Ocean: The Sea Warriors

by Brian Herbert

  Alicia had never seen anything like it. The ichthyosaur looked like a cross between a dolphin and a crocodile, with very sharp teeth. In Greco’s presence, it was docile, but she could only imagine what it might do if he sent it into battle.

  Now Greco showed Kimo and Alicia a member of the other supposedly-extinct species, and said, “This is a male roifosteus. Observe the long snout, and the powerful jaws that enable him to crush his prey.”

  “They look like nice additions to our force,” Kimo said.

  Dirk Avondale incorporated the new species into his attack plan, and the scholarly professor as well, to guide them.

  When all was in readiness—at least as much as time permitted—Kimo told his warriors to rest for a couple of hours. “We leave at dawn,” he said.

  ***

  Chapter 21

  Just before dawn, a huge underwater flotilla of sea creatures moved toward Oahu, so numerous that they encompassed an area larger than the island itself. In the front, Kimo, Alicia, and Dirk swam at moderate speed, a compromise selected so that all of the varying species could stay together. Kimo worried about the dangers that lay ahead, but he’d been impressed by the quickness with which the various schools and pods of predator fish, whales, and jellyfish (and other marine life forms) congregated and held their sections together, and the way they did not feed off each other during this critical time. For this joint effort, the normal food chains of the ocean had been suspended, as predator and prey swam side by side, focused on a common goal.

  With powerful arm strokes and leg kicks, Kimo sped ahead a short distance and then surfaced in the bright aquamarine sea. He could see the craggy uplands behind Honolulu now, and the tallest buildings of the city, as well as the gray, black, and white cordon of large sea creatures ringing the island. Navy warships were stationed on each side of the floating barricade, and there were fishing boats and pleasure craft on this side, unable to get through. The sea barrier was under attack from the water and the air, as the Navy appeared to be making efforts to recover their three trapped warships—or they were sacrificing the ships and trying to blast their way through the cordon, attempting again to create a passageway in and out of Pearl Harbor. Feeling his pulse quicken in anger, Kimo swam on the surface now.

  Glancing back, he saw Alicia surface behind him—as planned—and she formed a large, vee-shaped wave, on which she stood. On either side of her, small flying fish began to leap, accompanied by larger porpoises, dolphins, and spear-nosed sailfish. Directly behind her, a large colony of Portuguese man-of-war floated forward (adjusting their floating gas sacks to sail in one direction instead of drifting in ocean currents), with their spectacular upper colors sparkling in morning sunshine.

  All of these species that were arrayed under Alicia’s command were following instructions by subordinate Sea Warriors who held dominion over them. Her creatures formed an impressive display, designed not so much for attack purposes, but more to show the press and the general public the beauty of sea life, and to elicit sympathy for their cause. This had been Dirk Avondale’s idea, an attempt to counter the negative press that the ocean-rights organization had received.

  “A war is not just won with aggression,” he’d said when making his recommendations. “We also need to win the hearts and minds of the people.”

  Behind Alicia, half a dozen more Sea Warriors surfaced, accompanied by some of the animals that they controlled. Again, these were primarily for display purposes, with yellow porcupinefish inflated to display their spines and moving across the surface, followed by blue-and-yellow spotted boxfish (with naturally armored skins), bluestripe snappers, and even potentially deadly red-striped lionfish that normally inhabited other tropical waters of the Pacific Ocean.

  As Kimo’s nautical task force neared the sea barrier (which remained independent of Gwyneth), a Navy helicopter spotted them and flew overhead, but did not attack. That was a good sign. The enemy might not be aware of everything Kimo was concealing underwater, although they did have underwater surveillance methods, especially in this sensitive military zone. A news helicopter appeared soon afterward, with a photographer strapped inside an open side doorway, taking pictures.

  Kimo heard the sounds of machine-gun fire ahead, and helicopter gunships as they launched missiles at the floating barricade, and the squeals of the big sea creatures as they were hit. He sensed others taking the place of the fallen, and knew they would never stop until they were victorious, or all of them were dead. This was an important message that the warriors needed to get out through Jimmy Waimea and his newspaper, and Kimo would tell him that at the first opportunity. But first he needed to see what he could do to reduce the carnage, and dispatch the enemy.

  In the water just beneath him he saw a team of fast-swimming hybrid Sea Warriors breaking out and swimming past him, to scout ahead. Stingrays accompanied them, ready to discharge lethal, spear-like stingers against any Navy frogmen who had not already been dealt with by the sharks and barracudas that Jacqueline had left behind on her earlier reconnaissance mission.

  Feeling the pulse of the marine power arrayed with him, Kimo dove underwater and fell back to join Dirk Avondale, Napoli Mora, Bluefish Williams, Jacqueline Rado, Fred Earhart, and Professor Marcus Greco—all of them commanding a potent subsurface force of white sharks, tiger sharks, great barracudas, stingrays, swordfish, bluefish, hound needlefish, venomous sea snakes, electric rays, humboldt squids, and lion’s mane jellyfish, as well as two of the supposedly-extinct predators in the force, ichthyosaur and roifosteus.

  Many other aggressive species were in the task force as well, and all could inflict serious injury or death on human beings, and would do exactly that, if ordered to do so by their handlers. Even hawksbill turtles, not normally known for their swimming ability, were proceeding forward at a good clip under the command of Foley Johnson, animals that were ready to use their powerful jaws and dual-claw flippers to administer pain or death. On their backs were wavy, flower-like sea anemones—red, orange, or yellow organisms that were carnivorous, and capable of firing tiny, poisonous darts at the enemy.

  At the rear, the radically-altered Gwyneth McDevitt swam underwater, leading pods of plesiosaurs, humpback whales, sperm whales, narwhal whales (with gnarled unicorn tusks), and even killer whales, which were really immense dolphins, but had fallen under the dominion of the unusual teenager. Similarly, she had twenty whale sharks with her, while smaller sharks fell under the control of Jacqueline and two other warriors who were exhibiting the most influence over them. Gwyneth also had a single, immense blue whale with her, an animal that was larger than any dinosaur in the Mesozoic era. She’d been seen with this animal before—it had a scarred side, perhaps from a past collision with a ship. The whale trumpeted loudly underwater now, anxious to begin the battle.

  And, though they had earlier agreed with Gwyneth’s assertion that she should not risk her life in combat (in large part because of the important storehouse of information in her brain), they had reconsidered, deciding that her intelligence and resourcefulness might very well be a key ingredient in today’s epic confrontation.

  The Sea Warrior scout team returned without the stingrays, which by prior arrangement were assigned to patrol the waters, along with the sharks and barracudas that were already there. The leader of the scouts, Marti O’Hara, swam close to Kimo and Dirk, and transmitted her thoughts across the molecular communication system.

  “The frogmen are nowhere in sight,” she reported, “but the Navy is using torpedo boats and attack helicopters to fire on our whales and other animals that are blocking the entrance to Pearl Harbor, trying to clear them away. They also have a large submarine moving into position on this side, undoubtedly armed with even more powerful torpedoes. I’d say they’re hell-bent on opening a passage to the sea. Oh, I noticed two small submarines on the other side, but they’re just sitting in the water around thirty feet down, not doing anything obvious. They don’t appear to have armaments, so they must be observation
posts. The water is also full of Navy listening devices, their latest electronics.”

  “The Navy is obsessed with breaking open a passage,” Dirk said. “I know how they think, and they’re just as determined as the animals in the sea barrier. Neither side will give an inch.”

  “Let’s see what we can do to change the equation,” Kimo said.

  Then he sent a message to Gwyneth, instructing her to surround the large submarine with whales and every other animal with her to push the boat off course, preventing it from firing into the cordon blocking the harbor. “Point the damn’ thing away from any of us, and have the animals use their combined mass to force it down onto the sea floor. I’d like to keep it there for a while to show we mean business. Can you keep the animals clear of the torpedo tubes, to prevent them from being harmed themselves?”

  “I could try,” Gwyneth said, in her faintly-accented voice. “But I think we should beach the sub instead. I’m worried that our animals might hold it down on the seabed, and refuse to release it. That would endanger the lives of the crew, and cause more bad publicity for us.”

  “You’re right. OK, beach it.”

  Kimo then swam back to Fred Earhart, who had continued to metamorphose, so that his entire head now looked more swordfish than human.

  “Take your swordfish and those spear-nosed sailfish around to the other side,” Kimo said, “and act like you’re going to penetrate the hulls of those two observation subs. They should be down around thirty feet. We’ll send dolphins with you, to pinpoint the subs with their natural sonar.”

  “I’ll stick my own nose up against the subs’ portholes for a real fright,” Fred said, grinning.

  “Don’t take this lightly,” Kimo warned. “You need be on your guard at all times. The subs could have armaments that our scouts didn’t notice, and there’s bound to be other weaponry down there that we don’t know about. In view of the military sensitivity of Pearl Harbor, I’m sure there’s a lot of dangerous technology in the water, so be careful. It could be Navy-trained dolphins fitted with weapons, armed frogmen, or anything else.”

  “Right. I’ll watch out.”

  “And I’ll be right behind you, with Jacqueline Rado and her fish.”

  Leaving Dirk Avondale in command of the operation on the ocean side of the battleground, Kimo dove with Jacqueline and swam underneath the cordon, leading schools of white sharks, tiger sharks, and great barracudas. Just ahead, he saw Earhart at the head of his school of long-nosed attack fish, swimming through the sunlit water behind two bottleneck dolphins, at the depth the scouts had specified.

  The two subs were positioned close to each other where they’d been spotted before, only around fifty feet apart. Earhart surrounded them with swordfish and sailfish, and had the animals bang their sharp snouts against the hulls, but not too hard, not wanting to actually penetrate them.

  Kimo smiled as the subs powered up and headed back toward the harbor, with Earhart and his squadron giving chase. He could just imagine the panicked pilots inside.

  Finally, when Kimo could barely make out the outline of the formation of fish, Earhart turned and headed back toward him.

  Suddenly Kimo became aware of a school of dolphins coming from the right, heading toward Earhart’s squadron, firing what looked like small torpedoes from tubes strapped on the tops of their bodies. Dirk had warned him that dolphins guarded the entrance to the harbor, but Kimo had hoped they only had cameras attached to them, not weapons.

  “I didn’t see them on my recon mission,” Jacqueline said. “I doubt if the dolphins are doing the firing themselves, so it’s probably a remote-controlled targeting system, with operators looking at screens and firing, like in a video game.”

  “I don’t think they’ve seen us yet,” Kimo said. “Let’s go deeper and come up under them.”

  He was already descending when he transmitted the command, and saw her following without hesitation, with her schools of predators right behind, awaiting the command to engage the enemy.

  As Kimo went under the scene of the attack, he saw badly injured, bleeding swordfish and sailfish dropping slowly from above. He couldn’t break away to attempt any healing process on them, so he surged upward with Jacqueline beside him. The great barracudas sped past them, their mouths of sharp teeth open wide, with white sharks and tiger sharks right behind them. They ripped into the Navy dolphins before they could get off any additional shots, shredding the animals and ripping the weapons off their backs.

  Just ahead, Kimo saw Fred Earhart, bleeding badly and foundering in the water, clutching a wound in the center of his chest. Kimo laid hands on him, transmitting his own healing energy into the hybrid man’s flesh. But Fred went limp and didn’t respond, not even to additional massaging efforts. He’d been too grievously injured to be healed, and now Kimo couldn’t bring him back from the dead.

  He draped Earhart’s body over his back, and used the weapon strap from one of the dead dolphins to secure the man’s hands together on Kimo’s chest, as if he were holding on. Then he surged toward the cordon, intending to go under it.

  But looking back, Kimo saw three Navy frogmen swimming toward him, armed with high-powered spear guns.…

  ***

  Chapter 22

  Outside the hospital in Wanaao Town, Ealani Pohaku led a healing ceremony for Preston Ellsworth, who lay in a coma inside. She smelled the freshness of the air from a rainstorm that had come and gone only minutes ago, leaving the small group of people wet. She wiped moisture that trickled down her forehead from her hair. Ealani liked the pungent smell of the earth after downpours, when the nutrients in the soil were energized, and small ground-dwelling creatures stirred around, partaking of the bounty of the Earth.

  She wore one of her best muumuus, a long red dress adorned with yellow hibiscus flowers. A necklace of small, striped cowrie shells encircled her neck, along with a thicker necklace of polished, rich brown kukui nuts. Beside her stood the bespectacled Catholic priest in his black robe, holding a Bible in one hand and a small silver cross in the other. Though Preston Ellsworth had never been a religious man, years ago his mother had been a devout Catholic, so the healers thought it would be nice to call up some Catholic blessings alongside the more traditional Hawaiian words and chants that Ealani knew so well.

  Both of them had already spoken to the gathering of townspeople, and now everyone bowed their heads in prayer. It was a wordless gesture that seemed to merge the two religious traditions and erase all differences in them—as if a sudden rainstorm had fallen from on-high, cleansing everything in its path….

  President Fillmore Vanness opened a bound report bearing the Top Secret imprint of Naval intelligence. It was a summary of the Navy’s efforts to thwart the activities of the Sea Warriors, a radical environmental organization. A fast reader, he absorbed the material quickly, including the accompanying diagrams and photographs that showed the extent of the Sea Warrior blockades in the Hawaiian Islands, and a detailed crime report on the bizarre murders of more than six hundred Navy seamen.

  The President had been receiving regular reports on the unusual events in Hawaii, and on the Sea Warriors, who were on a watch list of potential terrorist organizations. Their blockade of Pearl Harbor alone qualified them to be formally declared terrorists, but the President and his national security advisers did not want to take that step yet, not until they had evidence that the leadership of the organization had ordered the blockade and the murders—instead of those being the acts of three purported “rogue” members.

  For the time being, President Vanness was leaving the Navy in charge of dealing with the Sea Warriors on a day to day basis. He was confident that the powerful naval and air force would remove the blockade soon, reopening Pearl Harbor and the rest of the Hawaiian islands to normal military and commercial shipping activities.

  President Vanness set the report aside, opened another one on an entirely different matter—an ongoing dispute with India over tariffs the United States had impos
ed on their imported goods. There were so many problems to deal with in his position….

  Kimo swam as fast as he could to escape the three frogmen, but with the burden of Earhart’s body they were gaining on him. A spear sped past his head, so close that he heard it and felt the pressure-displacement of water. Just then, a Giant Pacific Octopus appeared behind him, filling the water with dense black ink to shield his escape.

  He wondered how the octopus had gotten there, and how it could move so rapidly in waters that were considerably warmer than the seas off the coast of British Columbia where its species was so abundant. He’d seen them on occasion in the deeper, oxygen-rich waters of Moanna’s domain, so he decided the animal must have come from there.

  Now, as Kimo swam under the cordon, he was startled by a school of large, hound needlefish and another of stingrays, trailed closely by two humboldt squids that were each more than twelve feet long. All surged toward him and then past. Through hazy water he saw a needlefish impale one of the frogmen through the chest before the man could get off a shot, then withdrew and let him drift down, bleeding to death in a murk of red water. The other two frogmen managed to fire but it did them no good, as a stingray and a jet-fast squid rushed forward. The stingray whipped its tail to discharge volleys of sharp, venomous barbs into one man’s chest, while the squid grabbed the other frogman with tentacles and tore into his body with its sharp beak, ripping off chunks of flesh and then letting him go. Mortally wounded, both frogmen tried to swim away but couldn’t, and finally went limp, drifting and sinking in bloody seawater.

  One of the newest Sea Warriors swam toward Kimo and transmitted a molecular communication, asking if he was all right. It was a stocky young woman, Roberta Barkley. Kimo nodded to her and swam by with Earhart’s body, rejoining the rest of his force on the outside of the cordon. The Sea Warriors had stopped the mini-subs, the armed dolphins, and the Navy frogmen, but at great cost, on both sides.