Ocean: The Sea Warriors

by Brian Herbert

  Just beneath the surface, Dirk Avondale was coordinating attacks against the torpedo boats. He reported that Gwyneth had successfully forced the submarine onto a beach, using large marine animals to run it up on the shore. Now as Kimo surfaced, he saw the oversized, misshapen Gwyneth high atop the immense blue whale, near a capsized torpedo boat, with sailors in life jackets in the water. Lying face down on the whale’s back, Gwyneth was holding on with her flippers, a lump of amorphous gray atop the much larger animal. Not far away, two more torpedo boats were capsized as well, and sinking….

  A short while later, Kimo assembled his warriors on the surface and was shown three more bodies of fallen hybrids, including two of the newest recruits as well as Phil Austin, the gentle man who had been able to choreograph seahorses in such an entertaining fashion. He was one of the members who was not a fighter (and didn’t command aggressive sea creatures), but who bravely accompanied the force anyway, to serve in any capacity he could. Others like him were tending to the injured now, tying tourniquets around wounded appendages, escorting hybrids away from the bloody and damaged (but still holding) sea barrier that had been the center of all the action.

  Kimo was about to see what he could do to heal the wounded when he saw Alicia standing atop her vee-wave, cutting through the sea like a boat, with fish leaping out of the water on either side of her. She turned toward him, going through an area where a flock of white-and-black gulls were setting down on the water.

  Kimo’s heart sank when he saw a helicopter gunship over her, but it changed course and returned to Hickam Air Force Base. Then, as Alicia neared him, a second gunship swooped toward her. They had no reason to target her; she wasn’t doing anything aggressive, was only out there to show the Navy and the public how beautiful and graceful the creatures of the ocean could be.

  He swam toward her as fast as he could, with powerful strokes, but saw a uniformed man in the aircraft’s open doorway fire a rifle at her. To Kimo’s horror the shot hit Alicia on the upper back, causing her to fall, and the wave to dissipate.

  On one side of Kimo, the immense blue whale surged past, with Gwyneth riding it, still holding on with her flippers.

  When Kimo swam through the floating gulls, they separated to let him past. Ahead of him, the helicopter hovered over Alicia, then lowered something toward her that Kimo realized was a grappling device, tethered to the aircraft by a cable. It grabbed hold of Alicia, and began to lift her upward.

  Gwyneth had the huge whale under Alicia now, and she reached up with her flippers, taking hold of the grappling end and trying to open it, to free its captive. Alicia was slumped over, not moving, and Kimo wondered if they’d used a sedative on her instead of live ammunition. He saw some redness around her upper back and shoulders. Gwyneth was unsuccessful, and Alicia continued being hauled up toward the aircraft.

  A memory passed through Kimo’s mind, about the gulls in the water behind him. He had commanded birds like those once. Bring the helicopter down! he commanded, transmitting a molecular communication to the flock, from his position in the water to theirs.

  As he thought this, the birds lifted off and flew over the gunship, forming a white-and-black mass above it—a thick formation that lowered gradually and curved slightly downward at the perimeters, so that it formed an umbrella of flying creatures over the ‘copter. The aircraft began to lose altitude, dropping toward Gwyneth. He realized the birds were forcing the ‘copter down, but not in any way he had anticipated; he’d thought they would fly into the rotors.

  Gwyneth commanded the whale to move out of the way, causing it to swim in a circle around the site where Alicia had been taken, and where it looked as if she was going to be returned.

  When Alicia was right over the wave tops, dipping in and out of the water, the birds stopped lowering their cover, as if sensing that they didn’t want to harm the young woman. In a few seconds of opportunity, Kimo commanded a school of sawfish to cut the cables of the grappling device. The animals surged forward, some using teeth on the sides of their long snouts to slash at cables that were hanging in the water, others leaping over Alicia and cutting the cables above her.

  The grappling jaw opened, and Kimo swam forward to catch Alicia and take her to Gwyneth. To his dismay he realized that Alicia had a wound on one side of her head, and a trickle of blood was running down her face. It appeared to be a shallow injury, though, and might be from an errant tranquilizer shot. In view of their attempt to capture her, he didn’t think they had been trying to kill her.

  Now the dense umbrella of birds descended more. The helicopter tried to evade them and fly out from underneath, but the main rotor hit the birds, killing many of them and causing the gunship to fall into the water and sink. Kimo saw no sign of the crewmen, and didn’t want to try to rescue them when he had other priorities—getting Alicia farther out to sea and making certain she was all right—and then tending to other injured Sea Warriors. This was war, and he needed to focus on his own fighters, not on those of the enemy.

  He felt her breathing in his arms, taking slow, irregular gulps of air. In view of the abduction attempt, he was also concerned that Gwyneth might be another target, or other Sea Warriors, so that the Navy could analyze them and try to figure out how to use their powers for military purposes. Most of his warriors, however, did not have special powers beyond an ability to swim and live underwater—so he suspected that Alicia’s obvious power with waves was of great interest to the admirals.

  Kimo summoned the Sea Warriors to return, and as they gathered around him he swam in place with his powerful legs, while holding Alicia tight and massaging her neck and back, thinking the thoughts he always had before, when he successfully applied his healing power, knowing it would work but not knowing why, not learning until recently that it only worked when he had a molecular connection to ocean water. But Fred Earhart had died in his arms underwater, only a short while ago. Long moments passed now, and Kimo thought he felt her breathing become more regular.

  Alicia, come back! he thought. My love, come back!

  To his relief she stirred, and the blood stopped running down the side of her head. Kimo tossed a little seawater on it, saw that the wound was vanishing, healing quickly.

  “I have a terrible headache,” she said.

  “I want you to rest,” Kimo said, “and we’ll take you to a place where you can recover.” He saw four helicopter gunships flying toward them. “Now get ready; we’re going under.”

  Kimo gave the command for all of the Sea Warriors and creatures in the task force to submerge. As everyone dove, he stayed with Alicia and helped steady her as they swam together. Other injured fighters were aided by their comrades.

  After taking a roundabout underwater route to make certain they weren’t being followed in some way, they neared the crescent-shaped volcanic island, remaining underwater. The oddly misshapen Gwyneth swam beside Kimo, proceeding quite efficiently despite her bulk, small fins, and undersized flippers. She spoke to him through the water: “I told you before that we have to do more, and that’s why I blockaded the Hawaiian Islands. Now, after seeing the horrors today, the valiant Sea Warriors who died alongside the brave, unflinching creatures of the sea, I say to you again. We must do more. I’m sorry to say this, because I respect you, but if you disagree I’ll have to do something myself. Another escalation.”

  After what he’d just experienced, Kimo could not help but agree. “We’ll work something out,” he said. “This time I’m going to listen to your ideas. But first, I want to see who I can heal—and for those we’ve lost, we must have a ceremony for our dead comrades.”

  Kimo was able to heal numerous gunshot and spear wounds in the ranks of his followers, including an injury to Pauline Deveaux’s tail fin and to Bluefish Williams’ left arm. None of the hybrids Kimo treated—more than twenty of them—had received life-threatening injuries anyway, but at least he kept them from getting infections and from needing to be hospitalized. All of those who perished had died quick
ly—too quickly for Kimo to tend to them at all….

  Late that afternoon, the Sea Warriors conducted a simple ceremony out in deep water, with the sun setting, casting a soft golden glow across the sea. All of the surviving Sea Warriors formed a circle on the surface of the water, surrounding a central area where four bodies floated on palm-frond rafts.

  Kimo spoke touching words to honor the fallen heroes, and added praise for the fish, whales, and other creatures who had died in battle. “May the Goddess of the Sea protect all of you in the afterlife,” he said.

  Then at his signal, the rafts were overturned, and the bodies sank into the sea. Kimo had no doubt they would be consumed quickly by marine animals, and at first he didn’t want to think too much about the details. Then he realized it was a natural process, and he would be part of it himself someday when he died—an everlasting circle of life and death.

  That night, Kimo lay on sand beneath an overhang of rock and tried to fall asleep, listening to the gentle lapping of the waves. He knew with a certainty that there had been deaths on both sides of the battle today—and he had been responsible for the loss of the helicopter crew. With a molecular thought-command, he had caused the floating sea birds to take to the air and foul the aircraft’s rotor, bringing it down. Then he had made no effort to rescue the crew members.

  He recalled Gwyneth saying she felt a powerful sense of allegiance to the sea and its life forms, and none to humankind. When she’d said this, her body had been changing around her, taking her closer physically to the place she had already been for a long time in her mind—to the ocean.

  Kimo felt much that way now, caring more about the swordfish, the sea birds, and other creatures that had died, instead of the helicopter crew or frogmen. Like Gwyneth, he was moving away from his human self—but in his case he still had a body that was, visually at least, human. He wished it were otherwise, that he’d never been contaminated by human genetics.

  ***

  Chapter 23

  Floating in the grotto’s tide pool, Gwyneth felt the waves continuously buffeting her as they lapped in and out of the enclosure, calming her with their timeless presence. She had fallen asleep in the pleasantly warm water, and had awakened to see Kimo, Alicia, and Dirk climbing on the surrounding rock formation and taking seats around her. The three of them wore their black Sea Warrior swimsuits. Soft blue light filtered into the cavern through the entrance.

  “Good morning, Gwyneth,” Kimo said with a smile. “You said we must do more, and this time we’re ready to listen to your ideas.”

  She spoke aloud, still retaining her slight British accent, with her diminutive mouth out of the water. “I have a larger plan, but first I think we need to do some housekeeping. The matter of Vinson Chi’ang and Emily Talbot. They have not yet been captured or killed.”

  The trio stared inquisitively at her, and Dirk asked, “You have heard them communicating in the sea?”

  “No, they’re too smart for that. But I know approximately where they are because I conducted some experiments last evening before it grew dark. I swam along the seabed in the shallows, and saw hundreds of crustaceans, all migrating in the same direction.”

  Kimo’s eyes lit up. “Which direction?”

  “Northwesterly. Toward the National Wildlife Refuge of the Hawaiian archipelago. With those two on the loose, all of us must be extremely careful what we say by molecular communication, because they may be able to hear us, even at a distance. I have not yet determined what the maximum range of communication is in the water, but theoretically it could be quite far.”

  “We need to capture them,” Alicia said. Her expression hardened. “Or kill them.”

  “Exactly,” Gwyneth said, “and we need to accomplish it before we undertake any larger plan. We don’t want them interfering with our operations, or eavesdropping and tipping our hand. I would recommend that we send a full task force to Nihoa, the nearest island in the wildlife refuge. Once we reach there we can then set up a system of triangulation, putting crustaceans in different places in the water, and seeing which direction they go. I suspect that Chi’ang and Talbot are drawing the creatures to them like magnets, and are growing stronger hour by hour as their force is accumulated.

  “I recommend a full task force, because those two may not be easy to defeat, and we will need all the weapons at our disposal, including the ones we have already used effectively. I’ve been taking inventory, and we have reef sharks, sawfish, octopuses, stingrays, and puffer fish that are known to feed on crustaceans, as well as a school of longnose sawsharks that I saw in our flotilla yesterday, creatures that have joined us from Australia. Much smaller than sawfish, the sawsharks are remarkable animals. They have sensory organs that locate the movements and electrical fields of living creatures, and then they use their long snouts to root around in the seabed for fish and crustaceans. We also have savage moray eels that live in reef environments, using strong eyesight and cunning to prey on crabs. In addition, we have venomous sea snakes, electric torpedo rays, and a number of other creatures that will be of use in what I foresee as a battle against Chi’ang and his minions. With our many and varied assets, we should be able to win the battle against a more limited opponent, but first we must locate the targets.”

  “Yes,” Kimo said, his eyes steely. “They will become our prey. Now tell us about your larger plan, Gwyneth.”

  She paused, considered how to put it. “I think all of us will agree that the behavior of the whales and other large sea creatures in the Hawaiian Islands took us by surprise. We thought … I thought … that once they followed my commands in the initial operation—especially the whales—they would continue to obey me. But that didn’t happen. For whatever reason, it did not happen. Even Moanna cannot detect the force that guides the animals in the blockade, or get them to move. Yet, it may not be the mass suicide we fear. Instead, it could be the largest creatures in the ocean taking a stand for every living thing in the water. They have dug in their heels, so to speak, and might not budge from their positions until they get what they want—which is obviously the same thing we want, an end to human abuses in the sea.”

  “You could be right.”

  “Keep in mind, too, that it was box jellyfish and stonefish that were involved in this protest early on, as well as dolphins and porpoises that began to resist training—at least these were the things that humans noticed first. All before we became involved.”

  Kimo frowned. “So the marine animals started this revolt on their own, and now they’re taking it to another level?”

  “It is a dichotomy. The animals seem to want, and even crave, attention from special humans such as ourselves, with our abundant love for them and our superior intelligence. But they also seem capable of carrying on the fight without us if necessary.”

  Nodding, Kimo said, “And our means of communicating with the animals, while improving, is not perfect enough to delve into the subtleties of their behavior and their motivations before they take action. To a large extent, we can only observe what they are doing.”

  “That’s right,” Gwyneth said. “We’re the first Sea Warriors, the first hybrids, and there are many things to work out. The ocean is a complex universe in and of itself, and has amazing creatures inhabiting it, truly amazing and wondrous creatures. I have proven, however, that there are additional whales and other large creatures that will follow my commands for new tasks. I proved that yesterday.”

  “And now you have another task for them,” Dirk said.

  “I do. If my plan works, it will force the United States government to stop killing our comrades on the Hawaiian barricades. I propose that we announce a threat in the media, that we intend to shut down additional U.S. ports if they do not halt their aggressive military actions.”

  “More blockades, presumably?” Alicia said.

  “Starting with one of the west coast ports, perhaps San Francisco, because of the relatively narrow opening from the sea to the bay. With that bottleneck in th
e Golden Gate channel, blocking it would also cut off the Port of Oakland, and a number of other ports in the Bay Area. It would get the government’s attention even more than we already have, because it shows what we can continue to do—and what we will do to expand our power and wreak havoc—if they don’t cooperate. First we make the threat, giving them a small amount of time to halt military action. Then, if they don’t cooperate, we make our move. And we never make idle threats.”

  Alicia scratched her chin thoughtfully. “And then the creatures just remain where they are, refusing leave the Golden Gate, even if we try to make them move? Doesn’t that aggravate a problem we already have?”

  “I sense that the animals will leave eventually and go about their customary lives, but only after humans change their destructive behavior. By bringing the most powerful nation on the planet to its knees, we will get other countries to capitulate as well.”

  Dirk let out a long whistle. “If this works, it’s a game changer. But do we have enough whales, plesiosaurs, sea cows, and the like to block San Francisco Bay?”

  “I’m sure we do. Large numbers of animals keep arriving in the Hawaiian Islands. Yesterday, I saw many more pods and schools in the sea than were needed for the Hawaiian cordons. Yes, I’m confident that we have enough. Kimo, I also want your authorization to move against oil-drilling platforms on the California coast if the San Francisco blockade doesn’t get the U.S. government to capitulate.”

  “What would you do to the oil rigs? We don’t want oil spilled all over the sea.”

  “There are many creatures of the sea that can seal up any leaks. I just need to put assets in position before destroying the drilling rigs. It is inevitable that there will be some oil leakage, but I can keep it to a minimum.”

  “You refer to marine animals as assets,” Dirk said, with a little amusement. “You’re thinking in military terms, I see.”