John Ringo - Emerald Sea

Evan found himself screaming as he ran through the jungle of writhing arms, desperately clicking at the self-starter for the flamethrower. Finally the pilot light caught and he slid into knee-deep water and pointed the device over the side, triggering it for its first test.

The stream, he noted in a strange abstraction that made the whole experience dreamlike, was darned near perfect, some droplets coming down from the stream but most of them impacting in the target area. As the jellied gasoline hit the squid just above the mouth — he’d been aiming directly for the maw but close was good enough with a flamethrower — the squid convulsed, its jets closing to pull it back. The tentacles thrashed wildly and then with another massive pulse it slithered off the edge of the ship and disappeared back into the depths so fast it was gone before the ship had heaved back up onto an even keel.

Evan found himself on the deck, the end of the flamethrower dripping jellied gasoline onto the, fortunately water-covered, deck. He stumbled to his feet and shut down the valves as sailors grouped around him, pounding him on his shoulders in lieu of his tank-covered back.

“Mister Mayerle!” the skipper bellowed from the quarterdeck.

“Sir,” Evan said, spinning in place and giving the skipper a salute that, as a civilian, was not strictly necessary.

The skipper returned it anyway and then grinned.

“Damned fine job,” the skipper said. “Thank you. But before you use that thing on my ship again, kindly find something that allows us to extinguish those little fires you just left behind.”

“Yes, sir!” Evan said. Buckets of sand had already been dropped on the dribbles that had hit the deck and looking over the side it was clear that the ship had drifted clear of the puddle of burning fuel the scorched squid had left behind.

“Commander Mbeki?” the skipper called.

“Sir?” the commander said, getting to his feet.

“We’ve got some damaged rigging,” the skipper said, turning to look at the sails, some of which were flapping in the breeze. Fortunately the wind was not strong or they would have shivered themselves to pieces. “Get a damage party to work. How’s the chief?”

“I’ll live, Skipper,” Brooks said, getting shakily to his feet.

“Bridge!” the lookout called. “Dragon, fine on the port bow! Signaling. Number Twenty-three, forty-seven, fourteen!”

“ ‘Enemy in area,’ ” Midshipman Donahue said. “ ‘Under attack. Make all sail.’ ”

“Bit late,” the skipper said. “Get to work, Commander!”

“Wait,” Joel said as one of the deck apes started to flip a severed tentacle end over the side.

“What?” the seaman asked, tired and unhappy from the battle and the cleanup. What he didn’t need was one of the damned wardroom stewards slowing him down.

“We need to keep a souvenir,” Joel said, stooping to pick up the tentacle. “We’ll put it in alcohol and set it up in the mess or something.”

“Whatever,” the seaman replied. “I’ve got work to do.”

“As do I,” the steward said, picking up the tentacle and taking it below.

Now if he could only get a gene scan out of Sheida, one of his cases might at least get closed.

He rounded up a jar and wood alcohol in the galley and then carefully stored the chunk in his seabag. After that he went and checked his telltales.

The rabbit roamed all over the ship, mostly being a minor nuisance and bugging people. But the external telltale, when he touched it, pointed to the aft of the ship and he went to pick up the data from the one in the wardroom.

The latter was occupied, however, by Commander Mbeki who had a pile of documents spread out on the table. He was sitting at the far end, fountain pen in hand, staring at the papers with an abstracted expression.

“Sorry, sir,” Joel said. “Anything I can get you?”

“Not right now, Joel,” Mbeki said, looking up with dark eyes.

“You look worn out, sir,” Joel said. “A mug of herbal tea? Some food?”

“No thanks, Joel,” the commander said, shaking his head.

“Sir, I can see you’re busy,” Joel said, nervously. “But, could I talk to you for a moment?”

“I don’t know,” the commander said, looking stern for a moment. “What about?”

Joel shut the door and then shrugged. “I sort of need to… go out of the chain of command, sir. It’s about something you mentioned. And I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”

“What’s that?” the commander said. “And you know I don’t like sailors breaking chain of command.”

“Yes, sir, but it’s about my family, sir,” the seaman said, gulping. “What you said about New Destiny, sir. Just before we shoved off one of the civilian laborer guys asked me if I knew where my family was.”

“And what did you tell him?” Commander Mbeki asked.

“I was sort of surprised, it wasn’t like we were talking or anything,” Joel replied. “He just up and asked. Then he said that if they were in Ropasa, he knew some people who were smuggling people out, those they could find…”

“Indeed,” the commander said, frowning. “You realize that there are several possibilities here.”

“I hadn’t thought about it at the time, sir,” Joel shrugged. “But I have since. It might be legit. Then again…”

“It might have been a New Destiny agent trolling for sources,” Mbeki replied, his face hard.

“Yes, sir,” Joel gulped. “The thing is, I told him who my wife and daughter were. What do I do now? I feel like such an idiot.”

Commander Mbeki rubbed the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger and grimaced.

“Well, don’t think you’re the lone idiot,” he muttered. “Joel, for now, you’ve brought it to my attention. I’ll think about what to do with it. I should pass it on to the Criminal Investigation Division. But those idiots can’t find their ass with both hands. For now, I’m going to sit on it. If you get any more contacts, any more, tell me. Clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Joel replied. “What should I do if, you know, if they’re from New Destiny and they found them? What if they tell me to…”

“In that case definitely contact me, not CID,” the commander said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Take care, Joel,” the commander said, picking up his pen and uncapping it. “And we did not have this little conversation.”

Edmund scrambled up a ladder dangling over the port side as the ship heeled to starboard; the carrier was getting its dragons back.

“Belay that,” he said, waving at the receiving party. “No time.” He looked up in the dim light at where teams of sailors were rapidly rerigging the damaged cordage. “What happened?”

“We were attacked by a kraken, General,” the skipper said. “That was the second attack that we sustained. And I doubt that the kraken was some generic denizen of the deep; it was definitely aiming for us.”

“Damn, damn and double damn,” Edmund snarled. “We have a hell of a situation here, Skipper. Let’s go below.”

Edmund sketched out the attack on the mer-town and listened as the captain detailed the two attacks on the ship.

“Well, we’re in a fine pickle,” Edmund admitted. “The mer need to move. They say that there’s a much more defensible position over by the Bimi islands and they want to go there. Soon. Normally that’s not a problem. But they can’t protect, or even carry for that matter, their babies, not if they’re under attack. And I’d guess that as soon as the ixchitl and the orcas lick their wounds they will be back.”