Kronos Rising_Kraken vol.1

by Max Hawthorne

“Patience, Master Barnes,” Captain James Krieger said as he watched him resume pacing. “You’ve got only seventeen minutes left on your watch. Then you’re free to sunbathe, climb the rigging, or crawl into your bunk and pass out, as you see fit.”

  “Sleep? Who can sleep at a time like this?” Billy’s head shake ended in a broad grin. When he first got there, he and Rorqual’s two-dozen other “recruits” had a tough time. Besides enduring bouts of seasickness, they’d been forced to absorb a ton of info the schooner’s experienced core crew threw at them during their first and only formal training session aboard the floating classroom. The physical part, however, had been far worse. Their backs and necks were sunburned from long hours spent scrubbing the deck, their hands blistered and raw from working the lanyards and cranking in the ship’s three-quarter ton anchor.

  That was five days ago. Now, Billy’s palms felt like leather, and he was toughening up on the inside, as well. He was developing a newfound confidence, the kind that playing second-string for his high school basketball team just couldn’t provide. Last week, he didn’t know a beam from a berth. Today, he could tell a cleat from a clew, and differentiate a mast from a mizzen. He felt like a veteran seafarer, one who’d been away from the ocean for far too long and was eager to once again experience everything she had to throw his way.

  “So, Cap . . . just how big is Rorqual?” Billy asked, peering from bow to stern. With no radio messages to receive or send for the last few hours, he felt if he didn’t learn something new he would go mad.

  Captain Jim smiled paternally as he adjusted his white captain’s hat. Billy grinned. Over the last few days, he’d grown immensely fond of the aging German yachtsman. Certainly more so than his uncles, who only cared about their cars and stock portfolios. It was more than Rorqual’s commander just having so much to teach; he was a genuine person who actually cared about his charges, despite the fact he only had them under his wing for a week.

  “Without the bowsprit, this old girl is one hundred and fourteen feet long,” Captain Jim began. “Sparred length is one-thirty-nine. She’s got a twenty-six foot beam and – with you well-fed landlubbers aboard – is pushing three hundred tons.”

  Billy chuckled as he leaned out the doorway, shielding his eyes with one hand as he peered up at the top of the mainmast. He could see his friend Cal in the crow’s-nest, pointing at the horizon and whooping it up as he played lookout. The kid must think he’s Blackbeard . . . actually, make that Spiderman, Billy thought. He shook his head. Although he had no innate fear of heights, the crow’s-nest was one place he had no desire to visit. Getting flung back and forth like an inverted pendulum a hundred feet in the air was not his idea of a good time. But then, Cal always did have a screw loose – one his parents undoubtedly hoped being onboard Rorqual would tighten.

  Billy wandered back inside the bridge, peering through the glass at the black metal railing that protruded from the gunnels. The railing looked like the kind you’d see fencing in big suburban properties . . . or cemeteries. It was constructed of interwoven, solid steel posts that extended six feet out. Each post was three feet apart and had a long, lance-like point, jutting outward at a forty-five degree angle. As he watched, a tern alighted on the hot metal railing and then flapped off, squawking irately.

  “Hey, Cap? Is that railing standard on schooners?” Billy asked. “I remember looking at pictures of the old tall ships and I didn’t see any of them with it.”

  Captain Jim nodded. “In the old days, we didn’t have sea dragons rearing up to snatch men off the decks. The spikes are a deterrent.” He winked. “Can’t have some hungry pliosaur making off with one of my crewman, now can we?”

  As he clocked the sharpened steel spears, Billy’s eyes betrayed a hint of nervousness. He’d been on the lookout for a Kronosaurus since they left port. Out here, past the Keys’ protective nets, he was sure he’d spot one, but so far they’d come up empty. Of course, considering the video clips he watched, maybe they’d been lucky. Rorqual was big, but maybe not big enough.

  “So, if a pliosaur came after us, what would happen?” he asked.

  “Heaven forbid.” Captain Jim raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been running these ‘educational cruises’ for five years in these waters. “In that time, we’ve survived nine run-ins with the scaly bastards, excuse my French. And that’s enough for me.”

  “Nine?” Billy’s eyes popped.

  “Yep. Five of the mid-sized ones tried sticking their crocodile heads up over the gunwales to grab crewmen, but they got stuck on the rail spikes and changed their minds.”

  “Wow.”

  Captain Jim cleared his throat. “And three of them thought the Rorqual was a whale and tried taking a bite out of her hull.”

  Billy swallowed a gasp. “Omigod, what happened?”

  “You could feel the hit,” Captain Jim said, his expression suddenly grave. “The first two just left tooth rakes in the wood. But that last one . . . he must’ve been a big boy. He punched a hole in the keel before he took off.” The old man patted his belly and chuckled. “I guess he didn’t like the taste of tarred oak.”

  “Were you in danger of sinking?”

  “Nah, this old girl’s made of hardwood and she’s got a blister hull to boot. She’s pretty buoyant. We’ve survived squalls at sea, she and I.” He gave the wooden decking under his feet an affectionate thump with his heel. “Take a lot to drag Rorqual under, my boy.”

  As visions of attacking pliosaurs clouded his brain, Billy’s mind began to wander. He imagined himself in full pirate regalia, swinging a giant cutlass as he battled hordes of maneating monsters. Imagine if a Kronosaurus comes after us on this trip? Now that would be a story worth telling the guys.

  Billy’s head shook as he shrugged off his daydream. “Hey, wait . . . didn’t you say there were nine attacks? What happened during the last one?”

  Captain Jim looked down at the floor. “You’re sharp, Billy. Not much gets past you.” He locked the captain’s wheel in place. “The last one was the biggest I’ve ever seen. Sperm-whale sized, easy. She reared up out of the water and squashed down ten feet of the railing like it was nothing. Took two of the crew in one bite before I could stop her.” He shook his head somberly. “Our only fatalities.”

  “God . . .” Billy breathed. “How did you stop her?”

  “With this,” the old man said, resting his hand on a menacing-looking, black and gray rifle that hung on a nearby bulkhead. “My old Barrett XM500 sniper rifle, a relic from my military days.”

  “You shot it?”

  “Right through the eye,” Captain Jim said. His eyes narrowed as he relived the attack. “From point blank range, I put a .50 caliber tungsten penetrator round into her brain.” He pointed outside. “Killed her right there, thirty feet from where you’re standing.”

  “Wow. You . . . you’re a hero!” Billy spouted. “Did they give you a medal?”

  “Nope.” He rolled up his sleeve, exposing a foot-long indented scar that ran from his elbow to his wrist. “But she gave me this little love bite, just to make sure I’d remember her.”

  “She bit you?”

  “Just one tooth,” he said, rolling the sleeve back down. “It was a reflex bite. Damn thing was already dead; her jaws just didn’t know it yet.”

  “Man, I can’t believe you made it.”

  Captain Jim winked. “You don’t survive to my age, kid, without being a wee bit resilient.”

  Billy rubbed at the goose flesh popping up all over his arms. “You don’t think one that size will come after us today, do you?”

  Captain Jim scoffed. “Highly unlikely. The CDF’s had them on the run for years. Most of them know better than to approach a boat this size. They--”

  A loud series of beeps drew Captain Jim’s attention to the ship’s brightly-colored sonar screen. As his brow lines deepened, Billy moved closer. On the screen, a highly-pixilated reading had popped up directly below their position. The signal was massive but amorphous, as
if it was constantly changing shape.

  “We’ve got one . . . make that two large sonar readings: one astern, a second dead ahead.” Captain Jim’s head owled from bow to stern. He turned back to his screen “They’re changing course . . . closing fast.” His eyes went wide. “Good God, it can’t be!”

  BUH-WHUMP!

  There was a thunderous impact and Rorqual came to a sudden stop, her heavy oak frame shuddering. Outside, a dozen crewmen and guests went flying, along with anything that wasn’t tied off or bolted down.

  Caught off guard, Billy was thrown hard to the deck and ended up facedown in a heap. As he lay there, he wondered how an iceberg had ended up adrift in the Straits of Florida. His reverie was interrupted by sudden crash, as a forty-foot spar from one of the masts came hurtling down, embedding itself ten feet into the deck boards and nearly skewering an unconscious mate. Torn rigging and rent canvas cascaded down all around it. As he struggled to his feet, Billy heard a high-pitched shriek, followed by a dull thud. He staggered out of the doorway, his eyes filling with horror. Like a broken doll, Cal’s twisted body lay on the deck, along with a good portion of the crow’s-nest. All around, men and women were screaming and hanging onto any handhold they could find as the wounded Rorqual uttered an unnatural groan and began to move again. The three hundred-ton ship listed hard to port, then swayed sickeningly back toward starboard.

  Billy wiped at some stickiness around his eye, his hand coming away bloody. He was vaguely aware of Captain Jim shouting something at him, but he couldn’t make it out. His ears were filled with a loud droning sound, interspersed with shrieks and the sound of cracking wood. He looked up and saw Stephanie, the pretty blonde he’d just met, hanging upside down, thirty feet in the air. Her right foot was entangled in the rigging and she was screaming for help.

  He had to do something. He had to--

  “Get on the radio!” Captain Jim shouted, grabbing Billy by the shoulders and shaking him.

  Billy blinked repeatedly. “W-what did we hit?”

  “We didn’t hit anything,” the captain growled. He reached over and snatched his rifle off the wall, removing its magazine and checking it before sliding it back into place and giving it a hard smack. He turned toward the door, his blue eyes hard and dangerous. “Something hit us.”

  “What ‘something?’”

  “That.” Captain Jim pointed. As he spoke, he pulled the charging handle on the .50 caliber Barrett back, loudly chambering a round.

  Billy’s next words came out a squeak of purest terror. A series of gigantic tentacles had emerged from the water and were crawling across Rorqual’s broad decks, some gripping the wood, others exploring. They were enormous – as thick as suspension bridge cables, and covered with disc-shaped suction cups the size of SUV tires. The suckers gaped wide like a thousand hungry mouths, their ridged surfaces glistening with some sort of viscous, drool-like slime.

  Any hope Billy harbored that the ship’s protective palisade would deter their monstrous attacker evaporated in seconds. As soon as one of the arms touched the blackened steel spikes the hard metal collapsed as if it was made of rubber. Even the surrounding wood had black, charred drag marks left on it wherever one of the tentacles touched it.

  One of the senior crewmen grabbed a boathook and swung it violently at the nearest tentacle. It was like hitting stone and on the second swing the pole snapped. A section of tendril as thick as a barrel lashed out, striking the hapless man and sending him sprawling. As he started crawling away, the tentacle curled back like a hooded cobra, then extended, feeling around for him. As it passed directly over him, one of its serving platter-sized suckers grazed his back and buttocks and he uttered a God-awful shriek. Billy blinked in disbelief. The crewman’s clothing and much of the flesh underneath had melted away as if he’d been brushed with acid.

  Before the horribly injured mate could draw a breath to scream again, the tentacle struck with astonishing speed. Wrapping around the unfortunate sailor like an attacking python, it held him suspended ten feet in the air before pulling him over the side. As he heard the splash, Billy prayed the doomed man drowned as fast as his screams did.

  KA-WHUMP!

  A second bludgeoning impact shook the wounded Rorqual to its core. Everywhere Billy looked, crewmembers and guests screamed in terror as the monstrous tentacles began scooping them up and dragging them overboard. Captain Jim cursed as the lurching ship caused him to stagger and lose his grip. His rifle clattered to the floor. As he bent to retrieve it, a monstrous tentacle came down over their heads, its weight caving in the bridge’s aluminum roof and shattering all its windows. Billy dropped into a protective crouch and watched as Captain Jim grabbed his gun and rose unsteadily to his feet. He saw the old man freeze, his eyes locked forward, his expression utter astonishment.

  “Krake . . .” he muttered. He stared at Billy with maddened eyes. “They’re Krake!” he shouted.

  “W-what?” Billy sputtered. “I-I don’t--”

  Billy lost the power to speak as a second set of immense tentacles emerged from the churning water. Like a wave, they enveloped the bow of the ship, feeling their way around as they began to seize people. There was a painful cracking sound as one tendril curled around the bowsprit and snapped it like a twig. As Billy helplessly watched, a second found and seized Stephanie around the waist as the poor girl fought to free herself. Her muffled screams ended a second after she was engulfed and torn away. Billy gagged and began to vomit; one of Stephanie’s legs remained behind, horribly twisted and spurting blood as it hung from what was left of the rigging.

  Billy screamed as Captain Jim grabbed him. “Get on the radio!” he bellowed over the screams and crashing. A loud hum shook the boards under their feet. “Send out an SOS to the CDF! Warn them about the Krake! Tell them they need to deal with them!”

  Nauseous and dazed, Billy wiped the puke from his chin and staggered a step back. He spotted the radio and saw it still had power. Outside, a fire had broken out and smoke was beginning to obscure visibility. The shrieking and crashing continued. “What the hell is a Krake?” he yelled. He saw Captain Jim turn to face the carnage, his jaw set. “Wait . . . what are you--”

  “I’m saving my ship!” he snarled. “Get that SOS out and then find a place to hide!”

  Before Billy could respond, Captain Jim plunged into the white smoke, his shouldered rifle extended out before him. He heard a series of incredibly loud gunshots, followed by a deep, resonating rumble that could have been a roar. There were two more gunshots, interspaced with screams, and punctuated by a violent crash that caused the entire ship to shudder.

  Billy gasped. The mainmast had shattered at its base, and the ship’s spine along with it.

  He waited a moment to see if there would be any more gunshots. There weren’t. Outside, the fire was spreading and the screams had begun to die off.

  Because there’s nobody left! Billy thought frantically. He snatched up the radio mike and mashed the transmit button down, his thoughts barely coherent as he started spouting Captain Krieger’s message.

  Outside, through the mist-like smoke, he saw row after row of titanic tentacles begin wrapping around Rorqual amidships, like overlapping belts. The mortally wounded schooner let out a mournful groan and began to shiver. Billy knew she was dying. There had been no reply from the CDF. He cast about, trying to remember where the lifeboats were, and wondering if he should try and make it to one. He shook his head and grabbed the mike one last time.

  “Attention Coast Guard and CDF, SOS, repeat: SOS. This is schooner Rorqual. We have been attacked by--”

  Billy’s word’s jammed in his throat like a rusty saw blade. Through the obscuring smoke, something moved. He leaned forward, holding the bottom of his t-shirt over his mouth and waving his hand in front of his face.

  A moment later, he saw something that caused his heart to plummet into his bowels. One of the behemoth’s gnarled tentacles was worming its way toward the bridge. He could see it through th
e smoke, slithering toward him like a hungry anaconda. As it knocked over a nearby water barrel and reared up, he saw it clearly; its greenish-brown skin bristled with hungry suckers, their surfaces dripping death.

  The Krake had heard his distress calls.

  And it was answering them.

  * * *

  Dirk Braddock grinned as the elevator door whooshed opened and Dr. Stacy Daniels came bounding in. She was wearing workout tights and sneakers and paused to pluck out one of her wireless ear-buds before she shot him her most dazzling smile.

  “Good morning, Dirk.”

  “Hey, you saved me a call,” he said, his chest involuntarily expanding as the familiar scent of jasmine permeated the lift. “I figured you’d be downstairs with Gretchen. You two have been inseparable lately.”

  “She’s shedding,” she replied, then added with a wink, “You know how we girls get when we need moisturizing . . .”

  Dirk chuckled. Despite the fact that they were no longer a couple, the tall, thirty-two year-old Chinese-Jamaican scientist remained one of his closest friends. He thought the world of her, both personally and professionally. In a place like Tartarus, Stacy was a godsend. During her college days, she’d worked for one of the big marine parks as a cetacean handler/trainer, working with dolphins and killer whales. Now, she held PhDs in both Neurobiology and Robotics and was one of the top neural surgeons on the planet, not to mention a highly respected authority on Thalassophoneans.

  Stacy loved macropredators of all kinds, and pliosaurs most of all. A decade earlier, she’d been one of their staunchest advocates and campaigned rigorously against the government’s planned culling program. When it became heartbreakingly obvious, however, that there was no other recourse and the creatures had to be dealt with, she switched over to studying them.

  She’d analyzed how they breathed, moved, mated, and even thought – all in the hopes of developing a scientific solution to the problem, as opposed to wholesale slaughter. Helping Dirk head up the program at Tartarus had been the perfect opportunity for her. Actually, it had been his mom’s idea, and a damn good one at that.