When the suns began to set, they took down the tents and packed up the tables. Meg left the food to stock the Citadel’s kitchen, along with an entire storage ring’s worth of additional provisions. She promised to return and ‘properly organize’ their kitchen for them, then kissed Nancy and Chloe goodbye.
When it was just the new homeowners, Allistor, Amanda, Helen, Fuzzy, and Max… Allistor sat in the grass, lying back to look up at the darkening sky. “I love you guys.” There were a few snorts, so he sat up, bracing himself with hands. “No, I mean it. This has been one of the very best days of my life. I had my family around me, the food was amazing, I got to share in your joy over your new home, and nobody tried to kill us.”
“It was pretty great.” Ramon agreed. “Needless to say, you’re all welcome here anytime. Just pop on in.”
There were hugs all around, then Allistor and company stepped through the teleport, leaving Ramon, Nancy, and Chloe to explore their new home.
Chapter 12
Morning brought a trip through the teleport to Pelican Bay. The remaining goblin prisoners-slash-sea-monster-bait were being held there, and Allistor wanted to get them off his mind. They were sentient beings who knew they were going to die, and he didn’t see the point of extending their wait.
While he’d been away, some of the folks who’d chosen to live on the island had made more trips to the mainland. There was now an actual fleet of thirty or so boats at the dock or at anchor in scattered spots around the cove. There was a brand new, longer stone pier that had been constructed since his last visit.
Allistor, Helen, McCoy, Goodrich, Bagwell, and several of the locals boarded one of the sport fishers along with the goblin prisoners. Fuzzy was told to stay ashore, and he happily wandered off, sniffing out the trail of a feral pig.
Their first leg of the trip was short. Bagwell drove them out of the cove and a short way around the cliff in front of the Stronghold where a much larger ship was anchored in deep water. Bagwell informed them that it was a trawler that had been converted into a research vessel. The ship was meant to spend extended periods out on the water, and had reasonably comfortable crew cabins, showers, and a well-stocked galley.
“The two main reasons we chose this one,” Bagwell added, “were the big cranes and winches on the back, and the fact that it’s bigger than the sea monster we spotted.”
Allistor took in the boat, which looked huge from his perspective in the much smaller vessel pulling up next to it. The aft deck was easily ten feet above the water line, with a fold-out platform at water level in the stern that would allow divers to swim up and crawl out, then climb a set of stairs to the aft deck. The foredeck was two levels above that, with an enclosed bridge one level higher and set slightly back, atop which sat a dizzying array of dishes and antennae. The ship was easily two hundred feet long, with twin cranes in the back, and one in the front. All three looked like massive robotic arms with three joints.
Bagwell pulled up to the stern of the larger vessel and two of the locals jumped to secure lines. Everyone else boarded the platform, herding the goblins between them as they climbed the stairs to the main deck. When everyone was aboard, the two locals offloaded a big cooler, hopped back onto the boat and drove it back into the cove.
Bagwell gave the visitors a quick tour, showing them everything from the engine room on the lowest deck to the galley and the heads. While he played tour guide, the remaining locals, who were serving as crew, fired up the engine and raised the anchor on its massive chain. When the tour reached the bridge, Bagwell took over as captain and piloted the ship away from the island.
“I’m heading for the area where we saw the thing before.” He paused, looking a little uncomfortable. “We made little vests packed with C4 and a remote detonator. How do you want to...” his voice drifted off, and he just nodded toward the men and women making preparations on the main deck. Allistor could see the half-dozen small vests, along with what looked like sets of three large meat hooks welded together to form giant three-pronged fishhooks attached to heavy steel cable. Each of the three hooks was large enough to hang a full side of beef.
Allistor looked confused for a moment, then a light bulb went off. The man was asking him how he wanted the goblins secured to the massive hooks. Based on the looks he was getting from all around, the crew apparently thought he planned to jam a hook through the monsters’ guts and toss them into the water to squirm.
“Ah. I get it. Damn, guys. Tie them to the hooks. Securely. And bind their hands behind them so they can’t free themselves.”
Everyone looked relieved, and Allistor took a moment to wonder what kind of sadistic bastard they thought he was. After a bit of reflection, he realized that using the live creatures as bait probably qualified as pretty hard core. So assuming he planned to impale them before tossing them overboard to bleed out wasn’t that far of a stretch.
Allistor instructed them to move all but one of the goblins into a room belowdecks and secure them there. No point in making them watch their clanmates become bait before it was their turn. If they caught their prey with the first few goblins, he’d humanely execute the others.
They cruised for a while, the bigger boat taking time to build up speed and reach the target area. When Bagwell nodded at him, Allistor left the bridge and descended to the deck. The crew had fitted the goblin with its vest, and three of them were struggling with the little monster to secure it to the hook. It had clearly realized what they intended its fate to be, and wasn’t interested in taking a dip.
Finally its hands were secured behind its back, and it was lashed securely with what looked like baling wire. The goblin thrashed and resisted the whole time, scoring a couple of bites when hands and bodies got too close to its face. McCoy made the mistake of leaning in too close while checking the wire, and the little monster bit his shoulder, pulling away a chunk of flesh with a bloody grin and an evil gleam in its eye.
“Agh! Dammit!” McCoy shouted, smashing his own head forward into the goblin’s face. Its nose shattered, and it lost consciousness. “That hurt!” He rubbed his bleeding shoulder even as Allistor healed him and the skin knitted back together.
“Probably just as well.” Allistor commented as he lifted the unconscious goblin and tossed it over the side. The cable attached to the hooks quickly unspooled as the combined weight of the creature, its vests, the hooks, and the cable dragged in the water. The crane arm had been swung around so that it extended out over the starboard rail, the thick cable trailing out to disappear into the water. The boat was moving relatively slowly, so the goblin remained underwater rather than being dragged across the surface.
Helen moved to the stern platform and opened the cooler. Inside were two buckets of chum – chopped up fish and some guts and inedible bits from feral pigs that had been donated by the kitchen. She used a scoop to toss several bits into the water every minute or so.
Everyone was quiet, fully aware that the goblin had likely drowned in the first minute or two. They watched the line, which had now extended about a hundred yards beyond the stern. Less than five minutes after the goblin had gone into the water, there was a hit. The cable vibrated, then began to unwind more quickly. The humans were all instantly alert, getting to their feet and watching the water.
One of the crewmen, a man named Dan who’d had some experience with deep sea fishing, reached up and hit a button on the crane arm’s controls. The winch locked up, making the line snap taut and vibrate with the sudden increase in tension. There was a thrumming sound, and a slight mechanical creak as the metal arm swung toward the stern to point directly aft.
“Whatever we’ve hooked, it’s got some weight to it.” Dan observed. “Hopefully that snag set the hook real good.”
Allistor watched the man, then the water, then the man again. When Dan didn’t do anything for a while, he gave up and asked, “Aren’t you going to turn on the winch? Reel it in?”
Dan shook his head. “Better to let the ship pull it around
a while. Tire it out. If the thing’s as big as we’ve been told, I’d rather not strain the machinery if we don’t have to.”
Allistor nodded, seeing the wisdom in that. He’d just seen the massive engines pushing this ship through the water. Why not use all that power to their advantage.
There were several canvas folding chairs set out on the deck nearby, Allistor took a seat and watched. It wasn’t long before something quite large broke the surface at the end of the cable.
Large, but not sea monster large.
The crew called out and pointed, McCoy holding the detonator in his hand and looking around for a signal to set off the vest. Dan just began to curse loudly, then called out.
“That’s a shark, ladies ‘n’ gents. Biggest damn shark I ever seen, but still just a shark.”
McCoy’s eyes widened. “That thing was huge. Had to be… thirty feet long? That was a shark?”
Allistor chuckled. “It’s just like on land, my friend. The big fish eat the little fish, they get bigger and stronger. Only with the new system in place, they get a lot bigger and a lot stronger much faster than before.”
“Or maybe it’s not a native shark. An Earth shark, I mean. Maybe it’s a monster like the canids and octopoids.”
They all watched as the shark thrashed just below the surface, then dove deep. It hadn’t been visible long enough for Allistor to Examine it. He waited impatiently for it to surface again so he could see its level. When it finally came back up, it burst from the water, its entire body emerging in full view as it continued to struggle against the cable.
Great White Shark
Level 30
Health: 28,200/33,000
“She’s a beauty!” Dan admired the giant fish as it splashed back into the waves and disappeared. Allistor didn’t ask how he knew it was a female, unsure whether that was just a sea term, like referring to the ship as ‘she’.
McCoy looked from Dan to Allistor. “Do you want me to blow it?”
Allistor deferred to the man with fishing experience with a look.
“Don’t see the point. The shark’s mouth is bleedin’ enough that if your big beastie is out there, it’ll smell it. And it’s fighting enough to send signals through the water for miles. I say leave it on the line until it tires, or something bigger takes it.”
Allistor had to ask. “What if the something bigger just eats the tail half and not the hook?”
Dan laughed. “Well, then we wait and hope it’s still hungry enough to come back for the rest.”
Allistor went back to his chair, Helen and McCoy sitting nearby. Bagwell’s voice boomed out over the ship’s intercom. “What’s going on down there?” Everyone looked up to see his face practically pressed against the glass of the bridge’s rear window.
One of the crew, a woman that Allistor had heard Dan refer to as Midge, waved a hand and moved over to pick up a radio handset mounted to a pole below the bridge. She quietly reported in and relayed the decision to keep the massive shark on the line.
The suns were steadily rising in the sky above, and the deck began to heat up. Another cooler was opened to reveal sodas, water bottles, and beer cans in ice. Allistor took a water and sipped at it, then pressed the cool plastic against his forehead. Leaning back, he looked up at the dual suns.
He hadn’t paid a lot of attention to them after the first week or so. Initially it had taken some getting used to, with everything a slightly different color than normal. The bright white star, whose name Allistor made a note to ask Harmon about, cast a clean light, and he suspected it burned hotter than the sun he’d been born under. The darker shadow sun gave off a purple light that offset the white and tinted everything slightly more blue than normal. Or, what had been normal before the world ended.
Everyone had adjusted pretty quickly to the new light spectrum, and none of them gave it much thought anymore.
Allistor’s thoughts began to drift, and he was very nearly asleep when the boat lurched toward the port side and shuddered from an impact.
“Did we hit a sandbar or something?” Helen asked.
Dan shook his head. He opened his mouth to tell them the water here was much too deep, when he was drowned out by a shout over the loudspeaker from Bagwell.
“Holy shit, there it is! It just bumped us as it passed underneath!” His voice was raised in excitement, adrenaline pumping through his system.
Allistor felt the adrenaline rush too. Along with everyone else on board. Since the boat had tilted to the port side, they all dashed to the starboard rail as the ship righted itself. Allistor nearly pitched himself over the edge, just managing to take hold of the rail and arrest his momentum.
Peering down into the water, which was reflecting the light of both suns back at him, couldn’t see anything at all. Disappointed, he looked up at the bridge, and Bagwell.
“It’s behind us now. It just passed by the shark, I think.” he spoke at just above a whisper, as if the amplified sound coming out of the ship’s loudspeaker wouldn’t be heard.
They all looked astern, and Allistor noted that the line connected to the shark was barely moving. The thing had fought nonstop, but now it wasn’t moving. Allistor didn’t blame it. If something big enough to rock the ship swam past him, he’d freeze too.
The ship’s deck was dead quiet, the only sound coming from the engines and the splashing of the waves against the hull as they all unconsciously held their breath.
After a full two minutes, it seemed that the shark’s tactic of holding still as the monster passed had worked. The humans all looked at each other, shaking their heads and shrugging. Bagwell’s voice echoed across the deck.
“Maybe there wasn’t enough blood? What if we shoot the shark, or something?”
McCoy nodded, handing the detonator to Allistor and heading for the metal stair that led up to the bridge level. When he was high enough to have a clearer line of site, he produced a rifle with a large scope mounted on it.
Allistor heard him call out to Bagwell, “Give it some gas. Pull the thing to the surface so I can hit it.”
A moment later, the boat began to pick up speed. It took a full minute for the massive shark to surface, and as soon as it did, the thrashing and fighting resumed. A shot rang out, then McCoy cursed. A second shot caused a red bloom to appear in the shark’s dorsal fin, and a hole appeared near the top.
“Got it! You can slow back down. Maybe circle around?” McCoy spoke loudly enough for Bagwell to hear him through the glass.
The boat slowed and began to turn south, circling toward the port side. They’d only made maybe a fifteen degree turn when the water behind them exploded upward. It reminded Allistor of old film clips he’d seen of underwater mine detonations. Or a submarine performing an emergency breach that sent it practically flying up out of the water. A gargantuan head appeared, its jaws clamped down on the shark as it thrashed back and forth. Allistor quickly Examined it even as the gator-like head was followed by a long sleek body with flippers much like a dolphin’s, its body arching and tail lashing as it followed the head back into the water.
Mosasaur Leviathan
Level 50
Health: 532,000/532,000
Allistor and the entire crew stood with mouths agape, their inner lizard brains cringing, and their bodies frozen in fear. It was one thing to take on a sixty or eighty-foot tall walking void titan. This monster had been nearly the size of their boat, and had come up from the depths without warning. Its jaws had sheared through the giant shark with ease, leaving its tail and the last five feet or so of its body to float for a moment, then sink into the depths.
The humans shook themselves after a moment, the metallic screaming of the rapidly unwinding steel cable reminding them that they had now hooked a true nightmare. Dan started shouting.
“Stop the boat!” He motioned toward the winch. “We need to increase the drag and slow it down if we can! If it hits the end of the line at this speed, it’ll rip the crane off the deck, maybe rip the ship i
n half!”
Allistor, still terrified and having no clue what to do, ran toward the crane. When he reached it, he stood there looking helpless. Dan reached the controls at about the same time, hitting a bright yellow button. As the sound of the unspooling line dropped to a lower tone, Dan got in Allistor’s face. “Go tell the captain to stop the boat! Then put it in reverse, one quarter!”
Allistor nodded dumbly, racing over to the radio handset that he’d seen Midge use earlier. He fumbled with it for a moment before getting a solid grip and keying the talk button. “Dan says stop the boat! Then reverse one quarter! Or we risk ripping the boat in half!” He found himself screaming hysterically into the mic.
A moment later the boat’s forward momentum began to slow as the sound of the engines all but disappeared. The whine of the cable playing out and the squeal of the winch trying to resist the force of the pull became the only thing Allistor could hear.
After a long minute, the forward motion ceased altogether. The boat held still for a brief moment, and Allistor felt his stomach flip as water began to splash against the stern. The sea monster was now pulling the boat, causing waves to crash higher and higher, coming over the aft rail. Terrifying visions of the boat being dragged underwater flooded Allistor’s mind. Followed by even worse scenes of the monster coming for him as he sank beneath the waves.
The engines kicked into reverse, and the tension on the cable eased slightly. Allistor was staring down the line of the cable to where it disappeared under the water, when McCoy stumbled and caught his attention. Seeing the man jogged his memory, and he shouted.
“Hey! What the hell are we doing? We don’t need to reel this thing in and risk the boat! McCoy, push the button!”
The rest of the crew looked as if they emerged from a fugue state. Every pair of eyes moved to McCoy, who was staring at his hand and the detonator it held. He quickly flicked up a safety cover and pressed the button.
Shadow Sun Rebellion Page 21