“No, Willie, they’re out there somewhere,” Amara said evenly. “Orca pods alpha, beta and gamma have all been recorded making kills in this region, during this exact time period, yearly, for the last decade. That’s why we scheduled the next two weeks to do our studies in the first place.”
The killer whales would come. It was inevitable. The three groups she mentioned had been slaughtering the region’s sperm whales for the last four summers. They were the top predators in the area, and opportunistic feeders. With nothing able to stop them, there was no reason why they would give up an easy meal like a sperm whale calf, or even a cow if need be. They knew where and when the dinner banquet was going to be held, and they’d be hungry when they arrived.
Willie nodded his head and started to replace his earpiece.
“Say, Willie,” Amara stopped him with a touch. “Are you sure you haven’t heard anything out there?”
“Da only ting out of da ordinary was a muffled sound or two coming out of da abyss, Amara,” Willie said. “I don’t know for sure, but my nose tells me dat one of your whales is down dere, and had hisself a run in wit a giant piece of calamari.” He winked at her, his strong white teeth forming an ear-splitting grin.
“You know, you’re making me hungry, Willie.” Amara chuckled. “Not that we’ve any shortage of seafood out here. Anyway, keep me posted if you hear anything.”
“Don’t I always?” Willie asked, grinning as she moved off.
With a half-smile brightening up her abnormally serious features, Amara trudged over to her desk and plopped down into her padded leather chair. Grateful for the fresh cup of coffee one of the interns offered her, she reached for the hand radio suspended at her belt.
“Lane, it’s Amara. Are you reading me?”
“We read you loud and clear,” Lane answered.
Judging from the amount of background noise, the two men were already navigating the inflatable dinghy that functioned as the high-speed scout in their operation.
“Well, what have we got?” Amara tried not to shout. She reached over and gave her blank monitor a gentle rap on one side. “We’re not receiving your video feed.”
Adam’s head shake confirmed her statement.
“We’re having some sort of transmission problem, boss,” Lane explained. “We’re going to have to go with the old-fashioned camcorder approach. No sign of your killer whales. Do you want us to shoot some footage of the mother sperms and their calves?”
“That’s a negative. Unless you see something unusual, we’ve got plenty of stock footage of the females and their young. Just keep working the perimeter and call me if anything breaks.”
“Will do, boss.”
Sitting back, Amara sipped her coffee. Her monitor shimmered as Adam transferred the underwater feed of the whales back onto the screen. She tapped the nails of her free hand on the top of her glass-covered desk like tumbling dominoes, trying to force herself to relax. As much as she loved her job, she hated the endless monotony of being forced to sit back and wait for something to happen.
Or for something to get killed.
With a thunderous snort that was audible a quarter-mile away, the creature breached the water’s surface, directly over the abyss. It peered about, taking deep breaths that quickly replenished its muscles with oxygen. Hissing loudly, it closed its nose flaps and submerged, its lifeboat-size flippers propelling its massive bulk through the water with deceptively gentle strokes.
As it swam, the creature’s scarred snout wrinkled up. It yawned wide, expelling a fragment of tissue that remained lodged between two of its machete-sized fangs. Like a flower stalk caught in a stiff breeze, the six-foot fragment of one of the colossal squid’s tentacles spiraled into the depths.
Having inflicted serious injury upon its mammalian rival, five thousand feet below, the creature opted to ignore its retreating opponent. Instead, it pounced upon the hapless prey that spurred its competitive instincts to life.
The squid had struggled desperately in its bid for freedom, viciously slashing the creature with its beak and tentacles while writhing to and fro. It was useless. Even its slippery skin couldn’t save it. Evolution had enhanced the creature’s jaws with rows of hooked rear dentition, assuring that prey partially within the confines of its cavernous mouth traveled one way only – into its stomach. Dispatching its thrashing victim with a quick snap that nearly severed the giant mollusk in two, the creature sheared away its bothersome tentacles and seized the remaining mantle portion in its mouth. Wary of the sharp fourteen-foot gladius bone that gave the cephalopod’s body its rigidity, it crunched down on the squid repeatedly until it reduced both the mantle and gladius to a pulp. What was left was quickly shaken apart into manageable-sized portions and systematically swallowed.
Rising ghost-like out of the abyss, the creature extended its senses in all directions in an effort to detect its injured opponent. The currents that emerged from the abyss were strong, and neither its sound images nor its phenomenal sense of smell could pick up any trace of the wounded whale. With no discernible sign of its adversary, it descended once more, content to continue its exploration.
Leveling off at a depth of four hundred feet, the creature picked up speed. Less than a thousand yards away, something piqued its interest. It could sense a score of life forms gathered in a group. A quick scan confirmed that the animals were the same species as the one it just routed, though significantly smaller. Given the presence of their young and their body structure, they appeared to be females.
It was apparent to the giant predator that the sperm whale cows were alarmed by its presence. They began to form up in a tightly packed school with the young in the center. It cruised closer. It would be an easy matter to plow into the school, decimating their ranks and returning to pick off a victim at its leisure.
The creature ignored the whales and started to veer off to the south. Suddenly, its flippers stiffened and splayed straight out from its sides, creating a braking effect that slowed its body. As it did, its immense head shifted sharply, its nostrils working furiously. Its highly sensitive olfactory system had detected the faint scent of fish blood, wafting though the water. The smell was diluted, originating several miles from its current position. Cocking its crocodile-like skull to one side, it strained its tiny ears, listening to the heartbeat of the surrounding ocean.
There, mixed in with a symphony of sounds, was the alluring resonance of a dying animal. The thrashing sounds were unmistakable. Although its vast stomach was almost full, the creature found itself drawn. Easy meals were few and far between, and like a gorged bass that couldn’t help but snap at an injured baitfish, its inherent response to the stimulus took over.
With a tremendous splash, it headed unswervingly toward the banquet. Its four flippers resumed their rhythmic thrusting, building up speed. Cruising directly beneath the huddled school of frightened sperm whales, the creature continued to accelerate. As it rose toward the surface, it moved in the direction of the huge metal object that lay directly in its path.
“Bloody hell, mon!” Willie’s face held undisguised astonishment as he sprang to his feet. He clutched at his oversized headphones, pressing them tightly to his head. All heads turned in his direction as his coffee mug crashed loudly to the floor.
“Willie, what is it?” Amara asked.
“Ya not gonna believe it.” Willie breathed excitedly. He dropped a DVD into a nearby recording device and started pushing buttons left and right. “Adam, can ya get me an audio recording of what I’m about to send ya, mon?”
“Believe what?” Annoyed at being ignored, Amara rose and moved to his station. “Willie, what the heck’s going on?”
“One second please, boss.” Willie held up a hand as he continued making quick adjustments on the electronics. His eyes intense, he glanced over at Adam, waited for his nod of approval, then threw both live audio feed transmission switches. Turning back toward Amara, Willie gestured at his scope. “We got us a bloop, mon!” he said
, gushing with excitement.
“A bloop?” Amara echoed, her hands resting on his sonar table as she watched the screen. “Are you sure? I don’t see anything.”
“Aye,” Willie said, nodding his head vigorously. “It’s dere. I tell ya, mon, I neva seen or heard nuttin like dis in my whole life.”
Adam Spencer raised his pencil and eyebrows. “Forgive me for asking, but what the hell is a bloop?”
Amara folded her arms across her chest. “It’s an unexplained audio signature. The US navy first started picking them up in 1997, using Cold War technology designed to track Soviet submarines.” Her eyes were like telescopes as they focused on the screen in front of her. “The sound supposedly matches the profile of a living creature, something from the extreme deep. Whatever it is, based on signal strength it’s supposed to be huge, larger than any known creature, including a whale.”
“Really?” Adam’s eyes went wide behind his glasses. “Sounds intriguing. So, what does the navy think this ‘bloop’ is?”
“Unknown. Possibly some undiscovered species of gigantic octopus or squid, at least based on what they’ve seen. But that’s only a theory, of course.”
“Dere it is, mon!” Willie said, holding his headset tightly with one hand. He snapped his fingers. “Adam, put dis on da overhead speakers. Quick, if ya please!”
Adam reached over and flipped a switch. He leaned back in his seat and cocked his head, listening for the thump of the feed kicking in. Soon, all the scientists and interns in the room were hearing what Willie was listening to.
The sound echoed throughout the observation room. It was deep and loud, reminiscent of steel grating against stone. It had a repetitive, ratcheting quality to it as it rumbled from the ship’s audio system, so base in pitch it reverberated in their bones as well as their ears. For a long moment, no one said anything. They all simply stood or sat where they were, transfixed by the alien noises.
Finally, Amara spoke up, breaking everyone out of their hypnotic state
“Okay, everybody, let’s get focused and find out exactly what we’re dealing with.” She turned to Willie and placed one hand on his shoulder. “Willie, besides the audio file, do you have a verifiable sonar reading on this thing?”
“I did for a minute, when it first come out of da abyss, but den it–” He hesitated, adjusting his screen settings. “Wait, dere it is again! Look!” Willie’s hand shook as he pointed at the screen. On the monitor before them was an enormous sonar signature. It was moving swiftly beneath the surface of the water, less than a thousand yards away.
“Definitely organic,” Adam said.
“Jesus, you were right,” Amara half-whispered as she scrutinized the wavering image. “I assume you’re recording this?”
“Of course.” Willie pointed to the lit-up DVD burner.
“My God, if I’m reading your scan correctly, that thing is huge!” Amara exclaimed. “How big do you think it is, and more importantly, what do you think it is?”
“I dunno what it is, but it’s big all right. As big as any whale I’ve eva seen.” An alarmed look slid across Willie’s face. “Amara . . . I tink we have a problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Whateva dis ting is, it’s headin in da direction of da sperm whales . . . and our inflatable.”
Her eyes peeling wide, Amara grabbed her radio. “Sycophant, this is Amara, come in!”
There was no answer. Furiously checking the radio’s settings and power readings, she tried again. “Attention Lane or Mike, this is Amara calling. Do you read me?”
“This is Lane. We read you loud and clear. Sorry boss, but we’ve got a bit of a situation brewing out here. What’s up?”
“A situation? What’s going on out there? Is everything okay?” Amara glanced over at Willie’s sonar screen, watching as the huge sonar mark they were tracking moved relentlessly closer to the unsuspecting whale pod – and the Sycophant.
“Bloop speed is twenty five miles an hour, Amara,” Willie advised. He pointed at the monitor. “And gettin faster.”
“The whales are going crazy, boss.” Lane’s normally calm and controlled voice was laced with nervous excitement as it crackled through the radio. “They’re extremely skittish and have formed up into a defensive Marguerite formation, with the adults in a circle and the calves on the inside. There must be killer whales around. I’ve never seen them like this before, I . . . holy shit!”
A faint hiss spewed out of the microphone.
Amara raised the radio to her lips. “Lane? Lane, come in . . .”
No answer.
Casting a glance over at Willie, who shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the still-moving radar image of the small dinghy, Amara repeated herself. “Lane, come in, Lane. This is Amara. Can you hear me?”
“Sorry, boss. You’re not going to believe this, but one of the cows just charged the Sycophant and tried to take a bite out of us! We barely managed to get out of her way. Mike got some great footage of it!”
Shaking her head angrily at her employee’s cackling, Amara yelled into the microphone. “Lane, get the hell out of there and head back to the Harbinger, immediately.”
“Why?”
“There’s something out there that’s scaring the whales!”
“What kind of something?” Lane asked.
“Something big. Real big. And it’s heading in your direction. Now move your ass, goddamn it!”
“Geez, it’s probably just a whale shark or something, but okay. We’re on our way.”
As she lowered the radio, Amara looked up with alarm. Once again, the deep ratcheting noise thundered out of the overhead speakers, causing the room to vibrate. It sounded closer.
“Willie . . .” Amara’s voice was a whisper. “Where is it?”
“Four hundred yards from us and closing, boss,” Willie said. “Depth is five hundred feet and gettin shallower. Oh, mon. Speed is now . . . forty.”
“Forty? And the Sycophant’s top speed with the new outboard?”
“About tirty,” Willie replied. He sucked in a breath, pointing at the screen. “Da bloop is comin into contact wit da whales right . . . now.”
On the screen before them, the huge signal merged with the readings reflecting off the sperm whale pod. For a moment, the two appeared as one. Then, as Amara breathed an audible sigh of relief, the alien signal separated itself from that of the pod and continued on – heading straight toward the Sycophant.
“It’s gaining on dem,” Willie said. He jotted down some numbers. “Bloop is tree hundred yards to us, one hundred yards to da inflatable, and closin fast.”
“You really think it’s after Lane and Mike?” As Willie’s quick nod added to her growing fears, Amara bellowed into her radio. “Lane, I need you to head for us at top speed! Do you hear me? Top speed straight to the Harbinger, and don’t look back!”
“I don’t see anything. What the hell’s going on?” Lane asked.
“Never mind that. Just do it!”
“We’re coming, we’re . . . holy shit! There’s something here! God, look at the water. It must be fucking huge!”
Amara turned back to Willie. “Distance?”
“Two hundred yards to us, fifty yards to da dinghy and closing real fast, boss. Bloop depth is two hundred feet. Speed is now forty-five.” Willie blinked, checking his readings to make sure.
“That’s it. Willie, come with me,” Amara said, heading rapidly for the stairs. “We’re going to see this thing for ourselves. And bring Adam’s camcorder.” As she exited the room, she yelled back over her shoulder. “Adam, make sure those starboard cameras are all set to full auto. I want live video footage of whatever the hell is out there! Let’s move people, and look alive!”
The room behind her was a flurry of activity as Amara ran up the stairs. She took them two at a time, clenching her teeth at the pain in her hip, her radio gripped tightly in her hand, and Willie in tow. The rumbling call from the overheads shook the room once more.
Rushing quickly up on deck, the two reached the ship’s railing where two interns stood, pointing and questioning aloud what all the excitement was over. In the distance, the Sycophant could be seen bouncing from wave to wave as it flew toward the big steel mother ship. As her pale eyes scanned the dark waters directly behind the inflatable, Amara raised her walkie-talkie. Simultaneously, Willie snapped opened the side monitor of his video camera and started filming.
“Adam, do you have those cameras up and running?” Amara asked.
“All of them.”
“Do you see anything?” Amara’s eyes remained focused on the surrounding ocean. Below them, Lane and Mike drew rapidly closer. They were running full out, and judging by the looks on their faces, it was as if the devil himself was chasing them.
“Dere it is, mon!” Willie shouted. He pointed toward the swirling waters below, while filming with his free hand.
Rising up directly behind the fleeing inflatable was a wave-like disturbance in the water that measured an astounding one hundred and fifty feet across. The ocean within the disturbance was swirling with such violent fury that it looked like a giant boiling pot.
As Amara gazed in awe, the Sycophant flew up parallel to the Harbinger, executing a spine-cracking turn at the last possible moment to avoid smashing full-force into the vessel’s steel hull. The dinghy’s outboard literally screamed from the piston-straining effort, creating a tremendous wake of foam and bubbles that slapped against the Harbinger’s side before spreading across most of the larger vessel’s starboard flank.
Sitting helplessly within their tiny vessel as the disturbance barreled beneath them, Lane and Mike screamed and held on for dear life. Their inflatable was tossed like a champagne cork bobbing in a hot tub. Above them, Amara gasped in astonishment as a giant shadowy form flew directly underneath her ship at unbelievable speed. It was still a hundred feet below the surface, but the sheer size of the object was mind-boggling. The entire two-hundred foot long, seven-hundred-plus ton ship she stood on rose several feet in the water, displaced by the force of its wake.
KRONOS RISING: After 65 million years, the world's greatest predator is back. Page 16