She wasn’t quick enough as saw a palm tree hurling directly at her. Then Quax was there. He used his arm as protection. The tree shattered on impact of his metal limb. The debris flying away harmlessly.
“Thanks,” Nami said breathlessly. She didn’t think the robot even heard her appreciation as they were torn from her mouth by the storm.
The boat was rocking precariously in its berth, banging up against the sides of the dock. Nami was glad to see that it was a large boat. But would it be large enough?
Dillon jumped across and landed on his feet on the boat’s deck. Quax went over next.
Her father lingered at the edge. “Isn’t there some kind of gang plank?”
“In this weather?” Dillon responded.
“Where’s your stunt double when you need him?” her father muttered under his breath as he backed up, giving himself enough room to get up to speed before he leapt over. He made it, but did not land on his feet. He kind of skid across the deck. Thank goodness TMZ was nowhere around to document that move.
Nami backed up as well.
“I’ve got you,” her dad said, outstretching his arms.
“Perhaps you would allow me?” Quax said. Using his oddly articulating limbs and tail, he braced one foot on the dock and the other on the boat. He held out his hand to Nami. “May I?”
Such a chivalrous robot. The guys at her school could learn a few lessons from Quax. She took his hand and gave a little leap, jumping the small gap between the deck and the dock. Just as she was about to land, the boat bucked, threatening to send her overboard, but Quax was there, catching her, planting her firmly on the deck.
“High five, QX!” Dillon shouted, raising his hand. Quax slapped it, apparently hard as Dillon shook his hand out. “Let’s get out of here.”
He rushed up to the bridge and started the boat’s engines. “Throw off the lines!”
Her dad and Quax took care of the ropes as Dillon revved the engine. Nami rushed to join him on the small bridge, huddling under the meager cover of the canopy. Which really wasn’t very helpful given the fact that the rain was coming in from all sides. Her dripping wet hair was plastered to her face and her clothes clung to her.
For a moment she was embarrassed that her white tee shirt was practically see through, showing off her pink bra. But what did it matter? Dillon had already seen it. Still she clutched her light jacket around her chest.
Nami looked out over the roiling ocean. The waves came from all directions, churning the surface. How were they going to make it out there? She didn’t care. She just needed off this freaking island.
Dillon gunned the engine again, then pushed the throttle forward, they moved out from the dock and into the cauldron that was once the sea. The wind shrieked in her ear as another palm tree flew past.
The boat hit a large wave head on. The bow split it in two, but the resulting water, crashing into the boat, nearly filling the deck. Another wave hit from the side, nearly capsizing them. Dillon revved the motor, trying to push through the maze of waves.
They rollicked, bucked, and rolled with the ocean. Taking on more water each time. It sloshed around her feet, then ankles, then knees. She was soaked to the bone.
A wave hit, shattering the front windshield and thrashing the canopy. The ripped edges of the material flapped violently in the wind. Now there was nothing to stop the onslaught of water. It was salty on her lips as the ocean tried to get into her every orifice.
Nami pulled out her phone. She had two bars. She dialed her mom’s number.
“Mom!” she shouted.
It sounded like her mother was the one underwater.
“We’re trying to get to shore but it’s really bad out here!” she yelled, trying to make it clear. “Please send a chopper to Cairns!”
Then the line went dead and the bars disappeared. She could only hope that her mother had heard her and actually cared enough to do as asked.
They made forward progress for a second, giving Nami a fleeting moment of hope, then another wave hit, knocking them off course. Then another and another until they were turned completely around, heading back to the island.
“I don’t think we can make it to shore!” Dillon screamed over the wind.
“Please, please, try,” Nami begged.
Dillon shook his head. “We’re more likely to go down here and be out with the wild sharks.”
Nami looked to her father who frowned as he gripped the rail. Water running down his cheeks like he was bawling. “I’m afraid he’s right,” he shouted.
Nami could tell this wasn’t going well. But they were heading out of the storm. Would it be this bad all the way to shore?
Then a wall of water was in front of them. The boat thankfully rode up it, teetering on the crest of the huge wave which hurled toward the island. She could see the dock. She could see the buoy, now bobbing underwater like a drowning victim. She could see the knots in the wood of the pillars.
“Rogue wave!” Dillon shouted quite unnecessarily.
Nami buried her face in her father’s wet chest as Quax threw himself over Dillon in preparation for the impending crash. They would just be one more piece of storm wreckage. And it was all her fault.
The boat tipped forward on the thirty-foot wave, ready to slam into the island. Then the wave was gone. It was like someone cut the cord on the wave and it sank back into the ocean where it came.
They didn’t fall out of the sky, they just gently rode the water down like an escalator until they were at sea level, smoothly delivered back into their berth.
Nami stood there for a moment not believing her eyes, then the storm kicked in again, battering them against the dock. Her dad kept her from slipping.
“Get off!” Dillon shouted, jumping onto the hood of the boat. He held out his hand. Nami took it as he hauled her up with him. Her dad and Quax were right behind. Hand-in-hand they ran, slipping, racing to the bow.
“Jump!” Dillon yelled as he looked behind him. Another huge wave was coming at them. Although this one didn’t look like it was going to give up like the other.
Nami leapt, kicking her feet in the air as if it would help her. They hit the wooden dock hard. She rolled off her ankle as it screamed in pain. Dillon dragged her up. Her father was at her other shoulder, lifting her, practically carrying her as they ran for shore.
The wave crashed down behind them, shattering the boat. Cracked in half, the thing sank before their eyes. Not just the boat but the dock they had just been running down was shattered and sinking.
Within moments the sea swallowed it all up. The dock. The line of boats. The electrical lines. Everything. One minute it was a working port. The next it was bare shoreline.
“We got lucky,” Dillon breathed out, squeezing her hand. She’d forgotten he was still holding onto it.
That wasn’t luck. That was a freaking miracle.
“Well, good to know there is something worse than sharks to worry about,” her dad commented.
To punctuate his sentiment, a piece of roof ripped off one of the buildings and came hurling toward them. They all fell belly flat to the ground.
“I think we’d better get below surface,” Dillon suggested.
For once, Nami couldn’t agree more.
CHAPTER 8
Callum watched the wall-to-wall monitor. Ralph had just been upgraded to a category five cyclone. Its massive clouds rotated along the screen. It had made Salechii ten minutes ago. He was glad Dillon and the rest were safely back. They’d lost the dock and all the boats, but his son was safe.
Funny for so many years when Dillon lived in Montana, Callum could pretend that he didn’t have a child. He could pretend that he didn’t have an ache in his heart where his son should be. But after these last few years of having Dillon around, he couldn’t imagine life without the boy. It was like he’d gotten his right arm back. He was whole.
The same could not be said for the facility. The buildings were holding up fairly well. The outer r
oofs and smaller cabanas, not so much.
“Look!” one of the techs cried out. Their helicopter was lifting off, only there was no pilot. The wind had gotten under the rotors and were turning them. At first it seemed like a normal, piloted takeoff. The chopper rose about ten feet in the air, straight up, then the wind shifted and the thing careened to the left, then to the right, then was whisked out to sea.
That was their last means of transportation off the island.
Even though the island seemed stable, Callum was all about safety first.
“Send out a distress call,” he stated. Everyone in the room turned their heads. Especially Knightly.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Knightly said. “Stop that order.”
“It is belay the order, if you must know,” Callum noted dryly.
“Fine, belay, stop, halt, whatever,” the businessman replied. “You just got another five hundred million dollars in investments based on your word that this facility could take on this hurricane. If the investors find out that you are calling for an evacuation…”
Callum sighed. How he hated money people. Yet, every time he turned around he needed them. He hadn’t come so far to be undone so quickly. “I’m not calling for an evacuation. However this storm is going to churn the water even this deep. Some of the guests might get queasy and wish to leave. I am only getting them that option.”
Knightly glared at Callum. “Splitting hairs don’t you think?”
“No,” Callum answered. “We don’t want a cruise ship disaster on our hands do we? Sick people with nowhere to go? Vomit sloshing around the bathrooms?”
The business man shook his head. “Of course not.”
“Then let me run the facility, please.”
One of the doors opened and Jack with his crew burst in. Cameras rolling and lights blazing. Jack’s gaze swept over the room. “Oh, did I come at a bad time?”
“No, not at all,” Callum stated. “The facility is holding up remarkably well given the sustained 247 kilometer per hour winds we are facing. He nodded to the screen where monstrous waves were battering the island. Some were crashing over the land completely, breaking on the inner channels.
“I know, we got some footage outside,” Jack said, shaking out his wet hair. “This Ralph is really turning out to be a good old fashioned bitch.”
Callum scowled. Jack was known for his loose mouth and with that South African accent, it seemed that he could get away with saying just about anything. Even his own Salechii crew chuckled.
“We’re lucky, the hurricane is moving fast,” Callum commented. “We should be in the eye of the storm within hours. By tomorrow afternoon, the storm should have moved on completely.”
Jack smiled that roguish grin of his. Callum was certain that he practiced it in the mirror. “Well, like most bitches, you can’t exactly predict their behavior, now can you?”
Again the chuckles. Good thing there weren’t any woman in the room or they’d be looking at a hostile work environment. No wonder Jack only employed men.
Callum didn’t rise to the bait. If he said anything, it would just give Jack another excuse to say the word “bitch.”
Instead he ignored the television host and scanned the monitors. The water was getting pretty active within the pens. The sharks could sense it. Their movements became more agitated and aggressive. Even the normally docile whale shark had charged the gate to its enclosure. Butting it with its wide snout. Ineffectively of course, but still if Lebowski was that agitated, it didn’t bode well for the rest of the inhabitants.
Now though, the whale shark swam back down to the bottom of his pen, apparently deciding to ride out the storm in the quietest place possible.
The baby Hammerheads were all huddled together in a school, keeping close to the safety of the coral reefs. Sometimes though there would be a wave strong enough to push the entire school in the opposite direction. This being their first day on the planet, the little babies didn’t know quite what to think and would panic, swimming back to one another.
It was quite sweet. If Hammerheads sharks ever told tales to their grandchildren, this would be one of them.
All in all, the park was holding up even under such a brutal attack by mother nature.
Then a loud metal twang reverberated through the chamber.
“What was that?” Jack asked, grabbing for the nearest handhold. Callum certainly hoped they got that on tape.
Looking over all the monitors, Callum shrugged. “Probably just a tree hitting one of the struts. It looks like we are structurally sound.”
He looked at all of the tension vectors and rigging telemetry. Everything was in the green.
“Like I said, bitch,” Jack hissed.
Callum couldn’t help but roll his eyes. So predictable. Jack was like a toddler that had just learned a new word that made the adults shocked.
He was about to ask the television host to leave when a technician popped out of his seat, “Holy crap! Look at that?”
The tech was pointing to the monitor that surveyed the Great White’s primary pen. The one right behind the amphitheater.
The storm was kicking up the water, creating half of a water spout. Then the clouds from above formed a mini-cyclone, joining the two. The water tornado crisscrossed the pen, pulling up all kinds of debris into its funnel.
Fish, seaweed, coral reef. But then a larger object appeared.
“Dear god, that’s not her is it?” the tech gasped.
Unfortunately it was Gabby. Their Great White. The shark they had spent months tracking and capturing was now in the middle of a water spout. Those things could carry objects even as heavy as the Great White for miles. If the wind’s sheer force didn’t kill her first.
Callum watched in horror as the shark went round and round. She flailed in the winds, trying to right herself. How could the shark understand she wasn’t even underwater?
Then the spout sputtered out, dumping its contents onto the shore, along with the shark. The great girl thrashed on the beach, gasping for air, desperately trying to make it back into the lagoon. At her weight, without the water’s buoyance, she would crush her internal organs within minutes and without water in her gills she would suffocate even faster.
“Go! All emergency teams to bay 104!” Callum shouted. “Get Shalie! Get those QXs out there.”
He charged past the camera crew and hit the door running. Jack tried to follow, but Callum blocked him. “No way.”
Jack laughed. “No way I’m not going. Are you going to waste time arguing?”
Of course he couldn’t.
* * *
Dillon had never run so fast in his life. Never. He jumped over tree debris and broken shingles, racing toward bay 104. He didn’t even bother to unlock the gate between 103 and 104. He just leapt it.
He landed, rolled and was back on his feet. He could see robots converging from the other side of the lagoon and his father already charging to the Great White. Gabby, however wasn’t being very helpful. Thrashing and gnashing her teeth, she fought anyone who was trying to get her back into the water.
Jack and his crew were filming it all. His dad jumped out of the way just in time. “We need the winch!”
Dillon gave a thumbs up and ran toward the center of the island until he realized the winch was hooked up one of the tug boats and all the boats were gone hence the winch had gone as well.
“Can’t!” he yelled back. His father frowned, ducking as the Great White rolled toward him, her teeth slicing away.
The first robot hit the scene, throwing himself on top of the shark. Not the most effective move, the Great White rolled, crushing him under her weight. The poor robot looked like he’d been run over by a steamroller.
The other robots were slightly more cautious, hanging around the periphery. Waiting for instructions.
“Fling her!” a voice shouted from the edge of the bay. Tonaka. “Take her tail and fling her!”
Dillon thought the old man had lost his mi
nd. Did he have any idea how much the shark weighed? And his robots were human sized. It would normally take an industrial winch along with a weighted tugboat to even attempt to lift her.
The forward robot responded immediately though. Grabbing the shark by the tail. She thrashed mightily, but the robot held on. The other robots piled onto the brave robot’s legs. They formed a robot chain from the lead robot all the way out to one of the main anchoring pillars.
How strong were these robots?
They were about to find out.
The robot heaved, picking up the shark by the tail. Well, not all the way. She still sagged in the middle. He began rotating through, spinning faster and faster. The faster he spun, the higher off the sand the shark got until she was completely airborne. Then with a heave, he chucked her towards the water.
Guess those robots were pretty freaking strong.
The great girl was pretty heavy so even with the robot’s impressive strength, Gabby didn’t get far. Instead of the bay, she hit the churning surf. At first she just lay there. Was the trauma too much? Then she thrashed side to side, getting herself into the water.
She then slid into the lagoon, disappearing beneath the rough waters.
A whoop came up from everyone, even Jack and his crew. They’d saved her.
Then a thought swept over Dillon, freezing out any feeling of accomplishment.
“Um, guys, what lagoon is this?”
* * *
Tonaka’s smile fell as Callum’s expression turned from exuberance to concern.
“Bloody hell,” he spat, then the director turned and ran. Tonaka couldn’t run after him as all the crew drained from the area. “QX51,” he barked. His pride was not so large that he wouldn’t accept a robot’s help. The robot scooped him up.
“Follow them.”
He’d nearly forgotten that he’d built the robots with sprinting speeds of up to sixty miles an hour, rivaling a cheetah. However it did cause quite the bumpy ride even with a tail to help stabilize them.
“Not so fast though,” Tonaka chattered through his teeth. The robot slowed to about forty miles per hour. Still jarring, but getting the job done. They caught up rapidly as everyone ran into the facility. They raced through the tunnels until they got to the first junction.
Apex Predator Thriller Series Collection (Including the blockbuster new shark park thriller, Salechii) Page 12
