by Steven Welch
“Secure the weapon in your vest holster. Safety on, please. When you fire, the gun will kick in your hand. Hold steady. Aim for the body, not the head.”
“What if it’s a zombie? What if it doesn’t have a body? What if it’s just a head?”
“These are good points. Use your best judgement.”
There was a thunderous pounding on the starboard view port. Zuzu jumped, McAllister cursed, and Jules ran to the glass to see what was happening.
Try-Ton stared at him from outside of the sub, floating in the clear sea water. The Orcanum warrior pounded again on the sub. Jules motioned for the warrior to wait a moment and then began deeply gulping air, forcing it into his lungs. Zuzu moved to the rear of the sub and manipulated switches and twisted little metal wheels.
“Air-lock, please,” said Jules between deep breaths. He stripped away his clothing.
“Oh gross,” said Elise, shielding her eyes from sight of hairy old man butt.
Within moments Jules was sporting the red, blue, and white wetsuit of Les Scaphandriers. No dive mask, no scuba gear, and no time. He slipped into the tiny air-lock. Water poured into the chamber, the hatch opened, and Jules Valiance, lungs charged to capacity, swam out to meet Try-Ton.
The Orcanum warrior was massive and graceful in the ocean environment. Jules floating across from him and displayed a certain amount of grace as well. He motioned that they should swim to the surface and led the way.
Their heads popped up from the cold water and Jules felt the warmth of the twin suns touch his brow. The salt air smelled sweet. Jules loved that smell.
Try-Ton stared at him, unsure of what to make of this strange human.
Jules clicked and burped and sang, his best effort at communicating a basic plan. Try-Ton reared back as if to strike Jules.
“Oh, what did I say?”
Try-Ton stopped and smiled, showing rows of conical teeth.
“Ah, amusing. So, I have a plan. Give us until the suns disappear below the horizon, then attack with all of your force. We will have a chance, my friend. We will have a good, courageous, and unlikely chance.”
Of course, that’s not what Try-Ton heard at all, but the intent was there.
To the Orcanum warrior, Jules had actually said, “Two babies farting. I will win. Go when dark and eggs drop flat magic. All of us frolic. All of us frolic unafraid and with vigor.”
Not bad, considering, and Jules would still have been pleased at his quick but rudimentary understanding of the Orcanum tongue. Whatever the case, Try-Ton understood.
Try-Ton considered Jules Valiance for a moment, this frail, pink creature from a world called Earth. The old human was no warrior, but their flying vessel was a weapon mightier than any on Orcanum, a surprise tactic that might give them all an edge against the massive green warship. The Orcanum warrior had his own plans for success, but what a distraction a flying weapon would make.
So for that, Try-Ton would risk everything.
Try-Ton nodded at Jules and disappeared into the waves.
Jules took a deep breath and dived back to the Aquaboggin.
This was suicide, he thought. Ridiculous suicide.
But still, it will be memorable.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
RAID ON THE SHIP OF DREAMS
PRIVATE SPLATTER WAS born Philipe Devilliers to wealthy parents on sunny Cap Ferrat in the French Riviera.
He had learned to water-ski at an early age, as glamorous aqua sport was an iconic part of life on the Mediterranean. Sir Mick Jagger had even given young Philipe a few slalom pointers and a snifter of cognac one delightful afternoon during a break in the recording of “Exile On Main Street.” Water-skiing wasn’t enough for the thrill seeking little red-head, though, and soon, inspired by photographs he had seen in magazines of daredevils performing stunts at Cypress Gardens in Florida, he experimented with flat kites towed by boats that would send him a hundred meters into the air attached to a line, where he could smell the salt breeze and observe beautiful girls sunning themselves on the shores of Villefranche-Sur-Mer. The simple flat kites soon became complex Delta Wing Gliders that could catch air currents and propel little Philipe into the blue sky like a ginger Icarus. He was the spotty Superboy of the Azure Coast, Philipe the Impossible, a flying fireball of ego and daring that inspired postcards and the dreams of teenage girls.
And that’s why Private Splatter was chosen to strap into Les Scaphandrier’s bright white hang glider and soar on a terrifying mission that would undoubtedly end with him living up to his nick-name.
The Aquaboggin surfaced. There was no other way to begin the flight of the hang glider. If they were seen, they were seen.
The kite was stored in a long tube that ran along the port deck. Jules retrieved it, beginning the process of assembling and unpacking. Zuzu fetched the heavy aluminum wench and thick spool of nylon line. Hopping onto the deck, she began wrenching the contraption to pre-set connectors at the rear of the sub. The long kite was pulled out onto the deck then and Private Splatter made quick work of extending the wide wings and checking the sailcloth and battens.
Elise sat in the co-pilot seat, staring at the active view screen, zoomed in on the sea monkey. If it made any sign that it had spotted them, she was to shout as loudly as she could.
The kite was assembled and tethered to the nylon line. Splatter donned a light-weight dive helmet and a combination scuba tank / jet pack that could propel him through the sea at surprising speed, if necessary.
His trusty shotgun was strapped to a sleeve on his chest and his bushy beard poked out from under the helmet like a rusty broom.
Jules patted his friend on the shoulder and smiled.
“Bon chance, mon ami.”
Splatter glared at Jules.
“I’m dead.”
“Probably, yes.”
Splatter made a rude gesture at Jules Valiance.
“Then let’s do this.”
Elise called to them from below deck.
Jules and Zuzu scrambled back down into the sub, Valiance dropping into the pilot seat.
“The monkey,” said Elise, pointing at the screen.
The sea monkey was jumping up and down on the top of the mast and pointing at them. They couldn’t hear it, but all of them assumed a great deal of sea monkey chattering was going on.
“Off we go,” said Jules. He activated the jet engines of the submarine. The hatch closed. Throttle down.
Private Splatter stood at the aft of the deck, the kite strapped to his back like four meter wide bat wings. His knees buckled slightly as the sub accelerated.
Jules punched a button on the control console. The Octo-Thing began to play a jaunty tune on its little violin.
A clip on the aluminum wench dropped. Splatter shifted the inclination of the kite and wind caught him. The sub continued to accelerate towards the Volcano of Ebon and the monstrous Ship of Dreams.
At speed and with the wind, Private Splatter lifted off of the deck and soared into the sky. The nylon line was attached to a harness near his waist and it was playing out like fishing line with a blue fin tuna on the hook.
North McAllister watched the old man ascend from the open bow hatch. A cigarette hung from his lips and he kept his eyes locked on Private Splatter, periodically checking the wench and the line as well.
Warm wind lashed Splatter in the face. It felt good. He felt young again, a Superboy flying above the Riviera. Up and up he rose as the line played out. The Aquaboggin diminished below him. From here he could see so much. The clear waters of the Orcanum sea. The looming vastness of the Volcano of Ebon. The fast approaching warship and its strangely tapestried sails; its tentacle tubes stretching out into the depths below, presumably into the heart of the volcano itself.
Where were the warriors? Splatter scanned right and left. His eyes weren’t as good as they once were but they weren’t terrible either. The Orcanum warriors should have been hiding, yes, but visible just the same from this great height. They shou
ld have been a commotion in the clear water, a shadow of movement beneath the waves, they should have been something but they weren’t.
The water was clear as far as Splatter could see.
Had they fled? Where the hell were they?
No time for that. I’ve things to do, he thought. The line was played out and Splatter was nearly two hundred meters above the surface. Time for the signal.
He crossed and uncrossed his bandy old legs.
North McAllister saw the strange kicking maneuver.
“The signal!” he shouted loudly, so that those in the sub could hear.
“He has achieved release,” Jules murmured.
Private Splatter triggered a catch on his vest and the nylon line popped free.
McAllister watched as the long rope gently dropped and Private Splatter’s kite flew free, untethered, catching the currents of the wind. He scrambled over to the wench and cut the line. Won’t need that again.
Far above the ocean, Splatter was now in control of his flight. He dismissed his search for the Orcanum warriors. There was only one job now, and that was to stay alive as long as possible so that the fool Valiance could attempt his ridiculous scheme.
“Into the ski sleds,” Jules said. Zuzu and McAllister worked quickly, strapping themselves into the little portable jet packs no bigger than a scuba tank. They swapped their shoes for fins and secured dive knifes to their thighs and explosive charges to their bellies.
The Aquaboggin was running just above the surface. Valiance dropped the hatch, and the sub descended, increasing speed. He pushed the throttle as hard as he could. Ten knots. Twenty. The engines hummed and Elise could feel the vibration of their strain against the hull.
“Watches?”
“Synchronized.”
“The charges will detonate in twenty minutes.”
Zuzu and McAllister entered the airlock. They gave Jules a thumbs up. He twisted a wheel, and the air was sucked out of the lock. Sea water rushed in.
The hatch opened and the two Scaphandrier pushed out into the blue in an explosion of bubbles.
Once in the water they activated their ski sleds. Small jets kicked in. Zuzu and McAllister grabbed the control tethers and made themselves as hydrodynamic as possible. The ski sleds were self contained underwater jet packs that had enough thrust for five kilometers at high speed. The two divers could feel the force of the water against their masks, digging into their skin, as they shot forward toward the looming mass of the alien warship. There was no way to communicate, no turning around, just a surge of impeller forced water at their backs and a rush of noise in their ears.
“If this bomb blows up right now I’m a pink cloud of chum,” thought Zuzu.
“That’s a strange bird,” thought the sea monkey atop the mast of the ship. It brought its little spyglass up to get a better look.
“That bird has captured a skinny old human.”
A closer look.
“No, that human is wearing wings. Crap.”
The sea monkey again began to chatter and chitter. It tugged on a rope near its tail and an alarm bell rang.
“First a weird sea creature with human heads poking out of it, now a flying human. Mother said that there would be days of high strangeness. This must be one of them.”
“The monkey has seen him,” said Elise, “it looks like he’s screaming and ringing alarms.”
“Cursed sea ape,” said Jules, “but not unexpected. Our flying friend is not subtle.”
The Aquaboggin powered on, throttle down and engines at full, churning water through her twin jet motors.
The winds were wonderful. The temperature change on the water as the suns set along with the air currents whipping around the volcano made for fantastic flying conditions. If this were a joyride, Splatter would have caught a thermal and stayed aloft for hours to enjoy the beauty of the twin sunset and the turquoise waters below.
This was not a joyride. He swooped left and right, his eyes on the target as he flew closer to the enormous sailing ship, his hands tight on the aluminum bar in front of him that guided his movement.
The damned monkey had seen him and now Splatter noticed that figures on the deck were beginning to point and shout.
Worse, one of the flying jellyfish moved in his direction.
“This will take some doing,” he thought.
“Goddess, there is a flying human approaching from the west,” said the swollen and pasty crewman as he ran into the control chamber of the ship.
I’Masma turned away from the glass tower that held the Old One.
“Seriously?”
The crewman noticed the moving darkness in the corners of the chamber, the many red eyes and shining teeth. He shivered.
“The human is hairy, old, and winged,” he said.
“Deal with him, it, whatever. I’m a little busy down here.”
She rolled her eyes and waved the crewman away.
I’Masma raised her hand and gestured at an arcing tube of energy on a small console of glass and copper.
One wall came alive with color and patterns and texture. It was an entire shroud of the chromatophore flesh, a ten meter video skin screen.
Praetor Agrunctus stared down at her, the image jittery and shifting between perfectly clear and garbled visual noise.
“Your brilliance,” Agrunctus said, “Earth is razed. The Rolling Deep has harvested our fill. Mission complete.”
“Lovely, Praetor, just superb. It’s time to return to us so we may move on.”
She gestured again, and the skin screen went dark.
I’Masma turned back to the bubbling, liquid filled chamber of The Old One. She gestured delicately above a command screen at the base of the hideous aquarium and three dimensional shapes of light erupted around her. She manipulated them, controlled them, shifted them into patterns.
The liquid within the aquarium began to bubble and agitate around The Old One. The monstrous ancient thing did not move or show any sign of awareness or life, but all around it was glow and froth.
Then, the single nightmarish eye blinked. A low vibration welled up from the thing and rose louder, more violently, until the rumble became a shriek, an unending and uninterrupted scream.
The Old One screamed and power surged out from it, fuel that was the only thing in creation that could rip the fabric of time, space, and gravity so violently that holes were formed.
At that moment on what was once the floor of Earth’s vast ocean, the mile-wide portals of blue energy, these two way windows, these gateways between worlds, these tunnels appeared again.
There were twelve of the massive Razor Ships on Earth. They all were positioned next to one of the holes in space, and they all entered the coruscating energy fields at the same moment.
Praetor Agrunctus held tight to the thick leather arms of his command throne. Riding the Shock Tide into the next world always made him sick.
His control chamber glowed for the briefest of moments, then everything shuddered and flickered. He felt a stab of pain, then blinding light, and then he vomited so violently that gobs of the stuff spattered the far wall.
Agrunctus opened his eyes and everything was still once more. He thought he smelled the ocean in the air that drifted in from the ceiling vents. It was pleasant.
Private Splatter was a hundred meters from the surface and from the sailing ship. The ship’s forward railing was now a chaos of crewmen pointing and waving at him.
They didn’t look particularly friendly.
“Well, to hell with them,” he thought, only moments before the waters of the lagoon around the ship began to glow and bubble.
“Oh,” he said as the vast ocean expanse of the lagoon, a good five kilometers wide, erupted in steam and bright blue lightning.
He had seen that sort of energy once before, when they had opened the portal at the bottom of the sea that had killed the Earth.
Enormous black walls rose up from the ocean all around, each as big as a skyscraper a
nd smooth as ebony razor blades. There were twelve of these monoliths and they ascended, six to a side, flanking the emerald glass sailing ship.
Private Splatter felt small.
“Something just appeared on sonar. Multiple targets. Huge,” said Jules.
Elise saw white blobs on the sonar screen positioned all about the vast lagoon.
Jules sent the thin periscope up a meter or so. An image appeared on one of the console screens.
“Merde,” he said.
Black ships had appeared like mountains out of the turbulence to either side of the glass sailing vessel.
“They’re like the one that we saw in Paris. The one that was eating the city,” Elise said.
Jules was quiet for a moment. The only sound was the intense whine of the turbines as they powered the sub through the water.
“Well, little idiot girl, how does it feel?”
Elise looked at Jules, not sure how to respond.
“How does it feel to ride with the legendary explorers, the daring scientists, the astonishing aquanauts known as Les Scaphandriers?”
Elise smiled in spite of her fear.
He was crazy, but she loved him.
“It’s awesome,” she said.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
SUCH COST
ZUZU, BUT OF course that wasn’t her real name, grew up chasing king crab on the deck of her father’s fishing boat in the raging seas of the North Atlantic.
There was more salt water than blood in her veins and by the age of twelve she could pilot a ship, land a tuna, and cripple a grown man with two of her knuckles and a thumb. They called her Zuzu when she joined Les Scaphandriers because her father’s favorite movie was a black and white old thing he forced the crew to watch every Christmas at sea, and that was many Christmas’s indeed. She did not fear death because she had been raised around it, and the movie told her that it was how she led the life that she owned that really mattered.
North McAllister, and that was not his real name either, had been inspired as a child by a plastic frogman in a fish tank.
