The Tide_Ghost Fleet

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  “No!” Meredith fired at the Goliath, hoping to regain its attention. As Meredith distracted the Goliath, Jenna swooped in and scooped up the C4 Andris had dropped. The monster turned its focus away from Meredith once more, now enamored with the prey closer at hand.

  Jenna was already running away from the Goliath. As she did, she tossed the C4 charge. Meredith caught it. The blasting cap was in place, but a cursory examination told her it wasn’t ready. It needed a detonator.

  Andris had that. Wherever he was now. Her eyes searched the crater the Goliath had left behind. She hoped against hope she wouldn’t see her friends in that pit, smeared into the mud and roots.

  But then she saw something that sparked renewed hope in her chest. Andris stood shakily and held up one hand.

  The detonator.

  They could set off the C4 after all. Beside him, Spencer pushed himself to his feet. He was limping, but at least he was moving. He fired at the other Skulls still weaseling through the fence and woods to surround them.

  Meredith sprinted at the Goliath as it chased after Jenna. She fired on it as she did. Scattered bullets smashed against the huge spikes along its back, but it didn’t slow. There would be no distracting it. Instead, Meredith let her rifle fall on its strap and sprinted full tilt at the beast. She jumped, catching hold of the spines and swinging herself up them like a ladder. The Goliath didn’t even seem to notice her until she jammed the C4 under one of the plates connecting its neck to its shoulder.

  Its head turned, but she jumped off and rolled onto the ground. Pain from the impact shocked through her bones, but she ignored it. Her legs and arms pumped as she put as much distance as she could between herself and the Goliath. It changed course in a wide turn like a Mack truck. Before it could come running after her, Andris depressed the button on his detonator.

  The Goliath’s head erupted in a red mist. Its body slumped to its knees. Broken plates fell away from its shoulders. Meredith’s chest heaved as she watched the tendrils of smoke rise from the charred flesh of the giant. Then the headless Goliath’s body fell forward, hitting the ground with a resonating thud.

  A normal-sized Skull leapt over the massive corpse and hurtled toward her. She lifted her rifle, still breathing hard, and caught it in her sights. A quick squeeze of the trigger sent it careening across the grass now slick with the Goliath’s blood. Jenna, Andris, and Spencer started to converge again, firing at the Skulls sporadically flinging themselves from the darkness.

  With their Goliath down, Meredith turned her attention to the one doing battle with Dom and the others. Bullet holes across the gargantuan Skull’s body wept crimson. Its movements were sluggish, and beneath one scarred plate, she saw glistening ropes of shredded muscle. Rain poured over it, streaming between the spikes protruding from its joints and back. It reared back, its jaw dislocated and one arm hanging uselessly beside its body. Then it let out a deafening roar.

  Adrenaline flowed too strongly through Meredith’s vessels now for her to feel intimidated. She and the others unleashed a salvo into the monster. Each bullet might not be anything more than a sewing needle jabbing into the huge creature. But with enough needle holes in enough places, even the strongest monster couldn’t endure.

  The creature let out a final, bloodcurdling cry. This time there was something else there, like blood bubbling in its lungs. Its eyes bulged, protruding from its face like they were desperate to escape. A rasping cry slithered from its lips, and its claws flailed.

  The creature fell, slopping into the rain-churned mud. Lightning and thunder crashed all around it, marking the Goliath’s demise.

  Meredith signaled for Andris, Jenna, and Spencer to fall in with her. She fired at a Skull lunging for Jenna, ending the bastard before it so much as got a claw on her.

  “Thanks!” Jenna said.

  “And thank you for saving my ass,” Andris said to Spencer. “I am rather attached to it, I find.”

  “Nothing you wouldn’t do for me, bro,” Spencer replied.

  The swarm of Skulls around them was beginning to dwindle. They were only a couple dozen yards from Dom and the others. Soon they’d be out of this quagmire. But relief quickly gave way to worry. The FGL were escaping with the warheads. This hadn’t been a victory. It had been a downright defeat. The FGL had gotten what they wanted, and the Hunters were coming away with nothing.

  Meredith fired at a Skull springing from the foliage. It collapsed, and her boots pressed it into the mud as she ran. “Dom, we’re ready to move. We’ve got some catching up to do.”

  Dom started a call over the comm link. “Frank, we—”

  He raised his rifle, and Meredith followed where it pointed. Another Skull shot out of the darkness with blinding speed. Dom missed. Meredith and Andris’ shots were no better. This Skull was zigzagging, almost as if it was intentionally dodging them.

  Then she realized, as it drew near, that was exactly what it was doing. It wasn’t a Skull. It was a Hybrid, a rifle strapped across its back and its claws outstretched. He yelled something in Russian then charged the Hunter at the rear of their pack.

  “Spencer!” Andris yelled.

  Meredith’s heart leapt into her throat. She’d been so distracted by the Goliaths and their catastrophic failure at stopping the FGL that she’d neglected the lone Hybrid they’d left behind. And now, that Hybrid barreled straight at Spencer.

  Meredith fired. She swore some of those bullets had hit the Hybrid. But the half man, half Skull was filled by unholy fervor, impervious to pain.

  Then everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Meredith’s senses all tuned in to the action before her. The frantic yells of the other Hunters. The Hybrid moving at blurring speed. The cries of the Skulls erupting around them. She’d let Spencer down. Let him lag behind when she knew he’d been injured. She had forgotten about the Hybrid, but he hadn’t forgotten them.

  The monster plowed into Spencer. Claws dug into flesh. Spencer still fired, sending bullets cutting through the Hybrid at point-blank range.

  Meredith sprinted toward them. The Hybrid pulled back from Spencer, his claws painted maroon, rain washing the blood covering his chest. Without hesitation, Meredith lunged. She slammed into the Hybrid, and the back of his skull slapped against the ground. He kicked her off. Other voices hit Meredith’s ears. They wanted to help, but there was no time. Not when facing the strength and speed of a Hybrid like this.

  The Hybrid came at Meredith with fury and speed. She ducked under his stabbing claws and grabbed his wrists. This match wouldn’t last long if she tried to compete with him in a contest of brawn. Instead, she performed one of the moves she had taught Kara, flipping the Hybrid on his back by using his momentum against him.

  Planting a boot on the Hybrid’s chest, she unholstered her pistol and fired six shots straight through his face. His limbs went still.

  “Meredith, you okay?” Andris said, panting as he caught up to her. “Where is Spencer?”

  Gunfire resounded all around her. Skulls fell in waves. Rain pounded against her helmet. The blood from the Hybrid washed off her fatigues.

  “I’m okay,” she said finally. It was true. No damage from the Hybrid or the Goliath. She’d survived miraculously untouched by both brutal enemies. But though she had come away unscathed, there was another who had not.

  “Spencer!” Jenna cried. She shouldered her rifle, tearing apart a nearby Skull with armor-piercing rounds. Then she dove to the wounded Hunter’s side. He lay still, the rain washing away the blood from his wounds.

  -20-

  Spencer was down and didn’t look like he was getting up anytime soon. The rain soaking his fatigues made it impossible to see exactly how much blood he was losing.

  “Form up on Spence!” Dom bellowed.

  Gunshots rang out around him, plunging into the Skulls still pounding after them. Dom hurtled over dead and dying Skulls. Some lashed out at him uselessly, their bodies wrecked. Even with mortal wounds they did not relent.

 
He could only hope that Spencer would cling to life as desperately as the Skulls did.

  Meredith was hunched over Spencer, working bandages across the lacerations in his shoulder and neck. The white cloth was already soaking through with dark blood.

  “O’Neil, any more Hybrids?” Dom asked.

  O’Neil slid to a stop near Dom, the plates on his chest clunking together as his lungs heaved. “I don’t sense any more. Doesn’t mean they aren’t out there.”

  “Understood,” Dom said. “Mere, how is he?”

  Meredith didn’t look up. Her gloves were covered in Spencer’s blood. “I can’t—”

  A Skull shrieked behind them. It led a pack of others from the facility. Some wore torn military fatigues, their helmets still strapped under their chins. O’Neil, Glenn, and Miguel sent a flurry of rounds into the oncoming monsters as lightning fractured the sky. At least the din of the storm drowned out some of the sounds. Without the Hybrids, there wouldn’t be much else to attract more Skulls to the area. If they were lucky, they’d only have to deal with the ones still in the immediate vicinity.

  He and the others could survive that. The only question was whether Spencer could. They needed to get Spencer out of here. Get him somewhere dry, somewhere with medical personnel equipped with more than a few bandages.

  “Frank, give me a sitrep,” Dom said.

  Static crackled over the line before Frank answered. “Got their vehicle in my sights. I think it’s a BvS-10. It’s moving in the water right now like a goddamn robotic duck.”

  “Chao, where’s that drone?” Dom asked.

  “Just a few minutes out from Frank’s position,” the specialist responded.

  “Any idea where that BvS-10 is headed?”

  “Hard to say right now,” Chao said. “Based on the trajectory Frank reported, I’d guess they’re headed to a ship somewhere in the Bay of Biscay. But we’re not picking anything up on radar, and I can’t get a visual.”

  “Damn it,” Dom said. “We’ve got a casualty here, and we need an immediate medevac.”

  “You want me to turn this bird around?” Frank asked.

  Jenna stared up at Dom, eyes wide. Dom knew the question she was silently asking: Are we going to save Spencer?

  It wasn’t that simple. If he called Frank back now, they might be able to get Spencer to the ship in time for Divya and Peter to save him. But then they risked letting the FGL get away with a nuclear warhead.

  The weight of this decision threatened to paralyze him. Spencer’s life hung in the balance. But so did the lives of countless others if they allowed Spitkovsky to get his hands on a nuke.

  Bile rose in Dom’s throat. He had to choke it down to speak, but he forced himself to put on an air of confidence. “Do not turn around, Frank. Stay on that BvS-10. I do not want it out of your sight until Chao can track it.”

  “But, Chief,” Miguel said. “Spence isn’t doing so hot.”

  Dom shot Miguel an icy glare. Miguel returned it until the scream of a nearby Skull forced him to turn away. The road Dom had just gone down was a one-way street. His gamble better pay off. If they lost the FGL and Spencer, he wasn’t sure a single one of the Hunters would forgive him for what he’d done.

  But this was what he and his crew lived and died for. Protecting the masses, even if the masses didn’t know.

  No matter what he told himself, it didn’t make the decision feel any better.

  “He’s still bleeding heavily,” Meredith said too damn calmly.

  “Miguel, help her,” Dom commanded.

  Miguel knelt next to Spencer and pressed one of the compresses into the torn flesh near Spencer’s neck. The Hunter’s skin was pale and waxy, and a dark stream trickled from the corner of his mouth.

  “Frank, you still got the FGL in your sights?” Dom asked.

  “Yes, I got ’em,” Frank said. “And—holy shit on a stick, Captain. You’re not going to believe this.”

  Whatever it was, Dom prayed it was worth Spencer’s life.

  ***

  Thomas plucked the unlit cigar from his lips and squeezed it as he stared at one of the screens on the workshop’s bulkhead. “Son of a bitch.”

  “Those cheeky bastards!” Samantha yelled, standing from her desk.

  “Chao, please tell me that drone is almost there,” Thomas growled. A pang of something icy drove itself through his chest. He could hardly believe his goddamn eyes. What he saw through the cam on Frank’s chopper was almost unbelievable.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Chao asked.

  “My sight ain’t as good as those cameras y’all are watching through,” Frank said, “but I’m ninety-nine percent sure we’re not looking at the Loch Ness Monster.”

  “No,” Thomas said. “This is worse. The FGL’s got its own goddamn version of Huntress.”

  There it was, jutting from the gray water, barely visible in the rain and crashing whitecaps. All the familiar jagged lines were there, as though Thomas was looking at a mirror image of his own ship.

  “You’re sure?” Dom asked over the comms.

  “Does a shark shit in the ocean?” Thomas asked. “We’re looking at a Visby-class corvette.”

  “Christ,” Dom said. “We can’t let that thing out of our sight. If we do...”

  Thomas didn’t need Dom to finish that sentence. He understood. They’d thrived at sea, vanishing into the vast ocean using the Huntress’s stealth capabilities. The hull itself was specially made of a composite material that minimized its radar signature and blocked nearly any infrared radiation leaking from the vessel. The ship’s angular design not only reduced that already minuscule radar signature but also let the ship blend into the waves, reducing the chance of another ship or aircraft maintaining a visual lock on the vessel.

  In short, they were hard as hell to track.

  As Frank approached the corvette, Chao narrowed in on their location with the drone.

  “Keep your distance,” Thomas warned Frank. “We got a lock on you, and we’ll be on that ship shortly. You know as well as I do that that thing can knock a bird out of the sky if it wants.”

  He assumed the other corvette was equipped like they were with a fifty-seven-millimeter cannon, torpedoes, anti-ship and antiair missiles, and a couple of grenade launchers at the very least.

  “You’re close enough, Frank,” Chao said. “The drone will get there in maybe thirty seconds.”

  “Good,” Dom said. His voice was punctuated by muffled gunfire and a chorus of hellish Skull voices. “They can’t use those warheads now. The corvette, if it’s anything like the Huntress, won’t be equipped with long-range ballistic missiles capable of carrying those warheads. That means it’s even more important we do not lose the ship. How long can you trail them with that drone?”

  “With the weather acting the way it is,” Chao said, “we’ll be lucky if we can go a hundred kilometers before we need to recharge it.”

  “That’s assuming they don’t knock it out of the air.”

  Chao’s silence was answer enough for Thomas and Dom.

  “How many of those drones we got?” Thomas asked. “One more?”

  “That’s right,” Samantha said.

  “Get the second ready to fly,” Thomas said. “As soon as we start pulling this one out, we need the other in the air. We’re not losing this ship.”

  “The BvS-10 is almost to the ship,” Frank said. “Soon as it is, these assholes are going to run off faster than Thomas when you try to feed him his veggies. You sure that drone’s almost here?”

  “Positive,” Chao said.

  Something moved on the deck of the corvette. In the overwhelming darkness of the storm, Thomas had a difficult time determining what it was, but there was definitely something going on near the portside bow. A sinking feeling dragged itself through his gut.

  “Frank, you need to get the hell out of there immediately,” Thomas said.

  “I’m flying low enough—”

  “They’re go
ing to fire a goddamn antiaircraft missile,” Thomas said. “I saw the hatch open right where we’ve got the AAs on our ship.”

  “You sure it isn’t your eyes playing tricks on you, old man?” Frank asked, still sounding skeptical. All the same, the chopper started retreating back toward the shore. “I’m below radar range. The best pilot on the Huntress always tells me I’m an absolute ace.”

  “Ace or not, your ass is getting smoked if you don’t move,” Thomas said. He chewed the end of the cigar.

  Frank was undeniably cocky. But he really was a damn good pilot. He made skimming above wild waves in a frenetic storm look easy. Still, even a good pilot in a good bird couldn’t outrun an antiaircraft missile.

  Something flared at the bow of the ship. Lightning crackled through the sky, blinding the cameras mounted to the Seahawk, before Thomas could see for sure what it was. The drone was now close enough to the corvette to give them another angle. That’s when he saw the ominous column of smoke snaking into the sky toward Frank.

  “They fired, Frank!” Thomas cried.

  Flares burst from the Seahawk in a spray of coursing lights. The chopper veered hard, nearly flipping sideways. A violent explosion followed. Tree limbs broke as flares dropped down around them. Several of the trees caught fire, burning like torches. A cloud of smoke obscured the drone’s view of what had happened to Frank and the chopper.

  “Frank,” Thomas called, “you still there?”

  The silence stretched on for far too long. Thomas felt like punching a bulkhead in frustration, but he tried to keep it together as best he could.

  “Told you I’m the best,” Frank replied.

  Thomas sagged in relief. The downpour drenched the trees and leaves still on fire from the diverted missile. The fading smoke revealed a swathe of downed trees, as if an asteroid had slammed into the earth near Frank’s position.

  “We’ve got the ship in our sights now,” Chao said. “Drone is on location.”