The Tide:
Ghost Fleet
(The Tide Series Volume 7)
Anthony J Melchiorri
March, 2018
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Books by Anthony J Melchiorri
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-Epilogue-
Also by Anthony J Melchiorri
About the Author
Books by Anthony J Melchiorri
The Tide Series
The Tide (Book 1)
Breakwater (Book 2)
Salvage (Book 3)
Deadrise (Book 4)
Iron Wind (Book 5)
Dead Ashore (Book 6)
Ghost Fleet (Book 7)
The Eternal Frontier
Eternal Frontier (Book 1)
Edge of War (Book 2)
Shattered Dawn (Book 3)
Rebel World (Book 4)
Black Market DNA
Enhancement (Book 1)
Malignant (Book 2)
Variant (Book 3)
Fatal Injection
Other Books
The God Organ
The Human Forged
Darkness Evolved
The Tide: Ghost Fleet
Copyright © 2018 by Anthony J. Melchiorri. All rights reserved.
First Edition: March 2018
http://AnthonyJMelchiorri.com
Cover Design: Eloise Knapp Design
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
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-1-
Port of Lisbon, Portugal
From the bridge of the Huntress, Thomas Hampton pointed at a cargo freighter off the coast of Portugal. The ship was in a sorry state. Its superstructure was pocked with broken windows. Paint chips flaked away to reveal long rivulets of rust snaking down its side.
Thomas wasn’t picky about what kind of ship he sailed on. All that mattered was that he got out to sea. But even he couldn’t imagine sailing on that floating junkyard. Christ, he was surprised the damn thing hadn’t already sunk. Everything about the ship screamed that it should have been scrapped and scuttled years ago.
Despite appearances, that ship’s payload was more frightening than any of the battleships or aircraft the Huntress had contended with before. And in her long tenure as a covert ops ship crafted for stealth missions against biological terrorism and rogue state threats, she had seen a lot.
Thomas glanced at one of the screens on the bridge. It streamed a live view from one of the airborne ScanEagle drones General Kinsey had sent them from the States. The drone only had an effective range of one hundred kilometers, but that was enough to see if any surprises waited for them on the seemingly derelict cargo ship.
“You seeing what I’m seeing?” Chao Li asked. The comms specialist was deep in the belly of the Huntress in the electronics workshop. He and Samantha Hamlin, the other tech wizard on the crew, were controlling the drone from there.
“I see it.” Thomas chewed the end of his unlit cigar. “Not too bad. Not too bad at all.”
A few soldiers patrolled the deck, winding through the stacks of shipping containers. The sight of all those containers wouldn’t have caused Thomas any alarm months ago. Back when the world hadn’t yet gone to shit. He knew better now. The bastards on the ship belonged to the Forces of Global Liberation. The FGL, run by a former Russian bioweapons expert named Pyotr Spitkovsky, were the ones responsible for turning most of the world’s population into monsters.
A chill crept through Thomas as he surveyed the container ship. He knew all too well what would be hidden in all those containers. The stench practically reached through the computer displays. He could almost hear the scratch of claws against metal and the frustrated, inhuman shrieks.
Thomas took the cigar from his lips. “Alpha, you read?”
“Loud and clear,” Dominic Holland, Captain of the Huntress, answered.
“You got the usual half-dead wannabe sea dogs crawling around the decks but nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Nothing out of the ordinary except for containers full of Skulls.”
“Yeah, besides that.” Thomas shook his head in disgust. “There are two tug escorts but not a hell of a lot else I can see. This might be the easiest goddamn target we’ve seen yet.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Dom said. There was a beat of silence. Thomas knew the bravado in Dom’s voice hid the anxious thoughts pulsing through his mind. Confidence was all well and good, but a measured bit of paranoia didn’t hurt. Just because this seemed like easy pickings didn’t mean it was, and both of them knew it.
“Godspeed out there, Captain,” Thomas said.
“You take care of my ship while I’m gone,” Dom said. “And it’d be nice if we came away from this mission unscratched. Got it?”
Thomas grinned. Not too long ago, they had been shot at by the US Coast Guard and then later assaulted by FGL helicopters. Over the past few days they’d been hunting cargo ships just like this one. They’d taken abuse from FGL cronies with rocket launchers and other explosives. Thomas liked to say each dent and patch of blistered paint added character. Dom had given him shit for it, but as a lifelong man of the sea, Thomas would be damned if he was caught sailing aboard a vessel in pristine shape. The kind of ship that looked like a show pony instead of something that actually went to sea belonged to billionaires and yachtsmen who sailed from one pretentious port to the next, avoiding anything so contentious as a rainstorm. A real crew commanded a real ship into the great open frontier of the ocean and all the dangers it held.
The Huntress was a real goddamn ship.
After all, a ship in harbor is safe enough, but that’s not what a ship is for, Thomas thought, paraphrasing a favorite quote.
Dom could’ve taken her out to some remote place. He and the crew could have lived their days free from the Oni Agent and the Skulls. But Dom would never be that proverbial ship that rusted away in a safe harbor while the rest of the world burned.
The roar of the chopper’s engine burst through the bridge as the new Seahawk took off with Dom and the other Hunters. Thomas watched the drone’s view as the chopper circled the cargo ship. A predictable couple of RPGs were launched and subsequently avoided. The soldiers who had fired them were summarily taken out by surreptitious shots from the Hunters.
> “How we looking?” Dom asked.
“I imagine you look like a bunch of seasick landlubbers with the way Frank is flying that chopper,” Thomas said.
“Hey now, my flying is as clean as your head is bald,” Frank Battaglia, the Huntress’s pilot, shot back.
“I’ll have it noted that I may be balding, but I’m not completely bald yet,” Thomas said. “For once I’m glad to be stuck on the ship while you all go off on one of your adventures.”
“I’m sure you are,” replied Miguel Ruiz over the comms. He was one of the Hunters on Alpha team. “I can already smell those Skulls from up here. Stinks worse than Spencer’s jockstrap on a hot summer day.”
“Bro, why are you smelling my jockstrap?” Spencer Barrett replied. “I didn’t think we were that close.”
“You all know you don’t need to be having this conversation over the public channel, don’t you?” Thomas asked.
“Be glad you can get away from them,” Jenna Reed, a member of Bravo team, said over the comms. “I’m stuck on this damn bird with these children.”
“Not for long,” Meredith Webb added. “Bravo will see you boys later.”
Thomas watched Bravo team rappel out of the helicopter and slide down the cord to the deck. Meredith went first, followed by Jenna and Andris Jansons. Thomas said a short prayer for them. He wasn’t a religious man, but when you were at the mercy of the ocean and whatever it held, you prayed to any damn god that might listen.
Truth was, as much as Thomas pretended that he longed to get off the ship and join them on a mission, he knew in his bones that wasn’t the truth. Quite literally, his joints were sore with what he feared might be burgeoning arthritis. The bullet wound in his shoulder still prevented him from a full range of motion, and his muscles burned when he moved his left arm too much.
He was, in short, old.
Once he might’ve been a first-class destroyer, but now he looked and felt little better than the decrepit ship the Hunters were boarding.
And a ship like that didn’t stand a chance against the apocalypse.
Thomas hoped it didn’t stand a chance against the Hunters, either.
***
Dom hit the deck. Bravo team had already disappeared below. Andris would place explosives to disable the ship’s engines. A few more holes in this rust bucket’s hull should send the ship and all its cargo to the bottom of the Atlantic.
“Miguel, on point,” Dom commanded. Miguel charged ahead to the nearest stack of containers. An FGL soldier came around a corner with an AK cradled in his arms. Miguel took him out before the soldier could so much as think about shooting. “Glenn, take rearguard.”
Glenn Walsh, a former Green Beret, fell in behind Dom and Spencer. The SCAR-H rifle he carried looked almost comically small against his large frame.
There was a clunk behind Dom on the deck. The newest member of the Hunters had rappelled down.
Brendon O’Neil. The man had been a prisoner of the FGL in Morocco—more than a prisoner; he had been an experimental test subject. Beneath his black fatigues were bone plates. His fingers ended in blunted claws, and his face was a skeletal mask. But behind the deformity was a cold intelligence. He was a Hybrid. A man with the body of a Skull and the mind of a human. In fact, the mind of a Navy SEAL.
The FGL had created a process to impart the physical changes of the Oni Agent to a human while preserving the person’s intellectual capacity. They nicknamed the new compound the Heikegani Agent. Hybrids like O’Neil could control the mindless Skull foot soldiers, and Spitkovsky planned to use this monstrous army to demolish what was left of the world.
O’Neil’s nostrils flared. “They’re coming. Two of them.”
Sure enough, two FGL Hybrids scuttled over the top of a stack of containers. Each wore mottled gray fatigues. Their eyes burned beneath masks of calcified spikes. Their clawlike fingers tapped against their rifles as they let loose a barrage of bullets. Dom dove for cover then provided a wave of suppressing fire. The Hybrids ducked back just as Miguel and Glenn joined in the salvo. None of the Hunters managed to land a shot.
But they didn’t have to. O’Neil scaled the containers, and a moment later, both enemy Hybrids came crashing down. Their bone plates cracked against the deck. O’Neil stood atop the stack, victorious.
“Three more coming from the stern,” he said. “The rest are perched in the bridge.”
The Hybrids ran headlong into the lancing gunfire of the Hunters. As one lay dying, he looked up at O’Neil as though he felt betrayed. The Hybrid’s fingers reached for the rifle lying at his side. Dom sent two bullets into his chest and another into his head. More bone plates fractured, and a pool of crimson formed under the Hybrid’s still form.
“To the bridge!” Dom yelled.
They rushed up the ladders along the superstructure. Miguel positioned himself near the hatch and placed a small breaching explosive. Spencer and Dom waited behind cover, rifles ready to go. Dom motioned for the group to hold their location.
“O’Neil, you in position?” Dom asked over the comms.
“Aye, Captain,” the Hybrid said from his concealed location.
Dom chinned his comm link again. “Bravo, sitrep?”
“Explosives are ready,” Andris Jansons replied, his Latvian accent thick with excitement at the prospect of blowing something up. “We are back on deck and ready for pickup.”
“Copy that,” Frank said. “BA coming in for our scheduled departure. ETA five minutes.”
“BA? British Airways?” O’Neil asked.
“Badass Airlines,” Frank corrected. “Operated by me, the badass supreme.”
“Should’ve never asked,” Miguel muttered.
Dom glanced at the hatch. A face peered out of one of the cracked windows of the bridge, searching for them. The waiting was undoubtedly making them nervous. Exactly how Dom wanted them.
“All right, we’re almost back in the game,” Dom said. “Spitkovsky’s boys are probably pissing their pants already.”
“It’s true,” Miguel said. “I can smell it.”
“Sure that isn’t you?” Glenn asked.
Miguel patted his pants. “Still dry.”
The roar of a helicopter burst over the deck as Frank drew near Bravo team’s position. Dom waited for them to board the chopper.
“No drink service today,” Frank said, “but I hear we’re being treated to some fireworks.”
The helicopter took Bravo team higher, safely out of range of the next stage of their mission.
“You heard him,” Dom said. “Let’s begin the fireworks.”
“Aye, Chief.” Miguel detonated the breaching charge. The hatch burst inward, and tendrils of smoke snaked off the busted hinges.
Bullets exploded from the opening. The FGL soldiers were firing in panicked bursts, and Dom signaled the rest of Alpha team to stay put. Then, on the other side of the bridge, a glass window burst into daggerlike shards. A shape rolled over the broken glass and fired into the exposed backs of the FGL crew members.
The gunfire ceased, and O’Neil stood alone on the bridge.
Miguel strode toward the Hybrid and patted the man’s shoulder. “Love having a human wrecking ball on our team.”
“Half-human,” O’Neil said, brushing fragments of glass off his bone plates. The organic armor protected him from the cutting edges that would have shredded a normal human’s skin like they’d been put through a garbage disposal.
Dom nodded toward the fresh corpses. There were two humans and three Hybrids. “Check their pockets.” He strode to one of the computers and plugged data transmission devices into every available port he could find. “Samantha, Chao, your turn.”
“We’re on it, Captain,” Chao replied. “Coming in hot.”
They guarded the hatches and windows while the techs worked remotely. Dom had raided ship after ship like this, working with General Kinsey and the others back in the States trying to stop Spitkovsky’s planned invasion. He hoped that th
ey’d catch a break today. They needed more intel to lead them to the brains of Spitkovsky’s operations, or at least something to give them insight into where he planned to land all these freighters full of Skulls. But so far they’d found precious little.
It seemed most of the available intel was stored in the minds of the Hybrids running the show. And the Hybrids had all chosen to fight and die rather than surrender. Capturing one alive was like trying to hold water between your fingers.
O’Neil’s eyes suddenly went wide. “We got a problem.” He stared out toward the bow. Besides having the limited ability to control Skulls, Hybrids were also hyper-tuned to detect the Skulls’ biochemical signals, almost like an animal sensing fear in a human.
“You got something?” Dom asked.
“Skulls are riled up. I think—”
There was a metallic crash as several of the containers tore open at the opposite end of the ship. A rush of bony figures poured out. Skulls.
“How is the data dump coming along?” Dom asked over the comms.
“Looks like our programs are still scavenging,” Samantha replied.
The Skulls were moving between the stacks of containers. As they ran, the tap of their claws on the deck grew louder. Their voices carried up in a relentless cacophony. Other containers shook as the Skulls within them responded to the loosed ones.
“How long is that going to take?” Dom asked.
“Hard to say,” Chao said.
“Not going to happen then.” Dom started pulling the transmitters out. “We’ve got to get the hell off this ship. Frank?”
“Good news, ladies and gentlemen. We’re taking off early today.” Frank lowered the chopper toward the bridge. The tide of Skulls grew as more containers opened.
“How in the hell did this happen?” Glenn asked.
O’Neil lowered his eyes. “There was another Hybrid. I missed him. Thought I was just getting a read on the Skulls.”
A rope ladder clunked onto the platform outside the bridge.
“Load up, now!” Dom bellowed. Miguel and O’Neil went up first, climbing like spiders. Glenn and Spencer followed, with Dom taking the rear. Right as the chopper began to lift, the Hybrid who’d been hiding appeared atop the nearest stack of containers.
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