“I’m trying!” Amara snapped. She craned her neck and peeked over Jake’s shoulder. “What’s taking him so long? Why hasn’t he attacked yet?”
“I’m not sure,” Jake offered. “Maybe he’s waiting to see what we’re going to do, or he’s savoring his victory.”
“I doubt that.” Amara flipped a large console switch up and down several times and then frowned. “He’s a reptile, Jake, not a person.”
Jake shook his head. “You can say what you want, doc. But, I’m looking the damn thing dead in the eye, and I say you’re wrong.”
Amara fought with her harness and climbed out of her chair. Bracing her left hand against the hull, she moved to Jake’s station and peered through Eurypterid II’s viewing portal. The pliosaur was less than fifty feet away, so close it caused the drifting submarine to sway dizzily back and forth. It glared menacingly into the cockpit, its toothsome jaws parting ever-so-slightly.
Amara met its cold reptilian gaze and recoiled. There was something behind those ruby-red orbs. The giant reptile was enjoying the effect it was having on them, like some monstrous cat reveling in the terror of a trapped mouse. And although her educated brain kept telling her it was preposterous, she could swear the damned thing was smiling at her. “Good lord.” Her breath steamed up the Lexan in front of her. “I hate to say it, but you may be right.”
“This is one time I’d rather be wrong.”
“Hey . . . wait a sec!” Bracing her bad hip, Amara rushed to the rear of the mini-sub. She checked several gauges, then turned excitedly to Jake. “I figured out what’s wrong! The impact shorted out our computers. The mainframe controls the engines to maximize effectiveness. All I need is five minutes to reboot and we’ll be fine!”
“Five minutes is a long time, doc.”
The pliosaur uttered a thunderous grunt and veered off. Two hundred yards away, it swung back toward Eurypterid II. They could see its jaws opening wide and its body swelling up as it gathered itself.
Jake’s heart sank. It would be on them in seconds.
Haruto Nakamura’s fingers were a buzz-saw blur as he hacked at his laptop’s keyboard. He sat stiffly upright, ignoring his aching tailbone.
Since he entered his quarters, he’d worked at uncovering a confirmed link between the frequency codes of the mystery ship’s beacons and the mechanical devices generating them. He was sure they were whaler buoys, but was having a frustrating time proving it. Most of the manufacturers of such things were now defunct companies. By sheer luck, he stumbled upon an outlaw site that sold archaic military equipment and outdoor gear. The devices were incorrectly posted as locator beacons, to avoid unwanted attention from the animal rights organizations that policed the web.
He opened another window and enlarged the mechanical culprits’ design stats. They were Russian Mark-2800 whaler beacons that operated at 14,124-16.234 MHz. Transmit range was 120 nautical miles with an optimal battery life of 36 hours. Nasty things, with razor sharp, serrated tips. He’d used similar, superior Japanese versions on the Nagata, years prior.
Haruto smiled at his discovery. One great thing about whaler’s beacons: if you had an onboard decoder or could access the whaling companies top secret sites, you could instantly link the frequency of any given buoy to its ship of origin. They were electronic fingerprints providing undeniable proof of possession. The unique radio frequencies were infinitely better than painted markings. They allowed a whale killer’s crew to zoom in on their bounty from long distances, eliminating time wasted confirming ownership. Best of all, with the beacons bereft of any physical signage, there was no way to positively link one to a vessel if the authorities arrived and a carcass had to be temporarily abandoned.
Haruto closed his eyes for a moment and pursed his lips. The smell of Kona infiltrated his nostrils and he reached for his coffee, swallowing a gulp. He opened a pirate whaler’s site, entering his old screen name and password. There was a low beep and he was in. He allowed himself a melancholy grin. His all-inclusive access rights still functioned, even though he’d quit whaling ages ago. Sometimes it came in handy being a living legend.
Haruto quickly uploaded the ID frequency codes of all three buoys. It took a few seconds for the system to spit out the results. The vessel that dumped the beacons was an antiquated Russian whale killer named the Smirnov.
He chuckled. The fools must have chugged day and night to get to this locale, once they heard about the pliosaur. They must have figured they had a shot at killing it.
Haruto shook his head and sat back in his seat. It was a bold move on the part of the whaler’s captain. Unfortunately, the sonar and radar evidence the Oshima was gathering indicated he’d sorely miscalculated his gargantuan adversary. The Smirnov was dead in the water, with the beast punching holes in her hull left and right.
As he scanned the other ship’s statistics and launch date, Haruto inhaled sharply. The ship was no longer an active member of the Russian whale killer fleet. It was decommissioned nearly seven years ago. Three years later, it was sold to an unlisted buyer.
Frowning, Haruto swung his mouse like a windshield wiper, opening sites linking him to the former Soviet Union’s maritime records. His Russian was atrocious, and it took ten frustrating minutes for him to pinpoint and retrieve the Smirnov’s information. Finally, he pulled up the ship’s complete history, including its shipyard of manufacture, launch date, command history, and date of decommission. He scrolled to her final sale date and decoded her purchaser. The buyer was top-rated: a well-funded, internationally acclaimed organization specializing in . . .
The Worldwide Cetacean Society–
The Smirnov had been refitted as a scientific research vessel and rechristened. She was the Harbinger now. It was his niece being besieged by the monstrous marine reptile that had already taken so many lives. Knowing Amara, she must have foolishly elected to take it upon herself to protect the creature from harm. As if it needed her help . . .
Haruto’s expression hardened and he formed a tall steeple with his fingers, resting their rough tips against his chin. A landslide of turmoil inundated him and he closed his eyes against the unexpected avalanche of emotion. As his brother’s sole child, Amara was the only surviving family the Oshima’s captain had. His own wife was gone nearly a decade. She’d left him childless, and he was away at sea too often to consider remarrying. His niece was in grave danger – assuming she was still alive. There were no other ships nearby, and she needed help.
Haruto inhaled deep, held it, then let it out slow. The always-calculating balance scales that comprised a good portion of his captain’s mind swung hard, weighing his conscience down with everything he stood to lose if he took his ship on the fool’s mission he was considering. The Harbinger was well within U.S. territorial waters. If caught he could be boarded, his vessel seized, and everyone onboard arrested. He would be risking everything: his career, his reputation, the Oshima, and its valuable cargo. He would be gambling with his crew’s livelihood, not to mention their lives. And he would be betraying his sacred duty to his people, his company, and even his country.
Haruto’s grim gaze lifted to the ancient katana and wakisahsi resting above him. He braced his palms against the edge of his desk and puffed a series of quick breaths, then shook his head decisively and jabbed the intercom button on his desk.
“Helm, this is the captain. Prepare to get under way . . .”
“Can’t you shoot it?” Jake asked. He felt a sudden chill race through him, like ice sliding down his spine. The pliosaur was headed straight toward the incapacitated Eurypterid II, its flippers working in unison, its speed increasing with every stroke. Its angry roar resonated through the water around them, vibrating the underside of their seats and jostling their nerves.
Amara shook her head. “No. I used all our harpoons already except the big one, and we need the electricity from the engines to power it. It won’t work. He’s got us.”
“Damn.” Jake slumped back in his seat. He eyed the
useless actuator controls. “I’d suggest abandoning ship, but I guess that wouldn’t be prudent.”
“No.” Amara smiled sadly. “I’m really sorry.”
Jake gazed deeply into her eyes. His softened and he rose wordlessly to his feet, wrapping his arms protectively around her and drawing her close.
The submersible shook violently from the creature’s displacement wave. Jake saw its silhouette and his heart started beating so hard it hurt. He forgot about his own safety. The thought of Amara being eaten alive or ripped apart was more than he could bear. His mind raced, desperately searching for a means to protect her from that awful fate. A terrible notion came to him, and his hand crept toward the pistol at his belt. He took a deep breath . . .
“Oh my God . . . look!”
“What is it?” Jake yanked his hand back from his gun pommel and followed her gaze. “What the hell?”
The pliosaur was frozen in place, open-mouthed, right outside their window. It was so close all they could see was a wall of ivory fangs and the darkness of its gullet. They watched in fear-induced awe as the deadly jaws gradually closed. The creature remained motionless for a moment, then drifted back a few yards, cocking its head to one side like a dog straining at a whistle only it could hear. Ignoring the incapacitated submarine, it backpedaled another hundred feet. The muscles of its scaly neck and jaw began to throb, pulsating faster and faster, until the sounds of its low-pitched sonar emissions could be heard without a hydrophone.
“What’s going on?” Jake asked confusedly. “Why did it stop?”
“I don’t know,” Amara mused. “It lost interest in us. Something else must have attracted its attention.”
“Like what, a boat or something?”
Amara watched, fascinated, as the creature hovered in the water, fifty feet beneath the surface, suspended in place by synchronized movements of its flippers. “Hmm . . . I don’t think it is a Kronosaurus,” she said. “Leastwise, not a queenslandicus.” Her eyes ricocheted like ping-pong balls as she studied it. “Besides the sheer size, you can tell from the cranial arches and the heaviness of the mandibles. Not to mention the teeth are ridged, not rounded. It must be a related subspecies, however . . .”
Beep.
Beep. Beep.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“What the . . . ?”
Amara rushed back to her sonar screen as their proximity alarm sounded again. “I’ve got multiple inbound readings, Jake!” she exclaimed. Her eyes were padlocked to the monitor. “I have no idea what they are, but there are a lot of them!”
“What’s that noise?” Jake tilted his head like the pliosaur, listening to a symphony of high-pitched sounds making their way through the sub’s reinforced hull. “What’s causing that?”
Amara switched on the mini-sub’s external mike array. She adjusted the volume and sensitivity, then transferred the muffled noises to their craft’s internal speaker system. Instantly, they were bombarded with high-pitched whistles, clicks and grunts blasting out of their speakers. It was so loud and painful, Jake was forced to clamp his hands over his ears.
“Holy cow, what a racket!” he yelled over the din. “Geez, kill that, will you? That’s the worst sound I’ve ever heard!”
“Are you crazy?” Amara gave a huge smile as she lowered the volume and rushed to the observation portal. “Those are the sweetest sounds I’ve heard in my life!”
“I think it’s you who’s crazy,” Jake grumbled. “And what the hell is making all that noise?”
“They are!” Amara proclaimed excitedly. She gestured with both hands as a squadron of sleek shapes cruised past.
“Holy crap!” His eyes wide, Jake released his harness and sprang from his chair. “Those are killer whales! What are they doing here?”
“Saving our lives,” Amara replied, her palms pressed tightly against the Lexan window as she watched the circling cetaceans. “Look, there’s more of them!”
Approaching from the south, eight more of the huge creatures came into view. Then, another half-dozen arrived from the north, followed by five more from the west that passed within twenty yards of Eurypterid II.
“There must be two dozen of them.” Amara’s head swiveled back and forth as she counted the fast-moving predators.
Just then, a scar-covered killer whale with a notched fin materialized in front of them. It paused directly opposite the viewing portal and stared inside, its jaws partially open. It was huge, at least twenty-five feet in length, and weighed over seven tons.
“Holy . . .” Amara squealed with excitement, rapping hard on the thick Lexan with her knuckles to attract the big orca’s attention. “It’s her, Jake. It’s OB’s mom!”
“What are you talking about, and why are you trying to get us killed?” Jake’s eyes went wide with apprehension at the proximity of the big carnivore.
“That’s OB’s mother,” Amara repeated, beaming at the old female. The orca gave her a contemplative look before cruising off to join her pod-mates. “OB is Omega Baby. He’s one of the bulls we’ve been studying – one of those three monsters lurking over there.” She pointed to a group of particularly huge orcas hovering in the water seventy-five yards portside. “Don’t you get it? OB’s mom is the matriarch and founder of the pods of transients we’ve been studying. She’s their familial leader. She organized this!”
“Organized what?”
“What’s about to happen.” Amara seemed surprised he wasn’t following her. “Killer whales dislike rival predators. That’s why they attack great whites: to kill off potential rivals. They must have detected the pliosaur’s presence in these waters and realized it poses a huge threat to them and their offspring.”
Jake’s jaw went slack. “You mean to tell me these whales . . .?”
“Came to finish what Karl died starting.” Amara gave an involuntary shudder, her eyes fearful as she peered through the portal. “They’ve come to kill the pliosaur.”
“No shit.”
A few hundred feet away, the thing that destroyed the Harbinger drifted soundlessly beneath the surface, its only movement an occasional flutter of one of its flippers. If the huge creature was at all fazed by the growing number of killer whales circling it, it gave no indication.
“Do you think they can do it?” Jake asked, sizing up the combined strengths and weaponry of the two opposing forces. As he studied the immobile pliosaur he could hear Dean Harcourt’s voice in the back of his mind, quoting a now all-too-familiar excerpt from the bible.
Upon earth is not his like, a creature without fear.
“I don’t know.” Amara’s voice had a nervous edge to it. “Orcas are intelligent, organized, and highly skilled at orchestrating group attacks – including on whales as big as or bigger than our scaly friend there.”
“Yeah, but that’s no whale they’re preparing to take on,” Jake emphasized.
“No, it’s not.” Amara’s chest moved rapidly up and down as she spoke. “But whatever the outcome, it looks like you and I are the only people on the planet sitting front and center for the greatest heavyweight fight of all time.”
Jake stood silent, waiting for the battle’s opening salvo to be fired. The killer whales did little to test his patience. Eight of the twenty-plus foot females – easily recognizable by their shorter, curved fins – suddenly sped off in a widening arc that took them so far back they vanished into the murkiness. Seconds later, they reemerged like black and white phantoms, right behind the pliosaur. Sensing their approach, the titanic reptile started moving forward. It began to build up speed, its movements carrying it directly toward the immobile Eurypterid II.
“Um, doc . . . maybe you can get the engines working now?” Jake asked, his eyes locked on the approaching behemoth.
“Not yet,” Amara insisted. “The system will tell us when it’s ready to reboot. Until then, I don’t want to miss this.”
“Okay . . .” Jake relaxed when the creature unexpectedly changed course. He ran his fingertips absentmin
dedly across the line of coagulated blood on his chest.
While the bulk of the killer whale’s forces remained huddled together a hundred yards to Eurypterid II’s portside, the group of eight females closed on the pliosaur’s haunches and launched their offensive, taking lightning-fast jabs at their adversary’s exposed rear flippers and stubby tail. With their jaws spread and curved dentition bared, they lunged forward with impressive accuracy, sinking their teeth repeatedly into the creature’s thick-scaled hide.
Strangely, it ignored them.
Resolutely pecking away, the oversized dolphins began to press their attacks, their excitement building as they struck and dropped swiftly back. It was a tactic they’d used for countless generations, designed to harass and hamper their much-larger opponent, to wear it down while simultaneously destroying its primary means of propulsion.
The pliosaur’s huge body slowly spiraled, with the belligerent orcas slashing at anything they could gain purchase on. Finally, it retaliated. With an ominous grunt, it flared its flippers out from its sides like a jet plane’s air brakes, incorporating a reverse power-stroke and coming to an abrupt halt in the water. Caught off guard and propelled forward by sheer inertia, the streamlined killers were unable to control their forward momentum. With their flukes flailing desperately, they sailed past their gargantuan adversary’s hindquarters – and within reach of its jaws.
Scattering in panic, the orcas abandoned their hit and run strategy and dispersed in every possible direction. Their frightened clicks and squeals echoed through the water as they sought the shelter of the surrounding sea.
The aroused pliosaur – now fully focused on the school of pugnacious mammals – let out a roar. The tip of its wrinkled snout broke the water’s jade-colored surface as it spouted and sucked in huge lungfuls of air. It submerged in a cloud of bubbles, propelling itself to a depth of one hundred feet. Jaws ready, it peered angrily around, its garnet-colored eyes scanning the surrounding water, probing for its challengers.
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