by Jake Bible
“Get below!” Nivia shouted and grabbed Kyle by the hand. She pulled at him, racing to the open hatch. “Come on!”
“Niv? What is going on?” Kyle bellowed. “What is happen—?”
His words were cut off as his hand jerked free of Nivia’s grip to swat at what had latched onto his left cheek.
“Oh God!” he yelled. “Get it off! Get it off!”
Before the last word was out of his mouth, his entire face was covered in flying bugs.
Beetles. That was what Nivia thought just before she made the most painful decision in her life.
Beetles.
She tried to slam the hatch closed as she stumbled backwards down the steps. Dozens of the insects collided with the hatch door, popping it back open. Her feet went out from under her and her head slammed into the floor as she fell the last two steps. Stars lit up her vision, and for a split-second, she could only think about the pain.
But that split-second was over when Kyle’s agonized screams sliced through her daze.
Nivia scrambled back from the bug-covered hatch, spun about, and pushed up onto her feet. She hurried as fast as she could to the master cabin, knowing the door there was the most solid on the yacht. Instinct told her that a solid door was her only chance. Instinct and the sound of the cabin behind her being ripped into by a hundred hungry mandibles.
She made it into the master cabin, slammed the door, raced into the head, slammed that door, and dove into the shower, tucking her legs up to her chest, her eyes locked onto the closed door.
Above, Kyle’s screams grew fainter and fainter until they stopped altogether.
Nivia’s eyes never left the head door.
Chapter Two: A Crisis of Darby
Max Reynold’s head rocked to the side and blood, with possibly the fragment of a tooth, went flying against the Beowulf III’s passageway wall, streaking the grey metal with bright red.
Being over two hundred pounds and built like a California surfer boy, Max should have been able to easily handle his opponent since she was considerably smaller and weighed maybe one hundred pounds soaking wet. But the woman going after him was in a berserker rage and had fighting skills that surpassed Max’s. He was a shooter, a trained US Navy SEAL sniper, not a fucking ninja like Darby.
“Darby! Stop!” Max shouted as he ducked under a jab, avoiding getting his left eye crushed, but took a knee to his chin for the effort. “Dammit! Stop!”
Darby was not going to stop. Her eyes were wild and unfocused, the total opposite of her punches and kicks. Those were plenty focused. Focused on Max.
He fell to the passageway’s floor and managed a leg sweep, taking Darby out at the ankles. It probably saved his life as the crazed woman had reached for the knife buckled to her belt and was about to draw it on him. With his other leg, Max kicked out, catching Darby right between the eyes, stunning her, and giving him the seconds he needed to scramble backwards and get back on his feet.
Not that he stayed there for very long.
The knife hit him in the right calf, sinking deep between the muscles and hitting bone with a mind-numbing amount of pain.
“Motherfucker!” Max yelled as he fell forward, his head just missing the first step of the stairs that led to the deck above.
He could hear her coming up on him fast, and he barely rolled over in time to catch her boot in his hands as it came down straight at his head. He shoved with all of his strength, sending her flipping over backwards. Literally. She executed a perfect back flip, the heels of her boots just clearing the passageway ceiling, and came down in a solid crouch, a predatory sneer on her face.
“Who am I?” she growled. It was a feral noise, barely human. “Who am I?”
“You’re Darby,” Max gasped as he yanked the knife free from his calf. The handle was so slippery with blood that he doubted he’d be able to keep a hold of it for more than a couple swipes, but it was better than nothing. “You are Darby. I’m Max. We love each other and do sexytime things together.”
“No,” Darby said as she shook her head back and forth. “That’s not my name. Who am I?”
“Jesus, Darbs, you have got to knock this crazy shit out,” Max pleaded. “Get your damn head back together.”
“WHO AM I?” she screamed and lunged for him.
She had speed and the super psycho moves, but he had position and his handy boot. Max was ready. So was Darby.
Max could see her realize what he was about to do right at the last second. She twisted her body around and slid under his boot as he lashed out. Her momentum kept her sliding and added extra force to the punch she landed right between his legs.
The air left Max’s lungs in a surprised and agonized whoosh. His stomach tightened and he turned his head quickly as he vomited up the oatmeal he’d eaten only an hour before. His entire pelvis felt like fire, then went numb, then came back to life with such painful force that he vomited a second time.
Below him and between his legs lay Darby, smiling up at him, ready to strike a second time. Max wanted to cry.
“Who am I?” she whispered as she started to strike.
Her fist halted in mid-thrust and her eyes rolled up in her head as her body jerked and arched. Max was barely able to scramble away up a couple of steps before her arms began to flail violently.
Through blurry, pain-filled eyes, Max looked down the passageway and saw his brother, Shane, standing at the other end with a rifle to his shoulder, a long cord stretching from the barrel to Darby. Max glanced down at the woman he loved and saw the other end of the cord embedded in her left thigh. Small arcs of electricity crackled around the steel barb that had penetrated through her pants and into her flesh.
Darby jerked for a couple more seconds then went still.
“You good?” Shane asked.
“No,” Max said, his voice barely above a whisper. “She nut clocked me, bro.”
“Shit,” Shane said.
The Reynolds brothers were nine months apart and almost looked identical, both with yellow-blond hair, green eyes, and freckles across the nose. But there was one easy way to tell the difference between—Max was missing his left ear and had scar tissue running from his scalp, down his neck, and onto his shoulder while Shane had only one eye, his left socket covered over with a black patch adorned with a prominent pot leaf.
“Move!” Gunnar Peterson shouted as he pushed past Shane and raced down the passageway to Darby. He fell to his knees, yanked the electrode barb free of Darby’s thigh, opened a med kit, grabbed out a stethoscope, and proceeded to check over the unconscious woman.
“She alive?” Max whispered.
Gunnar looked at him and frowned. He had a bandage across a broken nose and both of his eyes were surrounded by black bruises. Just the act of frowning made him wince. “You okay?”
“I had a knife in my leg,” Max said, waving the bloody blade at Gunnar.
“I’ve seen you stabbed before,” Gunnar said. “And you should have left that in, dumbass.”
“I thought I might need it,” Max said.
“What else?” Gunnar asked, as if a knife in the calf was just an ordinary thing.
“Nut clocked,” Max said.
“Ah, there’s the real pain I see on your face. Sorry,” Gunnar said. “And, yes, she’s alive. Heart sounds strong.”
“No shit,” Max said. “Everything with her is strong.”
“How’d she get loose?” Shane asked as he reeled in the cord, careful to not let it get tangled as it retracted into the barrel of the specialized rifle. “Did you fall asleep again?”
“No,” Max said. “She managed to get out of her manacles and sucker punched me as I stepped into the brig. I don’t know how, but she picked the cell’s lock and was just waiting there for me to open the door.”
“Sneaky little ninja, that lady of yours,” Shane said.
“Tell me about it,” Max agreed. He took a couple of deep breaths.
“Feeling better?” Shane asked.
&
nbsp; “Somewhat. Gonna need ice,” Max replied. “Lots and lots of ice.”
“Help me carry her down to the infirmary,” Gunnar said as he stood up, slipping a used syringe into a hazmat bag he pulled from his med kit. “She won’t wake up for at least two hours. Normally, I ‘d say five hours, but not the way she’s been burning through the sedative.”
“You sure you want her in the infirmary?” Shane asked. “That’s nowhere near as secure as the brig.”
“How’d that work out?” Gunnar asked.
“Right,” Shane said, nodding. “Infirmary it is.”
He grabbed Darby and tossed her up over his shoulder. She weighed almost nothing, even less than usual, since she’d refused to eat anything for the past four days.
“You need help, Max?” Gunnar asked.
“I need ice for my nuts,” Max said.
“Your leg, Max,” Gunnar sighed. “Do you need help walking or can you limp after us?”
“I can limp,” Max said. “It hurts, but it didn’t hit anything important. Just gonna need some stitches.”
“Probably a little more than stitches,” Gunnar said. “You stay put. We’ll come back for you.”
“Bring ice,” Max said.
“You already whined about the ice, bro,” Shane said. “Don’t be such a baby.”
Max nodded at the puddles of his own sick. “That look like I’m being a baby?”
“That looks like baby puke to me,” Shane said and grinned. “You good here?”
“I can walk. I’m coming with,” Max said and stood up. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Conference room,” Shane said. “They’re still trying to find us a place to drop anchor.”
“How’s that going?” Max asked, taking very small steps, breathing deeply through each one. He shook his head and abruptly sat down. “Nope.”
“Stay put,” Gunnar ordered.
“The meeting?” Max asked Shane.
“It’s going about as well as all of this,” Shane said, nodding to indicate the insanity that had just taken place in the passageway.
“Awesome,” Max said.
“Ballantine will find something,” Gunnar said.
“You’re placing a lot of faith in the guy,” Shane said.
“I’m placing a lot of faith in his wife,” Gunnar said. “I think Ballantine wants off this boat as much as everyone else just so he can get away from her.”
“Honeymoon is over,” Shane said.
***
The group stared at the spread out maps and charts, everyone’s eyes rimmed red and nerves frayed to breaking. Only Ballantine looked as cool as ever, dressed in his khakis and polo shirt, a tan, buff-looking simulacrum of the average golf pro.
“You all aren’t giving up on me, are you?” Ballantine asked as he sat down at the head of the table and kicked his loafer-shod feet up onto the edge, a sly smirk playing at his chapped lips.
Vincent Thorne, a grizzled ex-Navy SEAL commander and head of Team Grendel, snorted and shook his head.
“Can’t give up on you when you’re the only one that knows what’s on these damn charts,” Thorne said as he smacked the table with both hands, leaning his weight forward so the very expensive table groaned slightly. The noise got an eyebrow raise out of Ballantine, but nothing more. “Stand your ass up, Ballantine, and find a new island.”
“There are no new islands,” Ballantine replied. “The last five we checked were destroyed. Nuked like the rest. The remaining ones are useless. No supplies, no facilities, simply a dock or two and a place to take a nice siesta in the tropical sun.”
“There has to be somewhere we can go,” Kinsey Thorne said. Daughter of Vincent Thorne, cousin to the Reynolds brothers, and still struggling daily to come to terms with her self-destructive past as the first female Navy SEAL candidate turned junkie, Kinsey stared at Ballantine with intense eyes. He stared back. “Right? You have an island up your sleeve. You’re Ballantine.”
“I cannot deny that,” Ballantine said. “I am me, but I’m afraid we’ve exhausted all hidden islands. Whoever is nuking them has some inside information and is at least two steps ahead of us. I fear that even if I did have one more island to suggest, we’d just find it destroyed like the others.”
“But what about the offbooks islands,” Dana Ballantine asked from a leather chair in the corner of the conference room. “Those charts there are the ones you don’t mind people knowing about. Perhaps, my love, you could bring out the charts that show all of your assets.”
“It’s improper for me to show all of my assets,” Ballantine replied, his smirk slipping slightly. “Some might say downright indecent.”
“So, you do have other charts,” Darren Chambers stated. Kinsey’s ex-husband, co-head of Team Grendel, and a man with a tendency to be quick to anger and even quicker with his fists when pushed, Darren crossed his arms over his muscular chest and tried his turn at staring Ballantine down. “If you’re holding out on us, Ballantine, then I have a feeling your time on the B3 is coming to an end.”
“Am I to walk the plank?” Ballantine chuckled. He spread his hands. “If there were other options, I would have shared them by now.”
“But there are other options,” Dana insisted. “You know it, I know it. Stop stalling, Ballantine. We don’t have a choice anymore.”
“We always have a choice,” Ballantine said. “We can go in. We find the closest mainland port and we steam right into the harbor, cross our fingers, and hope that every international agency in the world isn’t looking for us.”
“Odds of that?” Thorne asked.
Ballantine pressed his finger and thumb together so there was zero gap between them. “Does that answer the question?”
“What happens if we make land and we’re discovered?” Kinsey asked. “Are we arrested? Tried in the port of call’s country? Extradited to the UN? What happens?”
“Realistically, we’ll be shot on sight,” Ballantine said.
Kinsey looked to her father and he shrugged then gave a small nod.
“Jesus,” Kinsey muttered. “We’re really screwed.”
“No!” Dana yelled as she stood up, her sudden motion knocking the leather chair onto its side. “There are at least six or seven other islands!”
“Dana, not the time,” Ballantine said. His voice was calm, measured. His eyes were hard, cold. “Let’s not destroy the ground we have mended.”
Dana ignored him and stomped to the table. She tossed all of the charts aside and pressed her hand directly on the surface. “Code eight five one one six two one five six eight nine alpha dog dog one five six eight dog dog one.”
“Dana!” Ballantine shouted and stood up as half the table’s surface slid aside and a large screen appeared. “Do not touch that!”
“You should change your password,” Dana sneered.
“Apparently,” Ballantine replied, controlled rage bubbling just below the surface.
Dana touched the screen and a whole set of new charts appeared. Eight locations blinked rapidly, their coordinates nothing but flashing red lights with small skulls and crossbones over them.
“There,” Dana said. “Eight possibilities.”
“I’m thinking the skulls and crossbones are not a good thing,” Darren whispered as he leaned his head in close to Kinsey’s.
“Ya think, ‘Ren?” Kinsey snorted.
***
Lucretia “Lucy” Durning leaned back against the railing of the crow’s nest, her sniper rifle resting in the crook of her arm. Mike Pearlman leaned next to her. They both stared out at the calm sea and sighed at the same time.
“Sucks to be on the outside,” Mike said.
“We’re not on the outside,” Lucy replied. “We’re still Team Grendel.”
“When they need extra bodies,” Mike scoffed. “Hell, Lucy, they demoted you to ship’s security.”
“Only because I keep getting shot on ops,” Lucy admitted. “And bad guys are constantly boarding the Beowulf III. W
e needed a security officer.”
“We’re outsiders,” Mike said. “My connection is with Gunnar, who isn’t even part of the team. They keep me around because I have bionic legs and used to be a SEAL, just like half of them. The SEAL part, not the bionic legs part.”
“Yeah, I got it,” Lucy said with a smirk.
“I’m a body, that’s it, Luce,” Mike continued. “You’re a body, that’s it.”
Lucy turned and looked him square in the face.
“You and Gunnar have a fight or something?” she asked. “What’s up with the pity party?”
“Maybe we had a fight,” Mike said. “Maybe I said some things and maybe he said some worse things.”
“Worse things directed at your SEAL ego?” Lucy asked. “Crybaby.”
“Bitch,” Mike said, but he said it with a smile.
Mike had lost his legs in an IED explosion during his last tour as a Navy SEAL. Former lover of Gunnar’s, he found himself in some hot water with a Mexican cartel and was lucky that Team Grendel was around to fish him out. He glanced down at his cybernetic legs, a gift from the elves in the high-tech Toyshop hidden below decks, and sighed some more. It was a morning for sighing.
“You ever get a feeling in your gut like things are about to go seriously wrong?” Mike asked.
“That’s the feeling I’ve had ever since I stepped on board this ship,” Lucy said. “Or, uh, the previous ship. That first one went down. Hard.”
“Giant sharks will do that to a ship,” Mike said.
Tall and muscular, Lucy came from the Coast Guard’s HITRON program. She had been the shooter and her late friend, Roberta “Bobby” La Pierre, was the chopper pilot. Their job was to hunt down drug smugglers and potential terrorists in the coastal waters off the United States. As she looked out at the wide, endless ocean, she added her sigh to Mike’s.
“I miss being behind my .50 caliber and telling coke smugglers to power down and wait to be boarded,” Lucy said. She patted the sniper rifle in her lap. “Sitting in a crow’s nest and waiting for the next disaster to hit is not what I signed up for.”
