Ocean: The Sea Warriors (21 page)

Chapter 22

Outside the hospital in Wanaao Town, Ealani Pohaku led a healing ceremony for Preston Ellsworth, who lay in a coma inside. She smelled the freshness of the air from a rainstorm that had come and gone only minutes ago, leaving the small group of people wet. She wiped moisture that trickled down her forehead from her hair. Ealani liked the pungent smell of the earth after downpours, when the nutrients in the soil were energized, and small ground-dwelling creatures stirred around, partaking of the bounty of the Earth.

She wore one of her best muumuus, a long red dress adorned with yellow hibiscus flowers. A necklace of small, striped cowrie shells encircled her neck, along with a thicker necklace of polished, rich brown
kukui
nuts. Beside her stood the bespectacled Catholic priest in his black robe, holding a Bible in one hand and a small silver cross in the other. Though Preston Ellsworth had never been a religious man, years ago his mother had been a devout Catholic, so the healers thought it would be nice to call up some Catholic blessings alongside the more traditional Hawaiian words and chants that Ealani knew so well.

Both of them had already spoken to the gathering of townspeople, and now everyone bowed their heads in prayer. It was a wordless gesture that seemed to merge the two religious traditions and erase all differences in them—as if a sudden rainstorm had fallen from on-high, cleansing everything in its path….

President Fillmore Vanness opened a bound report bearing the Top Secret imprint of Naval intelligence. It was a summary of the Navy’s efforts to thwart the activities of the Sea Warriors, a radical environmental organization. A fast reader, he absorbed the material quickly, including the accompanying diagrams and photographs that showed the extent of the Sea Warrior blockades in the Hawaiian Islands, and a detailed crime report on the bizarre murders of more than six hundred Navy seamen.

The President had been receiving regular reports on the unusual events in Hawaii, and on the Sea Warriors, who were on a watch list of potential terrorist organizations. Their blockade of Pearl Harbor alone qualified them to be formally declared terrorists, but the President and his national security advisers did not want to take that step yet, not until they had evidence that the leadership of the organization had ordered the blockade and the murders—instead of those being the acts of three purported “rogue” members.

For the time being, President Vanness was leaving the Navy in charge of dealing with the Sea Warriors on a day to day basis. He was confident that the powerful naval and air force would remove the blockade soon, reopening Pearl Harbor and the rest of the Hawaiian islands to normal military and commercial shipping activities.

President Vanness set the report aside, opened another one on an entirely different matter—an ongoing dispute with India over tariffs the United States had imposed on their imported goods. There were so many problems to deal with in his position….

Kimo swam as fast as he could to escape the three frogmen, but with the burden of Earhart’s body they were gaining on him. A spear sped past his head, so close that he heard it and felt the pressure-displacement of water. Just then, a Giant Pacific Octopus appeared behind him, filling the water with dense black ink to shield his escape.

He wondered how the octopus had gotten there, and how it could move so rapidly in waters that were considerably warmer than the seas off the coast of British Columbia where its species was so abundant. He’d seen them on occasion in the deeper, oxygen-rich waters of Moanna’s domain, so he decided the animal must have come from there.

Now, as Kimo swam under the cordon, he was startled by a school of large, hound needlefish and another of stingrays, trailed closely by two humboldt squids that were each more than twelve feet long. All surged toward him and then past. Through hazy water he saw a needlefish impale one of the frogmen through the chest before the man could get off a shot, then withdrew and let him drift down, bleeding to death in a murk of red water. The other two frogmen managed to fire but it did them no good, as a stingray and a jet-fast squid rushed forward. The stingray whipped its tail to discharge volleys of sharp, venomous barbs into one man’s chest, while the squid grabbed the other frogman with tentacles and tore into his body with its sharp beak, ripping off chunks of flesh and then letting him go. Mortally wounded, both frogmen tried to swim away but couldn’t, and finally went limp, drifting and sinking in bloody seawater.

One of the newest Sea Warriors swam toward Kimo and transmitted a molecular communication, asking if he was all right. It was a stocky young woman, Roberta Barkley. Kimo nodded to her and swam by with Earhart’s body, rejoining the rest of his force on the outside of the cordon. The Sea Warriors had stopped the mini-subs, the armed dolphins, and the Navy frogmen, but at great cost, on both sides.

Just beneath the surface, Dirk Avondale was coordinating attacks against the torpedo boats. He reported that Gwyneth had successfully forced the submarine onto a beach, using large marine animals to run it up on the shore. Now as Kimo surfaced, he saw the oversized, misshapen Gwyneth high atop the immense blue whale, near a capsized torpedo boat, with sailors in life jackets in the water. Lying face down on the whale’s back, Gwyneth was holding on with her flippers, a lump of amorphous gray atop the much larger animal. Not far away, two more torpedo boats were capsized as well, and sinking….

A short while later, Kimo assembled his warriors on the surface and was shown three more bodies of fallen hybrids, including two of the newest recruits as well as Phil Austin, the gentle man who had been able to choreograph seahorses in such an entertaining fashion. He was one of the members who was not a fighter (and didn’t command aggressive sea creatures), but who bravely accompanied the force anyway, to serve in any capacity he could. Others like him were tending to the injured now, tying tourniquets around wounded appendages, escorting hybrids away from the bloody and damaged (but still holding) sea barrier that had been the center of all the action.

Kimo was about to see what he could do to heal the wounded when he saw Alicia standing atop her vee-wave, cutting through the sea like a boat, with fish leaping out of the water on either side of her. She turned toward him, going through an area where a flock of white-and-black gulls were setting down on the water.

Kimo’s heart sank when he saw a helicopter gunship over her, but it changed course and returned to Hickam Air Force Base. Then, as Alicia neared him, a second gunship swooped toward her. They had no reason to target her; she wasn’t doing anything aggressive, was only out there to show the Navy and the public how beautiful and graceful the creatures of the ocean could be.

He swam toward her as fast as he could, with powerful strokes, but saw a uniformed man in the aircraft’s open doorway fire a rifle at her. To Kimo’s horror the shot hit Alicia on the upper back, causing her to fall, and the wave to dissipate.

On one side of Kimo, the immense blue whale surged past, with Gwyneth riding it, still holding on with her flippers.

When Kimo swam through the floating gulls, they separated to let him past. Ahead of him, the helicopter hovered over Alicia, then lowered something toward her that Kimo realized was a grappling device, tethered to the aircraft by a cable. It grabbed hold of Alicia, and began to lift her upward.

Gwyneth had the huge whale under Alicia now, and she reached up with her flippers, taking hold of the grappling end and trying to open it, to free its captive. Alicia was slumped over, not moving, and Kimo wondered if they’d used a sedative on her instead of live ammunition. He saw some redness around her upper back and shoulders. Gwyneth was unsuccessful, and Alicia continued being hauled up toward the aircraft.

A memory passed through Kimo’s mind, about the gulls in the water behind him. He had commanded birds like those once.
Bring the helicopter down!
he commanded, transmitting a molecular communication to the flock, from his position in the water to theirs.

As he thought this, the birds lifted off and flew over the gunship, forming a white-and-black mass above it—a thick formation that lowered gradually and curved slightly downward at the perimeters, so that it formed an umbrella of flying creatures over the ‘copter. The aircraft began to lose altitude, dropping toward Gwyneth. He realized the birds were forcing the ‘copter down, but not in any way he had anticipated; he’d thought they would fly into the rotors.

Gwyneth commanded the whale to move out of the way, causing it to swim in a circle around the site where Alicia had been taken, and where it looked as if she was going to be returned.

When Alicia was right over the wave tops, dipping in and out of the water, the birds stopped lowering their cover, as if sensing that they didn’t want to harm the young woman. In a few seconds of opportunity, Kimo commanded a school of sawfish to cut the cables of the grappling device. The animals surged forward, some using teeth on the sides of their long snouts to slash at cables that were hanging in the water, others leaping over Alicia and cutting the cables above her.

The grappling jaw opened, and Kimo swam forward to catch Alicia and take her to Gwyneth. To his dismay he realized that Alicia had a wound on one side of her head, and a trickle of blood was running down her face. It appeared to be a shallow injury, though, and might be from an errant tranquilizer shot. In view of their attempt to capture her, he didn’t think they had been trying to kill her.

Now the dense umbrella of birds descended more. The helicopter tried to evade them and fly out from underneath, but the main rotor hit the birds, killing many of them and causing the gunship to fall into the water and sink. Kimo saw no sign of the crewmen, and didn’t want to try to rescue them when he had other priorities—getting Alicia farther out to sea and making certain she was all right—and then tending to other injured Sea Warriors. This was war, and he needed to focus on his own fighters, not on those of the enemy.

He felt her breathing in his arms, taking slow, irregular gulps of air. In view of the abduction attempt, he was also concerned that Gwyneth might be another target, or other Sea Warriors, so that the Navy could analyze them and try to figure out how to use their powers for military purposes. Most of his warriors, however, did not have special powers beyond an ability to swim and live underwater—so he suspected that Alicia’s obvious power with waves was of great interest to the admirals.

Kimo summoned the Sea Warriors to return, and as they gathered around him he swam in place with his powerful legs, while holding Alicia tight and massaging her neck and back, thinking the thoughts he always had before, when he successfully applied his healing power, knowing it would work but not knowing why, not learning until recently that it only worked when he had a molecular connection to ocean water. But Fred Earhart had died in his arms underwater, only a short while ago. Long moments passed now, and Kimo thought he felt her breathing become more regular.

Alicia, come back!
he thought.
My love, come back!

To his relief she stirred, and the blood stopped running down the side of her head. Kimo tossed a little seawater on it, saw that the wound was vanishing, healing quickly.

“I have a terrible headache,” she said.

“I want you to rest,” Kimo said, “and we’ll take you to a place where you can recover.” He saw four helicopter gunships flying toward them. “Now get ready; we’re going under.”

Kimo gave the command for all of the Sea Warriors and creatures in the task force to submerge. As everyone dove, he stayed with Alicia and helped steady her as they swam together. Other injured fighters were aided by their comrades.

After taking a roundabout underwater route to make certain they weren’t being followed in some way, they neared the crescent-shaped volcanic island, remaining underwater. The oddly misshapen Gwyneth swam beside Kimo, proceeding quite efficiently despite her bulk, small fins, and undersized flippers. She spoke to him through the water: “I told you before that we have to do more, and that’s why I blockaded the Hawaiian Islands. Now, after seeing the horrors today, the valiant Sea Warriors who died alongside the brave, unflinching creatures of the sea, I say to you again. We
must
do more. I’m sorry to say this, because I respect you, but if you disagree I’ll have to do something myself. Another escalation.”