Kraken Rising

CHAPTER 28

Aimee wiped a forearm up over her brow. The darkness, and the knowledge that perhaps something was lurking within that darkness, was stretching her nerves to the human limit, especially now that she also had to be constantly alert for a potential attack from the PLA.

It seemed like they had been descending into the cave system for hours. Their path led ever downward, the darkness absolute. Even though the carved steps were three feet wide, they all crept along with their backs to the rough-hewn wall. The cave wasn’t dry anymore. A humid breeze gently rose up from the depths, and had encouraged all manner of mosses and lichens to grow over the stonework, making them dangerously slick in some places.

At first Aimee had often peered over the edge, but then needed to pull back and wait until her bouts of giddiness passed. There was nothing to see but a fathomless dark, anyway. A while back, Dempsey had stopped to momentarily lean out over the void himself. He’d reached into his slim pack and had drawn free a short stick, which he cracked and shook. It glowed a bright lemon yellow before he dropped it, watching it sail soundlessly into the dark. It didn’t strike bottom, and continued on until it vanished completely.

“Deep,” was all he said.

“Maybe too deep,” Soong added.

“Do you think Captain Yang will give up?” Aimee asked.

“No,” Soong replied without hesitation.

“I didn’t think so,” Dempsey said.

“You must not hurt my friend,” Soong immediately replied.

“We won’t,” Aimed added, trying to give Dempsey a hard look that was probably lost in the darkness. “It’s why we’re here — to talk.”

“Right,” Dempsey said without conviction.

Rinofsky paused to read from a small box. “Seems like we’re all still headed in the direction of the deep earth signal.” He looked up. “And that’s smack in the middle of Area 24.”

“What a surprise,” Dempsey said. “Then let’s not be late for the party.”

“Yo.” Hagel clambered back down the steps behind them and jogged to the group. “Nothing up there, boss, no way out.”

Dempsey’s brow creased. “Why would they build steps to nowhere?”

“Not build, were building… and they were still building them. Nothing left but weird brown skeletons.” Hagel’s lip curled.

“Fossilized,” said Aimee.

“Whatever.” Hagel shrugged. “Looks like they were trying to dig their way out, and then just stopped, sat down, and waited to die.”

Dempsey snorted. “Ran out of food and water.”

“Then why didn’t they come back down? Down is easy,” Hagel replied.

Dempsey shrugged. “Not our problem.”

“Hey, Hagel, wanna know why down is easy?” Parcellis asked with a grin. “Because there is a highway to Hell, but only a stairway to Heaven.”

“Shut up, asswipe,” Hagel said.

After another hour of descending, the steps finally ended at a bridge of sorts. A three-foot-wide stone pathway across a chasm. On the other side there were two yawning cave openings, their forbidding blackness only a little more inviting than the bottomless chasm below them.

Dempsey stepped to the edge and leaned out. “The updraft’s warm; I can smell saltwater.” He stared down into the impenetrable depths and sniffed. “And soil… I can smell earth.” He turned to Aimee and grinned. “Looks like we’re headed in the right direction — Pellucidar, right? Might be true after all.”

Aimee’s mouth fell open. “Oh great, you read the report, and didn’t believe it.”

“Impossible, it cannot be seawater. It must be some sort of geothermal pool disgorging mineral salts,” Soong said.

“No, it’s not.” Aimee turned to her. “It’s why we were sent here, and why I need to speak to Zhang Li or Shenjung. What your people are heading towards is an underground lake — huge, warm, and very much alive. And perhaps guarded.”

“Guarded… by Americans?” Soong whispered as she looked away.

Aimee sighed as she could see the distrust on her features.

Dempsey motioned to the bridge. “We need to follow the breadcrumbs. Dr. Weir, would you say it’s safe to cross?”

Aimee looked out over the span of stone — old granite, hard, and had probably been in place for too many millennia to count.

“This is where the stairs end, so whoever made the carvings used the bridge. Also, same with the Chinese soldiers, so…” She shrugged. “If we’re careful, it should be fine.”

“Good enough for me.” Dempsey turned, singling out Rinofsky. “After you. If it holds, then we’re all good. And once you’re over, keep a lookout for our PLA friends.”

Rinofsky snorted and pushed his rifle up over his shoulder. He stepped out, striding the three-foot wide path like a tightrope walker. He got to the middle and turned. “If I die, Captain, just promise me you’ll make Franks carry me back up.”

“Deal,” Franks said. “But I’m only carrying your head, it’s the only part of you that’s never been used.” She grinned.

“I promise to recover your weapons, Rhino.” Dempsey folded his arms. “And that makes you next, Franks.”

“You got it, Captain.” Franks walked out onto the bridge, pirouetting, arms out.

Dempsey shook his head at her, then nodded at Blake to cross next.

Soong walked to the edge, the breeze lifting her hair. “It’s so warm.”

“Yes,” Aimee said.

“Has to be geothermic.” Soong’s eyes were on the bridge. There was a little terror in them.

Aimee grimaced, feeling her own legs turning to rubber at the prospect of the cross. She hated heights, and hated that she hated them.

“Dr. Weir, Dr. Soong Chin Lang, and your two engineer friends, if you please.” Dempsey must have seen something in their eyes, as he clicked his fingers. “Parcellis, lead them across. Hagel at the rear.”

Parcellis immediately jumped up onto the bridge. “Dr. Weir, put your hand on my shoulder, just focus on the back of my head. Dr. Soong, you do the same, put your hand on Dr. Weir’s shoulder, and ask your colleagues to do the same. We’ll take it one step at a time.”

Aimee did as he suggested, staring hard at the man’s dark hair, noticing a mole on his neck, and the sheen of perspiration on the short-cropped bristles of hair. She shuffled, staring hard, until in another moment, Rinofsky grabbed her arm and eased her forward.

“Easy, huh?” He smiled, but held her upper arm for a moment, until she got her legs back. Soong still had her hand on Aimee’s shoulder and Aimee turned to her. The two engineers behind her were still linked to her, one after the other.

“You okay?”

The Chinese scientist nodded, her face pale.

Hagel had walked off, ignoring them both. Dempsey yelled across the chasm. “Rhino, Parcellis, take a cave each. Give me a recon, two hundred feet. Send down some pulses.”

The HAWCs nodded and disappeared, quickly being swallowed by an even denser form of darkness.

Dempsey then nodded to the last McMurdo soldiers, Jackson, Hartigan, and Dawkins, and once across, took one last look around the cavern before stepping up on the stone bridge himself.

Dempsey was the last one of them to begin to cross the stone bridge. Aimee turned away as Rinofsky rejoined them, followed by Parcellis. The McMurdo soldiers went into a huddle, and the HAWCs looked at the pulse reader that Rhino had in his hands. Standing apart were Soong and her two colleagues, and Aimee could feel the Chinese woman’s eyes on her.

Aimee ran her fingers up through her hair, and then reached into a pocket for a band that she tied her hair up with. She turned back to watch Captain Dempsey finish his cross.

“Huh?” Aimee’s mouth dropped open. There looked to be something clinging to the under-side of the bridge, something that must have been out of sight the whole time.

“Hey!” Aimee’s voice raised a notch, and some of the HAWCs turned towards her.

As she stared, the thing scrabbled around the bridge and silently got to its feet behind Dempsey. It reached for its belt, retrieving two objects and closing on the HAWC captain.

“Look out!” Aimee yelled and pointed.

Dempsey reacted quickly, seeing Aimee’s alarm, and then spinning. But the PLA soldier had his blade ready, and buried it into the neck of the HAWC leader. Dempsey used his great strength to continue to turn, the blade sticking out from the muscle bunch at his neck and shoulder. Aimee saw that in PLA soldier’s other hand was a squat gray oval — a grenade — getting ready to be thrown among their group. The man was obviously intent on causing as much damage and trauma as he could — this was the ambush they feared. For an insane moment, all she worried about was what Dempsey would say to those who were supposed to be keeping lookout.

“Grenade!” Blake yelled. “Hit the deck!”

Dempsey’s hand shot out and closed around the grenade. Time seemed to slow, and Aimee saw the PLA soldier in absolute clarity — every strand of hair, every crease on his face. She also saw that the determination in his eyes was matched by Dempsey.

“No shot.” Casey Franks had her gun up like the rest and crabbed to the side. Her yell was echoed by the other HAWCs, the frustration in their words as Dempsey’s larger body shielded his attacker.

Both men became locked in place as they looked into each other’s eyes — they both knew where this was going to end, and the HAWC captain must have summed up the futility of his predicament. He knew what he needed to do and made the call.

Dempsey hugged the PLA soldier to him and then leapt into the abyss.

“Fuck!” Franks’s yell was loud in the cavern, but was immediately drowned out by the colossal thump of the explosion that rose up from just fifty feet down into the chasm. They were all thrown off their feet, and then each lay flat, waiting and listening.

Then it came — the pop, the creak, and the splitting of rock. The grinding slide that turned into a roar.

“Take cover!” Franks yelled.

The roof above them simply slid down like a huge wine press, covering one of the tunnel mouths. The rockfall stopped as quickly as it started, but then sand rained down, and seemed pregnant with menace, as though millions of tons of loose rock was held back by just a few grains of sand only waiting for an excuse to crush them flat.

Alex froze, hearing and feeling the faint ghosts of the detonation as they pulsed through the stone.

“Did you hear that?” Cate asked. “Sounded like thunder. Does this place have its own weather?”

“No,” Alex said without turning. “Not thunder, some sort of an explosive device.”

“Explosive dev…? Great, they’re excavating.” She caught up to him, grinning. “Look’s like they’re coming down to get us after all.”

“Maybe, but that didn’t sound like dynamite, more like the compression shock from a fragmentation device. Military.”

Cate turned momentarily to where she believed the sound had come from. “Your people, you think?”

“Don’t worry about it; let’s keep moving.” Alex hoped it wasn’t his people — that noise would bring predators as sure as ringing a dinner bell.

The booming echoes pounded away along the huge crevasse. The waves of sound and vibrations reached out to every corner, tunnel, and crack in the rock, and finally down to the deepest places.

Silence fell, but only for a few seconds. The liquid sound that followed was heavy, sticky, and sliding, as something colossal heaved itself out of the brackish ooze to test the air. Its huge, muscular body had flattened, spreading over a vast distance, with its enormously strong limbs braced against the rock walls, the sensitive tips feeling the vibrations in the stone, reading them, and waiting momentarily as the final rock debris rained down around it. Boulders dropped and bounced harmlessly from its tough striated muscle hide.

And then came the rain of meat and warm liquid that finally followed from the two small, obliterated bodies. It tasted the morsels, and its skin flared with colors and shapes of delight — it remembered them.

Its enormous tentacle clubs, covered in suckers and hooks formed and reformed into myriad shapes — feline, reptilian, fish, and then human, faster and faster as excitement surged through its body. It began its climb to the higher caves. It surged upwards once again, its soft body flashing with color, a light display revealing its eagerness, and its hunger.