Читать книгу Imminent Domain - SEAN KOPING - Страница 8

April 20^th 2021

0645 hours

Gossamer Muse Super Cruise-liner

Deck Seven, Casino

“Did you know that the Marianas trench lies beneath the Dragon’s Triangle? And below us right now are mountain ranges taller than Mount Everest?

“What?”

“I said- “did you know that the Marianas trench lies beneath the Dragon’s Triangle? And below us right now there are mountain ranges taller than Mount Everest?”

“Uh… yeah. Thanks for tip.” I replied trying to ignore him and maintain my focus down the un-lit hallway.

Like that bit of info will come handy right now.

“The name’s Portland, by the way,” he said softly peeping sheepishly around the door-way down the hall.

“Yeah. Sure.”

Two tense minutes, later the sound of several bursts mini-gun fire erupted from the dark hallway ahead of us.

“Colonel, I have gunfire. The commandos are engaging the terrorists. Request permission to engage.”

Static. I tapped at my ear-piece in vain.

“If any unit is receiving this transmission please respond.”

The COM was down.

“Concentrated atmospheric saturation,” Portly offered almost excitedly as he waved his Multi-spectrum scanner before him like a divining rod.

“Fascinating,” I groaned, “Now try saying that in English, Portly.”

“You’re…we’re being jammed but not in the conventional sense, you see. Think more like a fog or invisible mist and it’s spreading randomly in patches about the vessel. I’ve started to loose contact with the sensors we’ve been placing throughout the ship. You see, under controlled conditions to create a concen…”

“Save the science lesson, Portly,” I snapped.

Another tense minute of silence went by until the annoying technician worked up the nerve to speak again.

“Terrorists?”

“What are you on about now?”

“You said terrorists,” he babbled on.

“No offense, friend. But I really don’t see the sense of having you techs in the field. You guys just get in the way in situations like this.”

“This from the guy who thinks we were sent here after terrorists,” he chuckled cynically. “You obviously didn’t read the fine-print when you signed up for this out-fit did you? Hello? Project Blue Book mean anything to you?”

Great, I thought to myself. I get stuck here with the crazy.

The tecnician continued to babble.

“Our units’ insignia is a dragon locked in internal combat with a tiger with the motto “Hic sunt monstra.” Do you even know what that means? Google it sometime, jar-hea-”

With a wave of my hand I cut him off.

“Shut up, Portly,” I growled shouldering my rifle, “I think I hear someone coming.”

Sure enough the faint staggered foot-falls become louder. So did Portly’s nervously chattering teeth. I took a breath, held it, and prepared to fire into the darkness.

Suddenly Jin-Lao stepped into the beam of my flash-light. He looked as if he was on the verge of collapse. His M4AI assault rifle hung limply from the sling draped across his chest. He leaned against the bulk-head as he dragged himself towards us with great effort.

I went to him. He collapsed into my arms as I neared him. With Portly’s help I dragged the wounded commando back to the doorway.

Jin-Lao’s face had become drawn and ashen-white and his lips were a blue-black color. The blood vessels around his eyes, nostrils and mouth showed clearly- like thin blue threads. His skin was cold. suddenly he began to convulse un-controllably. We laid him face down on the floor. A large blade- like shard protruded from his back. It was a foot long if it was an inch.

I grabbed hold of it and yanked it loose and Jin-Lao exploded in agony. The thick, viscous liquid that oozed from the knife-like ‘spike’ burned at my hand through my glove. What kind of weapon shoots this; I thought as I briefly examined the spike then tossed it away quickly.

Portly passed his scanner over the gaping wound.

“His vitals are dropping fast and I’m reading lethal levels toxins in his blood stream data.” Portly announced alarmed, “help me turn him over.”

As I did so Jin-Lao pulled me closer.

“Kaiju,” he cried his voice barely a whisper. “Help Tan,” he pleaded gasping for breath. Then with one sudden violent convulsion he was dead.

Kaiju? I thought. Monster?

Portly tried in vain to resuscitate him with C.P.R. then turned to me,

“What do we do now?”

For a brief moment all I couldn’t help but stare into Jin-Lao’s pitch-black irises as the light faded from them. Without a word I un-slung Jin-Lao’s M4A1 assault rifle from his corpse, checked it for ammo and passed it to Portly.

“Anything comes back down this hallway that isn’t me..,” I said trying not to seem rattled, “…you pull that trigger. And when that gun stops firing…run.”

I could tell from the flashlight beam on the bulk-heads, as I marched down the dark hall-way from whence Jin-Lao had come, that Portly was shaking with fear. It might have been funny if I wasn’t shaking too.

The beam from my flashlight cut through the darkness like a knife. I had purposely decided not to switch to N.V.G.s for two reasons. Since conventional Night Vision Goggles amplified ambient light, if the power were to be somehow restored, by the techs working at poolside, I would be temporarily flash blinded the moment it came back on. And that would not be good if at that time I happened to be face to face with whatever killed Jin-Lao. And two: ‘it’ seemed to be avoiding even the dimly lit areas. So maybe it was afraid of the light. If ‘it’ was; then the light was my friend. Or maybe I was just afraid to be in the dark.

With measured steps, I slowly made my way down the winding hall-way, traversing my weapon left to right. The configuration of Gossamer Muse made it easy for passengers to find their way around since the main entertainment and recreation decks were located between the passenger decks. But it also made it difficult to search deck by deck since all 29 of Schindler elevators on board the vessel were off-line. The layout also provided many ambush points and hiding places for potential threats, especially in the dark.

I entered a large partially lit area. It was the central boarding area. I swept the interior with the point of my assault rifle. Before me stood a majestic nine-deck atrium which offered a view up through a massive skylight to the morning light on deck 14. Large blue/green glass walls and windows stylishly separated the decks surrounding up the atrium’s length. The atrium was dominated by a five deck high lalique-style water sculpture, of a tastefully unclothed nymph pouring a vase of water, which served as a backdrop for the main stair-case that branched off to the upper decks on opposing sides of the lobby. Off to the right, there was a two deck tall water-fall and a stage built for a small orchestra that would welcome passengers aboard. When they built the Gossamer Muse it was obvious they spared no expense. I was so caught up in gawking at the ship’s architecture that I forgot why I was here until I tripped over what I thought was luggage left at the foot of the stair-case. Stupid.

As I got to my feet my light passed on the errant luggage. It was Tan. Point of fact it was Tan’s life-less body sans his head. In a panic I scrambled backwards on my ass away from corpse. Quickly regaining my composure I got to my feet, shouldered my assault-rifle and started scanning the lobby for Tan and Jin-Lao’s murderer. A scraping sound came from the landing half-way up the lavish stair-case.

As the beam of my gun-mounted flash-light slowly ran the length of the stair an area of red carpet near the top of stair rippled like heat off a tin roof on a hot summer day. The ripple moved down the stairs towards me and stopped.

The ripple diffused to reveal a grey and white pock-marked insect-like crustacean the size of a small horse. It looked like a finned crab with six dangerous looking spider-like legs that pierced the floor of the stair-case as it moved. The creature had two mean metre long crab-claws and huge horizontal mandibles protruded from, what I assumed was, the base of its head. As if that wasn’t enough it had two segmented scorpion-like tails that hung menacingly over its shell-armored body. It let out a loud gurgling hiss.

I squeezed the trigger of my OICWv2. The three rounds of semi automatic fire hit their mark.

The creature leapt over the side of the stair-case and made for the waterfall. It was trying to out-flank me! The color of it shell changed constantly as it moved from shadowed to lit areas. It was unbelievably fast for something so big.

I switched the selector on my assault-rifle to ‘full- auto.’

The creature leapt up onto the wall. Its two tails streamed behind it like ribbons on a little girl’s bicycle as it ran along the walls.

I let loose with everything that was left in the forty round magazine. The reflection of the muzzle flashes of my OICWv2 lit up the darkened lobby as shattered glass from the enormous atrium cascaded noisily into the lobby floor like a crystal waterfall.

It leapt from the wall and charged at me.

I thumbed the selector again and fired off seven of eight 16mm explosive shells at the creature. The motion sensitive laser mounted on the gun-sight had locked on to the creature. One by one, the seven explosive shells swooped after their target. And one by, one they exploded sequentially behind the fast moving creature until the last round hit it square on.

It went down.

There was glass everywhere. The part of the atrium was shattered and the water-sculpture totally destroyed along with part of the upper stair-case and sections of the floor. A thin veil of smoke wafted through the lobby. The fire-sprinklers had been set off and were bathing the entire lobby with salt water.

The creature laid on the ground it writhing slowly. A portion of its hard exterior shell had been smashed opened by a 16mm explosive round. It seemed to bleed a black viscous liquid.

I re-loaded my weapon. Soaking wet I approached the dying creature and emptied my weapon on it. Again. Just in case…

Suddenly, there were foot-steps on the stairs behind me. I immediately turned, shouldered my weapon and searched for the source of the noise. The beam of my flashlight tracked the stair. Nothing. The foot-steps suddenly stopped at the bottom of the stair near Tan’s body with a sick wet thud. The beam of light fell upon its intended target. The source of noise: It was his head. Or what was left of it.

From the top of the staircase came a, now familiar, loud gurgling hiss.

Instinctively, I raised my rifle and fired my last explosive round. The creature didn’t have time to move. It didn’t need to…..

….I missed.