beast, right?” Where are the inflatable rafts?”
“Brilliant, Agent Kemp. Brilliant.” Tsui started for the hatch and turned left before Lou grabbed him.
They grabbed their things, and Holli folded up her laptop as they left the room.
“This way,” the XO said as he pointed to the right. “Get everyone to head for the escape route. Rear boat launches. Sections one and two.” He passed the words on to each sailor he passed, and so did everyone else, though the words really meant nothing to them; they were just aping the things the XO said. They dodged debris that had come loose with the Lusca’s initial upending of the Montenegro. In a few moments, Linden saw a hatch ahead that pointed to the Section one launch. They slid to a halt when Linden heard a rhythmic tapping on the deck. He turned to see a slag charging toward them.
“This shit had better work,” Jakob said. He stood at the side of Martin’s bed and helped assemble the IV stand. The remark seemed pointed at Cass, but the rest of the room got tense as well.
“Or what?” Ozzie asked. “We all went in for this; it’s on all of our heads.”
Cass didn’t respond to either of them, she just continued to prep the mixture on Martin’s bar, using his sink to wash everything up with the hottest water the tap could muster. The powder went into the glass bottle, and then the catalyst went in: a watery, pasty substance that the label identified as XR20. The expiration label suggested a date nearly three years ago. Cass thought hard on that. Something that far past the date could do more damage than good. They could try to look up the whole thing using the internet, if they could connect to it, but that would waste more time.
With all of the equipment working and hooked up, the silence of the room was broken by the slow, steady beep of the heart and pulse monitor. It was alarmingly low.
“Okay, we’ll give him the blood and see if we can stabilize him, then we’ll properly seal the wound with skin glue and watch the results closely. We’ll need at least two more bags of the blood ready for after that, then apply InstaSkin wraps if we can,” Ozzie said. Cass watched him move in medical role with just as much confidence and skill as he did underwater. He obviously knew much more than she did, but Cass felt like she was holding her own with him when it came to trying to care for Martin. She handed Ozzie the old-fashioned glass drip container and stood by while he shook it, and attached the tube to the end. He tapped on Martin’s hand, looking for a vein.
“Are you sure this is the best course of action?” Martin mumbled. “I feel just fine.”
“You’re not fooling anyone. You’ll be stone dead in a moment,” Jakob said.
Martin laughed and started coughing. “I think I’ll go for a walk.”
Cass stared at the two of them, slightly appalled by Jakob’s comments.
Jakob realized Cass was staring and looked at her with a smile. “What? You’ve never seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail before? You need to come to movie night in the communications room more often. It’s a classic.”
“I feel happy,” Martin said, with a few coughs thrown in. “He’s right. It’s a classic.”
Ozzie stopped tapping on Martin’s wrist. “Just a little pinch and we’re done.” Ozzie slid the needle in and covered it in cotton and tape. “We’re halfway there.”
“Feels warm,” Martin said as the processed blood began to flow into his body. He smiled.
Cass and Ozzie both folded their arms across their chests at nearly the same time as they waited to see if Martin’s body accepted the mixture or not. They’d know pretty quickly.
34
Martin felt the warmth spread up his arm, into his shoulder and across his chest. He didn’t remember closing his eyes, but they were shut nonetheless. He felt light, like he was floating.
He opened his eyes and found himself on his old ship, the Marionette. There, on the other end of the deck, he saw Ben standing at the railing, watching dolphins breaking the waves off the bow of the ship. It was Papua New Guinea, after the war and drones were cleaning the city of Lae, on the land and in the harbor. Another crew member, Dana, came and stood beside him. They laughed. They always laughed at everything, at least that was how Martin remembered them together.
In the distance, the sun faded into the water, and everything was light and orange and yellow. He was in the wheelhouse then, his hand on the controls, his speed steady.
He could feel the explosion beginning at the bow, like a careless man tripping over his untied shoelace. This dream, or hallucination, or rewind – Martin couldn’t be sure what it was, but it suddenly went into slow motion around him. He moved as he always did, but the world ticked on, just at a minute pace. Martin turned from the wheel and walked toward the stairs, but found himself suddenly at the bottom of all the flights of stairs, some three sets. He walked quickly toward the bow, until he saw the start of the explosion which was little more than a flash, with pieces of ship flying away from it. He reached down and pulled long strips of the hull away, just so he could see below, just to witness the mine below doing its job before becoming a mass of shrapnel.
He saw it, a mass of explosives surrounded by a metal casing and spikes that triggered the device. Just like the after reports said. A remnant of the war in an area that supposedly was cleared in the months before. He marveled at how the design of a mine hadn’t changed in more than a
century—a weight, a chain, a buoyant ball with tripwires. Navies had used them in both world wars previous, and variations had made appearances in conflict after conflict before that.
He watched the ball of flame spread and then turned back to the steps, remembering Ben and Dana on the deck. He ran to the staircase, thinking this time he could change something. But there was no magically skipping from the bottom to the top, on the way up he had to plod each and every painful step. Looking behind him, he could see the fireball expanding up the steps behind him.
By the time he touched the top of the stairs, a wave of fire and debris had caught up with him and enveloped him. He felt the heat pass him by, without harming him, and he followed it out onto the deck. Martin turned quickly to see where Ben and Dana were.
35
The Montenegro listed to port and knocked the whole group into the railing, including the slag that had come up on them. Still, it flailed with its head stalks, slicing Holli’s coat with one. The XO forced the emergency hatch in, and led Lou inside. Linden turned in time to see the beast rear back and strike at Tsui with one of its bumpy legs, bringing it down on the metal cuffs that held Tsui’s hands in place, getting stuck in the process.
The monster panicked and started swinging all of its other legs, trying to get loose. “Help me,” Tsui said. He did his best to pull away, but the slag’s leg was stuck firm.
He didn’t think about it, but the key card to the cuffs was already in Linden’s hand and searching for the proper place to swipe. Despite her injury, Holli jumped in as well, pounding at the head tentacles with a fire extinguisher. The cuffs fell off Tsui and with them, the beast dropped to the deck.
“Go,” Holli shouted, and Linden didn’t wait for her to repeat. He pulled Tsui into the corridor just as Holli doused the slag in flame retardant foam from the extinguisher. As the monster slipped around and shook to get the white material off, Holli joined the others and they slammed the portal and locked it.