“Yes.”
“That’ll be David’s sub. Flip it on. Hopefully he’s turned on his inter-sub comm link.
“David?”
“Dad? What took you so long? I’ve been hailing you since the Lio went after those whale pods.”
“I didn’t know you were in the water. Thanks for saving our arses.”
“Consider us even. But, Dad, seriously — stay back. I’ve been playing cat-and-mouse with this pregnant bitch for weeks. This time she won’t escape.”
Escape? The crazy kid was trying to capture it!
Our sonar array flickered back on as we continued to distance ourselves from the Tortuga. The monitor revealed the presence of two surface ships that were entering the bay from the north, and David was leading the Liopleurodon right for them.
The two Dubai ships had converged upon the bay’s entrance the moment the creature had entered the shallows. Deck hands aboard the Tonga hustled to lower an immense trawl net over the tanker’s starboard side, while their counterparts on the Dubai-Land retrieved it from below, attaching cables to one side of the net’s loop. When everything was ready, the trawler gradually separated from the tanker, stretching the trap in place.
From the bridge of the Dubai-Land, Fiesal bin Rashidi, first cousin to the crown prince of Dubai, ordered the two ships under his command to shut down their engines.
Now it was up to the American daredevil.
David Taylor was out in front of the creature, making his way toward the net. He knew the pregnant behemoth was nearing exhaustion. Every time she seemed ready to quit the chase, the twenty-one-year-old pilot would slow down and bank hard from side to side, succeeding in keeping the tiring pliosaur interested, while taking some of the fight out of her.
Our sub surfaced south of the tanker. We watched on sonar as David led the Liopleurodon east toward the two motionless vessels.
Jonas was tense, counting down the distance. “Two hundred yards… one fifty… a hundred yards. Come on, kid, you’re moving way too slow to jump that net. Throttle up!”
Sweat poured down David Taylor’s face. Cruising at only eighteen knots, he knew the Manta could not generate enough lift to leap out of the sea to clear the net. Yet he also had to keep the creature close. He knew she was tiring, knew that if she sensed the net, she’d turn on a dime and flee.
So he took a chance.
Throttling back, he dropped his speed to thirteen knots, allowing the Liopleurodon to move in close enough for her nostrils to inhale his sub’s jet-pump propulsor bubbles.
Reinvigorated, the creature opened its jaws to devour its prey as David slammed both feet to the floor and pulled back on his joystick, easing up on his starboard engine a few precious seconds before he reached the surface.
Instead of attempting to clear the net, David launched the Manta sideways out of the sea. The submersible cleared the steel cables running from the trawler to the left side of the net—
— And smashed nose-first into the Dubai-Land’s portside bow.
Unaware that its prey was gone, the Liopleurodon swam into the trawl net, stopping only after its fore-flippers struck the unseen object. It attempted to turn and run, but the crew manning the Tonga’s starboard winch was already tightening the noose upon the unnerved colossus, whose reflexive maneuver only succeeded in gathering its lower torso into the closing net.
And that’s when all hell broke loose.
Before the hunters stationed behind their deck-mounted harpoon guns could aim their drug-filled steel lances below, the enraged pliosaur twisted its one hundred tons of fury beneath the starboard keel of the tanker.
Having been refitted as a mobile aquarium, the Tonga lacked the ballast of an ocean-bound tanker filled with crude. The unstable ship was pulled hard to starboard, flinging its harpooners and winch crew seven stories into the bay. Anything not bolted down — equipment, crates, and humans — was hurtled across the tanker’s plunging deck.
Aboard the Dubai-Land, the winch that had been holding the net open was bent sideways, making it impossible for the trawler’s crew to release control of the captured pliosaur over to the Tonga. Instead of being hauled out of the water, the Liopleurodon was left to twist and turn in the net, caught in a tug-of-war between both ships.
Jonas tried to reach his son by our sub-comm link, but David didn’t reply. Accelerating to thirty knots, he raced for the tanker. “Zachary, start pinging. Find me David’s Manta.”
I switched my headphones to sonar, my ears assaulted by a cacophony of sound.
A minute later we arrived on the scene.
Jonas slowed our approach, in order to sort through the chaos. On our right was the Tonga, its towering superstructure surreally swaying east to west and back again like a giant steel buoy. On our left was the trawler — at least what was left of it. The vessel had been flipped completely over, its barnacle-encrusted keel now an island of survival for its crew, who were hanging on for dear life, the inverted boat dropping and rising beneath them.
Ahead of us was the center of the maelstrom.
One hundred sixty million years ago, Liopleurodon had ruled the ocean as a carnivorous marine reptile, all except for the subspecies that had evolved gills to inhabit the Panthalassa Sea. Caught in the net, the creature before us couldn’t swim. And if it couldn’t swim, it couldn’t breathe.
By swaying the two ships, the monster managed to channel just enough water into its mouth to keep from drowning. It had flipped the Dubai-Land, but the steel cables connecting the trawler to the net had remained in place, keeping the trap sealed.
“Zach, where’s David’s sub?”
“There… by the trawler’s bow. Those crewmen are using it as a flotation device.”
The water was a frigid thirty-three degrees Fahrenheit. The paralyzing temperatures had already claimed at least a dozen lives. I was about to radio Mac to send the hopper-dredge when we heard the unmistakable snap of steel.
It was the last cable connecting the trawler to the net.
The Liopleurodon felt its bonds loosen. With renewed vigor, the trapped beast began to worm itself free.
“Zach, it’s getting free!”
“Kill it.”
“How?”
“Use the Valkyries. Aim for its neck.”
Jonas dove the sub to avoid a swirl of lifeless bodies, moving us steadily toward the opening net, the lasers heating up. The inverted trawler appeared on our left, along with David’s Manta. The disabled vessel bobbed upright along the surface, surrounded by seven pairs of kicking legs.
Jonas would not allow the creature to escape.
“Its head is free. Here it comes!”
The monster lurched forward, catching its left hind flipper in the net.
That was all Jonas needed.
I ducked as the Manta’s bow forcibly struck the Liopleurodon just above its chest cavity, the twin lasers burning matching holes three feet deep into the creature’s flesh. Blood spurted across our cockpit glass as the insane beast flung us to and fro until we were tossed free.
Mortally wounded, the animal propelled itself away in obvious pain.
The hopper-dredge arrived ten minutes later. Jonas maneuvered the sub into its berth, impatiently waiting for the chamber to drain and pressurize before he could open the cockpit and make his way up five flights of stairs to board a waiting lifeboat.