by Jake Bible
“I said not to call me that,” Kinsey said, swatting at him.
“Oh, Thorne, Thorne, Thorne,” Jennings said, “the way you protest about your name makes me really want to hear your story. Come on, Thorne, out with it.”
“Knock it off,” Kinsey said.
“Not until you tell me your story, Thorne,” Jennings said.
Kinsey’s face went red and she turned around and took a swing at him. But she banged her elbow then her head as she rocked back from the pain.
“Son of a bitch!” she cried. “That is so your fault!”
“Gotta watch how you move in here, Thorne,” Jennings laughed.
She threw a jab with her left and Jennings caught her fist in his palm. Kinsey’s eyes went wide.
“Yep. I know how to fight,” Jennings said. “I’ve had a lot of practice. A lot.”
“Can I have my hand back?” Kinsey asked.
“Nope,” Jennings said, “Spill it.”
Kinsey tugged, but Jennings held his grip.
“Are you kidding?” she said.
“Spill. It.”
She tugged harder, but Jennings just pulled back. They kept at the fist in palm tug of war until they both started laughing.
“Okay, okay,” Kinsey said, “I’ll spill it.”
She told him about growing up a Navy brat. About going to high school with Darren and Gunnar. About her brother joining the Marines. About how she married Darren right out of school even though he’d joined the Navy. She talked about joining the Marines as a way to follow her brother and also get at Darren. She talked about losing her brother then losing her mother. She said how pissed she was when instead of being there for her, Darren had re-enlisted.
She started to talk about joining BUD/S to prove that she could beat him, but her voice faltered and she stopped.
“Sorry,” Jennings said, “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“I’m not crying,” Kinsey sniffed then wiped her cheeks and found them to be wet, “Son of a bitch.”
Jennings reached out and wiped a tear from her chin. “Let’s head back. That cool?”
“Not yet,” she said, “just a little longer.”
She got out of her seat and pulled Jennings down onto the floor.
“Hey, you don’t have---” he started, but she shut him up with her mouth on his.
“I can’t drink or shoot up,” Kinsey said, “and I could really use an endorphin boost right now.”
“So I’m just another fix, is that it?” Jennings laughed.
“Do you care?”
“Nope,” he said as she pulled his shirt up over his head. He fumbled at her pants and undid the belt and then the zipper. “I don’t care at all.”
***
The com beeped as they struggled to get dressed in the tight space.
“Where the fuck are you?” Lake asked when Jennings finally answered. “It’s been two hours, god dammit.”
“Sorry, Chief,” Jennings replied as he got the Wiglaf turned about. “Just got lost in the beauty.” He looked over at Kinsey and gave her a wink. She rolled her eyes, but smiled at him. “We’re on our way back now.”
“Not so fast,” Thorne said, suddenly on the com, “have you been checking your radar?”
“No,” Jennings admitted, “we’re about fifty meters deep. Running on sonar.”
“Surface slowly and watch your radar,” Thorne said. “We have a blip that keeps going in and out. We need you to get a visual and see if it’s a threat.”
“Got it,” Jennings said. “We have enough power to go have a look and still make it back safe.”
“You better make it back safe,” Thorne said, “you have my daughter.”
“Not a mermaid that needs saving, thank you,” Kinsey snapped then turned off the com. “What an ass.”
“He just cares,” Jennings said.
“A caring ass is still an ass,” Kinsey said. “Now show me how to take this up and surface slowly.”
***
“It’s an adolescent,” Gunnar said, his face nearly beaming with excitement. “Not even fully grown!”
“How can you be sure?” Darren asked, trying to mask his own excitement at the discovery.
“Bone structure,” Gunnar said. “Reproductive organs. This female hasn’t hit sexual maturity.”
“Female?” Darren asked. “Don’t they usually stay close to the matriarchal pods?”
“Some do,” Gunnar said. “Depends on the species. And we know nothing about this species since it’s been extinct for thousands of years!”
“Calm down, man,” Darren smiled. “What about the shark?”
“You can’t tell a shark’s age,” Mr. Ballantine said from the deck below, “not accurately. There could be sharks in the ocean right now that are hundreds of years old. We don’t know.”
“This has been fascinating,” Ms. Horace said, covering her nose and mouth. “But I am going to bed. You gentlemen have fun with your fish. I’ll speak to you in the morning, Mr. Ballantine. We still have many details to work out.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Mr. Ballantine said, dismissing the woman with a wave of a blood covered, gloved hand. “In the morning.”
“Be careful, Ballantine,” Mr. Perry said. “She holds a grudge.”
“Does she?” Mr. Ballantine asked. “Then she can join the club. Turning in too, Stefan?”
“No,” Mr. Perry said, “I’m going to enjoy a cocktail on the observation deck. Hopefully away from this smell.”
“And Mr. Longbottom?” Mr. Ballantine asked.
“He has turned in,” Mr. Perry said as he walked away. “He didn’t have the stomach for any of this.”
“Of course not,” Mr. Ballantine said.
“You didn’t put us on a sinking ship, did you Ballantine?” Darren asked, standing at the edge of the helipad.
“Sinking? No, of course not,” Mr. Ballantine said. “But we may be adrift for a tad longer than I anticipated. At least until our discovery is legitimized. Then the company will see the benefits of an extraction Team under the cover of a true research vessel. A rouse would have been found out eventually. But this?” Ballantine spread his arms. “This couldn’t be more perfect.”
“Captain?” Lake called from up on the bridge. “You should get up here.”
“What’s up, Lake?” Darren asked.
“I just need to see you, please,” Lake said.
Those that had been with him from the beginning all looked up at Lake then back at the captain.
“Please?” Popeye muttered. “When does he say please.”
Gunnar looked up at Darren. “We okay?”
“I’ll find out,” Darren said, “be right back.”
Lake and Thorne both stood with their arms crossed, looking at a video screen on the control board.
“Well?” Darren asked. “What’s up?”
“That,” Lake said.
“Video from the Wiglaf,” Thorne said. “Kinsey just sent it to us. Then it went black. But not after seeing this.”
The video was dark and grainy, and hard to make out as the camera kept bobbing up and down, but the subject was easy enough to make out. A ship was front and center.
“Audio?” Darren asked.
“Didn’t come through,” Lake said, “keep watching.”
Darren sighed then his eyes went wide as a bright flash came from the ship and shot towards the camera. At that point, everything went black.
“Play it again,” Darren said. They did. “Fuck me. RPG?”
“That’s my guess,” Thorne said.
“No word from the Wiglaf,” Lake added. “We can’t get them on the com.”
“Radar? Sonar?” Darren asked.
“If they submerged, then no radar,” Thorne said. “They are well out of sonar range.”
“What now?” Darren asked, looking out of the bridge and down to the carcasses being worked on. “Which way are they headed?”
“Towards us,” Lake sa
id, “at a good clip.”
“Fuck,” Darren muttered, rubbing his tired face.
“We need to send the Team in the Wyrm to go get them,” Thorne stated.
His tone of voice said there was no argument in there, but Darren had to argue. Everything he’d worked for was sitting on the second helipad below.
“We can’t do that,” Darren said. “We don’t know if they are dead or alive. There are RPGs in play. We send the Wyrm and it could get shot out of the sky.”
Thorne watched Darren for a second then smiled. He reached out slowly, put his hand on Darren’s shoulder and squeezed.
“I used to think of you as my son,” Thorne said. “I’ve known you since you were a teenager. Before you and Kinsey started dating. You’ve always been a good kid, Darren. But I will not hesitate to put a bullet between your eyes if it means saving my daughter.”
“Whoa!” Lake protested. “No need for that!”
“It’s cool, Marty,” Darren said. “I get where he’s coming from. I just don’t think he gets where I’m coming from. We send the Wyrm and it gets shot down with the Team inside and then where are we? Undefended. We need Grendel here to fight off these bastards when they engage.”
“I need my daughter to be alive,” Thorne said.
“How about a compromise?” Lake said. “Send one of the Zodiacs with a couple people. Just to scout things.”
“And lose them too?” Darren said. “We need to hold tight. Gunnar is working as fast as he can. We’ll get as much data as possible, then get the specimen stored below. At that point we’ll see where we are. It could be a freak thing.”
“That wasn’t a freak thing, Darren,” Thorne snarled. “That was an RPG aimed at my little girl.”
“Vincent, listen,” Darren said. “I’m the captain of the Beowulf II. When all is said and done, you work for me. I have made my call. We aren’t risking more lives to go after Kinsey.”
“And Jennings,” Lake added.
“Right, and Jennings,” Darren said. “They’ll make it back. I know Kinsey and she isn’t going to die in a fucking mini-sub.”
“Have you checked the damage transponder?” Darby asked from the hatchway.
“We don’t have a signal at all,” Lake said.
“Good,” Darby said as she went to a screen on the control board. “If the Wiglaf is damaged so that it can’t operate, then a transponder automatically kicks in and sends a signal here. It has a three hundred mile radius.”
“Three hundred?” Darren said. “That would alert pretty much everyone.”
“That’s the point,” Darby said. “It’s a last resort only. And doesn’t come on unless the Wiglaf has been nearly destroyed. Allows any company allied vessel to go after it and retrieve it quickly. There’s a good sized reward for obtaining the remains of that mini-sub.”
She typed at a keyboard for a couple minutes as the three men watched. Thorne frowned at every key stroke while Darren just stood there and rubbed his face; his fatigue was showing. Lake kept glancing from Darby to the radar and out at the dissections on the decks below.
“There,” she said. “I hacked it. Not an easy thing to do, but I know most of the codes.”
A beeping began to echo through the bridge. Lake looked at the radar and the sonar, but saw nothing.
“Won’t that bring ships to it?” Darren said. “Which is the opposite of what we want?”
“No,” Darby said, “I set it to test mode. Any ship picking that up will either not know what it is or decode and realize it’s just routine maintenance.”
“Then let’s go get my daughter,” Thorne said. “Mr. Lake, please take us to the heading of that signal.”
“That will put us right in the path of the other ship,” Lake said.
“So we don’t go,” Darren said. “In fact, we need to move the opposite direction. Get as far away from that ship as possible.”
“They’ll run out of power,” Lake said.
Thorne started to move towards Darren, but Darby stepped between them. Despite her size, she was an imposing figure.
“I will take a Zodiac with one of the brothers,” Darby said. “We’ll scout them out. If they need help, we’ll ditch the Wiglaf and bring them back in the Zodiac.”
“Fine,” Darren said, “do it.”
“Smartest thing you’ve said all night,” Thorne said.
***
“We have lost it on the sonar,” Abuukar, one of Daacad’s ensigns, said as Daacad stared out of the bridge and into the darkness of the night.
“Did anyone confirm a hit?” Daacad asked.
“No, sir,” Abuukar replied.
“Not a one? How many rockets did we send?” Daacad asked.
“Three, sir.”
“Send me the men that fired the rockets.”
Orders were called out and Daacad waited patiently, his face blank, for the men to arrive.
“These are the three men that fired, sir,” Abuukar announced as three scared looking men were escorted onto the bridge. “It was dark and the target was moving---”
Daacad pulled out his pistol and shot all three men in their head. Brains and blood splattered the glass windows of the bridge. No one dared move until Daacad had holstered his pistol.
“We proceed as planned,” Daacad stated. “Follow the tracker. They know where that monster is. I will kill that beast or die trying. And all of you will be coming with me.”
“Yes, sir,” Abuukar said. Everyone else nodded, shocked at the sight of the corpses at their feet.
***
“We are taking on water too fast!” Kinsey yelled. She put her hand up to block a spray of sea water that was aimed right at her face as she sat at the controls, trying to get the Wiglaf to respond. “Any thoughts?”
“We have to just keep going,” Jennings said, “and hope we have enough power to get back to the Beowulf II.”
“Brilliant,” Kinsey said, “just brilliant.”
“What else do you want?” Jennings said. “We can’t surface or they’ll start sending rockets again. Look at the radar! They are almost right on top of us!”
“This is just perfect,” Kinsey said. “I just wanted to get laid and now I’m going to die for it.”
“Wanted to get laid?” Jennings said. “I took you out here to show you how to work the controls.”
“Do you think I’m that stupid?” Kinsey said. “I knew you were hitting on me. Plus, Darby showed me the basics and I’d already gone through the manual three times. I could pilot this piece of shit in my dreams. It’s not rocket science.”
“You’re saying you knew we were going to fuck?” Jennings laughed. “I didn’t even know that. What if I’d said no?”
Kinsey smirked at him.
“What?” Jennings protested. “I might have.”
“No you wouldn’t have,” Kinsey said. “Stop wasting your breath. Actually, stop wasting our breath. Look at the O2 meter.”
“Shit,” Jennings said, “the tanks must have been hit. We’re running out of air fast.”
“Which means we have to surface,” Kinsey said.
“You think?” Jennings replied, slamming his hand against the controls. “Ow.”
“It’s dark, right?” Kinsey said. “Maybe they won’t see us.”
“We could play the maybe game all night long,” Jennings said.
They sat there, each trying to work out what their next move would be.
“What if we ditch?” Kinsey suggested. “We bail when we’re almost to the surface. If they blow the Wiglaf away, then they’ll think we’re dead.”
“Which means we’re stranded in the middle of the ocean,” Jennings said. “I think you forgot to think your plan all the way through.”
“No, I didn’t,” Kinsey said. “While they’re dealing with the mini-sub, we’ll sneak aboard their ship. We’ve already figured out that they’re headed for the Beowulf II, right? That’s their obvious heading. We just stay low and hitch a ride. Might do e
veryone some good to have us onboard that ship if things get tense.”
“Yes, because they aren’t tense now,” Jennings said. He took a deep breath and let it out. “Sure. Let’s do it. Just one problem.”
“What’s that?” Kinsey asked.
“How do we get aboard their ship?”
“That’s not a problem at all,” Kinsey said. “I was almost a SEAL. I’m trained for this.”
“You realize the weakness in your plan is the use of the word ‘almost’, right?” Jennings said.
***
“Off port bow!” a sentry shouted.
Daacad hurried from the bridge, picking up an RPG launcher as he descended the stairs to the deck below. He put the weapon to his shoulder and looked out where the sentry pointed.
“This is how it is done,” Daacad said as he fired the rocket at the surfacing mini-sub.
The explosion lit the night and sent fire raging into the sky. Daacad handed the spent launcher to the sentry.
“Reload that,” Daacad said. “Job well done.”
***
Her breath held, Kinsey tossed the hook and rope up as high as she could, saying a silent prayer that no one would notice or hear the noise. She gave the rope a tug and was confident the hook was secure on the railing above. She hadn’t had to scale a ship’s hull since SQT, which didn’t exactly bring back happy memories.
She pulled herself up and over the rail, a knife in her hand. She should have brought a pistol with her into the Wiglaf, but she didn’t think she’d be engaging hostiles. Lesson learned.
A sentry was about fifteen feet away and began to turn towards her, but she closed the distance and had the knife buried to the hilt up in the soft flesh under his chin, through his palate and into his brain. The man’s eyes widened in surprise then glazed over in death. Kinsey lowered the body to the deck quietly and dragged it over to a lifeboat. She pulled back the cover and shoved the body inside, then crouched low and took a look about. It was clear.
“Come on,” she whispered down at Jennings.
The man was winded by the time he reached the rail and Kinsey gave him a reproachful look.
