Kraken Rising: Alex Hunter 6 (36 page)

When they were only two hundred feet from the sub, the wave rose again in the middle of the lake, and then between them and the first of the ships, the thing exploded from the water, beaching itself, and dwarfing the ships behind it. The creature continued to boil from the water, coiling and tangling like a handful of monstrous worms knotting and crawling over each other. The acrid smell was overpowering. Suddenly, the idea that a single remaining grenade would send it packing seemed a hideous joke.

“Franks!” Alex yelled.

The female HAWC sprinted forward, her arm raised.

A tentacle shot towards the group, and Alex lifted his pitiful Ka-bar blade. But the club moved past him, choosing a different target.

Jackson saw the coming appendage and pushed Jennifer to the ground. “Shut your eyes.”  He moved to the side, drawing its attention and lifting his makeshift axe, swinging with all his might, striking the rubbery mass, and opening a foot long gash in its flesh. Purple blood splashed the rocks.

“Fuck you!” he yelled. He readied himself for the next swing while the thing lifted higher, as though wary now.

“Get moving!” Blake yelled.

Jackson stood, legs planted, holding the jawbone axe ready. The tentacle hovered about fifty feet above him, and then came down with blinding speed, swatting down upon his body, flattening him as if he were an annoying bug. When the thing rolled back up, there was a large red smear across the plate-sized suckers, and only a pulpy mess where the huge man had been seconds before. Jennifer’s scream was like a siren that stretched across the water.

Casey was finally close enough, and pulled the pin on her grenade, throwing it like a pitcher. It flew fast and straight, tucking in under the creature’s bulk. She kept running to dive across Jennifer, who was getting up from her knees and looking like she was preparing to run, somewhere, anywhere.

The fragmentation grenade detonated in an ear shattering blast. Gobbets of meat showered the group, and there came a hideous, alien screaming like something from the very depths of hell. Rocks were pushed aside as the thing coiled in on itself, wrapping tentacles around the train-tunnel sized wound in its side and drawing back into the water. It fled, moving impossibly fast for a creature that big, and soon sank without a trace.

“
Now, now, now
,” Alex yelled, running hard.

“Sink the USS
Texas
.” Minister Chung Wanlin stood immobile at the head of the group in the large meeting room, his expression implacable. Around the polished table, General Banguuo sat in the center and fanned out to his left and right were eight other generals of the Chinese armed forces. This was a war council, and Banguuo knew that cautious words mattered now.

Banguuo felt his comrade peers waiting on him, as he was the ranking officer in the room. Though Minister Chung Wanlin was the senior party official, when it came to military matters, it was not up to him to drive armed forces strategy.

“Then what?” Banguuo asked.

Wanlin narrowed his eyes. “Then, General, we will have educated them. We will have shown them what happens when they disable our ships, blow up our bases, take our soldiers captive, and
kill
our personnel.” He smiled coldly. “Should I go on?”

Banguuo observed that the man looked agitated, energized, and there was a fire of zeal behind his eyes. He needed to be careful with him.

“Honorable Minister …”  Banguuo remained ice calm as he leaned forward. “The moment I order that strike, China and America … the entire world as we know it, will change forever. And perhaps not for the better for us.”

Wanlin’s lips compressed.

“Dear Minister, do you know how many nuclear warheads China has?” Banguuo asked. Wanlin stayed motionless, and Banguuo responded for him. “About 280.” He tilted his head. “Do you know how many nuclear warheads, including tactical, strategic, and nondeployed weapons, the Americans have?”

Banguuo waited for a moment, and then smiled with little humor. “Approximately 4,800.”  The general held out his hands. “I am not afraid to die for my country. But I will not consign millions of my citizens to the same fate, over some minor friction, which history might contend we initiated. We should be careful about poking a bear, Minister.”

“A bear?” Wanlin harrumphed. “A dragon eats bears.” He stared unblinking at Banguuo. “I did not know that courage was something in such short supply.” Wanlin craned his neck towards the general, his face going red. “I have already discussed first strike option with the president.” He smiled. “We can contain them, and minimize our own losses, if we strike first – hard and at multiple targets.” He scoffed and leaned back. “Do not fear bears in the age of the dragon, General Banguuo.” He lowered his brow. “You will initiate a strike against the American submarine. That is the order, General. Launch the strike or resign your post.”

Banguuo didn’t move, didn’t even blink. He feigned indifference, even though he had a burning urge to leap from his seat and pound this upstart into the ground. Neither of the minister’s options were acceptable to him. But he needed more time; Wanlin was a politician, not a soldier, and that meant he dealt in persuasion, subterfuge, and outright deception. Wanlin was moving too fast. Banguuo needed to slow him down.

“Show me the order.”

Wanlin bristled. “I just gave it to you.”

Banguuo smiled, his eyes calm. “Not from you. An order of this magnitude needs to be sighted by all the generals … and myself. Please show me the directive from the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.”

At the use of the president’s full title, Wanlin’s face looked about to explode. But after a moment, the angry color leaked away, and he seemed to ease. Then he smiled. This worried Banguuo more than anything else.

“Then you shall have your presidential order.” Wanlin’s phone beeped and he took it from his pocket. He looked at it briefly before putting it to his ear. He grunted, and turned away for a moment.

“Put it up on screen,” he said quickly, and immediately, the wall behind him came to life. He stood to the side, with his back to it, facing Banguuo and the other generals at the table. “You think the threat is over? While you hesitate, they murder us, and then insult us by picking over our corpses.”

The satellite screen image drilled down from the heavens to focus on the blackened stain on the snow and ice. The wreckage of the Chinese base could barely be made out among the still smoldering debris. A figure in a white snow suit, with an American military snow ski parked to the side, walked in among the debris, stopping now and then, lifting items and dropping them.

Wanlin’s eyes slid to Banguuo. “A further insult. Deal with it, forcefully.
Show them your metal!
” He turned and left the room, the door banging shut behind him.

Banguuo sat staring at the screen. He sighed. “
Dragons eat bears
,” he whispered, shaking his head. He turned to the man next to him. “I have no choice; get me the
Kunming
, priority one.”

*

“
Launch – launch – launch
.” Klaxon horns blared within the USS
Texas
, bulkhead doors were sealed and the interior lights switched to red. Men moved to their posts, fast but calm.

Commander Carmack ran to the bridge, yelling orders as he went. “Who fired, what and where?”

In the bridge room, Hensen was beside him in an instant, and the pair quickly took to their stations. Here too, the lighting was now a hellish red, with multiple screens making the attending officer’s faces glow an alien green.

“The
Kunming
, sir, fired one ship-to-shore missile. Possibly a silk worm or dragon claw.” The officer stared hard at his screen, reading lists of data as it rapidly scrolled. “Reaching Mach 1 now; determining course and target.”

Hensen went and stood behind the man, reading the data along with him. His face green with the light and his eyes fixed.

“Goddammit.” Carmack gritted his teeth and prayed it wasn’t on its way to McMurdo. If it was, he would have no choice but to retaliate.

“Prepare to dive.” He licked suddenly dry lips.

Hensen looked up, frowning. “Target is the Xuě Lóng Base,
their
base.”

“What?” Carmack rubbed a hand up through his hair.

“Maybe they’re sanitizing the site?” Hensen said. He turned back to the screen. “Forty seconds to impact.”

“
Sanitization
 … I hope that’s all it is.” Carmack folded his arms.

*

Sergeant Monroe’s guts ached. His people were out of range, missing or even dead, for all he knew. He cursed Jack Hammerson for involving his team – they were regular soldiers, not Special Forces. He kicked a smoldering beam from his path, and cursed some more.

Monroe bent to pull up another smoking piece of debris – there was nothing that remained of the Chinese base – no survivors, no clues, and he had no idea what he was looking for or actually doing on the foreign nation’s site.
Rendering assistance,
he might have said if someone asked him.

He lifted something that might have been the sole of a boot. In reality, he just wanted some sign, anything, any clue, that might tell him his team had all gotten into the tunnels,
and even better
, that there was a way he could get them out.

Sergeant “Wild’ Bill Monroe paused and tilted his head, listening. He could swear he heard a bird whistling. He turned.

*

The missile impact and detonation carved a crater fifty feet deep and a hundred wide. It melted snow and blasted ice and rock far out over the landscape. Nothing remained of the already decimated base, or the last human being to ever set foot there.

*

Sam leaned over Sulley, watching the wonders and monstrosities that passed in and out of
Orca
’s tunnel of light, which was thrown forward into the black water. A while back, a fish, if that’s what it could be called, had glided into the light. It was big, its head armor plated, and its eye was like something set in a mechanical swivel. Sulley had halted the submersible, lest the living battering ram decided to turn and make a run at them. It circled for a minute or two, and then glided off into the darkness.

Earlier they had been traveling on the surface, using the blue twilight to navigate, instead of the energy hungry lights … but that too had proved a mistake. They had been forced to dive again, as something the size of a glider swooped down from the huge cavern’s ceiling. It was all leathery wings and needle toothed snout, and it had snatched at
Orca
, but probably been surprised to find there wasn’t flesh to sink its talons into, but hard shell.
Orca
had dropped back into the water and they had immediately dived again.

Sam straightened, wondering what it would have been like to be in that warm water, free floating, exposed to all that. Or maybe worse, in that land with just your wits and a truck load of courage. This was the job they did, he knew. But this was one helluva tough gig. He grimaced, remembering that Aimee Weir was also down there somewhere.

Sam’s comm. unit pinged, and he walked a few paces away from the scientists. It was Hammerson on the line.

“Boss.”

“Sam, please tell me Jack Monroe is with you.”

Sam frowned. “No, sir, haven’t seen him for several hours.”

“Ah, goddammit. He must have gone over to the Chinese base.” Hammerson exhaled. “The Chinese just put a ship-to-shore missile on their base. There’s nothing left.”

“
Fuck it
.” Sam had liked the McMurdo sergeant. “Did they know he was there?”

Hammerson snorted softly. “What do you think?”

“Yeah, no accident. They wanted to send us a message,” Sam said.

“Time’s just about up. Tell me what you’ve got.”

“Nothing more than what we know – we think Alex survived, and we’re following the shoreline. The Brits here have calibrated their submersible to pick up the
Sea Shadow
’s distress beacon. We’re following it along a type of coast where we believe Alex has entered. All we can do is watch and wait.”

“Time is the enemy now, Sam. The Chinese fleet has assembled in the Southern Ocean, and we’ll be there within the hour. The president has moved us up to DEFCON-2, so a lot of fingers are on buttons across the globe. Pray Hunter gets to that submarine first.”

“Pray for sanity,” Sam said.

“And if that doesn’t prevail, then pray for a quick and overwhelming war,” Hammerson responded evenly. “Keep me updated.” He clicked off, and Sam turned back to the screen, feeling a knot of impatience coil inside him as he watched and waited.

In another few minutes they were at the hull of the submarine. Up close, Alex could see the damage. The entire vessel looked compressed, as if by a huge hand. It was lying half in the water, with one side tilted towards them. Alex clambered up first, seeing the hatch swung wide, as if the submarine crew had climbed out and left it open in the event they needed to scramble back in fast. He doubted any who left ever made it.

He looked around at the cave of the Kraken one last time. If the
Sea Shadow
crew did survive, he imagined they must have thought they’d arrived in hell. He looked back at Aimee and then nodded before jumping into the hatch.

He was first to drop down into the vessel, and crouched, staying motionless and trying to sense anything or anyone moving inside the metal tunnels of the submarine’s interior.

He inhaled – dampness. At his feet, there was some water. But not enough to indicate a tear in the sub’s skin. Further in, he saw there were a few small lights on. He knew that without a breach, the nuclear powered electric generator would have kept on humming for fifty years.

One after the other his team dropped down behind him. Alex stood slowly and sniffed again. There was something missing – the odor of decay and corruption – there were no bodies here. Even ancient corruption could paint the walls with fats and oil that lingered for decades.

Rhino was last in, thumping down heavily and then turning to pull the hatch shut behind him and screwing it tight. He stood leaning forward, breathing heavily and with his forehead pressed against the metal ladder bars. After another few seconds he pushed back hard.

“
Goddamn Jackson!
”

He rammed one huge fist into the sub’s wall, making a dull thud run through the hull. He lowered his head again, crushing his eyes shut.

Casey held onto Jennifer; the McMurdo woman looked to be in shock. She lifted her head to look at Alex. Her mouth worked but no words came. Rhino punched the sub hull again.

“
Rinofsky!
” Alex’s voice brought Rhino’s head up. “Brave men die young.” Alex then turned to Jennifer. “He was a good man, but the time for mourning is later.”

“Let’s go home,” Soong whispered.

“Works for me,” Casey said.

Rhino stood straighter and nodded once, and then Alex spun away from him. “You heard the lady; let’s go home. Blake get to the bridge, Franks, see what’s working. Rhino, down to the torpedo room. I want to know what we’re still packing. Everyone else, a quick reconnoiter of stores – what have we still got? Five minutes, double time, and then we meet on the bridge.”

Alex went quickly along the steel corridor to the bridge room. It was small, and there was a central column with a periscope. Casey immediately pushed at it but nothing happened.

“Dead,” she said, looking around in the confined space. She whistled. “No wonder we want it back.”

Even though the submarine was nearly a decade old, it looked more like the inside of spaceship than that of an undersea vessel. Gleaming panels with banks of now darkened lights and small screens set into bench tops and walls. A single steering column with a U-shaped wheel had a swivel seat that Blake immediately slipped into, and began fiddling with buttons.

Alex saw that blood ran from Blake’s multiple wounds, down his arms and onto his fingers. “Fix that bleeding, mister.”  

“On it.” Blake wiped his hands on his pants, turning about, searching for something he could use as Alex went to the main console, the only one that still glowed softly. There was a single square light blinking at its center, and one word printed there – REBOOT.

He placed his fingertips over it, and exhaled slowly.
Come on, baby, you can do it
. He pressed down, and waited. Images of Joshua flashed through his mind, and his hand pressed even harder onto the glowing button.
You damn well better do it,
he urged.

There was nothing. Alex imagined the electric drives reaching out to ask the question of the high-energy reactor plants, and receiving empty silence in response. He waited and felt a chill creep up his spine. There was no Plan B. The blinking REBOOT sign had vanished, and the screen remained dark.

Alex could feel eyes on him. If the engines wouldn’t start, they would expect him to come up with something else. He knew there was
nothing
else.
Please, baby, please
. He placed his fingertips against the screen, praying now to everything and everyone he could think of.

There was a tingle at his fingertips –
static
. And then a tiny hum and a sensation of a draft as if the sub was drawing its first breath in years. The nuclear onboard computers and reactors would have been sent into hibernation mode, awaiting a call to arms. But, receiving the call, they fired up, and then bank after bank of light panels came on. Overhead, lights began to cast a soft glow down on them as the machine came to life.

“We got juice,” Casey yelled, as she was able to launch the periscope. It slid up silently and smoothly, and she leaned in to the eyecups. She began to pan. When she finished her rotation, she pulled her head back a fraction. “
Yo
; clear on all quadrants.”

The speaker pinged, and Rhino’s voice came over the comms. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard the USS
Sea Shadow
. For your pleasure and protection, we have four torpedoes, conventional fish, and all looking like they just came out of their wrappers.”

Alex smiled. “Good work, and that’ll do …
it has to
.”

*

Aimee was one of the first back, trailed by Cate, and then the rest of the team crowded into the small bridge room. They shared information; there were no rations, and the quarters were in disarray. It suggested that the men and women who had survived lived for some time onboard. Perhaps finally venturing out, to their deaths.

Aimee shuddered at the thought of these brave men and women who were destined to have their heads end up as mere playthings, stacked neatly at the water’s edge. She watched as Alex moved fast to the side of the room, and she stepped out of the way, knocking something from a panel top to the floor. It looked like a folder.

Alex turned to Blake. Jennifer was now fussing over his wounds, tying strips of her shirt over the deepest of them. “Here we go, people, pumping … now.”  He engaged the pumps and a steady vibration could be felt through the vessel. He straightened, looking relieved. “Good, let’s give it a few minutes to do its job. At least then we won’t tear the
Shadow
’s belly out on the bottom.”

Aimee bent to pick up the folder, surrounded by a hard plastic cover. She opened and began to read.

“What have you got?” Cate looked over her shoulder.

“It’s a log … of the
Sea Shadow
.” She frowned as she skimmed the pages. “Log of Commander Clint O’Kane, USS
Sea Shadow
. Dated 13-Oct-2008.”  She looked up. “That’s a day after it went missing, isn’t it?”

“Yes; read it;
read that day
,” Alex yelled as he and his team rushed from console to console. “Might give us an idea of what the hell happened.”

Aimee started to flip more pages through to the last few entries.

“Here we are,” she said, and started reading aloud.

 
Log Entry 112. Date 13-Oct-2008. 1300 hours.

Most of the crew rendered partially deaf from rapid depth-compression. Hull has held, and the reason why we are still alive. Somehow, we’ve run aground, and it is impossible to reconcile what we are seeing with the instrument readings – it says we are at a depth of over 6,000 feet, well below crush range. But we are on dry land, or partial dry land. Whatever attacked us seems to have vanished. Did it bring us here? Why? Periscope and view screens show semi dark atmosphere, like twilight. But chronologically it’s all wrong. Sending a crew out to investigate. We will attempt a refloat when they return.

End Log Entry 112.

Aimee’s hands gripped the log tighter. “It proves they made it, and were alive when they got here.” She licked dry lips and turned the page, reading aloud again.

Log Entry 113. Date 14-Oct-2008. 0200 hours.

Last night the thing returned, shaking the submarine, rolling it, and lifting it up. Like a child with a rattle. It’s gone now, but our sanity is being tested. Worse is, there is still no sign of crew. Party gone for over 12 hours. This exceeds orders for exploratory time frame. Sergeant Anderson was leading party – not a man to deviate from orders. Will not attempt a refloat until all crew accounted for. Communications are not working – no signals picked up. We are transmitting and hope to god someone can hear us. We know now, we are in some sort of cave … below the ground. There are other ships, all sizes, some from ages long past. What is happening here? Insane. Some sort of Bermuda Triangle, or perhaps we all died and are really all in hell. I must look for my crewmembers, and will personally lead a second team to find missing men.

End Log Entry 113.

She looked up, feeling a wave of nausea run through her. She could feel the man’s fear and confusion in every word. The other ships might have given the creature nothing but drowned bodies to pick over. But the
Sea Shadow
and its doomed crew was the first vessel the massive cephalopod had brought to its lair that contained something alive, and something to torment.

Aimee wanted to help. She wanted to save them, or at least yell out to O’Kane and his crew to stay inside the submarine. But it was all too late;
years too late
. She pushed the images of the piled skulls from her mind once again.

She swallowed a lump in her throat and felt the eyes of the group on her now. Even Alex had slowed in his workings to listen. She looked up at him.

“Go on,” he said softy.

She turned the page.

Log Entry 114. Date 14-Oct-2008. 0600 hours.

It was in the water, waiting for us. It took the men, snatched them up like they were nothing. It must be the thing that dragged us here, and has been stalking us ever since …

Aimee paused her reading. In her mind, she saw the huge Ben Jackson swatted like a fly, and the Chinese soldiers snatched up like they weighed nothing. It would have been a nightmare to tear at these poor submariners’ sanity. She continued, wishing for the log entries to just end now.

It’s been waiting for us to come out the whole time. Sidearms distributed, and we have sealed the hatch, but we know it is out there, we can feel it pressing against the hull. I think it could come in if it wants to. Down to three men – Morrison, Drake, and myself – just enough to run the submarine, but not even sure what we’d do then – go where? We are trapped.

End Log Entry 114.

“Oh god.” Aimee could feel the men’s fear – she had felt it herself. When she had escaped from the caves before, she had then spent time researching the giant creatures. Something that had caught her eye was an ancient Hawaiian tale. The tropical waters of the islands sometimes played host to the giant creatures. Though nothing like the monster down here, the threat to their fisherman was well understood. The Hawaiian ancestors had thought that these many-legged creatures were actually aliens who came to Earth long before humans existed.

Perhaps this is what O’Kane and the fragmenting minds of his crew would have imagined. That their submarine had somehow been transported to a distant world, and the horrifying unearthly being attacking them was a denizen of that world.

She drew in a deep breath. “This next is the last entry.”

Log Entry 115. Date 25-Oct-2008. 1800 hours.

Ten days sealed in now. Morale low, but first sign of hope has presented itself. There are people out there. Can see them moving in the shadows. The creature is gone, for now. Maybe they have scared it off. We’re going out to try and talk to them – we’ll leave the hatch open in case we need to run for it. Maybe the people can help us. Our distress beacon is still active. Can anyone hear us? God help us all. Commander Clint O’Kane, USS
Sea Shadow
.

End Log Entry 115.

Aimee flipped a few more pages, shaking her head. Her eyes were blurred, wet. “That’s it. They went outside, and then that’s it.”

The room fell silent. O’Kane had been given a devil’s choice – stay inside and starve slowly, or leave the metal coffin they were in, and die quickly. Aimee knew it was the same coffin they were all in now. She shut the log.

“So, going out to meet the people probably wasn’t a great idea,” Casey said at last.

“And if we stay, that’ll eventually happen to us,” Cate said.

“Then we get out,” Aimee said. “This lake, in here, must join up with the outside sea, somewhere, somehow.”

“That’s what I was thinking.” Alex looked up from the instruments. “Maybe during king tides, or during quakes it opens and shuts, makes another vortex like the one we encountered in the sea. This thing slips out, grabs some more toys, and then comes home where it’s nice and warm, so it can play and eat in peace.”

“This is its home, we are the intruders,” Soong added. “It has all the time on its side, and we have limited food, water, and breathable air.” She licked dry lips. “We cannot wait for an earthquake, or for the monster to return and pry us out of here.”

The group was silent, but most nodded, agreeing with the Chinese scientist’s bleak assessment.

Alex rubbed his stubbled chin. “Soong’s right.” He stopped in front of Aimee. “Aimee, anything we can use? Cate, c’mon, what can we use?”

Aimee frowned, her eyes on the floor, remembering her experiences and research. “Cephalopods are learning creatures,” she said. “Every encounter with mankind it has had, it has learned more about us, what we are more or less likely to do, how we will react.” She looked up into Alex’s eyes. “Those boats out there, some are hundreds of years old. That means it, or its ancestors, has been doing this for centuries. It knows us, but all we know is that it’s voracious, aggressive, and smart. In the wild, this thing’s smaller cousins have all those characteristics, and are very territorial. This is its turf. Maybe if we can move it off its turf …”  She shrugged, knowing it wasn’t much.