Ocean: The Sea Warriors

Smashwords Edition - 2013

WordFire Press
www.wordfire.com

eBook ISBN: 978-1-61475-111-3

Copyright © 2013 DreamStar, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

Book Design by RuneWright, LLC
www.RuneWright.com

Published by
WordFire Press, an imprint of
WordFire, Inc.
PO Box 1840
Monument CO 80132

Electronic Version by Baen Ebooks

http://www.baen.com

***

Dedication

For our grandchildren and great-grandchildren—may you share our love for the beauty and majesty of the ocean, and for the fascinating creatures inhabiting those waters.

***

Acknowledgments

Our special thanks go to Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, Peter J. Wacks, Jessyca Hogue, Keith J. Olexa, Quincy Allen, and Diane Jones of WordFire Press, and our agent John Silbersack.

***

Introduction

One day several years ago, my wife Jan returned from a trip to Hawaii, and she had an idea for a novel that was simple yet large in scope—as many great ideas are—a story about problems in the ocean that she’d been wanting to write for years.

I spent some time brainstorming with her, and in a spiral notebook I made notes about the setting, characterizations, and plot. Then I began typing it up—a story set in Hawaii that had the ocean (and its problems) in the background. She read what I handed her, and then said, diplomatically, “This is good, Brian, but I was thinking more along the line that the ocean is fighting back against humans. What if the ocean is an entity in itself, and is not going to put up with any more abuse from human beings, and decides to take strong action against the violators? What if it declares war on our civilization?”

And she had a title in mind, one that was simple and clean:
Ocean
.

“Oh,” I said, finally understanding. So I set about creating a new main storyline centered on the ocean, discussing it with Jan as I worked on it, showing her chapters that I had written, and obtaining her suggestions. As I got into the book, discussing it with her constantly, the characters and plot seemed to come alive, and I wrote more than 165,000 words in only a few months of intense work—quite a pace for me. You have before you a slightly longer version than that, after the manuscript went through several drafts, improving it each time.

Over the years, I have dedicated many books to Jan. She has always read my material when it was in progress and commented on it, and she did that on this novel as well. But this time I knew in my heart that it was not enough to give her yet another dedication, or even a long introduction such as this one. Truly, she deserved to be the co-author of the book, because this was
her
book, her fantastic concept. These pages reflect the love Jan feels for the ocean and the incredible creatures that inhabit it, marine animals that have sentience, feelings, and souls. She was the inspiration for this project, and the continuing light that enabled me to proceed with it, and to stay on the right track.

I have often said that I could never write unless Jan permitted me to do so. She has always given me the space for my creativity, has always said that it didn’t matter if we had any money at all, that if I ever wanted to sell everything and live somewhere simple, without the daily pressures of owning things and paying bills, she would support me.

For years we have been a creative team—Jan with her painting and photography and me with my writing. On trips to distant lands, we often find places to go where she paints and I write. We sit outside, or in some other place where the creative energy is good around us, and we do our separate projects, with me critiquing her art, and her critiquing my writing. I’ve always known that she was intelligent, but after she brought me the idea for this novel about the ocean, I realized that she is brilliant. Jan is not only the shining light in my life; she is much more. And truly she deserves credit for this novel, because
Ocean
is her story.

Brian Herbert

Seattle, Washington

***

Preface

Because of the passage of more than four hundred years since the great War of Ocean Liberation, some of the details have been lost to history. The part-fish, part-human Sea Warriors who led the revolt did not find it convenient—or necessary—to write everything down during a time of tremendous turmoil and upheaval. Nonetheless, certain over-arching facts are indisputable, dominated by one: This heroic group sought to gain control over the entire world ocean, so that they could give it back to the sea creatures inhabiting it.

All of us know the results of that war, but other details are sketchy, and subject to discussion. Owing to a lack of information about the day-to-day actions of the principals in this fantastic saga (especially with respect to Kimo Pohaku, Alicia Ellsworth, and Gwyneth McDevitt), this is a historical novel that draws upon news reports of the time, eyewitness accounts of their lives, and family journals that have survived the decades—in all, reports by people who were able to obtain some of the details of what was occurring beneath the ocean waves of the planet.

We can say with a certainty that the account you are about to read accurately reflects the personalities of Kimo, Alicia, and Gwyneth, and correctly portrays many of the events in their epic struggle—although for the purpose of telling such an important story, the authors have found it necessary to make educated assumptions about certain specifics, with a minimum of added material.

This, then, is their story, and the story of their brave followers—sea creatures, human-marine hybrids, and untransformed human beings—all of whom dedicated themselves to the cause of ocean liberation.

Let us go back in time now, more than four centuries to the year 2024….

***

Chapter 1

There were a few things that Jeff Ellsworth actually liked about his job at the ranch-resort. The food and liquor for one, and he didn’t have to pay for anything. He also liked the live music in the open-air lounge, with the pretty Hawaiian waitresses and the trade winds blowing gently, rustling the flowers and potted-palm fronds. Following his grandfather’s preference, he rarely made advances toward any of the women who worked at the ranch, or toward any of the guests—and on the rare occasions when he did, he was always careful not to cause any problems that would reflect badly on the Ellsworths. For the most part he trolled bars and night clubs on the other side of the island, looking for women not associated with the family business.

He’d had relationships with several of them, but nothing that lasted. Most of the women seemed superficial, but he had to admit he never told them much about himself, either. They were just looking for good times, and so was he. Normally he could take them for a ride in his gleaming red Ferrari, and spend the night with them in his oceanfront condominium. But Pauly’s wealthy friend had taken a liking to the place, and to the car, and had asked for an extension beyond the original month. Pauly had granted that to him, paying more to Jeff for the privilege, and agreeing to have a top mechanic check the car carefully when the man was finished using it. Pauly confirmed that it had been his friend operating the vehicle at high speed on the winding cliff road near the Ellsworth Ranch, but assured Jeff that he had professional driving experience, having competed in the Grand Prix and Le Mans races in Europe.

The loss of Jeff’s sports car and condominium, albeit temporary, was irksome, no matter the additional money he was being paid, but out of fear, he had not complained to Pauly. The drug lord often had a menacing undertone to things he said, and a disturbing cast in his eyes when he looked at Jeff, even when he was apparently being friendly. Still, Pauly seemed to like him as much as he liked anyone, and under the circumstances, Jeff was proud of himself for doing well in a tough business, dealing with tough people.

It was late afternoon now. Jeff had just gotten off shift and sat at the long dark-wood bar on one side of the hotel lobby, nursing a mai tai in a tall glass. Because of his profession, he could not drink within thirty-six hours of flying, and even then he had a two-drink limit. Big Tommy, the beefy native bartender, always enforced the rule strictly, never allowing that third drink (not even to Jeff), and counting a double shot of liquor as two drinks.

Jeff didn’t like being controlled in this manner, and felt he should be allowed to monitor his own condition, as long as he followed FAA rules, which were not as strict as his grandfather’s. He had served in two wars as an Army helicopter pilot, and had received four commendations, including a Purple Heart for a gunshot injury to his shoulder and a Distinguished Flying Cross for rescuing three soldiers in the face of wilting enemy fire. With his background and proven abilities, he should be able to make his own decisions.

I’m being treated like a child
, he thought.
Not a man. By Pauly, and by my grandfather.

He eavesdropped on two high-end contractors sitting just down the bar. One was talking about an excavation he had made on Oahu, in which his crew dug through solidified lava and found a layer of volcanic dust that was fused together—and when they dug through the dust, they found a huge granite boulder that weighed at least ten tons.

“Where in the world did that boulder come from?” the other contractor asked.

“Out of the mouth of the volcano,” the other said. “Must have been one helluva sight seeing that thing flying through the air.”

“Granite inside a volcano?”

“Sure,” said the other. “Why not? The Earth’s crust has layers of basalt, granite, sediment, and a lot of other stuff that gets moved around by magma. No telling what a volcano is going to cough up when it gets an upset stomach.”

“Interesting,” the other man said.

The first man went on to tell his companion that the Hawaiian Islands were part of an underwater mountain chain that stretched all the way to the Aleutians in Alaska, and that there had been islands in Hawaii for more than a million years.

“We live in an amazing place,” said the other.

“The most beautiful in the world,” the bartender chimed in—and no one argued with him.

Maybe so
, Jeff thought,
but it’s a velvet-lined prison for me.

A woman’s voice intruded on his thoughts. “You deep thinker today?”

It was Ginger Yamaguchi, a young Eurasian waitress who often flirted with Jeff, but he suspected it was only to get better tips—either that, or because he was the owner’s grandson. Pretty, with large brown eyes and a radiant smile, she sometimes spoke the pigeon English that was typical of islanders, which she mixed with her own versions of words and phrases that were grammatically incorrect, but still understandable. Several months ago he had asked her out on a date but she had turned him down, saying she already had a boyfriend, and he was the jealous sort. Since then, Jeff had seen the boyfriend picking her up after work, a huge Samoan who looked really tough. But here was Ginger again, flirting. It must drive the guy crazy.

Still, Jeff liked her, and smiled. At least, she made his stay in this prison more lively, albeit with an undercurrent of danger. Sometimes when he was really depressed and in a peculiar mood, he considered going up to her in front of her boyfriend and acting overly familiar, just to get beaten up. Suicide by Samoan, the cops would call it afterward.

But most of the time Jeff managed to keep his medication levels balanced, and didn’t feel that way. Today, he was in a pretty good mood, all things considered.

She served him a second drink, and as she was placing it in front of him she said, “You hear about bad time in Loa’kai Town, other side island, two college girl die of bad coke, and more got sick? Bad thing, very bad thing, and the dead girls mainlanders, too, so publicity hurt tourism. Cops say new kind coke from Brazil, laced with no-good chemical. Bad, very bad.”

Stunned, Jeff stared at her, then shook his head. “I didn’t hear anything about it,” he said.

Ginger looked at him oddly, apparently detecting the tension in his voice and expression. “Two dead and fifteen people sick,” she said. “More could die.”

“Is that so?” Jeff had trouble holding his gaze with her.

“You no want talk friendly today,” she said. Then she smiled prettily and walked away to wait on a customer at one of the tables.

As soon as she was gone, Jeff took a gulp of his drink, but when it reached his stomach it felt like hot lava landing there, giving him a burning sensation, and a taste of acid. It wasn’t the drink, he knew. It was what she had told him. She had no idea how bad the situation really was.

Feeling ill, he rose to his feet and walked across the lounge in the direction of his room. It was like passing through a gauntlet; he felt as if everyone was staring at him, noticing that he was upset. Of course they weren’t paying any attention to him; they would have no reason to. But he didn’t know what to do now.

Inside his room, he went straight to his laptop computer and sent an encrypted e-mail message to his drug supplier in Honolulu, Pauly Tahina.

The coded reply was chilling:

Dude, I’m giving you one message only. The cops have a big dragnet out on every island, looking for whoever sold the bad dope. Dude, you’d better go underground, because there is some really heavy shit coming down. I’ve been cheated just like you have, so I’m going to the mainland to take care of business.

For Pauly, that meant killing someone, maybe even someone Jeff knew. The message from Pauly had a postscript:

I’m shutting down operations here for at least a year. After my friend leaves the condo you’ll need to resume payments on it, and on the Ferrari. Find a way to make those payments on time! Get the money from your rich grandfather if you have to. Just don’t make me look bad.

Waves of panic spread over Jeff, and he felt very alone. Too many things were going wrong, and at the top of his list, the cops could follow clues straight to him. He wanted to take his helicopter out and dump his computer in a deep part of the sea—but he’d just been drinking, and that made him hesitant to pilot an aircraft.

He weighed his options, then grabbed his computer, hurried to the helicopter, and took off anyway. Jeff needed to get rid of any evidence as quickly as possible, and he assumed Pauly was doing the same.

***