“We can’t outrun that.” Casey’s teeth were gritted as she turned. “Boss, we need to surface. Fight it up there.”
Rhino scoffed. “With what, our bare hands?”
Casey rounded on the big HAWC. She was carrying multiple facial wounds and was still streaked with dried blood from her battle with Mungoi, giving her a fearsome painted warrior look. Jennifer had wrapped a cloth bandage around her battered forehead, that was now also bloody, and it dragged down one of her brows into a permanent scowl. Soong and Shenjung shrank from her when she passed in front of them. Casey’s eyes blazed as she glared at Rhino. “We fight it with tooth and claw if need be.”
Rhino held up a huge pair of hands. “Okay, take it easy, huh?”
Alex half turned from the screen. “Everyone just cool it. We’re trapped in this tin can together for now, so we might as well conserve our energy. If we need to surface, we will, but that’s not yet. If things go to plan, we’ll find a way out. If not, well, we might all find ourselves swimming back to shore.”
Soong blanched, and Aimee put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll be fine. Captain Hunter was only joking.”
“Rhino, get down to the torpedo room.” Alex turned back to Blake at the consoles. “Keep heading to the vortex. If need be, we’ll bring her around for a torpedo launch, but as a last resort. Not convinced we’ll even hit something that fast and smart underwater.” He looked up. “And we know it learns, so now it knows what those torpedoes can do.”
“Yeah, and I’m betting it remembers exactly where those torpedoes came from, and wants to tear us a new asshole.” Casey growled. “Floor it, soldier.”
From the acoustic speakers there was an increasing sound like the clacking of a giant castanet.
“What in hell’s name is that?” Casey asked.
Aimee hugged herself. “That, I think, is the sound of a Kraken’s mouth, the beak, opening and closing.”
“Oh fuck. It sounds to me, like someone really pissed off, grinding their teeth.” Casey flexed her hands on the panel top, and Cate and Aimee looked over her shoulder. Her view monitors showed nothing but a soft blue above and a pitiless black below them.
“Vortex coming up in 500 feet, boss.” Blake read more numbers. “Plenty of water. Deep, but within our crush tolerance.”
“Come on, come on.” Casey urged more speed from the submarine, her neck straining.
“Bogey about to overtake is. Vortex in now in 200 feet.” Perspiration ran down Blake’s face and his forearms bulged from the strain as he squeezed the wheel. “It’s running us down, boss. We ain’t gonna make it.”
“Vertical dive, straight into the vortex,” Alex yelled. “If that column of cold water has some drag we can ride its wake.”
“Into what?” Cate asked. “We don’t know what’s down there.”
“Well, we know what’s up here, lady.” Casey’s jaws bulged as she bared her teeth. “Hold your ass, say your prayers, and enjoy the ride.”
“No choice,” Alex said as the deck tilted.
“Bogey coming at us, going to hit…” Blake yelled the words. “Hold on!’
The laboratory was silent as the four English Ellsworth base scientists stared hard at the camera feed. Their mouths hung open.
Orca hung motionless in the dark water, its sensitive lenses trained on the submarine as it came out of the dark, and then shot past. It was immediately pursued by what looked like a huge mottled shroud. An enormous eye with a slitted pupil, momentarily swiveled towards them, but immediately went back to focus on the fleeing vessel — the thing obviously wanted that craft, and nothing else.
Sam Reid’s huge hands curled into fists. He felt a wave of frustration and rage wash over him, and had to swallow it down hard, knowing he could do nothing but watch.
The screen image wobbled as the small probe was buffeted by the pressure swell, as the creature surged past, and then was gone.
“Oh my good Queen Lizzie.” Sulley leaned back into his chair, his hands to his head. “That was a fucking submarine, being chased by… I don’t even know what it was, but it was as big as an office block.”
“Follow, follow,” Schmidt screamed.
“Huh? But…” Sulley looked confused, and simply pointed at the screen.
Sam leaned in. “Get after them… now!” He paced like a huge lion behind the men, his weight making the floor creak beneath him.
Sulley swiveled the submersible and accelerated, and then bounced in his seat, looking like he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to sit or stand, or something in-between. He pointed at the screen again, grinning. “That was a submarine.” His brows were so high on his forehead they nearly touched his hairline. “That, was, a fucking, submarine.” He put his hands to his head. “Getting chased by what looks like a giant squid-octopus thingy.”
Sam felt lightheaded. He’d read the reports from the Antarctic mission, and of the creature that had once pursued Alex and Aimee through the ancient tunnels. But nothing, nothing, could have prepared him for the reality of the thing. He straightened, trying to calm himself, and remembered a few lines from a favorite thriller writer he read:
“When I look down into the abyss, Down into the merciless blackness, Colder and deeper than Hades itself, There I see the Kraken rising.”
And so it was, he thought, and now Alex was right in its path. Sam suddenly jolted, and then turned to stare hard at the mini-submersible’s screen. What if it wasn’t Alex? What if the Chinese had won the race? Shit! He turned back to Sulley.
“We need to contact them.”
Sulley shook his head. “How? Orca has no conventional communication hardware. I’m afraid no can do, Bill Bunyan.”
Sam was pushed aside as the other scientists jostled for a closer look at the spectacle.
“How… who?” Bentley asked.
“Who?” Schmidt grinned. “Does anyone else think Cate might not be onboard?”
There was silence for a few seconds, until Bentley finally spoke. “Of course, if anyone could find a submarine in a warm, primordial sea, start it up, and then get into a fight with a Krakenesque sea monster, it’d be her — could only be her.”
Not just her, Sam felt a knot tightening in his stomach.
“That thing was twice the size of the submarine.” Timms was now on his feet. “They’re going to be crushed.”
Sam stood out in the cold corridor and tried to shut out the whooping of the British scientists in the control room as he made the call.
“Confirmation, Sea Shadow is on the move. But still below the ice.”
Colonel Jack Hammerson grunted. “That’s only half the answer I want. Who exactly is in control of that vessel?”
Sam exhaled. “I don’t know, sir. Until there is contact, it could be Alex, and it could be someone else entirely.”
“Goddammit, that’s not going to stop a war, Reid.” There was a sound like grating teeth, and then Hammerson came back on the line. “Seconds count now. Make contact, somehow, some way. If it’s Alex, move heaven and earth to assist. If not, I don’t want that submarine ever seeing the light of day. Tell me the second you know for sure. Out.”
Sam turned back to the crowded control room. In front of the excited scientists, the screen showed nothing but endless blackness as Orca was on the trail of two leviathans of the subterranean depths.
CHAPTER 62