by JE Gurley
13
December 26, 2018, 5:20 a.m. USS Sunfish, Arctic Sea–
“Glad to see you,” Asa called out to Will, as he hopped aboard the Sunfish.
Simon waited until the boat rose and dropped again before making the crossing. “Yeah, your buddies took off and left us here,” Simon growled. “That’s for squealing on us.”
Will glared at the chef. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Yeah, sure,” Simon grunted, and then pushed past Will.
“Damn, forgot something,” Asa said. He ignored the boat captain’s, “Stay here,” and leaped back across to the dock. He went into the column and retrieved the injector arm he had designed for the ROV. “Can’t leave this behind,” he said, smiling. He stepped onto the deck just as the drillship groaned and listed several more degrees.
“Take us out of here, Chico, before debris rolls off the deck on top of us,” Will said.
“I saw that big mother-loving shark earlier,” Asa told him. “It’s not over.”
“No,” Will agreed, “but we cut them down a bit.”
“What now?”
“We get out of the way,” Will replied.
The boat picked up speed and moved away from the drillship. Seconds later, a pair of sleek, stealth Northrup Grumman X-478 UCAVs arrived. The drones’ sixty-two feet wingspan gave them the appearance of raptors. The unmanned drones swept low over the sea seeking targets for their load off AGM-84 Harpoon missiles. The twelve-foot-long anti-ship missiles, with their four-hundred-eighty-pound explosive warheads, could sink a frigate. Asa hoped they would be a match for the megalodon.
“We remain here a while and hope more targets present themselves,” Will answered.
Almost in the wake of the two UCAVs, two white MQ-4C Triton surveillance drones appeared in the sky, scouring the area for targets for the UCAVs to attack.
“More help is on the way. A squadron of AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters left the USS Kirby just after the drones launched. They will arrive on station soon.”
The Vanguard groaned loudly, followed by the sound of gear rolling and sliding across the deck. The drilling derrick swung back and forth like a conductor’s baton. It would not take much more for the entire drillship to topple over. Watching the Vanguard sinking left a hollow spot in Asa’s chest. It had been home for the last two months, and he would miss it.
“I tried to weld the crack in the pontoon, but a megalodon ate the ROV. Then they played hell with the pontoons.” He tried to keep his emotions from his voice, but Will stared at him as if reading his thoughts. The Vanguard was the second drillship the megalodon had sunk out from under him. Was he was tempting fate?
“We anticipated losing it,” Will replied. He looked pointedly at Simon. “That’s why we evacuated the crew.”
Simon glared at the Sunfish’s captain. “If you hadn’t stopped us, we could have made a difference.”
“The ROV would have suffered the same fate as it did during the welding attempt. These things are more intelligent than their modern shark cousins are. If they were just big sharks, we could have wiped them out months ago. These creatures are smarter. It’s more likely you would have died for nothing.”
“It’s my life,” Simon countered.
“And it’s my job to pull your ass from the fire. My crews’ lives are important to me. I’ve already lost two close friends in the last few days. I don’t want to lose anymore, especially saving someone who doesn’t want to be saved.”
Simon stared at Asa as if asking him to choose sides. Asa said nothing. Simon was angry and bitter, but the captain was right. Asa knew now would not be the time to speak out. Chastised, Simon stomped down the stairs. Asa followed him to the cabin to try to talk some sense into him. After all, despite turning them in, the captain of the Sunfish had saved their lives, and he was grateful. Simon ignored the stares from a sailor wearing a diver insignia on his bloodstained uniform and poured a cup of coffee from the urn in the small galley. He sat down opposite the sailor, took the bottle of Bunnahabhain from his jacket, and poured a splash into his coffee.
“Don’t feel too bad. He pulled my ass out of the fire, too. I was on the DSV that deployed the mines. The megalodon hit us hard. I’m the only one who escaped.”
Simon grumbled something unintelligible and sipped his coffee. He held out the bottle. The diver offered his cup and Simon poured a liberal amount into it. “Cheers.”
Asa decided to leave Simon alone in the small galley to brood. After months of planning and single-minded forethought, his carefully conceived plan to kill a megalodon had failed. Asa had never invested that much effort in anything, but he felt some of the chef’s disappointment. For a short while, sharing Simon’s vision, he had felt alive again. Now, he was back in simple survival modem swept along by events instead of controlling them. He had gotten used to that over the past year.
He went back up on deck to smoke a cigarette. He hadn’t had a chance to quench his nicotine habit in hours, and he badly needed to calm his nerves. He found a spot just outside the bridge door, fumbled through the damp pack, and found a dry cigarette. As he took a drag off his cigarette, the Amberjack appeared on the horizon. As it drew nearer, Asa noted that it had sustained some serious damage—a large indentation marred the starboard aft hull, and a chunk of the bow was missing, shorn off by massive megalodon jaws. The boat limped along on only one engine. He heard Will contact them by radio. He eavesdropped.
“Looks like you’ve been in a fight,” Will said.
“You should see the other guy,” the Amberjack’s captain replied.
“Do you need assistance?”
Asa wondered how they could not. The boat looked ready to roll over and sink.
“One thruster is gone, and we’re leaking like a sieve, but we’re still afloat. I lost three men, including my engineer and exec. I would appreciate the use of your engineer for a while to help control the leaks and see if we can get our sonar working.”
Will glanced at his exec, who nodded his approval. “Come pick him up. Then, I suggest we both move away from the area and let the Flyboy’s take over.”
“I’m out of depth charges and 25mm ammunition anyway. I still have two .50 cals and my .45,” he added defiantly.
A few minutes later, the battered Amberjack pulled alongside the Sunfish. Close up, Asa got a fuller extent of the damage. Long gashes along the deck and hull marked where the megalodon had gnawed the boat like a dog’s rawhide chew toy. Empty .50 caliber and .25mm shell casings rolled around on the deck. The Amberjack had settled into the water until waves washed over the step down cut out deck. The crew, however, looked ready to go at it again. Their young, eager faces showed no fear, only dogged determination and the weariness of a hard-fought battle against a nightmarish enemy.
The Sunfish divided its remaining 25mm ammunition with its sister ship.
“Appreciate it, Will,” Captain Eisner said. “I’ll try to return the favor.”
“We can tie off together while you make repairs,” Will suggested. “We can have that cup of coffee I promised you.”
Eisner shook his head. “I think it best we make repairs underway. Even with one engine, I feel safer moving than sitting.”
“Take good care of Chico. He’s my exec officer now.”
Eisner scowled. “I lost my exec, Grace Browning, as well as my engineer, David Helmuth, and Able Seaman Troy Adams.”
“Life sucks,” Will said.
“Then you die. Yeah, tell me about it. I have to write letters to their next of kin.” He shrugged. “That’s war, I guess, even against mindless beasts. I’ll return your exec in as good condition as I found him.”
“I would appreciate it. Good luck.”
Asa watched the Amberjack pull away, beaten but not defeated, and felt a swelling of pride in his throat. “It’s hard to believe little boats like this can take so much punishment.”
Will looked up at him. “Little? Don’t you know size doesn’t matter? The Na
vy built the fleet of Mark VI boats for river and shallow inland water operations, aiding the Coast Guard. No one believed them capable of operating in open sea; and yet, the Amberjack and the Sunfish have proven they can. I hope it means a broader role in the future for the fast attack patrol craft.”
Asa tossed his cigarette butt over the side of the boat. “What now?”
“Now, we get out of the way.” Will pointed to four AH-1Z Vipers approaching the sinking drillship. “The drones will find them something big and gray to shoot at.”
The helicopters circled the area only a hundred feet above the surface, their pilots peering into the depths with electronic eyes aiding the drones’ efforts.
“How about some coffee?” he asked Asa.
Even with the drones and Vipers in the air, nothing was happening. Asa nodded. “I could do with a cup.”
As they entered the cabin, Electronics Technician’s Mate Levitt called out, “I’m picking up something big on sonar, Skipper. It’s rising fast from the bottom.”
Will stopped walking. “Whereabouts?”
Levitt looked up, his face ashen. “Directly beneath the Amberjack.”
“Amberjack has no radar.” He grabbed the radio mic and yelled, “Eisner! Get the hell out of there! You have sharks coming up from your keel. Take us in,” he yelled to the coxswain. Asa realized the Sunfish’s captain knew it was too late to save any of them, but he had to try regardless.
Six megalodon breached the surface. Three immediately scattered and swam away from the boat, but the other three focused their attention on the Amberjack. Her guns cut loose on them, but with only one engine, she was practically sitting still. One of the helicopters made a pass firing its 20mm M197 Gatling gun to ward off the megalodon closest to the boat. Stung by the fusillade, the megalodon submerged again. The other three helicopters joined the fray, standing off and firing AIM-114 Hellfire missiles from their wingtip pods. One missile struck a megalodon in the back, leaving a smoking crater three feet across. The sixty-foot-long shark stopped swimming and rolled over onto its flank, thrashing the water with its massive tail. A pool of bloodstained water spread outward from its leeward side. The remaining shark attacked the still-struggling creature, tearing wheelbarrow-sized chunks of meat from its body. A second pass with the Gatling gun dug gouges in both sharks’ bodies with 20mm bullets.
Drawn by the scent of fresh blood, the three megalodon that had swum away returned to participate in the feast. Two of the Vipers emptied their remaining Hellfire missiles into the gam; then, concentrated their Gatling guns on them, killing two.
The Vipers had barely cleared the area when the Amberjack shot into the air amid a spray of water as if plucked upward by invisible hands. The cause of the geyser of water, the one-hundred-eighty-foot mammoth megalodon, rose from the water beneath the boat like a behemoth from the abyss until it stood on its tail, with the Amberjack clutched in its massive jaws. The damaged boat snapped in half just behind the cabin, and both sections of hull fell separately back into the water. The smaller aft section sank immediately. Men spilled into the water from the cabin and bridge. The megalodon landed atop the bow section, smashing it to pieces. One of the smaller, sixty-foot megalodon seized one of the men in its mouth, snapping the man in half. Two more men floundered in the water around the shattered boat, but quickly disappeared, dragged under and swallowed whole by the remaining rampaging sharks.
Too far away to aid the stricken boat, the stunned crew of the Sunfish threw off their initial shock and opened up with the forward 25mm minigun and two of the .50 cals. It was like pelting a rhino with Nerf darts. The giant megalodon ignored the machinegun fire as it circled the stricken vessel. One of the Vipers flew low over the Sunfish to warn her off. Her captain’s blood was boiling, but he ordered a sharp turn to port to give the Vipers their chance. A hail of 70mm Hydra rockets lanced from one of the Vipers and sprayed the water around the sinking Amberjack, killing two of the creatures, but the behemoth megalodon ignored the rockets’ sting as if mere mosquito bites.
Another Viper pursued a fleeing megalodon, its landing struts almost brushing the water as it fired its 20mm gun directly into the creature’s broad back. The daring pilot veered with the shark each time it tried to move away. Suddenly, the shark turned and leaped into the air, slamming broadsided into the side of the helicopter. The Viper tiled until its rotors dug into the water, pulling it farther over. The pilot fought the controls, but gravity won. The rotors shattered and spun away. One piece of rotor broke away and impaled the shark, killing it instantly.
The Viper struck the water at a hundred-sixty miles per hour, bouncing end-over-end and scattering pieces of the craft for a hundred yards. It came to rest upside down and sinking rapidly. Only one of the crew survived the crash. He popped to the surface and clung to the wreckage, as sharks circled it. One of the X-478 drones closed in to drive the sharks away with Harpoon missiles until a second Viper could join it in protecting the hapless crewman.
One of the sharks broke away in pursuit of the Sunfish. Asa watched the creature drawing nearer, his heart pounding in his chest from terror. The aft 25mm minigun stitched a row of holes across its snout and head, leaving one blind eye a ragged mess, but the enraged megalodon did not stop. The shark launched itself at the stern. Asa braced himself for the impact. The seventy-foot shark struck the boat like a battering ram, lifting the stern and shoving the boat forward, throwing Asa to his knees. The sickening screech of tearing metal lanced through Asa’s ears. The microwave antenna on the cabin roof, toppled and collapsed, crashing to the rear deck less than a foot from Asa. Bosun’s Mate Second Class Brad Pierce operating one of the .50 calibers was not so lucky. The antenna crushed him beneath it. His dead eyes stared at Asa.
The boat remained afloat, but the pitch of the engines changed and a column of fuliginous smoke rose from the exhausts. From his knees, Asa watched the shark charge again, seeking to finish the job. Then, as if an attacking watchdog snapped short by its leash, the megalodon stopped abruptly. The enormous mouth of the giant megalodon, which had grabbed onto its tail, closed around the creature and drew it deeper into it cavernous maw. The two-feet-long, razor-sharp teeth sliced into its flesh like a thrashing machine, grinding away chunks of flesh. The injured shark emitted a high-pitched squeal before disappearing down the behemoth’s gullet like a large-mouth bass swallowing a minnow. Asa stumbled backwards to the cabin wall in relief.
“It’s leaving,” Will said.
The giant megalodon abruptly reversed course and glided off to the west, leaving the area. For whatever had called or driven it away, Asa was grateful. For a heart-stopping moment, he feared the Sunfish’s captain would order his crippled boat in pursuit, but it appeared he had had his fill of carnage for now.
“Let it go. We’ll search for survivors.” He went to the downed crewman and checked Pierce’s pulse, and then knelt beside the dead man and closed his eyes with his hand.
A loud metallic groan drew his attention back to the Vanguard. It had dropped another ten feet into the water and now listed twenty degrees to starboard. The portside crane broke away, tumbled across the canted deck, sweeping tents, ASROC launchers, and outbuildings with it as it slid into the water. Made top heavy by the drill derrick, the drillship slowly collapsed onto its starboard side and sank. He watched the last bit of one of the pontoons disappear beneath the waves and felt a sense of impending doom. His willingness to join with Simon in an attempt to kill a megalodon had almost gotten him killed. No. He couldn’t blame Simon. Simon was only the catalyst. The megalodon had drawn him back to the Arctic like a magnet, and they had homed in on him as if equally attracted to him.
He could not be positive, but he believed only the granddaddy megalodon remained alive. The Navy had killed most of the creatures. The few survivors had become food for their fellow megalodon and the giant. Whatever the outcome, he knew the fight was not over. They had won a battle but not the war. The battle between the giant megalodon and humans w
ould come soon, but to Asa’s relief, not today.
14
December 26, 2018, 3:00 p.m. USS Sunfish–
The battle was over, but there was no clear winner. They had eradicated almost all the megalodon, but the largest one had escaped. The human losses were devastating, both human and material. The drillship Vanguard had taken the long journey to the bottom of the ocean, a seven-hundred-million-dollar pile of scrap metal resting atop the well it had been drilling. The Amberjack and her crew were gone, the Sunfish’s own new executive officer and a bosun’s mate among the casualties. They had rescued only one of the Viper pilots. His injuries were not life-threatening, but he required more medical expertise than the Sunfish could provide.
He had contacted the Utah to arrange a transfer of the injured pilot, Anderson, and Haig, the DSV diver, but the captain of the submarine was in pursuit of the last megalodon and could not linger for fear of losing it. The Utah had suffered damage to her hull and had lost nine crewmembers, including her executive officer. Will noted it had been a bad two days for executive officers. With the drillship gone, the helicopters had no place to land to pick them up, and the two-man Vipers could carry no one. Transferring his passengers to the sub would have to wait until the Sunfish’s repairs were complete.
The tally of the dead was disheartening. Will took no pride in a battle well fought. Their enemy had been mindless, prehistoric megalodon whose only instinct was to feed. He had not outwitted or outmaneuvered his foe. He had simply beaten them into submission with high explosives and survived. It was nothing for which he could claim bragging rights.
Presently, he was elbow deep in grease helping Asa repair the starboard engine. He scratched an itch on his shaved pate and left a smudge of grease, realized what he had done and wiped it with his sleeve. He could barely focus his attention on the repairs from lack of sleep and exhaustion. With no heat, the engine room was cold, but beads of perspiration dotted his forehead. He and the Vanguard mechanic had been working for three hours and were just now learning the true extent of the damage. With Chico Rodriguez, his second-in-command and former chief engineer gone, he was glad for any help he could get, even a civilian’s.
