by Jon F. Merz
At his cabin, Thatcher grabbed the shell and headed toward the engine room. As he descended toward it, he had to stop once and shove the shell into a crevice while more sailors pushed past him. They eyed Thatcher but no one asked him what he was doing. Thatcher retrieved the shell and moved deeper into the bowels of the ship while more alarms blared around him. He had no idea if the plane was still the issue or if some new chaos had erupted. He wondered if Schwarzwalder even realized he was gone yet.
Probably. The Captain was astute. Although he was also preoccupied with tending to his men.
Thatcher took another set of steps that were steeper and he had to juggle the shell carefully as he did so. The sooner he got the damned thing into the engine room, the better he would feel. He just didn’t want to be seen carrying it. That would pretty much end his chances of sinking the damned boat if someone did see him. There was no way ammunition like this would ever be housed near the engine room. It didn’t take a scientist to realize that Thatcher intended to sabotage the ship.
He had almost reached the engine room when he heard voices up ahead. They were speaking rapidly but Thatcher by now was accustomed to hearing German and knew they were worried about what was happening on the ship. He looked around for a place to hide the shell or himself. But the length of the corridor he was in afforded him no chances to hide.
There were two sailors walking toward him, so Thatcher decided his best course of action was to bluff and be confident. He’d used it any number of times in the past. The fact was, if you acted like you were doing something proper, most people wouldn’t even think twice. Act guilty and you radiated vibes that attracted inquisition.
So as they approached one another, Thatcher merely nodded. “Ein verrucht nacht.”
“Ja,” said the first sailor with a grim laugh. The other chuckled as well and then they passed Thatcher. Thatcher was about to breathe a sigh of relief. It had worked.
“Halt!”
He turned, still cradling the artillery shell in his hands. Both of the men eyed him as if realizing for the first time that the American had spoken German to them. Then their eyes went down to the shell that Thatcher carried. They exchanged a glance with the other and one of them nodded at Thatcher. “Why are you carrying that shell?”
“Captain’s orders,” said Thatcher still in German. “I don’t know why. He was busy tending to the dead and dying up on the deck.”
“How many of them are dead?” asked the other sailor.
Thatcher sighed. “I don’t know. Perhaps twenty? The explosion was horrible. I was caught in it too.”
“Since when do you speak German?” asked the first man.
Thatcher smiled. “I’ve been speaking German since I got here. My family is German.”
But the sailor shook his head. “No, I don’t think you have. You’ve spoken English. I’ve heard the others talking about how you don’t speak any German. And now you’re down here with that shell…I don’t think the Captain told you to bring that down here.”
“But he did,” said Thatcher. “Go and ask him yourself.”
“Oh I will,” said the sailor. “But you’ll be coming with us.”
Thatcher hefted the shell. Fifty pounds was getting harder and harder to hold onto. He’d made it this far on adrenaline alone but the fact that he’d been seen now was beginning to affect his strength and he wanted nothing more than to put the shell down.
“Fine,” he said with a sigh. “But I’m not lugging this thing back up to the main deck only to have to carry it back down here when the Captain tells you I was telling you the truth.” Thatcher eased the shell down to the floor and stood it up so it leaned against the wall. He wiped off his hands which were all sweaty and looked at the sailors. “Lead on.”
But as he said those words, a shape filled the area behind the two sailors and Thatcher couldn’t believe what he was seeing. A darkness rose up behind the two men voiding out all of the light in the corridor.
Before Thatcher could even say a word, the two sailors turned at almost the same time and saw what was behind them.
It defied description but then there was no more time. The shape fell upon the men and they both screamed.
Thatcher backed away as the shape fell upon both men and started tearing them apart. He squatted, grabbed the shell, and ran.
Behind him, the sounds of carnage still reached his ears and made Thatcher consider blowing himself up right then. But the engine room lay somewhere ahead of him and he knew now more than ever that he had to reach it and blow this ship to smithereens.
What he had just seen could never be allowed near land.
Chapter 33
Thatcher reached the entry to the engine room and paused long enough to place the artillery shell down next to the door where hopefully no one would see it. Then he entered the engine room and called out, “Hilfe mich!”
The replacement engine room crew members who numbered three looked up and started running en masse toward Thatcher. He pointed back the way he’d come and shouted that the men in the hallway were being attacked by something. Before they could ask any questions, Thatcher was shouting for them to hurry and they did as he told them, rushing out of the engine room before reason could prevail.
Thatcher waited just long enough for them to get some distance before retrieving the artillery shell. He had just sent those men to their deaths presumably, but he chose not to focus on that at the present time, but rather concentrate instead on the mission at hand: sinking Raider X.
Where to stow the artillery shell? The engine room was a complex affair and Thatcher was unfamiliar with the nature of the engines that he now faced. He could tell that Raider X had two screws, not one. And judging by the names on the machinery, there were four diesel Kupp-Germaniawerft and two Siemens Schuckert motors. What that meant to Thatcher amounted to little but he assumed the engine technology was new and probably gave the Loki a cruising speed of at least eighteen knots per hour.
But he did know that placing the shell close to the bottom of the engines would likely amount to the most damage when the shell exploded, especially since it would hopefully shatter the keel and let thousands of gallons of sea water in as soon as it broke apart. That would help send the ship to the bottom within minutes, Thatcher felt confident in assuming.
Thatcher heard a fresh round of screams issue forth from somewhere behind him. He frowned and sweat broke out along his hairline. If that was indeed Cyra back there killing then there was a good chance she was going to come after him when she was done killing the rest of the crew.
Concentrate! Thatcher chided himself for thinking about her at a time like this. He moved ahead and found a nook underneath the main engines close to the shafts turning the screws where he could nudge the shell into. A moving part was good and Thatcher knew that it was a matter of time before it struck the tip of the shell and caused the explosion. Or so he hoped. Without thinking, he removed the safety pin and then turned to get the hell out of the engine room.
But as he did so, he saw the form of something blocking the exit.
“Hello, Harrison.”
It was Cyra’s voice, he knew, but Thatcher could find no other indication that the creature before him was in fact the woman he had slept with just days previously. What in the world had happened to her?
“What are you?” He asked before reason could prevail.
There was a painless followed by a chuckle of sorts. The air was caked with the scent of blood and Thatcher knew the body count was surely growing by the minute. “I am what you saw before you. What you made love to. Just...different now.”
“You were a woman,” said Thatcher. “Of that I have no doubt.”
“I still am. Just not as you knew me.” She paused. “I am better now. So much better.”
“But how?”
“A special experiment conducted by a doctor gifted with extraordinary foresight. He was intrigued with the idea of melding two life forms to produce a better one,”
said Cyra. “I was the first successful recipient of the formula. The ones who got it before me were not this lucky. There are some who, unfortunately, did not accept the alterations as easily as I did.”
“Meaning they died?”
“Meaning they were unfit for being let loose into the world to do the Führer’s bidding,” said Cyra.
“The Führer? You mean you’re working for the Nazis?”
“Of course. I was sent to kill Adamson. He had turned double-agent and was spy for the British. The only just punishment for his treason was death.”
Thatcher frowned. “Fair enough, but we’re on a German ship now. Why would you want to kill the crew and destroy the ship?”
“Orders,” said Cyra. “It was suspected that Schwarzwalder might be aiding his brother. The people who command me determined that this ship should be destroyed as a result.”
“You’re telling me the Nazis would see their newest flagship commerce raider destroyed because the captain might be helping a traitor?”
“Yes.”
Thatcher shook his head. “That makes no sense. You could have easily just killed Schwarzwalder and left the ship alone.”
“That was the original intent, but Schwarzwalder had suspicions about me from the start. That meant that my original plan would no longer suffice, and I had to adapt the plan accordingly. I was told that if I could not get to the captain, then destroy the ship.”
That shook his head. “No, that can’t be all of it. There’s something else special about this ship that the Nazis don’t want falling into British hands. That’s the only explanation for the order to destroy it. What is it? A new radar system? A code machine?”
“I don’t feel compelled to answer those questions,” said Cyra. She paused. “And now that you know all about me, what are you doing bringing a shell down to the engine room?”
“I don’t know all about you,” said Thatcher. “Why kill these men in such a horrific fashion?”
“The serum that gives me the ability to…mutate is dependent on the blood cells found in bone marrow, hence the need for me to ingest it. There’s nothing supernatural about what I am, I am merely an evolution of humanity that is far superior to modern man.”
Thatcher studied the creature before him. She was half again as tall as she had been which meant she towered over Thatcher and any other man aboard the ship. Her face was drawn back as if someone had grabbed the entire front of her head and yanked it back into her hairline. Her neck resembled the turkey-esque features that Thatcher had seen on many old women. But she was obviously not as weak as an elderly woman or man. Cyra radiated a bizarre strength that frightened Thatcher and kept him from moving. Perhaps it was the way her arms now resembled muscular claws rather than the dainty appendages that Thatcher remembered from before.
Cyra spread these arms now and smiled at Thatcher. “Don’t be scared, darling. We could still have some fun.”
“Fun?” Thatcher shook his head. “What sort of fun would you want to have? You’d rip the bones out of my body and eat the marrow from them.”
Cyra shook her head. “I would not dream of doing such a thing.”
“Really.” Thatcher frowned. “And what makes me different from any of those poor men you’ve already killed?”
“I haven’t just been sent out into the world to do the bidding of my masters,” said Cyra. “There’s yet another reason for my release. Another experiment, if you will.”
“Which is what?”
“Procreation, of course.” Cyra smiled at Thatcher and he could see that the front teeth had also morphed into pointy fangs that reminded him of a vampire. But Cyra was no blood sucker. Just a terribly mutated version of a woman. It was then that her words finally reached his ears and he heard what she was saying for the first time. It nearly caused him to retch.
“There’s no way I’m impregnating you.”
“But you had no problem bedding me before, Harrison. In fact, I think you quite enjoyed yourself the other night.”
“I did. But that was before I knew the truth of what you actually are.” Thatcher took a breath. “And that’s a deal breaker right there.”
Cyra stepped down into the engine room, closer to where Thatcher stood. “Men are such fools. Driven only by what they see before them. Imagine, Harrison, being part of something extraordinary.” Cyra looked down at herself. “Look upon the glory and triumph that this mutation has caused within me. I am stronger now than any other woman on Earth. Most men as well. I have had my genes mutated to transform into what awaits us all eventually. Now the goal is to discover whether this can be passed down from mother to child. That is where you come in, Harrison. You could be the father of the first generation of mutated offspring. It is a glorious honor to have bestowed upon you.”
“I don’t think so,” said Thatcher. “I’m not really ready for children yet. Too much responsibility.”
“You would have no cares in the world about raising them. They would be cared for by the same team of scientists that created me.”
“That makes me feel even less good about doing it then. There’s no telling what those kids would be subjected to.”
Cyra’s eyes narrowed. “You disappoint me, Harrison.”
“Well, then that makes two of us.”
Chapter 34
But even as Cyra spread her arms and moved toward Thatcher, there was a burst of gunfire from behind her and she reeled forward. Blood spattered the air and Thatcher didn’t wait. He took off running out of the forward exit from the engine room, hoping that the motor shaft would detonate the artillery shell and sink Raider X. And if it happened to take out the monstrosity that was Cyra, as far as Thatcher was concerned, all the better.
He had no idea what sort of scientific evil genius had masterminded the experiment upon hera, although he was willing to bet that Hewitt might know. But the end result was a shocking and terrifying display of what happened when mankind thought they were the gods of creation. Some things, Thatcher decided, most definitely should never be trifled with.
Down the corridor away from the engine room, Thatcher ran into Steinkopf heading in the opposite direction with a machine gun at his side. “Herr Thatcher!”
Thatcher grabbed him. “You don’t want to go back that way, kid. There’s something terrible in the room.”
For a moment, Steinkopf hesitated but then Thatcher saw the look of determination come over his face. There was no way he wasn’t going to go back there. Especially when his buddy came up behind them both and pushed past Thatcher. Steinkopf hurried after him. Thatcher watched them go for a moment and then turned and headed for the upper deck.
Several bursts of machine gun fire echoed out of the engine room and caught up with Thatcher as he ran. The screams took longer to reach his ears, but they too came with startling speed. Thatcher sped his way toward the open air. If anything, it was now preferable to take his chances with the sharks than it was to remain on Raider X with what had once been Cyra.
Part of Thatcher had hoped that there might be another seaplane aboard Raider X that he could use to make his escape in. But the only one had been destroyed in the explosion when Schwarzwalder’s men had fired at the plane and set it ablaze. He wasn’t sure where he would have flown anyway. He’d practiced taking off but he really had no idea how to navigate once he was in the air. His flight lessons had been interrupted by his arrest back in England.
That left the motor launches that he knew would require more men than just himself to get down to the sea.
Or the lifeboats.
Thatcher knew that most of the newer model lifeboats could be operated by a single soul in case of extreme emergency. He was counting on that being the case for the ones on Raider X. He just had to reach them before Cyra caught up with him.
He wondered if the bullets he heard being fired across the ship were having any sort of impact on her. Was she even susceptible to gunfire at all? Or did she simply shrug them all off? Maybe she had the abili
ty to heal herself, thought Thatcher. Who knew what sort of bizarre powers manipulating her genes had given her. If nothing else, Thatcher needed to get this information back to Hewitt. If they could find out where these experiments were being conducted, they could bomb the place back into the Stone Age and not have to worry about anyone else like Cyra being released into the world ever again.
He broke out on to deck and gulped fresh air by the bow of the ship. He looked back and wondered if he should close the door leading back inside. He didn’t think it mattered. If Cyra was somehow able to stretch and shrink herself down so she could get through the porthole in her cabin, then no amount of barring a door was going to keep her contained. She would go wherever she wanted to go on this ship and kill as she pleased.
It struck Thatcher as insane that the Nazis would permit one of their assassins to kill as many sailors as Cyra was doing at the moment. Even less likely was that they would permit the sinking of their newest and most lethal commerce raider. And yet, here she was doing exactly that.
There had to be a reason why. And even as Thatcher looked ahead and saw the lifeboats that hung ready to drop and further away saw the first lights from the islands that Raider X was steaming toward, he instead chose to dash for the bridge. Anything of import was likely to be there somewhere.
It was foolish as hell and he knew it. But he also knew that the destruction of Raider X and her crew was apparently vitally important to the Nazis. Which meant it had to be carrying something that Hewitt would most likely love to get his hands on.
He dashed up the steps toward the bridge. Even as he did so, more gunfire broke out elsewhere on the ship. What was the body count now? Had Cyra whittled down the crew to almost no one? Were there bodies scattered everywhere, broken and ripped apart as the others had been? Thatcher shuddered at the thought of how Steinkopf must look now that he was dead. He and his friend had raced right into the thick of things. With a gulp of air, he chose instead to shut the image out of his mind and concentrate on reaching the bridge.