Kraken Rising

CHAPTER 29

No one moved. A fog of silt and dust hung in the air, and flashlight beams waved about like pipes of light from firefighters in a burning building.

“Clear.” Rinofsky was the first to his feet — the ceiling now only a foot over his head.

“Fucking son of a bitch, that bastard was waiting for us.” Casey Franks turned to Soong, enough fire in her eyes to scald the woman to cinders.

Aimee stood in front of her. “Forget it, Casey, it’s over.”

Soong remained expressionless. “He believed he was just doing his job.”

“Yeah, stabbing people in the back.” Franks jabbed a finger at Soong. “That’s some job they’re trained to do.”

“As far as he was concerned, he killed the enemy leader, and sacrificed himself doing it. Would you do any different?” Soong turned away.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Rinofsky was looking down into the chasm, and then overhead at the hanging stone. “Now what?”

“Captain saved us… and the bridge.” Hagel looked at the gap. “We can cross back if we need to.”

‘What the fuck for? It’s blocked anyway.” Casey spat dust to the cave floor.

“We go on,” Aimee said.

“Someone make a call.” Rinofsky looked across at the teams. “Who’s got seniority?”

Casey Franks exhaled. “Goddamnit… that’d be me.”

“Hey, hey there, hold your horses, girl.” Hagel grinned. “I vote for someone with a little more relevant mission experience here. I was on the Afghanistan caves mission.” He shrugged. “I can take over.”

Casey Franks’s teeth looked to be grinding in her cheeks, but the scar pulling her face into a sneer made it hard to tell.

“Hey, asshole, the only one on the team with mission experience is Dr. Weir. Hagel, you went a few hundred feet into a cave one day, so as far as I’m concerned, you got jack shit. This ain’t a democracy. I’ve got seniority, debate over.” She glared, and Hagel returned the incendiary stare for a few seconds, before scoffing and turning away.

Casey watched him for another second or two before looking along the assembled faces as though seeking any other objections — there were none.

Aimee walked up close to the stocky female HAWC. “Okay then, let’s get going.”

“Goddamnit, Dempsey was a good man.” Blake shook his head. “You know, we should at least…”

“He’s gone. If he were here, he’d say suck it up, and get your ass moving.” Casey Franks’s jaw jutted for a moment. “Listen up, people. We got good and bad news. The bad news is, we just lost a good man, and also one of the caves has now collapsed. The good news is, the rest of us are alive, and now we don’t have to waste time checking two caves out.” She looked to Rinofsky. “Lead us out, big guy.”

Comrade Han Biao came back in, breathing heavily, his hands and face grazed by multiple wounds, and his body covered in gray rock dust. He snapped to attention when Wu Yang approached.

“Captain Yang.” He saluted. “There has been a cave-in.”

“A cave-in?” Yang tilted his head. “From an explosion, you mean. I know the sound of a Type 86 grenade when I hear it.” Yang’s jaws clenched, and he leaned in. “Why was one of our grenades deployed?”

Han Biao stood rod-straight. “We were attacked… by the Americans.”

“Americans?”

“They must have come down from our base — many of them — following us.” He swallowed. “I wanted to stay, but Fan Kai said you needed to be warned… he stayed. Must have thrown a grenade.”

“I send seven of my best PLA, and only one comes back.” Yang’s eyes were like obsidian chips in the flashlight’s glare. “It would be too much to hope that the Americans are all dead.”

Yang stared for a moment longer at Han Biao before turning to look along the granite-hard expressions of his men. “And now it seems we are trapped down here… with them.” He could only assume that the Americans were sent to stop him from getting to the submarine, and if they came in via the elevator shaft, then they must have overrun the base.

A serious problem, he thought. This was the time where command could slip, and fear caused stupidity and rebellion. Yang would not let that happen. The men would die on their feet, and never give up; he’d see to that. First he needed a common enemy — fear could kill, but fear could also unite.

“The Americans will try and stop our mission. They will try to kill us all — shoot us dead or bury us alive.” He slowly looked at each. “They will try.” He shook his head. “But they do not know who we are.”

Yang spun. “Tell me!” he roared.

As one, came the reply: “The mountain bows, the ocean splits before us; we are PLA Elite.” The men shouted the words, the loudest coming from the giant Mungoi, the ogreish man’s wide-spaced eyes furious in their fervor.

Yang held up a fist. “We fear no pain, fear no challenge, and fear no death.” After a moment, he dropped his hand and looked up above his head into the cave roof as if seeing the light of day, miles above.

“We are too deep, there will be no rescue attempt.” He waited, letting the words sink in. “We have been given a mission, and we will complete it.” He looked back at his men, but let his eyes rest on Shenjung Xing.

“Mission success first, then, we obliterate the enemy.” He pointed to the dust covered Han Biao. “You.” Then he nodded to the endless black depths of the cave. “Lead us out, fearless warrior.”

Hours passed, and the caves led ever downward. Shenjung Xing started to feel a coil of nausea from exhaustion, and wished now that he had spent a little more time exercising instead of researching.

Yang pushed them hard, and Shenjung guessed it was to ensure that physical exertion would leave little room for claustrophobia, dissention, or fear. Sweat streamed as the warmth rose upon the hour, and sometimes the walls closed in so much that he and the soldiers had to move sideways through massive fissures in the walls that looked ominously like they were about to close back up, crushing their insignificant bodies to paste between giant slabs of unyielding granite.

At times he felt like a rat running through a maze in the dark, and often they had to skirt around massive chasms that dropped away to fathomless dark depths. At one, Yang called a halt. The PLA captain went to the edge and crouched. He held up a hand, and the watching soldiers immediately quietened. He closed his eyes, and after a few seconds he half turned.

“Doctor Shenjung, come here, please.”

Shenjung approached and crouched beside him.

“Listen,” Yang said without turning.

Shenjung stared down into the depths, slowed his breathing, and concentrated. Then, there it was, the constant movement of liquid far down below them.

“Perhaps an underground river.”

Yang grunted. “This is good news. Water comes from somewhere and goes somewhere.” He stood. “Now we have two options — follow its source, or its destination. Either could be a way out. And a way to the sub.”

“Maybe not,” Shenjung said. “Its origination point might not be a place, but instead could be a thousand hairline cracks in the deep rock that allows seepage.” He also got to his feet.

“Then we have an easy choice — its destination will be our goal.” Yang put his hands on his hips, his chest out. “Following a river is easier than trying to push upstream anyway.”

Shenjung sighed. “Its destination could be nothing more than a buried sea, and we…”

Yang quickly held a hand up to his face, then leaned closer. “Comrade Shenjung Xing, we need to keep the men’s spirits high. Do you not agree?”

The man’s sudden movement made Shenjung momentarily jerk backwards. But Shenjung knew that hopelessness and fear would be a bigger threat to them than falling into a hole.

“Yes, yes, you are probably right. Perhaps it will lead to the surface somewhere.”

Shenjung looked back down into the shadowy depths. We are heading ever downward, he thought. And far away from the light. He turned to look up at the roof of the cave above him, feeling the oppressive weight of the millions upon millions of tons of stone. He hoped Soong made it out.

“Yes,” he said at last. “Water moving that fast will be a powerful erosion factor — and water usually finds its way out.”

Yang grunted. “Then let us find that river. Our mission depends on it.”

And perhaps all our lives, thought Shenjung.