Mega 3: When Giants Collide (Mega Series) (25 page)

A target. A true target. One that wouldn’t just float in the water and let it tear it apart. No, the new target was an active foe.

The shark opened its mouth once again and twisted its body almost in half as it lunged at the attacker.

***

“What the fuck did this shit do to my ship?” Cougher yelled in Carlos’s face. The two men stood in the middle of the engine room, only an inch apart. “I let you do this because you said it would protect us from whatever was coming.”

“It will!” Carlos yelled.

“Well, does this look like protection?” Cougher yelled as he pointed a wrench at the cooling engines then at the dimming emergency lights. “This looks like a serious fucking problem to me!”

Darren and Gunnar raced into the engine room.

“What happened?” Darren asked.

“Tinker toy here fried my engines!” Cougher shouted. “He wrapped that metal shit over everything and now we are fucked! Look at the emergency lights! This shit is sucking the power from the battery banks!”

“What is this?” Gunnar asked as he stepped next to a metal shrouded piece of equipment. “Is this some sort of shielding?”

“Yes,” Carlos said, “it’s designed to absorb electromagnetic energy. We found deflection caused too many problems, so containment was the best option.”

“Containment?” Darren asked. “Why the hell would we need to do that?”

“Yes, well, that’s a question for Ballantine,” Carlos said, “not for me.”

“Contain this, mother fucker,” Cougher said as he raised the wrench up over his head.

“Whoa!” Darren yelled as he lunged at Cougher and grabbed the Chief Engineer’s arm before he could brain Carlos. “All friends here, Cougher!”

“Not friends with him!” Cougher shouted as Darren shoved him away from Carlos. “Fuck this guy!”

“Carlos, you have to be straight with us,” Gunnar said. “Why did Ballantine ask you to do this?”

Carlos hesitated, but then slumped his shoulders and glared. “Because of the EMP coming.”

“What EMP?’ Gunnar prodded. “Why would there be an EMP? Is it part of the plan? Is there a device on the island that sends out an EMP? What does Ballantine need an EMP for?”

“He doesn’t need it,” Carlos said. “He just said it was coming. You know, when the nuke hits the island and goes off.”

“Nuke?” Cougher and Darren asked at the same time.

“Yeah, a nuke,” Carlos said then glared harder. “I am going to get my ass handed to me by Ballantine if I say anything more.”

“What do you think we are going to do to you?” Gunnar asked.

“Whatever,” Carlos said, “but if Ballantine asks, you say you tortured me, got it?”

“Not a problem,” Gunnar said. “You’re such a pussy that Ballantine will believe that easily.”

“Nice,” Carlos sneered.

“Tell us,” Darren ordered.

“You know how we have been disowned by the US government?” Carlos asked.

“Disavowed,” Darren corrected.

“Yeah, that,” Carlos nodded. “Well, apparently they didn’t just disavow us. They also sent these folks after us. You know, the folks we’ve been fighting and took us hostage and all that good stuff.”

“The US government is behind these merc fucks?” Darren growled.

“Yeah, or some branch of it. Ballantine said it was all black cover stuff,” Carlos shrugged.

“Black ops,” Darren said. “The CIA and NSA’s shadow organizations.”

“Whatever,” Carlos replied, “not that it matters. Crazy assholes are crazy assholes no matter who they are.”

“What does this have to do with a nuke?” Gunnar asked.

“Ballantine believed there was a fail-safe in place,” Carlos said. “He’s pretty sure that we’ve been tracked to this island and if the mercenaries don’t report in, then an ICBM is going to be headed right for us.”

“ICBM?” Darren gasped. “Mother fucker. That’ll wipe out the island and pretty much half the ocean around it.”

“Yep,” Carlos nodded as he pointed at the metal. “That’s why I shielded all essential equipment. I just may not have calibrated it right. Instead of absorbing the energy from the EMP, it’s started absorbing the energy from the engines and battery banks.”

Darren looked at all the metal.

“How do we get it off?” he asked.

“Get it off? Why?” Carlos asked. “If the EMP hits, then it’ll destroy every piece of electronic equipment on this ship.”

Darren moved from Cougher and over to Carlos then tapped the tech on the forehead.

“You need to look up in your weapon smith brain just exactly the kilotons worth of damage an ICBM does,” Darren said. “Then you need to tell us how to get this shit off so we can start up the engines and get the fuck away from this island as fast as possible.”

“Oh, right,” Carlos said as his eyes went wide.

“Did the calculations?” Darren asked.

“We need to be at least forty miles from here,” Carlos said, “or we’re toast.”

“Nuked toast,” Darren nodded.

“Wait a fucking minute, D,” Gunnar said, “even if we get the engines up and running, we can’t just leave everyone on the island!”

“I know,” Darren smiled. “So I guess we better go get them then.”

Gunnar smiled back. “Yeah, I guess we better.”

***

“Hey there,” Max said from the railing as Mike, Shane, Darby, and Lucy climbed up to him. “How’s it going?”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Shane snapped. “You need to be resting!”

“Oh, you know me,” Max said. “I rest better with a rifle in my hand and an eye on the danger.”

The four teammates climbed up over the railing then turned and looked down into the water below. Except for Darby. She walked over to Max, grabbed him by the back of the head, kissed him hard then shoved him away and slapped his face even harder.

“Ow,” Max smiled.

“You’re an idiot,” Darby said. “Get below and rest.”

“With you up here all vulnerable and shit?” Max smiled as he rubbed his cheek. “Not a chance, sugar ass.” Then Max noticed the others were busy studying the water and there was one person missing. “Uh, where’s Uncle Vinny?”

“Still in the water,” Shane said. “He was by the gate.”

“He has a few hundred tons of sea monsters between him and this ship,” Mike said.

“Oh, that’s not good,” Max said.

“What happened to the com?” Lucy asked. “We were trying to hail the elves forever, but they didn’t respond. Why didn’t they activate the pineapples?”

“Power’s out,” Max said. “Engines are offline and the batteries are borked.”

“How the hell did that happen?” Shane asked.

“I can make a guess,” Darby frowned.

“Carlos screwed up,” Ingrid said as she ran up to them waving her tablet. “I think I have a fix. I just need one of you to go back in that water so you can activate the pineapples. You’ll have to be about fifty feet out away from the ship for it to work, though.”

“Back in the water?” Mike asked.

“With those fucking things?” Shane asked.

“Fifty feet? Fuck you,” Lucy said.

“I’ll do it,” Max smiled. “I’m hopped up on painkillers and crap and could give a shit right now. I’ll totally do it.”

“No, you won’t,” Shane said, “I’ll do it.”

“Cool,” Ingrid said. “Let me show you how it works. You have to activate them individually, one by one, or the whole network will collapse. That means there is more room for error, but it should still work as expected.”

“More room for error,” Shane frowned, “great.”

Max pulled a joint from his pocket and lit it up. “Here. You’ll need to focus up.”

Shane took the joint and drew deeply.

“Uh, I think that’s going to increase the chance for error further,” Ingrid said.

“All these long months and you still haven’t figured us out,” Shane said as he handed the joint back to Max and exhaled.

“Yeah, get with the program, Ingrid Bobingrid,” Max said as he took a hit from the joint and looked at Shane. “I’m going in with you. I’ll cover your ass with a channel gun.”

“No, you won’t,” Lucy said as she took the joint from him and smoked it down to a roach. “I’ll cover him. You sit up here and watch the island. If the bad guys come for the ship, then send Mike down to get us.”

“No need,” Darren said as he stepped up on deck, fully geared out with Gunnar next to him. “We’re going to the bad guys.”

“There’s the possibility of an ICBM coming to destroy the island,” Gunnar said, “so we sort of need to get on the road and get the fuck out of here.”

Darby just shook her head. “I’ll go in the water. Max can stay up here and be my spotter.”

“Don’t you want to come rescue the others?” Darren asked. “We could probably use your help.”

“You’ll be fine,” Darby said. “Ballantine has it all under control like the ass always does. Kinsey is a survivor and the facility isn’t without its own protection.”

“What does that mean?” Shane asked. “What protection?”

“Ronald,” Darby said.

“Who the fuck is Ronald?” Darren asked.

“Bigfoot,” Darby said without any hint of irony.

Everyone stared at her and didn’t move until Max pulled out another joint, lit that one, and passed it down the line. Even Ingrid had a hit that time. Darby rolled her eyes.

“I’ll help get the Zodiac in the water,” she said as she walked off.

“Dude,” Shane said to Max.

“I know,” Max nodded. “Totally.”

Chapter Nine- Race The Boom

Thorne decided the best thing for him to do was to swim into the lagoon and away from the thrashing, gnashing giants of the sea. He had no idea what was in the lagoon, but he knew it was better than being anywhere near the teeth and blood of the battle that raged before him.

He pumped his arms and legs with all his strength as he swam through the lagoon’s opening and into its main body. The water was so clear that if it wasn’t for the weight of his body he would have thought he was flying through open air. Open air that had a small coral reef below it and a multitude of bright colored fish swimming about.

Thorne wondered how the massive whale survived in a space that was obviously too small for its size. A creature like that needed the open ocean to live, not a glorified water cage that was the lagoon. Not to mention the amount of food it would need daily. There was no way the lagoon was its permanent home. Every instinct in Thorne’s body knew that much.

Those questions and musings had to wait while Thorne focused on getting himself to the beach that he could see was about a quarter mile from his position. Unfortunately, he was so focused on getting to safety and up out of the water that he didn’t pay attention to the fight that had followed him.

Thorne’s world became one of swirling water and clouds of bubbles as he was knocked aside by an errant tail swipe. As he rolled and tumbled through the crystal blue, he knew the attack hadn’t been directed at him, just that he hadn’t been watching his back as he should have. When he was finally able to slow and right himself, he stared in horror as two monsters of the deep locked in mortal combat blocked his way out of the lagoon.

***

“Jesus Christ!” Shane said as the Zodiac bounced over the waves away from the B3 and around the island. As the sight of the lagoon was lost to him, he turned to look at the others in the raft. “Did you fucking see that?”

“Yeah,” Lucy shouted over the sound of the Zodiac’s motor. “Was that the whale or the shark?”

“Whale,” Darren said, a far off look in his eyes. “It breached.”

“Going for the whale body slam,” Shane said. “Off the top rope, mother fuckers!”

“More like trying to evade a bite,” Darren said.

“You can keep your sciencey nerd speak for when you and Gunnar are geeking out over your fish friends,” Shane said. “Me? I prefer to think in terms of professional wrestling. It’s simpler that way.”

“I know you’re smart, Shane,” Gunnar said, “but sometimes I have a hard time believing it.”

“I’m a simple, complex person,” Shane said.

“You’re an oxymoron,” Lucy said.

“How have we ever beaten anything?” Mike wondered out loud, as he steered the Zodiac around the island and towards the dock in the front bay.

“No dock,” Darren said as he pointed at the Monkey Balls crew that stood on the sand and milled about the dock. “We’re beaching it. Just run it up there and get ready to roll and fire, kids.”

“Beach it?” Gunnar asked as he watched the others rack the slides on their M4s. “What the fuck does beach it mean?”

“Just follow our leads!” Shane said as he put his rifle to his shoulder and started firing at the men on the dock. “Remember, once we hit the beach you get the fuck off this raft and run straight for the wall! Do not stop or look back! Run your fucking ass off!”

“Wait...you’re going to run this up onto the sand?” Gunnar exclaimed. “Without slowing down?”

“That’s the plan, Gun,” Darren said opening up with his carbine. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine! Just do what Shane said!”

Gunnar watched as men’s heads, chests, arms, legs, were ripped apart by semi-automatic gunfire. Some tried to return fire, but Lucy and Shane picked them off easily with their sniper rifles. Gunnar looked down at the M4 in his hands then over at Mike as the man pushed the motor’s throttle to the limit.

“Why the fuck did I agree to come with?” Gunnar shouted.

“You said you wanted to try to save the animals,” Mike shrugged. “How’s that plan sound now?”

“Pretty fucking shitty!” Gunnar said as a bullet hit the water by the Zodiac’s side. “Stupid! Really, really stupid!”

“All in the name of science, right?” Mike grinned.

Gunnar grimaced then looked at the rest of the Team. They all had the same grin on their faces.

“You people are so fucked up,” he said. “Totally fucked up.”

***

“Bokeem?” Tank Top asked as he tapped the com in his ear. “Bokeem? Come in, man!”

“It’s the vault,” Ballantine said as he waited just inside the massive steel encased room. “The entire place is shielded. I doubt a nuclear warhead could penetrate this place, but that’s not a theory I want to prove. Shall we retrieve the backups and get back to the ship so you can call in to your employers?”

Tank Top was about to respond then he stopped and closed his mouth. He ran his tongue over his teeth for a minute or so, not saying a word as he studied Ballantine.

“How much of all of this shit is your doing? I mean, really?” Tank Top finally asked. “Be honest for once. Am I working for you or against you?”

“Oh, you are working against me, that’s for sure,” Ballantine said. “I would have taken things in a very different direction if it wasn’t for you being employed by whatever stupid, self-important, lazy black ops, hide in the shadows and go pew pew, US government agency that you’re employed by.”

“How the fuck do you know that?” Tank Top asked. “None of my Team even knows that except for Bokeem.”

“So he must be the one with the second beacon embedded,” Ballantine said. “Good. When we get back to the others you can have him activate it so we don’t have to worry about the ICBM.”

“Worry about the what?” Tank Top laughed. “Damn, you have gotten even more paranoid over the years than you used to be. There’s no ICBM coming, that’s just crazy. If Bokeem doesn’t activate his half of the beacon then an entire platoon of men will come down on you so hard you’ll be begging for mercy. God, would I love to see that, but, if that happens, then I lose my bonus.”

Ballantine studied his former employee then shook his head in disappointment.

“You honestly believe that,” Ballantine said, “and to think I had put way more faith in you, Jason.”

“Shut the fuck up, Ballantine,” Tank Top said. “I’m not going to let you mind fuck me. Just point me to the backups so we can get the hell out of here and I can finish the job I was sent to do.”

“Which is to take me back to some people that will lock me away for the rest of my life,” Ballantine said. “While also pumping me full of drugs and using interrogation techniques that even they don’t know that I was the one that developed them.”

“If that’s what happens then that’s what happens,” Tank Top said. “I could care less what they do to you once I drop you off.”

“And the Thornes? What will you do with them now that the cartels and Somalis have been taken off the board?” Ballantine asked as he crouched by the bottom of a perfectly smooth wall. He ran his finger along the junction of the wall and the floor then stopped. “I guess you probably didn’t think that all the way through.”

“I don’t give a fuck about Mexican cartels and Somali pirates,” Tank Top said. “All I have to do is hand the Thornes over to my employers. They can deal with who gets them. That’s not my job anymore.”

Ballantine pressed his finger into a soft spot at the bottom of the wall and the sound of motorized gears filled the room. Tank Top jammed his M4 into the back of Ballantine’s head.

“If you just triggered a trap, then you have about one second to live,” Tank Top snarled.

A drawer about three feet wide by one foot high popped out from the wall and Ballantine slowly turned to look at Tank Top and the barrel of the carbine.

“The backups,” he said, “all there for the taking.”

Tank Top stepped back and let Ballantine stand.

“Then take them,” Tank Top said, his carbine still pointed at Ballantine. “You’re my mule.”

“Am I?” Ballantine asked as he stepped to the drawer. “Here I though
t
yo
u
were the jackass.” He looked inside and frowned. “It’s going to take both of us to carry these.”

“Are you joking?” Tank Top laughed. “That drawer isn’t big enough to hold anything that’s too heavy for you to carry.”

“Except that’s not quite true,” Ballantine said as he struggled to lift out a box that was no bigger than one foot square. “Did you think I could backup all of this facility’s data on a couple of thumb drives? Hardly. These drives are made of an insanely dense material I had developed.”

“Of course you did,” Tank Top replied. “What’d you use? Dark matter?” Ballantine didn’t respond. “No shit. You used dark matter?”

“Dark matter is a theoretical substance that has never been able to be truly identified, let alone isolated into a form that could be used for any type of technological application,” Ballantine replied. “This is more like, semi-dark matter.”

“Jesus,” Tank Top said, “you are something else.”

“Oh, hello, there you are.”

Tank Top turned and looked at the nine-foot creature standing in the entrance to the vault.

“Fuck me,” Tank Top said as he lifted his M4. “It’s fucking sasquatch.”

Before Tank Top could pull the trigger, Ronald was inside the vault and ripping the weapon from the man’s hands. He was about to rip the head from the man’s neck as well, but Ballantine cleared his throat.

“We need him alive,” Ballantine said, “or I would have killed him myself.”

“I already killed his partner,” Ronald said, “so I figured I’d kill him as well. You know how I like symmetry.”

“You killed Bokeem?” Ballantine asked.

“Bokeem is dead?” Tank Top choked.

“Be quiet,” Ronald said as he squeezed Tank Top’s throat. “We are having a conversation that you are not invited to participate in.”

“With Bokeem dead then that means the ICBM will certainly be launched,” Ballantine said as he set the box back inside the drawer. “I’m no longer sure we have the luxury of the time it will take to remove the backups from this vault.”

“Here,” Ronald said as he tossed Tank Top at Ballantine’s feet, “you handle him and I’ll carry the backups.”

Tank Top tried to get up, but Ballantine stomped on his back and sent him down to the floor again.

“Did you run into Gil on your way down?” Ballantine asked Ronald as the creature lifted out four boxes from the drawer.

“No, I did not,” Ronald replied as he barely struggled with the weight of the boxes. “These are deceptively heavy, Ballantine. You should really work on their design. A person could hurt their back or shoulders trying to lift these.”

“Are they too much for you to handle?” Ballantine asked.

“Hardly,” Ronald smiled, his massive canines showing prominently in his huge mouth. “I’m a gigantopithecus, not a person, Ballantine. I said a person could get hurt. My kind are a different matter.”

“So is that,” Ballantine smiled as he pointed at the boxes in Ronald’s hands.

“Oh, that is a good one,” Ronald laughed. It was a booming, gravely guffaw that echoed off the sterile walls of the vault. “I have missed our happy interactions.”

“What the fuck is going on?” Tank Top asked.

“Oh, Jason, that seems to be your life’s motto,” Ballantine said. “It is truly a pity that a person of your skill set and intelligence is so pitifully clueless.”

“He’s coming with?” Ronald asked.

“With Gil still at large?” Ballantine replied. “I think not. We’ll leave him in here.” Tank Top started to protest, but Ballantine slammed a fist into the back of his head and stunned him into silence. He knelt next to the wounded merc and put his lips close to the man’s ear.

“Remember how I said this vault could withstand a nuclear blast?” Ballantine said quietly. “Well, now is your chance to find out. There is plenty of food, water, and even a cot and extra clothing in here, if you can figure out how to find them. It’ll give you something to do. If the place isn’t too radioactive, then I may come back for you in a year or two. That can be the hope that gets you through the long nights and endless days. Because once the lights go out, you won’t be able to tell the difference.”

Tank Top mumbled something, but Ballantine couldn’t make sense of it. He just patted the man on the shoulder, went and retrieved the M4, then nodded towards the vault’s entrance.

“I have no idea how long we have until the missile strike,” Ballantine said. “Have you found Dr. Morganton?”

“She is safe and secure,” Ronald said. “We’ll retrieve her on our way to Boris and that young woman.”

“Kinsey Thorne,” Ballantine said. “A wonderful girl. You’ll like her once you’ve had a chance to get to know her.”

“I look forward to that,” Ronald said as they left the vault. “So, what is the plan, Ballantine? How are we escaping doom this time?”

“I have a ship,” Ballantine said.

“You always do,” Ronald chuckled.