Kraken Rising

CHAPTER 44

Alex Hunter lifted his pace, forgetting about Cate, forgetting about anything that might have been lurking in the blue-lit undergrowth. He now knew that the Chinese were in the cave system — they’d be going for the Sea Shadow. He must get there first.

He also felt a growing awareness of something far more familiar — he had sensed the presence of a HAWC team for hours. He should have known that Hammerson wouldn’t just send him in alone.

Strangely, he sensed another connection that both exhilarated and confused him. It couldn’t be, he thought. She wouldn’t… he wouldn’t. Alex pummeled the undergrowth. Hammerson wouldn’t dare send her. Anger flared and he swung out an arm, smashing a tree trunk from his path. She wouldn’t come, she wouldn’t leave Joshua by himself. It was impossible.

He’s not by himself. You know she has someone else with her now. The whispered voice in his head sounded amused at his torment. Alex gritted his teeth, accelerating. Another trunk bared his way, and he lowered a shoulder, striking it hard, making the stump splinter away into the undergrowth. He tried to shut out the voice, its words, not wanting to acknowledge the truth.

Maybe now, he even calls him… father. A corrosive laugh. Joshua doesn’t need you, doesn’t even know you. No one does anymore. You’ve been a ghost for years.

Alex ricocheted off another huge tree trunk, not concentrating on his track. He placed a hand to his bloody face, wiping the stinging liquid from his eyes, blinded for a moment, and not seeing the sinuous scaled head rising up in the undergrowth.

The giant snake shot forward, striking Alex from the side, and gripping his body in its alligator sized mouth around the torso and one arm. The massive diamond shaped head was two feet across and was attached to a dark scaled body that still trailed forty feet into the foliage.

Alex was carried backwards from the impact to slam hard into one of the hairy Prototaxite trunks, dropping polypy fronds down on top of him. Though the ancient snake was incredibly powerful, its inwardly curved teeth were relatively small, and used for gripping rather than venom delivery. Alex’s suit stopped the fangs from penetrating his flesh, but the danger was from the enormous body now piling in the undergrowth. If it managed to coil around his chest, the muscular body would easily crush the air from his lungs.

Easily distracted means easily killed. The voice was contemptuous this time.

Alex felt an enormous pressure building from the creature’s mouth, but also inside his own head — frustration, impatience, and raw fury — he had no time for this. He reached up with his free arm and grabbed one side of the huge mouth, lifting and opening the huge jaws, and then ripped his other arm free. The black, glass-like eye displayed no surprise, nor fear, or even concern, it only reflected back Alex’s own twisted features in those soulless depths.

Alex pulled back one arm, his teeth bared, and then punched down with all the strength he could gather. His fist exploded through the snake’s eye, and on into its skull to then embed in the brain. Its mouth immediately sprung open, and the huge body and tail thrashed behind it as Alex held the head aloft to momentarily snarl into its dying face before throwing it aside and charging on again.

Faster, he needed to move faster. He reached out, his senses ballooning forward in a wave. He felt the multiple bodies, their hearts racing, the tangy smells of sweat and blood mixed with fear. The Chinese, they were far ahead; beating him to the submarine.

Kill them all. They were your orders.

“Kill them all,” he repeated. His anger was boiling within him, his body now so hot. Even in the humid air, the moisture on his suit was rising from him as steam. He pushed his senses out again, but before he could get a lock on any one person he detected something else — a huge presence, a monstrosity with a malevolent intelligence, moving quickly and silently, rolling and tumbling, and flowing like liquid. He sensed its hunger, but also something more — its enjoyment.

Your old friend is still here. It’s been waiting for you. The voice became caustic. Don’t run away this time.

“Wait!” He barely heard Cate as she yelled after him. She was a long way back now, sprinting hard, but never hoping to keep up with him. She at least had the benefit of being able to move along the tunnel he was bullocking through the growth.

Alex put his head down. He was a dark blur smashing through the jungle — one monster pursuing another.

Captain Yang moved his men into the stand of gnarled and ancient looking trees. He pointed to each man, and then had them positioned where he wanted. Some in the canopy, some concealed in among low foliage, and some even pulling mats of lichen up over themselves. He grunted his satisfaction. His PLA were masters of natural camouflage.

His rear scouts had picked up the approach of the Americans a while back, and he eagerly awaited their arrival. He and his men seethed with hatred and a desire for vengeance. He had told them of the taken scouts, and of their bodies found mutilated, portions of them hung like grisly trophies in trees or impaled on low branches. The Americans were playing a gruesome trick on them; they were evil, and he would treat them accordingly.

“We should talk to them. I know Americans, and they would not have done this.” Shenjung tugged at his sleeve, but Yang pulled his arm free.

“You know nothing. American war games are both physical and psychological.”

“War games?” Shenjung shook his head. “No, you are the one making war. I must warn you, I will be compelled to report any… crimes.”

Yang studied the man for several seconds, seeing the waver of fear in his eyes. He leaned in close to his face.

“Comrade Shenjung, you are not at home in your comfortable office anymore. Down here, all authority resides with me. Down here I am both law and punishment. For them, and you. Conceal yourself; that is an order.” He pushed the man into the undergrowth.

Yang then walked to stand in the center of a flattened area of the jungle, with his back turned to the trail. He would be the bait at the end of a fifty-foot killing zone.

He concentrated — the silence in this strange world was unnerving, but now, it meant the slightest sound was magnified. The Americans were coming, close now. He smiled, unholstered his gun, stuck it in his belt, and then unzipped his fly. He waited a few moments until they were there, and began to urinate, slowly, making the stream last. He began to sing softly.

Rinofsky saw that Hagel had stopped, holding up a fist. He and the group halted, and waited as Hagel then turned to lift a single finger, and then waved them down.

The group crouched low and only Casey Franks eased up to join him. Hagel remained silent, just using two fingers to point at his eyes and then into the jungle at about ten o’clock. Casey followed his prompt, and then nodded, and then turned to point at Big Ben Jackson and Rhino and then out to two o’clock. She then sent Hagel and Blake out to nine.

Rhino and Jackson were first into position, staring at the PLA soldier ahead. Jackson leaned in close to Rhino.

“That’s horrible,” he whispered.

“Keep it down.” Rinofsky scowled, but then spoke out of the side of his mouth, leaving his eyes on the target. “So where’ve you been pissing; in your water bottle?”

Jackson grinned. “I meant his voice, it’s horrible.”

Rinofsky groaned and put a finger to his lips. At the end of a small clearing, the Chinese soldier was standing by himself, taking a casual piss as if he was in his own bathroom. A soft tune lifted from him, as he seemed to be enjoying his ablutions.

“Stay here… and stay alert.” Rhino moved along the brush line, and then waited. Across from him, he saw Blake appear, and nod to him, and then hold up a hand. Blake pointed to the other end of the clearing. Casey Franks had stepped out, gun cradled in her arms as she watched the soldier finish up.

Casey stood slightly side-on, legs planted. “Hey,” she said.

The man kept singing, and then jiggled a bit as if he was hiking up his zipper.

“Hey, water boy.” Casey kept her eyes directly on him. “Turn around, real slow.”

The man did neither. Casey half turned. “Blake, tell this guy to drop his cock, and turn around. Tell him that we’re friends, or some other bullshit.”

Blake talked softly, his voice carrying easily in the stillness. He was halfway through speaking when the soldier began to turn. In his hand was something other than his penis.

The small gun spat twice, and then the trees started to rain soldiers. From the canopy overhead, PLA Special Forces dropped down around them. Big Ben Jackson turned, and though he was a formidable soldier, he faced a man even taller than he. The big broad face creased in a gap-toothed grin, and then a leg as thick as a tree trunk shot out in a pile driver blow to strike him in the chest and fling him back into the trees.

Rhino moved to engage. The big HAWC and the bigger Chinese soldier traded rapid blows, and each blocked many. The huge HAWC was far superior to Jackson, and let fly with a single lunge punch that sounded like a mallet on clay. The Chinese giant staggered, but shook a head the size of a watermelon and then gap-grinned again.

He came at Rhino in a spin, a person that big having no right to be so quick and nimble. Rhino blocked the first kick, but a backhanded blow was already rounding on him. The fist that connected with his temple was the size of a dinner plate, and his oversized hands had calluses that were rock hard across the knuckles and palm edges.

Rhino went down on one knee, his head swimming. No one had ever hit him that hard in his life. He knew he was as good as dead. Once you lost focus in combat, for even a split second, the killing blow soon came. In the seconds between consciousness and oblivion, he remembered what Hammerson had said to him when he was recruited — HAWCs didn’t die of old age. Rhino now knew; HAWCs died like this.