Kraken Rising: Alex Hunter 6 (37 page)

“That’s right,” Cate said. “Orthocones were the alpha predator for millions of years. When most life in the oceans was tiny, these things were already thirty feet long. It can outrun us, outwait us, and certainly outlive us. We’re only alive because it doesn’t want us just yet.”

“That fucker has got us right where it wants us,” Casey said, fists balled.

“Then let’s get the hell out of here, or die trying.” Alex turned, opening the comm. to the torpedo room. “Rhino, load tubes one and two. Blake, it’s crash or crash through time. This lake is separated from the main sea by some sort of sea wall, and the creature has got to be using an opening in it. We need to find it.”

“Excuse me.” Shenjung’s voice was almost apologetic. “But we could bring this entire place down on top of us. We have already seen that this type of rock is subject to fracturing.”

Alex gave the Chinese scientist a flat smile. “And if we stay, we get eaten alive. Which is better?”

“No, no, I agree, we must leave. But we may be able to use the fracturing to our advantage.”

“Selective collapse of the geologic substructure,” Aimee said.

Alex nodded. “Okay, good. Franks, anything outside?”

“All clear on the scope.” Casey pulled her face back an inch. “What’s the plan, boss?”

“Once we’re out, we find that sea vortex, and ride it out. If it’s within the depth capability of this submarine, we may just pop up outside. If not, we’re a crushed can on the bottom of a cold ocean.”

“Maybe not,” Soong said. “If there is a vortex causing the water column to be in agitation, then the pressure might be bearable.” She turned to Shenjung. “I think this might work.”

Shenjung nodded. “Yes, I see. We have observed that the properties of water molecules remain disparate the more the water is moving. Also warm water will be much less dense than the outside deeper, cold water.”

“As long as we stay within the vortex column,” Cate said, “then pressure could be more benign … at least until it dissipates as the water slows.”

“We stay in the vortex, we can make it. Best news I heard all day.” Casey grinned. “Nobody, but nobody back home is going to be able to top this.” She put her face back to the periscope visor once again, and her eyes went wide. “Oh fuck –
incoming!
”

Alex pushed her aside and looked through the periscope. His expression became grim. “It’s on us.”

*

The submarine groaned, and then rocked. The slight angle the vessel was resting at suddenly was righted. The group stared straight ahead, arms out for balance, faces pale, waiting and listening. Alex grabbed a railing, looking up, sensing the monstrous weight bearing down on them.

There came a horrendous scraping sound as the hull was drawn along rock – they were being moved, sideways.

“
Hang on!
” Alex shouted. Someone screamed as metal popped and groaned around them. The submarine was designed to withstand enormous pressure, but pressure evenly distributed along its hull, and not pressing down in any one spot. It could buckle, or worse, split open.

The torpedo room comm. came to life. “Standing by, boss. Just say the word,” Rhino yelled.

“Water’s too shallow. We’ll just blow ourselves up,” Alex yelled back.

The submarine scraped again, a painful, metallic, nails-on-chalkboard sound magnified a thousand times.

“Fuck it.” Franks stepped back from the scope, the thing only half up. “It’s jammed.”

Alex bared his teeth as more scraping sounded along the hull. “Can’t let it damage the props.” He held out his hand to Casey Franks. “Rifle.”

“What?” Aimee looked momentarily horrified, but then she slumped, seeming to understand what he had to do. She nodded to him. “Save us.”

Franks shook her head. “Boss, let me, sir. I’m dispensable.”

“
That’s an order!
” Alex’s voice boomed in the small room.

Franks looked like she was about to say more, but Aimee pulled on her brawny arm. “Let him go. Only he can do it; you know that.”

Casey looked torn, but after another second ripped the rifle from her shoulder, her face furious. “Three rounds left.”

Alex took it. “Seal the hatch after I’m gone, and be ready.” He half smiled. “If I get … separated, then do your best to get the hell out.”

“Yeah,” Franks said. “Count on it. I’ll help you up.”

Alex quickly headed down the steel corridor towards the hatch, and put one hand on the ladder railing. Franks waited silently beside him. He stared up the ladder, his sensitive hearing picking up the soft sliding weight moving above him. He felt the light touch of a hand on his shoulder, and Aimee turned him around.

“Programmed for destruction.” She smiled softly.

“I have to,” Alex said, not sure what else he could tell her.

“I know. Jack Hammerson’s monster, Hammerson’s weapon of mass destruction, take your pick, but it’s what you were created for. You can’t escape it.” She dropped her hand.

“You have to get out, for Joshua, and if I can give you even a small chance …” He sighed, feeling the pang in his chest, at all the wasted years without her.

“Make it back. I’ll be here.” She went to turn, but stopped, and then just stared hard at him. “Was it real? Did we ever truly make it out of here before, or have we been trapped down here for the last five years, like O’Kane, in our own version of hell?”

He smiled. “If you were here with me, how could that be hell?” He leaned forward to kiss her on the lips, but Aimee threw an arm around his neck, and pulled him close, kissing him back, hard.

Alex smelled her, tasted her, and felt a moment of dizziness as if he was intoxicated – and perhaps he was. At that second, there was nowhere else he wanted to be, and no one else in the world he wanted with him. He had found her again, and that was all that mattered.

Aimee then pushed him away, her eyes shining, the pupils heavily dilated. “Goddamn you, why do you have to be …
you
?” She turned and walked away.

He watched her disappear down the dark corridor. Alex didn’t want to go up that ladder; instead he wanted just one more moment, even just a few more seconds with her. But the submarine rocked again, and he knew what pursued them now would kill her in the most horrible way. She was worth living for, worth killing for, and if it came to it, worth dying for.

Alex knew she was right; it
was
what he was made for. He turned, seeing Casey smile awkwardly. She shrugged.

He pointed a finger at her. “Not a word.”

“Didn’t see a thing.” She saluted. “Good luck …
fool
.”

Alex sucked in a deep breath, and then went up the ladder. He spun the hatch wheel.

The first thing that assailed his senses when Alex made it to the deck was the acrid smell. The biological ammonia was so thick in the air it was like a poisonous gas. He had to move quickly, and hope for a lucky shot. If he could target one of the huge eyes, he may be able to get a bullet into its brain. He had no idea whether that would kill it or even slow it down, but his goal was simple: make it back off just long enough for them to get the hell off the shoreline.

Franks slammed the hatch shut, and immediately the huge creature surged over the submarine. Alex fought back the urge to move quickly, as the massed tentacles rose around him. He saw they were whip-thin at the tip, but at their base they were as thick around as a freight train. There, they coiled and wrestled with each other like grotesque pythons fighting to be first to consume him. The submarine was now in among the Kraken’s nest of flesh, with most of its monstrous bulk still in the water. The huge sack of its head lifted, pulsating, and eyes the size of cars rose up to fix upon him.

He thought he saw it shiver, not from fear, but perhaps with eager anticipation of a new game. Alex could sense its intelligence – not quite that of a human, but certainly a cold intellect that was almost alien. Colors flared in bands as excitement rippled through its body.

Alex carefully raised the rifle. One of the eyes was turned towards him, rising ever higher. At this range, it was impossible to miss. He fired twice, dead center. The huge lidless eye quivered and pulled back, but there was no explosion of optic jelly, or even blood seepage. It was impossible to tell if there had been any damage at all.

Not a thing,
he thought.
One left.

He raised the rifle again, once more sighting on the huge disc of an eye. What Alex couldn’t have known was that behind the massive eye, the brain was protected by flexible cartilage – and on the monster before him, that shield was a dozen feet thick.

Alex’s neck prickled, and then came a soft, wet noise behind him, followed by a sensation of growing coldness. Alex turned to see the watery figure drifting up and over the railing, to then alight on the deck. Captain Wu Yang, looking expressionless, wet, and staring, his arms by his sides. Alex froze, knowing the figure wasn’t a figure at all, but another tentacle, stalking him.

So real
, Alex thought. Yang’s face carried a tortured expression, like the man’s very soul had been trapped inside the animal that had consumed him. Alex felt hopelessness settling over him. As real as Yang looked, he,
it
, was just a huge pad, dotted with softball-sized suckers, each with a cruel hooked talon at its center. It seemed the creature had decided to play with its food before it struck.

Alex carefully eased the gun around, but knew that as much as he wanted to fire point-blank between Yang’s eyes, it would be like trying to stop an elephant by jabbing its toe with a toothpick. Beside him, he saw the periscope lens swivel towards Yang. He imagined Casey cursing her usual curses, and he hoped his orders held, or she’d be beside him, fighting to a sure death, in another few seconds.

Indecision wracked him. He could think of only one insane option, to dive over the side. But that would be into about six or more feet of water, where the huge cephalopod was king – he’d last about six seconds. He waited, as Yang glided a little closer, the thing’s face slack, urging him to make a move. It was so lifelike that Alex almost felt compelled to talk to him.

He turned his head at a glacial speed, to do so any faster would invite attack. He could see the massive bulk of the Kraken still in the water. Now both its white, goat-slit eyes watched him intently. He bet it’d be smiling if it could. Its colossal size and strength meant they never really stood a chance. It dwarfed the submarine, and he didn’t doubt for a second that if it wanted to, it could rip the steel hull apart to get at the tender morsels inside.

Yang glided so close, Alex could see the cold aura of death surrounding the thing, and the stink made his eyes stream.

Alex stood absolutely still, waiting. Another tentacle tip edged over the railing towards him, and the tip alighted on one of his arms. The cold sliminess was immediately replaced by fire, as he felt the suckers engage, penetrating even his toughened suit. The tooth-rimmed discs felt like they were searing down into his flesh. He remembered Aimee telling him years ago that the cephalopods could taste their food this way.

I don’t want to end up like Yang
, he thought, his mind whirling, but with zero options. He worked to ignore the fire on his arm that now snaked up to his shoulder, and tried to separate his mind from his body, preparing for the bloody annihilation he knew would surely come. From the corner of his eye he saw movement, and easing his head around, saw that there were hundreds of tiny pale figures standing on the jutting ledges and broken balconies of the fallen city. Like stadium crowds at a football game, the barrackers were all there, and he bet his side was not the local team.

Alex felt his armored suit being slowly stripped away and knew his flesh would soon follow. He calmed himself, and then saw her: she was out at front, smaller than the rest and she lifted her mask free, the glossy oil-black eyes watching him.

Help us,
he mouthed.

The tiny woman’s head titled, and he had no idea whether she heard, understood, or even cared about his fate.

There was a metallic squeal from behind him as the hatch wheel started to spin.

Goddamn you, Franks
, Alex thought, his teeth grinding. He half turned. “Keep that hatch closed.”

Yang shot forward, passing right by Alex, and hitting the hatch door. The door, now unlocked, was pulled upward, dragging the huge form of Rhino with it. The expression of surprise on his face would have been humorous, if his appearance probably didn’t spell a horrible death.

Alex spun, fired at the eye again, and then dropped the gun. In one swift movement, he drew his pitiful blade and stabbed and slashed at the huge muscular limb. His razor sharp knife cut into the flesh, but it was like trying to sever something that was a combination of leather and rubber. More tentacles inched upward over the hull as the exposed Rhino was trying to keep the impossible figure of Yang from its sticky embrace with the hatch lid.

Alex felt the limb freeze beneath his hands, and he thought his mind was playing tricks as a haunting whistle sounded from ahead of him, behind him, all around him. A fist gripped tight inside his head, and he grimaced from the agony, as the sound stabbed deep into his brain. The tentacles stopped their movement, and hung in the air around the submarine like a huge flower with mottled green and black tentacles, blooming all around them. Alex looked over the side, only just able to stop his eyes crushing shut from the unbearable pain. He knew a hungry mouth the size of a truck was there, beneath the mantle of the creature, and just below the waterline.

Gradually the Kraken pulled back, and then silently slipped beneath the surface. The whistling stopped, and with it went the pain. Alex turned to the small figure on the far shoreline. She pointed at herself, then at Alex, and made a breaking motion. Alex could feel the thought slide easily into his tortured mind.
You once freed me, and now I freed you – we are even
.

The ghostly pale figure with the mask of tentacles turned and danced back over the huge tumbled boulders, skipping away and disappearing into one of the broken holes of the last refuge of the mighty city of Aztlan.

Rhino was lying on the deck panting, his hands covered in slime. “I came up to lend a hand, boss.”

Alex growled, and lifted the big man with one hand and shoved him towards the hatch. “If we live, remind me to kick your ass all the way back home.”

They slid down the ladder, and Rhino sealed them in. Alex sped straight for the bridge. “This is the only chance we might get. Fire up those engines and give me maximum reverse thrust.”

The sound of running boots on steel grating echoed in the steel corridors. Blake and Casey followed Alex to the bridge room, and headed to different consoles, while Rhino sprinted back down to the torpedo room.

Aimee tilted her head as Alex appeared in the bridge room. Their eyes locked – he could guess what she was thinking:
another life used up
. And he also knew then that they would need to have a long conversation about what the future may hold, for them, and for Joshua.
If
they survived.

She smiled and nodded to him, looking away and releasing him.
When
they survived, he thought.

“Hey, check this out.” Casey turned away from one of the screens that showed a camera view of the outside.

“Got it working. This would be an underwater view … if we were underwater.”

“Engines at full power, boss,” Blake said, his fingers dancing over the consoles.

“Okay, here goes.” Alex sucked in a breath, saying a silent prayer. “Full reverse, and let’s hope the prop still turns.”

“And we don’t just spin it to shit on the rocks,” Casey said.

“Think positive thoughts,” Cate replied.

Casey snorted. “You do the chanting, lady, we’ll do the driving.”

Alex turned to the group trying to see over the HAWCs. “Everyone else, sit down, strap in, or just wrap something around yourselves. This is going to be real rough.”

A throb went through the
Sea Shadow
, then a vibration they could all feel right down to the bones. Alex gripped the console edge, willing the vessel to move.

“Sixty percent turbine,” Blake said, pushing the small handle a little further forward. Bands of light on a panel illuminated another few bars up a scale. He pushed a little more, and the bars lit up towards the top. His voice was calm. “Seventy percent … seventy-five … eighty …”

The submarine lurched violently. Soong got down low, and wrapped both arms around a steel pole. Shenjung crouched beside her, hugging his arms around her and the pole together. Cate slipped and screamed, and Aimee reached out to grab her, while keeping one arm looped around a strut.

“Move, you sonofabitch,” Casey screamed as the entire submarine juddered again, but stayed in place.

“Ninety percent … red lining, boss,” Blake yelled. He spun. “She canna take anymore, Captain,” he said in his best Scottish accent, then grinned.

Alex laughed grimly, and held up a fist. “Then punch it, Scotty, we got nothing to stay here for.”

Blake pushed the lever all the way up, and the bars of light, once green, now changed to full red. There was a steady thrum, and then a smell of burning. Finally, there came another sound, and it was the sweetest they had heard in days – the sound of the metal hull grating on rock.

The submarine slid a few feet, juddered and bucked, and then slid a few more feet. As soon as the curved propeller hit the deeper water it could create more drag. Waves flowed up the bank as the props grabbed, and then threw water in great geysers over the submarine and onto the shoreline.

Suddenly, there was a grinding rush, as they slid backwards.

*

Aimee gripped the railing, bracing her legs as the
Sea Shadow
slid into deeper water.

“Ease down, Blake. Bring her about,” Alex said, moving from console to console.

Aimee continued to watch him – pride, love, desire, and joy near overwhelming her. But there was also something else underlying it all … a darker emotion. Fear … fear of the unknown. She knew he still harbored personal demons like no other man. Could she ever trust him? Inside him lurked a stranger,
the Other,
Alex called him, and she’d witnessed this being’s callous brutality in the past. He was a force that answered every question with violence, and his volatility was a threat to her safety, and perhaps even to Joshua’s.

Aimee sighed; thinking of Joshua was a shot in the arm to her spirits. Joshua too was different – stronger, faster, and smarter than normal – but she knew now he was constantly in danger. She vividly remembered the attack on her house, and Peter shot and unable to protect them. She realized that to defend against violence, maybe someone of strength and violence was what they needed. And who better to guide her son, and be a father to him, than someone exactly like him? She was torn.

“Okay?” Cate’s voice made her start.

“Huh?” Aimee smiled. “Yeah, or I will be, when I see the sun again.”

“I heard that. Let’s just hope it happens soon.” Cate turned to watch Alex as well.

“Okay, people,” Alex said. “This is what we’ve got. We’re currently in a small pond with a very large marine predator. It got the vessel in here, so we need to get it out. We will find a way out, or we will make one.”

“It had to have used the vortex,” Cate said. “My guess is it’s the far wall of this cavern that separates its lake from the greater underground ocean. We need to be out there.”

Alex nodded. “Makes sense to me.” He moved behind Blake. “Ping the wall; find me that hole. If not, find me a weak spot. And Franks, keep your eyes and ears open. That thing was enough trouble
above
the water.”

“Got it,” said Casey, hunched over a sonar monitor.

Aimee crossed to where Shenjung and Soong stood quietly. “Do you think we can navigate the vortex … if we can find it?”

Shenjung shook his head. “This is unknown. The opening in the cave could be smaller than we anticipate. This creature can compress itself down very small. Maybe it can fit into tight spaces, but we cannot.”

Soong wrung her hands, and Shenjung took one of them in his. She smiled up at him, but then turned to Aimee. “If there is a constricting of the geology, there could be a funnel effect that will make the water extremely turbulent. Very difficult.”

“Great,” Aimee said. “Then we need something else – luck.”