Kraken

by Eric S. Brown

  “Where will she emerge?” Cordova asked, planning to have her taken with guns and at least get in a parting shot at the beast before it finished the Rogue and him along with her.

  The sonar tech’s reply sounded like the screech of little girl as he answered, “Directly beneath us, sir!”

  There was no time for anything else. The mega-squid thudded into the Rogue’s underside with such force that she rose up from the water into the air. Her hull ruptured in numerous places even before the mega-squid’s tentacles lashed out to embrace her. The tentacles squeezed tighter and tighter as metal fractured and bent. Somewhere, in the bowels of the Rogue, the jagged pieces of a folding inward wall put too much pressure on a container of ordnance for her aft torpedo launchers. The crewmen in that area of the ship died instantly as flames washed over them and an explosion shook the Rogue’s already-broken form. It triggered a series of secondary explosions that ran the length of the ship. One boom of fire and flying bits of hull after another rang out until the entire ship blossomed into a bright, blinding burst of fire.

  The mother squid shrieked as her prey unexpectedly exploded in her grasp. She released the blazing remnants of the Rogue and speed away from them, leaving a trail of black blood in her wake.

  ****

  Everyone on the bridge of the Peart heard the explosion that ripped the Rogue apart over the open squadron channel. The Rogue’s comm. officer had been broadcasting over the DESRON’s primary channeling, shouting out a desperate plea for help up until the moment the Rogue was no more.

  Spraker felt a pang of guilt. Cordova had been his friend no matter how much of a jerk the guy was. Spraker knew he had done all he could to keep Cordova in line, but it hadn’t been enough and he wondered if just maybe he could have done something more. Maybe he should have tossed Cordova in the brig and replaced him as commander of the Rogue. It didn’t matter now, though. Cordova was gone and the entire crew of the Rogue with him. Not a single lift boat had hit the water. The explosion had just happened too fast and without any warning.

  Mills and his ship, the Drake, were gone too, having followed Cordova into a battle that never should have taken place. Spraker still couldn’t figure why Mills had done it. Sure, Cordova had appeared to be beating back the squids but Spraker’s orders to avoid engagement of the creatures had also been very clear. Now, there was only the Peart left. One frigate was all that remained from what once had been a full-strength DESRON including four destroyers and their support vessels.

  No matter what Spraker did, he was fairly sure he was going to be brought up on charges when he got home, if he and his crew got home. The brass back home were going to need someone to blame and he was the only commanding officer left. The loss of so many ships wasn’t something that could just be overlooked or swept under the rug. Oh, he was sure the brass would try to do just that. They wouldn’t want to the public to know about the existence of the squids much less that the creatures had engaged DESRON 22 and beaten it. The existence of the squids would cause worldwide panic among mariners if word about it got out and the loss of the DESRON would be taken as a sign of weakness by the enemies of the United States. If a squids could defeat the United States on the open waters, the United States’ enemies would surely feel they could too.

  Cordova may have been a fool, but his death hadn’t been in vain. The man had beaten back the main body of the smaller squids and the explosion of the Rogue, while in the mega-squid’s grasp, had appeared to injure it. The massive monster had fled the burning wreckage of the Rogue at a speed well over thirty knots, leaving a trail of its thick, black blood in the water behind it. Spraker didn’t dare hope the thing’s injury was enough to keep it from circling around to engage the Peart, though. Nonetheless, Cordova and the crew of the Rogue had bought him time.

  Spraker had the Peart running full out now, her engines straining to muster all the speed that could be forced out of them. He knew it wouldn’t be enough. The best he could hope for was to gain a few more minutes of safety before the mother squid shook off her pain and came after them. There was a risk the Peart’s engines would fail being pushed as hard as they were, but Spraker saw the risk as worth it. Every second he could buy his ship and crew mattered. Each one gave them that much longer to come up a plan on how to deal with the mother squid. The problem was that Spraker wasn’t sure there was a way to deal with the thing. She was so massive that the odds of killing her with the weapons he had at hand were slim unless he used the Peart itself as a bomb just as Cordova had unintentionally done with his ship the Rogue. Spraker had to admit to his self that he might have considered doing just that and having his crew abandon ship beforehand if it wasn’t for the fact that the smaller squids weren’t entirely beaten. There were enough of the small creatures out there to make short work of any lifeboats that he put into the water. The life boats only defense would be the small arms of their passengers and the small squids would easily overwhelm them through sheer numbers.

  Spraker’s dark musings were brought to an end as his XO, Arron, approached him.

  “Sir, Mr. Iver is waiting on you just outside of the bridge. He’s requested to speak with you.”

  Shrugging, Spraker rose from his command chair. “Sure, why not? Time is all we have left at this point and there’s nothing we can do until that thing out there decides to make its move.”

  ****

  Lex Iver desperately longed for a cigarette as he stood outside the entrance to the Peart’s bridge waiting on Commander Sparker to agree to see him. If the two marines, Diana and Fox, who stood guard, blocking his path, were to be believed, they had let Spraker know he was there. Lex had, for the most part, quit smoking years ago. Mary had made him promise to give it up when they got married. Even so, it took all his willpower not to ask one of the marines if they had a smoke.

  He noticed Diana cock her head and place a finger on the earpiece that was part of her combat helmet.

  “Mr. Iver,” she told him, “the commander has agreed to see you, sir.”

  “Thank you,” Lex told the two marines as they moved out of his path to allow him to enter the bridge.

  The ship’s XO, Arron, met Lex as he entered the bridge. Arron greeted him with a weak attempt at a smile. “It’s good to see you again, Mr. Iver.”

  “If by that you mean it’s good we’re all still alive, I wholeheartedly agree,” Lex laughed. “Anything I need to be made of aware of before I see the commander?”

  Arron paused before answering Lex’s strange question. Lex Iver wasn’t a part of the DESRON’s chain of command or even part of the Peart’s crew. He was a civilian, horror author that they had rescued from the cruise liner, the Pleasure Bound, when all the madness they were now living in had begun. Still, Lex’s insight on the squids had proved extremely valuable. Without it, they might all have been dead already.

  “I’m not sure what you mean, sir,” Arron answered cautiously.

  “Cut the crap, Arron. Military protocols be damned. I have a right to know what’s happening out there. I’m stuck on this frigate just as much as you are.” Lex stood up tall as he demanded the information from Arron.

  With a heavy sigh, Arron started talking. “We were engaged by the squids or rather the other two remaining frigates of the DESRON engaged them. Both of those frigates were lost but not before doing a great deal of damage to the lesser squids.”

  “Lesser squids?” Lex repeated the words even as he reeled from hearing that the Peart was now the only remaining vessel of DESRON 22. “I take it my theory that was a mother creature out there somewhere has proved true and you’ve seen her.”

  “Yes, sir,” Arron nodded. “However, I think it best that Commander Spraker tell you anything else you wish to know. If you’ll follow me, he’s waiting for you in his ready room.”

  Lex followed the big executive officer to the door of Spraker’s ready room and allowed Arron to open it for him. Arron gave him a parting look that that told him Spraker was just as worried about th
eir current situation as he was.

  Spraker sat behind his desk, puffing on a cigarette as he stared through the ready room’s sole window at the waves beyond it. His gaze shifted to Lex as the horror author entered.

  “I hear you need to see me,” Spraker commented.

  Lex nodded, eying the pack of smokes that laid on top of Spraker’s desk. Spraker must have noticed.

  “Go ahead and fire one up if you want,” Spraker gestured at the pack and the lighter next to it. “It’s likely to be your last one.”

  “Your XO just told me that this ship is the only left,” Lex commented.

  Spraker frowned. “You were right about the mother squid thing. She’s massive like some sort of Kraken right out myth, only larger than I would ever have imagined could exist in the real world.”

  Lex took a cigarette from Spraker’s pack and lit it. He drew a long drag of smoke into his lungs and savored the feeling of it before replying, “A Kraken. I suppose that’s as good a name for that monster out there as any.”

  “What do you want, Mr. Iver?” Spraker said, getting down to business.

  “I wanted to warn you about the Kraken,” Lex chuckled darkly. “I guess I’m too late.”

  “You told me about the thing when we last talked, Mr. Iver. I just wasn’t ready to hear you then. Oh, I listened I guess but I wasn’t ready to believe it…and we’ve all paid the price for it too.”

  “So that’s it then?” Lex challenged Spraker. “You’re just giving up?”

  “What else can I do, Mr. Iver?” Spraker took a final puff from his cigarette and ground out the glowing ember of its butt in the ashtray in front of him. “We can’t outrun the thing. We can’t seem to get a distress call out no matter what we do. And let me tell you, from what I have seen, we sure don’t have the firepower to fight it.”

  Lex grunted. “I, for one, would like to do more than just sit here waiting on that monster to show up and have us for its next meal, Commander.”

  “Then I hope you have a plan, Mr. Iver, because I sure don’t,” Spraker admitted.

  “I wrote some Kaiju books early in my career, Commander,” Lex laughed. “The monsters always won in them.”

  “Arron mentioned that. My XO is rather a fan of your work.”

  Lex smiled. “Not that it matters. I won’t be writing anything else unless we come up with some means of getting out here alive.”

  “Like I said, Mr. Iver, I’m fresh out of miracles.” Spraker shook his head in frustration.

  Lex and Spraker both flinched as the Peart’s CIWS sprang to life. The fire of the automated defense system sounded like a continuous roar of thunder. The Peart’s alarm klaxons began to blare as Spraker leaped from his seat, rushing towards the bridge with Lex following after him.

  “I guess you’re right, Iver,” Spraker laughed. “It’s just not in me to go down without a fight!”

  ****

  Spraker nearly collided with Arron as he raced onto the bridge. The large XO was in a panic.

  “She’s back?” Spraker shouted. “The Kraken?”

  Arron stared at his commander. “Kraken? Is that what we’re calling that monster now?”

  Spraker glared at Arron.

  “No, sir!” Arron reported, snapping to attention, at the look of pure anger in Spraker’s eyes. “It’s the small squids, sir. They came out of nowhere! Somehow the sonar didn’t detect them until they were right on top of us.”

  ****

  Robert Vancel was the ranking officer of the marines aboard the Peart. The command actually belonged to Page though. Vancel’s was only supposed to be on the ship as an observer during DESRON 22’s shakedown maneuvers. Given the direness of the mess they were in though, Vancel had taken command. He and Page stood together on the Peart’s forward deck, accompanied by over half of the frigates marines, watching the squids come. The darted through the water like red blurs of lightning. The ship’s CIWS was letting the creatures have it too. The virtual wall of bullets it pumped into the water as the squids closed in caused to it churn and grow black. Vancel couldn’t even guess at how many squids were being ripped apart beneath the waves. The number had to be staggering. Yet, the creatures came on. Those who made it passed the fire of the CIWS leaped from the waves onto the Peart’s hull. Each of them clinging to the spot where the landed just long enough to orientate themselves. Then, they began their climb. Vancel watched a squid flinging one of its tentacled clubs upwards to pierce the metal of the side of the ship. It used that tentacle to heave its body up, rolling over itself as it went, to lash out its other tentacled club and hook into the ship even higher. The process was carried out with a speed almost equal to that the squids demonstrated in the water. Hundreds of the creatures swarmed the Peart in such a manner, despite the fire of the CIWS.

  “You ready for this?” Vancel asked Page as he chambered a round in his shotgun.

  Page gave Vancel a quick nod, readying his M-16. “It’s what we get paid for, sir.”

  The two of them backed away from the edge of the deck to allow the squids to come over it without resistance. Vancel wanted the creatures to pile into the large, open kill zone of the forward deck and they obliged him.

  Vancel and the Peart’s marines concentrated their fire at the largest cluster of the monsters in the bow of the ship. One squid took a round from Vancel shotgun and blew apart in a spray of black blood and jagged pieces of torn meat. Page poured his fire into another of the creatures. Its body jerked as burst after burst from Page’s M-16 ripped into it. Someone tossed a grenade over Vancel and Page. It landed into a group of squids who had gathered near the forward railing. The explosion hurt Vancel’s ears as the squids caught in its blast were all but disintegrated from the shrapnel that was sent flying out in all directions.

  The marines didn’t let up, but even so, the squids were gaining ground. For each one that fell, another made it that much closer to the marines’ position. The mass of the squids continued to press forward in such a manner until a .50 cal, located on the command deck of the Peart, overlooking the battle, began to chatter. Its high-powered stream of fire swept over the squids like a scythe raking down rows of wheat. A cheer went up from the ship’s defenders as they continued their fight.

  Vancel looked towards the .50 cal emplacement to see that Page’s “men,” Diana and Fox, were responsible for bringing the heavy weapon to their aid. He thanked God for them as Diana clutched the weapon’s firing mechanism, mowing down the squids in her line of fire, and Fox did his best to keep the ammo flowing to her.

  “We have to hold them here!” Vancel shouted, trying to make his voice heard over the cacophony around him.

  “Sir!” he heard Page scream at him. Even so, Vancel didn’t see the squid that was flinging itself at him until it was too late. The squid landed on him, its arms wrapping around his upper body. Vancel’s shotgun clattered to the deck at his feet as the creature’s limbs tightened. Vancel looked down at the thing just in time to see its beak-like mouth dig into his guts. He screamed as the squid’s mouth worked. It reached inside him through the open wound that was now the bulk of his stomach pulling out strands of red-slicked intestines. Vancel’s arms were caught and jerked outwards from his body the squid’s tentacles, exposing even more of his body to the reach of the thing’s beck. As Vancel’s resistance grew weaker, the squid lowered some of its own legs to support the weight of the two of them and keep Vancel on his feet as it continued to feast on him.

  Page’s mouth filled with vomit as he watched what was happening to Vancel. He spat it out and took aim at his CO’s head. A three-round burst from his rifle put Vancel out of his misery, splattering the older man’s brain matter into the air as they blew apart his skull. Only then did Page turn his attention to the squid holding up Vancel’s corpse as its beak continued to strike out at it, tearing away rib bones and strips of exposed lung tissue. Page put a burst into the squid’s side. The creature screeched as it released Vancel’s corpse and tried to flee. Page’s
second burst finished the monster as its bullets produced large holes in its main body. The squid flopped to the deck, leaking black blood that pooled quickly around its motionless form.

  Sensing movement in the air to his left, Page ducked just in time to escape a squid landing on him. The creature flew over him and landed roughly on the deck. It lashed out with one of its limbs, slashing a deep, red groove of torn flesh along Page’s inner right thigh. Page clenched his teeth against the pain as he rammed the barrel of his weapon into the squid’s main body mass before squeezing its trigger. An explosion of splattering black blood rained over him. The squid’s blood was cold and slime-like against his exposed skin. There was no time to wipe it off, though. The .50 cal on the deck above the battle had fallen silent and the squids were pressing forward with renewed fury.

  “Fall back!” Page yelled at the top of his lungs before he realized that most, if not all, of his men were already dead. He stood alone, surrounded by hungry, madden monsters from the depths of the ocean.

  “Oh, crap,” were Page’s last words before dozens and dozens of tentacles lashed out to grab his arms, legs, throat, and torso. The ends of others buried themselves in his eye sockets. Still others dug into his stomach and wriggled through his innards. One even inverted his genitals as it rammed upwards between his legs into his body.

  The deck of the Peart was slick with the blood of both men and squid as the creatures finished Page and began to make their way towards the welded-shut entrances that led into the ship’s interior.

  ****

  Diana and Fox had abandoned the .50 cal on the command deck as they neared the end of the weapon’s ready ammo. Diana hated doing so. They were basically leaving the rest of the marines engaged with the squids on the forward deck to die. Without the support of the .50, it would happen quickly too. Fox had an idea of how the rid the deck completely of the squids though and if his idea had even a remote shot of doing the job, it was something that had to try.