Kraken Rising

CHAPTER 24

Captain Mitch Dempsey went from looking furious to roaring instructions in a heartbeat.

“Mission is Go, people — we are going down.”

The HAWCs formed up at the door, but Jennifer Hartigan paused over one of the unconscious Chinese. “What about them?”

Dempsey waved her away. “Leave ’em. They wanna fry their camp, then let them enjoy the barbecue.”

“But that’s…” Jennifer bent to grab one of the men’s jackets.

“Move it, soldier!” Dempsey’s voice was so loud it shocked the medical officer into panicked action. The HAWCs shoved the McMurdo soldiers and Aimee towards the elevator shaft room.

Inside, Parcellis was already standing by, hand on the controls. They piled in, jammed tight.

Dempsey grimaced. “No roof — gonna get damned hot.” He turned to Parcellis. “Punch it.”

Dawkins’s eyes were round in his head. “We’re gonna be cooked, or crushed.”

“Wait.” The huge HAWC, Rinofsky, jumped back out and sprinted to the wall, grabbing the bent sheet of steel that had once been the roof of the cage. He leapt back in, dragging the heavy sheet of steel with him. “Go, go, go.”

The cage started to descend, and Rinofsky lifted it above his head, grunting with the effort. Big Ben Jackson grabbed the other end, bracing himself. He looked to Rinofsky and the pair of huge men grinned at each other.

“Bet you drop it first, little fella,” Jackson said.

“I’ll take that bet. Loser buys first round,” Rinofsky replied, his expression becoming grim, as the mechanical voice’s numbers got shorter and fainter as they dropped.

“Ten seconds,” Blake said.

“This is gonna hurt.” Dawkins covered his head with his arms.

Hagel whooped. “Ladies and gentlemen, next stop hell, and it’s gonna be re-eeeal hot.”

“Brace,” Dempsey roared, pushing people down, and then crouching.

The blast was thunderous, with a white light filling the shaft, immediately followed by the shock wave. Then came the heat. Aimee crouched into a ball, hood pulled down tight and hands over her face, but she still felt the temperature go from just above zero to well over a hundred in about a second. Then she felt, before she heard, the rumbling, like a stampede of horses getting closer.

Above her, Ben Jackson yelled: “Incoming!”

She opened her eyes a crack, and saw the tree-trunk legs of the two huge men buckle as enormous weight piled down on top of the sheet of steel they held aloft. There was the smell of burning wood and plastics, and an orange glow came from the edge of the iron roof as whatever had accumulated still burned.

More giant hammer blows on the sheet of steel, and Jackson groaned as the growing weight bore down on them. Casey Franks got to her feet, and lifted arms high, pushing at the steel from the center. Though the light was dim, Aimee could see that Casey’s gloves smoked where she held onto their shield.

In another second, there was an almighty thump as something heavy struck the steel, and Casey and the men buckled, before the edges of the plate caught the wall, and were wedged tight. The plate was ripped from their hands, and was left behind. More heavy thumps sounded, but for now, the steel was a barrier holding tight, sealing off the shaft and holding back the tons of debris.

The entire group watched their glowing roof recede. Aimee said a tiny prayer of thanks, as their cage trundled on, dropping lower and getting farther and farther away from the inferno above. It was only when the soft glow at the steel plate’s edge began to dim as the last embers burned themselves out that Aimee realized what it meant — there was no going back now.

There was a deep thump that they felt beneath their feet, seconds before they heard a sound like distant thunder. Dust rained down upon them, and Yang spun, looking furious.

The men grabbed at the walls as the echoes continued on for several seconds. More debris fell around them, and there came murmurs of a cave-in from the soldiers.

“Silence,” Yang roared at them. He turned to Shenjung. “What are your imbecile engineers doing up there?”

“My imbecile engineers?” Shenjung frowned. “That was an explosion.”

“Possibly.” He pointed to his men. “You seven, go back and see what those idiots are doing.” He dismissed them. “Double time; I do not want our group strung out.”

Shenjung watched them sprint away. He prayed that Soong was not in trouble. He knew his small group, and knew none of them had explosives. He wanted to tell the captain, but Yang was already issuing orders to proceed.

“Well ain't that just fucking great?” Hagel paced back to the elevator, shining his light up into the blocked shaft. He turned back. “Now how the fuck do we get out of here?” He strode past the group, the light on his gun-barrel a pipe of illumination in the dust- and smoke-filled tunnel.

“Shut it, Hagel,” Dempsey spoke over his shoulder to the young HAWC as he and Rinofsky looked at a screen of a small illuminated box.

Hagel coughed and spat. “I hope someone brought a shovel, because we better start digging now.” His eyes were round with both fear and agitation, and Aimee watched him like she would a venomous snake.

Dempsey turned, his jaw jutting. “One more word outta you, mister.” Dempsey glared, and Hagel’s mouth clamped shut for a second before he threw a hand up and walked away, kicking a sheet of bent steel out of his way. It clanged away loudly down the choking tunnel.

Aimee wrapped her arms around herself, and walked towards the HAWC leader. “Captain, please tell me there is a Plan C for us Plan B team members? If I remember correctly, we were meant to keep the back door open.”

“Chaos theory — shit happens.” He shrugged. “We’ll be fine, Dr. Weir.” He went to walk away.

Aimee scoffed. “Fine? Captain, we needed a back door. I know you read the briefings. We could be walking into the lair of something that is far more dangerous than a squad of pissed off Chinese soldiers. We are not…”

Dempsey quickly pulled his rifle from over his shoulder, and fired from his hip. Where Aimee expected to hear a report from a bullet being discharged, or even the spit of a compressed air round that the previous HAWC team had used, this time there was just a soft whine, as a thin orange beam of light went from Dempsey’s gun to touch on the piece of steel plating that Hagel had kicked. Dempsey shut it off after a second, but kept his flashlight on it. Where the beam had touched the steel there was a pencil-thin hole cut right through it. The edges glowed molten.

He held the gun up. “Latest D.E.W. — Directed Energy Weapon technology. I’d like to introduce you to the M18X DEW rifle. Hot pressed boron carbide in a bullpup design, means longer barrel and powerplant all packed in behind the trigger.” He turned it over, flicking open the rounded stock, revealing what looked like a glowing shard of glass. “Power is drawn from microfusion cells and processed through a single Erbium optical gain crystal. This bad boy will cut through anything.” He half turned. “Mr. Rinofsky, front and center.”

The big HAWC stepped forward and pulled a thicker version of the weapon Dempsey had from over his shoulder. He telescoped the barrel, and held it ready.

Dempsey nodded. “Just to make things interesting, our big friend here is packing a portable plasma cannon, with an optimized composite ceramic structure to contain the two thousand degree temperatures from a plasma pulse that will terminate anything that gets in front of it.” He closed down his own rifle and cradled it in his arms. “Like I said, Dr. Weir, we’re better prepared this time.”

Aimee wanted to stay angry, but couldn’t help feeling a little relieved. We might just survive the day after all, she thought.

“Movement,” Hagel said, staring down as the small device in his hands gave off rapid proximity pulses.

Dempsey held up a fist. The HAWCs and the McMurdo soldiers froze. “Distance?”

Dawkins crowded in close, trying to see over Hagel’s shoulder.

“Two hundred feet, coming fast,” Hagel said, elbowing Dawkins back a step.

Aimee kept ambling forward, lost in her own thoughts, barely hearing the words or aware that everyone had stopped moving around her, until Casey Franks grabbed at her. Casey placed a finger to her lips, Aimee getting it immediately. She followed Franks as she shrunk back into a small depression in the wall of the tunnel.

Dempsey made a chopping motion, left and right, and the team went to either side of the tunnel, flattening themselves against the wall, or crouching, weapons ready. Lights went off, and the HAWCs went to infrared.

“If this shit goes bad, stay behind me,” Franks whispered.