Crucible of a Species (16 page)

Something less than a foot long with four fins, a long shark-like tail and a head full of teeth bumped against Paul’s faceplate as he pulled back from the charging ammonites. It grabbed one of the shelled creatures and the others quickly fled leaving behind a cloud of purple ink. “Christ, Braxton! That was a little mosasaur. Where’d he come from?”

“I don’t know and we are attracting too much attention. Let’s try and break the coral with my boot,” Braxton said as he placed the sole of his boot against the bright red coral’s surface. He braced his back and hands against the door frame and pushed. A crunch followed by a sharp crack and the piece broke and rolled out over the reef. It was met by a flurry of fish with large plate-like scales across their bodies and very big teeth. They charged from the shadows below and immediately worked themselves into a frenzy feeding on the bits of damaged coral.

As they pulled themselves along the hull, Paul noticed some of the sharks were becoming interested in the commotion. Their massive, scarred bodies were as large as a great white shark with rows of nasty teeth protruding at odd angles from their jaws. Every movement was graceful and suggested raw, deadly intent. “Move a little faster Braxton. The feeding is beginning to draw in the big predators.”

“You’re as bad as my girlfriend, Petrika. Nag, nag, nag! I can’t move too fast with all this shit hanging from my belt.”

Rays of bright sunlight danced in the waters above them and a large school of silvery fish suddenly formed into a defensive bait ball in response to a dark form that dove down from the surface and darted through the center of the school in search of a quick meal.

“There’s a good spot,” Lieutenant Braxton commented. “We can follow the sandy bottom over to that open section and head up to the surface to get our bearings.”

Braxton swung down onto the sand. “Pass me the lines. This coral outcrop should be strong enough,” he said as he used his spanner to knock off the sharp edges of the branch. “I’ll wrap your line around and hold the end. You drop some weights and head up. With any luck we’ll be within sight of land and then you can use the line to pull yourself back down with some help from me. Hopefully we won’t have to walk too far.

“I’ll pay out the line slowly as you ascend. There’s no bubble stream from our suits to guide you, so don’t rise up too fast or you’ll get the bends.”

“Stop worrying, will ya? Let’s go.” Paul began his ascent. The ocean waters were clear and presented a fantastic view of the reef below as the ensign rose to the surface. The slow ascent toward the sun-bright shimmering veil above him was almost relaxing.

As he neared the surface, Paul noticed something off in the distance. It was a large, dark shape gracefully gliding through the waters.
Strange, it doesn’t move like a shark. Still, it swims smoothly as though it was big. The body shape‘s odd, more like a whale.
“Braxton, there’s something big coming this way. It has four flippers. Aw shit, it’s got a real long neck and long tail like the ones we saw feeding on our way in.”

“Plesiosaur! Don’t move. Maybe it’ll pass by us.”

“No, I don’t think we’re going to be that lucky. Just hold steady with that rope.”

The massive reptile changed its course slightly to begin swimming towards them. Braxton whispered, “The good news is the sharks are gone …. or is that bad news?” The beast looked like every drawing that he had ever seen of the Loch Ness Monster. It swam with its head extended forward, lazily pushing through the waters on four massive flippers. As it neared their site, the plesiosaur glided in a wide circle around their sunken ship. Then it noticed the still form of Ensign Petrika floating in the water and moved in closer. Braxton looked up and saw that the ensign had his Pulsar in his hands. “Jesus Christ on a toadstool, Petrika. What the hell do you think you’re doing? You never fire a Pulsar if there’s water down the barrel.”

Petrika’s suit radio carried his whispered response, “Well I ain’t gonna just let it come over and munch on me. Shaddup, it’ll hear you.”

The monster glided in with long easy strokes, its long neck and head snaked in as though it was trying to get his scent. Then, like a snake getting ready to strike, the neck coiled back. Without further warning, it darted in just as the ensign squeezed the trigger.

The gravitonic field inside the Pulsar Rifle shaved the surface of the siliceram ammo bar ripping off layers of molecules and accelerating them into a dense, hot ion gas. The gas ripped down the barrel following the spiraling gravitonic force field, compressing the water before it into a superheated vapor bolus. A plug of superheated water vapor flew out the end of the barrel and solidified as it exited into the waters of the ocean behind the speeding bolus.

A mixed blast of gas and metal exploded like a directed charge into the salty waters, thrusting the compressed, superheated ball of water vapor before it. The naked power of the charge ripped the seawater ahead of the projectile into atoms of hydrogen and oxygen gas allowing the hot projectile to push through the ocean as though the waters weren’t even there. A tremendous funnel of bubbles followed its angry flight as the projectile sailed past the head of the monster. While the shot missed, the fierce passage of its wave slammed into the great beast, dazed it and knocked the wind from its lungs. The plesiosaur stared blankly at the ensign for a few moments then turned, hastily leaving the area to these strange invaders.

Braxton looked up. Paul’s rifle was dangling from its tether to his belt. “Paul! Paul are you all right?”

“Yeah,” Paul gasped, “I had the wind knocked out of me. I think I banged my head on the inside of my helmet. Where’d he go?”

“You dumb, lucky fool. It worked! I always said you couldn’t hit the side of a barn. You missed him and he was as big as a barn but the concussion was enough to drive him off. Come on, clean all the brown stuff out of your pants and let’s get back to finding out just where we are.”

“Shit, give me a break, Braxton. I need a few seconds …. Pay out some more line.”

“You know, I’m really glad you didn’t hit that thing.”

“My head is killing me and all you wanna do is gab and rub it in. Now what’s the problem?” Paul replied as he continued back up towards the surface.

“Remember what happened when we killed that mosasaur on our first flight down? It started a feeding frenzy. If you had hit the thing there would have been blood and guts all over the area. More than likely, we would have been caught right in the middle of our very own feeding frenzy.”

“You know I planned it that way, Braxton.” Paul lied as he noticed the rope going slack. “Hey, hold on a second. I’m not rising anymore. I must be at neutral buoyancy.”

“Can you try and swim up?”

“No, doesn’t work. I’m about fifteen-feet from the surface. I’m gonna drop my rifle and what else I have. Uh, wait. It’s not going to make a difference. I can’t drop enough weight.”

“How about your air recirculator?” Braxton replied.

“Nope, I’d have to drop the whole suit to make it up there and now we’re talking about a one way trip to the surface. Oh, what the hell. Either I see land or we’re done anyway.”

“Hang on, ensign. Let’s talk this over first.”

“What’s to talk over? The suit’s too heavy to lift me as long as I’m in it and we have to get our bearings.”

“True, but after you exit you can reinflate it, link your Pulsar onto it and float to the surface. There’s also a radio in the suit that I’m sure we’ll want to hang onto.”

“Sounds like a plan but after I get to the surface I won’t be able to use the radio so I’ll yank twice on the tie line if I can see the shore.”

“Yeah, and pull it three times to tell me we’re dead.” Braxton replied.

Ensign Petrika looked upward before sealing the recirculator intake valve. He could see warm, welcoming rays of bright sunshine above and a few pterosaurs paddling along on the surface like pelicans. He let out a sigh and took a few deep breaths to super oxygenate his blood. Paul flipped the protected switch that released the suit hatch and opened the back half of the EVA suit. Air bubbles exploded outward as the warm, salty waters rushed in to surround him.

After climbing out and resealing the suit, he restarted the air circulator. The suit began to rise immediately. Paul’s lungs ached with the strain, he wanted to jet to the surface but held back, rising as slowly as possible until the last when he couldn’t hold his breath any longer. The young ensign finally broke the surface and began taking in great lungfuls of air.

A splash followed by a dark shadow passed over him, his heart skipped a beat as he spun around, frantically looking for the source of an awful screech that filled the air. His fear transformed into hysterical laughter as he turned to see four pterosaurs clawing their panicked way up into the sky. It was then he noticed the shoreline in the distance. Braxton was yanking on the rope but Paul took a moment to examine the shore. They were north of the river inlet. He could see it down the coast perhaps a mile or more. The beach was close, maybe a hundred yards off.
Thank God, we still have a chance,
he thought
.
Paul yanked two times on the rope and then swam over to grab the floating spacesuit.

A few minutes later Braxton’s suit surfaced followed by the lieutenant who emerged with a sputter and a big grin. “I knew we could do it. Now let’s get out of the water. I feel like fish bait floating out here, it’s giving me the willies.”

As they entered the shallows, a school of ammonites began trailing the two humans. The highly intelligent cephalopods jetted surprisingly fast considering their large shells and a few of the more aggressive ones moved in to nibble at the hands and legs of the swimmers. Ensign Petrika kicked at one large, round-shelled creature, “These things are related to squids and cuttlefish, I expect that they can give a nasty bite. Don’t let ‘em get near.”

“We’re almost there, it’s getting shallow. I think it’s time to pull up the Pulsars. I’ll fire one underwater and see if it’ll drive them off.” Braxton commented as he treaded water. Placing the tip of the rifle underwater as soon as he got it, he shouted, “Ready? This should discourage them.”

A loud crack filled the air. The blast, constrained by the shallows, caused a plume of water to lift high above them. The two officers turned and half-swam the final few yards through the low waves and onto the beach. Pulling their spacesuits up, Paul noticed that Braxton had thought to tie a few other items onto his suit. “Good thinking, Braxton. They just might come in handy. Come on, let’s move everything up above the tide line.”

*~~*~~*~~*

“I should have told you
to hold back one of the marines to run that damn thing.” Captain Adrian Lee had to raise his voice over the growling roar of the dozer, “Are you sure that ensign knows what he’s doing, Chief? He’s getting very close to my ship and I know there’s nothing in his file about being certified to run a heavy tractor.”

The chief had been standing out on the ship’s hull watching the dozer operation and providing security for the ensign. CPO Daniel Meecham and Captain Lee had known each other for more than twenty-five years. They had a friendship that went beyond professional courtesies and a few moments stolen from the day to stand in the sun outside and watch the pterosaurs nesting on the cliffs above them was a welcome break.

“Dailey’s a good boy, Adrian. He picks things up quickly but, just to be sure, I ran him through the qualifications before letting him start the clearing,” the chief replied as he watched from the upper rim of the Argos while shifting his Pulsar rifle to the other arm. “It’s not a big job, sir. He’ll have #4 loading gate cleared in a few minutes and it means I don’t have to take one of our ratings from other duties.”

“You make sure to keep an eye on him anyway, particularly when he gets near the ship. He may be able to swing that thing around but that doesn’t mean he has the experience of an operator. Unexpected things can happen and that ensign doesn’t have the reactions to handle them, that comes only with experience. However, if you feel comfortable with it we’ll continue.”

They both turned as Tom Bradley exited the service port. “Morning Captain, Chief Meecham. Commander Dalmas said you wouldn’t mind if I joined you for a bit of fresh air and sunshine. How soon will we be able to lift?”

Captain Lee turned back toward the dozer before answering, “Lieutenant Anderson’s people are set to go but the simulations say we have to clear at least sixty percent of the hull before lifting. It’s a strange situation, Mr. Bradley. No one ever anticipated a Gravitonics driven spaceship with the majority of its hull enveloped in sand. The simulators can handle one or two hundred objects in the spindizzy zone of the field but in this case we would have millions of particles.”

“Spindizzy? Oh yeah, that range where things are too far off the surface to be carried by the Wave field but too close to be pushed out of the path.”

“Yes, but Engineering thinks that if we can remove that much sand from around her then we can give it a try.”

The chief slapped at his neck, “Sorry sir. Mosquitoes haven’t changed much over the years, have they?

“I think Dailey’s almost done,” The chief went on. “We can begin unloading cargo and crew while he moves on to clearing the rest of the Argos. I understand it’ll take about five trips up to the plateau since we’re down to one Hunter. That should take all day so it looks like we try raising her first thing tomorrow.”