Vorpal Blade

22

“I hope we can get this done without our air running out,” Miller said as the air lock began to flood.

There were many problems with using the Wyverns underwater. The first was that they hadn’t, actually, been tested under fifty meters of pressure. They should hold, they were quite heavily designed, but should and would were two entirely different things.

The second, however, was somewhat more germane. Wyverns were heavy. Although they had a large pocket of internal air, it was insufficient to buoy them up. Without some sort of flotation, they were going to sink like stones.

The engineers and machinist mates of the ship had, again, come up with an answer. A cluster of sample bags had been put in large mesh bags used for food storage and handling. External air-tanks were run to the bags so that they could be inflated. Deflation was via a rope that would squeeze the bags.

It was the buoyancy air to which the chief referred.

“I hope we can do this, period,” Weaver said, hefting his mop. “Prepare to gargalize!”

“As a battlecry it leaves something to be desired, sir,” Miller replied as the water rose over his sensor dome.

The sensors stayed online as the water filled the compartment and reached full pressure. And no leaks sprayed across his pilot compartment. So Miller hit the air lock controls and stepped out.

The air lock was on the top of the boat and he could see the mass of the crabpus blotting out the light from above.

He clipped off a safety line and then, cautiously, walked down the exterior of the boat. There was another point to clip a line ten meters from the air lock and he clipped another line to that. Only then did he, oh so slowly, begin to fill the bags.

Finally, he felt a slight upwards tug and halted to check his buoyancy. There was a delay effect and as the bags pulled upwards they jerked him off the deck.

Flying up and slamming into the thing wasn’t in the plan so he paid out the safety-line, ascending slowly. Looking to the side, he saw Weaver heading up as well.

Dr. Robertson hadn’t determined what the things used for senses but they had to hope there weren’t many sensors on the underside of the thing. Otherwise, they were simply going to get eaten.

As he approached the underside of the leviathan’s shell he started trying to figure out where the ticklish patch was. There were twelve plates on the underside of the crabpus and he had to find the right one.

Stopping just under the shell, he looked over at Weaver, who was gesturing farther upwards. The problem was, they had ended up approaching the middle of the crabpus’ underside. The patch they had to get to was farther forward. The thing was resting with its “arms” around the ship, canted upwards. They could get to the patch by letting out more line, but then they’d be touching the underside of the crabpus. It was likely to react badly to that.

Miller gestured to the scientist, then let out more line until the bags of air touched the underside of the crab. No reaction. He let out a bit more line and the bags slid upwards. Then the crab shifted, like a sleeper moving in a dream, the metal of the hull crunching briefly on the submarine rocks.

Miller paused but the balloon was now away from the crab, floating invitingly near the patch he was looking for. He let more line out and wafted gently upward through the clear water until he was opposite the “tickle patch.”

His balloons, alas, were floating right in front of the crabpus’ massive maw. In fact, as the current pushed him back and forth, they tended to drift between the giant mandibles. He’d just have to hope that “tickling” didn’t cause the thing to close its mouth.

And the mop still would not reach. But… It was the RonCorp Vibro Mop with patented extending handle. So he extended the handle, turned on the vibrator and now it reached.

He looked over to see where Weaver had gotten to. The commander, though, was right there with him, on the opposite side of the patch.

He’d have much preferred to be placing a heavy charge on the thing, but he lifted the mop and began stroking it back and forth…

“Whoa!” the pilot yelled as the submarine shifted, violently. As the tentacles loosened, the sub was pulled sideways and down to rest on its side.

“Engage space drive!” the CO said. “Lift, now! Ten gravities!”

The SEAL was jerked away from the patch as the ship lifted and the balloons flew upwards. This was one of several bits he hadn’t been looking forward to but he braced in the Wyvern as the ship lifted upwards. Suddenly he was going down again as the balloons hit the surface. Worse, he could see the tentacles of the leviathan starting to shift. It was waking up.

The ship lifted out of the water, fast, but he stayed three meters under, dangling from the buoyancy bag, as the giant crabpus began to move, one tentacle coming up for the ship…

It had fallen asleep! The prey was escaping!

One of the lashing tentacles slid across the steel hull, then wrapped around the metal cover of Number Two Laser. Hit, stuck as others began to wrap around the prey and drag it downwards…

“We’re stuck again, sir!” the pilot called, desperately. “I can pull us out, I think, but…”

The sub began to shudder and shake as more tentacles wrapped around it. Spectre reached over and flipped open the switch for the view port and looked forward.

“Pilot, give me six gravs absolute forward and HIT it!”

Weaver pulled up on his rope as a tentacle lashed by just under his feet.

“Chief? You okay?”

“Grapping mothergrapper of a behanchod… Try to eat my ride… Put some octo where the sun don’t shine…”

“Guess that’s a ‘yes’…” Weaver said as he was yanked downward. “What the… ?”

The massive supercavitation system of the Vorpal Blade slammed into the carpalus plate of the sea beast at just under twenty miles per hour. Struck and penetrated, slamming the beast downward into the water. The beast spasmed but kept jetting outward, trying to escape, now…

“And back at ten grav,” Spectre called. “Hold that. Four degrees up, two left and gimme fifteen gravities! NOW!”

This time the supercavitation system hit the crabpus at the juncture of the carpalus plate and the gargalus, the “tickle” plate, punching upwards into the monster’s limited brain and exiting just between its eyes. The gigantic crabpus dropped limp.

“Holy MAULK!” Jaenisch shouted as the ship erupted from the waves in a welter of foam. Stuck to the front, impaled by the “Blade,” the weight of gravity having slid it all the way down so that it rested against the nose of the ship, was the giant sea beast. Fully exposed, it was apparent that its carapace was as long as the hull of the massive sub which was, itself, the size of a WWII battleship. The tentacles of the thing dangled limp as the ship, nose up to keep the beast impaled, rose above the plateau and hovered.

“Captain MacDonald, this is the CO,” Spectre said over the general announcement freq. “I believe your suits have some very good cameras.”

“Yes, sir!” MacDonald said. “Two-Gun, I want a very detailed still of this image, son. Make sure you can get those two Wyverns on the side for scale!”

“I’m going to send a copy of it to grapping Space Command,” Spectre said. “With my compliments.”

“I wanna know how we’re gonna mount it,” Jaenisch said.

“You’re joking,” the CO said.

“Not really, sir,” Weaver replied, taking a sip of Coke. He really thought that, all things considered, it should be beer. “Freeze-drying something is just exposing it to vacuum for a specified period. If we pull it up to orbit, leave it there for, oh, a couple of days, then take it back down to, say, that north polar continent…”

“Yeah, but where are we going to store it?” Spectre asked. “I mean, once we get it back.”

“Someplace dry,” Weaver said. “And secure. Area 51?”