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?”
23
“We’re down twelve Marines,” Captain MacDonald said. “All of their Wyverns, even the ones we recovered, are useless. We can blage them for parts, but that’s about it. And we’re down one scientist.”
The CO had ordered the ship into deep space, then stopped to have a conference. They weren’t in full “chill” mode, but most systems were powered down as much as possible and the chiller fans had been extended. The ship needed to chill in more ways than one.
“I’m qualified in geology and planetology,” Dr. Beach said. “As is Dr. Becker. For that matter, Dr. Robertson has a masters in geology and Dr. Weaver has a masters in planetology. Last, Lord only knows what Mimi is capable of.”
“Yeah, but we’ve taken a solid hit,” the CO said. His jaw worked for a moment. Those losses were, after all, all “his” people. “And we’re less than fourteen hours from Sol system. Time to head home.”
“Sir, with due respect,” the XO said, frowning. “We are not done with the mission.”
“We’ve just taken casualties in more than a third of our security contingent,” the CO replied. “Not to mention a science team member. We’ve got damage throughout the ship, including pressure leaks from that damned squid thing. The sick bay is packed and we’ve got people in quarantine. And your professional opinion is that we should not return, XO?”
“Sir, if I could interject?” Miller said uncomfortably. “I think I see what’s going on here.”
“Go ahead,” the CO said, leaning back and glancing unreadably at the XO.
“Sir, sub officers and surface officers think differently,” the warrant officer said. “I’ve worked, extensively, with both and it’s something that SEALs notice. Sub officers will keep at sea even when most people would consider it much more… prudent to return to base. Surface warfare officers are more inclined to put in when something goes seriously wrong. I’m not saying which approach is better or worse, sir, but it’s a very different approach. I think that’s what’s going on here.”
“I’d never noticed it,” the XO said, nodding, “but the chief’s right. Sir, I’ve been on boats that were leaking like a sieve and had half the machinery held together with spit and prayer and we stayed on mission. That’s… the submarine service, sir.”
“Interesting point,” Spectre said, frowning. “I’d accept further input.”
“The question to me, sir, is I suppose, which culture the space navy assumes,” Weaver said, nodding in thought. “Taking that view of the two disparate cultures and given that this ship is, among other things, going to set the cultural tone of the navy that follows, which do you choose? Frankly, sir, viewed that way it’s a much bigger question than simply ‘do we turn back?’ Assuming that we survive the Dreen, in a hundred years a captain of a spaceship, faced with the same decision, is going to say: ‘What did Spectre do?’ ”
“Oh, crap,” the CO snapped. “Thank you so very much, Commander Weaver. So the choice is ‘Damn the torpedoes’ or ‘Prudence at sea is always wisdom.’ Not much choice there, is there? I’m much more worried about what the review board is going to say than what a captain a hundred years in the future is going to think. Not to mention if we can survive the rest of the cruise and return alive. This is the only spaceship Earth and the Adari have. Losing it would be a major setback. Not to mention terminal to everyone on-board.”
“Again, sir, I would say it depends upon the nature of the review board,” Miller said. “If the review board is primarily former sub skippers, they’re going to shrug and say: ‘Of course you continue the mission.’ Carrier commanders might wonder if you were sane.”
“And, again, that’s going to set the tone of the space navy, sir,” Weaver said. “Given what we’ve already encountered, the only difference here is that we’ve taken casualties. Serious casualties, admittedly, but that’s the major difference.”