“Says you.” Callahan paused to adjust his belt’s positioning around his substantial midsection. “Two units in two months is a hard pill for the Navy to swallow. And frankly, until I’m satisfied that the ‘improvements’ you’ve boasted about are legit, I’m not shelling out another penny.”
Dirk fought to keep a straight face. The way Callahan made it sound, you’d have thought it was his money he was flapping about, instead of the United States government’s.
“Now, when do I get to see the big girl?” the admiral pressed.
Dirk sighed. “The presentation is scheduled for tomorrow at 0800 hours. You’ll see everything you’ve asked for and more, guaranteed.”
“Bah. You “guaranteed” me those two critters you sold me would get the job done. You didn’t say anything about them getting done in.”
As Callahan started gnawing on one of his thumbnails, Dirk remembered from his file he was a heavy-duty smoker. Being in a tobacco-free environment like Tartarus was undoubtedly driving him nuts.
Dirk exhaled through his teeth. “Fine, let’s get the deceased units out of the way first.” He glanced up, pulling the info he needed out of his head. “The first unit lost was index 17A, code name: Grendel, a ninety-seven ton Gen-2 cow we certified November 14th of last year. She was lost on May 11th of this year, approximately six months later, when she attacked a boatload of insurgents attempting to approach the guided missile destroyer USS Crusader, under cover of darkness. When the terrorists were picked up by SODOME passing the ship’s defensive perimeter and refused to heave to, Grendel was directed to intercept. Per programming, she struck from below. The instant she stove in the attacking boat’s hull there was a tremendous explosion, which was, according to the report, ‘Sufficient to cripple, if not sink, Crusader.’ Both Grendel and the insurgents were killed instantaneously.”
Callahan spat irritably. “So you’re trying to tell me the stupid lizard died in the line of duty and I should be grateful?”
“I’m saying you sacrificed a half-billion dollar bio-weapon to save a fifteen-billion dollar ship-of-the-line, not to mention God-only-knows how many of her crew.” Dirk replied. “The Kronosaurus imperator did what she was programmed to do. She sacrificed herself to save lives.”
“And the other one – that bull that bought it?”
“That was your fault.”
“Excuse me?” Callahan shot back. “How so?”
Dirk swung his tablet up and swiped his finger across the screen. His almond-shaped eyes swung back and forth. “June 4th, unit 24A, a sixty-ton Gen-2 bull pliosaur, code name: Goliath, was running point for task force 77 – your task force, to be exact.” He turned the tablet so that Callahan could see the data. “Despite the fact sonar reported a huge cow pliosaur approaching on an intercept course, Goliath was ordered ahead, directly into the female’s territory.”
Dirk shook his head. “As expected, the two animals clashed. Goliath fought back, but was eventually killed by a lethal skull bite from the significantly larger female.”
“And how is that my fault?” Callahan inquired.
“This unredacted version of the report states that the go-ahead order was issued by CTF Callahan, Ward C., personally,” Dirk said. He gave the admiral a look that bordered on disgust. “Even with his implant, Goliath’s instincts should have kicked in and he would have given the female a wide birth. But you overrode his self-preservation protocols. You wanted them to fight, like some sort of sick MMA contest.”
“How was I supposed to know your boy was gonna get his clock cleaned?” Callahan snapped. As his blood pressure rose, his mustache stood out like a graying bristle brush on a ruddy background.
“My boy?”
Dr. Grayson exhaled heavily before joining the conversation. “Ward, these animals are among nature’s most lethal hunters. They are not chess pieces for your amusement.” He folded his arms. “We patented our cybernetic implants with the notion of using them to keep others of their kind at bay – to safeguard America’s beaches and coastline. It was Washington that elected to convert them into hardware for military applications.”
Callahan scoffed. “Yeah? Well, I don’t see you turning down any of our big, fat checks, now do I?”
Grayson sighed and interlocked his hands behind him before he resumed walking. “Derek, please continue.”
“Very well,” Dirk stopped beside the tank of a huge, battle-scarred bull pliosaur. The placard on the tank frame read-- “Polyphemus, the largest male Kronosaurus imperator we’ve ever documented. A full seventy feet long and pushing ninety tons, he is a beast. His--”
“No way.” Callahan shook his head so vigorously you’d have thought his hair was on fire. “After what happened to the last bull, I’ll pass. Sorry.”
Dirk and Grayson exchanged glances. “Admiral, mature male pliosaurs have the most testosterone on the planet, topping even the bull shark. Besides their utter aggressiveness, they’re also faster and more agile than the cows. You, of all people, should know that speed kills.”
Callahan studied the mottled behemoth cruising above him but was obviously unconvinced. “He’s a big boy, I’ll give him that.” He squinted as he studied the huge bull’s misshapen head. “Polyphemus? Wasn’t that the Cyclops in Homer’s Odyssey?”
Grayson turned and smiled for the first time. “I’m impressed, Ward. I didn’t expect you’d be so well read.”
“Required reading at the Academy. Personally I thought it was garbage.”
Dirk aggressively cleared his throat. “Like Ulysses’ Polyphemus, ours is also minus an eye.”
“What?” Callahan’s lips curled back, exposing his tobacco-stained teeth. “You’re trying to sell the Navy – trying to sell me – a beat-up lemon? No fucking way!”
As Polyphemus spun on his tail, Dirk pointed at his rebuilt right-side orbit. “Actually, we’ve upgraded his cybernetic implant to support a state-of-the-art ocular bionics platform.”
Callahan’s eyes narrowed as he scrutinized the battle-worn pliosaur’s luminescent red orb. “Can it see normally?”
“Better than normal,” Dirk announced. “His implant sweeps the entire spectrum, including X-rays, and with full digital processing. He’s also got a 500X zoom, and a high-speed camera that runs up to 200K FPS.”
“Is there a direct feed for all that?”
Dirk nodded. “Of course. Anything he can see you can record. And you can beam the results anywhere you want. His readouts are completely untraceable. He’s the ultimate underwater spy and he’ll never let you down. As long as you don’t send him on any suicide missions, that is . . .”
Callahan’s eyes took on a wicked gleam. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. Assuming tomorrow’s demo is satisfactory – hey, wait a minute. How much more is that eye costing me?”
Dr Grayson replied, “Not a penny. It’s the least we can do for our brothers in the Navy.”
“What about battery life with that fancy eye? Does it drain faster?”
“No. All the new implants, regardless of add-ons, last twice as long as the older models – nearly three years.”
Callahan rubbed his thick hands together in anticipation. “Sweet. With this beast on the payroll running recon and that behemoth you just brought in--”
“Actually, we have a third unit you may want as well,” Dirk said.
“A third? I’ve only got authorization for two.”
Dirk made a show of loudly sucking his teeth. “Gee, that’s too bad. She’s very special.”
“‘She?’ Is she as big as the Gen-1?”
Dirk didn’t answer right away. Instead, he moved briskly past the old bull’s tank, stopping at the one situated next to it. He gestured at a dark gray pliosaur that hovered motionless near the bottom of its habitat. “This is Charybdis.”
Callahan wore an unimpressed look. “Doesn’t move around much. And it looks the same size as ‘Old One-Eye’ over there.”
“She is,” Dirk affirmed. Inwardly, he was
starting to wonder about the admiral’s obsession with size. “That’s because she’s a Gen-2 female, probably twenty-four years old.”
“I’m supposed to be impressed because she’s younger?”
Dirk grinned. “No, but you will be impressed with what she can do.”
“And what’s that?”
Callahan jumped as the big cow swam so close its flippers scraped noisy grooves in the algae coating the other side of the eight-foot Celazole. Dirk gestured at the saurian as it swam away from them. “You see all those scars on her back?”
“She’s taken small arms fire. So what?”
“Pliosaurs possess a rudimentary intelligence, admiral,” Grayson interjected. His patience with Callahan was obviously wearing thin. “They’re highly adaptive.” He turned to his protégé. “Show him.”
Dirk unclipped a radio from his belt and pressed the talk button. “Tower three, can you drop a burger in number seven for me, please?”
“Will do, boss,” came the reply.
Thirty seconds later, one of the overhead hoists rumbled to life. It moved rapidly sideways along the web-like network of girders before coming to a halt and plummeting downward. Jaws spread, it disappeared into a large, open hold, and then reemerged, its grippers securely fastened around the midsection of a frantically struggling, 1,200 lb. Holstein. The black and white ruminant’s plaintive moos grew steadily louder as it was pulled high into the air and then carried toward Charybdis’s tank.
“You see,” Dirk said over the mooing. “This particular pliosaur was so traumatized by its gunshot wounds that it changed its hunting strategies.”
As the hoist rumbled directly overhead, Dirk lunged forward, extending his arms and ushering Dr. Grayson and Callahan back just in time to avoid a shower of hot manure. There was a loud mechanical thump as the lift stopped abruptly over the pliosaur’s tank. Suspended fifty feet above the tepid green water, the cow creaked back and forth on its steel tether, its widened eyes staring apprehensively downward.
Then its mooing stopped.
A loud claxon sounded and the hoist’s pincers sprang open. Plummeting downward, the terrified Holstein uttered a bawling cry that became a drowned gurgle as it landed with a tremendous splash.
A hundred feet from the bovine’s point of impact, Admiral Callahan watched with interest. Despite the fact that the cow’s flailing legs hung invitingly down directly above her, Charybdis didn’t respond. The granite-colored behemoth hovered silently in place, her fourteen-foot flippers gently undulating against the current generated by her enclosure.
“I don’t think she’s hungry,” Callahan remarked.
Dirk said nothing. He just pointed.
Like a Phalanx anti-missile battery targeting an incoming, Charybdis’s rowboat-sized head swiveled on its thick neck, her toothy muzzle angling upward. Her deepset eyes contracted as she studied the swimming mammal and her echolocation clicks reflected off her tank walls. A few seconds later, she was on the move.
Dirk read the confusion on Callahan’s face as the 90-ton reptile discarded the traditional attack method its kind favored – coming straight up under a target and either breaching or yanking it under. Instead, Charybdis suspended at the fifty-foot mark and began to circle the terrified Holstein like Apache warriors stalking a wagon train. Rather than rushing in to attack, she maintained her distance and accelerated. With all four of her thick paddles pumping in unison, her speed steadily increased.
Churned by the movements of the pliosaur’s massive body, the displaced water in the tank began to swirl. The loudly mooing cow kicked frantically as its body was irresistibly drawn into a wide spiral. Below it, still five stories down and moving ever faster, Charybdis continued swimming. Her jaws were closed tight to reduce drag, her neck straight and her body narrowed. Above her, a powerful whirlpool formed – a huge, sucking vortex that drew the helpless bovine in ever tightening circles.
Callahan’s jaw went slowly slack as he watched the contents of the pliosaur’s habitat transform from a calm aquarium into a raging maelstrom. The polybenzimidazole walls of the tank began to creak from the increased water pressure and the admiral jumped when pressurized seawater burst like a fire extinguisher from a nearby joint.
Suddenly, Charybdis made her move. With the half-drowned cow nearing the eye of the storm she’d caused, she descended. Still circling at nearly forty miles an hour, the behemoth dropped toward the bottom, fifty feet below.
The effect was instantaneous. Charybdis’s sudden descent caused the sucking power of the whirlpool to increase geometrically. The exhausted ruminant barely had time to utter an astonished grunt before it was yanked under.
Trailing the last of its air, the Holstein spun in dizzying circles, a flailing black-and-white ball of legs that was carried powerlessly toward the bottom. It was a child’s toy in the spin cycle of an out-of-control washing machine.
A split-second before the cow’s hooves touched the tank’s sandy bottom Charybdis altered her trajectory, changing from a tight circle to a straight line rush. Jaws agape, she pierced the eye of her own personal storm and enveloped the drowning ungulate in a vice lined with fifteen-inch fangs. As her mouth closed, the sound of pulverized bone shook the tank wall nearest to Callahan and the admiral blinked in astonishment.
Relishing her kill, the big female swam right up to him, holding the dead cow in her maw like a dog showing off a chew toy. The clear, nictitating membranes that protected her garnet-colored eyes slid closed and her steely jaw muscles bunched. Billows of blood spewed from her crocodile-like jaws, diffusing into pinkish clouds as she shook her prey.
Dirk watched with grim satisfaction as a pair of severed hooves struck the panel in front of Callahan’s face, causing him to recoil. Charybdis appeared to enjoy his reaction, as she moved closer. Her sedan-sized head touched the polycarbonate and her protective membranes slid back, allowing her to study him in detail. Her jaws continued to move up and down, forcing the macerated cow’s body further back into her gullet. Like rubber, the thick-scaled skin of her throat stretched to accommodate her meal, and with an audible gulp, she swallowed it. She gave Callahan a final glance, then uttered a low rumble of satiation and spun off, cruising toward the far reaches of her enclosure where she all but vanished into the gloom.
Callahan swallowed as he watched her go. “Is this how she usually feeds?”
“Always,” Dirk said. “She never breaches or surfaces, stays down most of the day, and when she spouts, exposes only her nostrils before submerging once more. And feeding, well . . . you just saw her technique.”
“I’ll take her.”
Dirk blinked. “Just like that? Don’t you have any--”
Callahan waved him off with one hand while the other wiped at the condensation on the outside of the tank wall. He squinted hard, trying to catch another glimpse of her. “I have all the funding I need,” he intimated. “And this bitch is going to be my ultimate assassin.”
“How so?”
Callahan looked at him in surprise. “Are you kidding? Do you know how many thorns I can pluck while holding her leash?” He gestured at the water before him. “Let’s just say there’s going to be a marked increase in certain undesirables vanishing at sea, courtesy of sudden, inexplicable weather anomalies. Real Bermuda Triangle shit.” He winked at Dirk.
Grayson folded his arms across his chest. “We don’t need to know the details, admiral. Suffice to say, the fact that you’re pleased with any acquisition is music to our collective ears.”
“Damn straight.” Callahan’s lips disappeared as he mulled something over. “Say, I know the scheduled demo’s not until tomorrow, but what about the procedure on the Gen-1?”
“You’re interested in attending?”
Callahan turned to Grayson and grinned. “You know, Eric. For a genius, he’s remarkably dense.”
Dirk frowned as he checked his watch. “Actually, we’re starting in just over an hour. I should get prepped.” He looked at Grayson for poss
ible input before turning back to Callahan. “Are you sure you want to be there? I mean, it gets a little messy and I wouldn’t want to spoil your dinner.”
Callahan chuckled and rested a beefy hand on his shoulder. “Derek, my boy, as much as I enjoy slapping on the feedbag, seeing what goes on with these dragons of yours is far more appetizing.”
“Well, if you’re sure . . .”
“Absolutely. Besides, I could skip a meal or three,” Callahan said, patting his belly. “Wouldn’t want one of your pliosaurs to mistake me for some fat, juicy steer and try to make a meal out of me!”
“Heaven forbid,” Grayson said.
CHAPTER
11
It was near-dusk when the Octopus giganteus pair departed the inky depths and returned to the ocean’s sunlit upper layer. For a mile in advance, the Gulf Stream emptied of life as its denizens sensed their approach and fled. As before, the giant female took the lead, expelling powerful gushes of water from her mantle and propelling her 140-foot body up the slopes of the crevasse the two now called home.
The male octopus hung back, keeping pace with his mate, but also keeping his distance. He was more worried about the female’s foul temper than any discomfort he might incur from being near the surface. The twilight conditions surrounding them were far more bearable than the blazing sunlight they had faced the last time, and the brown bands decorating his gnarled skin reflected his improved mood.
Although they were far from satiated, the two had fed well during their recent hunt. What they assumed was an injured whale turned out to be some sort of floating construct. It was a vessel, like the hard shell of their tiny cousin, the Nautilus, but made of dry, coarse cellulose – completely inedible, as an investigatory bite had shown. Luckily, a quick exploration of the floater revealed it to be infested with dozens of warm-blooded prey items. They were small, most little more than a beakful. But they were also blubbery rich and nutritious, like seals, only far easier to catch.
Together, the two octopi had thoroughly explored the vessel’s shattered frame, stripping it bare of every morsel they could find before they pulled it beneath the waves and dragged it to the bottom. It was a valuable learning experience for them. There were many such vessels; the surface was littered with them. They had inadvertently discovered a prolific food source that required them to do little more than surface whenever they needed to access it.
Kronos Rising: Kraken (vol.1): The battle for Earth's oceans has just begun. Page 20
