by James Axler
“But he said to keep it busy!” she said through gritted teeth as she aimed at the other end of the giant beast and squeezed off four shots. It was impossible to see if they bothered the animal, or indeed, if she’d even hit it.
“All right, that’s enough,” J.B. said. “Look, he’s almost reached him.”
Sure enough, Krysty spotted Jak’s white shock of hair as he swam closer to Ryan, who was being dragged under by the tentacles grabbing him, despite still putting up fierce resistance. Another tentacle went after Jak, who was treading water, almost as if he was waiting for it to come to him.
“What the hell’s that kid doing?” Mildred asked.
The tentacle snaked through the water and grabbed Jak by the leg, hoisting him into the air. When he was about ten feet up, he grabbed the tentacle and turned himself around so that he was facing the great beast. Snatching the blade from between his teeth, he let his knive fly, the blade spinning end over end until it sank into the colossal squid’s eye.
The animal shuddered with the injury and released Jak, but kept hold of Ryan. Squirting a large pool of black ink into the roiling sea, it vanished back into the depths. Jak immediately dived after it, disappearing into the water, as well.
“Ryan!” Krysty grabbed the edge of the door and began to climb out, but she was stopped by both J.B. and Mildred. “Let me go, dammit!” she yelled.
“No! Listen to me!” J.B. shouted in her ear. “You’ll never catch him now! If anyone can get him back, it’s Jak! Don’t throw your life away.”
“I see Jak, and he’s got Ryan!” Ricky shouted. Krysty and the others looked over to see a bedraggled patch of white hair as Jak swam toward them, towing Ryan.
“Help me pull them in!” Ricky cried from the other side of the door as he struggled to secure the rope wrapped around his hand. Handing his shotgun back to Mildred, J.B. ran to help the teen pull the two back toward the escape pod.
“Watch for that thing coming back!” J.B. shouted through the wind as he hauled the rope up, hand over hand. Finally, they got Jak and Ryan close enough to haul them in. The two men eased the nearly unconscious Ryan back into the pod, got Jak in right after him, slammed the door and spun the wheel to lock it.
“How is he?” Krysty asked, resisting the urge to stay at Ryan’s side while Mildred was working.
“Got several cracked ribs from that hug the tentacle gave him and where that door hit him. He’s lucky none are broken. Probably swallowed about a gallon of ocean water, which won’t make him feel any better, and the tentacles left several wounds that might get infected. Other than that, he’s alive.”
As if agreeing with her diagnosis, Ryan rolled over and was copiously sick on the floor. “And there’s the water,” Mildred said.
Now Krysty knelt next to him. “How you feeling, lover?”
“Like I just got run over by...something big.” Ryan pressed a hand to his side. “Hurts like hell. Last thing I remember...was getting pulled out of the bastard door...by something really strong...then it felt like my insides...were about to get squeezed up through my throat. Think I cut myself loose...then I was...under the water...”
“That’s because another giant squid thought it could make a meal out of you,” Krysty said, brushing his lank black hair out of his eyes. “If he’d known you were going to put up such a fight, I’m sure he would have looked for easier pickings elsewhere.”
“Thought I was squid food for sure...” Ryan said. “How’d I get out?”
“Jak pulled off one of the bravest and most foolhardy rescues I’ve ever seen,” J.B. answered. “Tied a rope to himself and dived out there. Somehow managed to put a throwing blade into the beast’s eye. Then it tried taking you down, but he swam after it, got you free and towed you back up. All that was left was hauling the two of you back in.”
The albino shrugged as he let Mildred take a look at the tentacle marks around his leg.
“Thanks, Jak...” Ryan’s eye fluttered closed as he passed out.
* * *
WHEN THE STORM broke the next morning, the companions found themselves adrift on the ocean, with no land in sight. J.B. figured they were somewhere in the South Cific and meandering west-northwest, but he had no idea what land mass they might hit.
“Assuming AIDAN was correct about the base’s location, from what my maps say, there’s a string of small islands to the northwest of Hawaii that we may pass through, or...” J.B. trailed off as he examined his collection of maps as they bobbed along in the current. Ricky and Jak were on the other side, trying their hand at spearfishing, while Doc was below catching a nap. Krysty and Mildred were also outside, enjoying the bright sunlight and warm breeze. All of the companions had taken the time to shuck the hated jumpsuits and don their clothes, which had been secreted in the bags with their weapons.
“Or?” Mildred asked.
“Or we may miss them entirely and get shoved out into the Cific Ocean. If that happens, we may wind up drifting all the way to Japan if we don’t hit one of the smaller islands along the way. Or we might hit the mainland, which would mean places that used to be called Korea or China.”
“Don’t much feel like crossing blades with those damn samurai again if we can avoid it,” Ryan said from where he was gingerly sitting on the top of the pod, his legs dangling through the open top hatch. He’d slept for sixteen hours and awakened ravenous. Even so, they were rationing the onboard food, so his body still wasn’t as satisfied as he would have liked.
“Well, unless you got some kind of sail you can pull out of your ass—” J.B. replied with a grin “—we’re at the mercy of wherever the ocean currents are going to take us.”
“Any chance we could be found by someone else?” Krysty asked.
“Any likely sailors on these waters will probably be pirates, slavers, or both,” Ryan replied. “Nothing we want to get involved with—unless their boat’s small enough that we can take it over.”
“Which is something you won’t be in any shape to do for at least a week, and really it should be as long as possible before you do anything really strenuous,” Mildred said. “Ribs take their own sweet time to heal, so you’re going to be sidelined for the indefinite future.”
“Yeah, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time for peace and quiet—” Ryan started to say, but was interrupted by the shouts of the two teens. A moment later, they came around the side of the pod holding a giant mahimahi that was longer than Ricky was tall.
“We feast tonight!” he said.
* * *
THE NEXT SEVERAL days passed in relative comfort, all things considered. Once everyone got over their various bouts of seasickness, necessitating more than one person hanging over the side and puking their guts out, they began making the best of their situation.
Ryan spent much of it relaxing so his ribs could heal as quickly as possible. Jak and Ricky honed their fishing skills, catching more mahimahi, sharks and large tunas. They cooked much of it in the solar stove and tried to dry strips for future meals, with mixed results.
Although they spotted land a few times, they had no way of steering the pod, so they were forced to watch it pass as they drifted farther out into the ocean. For the first two days, they’d kept watch for the return of the giant squid, but they never saw it again. Even so, Ryan had mandated that no one go out on top of the pod alone, in case something from below thought humans might be good eating.
It rained twice more, sudden squalls that weren’t nearly as bad as the storm they had popped up in. They took advantage of the rainwater to replenish their stores, carefully rationing it, since water was the most limited of all their supplies. Otherwise the weather was calm, even with the various chem clouds that drifted by, turning the sky bright shades of orange, purple and crimson.
One day, Ryan was atop the pod again, scanning the ocean for any sign of life while racking his brain for a way to allow them to control their course. Thinking he spotted something on the horizon, he squinted to see what it was, bu
t was distracted by a yell from Ricky on the other side of the pod.
He swung his legs over to see the youth examining one of his fishing lines, which had been bitten off clean. Whatever undersea predator had gone after his bait hadn’t been too picky about it or the hook it was on.
“Ai, the bandito!” Ricky exclaimed as he turned to show Ryan what had happened.
“That’s what you get when you mess with those guys!” Ryan called down to him.
Shaking his head, Ricky had just turned back to the pile of fish guts he’d been using for bait when a huge, speckled green eel burst out of the water and clamped its jaws shut on the boy’s shin.
“Ryan, help!” he shouted as the giant marine eel, easily five yards long and as thick around as Ricky’s neck, wriggled madly as it held on to him, trying to pull the boy back into the water with it.
“Hang on, Ricky!” As he slid down the side of the pod, Ryan saw several other eels swirling around in the water below. Grabbing Ricky’s arm with one hand, he pulled his SIG Sauer and put a bullet through the eel’s head.
The shot brought Krysty and J.B. out. When they saw what was happening, they grabbed Ricky and moved him back inside. Meanwhile, Ryan aimed at another eel that looked as if it was getting ready to leap at him.
“Look out, Ryan!” Krysty shouted.
The one he’d been watching had turned out to be a feint. A second, even larger eel leaped up on his blind side, and Ryan moved out of the path of its gaping jaws just in time. A shot from Krysty put a hole through it as it fell back into the water, and the wounded eel thrashed as it was set upon by its former fellows.
“Hit them in the water!” Ryan shouted, holding on to the lip of the top hatch while unleashing single shots at any eel that got too close. He holed two more in the face or head, setting off another feeding frenzy among the remaining predators.
“Watch yourself, Ryan,” J.B. said from above him. Knowing full well what the Armorer was about to do, Ryan took a step away from the roiling group. The next thing he heard was the roar of J.B.’s M-4000 shotgun.
The flechette round, containing twenty small, vane-tailed steel darts, turned the already bloody water into a slaughter zone. Bits of eel spattered everywhere, including on Ryan’s legs. When he looked down, he saw dying eels flailing as the other ravenous muties closed in on them with gaping mouths, just as eager to eat them as they had been to devour the humans.
“That ought to keep them busy for a while.” J.B. reloaded, then slung his shotgun over his shoulder and extended a hand to Ryan. “Come on up, we’ll let the rest stuff themselves in peace.”
Holstering his blaster, Ryan grabbed his friend’s hand and was pulled to the top of the pod. He took another second to watch the carnage in the water below, wincing as a wounded eel was torn apart by three of its former comrades. “Definitely not a way I’d want to go.”
“Wouldn’t worry about it—you’re probably too damn tough to eat, anyway,” J.B. said with a chuckle.
Ryan grinned in reply, but his attention was caught again by the speck on the horizon he thought he’d seen earlier. Shading his face from the sun, he squinted his eye and tried to make out exactly what was out there.
“Got something?” J.B. asked.
“Mebbe...might be a ship on the horizon,” he replied.
“That’s funny. I was about to say the same thing,” J.B. said, pointing back the way they had come.
Ryan turned to look and saw that J.B. was right. Although he wasn’t sure what was ahead of them, there was definitely another ship—three of them, in fact—coming up behind them.
Chapter Twenty-Three
A few minutes later, everyone was either standing on the edge of the pod or sticking their heads out of one of the hatches, trying to see what they were heading for or what might be chasing them. They’d left the cannibalistic eels behind, and now all eyes were on the two different potential rescue boats approaching.
“Big ship ahead,” Jak said with confidence as he stood on the very top of the pod and looked to the northwest through a pair of tinted welder’s goggles he’d lifted from the maintenance lab. “Come our way, too.”
“What about the other vessel?” Doc asked, also shading his eyes as he peered southward. In his zeal, he leaned a bit too far over, and would have gone into the drink if Ryan hadn’t reached out and pulled him back just before he toppled over. “Thank you, my dear Ryan. That would have been a most calamitous fall indeed.”
“Right, Doc, just keep your feet under you next time.”
“Heart?” Jak had also turned to the south, and now cupped a pale hand to his ear. “Sounds like...drums?”
“Drums, like a Roman galley crewed by slaves?” Mildred asked.
“Actually, Mildred, that is a myth, perpetuated by those inaccurate fools that made their historical ‘epics’ in Hollywood,” Doc answered. “Roman ships used either voice—as in chanting—to keep time, or music, often a flautist. However, there is plenty of evidence to indicate that many Southeast Asian tribes used drums to both keep their rowers in time and communicate with other boats in their party.”
The old man pushed his hair back and cocked his head to listen. “And since even I can hear them now, it would seem that these sailors are of the latter persuasion.”
“Where’d they come from?” Ricky asked.
“Could be they saw us pass by from one of the islands, and came out to have a look at us,” Ryan replied.
“As fast as they’re going, they’ll definitely get here before that other ship,” J.B. said. “Doubtful they’re going to be friendly, so we better close doors and be ready for a fight if necessary.”
“Agreed,” Ryan said as he eyed the trio of boats riding low in the water. “Let’s move, people.”
Once Krysty, Doc and Mildred had gone below, Ricky closed the side hatch, while Ryan and J.B. stood back-to-back in the top hatch with only their heads, arms and upper torsos protruding through it. The collapsible ladder that descended into the pod from the hatch allowed two men to stand comfortably there for as long as necessary.
Ryan, in fact, was getting very comfortable, with his eye to the scope mounted on his Steyr Scout Tactical rifle. In the minute it had taken to get everyone below and seal the pod, the rowing boats had gotten close enough that he could make out more details about them, as well as the people on board.
Each of the boats looked to have been carved from a single large tree trunk, with outriggers mounted on both sides to provide stability. Each one also had a carved face of some kind of snarling animal at the bow, with its mouth and teeth stained bloodred.
The rowers were stout and muscular, with dark brown skin and jet-black hair cut straight across their foreheads. They wore almost no clothing that Ryan could see, but were decorated with stripes and daubs of bright red and yellow paint on their arms and faces. Each boat was paddled by at least ten men, with another one at the back beating on a handmade drum. In the time he looked at each of them, they’d approached close enough for Ryan to see that the rowers’ teeth were filed into sharp points.
“Yeah, they’re cannies, all right.” Immediately he moved the scope back onto the drummer of the lead boat. Once he’d settled it onto the man’s chest, Ryan held it there for a moment, gauging the roll of the pod, then squeezed the trigger.
The 7.62 mm bullet shattered the man’s sternum as it tumbled through his upper torso, knocking him backward into the water. That boat slowed as the rowers looked around in confusion, but the other two kept coming, and the rearmost rower in the first boat dropped his oar and scrambled back to take over at the drum.
“Can you hit the boat itself?” J.B. asked, his finger ready on the trigger of the M-4000.
Ryan worked the bolt, then shot the drummer out of the next-closest boat before answering. “Could try, but the wood might be too thick. It’d take forever to sink. Besides, better to shoot as many—” he squeezed the trigger again, blasting another cannie overboard “—as I can before they get he
re.”
“Ace on the line on that,” J.B. replied. “I’m ready for them when they get closer.”
“How far away’s that other boat?” Ryan asked as he sighted in on a replacement drummer, fired and ejected the shell. He marveled at their single-minded determination. Any normal people would have cut and run by now, choosing to seek easier prey, but the cannies just kept attacking.
“Still pretty far, which means it’s really big, if we can see it from this far away,” the Armorer replied.
“All right, here they come,” Ryan said, still sighting and firing as the first two boats split up and came at the pod on both the port and starboard sides. The third one was coming straight in to attack from the rear.
“Coming in on the left and right!” Ryan called down to the others inside as he aimed, fired and ejected; aimed, fired and ejected. Every time he squeezed the trigger, a cannie died.
“Watch the side door!” Ryan warned as he reloaded.
“We’re on it!” Krysty answered.
Although the cannies had a rudimentary sense of tactics in not trying to board the pod right underneath the firing arcs of both men, their attempt to get aboard wasn’t much more developed than that. After hurling a couple of volleys of spears, which J.B. and Ryan avoided by simply ducking into the hatch chamber, the cannies brought their boats alongside and tried to scramble up the pod.
The left boat still faced J.B. As the cannie came alongside, he slung the shotgun, raised his Uzi and unleashed a volley of rounds along the entire length of the boat. The punishing slugs smashed hands, arms, chests and faces, killing almost all of the rowers in less than three seconds. The two survivors didn’t even have a chance to set foot on the pod. J.B. put a short burst into both men, sending them overboard, as well.
By now sharks had been attracted to the copious amounts of blood and churned the water as they began to feast. The mutie eels were back, too, and fights broke out between the different animals over the choicest morsels.
Once he was sure there were no more spears coming at him on the left, Ryan concentrated on the boat pulling up to the rear of the pod, confident that the group inside would handle that landing party. He kept firing the Steyr until it was empty, then drew his handblaster and blew the brains out of the first cannie that tried to leap aboard. As he slid off, two more followed, and Ryan put a bullet into each, trying to hit their chests or heads. At this close range, it wasn’t difficult at all.
