Terror Krakens

by Eric S. Brown

  “Samantha!” Ben screamed, starting toward her but Maggie stopped him.

  “Run!” Lancaster shouted.

  Chaos erupted as the soldiers and survivors of the Princess Dream fought a running retreat against the creatures spilling out of the engineering section. Lancaster fired his M4 on full-auto into one of the things charging along the corridor toward him. The bullets pulped its main body in an explosion of grayish slime, flinging bits and pieces everywhere. Higgins’ shotgun thundered, taking out the creature behind it.

  “Go! Go! Go!” Burke yelled at the others as she stopped to let them pass. Maggie stopped with her.

  “You’re crazy!” Maggie told Burke, knowing that the woman was going to make a stand and felt even crazier herself for opting to stick by her. Doing so was a matter of pride.

  The others made it by them as the two women laid down a barrage of fire, trying to keep the creatures at bay. The octopus-like things died one after another but they just kept coming. Burke’s M4 clicked empty and she cursed like a sailor as she struggled to trade out magazines as quickly as she could. Maggie fired the round in her shotgun’s chamber into one of the creatures coming at them. The thing shrieked as the shot blew away most of its right side and then flopped onto the floor, thrashing about, as the other creatures swarmed over it.

  “Frag!” Maggie blurted out in shock. “They’re not just eating us. They’re eating their own wounded too!”

  “That’s a good thing!” Burke cackled like a mad woman as she finally got her M4 loaded again. Her M4 blazed away at the creatures as Maggie pumped her last round into the chamber of the shotgun.

  “We can’t hold them!” Maggie warned.

  “You mean you can’t!” Burke told her. “Now go on and get out of here!”

  Maggie wanted to argue but didn’t. If Burke wanted to show her up by committing suicide then that was her choice. Maggie ran, leaving Burke alone to hold back the tide of oncoming creatures.

  Burke saw Maggie run and smiled. She hoped the security officer would make it. Despite the tension and competitiveness between them, Burke had come to like Maggie. The woman had spunk and more of a backbone than some soldiers she had known.

  A burst of fire from Burke’s M4 nailed another of the creatures that had leaped onto the corridor’s ceiling. Her bullets severed several of the thing’s tentacles from its body, sending it crashing onto the floor. It wasn’t dead but at least it looked to be out of the fight and that was good enough. Burke swept the barrel of her M4 around to target a creature that was too close for her liking. The thing had sprinted ahead of the others and was almost within tentacle range of her position. She fired two quick bursts into it. One slashed along the creature’s side, doing damage, but missing the center of its main body that she had been aiming for. The second hit the thing dead on. The impact of the bullets knocked it backward as they ripped through it, exiting its backside in sprays of gray blood and globs of pulped meat. Burke moved to target another of the creatures coming at her. She fired again as the thing screeched at her. Her bullets ripped their way up its body, carving bloody trails along it. The creature shuddered, coming to a halt as Burke fired into it again, making fragging sure that the thing was dead.

  Burke knew that even she couldn’t keep up a fight like this forever. The things were closing on her too fast and there were too many of them. Burke knew the time had come to make a run for it. Switching her M4 back to full-auto, she emptied the rest of her magazine into the creatures, dropping several of them. It wasn’t enough. There was no time to reload or even run. Burke flipped her M4 around in her hands to use the rifle like a club as the first of the creatures reached her. She swung the rifle like a baseball with all the strength she could muster. One of the creature’s thicker tentacles snapped up to parry the swing, turning the blow aside from the thing main body. Burke screamed in pain as one of its lesser tentacles coiled about her arm, nearly yanking it out of its shoulder socket. The barbs on its underside cut into her as the tentacle drew up tighter around her arm. Blood ran over the sleeve of her uniform beneath where the creature’s tentacle held her. Burke drew her sidearm and pressed the pistol into the side of the thing’s main body. The pistol cracked in rapid succession as she put five rounds into it. The tentacle holding her arm loosened and dropped away as the creature toppled onto the floor at her feet just as another came leaping over it onto her. The thing entangled her, several of its tentacles twisting around her arms and legs. The two of them gone down with the creature on top as Burke wrestled against it, trying to keep its snapping beak-like mouth away from her throat. Her pistol was knocked from her grasp as she fought with the creature. The thing was strong, a lot stronger than she was when it used its two primary tentacles. She cried out as the tentacles around her legs drew so tight that they broke her bones there. Burke’s body jerked upward beneath the creature, her spine arching from the pain in her legs. The creature had Burke’s arms pinned above her head and her legs were useless now. Unable to do anything else, Burke turned her head and bit into one of the tentacles clutching her arms. The taste of the slime smearing the creature’s skin was terrible. It made her gag as her teeth tore a mouthful of meat from the tentacle she had sunk them into. The tentacle recoiled, releasing her right arm. She brought it up in a fury of berserker rage, punching the side of the creature’s body over and over as its beak came down to attack her chest and breasts. The creature’s beak extended out of its main body, whipping at her relentlessly as it tore at her flesh. Burke’s screams were long and loud as the thing’s beak savaged her chest, sending splashes of red flying. Finally, the pain was too much for her and Burke couldn’t fight any longer. Her arms went limp as she lost consciousness with the creature still tearing away at her body. Burke’s last thought was that she hoped all the creatures burned in Hell.

  ****

  Maggie raced along the Princess Dream’s corridors. As she caught up to the others, the echoing sounds of Burke’s gunfire came to a sudden end. She knew the woman was dead and fought to the end in order to buy the rest of them every possible second that she could.

  Lancaster stood at an open hatch as Ben leaped through it onto a boat alongside the giant cruise ship. Everyone else was already on the boat except for Lancaster now. He hesitated, waiting for her.

  “Where’s Burke?” he snapped.

  “She’s dead,” Maggie yelled at him.

  Lancaster looked like he didn’t believe her but there was no time to argue. The screeching of the creatures rang out, growing closer with each passing second. Lancaster steadied himself, raising his M4 in the direction the creatures would be coming from and nodded for her to go on.

  “What hell are you doing?” Maggie asked Lancaster, peering out the hatch to gauge the distance of the jump that she was about to make.

  “Covering you, now go!” Lancaster shouted. Even as he replied, the first of the creatures came bounding along the corridor toward them. Lancaster opened up on them with his M4. The rifle bucked in his hands as he hit the things with a series of well-aimed bursts that sent the first three of them back to whatever nightmarish Hell that they had crawled out of.

  Maggie didn’t waste any more time. She backed up and ran forward toward the hatch, throwing herself into the air at the last moment. The world seemed to slow down during the fleeting instance that her body hurled through the air from the Princess Dream to the soldiers’ small boat. She saw the water below her, a crystal blue, and then Maggie hit the deck of the small boat rolling. The impact jarred her but she appeared uninjured beyond some bruises as her body came to a stop. Ben was suddenly towering over her, helping her to her feet. The world sped up again as Lancaster’s M4 fire went silent and the XO flung himself out the Princess Dream’s hatch. His jump was too short. Lancaster splashed into the water right next to the small boat.

  The old engineer, Higgins, and a soldier Maggie didn’t recognize sprang into action, trying to pull Lancaster out of the water and up onto the boat. They had him over h
alfway out of the water when one of the creatures surfaced from beneath the waves and slapped a barbed tentacle onto his back. Lancaster cried out as the tentacle jerked him away from the side of the small boat and out of the hands of Higgins and the other soldier. He splashed back into the water, disappearing in the waves. Seconds later, the water where he had been pulled down turned red.

  “Lancaster!” another soldier Maggie didn’t recognize yelled, leaning of the side of the boat. Higgins grabbed him and yanked the short, squat man away from there.

  “Get us moving, Hall,” Higgins ordered him. “Those things got him and you know it. Ain’t nothing we can do for him now but pray that his soul had been saved.”

  Hall rushed for the controls of the boat as Higgins turned to her. “Burke’s gone too, ain’t she?”

  Maggie nodded. “I think she put up one hell of a fight though.”

  “I figured as much,” Higgins snorted.

  The boat lurched into motion, pulling away from the Princess Dream and building speed as it went. It bounced over the waves, its engine roaring.

  Ben joined her and Higgins where they stood. “Where we headed?”

  The old man pointed at the horizon. “No point in not telling you now. Take a look that way.”

  Ben and Maggie’s eyes moved to where the old man indicated. An armored and clearly military platform rose out of the water in the distance.

  “That’s where we’re from,” Higgins told them. “She’s called the Meridian Platform. She’s a top-secret, missile defense base.”

  Maggie took a look back at the Princess Dream as the giant cruise ship continued to drift on the waves. She put two and two together quickly. “And you came aboard our ship because she’s drifting right at your base on a collision course.”

  “Yep.” Higgins’ head bobbed. “That pretty much sums it up. It was either that or blow her out of the water. The commander ain’t too keen on shooting at American ships.”

  “Guess we should be glad for that,” Ben said, the thankfulness clear in his tone of voice.

  Maggie thought for a moment then asked, “Haven’t you and your people been attacked by those things yet? I would think a stationary target like your base would really appeal to those things.”

  “Aye,” Higgins said. “We’ve been attacked once before your cruise liner drifted in after the storm but it was only one of them. Still caught us with our pants down and killed two of our people. Beyond that, those things have left us alone so far.”

  “I don’t think they will for much longer,” Maggie said.

  “And I reckon you would be right about that, young lady, especially after the commander blows that cruise ship that brought you here to bits,” Higgins agreed then headed over toward Hall at the ship’s controls.

  “Get the commander on the horn, son,” Higgins ordered. “He and I need to talk and right fast at that.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hall said. “This is Recon Alpha calling Meridian, over.”

  “Meridian here,” a voice answered him over the radio in his hand.

  “Put the commander on. Mister Higgins needs to speak with him ASAP,” Hall barked.

  A second later, another voice spoke over the radio. “What is it, Mister Higgins, and where is my XO?”

  “Lancaster is dead, boss,” Higgins told him. “Burke too. We’ve picked up a couple of refugees from the cruise liner and are headed in at top speed. You need to blow that ship out of the water now, sonny, with everything we can bring to bear on her.”

  A moment of silence passed before the commander’s voice answered, “Understood.”

  The small boat continued to roar toward the Meridian Platform as the base opened fire on the Princess Dream. A volley of missiles streaked toward the giant cruise liner from launchers aboard the platform. They struck the Princess Dream’s bow as she drifted onward toward the platform. The ensuing explosions were spectacular. The giant cruise ship’s front end blew apart, sending debris flying as flames flashed. Secondary explosions ripped their way along the length of the Princess Dream, setting the bulk of her on fire. Still, it wasn’t enough to sink her. The Meridian Platform fired again and this time, the giant cruise ship seemed to disintegrate from the fury unleashed upon it.

  Five minutes later, Maggie, Higgins, Ben, and the others were disembarking onto the platform. Two other armed soldiers were waiting there to help them aboard.

  ****

  Commander Lewis paced in the C.I.C while he waited for Higgins to join him there. Dr. Dane had demanded that all those returning from the Princess Dream be brought to medical before they were allowed free movement around the platform. He couldn’t fault her that. The woman was playing it safe and doing her job. Still, waiting wasn’t an easy thing. He had just blown up a civilian American cruise line. While that was somewhat in his authority to do, it hadn’t been a choice that Commander Lewis had made lightly. He had trusted the old man’s call and hoped he wasn’t going to regret it. Commander Lewis reasoned that if Higgins had told him to fire on the cruise ship, the old man had good reason for doing so.

  The news of Lancaster’s death stung Commander Lewis as much as the report of Burke’s surprised him. That woman had seemed an unstoppable force of full-out rage with the skills to back it up. What little Higgins had been able to tell him over the comm. in route and before he had been whisked away to Dr. Dane was that the cruise liner’s crew and passengers had been wiped out—man, woman, and child—in their entirety other than the two survivors his people had returned with. He had already brought the Meridian Platform to full alert. Even now, Kennedy and Jango were out there, armed to the teeth, sealing her up in case those monsters made a try at her next. They had gotten straight to work after seeing that those who had returned were escorted to Dr. Dane’s in medical. But that left only himself, Gray, and Robert in the C.I.C as available personnel should an emergency come up.

  Commander Lewis knew he wouldn’t have to wait on Higgins too long. Not even Dr. Dane could keep the old man from storming to the C.I.C as soon as he could. He just hoped Higgins would let her check him out first before doing so. With the old man’s demeanor, one had to pull rank most of the time in order to get him to do anything that didn’t involve his work tools or drinking.

  “Those things really wiped out everyone aboard that ship, sir?” Robert turned to ask him.

  “That’s what Higgins said,” Commander Lewis said. He didn’t want to think about just how many people that had to be. “Gray, prep the CIWS. I want it adjusted to where it can target the water.”

  “Yes, sir,” Gray said. “I’ll make the adjustments now.”

  The Meridian Platform was actually equipped with two close-in weapon systems. Both of them had the power to throw a virtual wall of rounds at anything nearing the platform, and Commander Lewis had them modified when he had taken over as CO to where they could be adjusted to fire at contacts on the water if need be. They were the platform’s only real defense against the creatures though. Its missile launchers were designed to target inbound enemy fire at both the station and the distant United States and they couldn’t be realigned. If the creatures somehow got passed the two C.I.W.S, then it would come down to small arms and that was a battle they would surely lose if the things got inside the base. Counting the two refugees from the Princess Dream and himself, there were only thirteen people aboard the Meridian Platform, most of them with no front line combat training since Basic. It was up to Kennedy and Jango to make sure the base was as impenetrable to those monsters as it could be. And the truth was, there were few weak spots other than topside. If they gave that up and abandoned the platform’s deck and docking area, they could seal off the interior with bulkhead doors that should stop the monsters cold. The question was if he was willing to make that call. Because if he did and the monsters did come in force, they would be trapped below until the monsters either left of their own accord or help arrived to save them.

  “Sir,” Robert called for his attention. The communications off
icer looked stark pale as if something had just scared the crap out of him. “Long-range comms. have just come back online. I’m picking up some pretty strange chatter out. I think you hear it, sir.”

  “Put it on speaker,” Commander Lewis ordered.

  Robert did as they listened in shock and horror together to the various distress calls and requests for emergency assistance.

  “This is the U.S.S. Baltimore. We are under attack. I repeat, we are under attack by creatures of unknown origin!” a voice yelled over the comm.

  Another voice called out as they heard gunfire in the background behind it. “This is the U.S.S. Wellington. We’ve been overrun and require immediate emergency extraction!”

  “Oh God,” a third trembling voice whispered, “I think those things have killed everyone onboard. If there’s anyone out there that can hear me, my coordinates are…”

  It sounded like every U.S. ship in the Atlantic was under attack from subs to carrier groups.

  “That’s not all, Commander,” Robert told him. “I’m picking up a lot of the same coming from Russian, British, and commercial ships of various origins too.”

  “What is happening out there?” Gray shook his head. “I mean, those things can’t be everywhere, can they?”

  “Apparently, the end of the world doesn’t start with an earthquake,” Commander Lewis quipped.

  “It really sounds like those things are attacking everything on the open seas,” Robert managed to say, though he looked on the verge of being sick. “Should I respond to any of the calls for help?”

  “Negative,” Commander Lewis ordered. “We couldn’t do anything for them anyway and our location is supposed to be classified.”