Shark-Killer (The Dark Sea War Chronicles Book 3)

by Bruno Martins Soares

  I smiled at her. It was a forced smile. A dishonest smile. But it worked. For a single second, she saw me and smiled back. And I knew. As I saw that little beautiful smile, I knew. Yes. We would see each other again. Absolutely. We would be together again. As hard and as cruel and as brutal and as unforgiving this war was, we would survive. We would kiss each other again. We would see Kobby again, and the lake, and the cabin. And we would live together somewhere safe and peaceful. For the rest of our lives.

  *

  At Admiral Hedde’s request, I visited the hospital in the Nytar moon before I travelled to the Outer Regions. I went there in full dress uniform, with my shiny medals sparkling on my chest, my white gloves and my best smile.

  I found some familiar faces, as the Admiral intended. Nurses, doctors and other personnel. I thanked them all for their services, in particular for what they had done for me. Instigated by a welcoming committee, I visited the garden where I had met Admiral Cavo. Let my hand play with the running water in the fountain. I missed the smell of his cigar.

  I looked around. I think I was kind of hoping to see Erbay there, at the hospital, maybe in that garden, between the bushes. But no. He wasn’t there. He had disappeared from the Magnar, after the Equinox, taken by his people to an undisclosed location, injured but stable. As it turned out, I wouldn’t see him or know about him for several months after that.

  I continued the tour.

  When we were going through C-wing, something was going on. There was some commotion at the door of an infirmary. Many people had gathered, and I could see a few armed MP’s trying to decide what to do. I approached. It seemed a disturbed sailor with a gun had taken over an empty infirmary and was threatening to kill himself and anyone else that tried to stop him.

  “Excuse him.” I said, advancing before anyone could stop me and closing the door behind me.

  The guy was alone, in a patient’s pyjamas, in the middle of the room.

  “I said I wanted to be alone!” He cried as I entered, pointing a pistol at me.

  “Are you going to shoot me, sailor?” I asked, calmly.

  He looked at me for a while. Looked at my uniform and my medals and my scars. Then he lowered his gun.

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  I sat on top of a small cabinet, at a distance, and looked at him. He was small, messy brown hair, nervous. He looked at the pistol constantly, not really knowing what to do with it. We stayed there in silence for a bit. He looked at me once more. At my medals and my scars and my bald head.

  “Are you Captain Iddo, sir?”

  “Yes. What was your ship?”

  “The Hayjax, sir. Gunner’s mate, sir.” That meant he worked at the armoury of one of the batteries of one of the bravest and damaged ships I’d ever seen in battle.

  “So you were at the Equinox, sailor? Difficult day.”

  “Yes, sir. Yes, sir.”

  He looked at his gun once more. He pointed at the door.

  “I bet there’s a lot of people out there scared for your life.”

  “Never mind that.”

  “Do they know what you did? Do they have any idea?”

  “I didn’t do it for them. I did it for you and others like you.”

  He stopped for a bit. He looked at me. He looked down at the gun.

  “I lost all my friends that day. All my friends…”

  I sighed.

  “At least one of you made it.”

  A little moan left his mouth.

  “Why… why me?”

  “Why not?”

  “They… They were better than me.”

  “No-one is better than anyone.”

  “But they… I didn’t…”

  “We just do the best we can, sailor. All of us.”

  There was a deep sigh, and I could see a lot of energy leaving his body. He sat on a bed, his shoulders down.

  “Do you have nightmares?” He finally asked.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s like… It’s like…”

  “Life is just a big accident we see happening over and over again.”

  He nodded. His eyes on the floor.

  “You can take the warrior out of the war, sir…” He mumbled. “But you can’t take the war out of the warrior.”

  I knew exactly what he meant. I nodded and replied:

  “You can take the sailor out of the Navy, but you can’t take the Navy out of the sailor.”

  He took his hand to his mouth and closed his teeth over the back of his finger.

  “It’s not your fault. Any of it.” I sighed. “You’ll be okay.”

  He released his finger and sighed as well, deeply, closing his eyes for a moment.

  “What… What do I do now?”

  I waved my head.

  “Just relax, for now. Are you alright?”

  He nodded and pointed at the door.

  “They must be…”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Should we…?”

  “We have time. When you’re ready.”

  We were there in silence for a few moments more. Finally, he stood up, looking at the gun.

  “What do I do with the gun?”

  “Just leave it there.”

  He sighed, and he dropped it there, on the bed, and we left the room with our broken wings on our backs.

  *

  Little time after my father died, I could tell that grief was tearing my mother apart. It was tearing me apart as well. The day of the funeral, I could tell already that there was a giant wall between us. An unshakable obstacle. That night, I found her static on the balcony looking at the stars.

  “Mom?” I called. She didn’t move. She stayed there until I repeated, approaching her: “Mom?”

  She slowly looked at me. The expression on her face was numb, emotionless, but I could feel in her eyes all the pain she was keeping inside. And all I could feel was guilt. An immense canyon of guilt, tearing through my heart, weighing on my shoulders.

  “I wish I had been the one to die.” I said. “I wish it had been me.”

  I looked into her eyes, and I could see. I could see that deep in her mind some strange voice was saying: «Me too. I wish it had been you.» That’s when I knew. That’s when I knew nothing would ever be the same between us. But then she sighed and said, in a low voice:

  “Chose how you live, not how you die.”

  Every time I remember it, that’s the moment I feel she abandoned me. That’s the moment when I was left out in the cold. She said it without emotion, without anger, without tenderness or love. She said it as a matter of fact. As if life was all about that. About that choice. As if it had nothing to do with her. As if we weren’t related at all. As if childhood ended right there.

  “Chose how you live, not how you die.”

  And so I did. And so I did.

  EPILOGUE

  Karolu, the Engineer, looked at Kaptin Tinnzer as he entered the smoky engine room. Karolu wiped his forehead with a rag and took the dirty bandana off his head, exposing his shiny bald skin.

  “Well?” Asked Worf.

  “We’re not going to last long, Kapt. That repair they did only made it worst. We’re done. I recommend we go back.”

  “No bullshit, Karolu, what do we have?”

  “We have an engine that will propel us for a week at the most and a reactor that will blow soon after that, Kapt. If we’re lucky.”

  Worf leaned against the door and sighed. He made a vague gesture with his hand.

  “Well… That’s that, then?”

  Karolu nodded.

  “That’s that.”

  Then the intercom beeped. Worf clicked on it.

  “Yes?”

  It was Urster, from the bridge.

  “Contact, Kapt.” He said.

  “I’ll be right there.” Replied Worf. He looked at Karolu. “Can we fight?”

  Karolu scratched his head.

  “For an hour, Kapt. More than that and…”

  Worf nodded and
left.

  *

  Worf sat on his high chair at the centre of the command bridge.

  “So?” He asked. “Fill me in.”

  “It’s an enemy ship, Kapt.” Said Urster. “A destroyer.”

  Worf frowned.

  “A destroyer? We’re not engaging a destroyer. Where is she?”

  Urster showed him on the scanner. The ship was still far away.

  “What’s she doing out here all alone?” Asked Worf, almost talking to himself.

  “No idea, Kapt. She’s not acting normal.”

  Urster was right. The enemy ship was moving slowly and wobbly, in wide zigzags.

  “Engine problems or navigation problems or both, that’s for sure. Did you identify her?”

  “Not yet, Kapt.”

  Worf didn’t really know what to do. He sat back and scratched his beard.

  “Do we engage, Kapt?” Asked the lüivettenand. Worf looked at him. Urster raised his shoulders and added: “She’s injured.”

  Worf’s hand covered his mouth, as he was thinking.

  *

  A lot had happened since their last battle. S62 had returned to port, back in Axx, for repairs. And the crew had a few weeks leave. A few bitter weeks. Axx was a different planet, now.

  As soon as he docked, Worf had been called to the Styllemarinne HQ. To the office of the chief. But it wasn’t the Addmiralis who met him. Some paper-pusher senior officer with an arrogant tone. Worf was reprimanded. That would have been bad in the old Axx, but it was almost disastrous in the new one. Everybody was paranoid and merciless. Worf was told he would be court-martialed. They said: «Disrespect for authority, wrongful imprisonment, disobeying orders, assault, property violation and unlawful treatment of prisoner.» It was laughable, but also dangerous. He could be shot dead if they found him guilty. And they probably would. And in this new Axx, this had dire consequences for his whole family as well.

  Worf had also met Sondra, his wife, for the first time in a year or so. She had been evicted from the family castle. The whole family had been evicted. The castle was now a fortress, harbouring a Logistics Regional HQ. Sondra was now working 15 hours a day in a munitions factory. And their son, Worf Jr., now 10 years old, spent almost as many hours a day with his grandmother, sowing buttons on uniforms.

  At least they were safe. For now. The bombings hadn’t reached the region yet, and the harassment by the police had been bearable, so far.

  *

  So why should he fight for them? Why should he fight for this corrupt disgraceful government that had degraded the whole planet? That had crashed all he found sacred? This was his final journey. He knew that. So fuck them. Why would he fight for them?

  “We have an ID on the contact, Kapt.” Said the Comms Officer.

  Worf looked up. He nodded. The officer read from the screen.

  “She’s Webburian.”

  As the officer disclosed the name of the ship, Worf kept scratching his beard. He didn’t want any more deaths. He was tired of this war. They should simply get out of there, ignore the contact, not mention the whole incident in the logs, forget about it. That was the best.

  “She’s injured, Kapt.” Said Urster.

  Worf looked up. The whole bridge was looking at him. He looked at his team. One by one. The bearded filthy men, anxious, looking like animals. Like predators. Their eyes were shining in the dim light. They hadn’t seen a fight in weeks. And the last time they had barely escaped with their lives, unable to reach the convoys. The enemy tactics had evolved, and Webbur’s 2nd Fleet had almost completely evicted the Silent Boats from the Dark Sea. Styllemarinners had been dying in scores. The Battle of the Equinox had been a turning point. So this injured prey was their last chance. Their last chance for blood. Their last chance for revenge. Whatever that’s worth. And, Worf knew, it was the last chance he had of fighting a good fight with those men. He knew it, and he could see in their eyes they knew it too. And Worf owed them that.

  So the enemy destroyer was out of luck. She would serve as S62’s last and honourable victim. They would do their duty.

  “Alright.” Said Worf Tinnzer finally. “Let’s do it.”

  *

  It was a short, pointless battle. Whatever the destroyer was suffering from, it maimed her severely. She didn’t even fire a single missile. S62 quietly positioned on her six o’clock and fired a couple of torpedoes. The Mildenboro died hopelessly in the void. The Dark Sea sharks had killed once more.

  “Alright.” Concluded Worf Tinnzer, taking his head out of his helmet with a tired sigh of sadness. “Let’s go home.”

  *

  Dear Captain Byllard Iddo,

  It is with deep regret that I write to you to inform you of the death of your wife, Commander Mirany C. Iddo, aboard the W.S.Mildenboro. With her ship suffering from a crippling malfunction and under fire from an enemy Silent Boat, Commander Iddo bravely sacrificed her life while she made sure that as many as possible of her crewmembers were able to climb aboard emergency escape pods and survive. She was consequently unable to escape herself.

  It is always with profound grief that I write a letter like this one, but knowing of her courage, her hounor, her strength and the critical role she played in the War Effort, my sorrow rises to different heights. I also am aware of how painful this demise will be for you personally after all your sacrifice and endeavor, and I will be at your disposal for whatever support I can offer you.

  Truly Yours,

  Admiral W.Hedde

  THE DARK SEA WAR CHRONICLES

  THE END

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Bruno Martins Soares writes fiction since he was 12 years old, and his first book, ‘O Massacre’ (The Massacre), a collection of short-stories, came out in Portugal in 1998.

  It was followed by several contributions to newspapers, magazines and other collective books.

  In 1996, he won the National Young Creators Award for Writing, representing Portugal at the 1997 Torino Young Creators of Europe and the Mediterranean Fair, where his short-story ‘Mindsweeper’ was translated and published in Italian.

  His first novel ‘A Saga de Alex 9’ (The Alex 9 Saga) was published in Portugal in 2012, by publisher Saída de Emergência, within a series that features authors like George R.R.Martin or Bernard Cornwell.

  He worked in Project Development for Television, and was a journalist and a communications, HR and management consultant before settling as a writer. He was also an international correspondent in Portugal for Jane’s Defense Weekly and a researcher for The Washington Post. He wrote several plays and short and full length pictures’ screenplays, and he wrote and produced English-spoken Castaway Entertainment’s full length feature film ‘Regret’, distributed in the USA and Canada in 2015. He lives and works in Lisbon.