Eric Brown: The Kraken Rises

As Chuck steered their boat up the platform, he shouted, “Look out!”

Hawks turned his gaze upwards to see one of the squid creatures moving impossibly fast across the side of the platform above them towards their position. The thing moved like some sort of crazy spider. Robbie was just staring at the thing, watching it in terror. The newbie had gone pale. Hawks jerked up his rifle, taking aim at the creature. It gave a high-pitched screech as it leaped from the side of the platform. Hawks met it with a fully automatic stream of fire from his rifle. The rounds slashed through the thing’s body. Black blood sprayed from its wounds as the impact of the bullets knocked it off its intended course and sent it spiraling to splash into the water beside the boat.

“Get the fragging grapple set!” Hawks ordered Robbie, slapping him on the shoulder. The Braxton ’s CIWS was pouring rounds into the water behind the boat. Hawks could see dozens more squid creatures in the water there. The CIWS was making short work of most of them, but some were getting past its field of fire.

Robbie fired the grappling hook up onto the platform and checked to make sure it was well in place.

“What are you waiting for?” Hawks demanded. “Get moving!”

As Robbie started up the rope, Hawks clicked his weapon over to burst fire instead of full-auto mode. He aimed at one squid creature in the water after another, picking off the closest ones first and working his way outward with his shots.

Chuck went up the rope next. Only when the tall, lanky newbie was well up the rope after Robbie did Hawks turn to climb the rope himself. A squid he hadn’t seen emerged from the waves nearly tipping the boat over as it hurled itself onto it. One of the thing’s tentacles made a grab for him. It caught his lower left leg. Hawks grunted against the pain as he felt the tiny hooks that lined the underside of the tentacle tearing at his flesh through the cloth of his pants. The thing was incredibly strong. He couldn’t jerk his leg free of its hold. Keeping a grip on the rope with one hand, Hawks swung himself sideways on the rope where he could angle the barrel of his rifle downward at the squid to get a better shot at it. He squeezed the rifle’s trigger and put a three-round burst of fire into the squid creature’s central mass. It shrieked as the bullets shredded its flesh where they struck. The thing’s tentacle withdrew from his leg as Hawks fired a second burst into the creature to make sure it wouldn’t be grabbing him again. The squid creature’s body slumped over in the boat and lay there unmoving as Hawks slung his weapon onto his shoulder, taking hold of the rope with both hands, and started climbing as fast as he could.

He could hear gunfire above him. The others had already reached the main deck of the platform and engaged the squid creatures there. Hawks, breathing hard and pressing his body to its limits, made it to the top of the rope and pulled himself onto the platform’s deck. Larson had the others in a semi-circle formation firing into the ranks of the dozens of squid creatures that came at them from all sides. The things were likely the last of their kind left on the platform’s exterior, but that didn’t mean they were going down without a fight. Hawks raised his rifle and joined the battle. He emptied the last few rounds in his rifle’s magazine, blowing one of the squid creatures to bits as it charged at him. Black blood splattered over him. He flinched at the cold, slimy feel of it on his skin.

“Hold the line!” Larson shouted.

The others were doing their best to do just that. Hyatt, one of Larson’s squad members, lobbed a grenade into the oncoming mass of squids.

“Fire in the hole!” Hyatt shouted before the grenade detonated. Its blast blossomed on the platform’s deck, wiping out a good portion of the remaining squid creatures.

Dillon, the other member of Larson’s squad, didn’t notice the squid coming at him from his right. It plowed into him, knocking him from his feet. The spear-like tip of one of its primary tentacles slashed him open from his stomach to the bottom of his neck. Purple intestinal strands, slicked with red, bulged out of the wound, as the squid creature finished Dillon with a second swipe of its tentacle that took his head from his shoulders and sent it rolling across the deck.

Despite their losses, the squid creatures continued to press their attack. There were only a handful for them left now, and Hawks was eager to see the last of them dead. He ejected his rifle’s spent magazine and slapped a fresh one into it, clicking the rifle back to full auto. Leveling the barrel of his weapon at the last of the squid creatures, he emptied the entire new magazine into them. The stream of bullets sent the squid creatures sprawling and flopping about the deck.

The battle came to an end as quickly as it had begun. Dillon had been their only causality and they were lucky in that regard. Things could have easily been much, much worse.

Hawks and the others held their position waiting to see if any more squid creatures that hadn’t shown themselves in the initial onslaught were lurking about. There didn’t appear to be any.

“On me,” Larson ordered and started across the deck. The platform’s main entrance door had been smashed inward, an impressive feat given that it was metal and designed to resist everything nature could hurl at it. Hawks couldn’t help but think that there didn’t seem to be anything natural about the monsters they were up against.

Hawks could see that the platform still had power. The corridor lights beyond the broken entrance door were on.

“Hawks, take point,” Larson ordered. “Everybody keep sharp. Those things could be anywhere.”

Hawks led the others into the corridor. As they entered the doorway, Robbie said, “Hold up.”

“What?” Larson demanded.

“That control panel for the door,” Robbie told him. “I think can access the central system of the platform from it.”

Hawks saw Larson give him a questioning glance. “Let him do it. If he can pull the layout of this place…”

“Get to it then,” Larson ordered Robbie. “The rest of you, take up defensive positions.”

Chuck and Hawks moved to cover the corridor to the right while Larson and Hyatt covered the left. The corridor was disturbing quiet compared to the battle they had just lived through. The quiet set Hawks’ nerves on edge.

Robbie popped the cover from the panel and dug his equipment out of his pack, settling into his work.

“You really think there’s any still alive here?” Chuck whispered.

Hawks shrugged. “It’s our job to find out.”

The seconds ticked by like hours and the minutes like days. Finally, Robbie disconnected his tablet from the panel, grinning like a fiend. “I got everything we need and then some,” Robbie told them.

Larson raised an eyebrow.

“I downloaded the layout of the platform and was even able to tie some system controls to my tablet. If we run into a locked-down door, I should be able to open it without having to interface again … as long as the power stays on anyway,” Robbie added as an afterthought.

“Which way then?” Larson asked.

“The most logical places for anyone still alive to hole up are the platform’s armory or its engineering section,” Robbie said.

“This place has an armory?” Chuck shook his head in disbelief. “What the frag, man?”

“I say we try engineering first,” Robbie finally answered Larson’s question. “It’s not only the larger of the two, but it would have facilities inside it.”

“Facilities?” Chuck asked.

“He means places to relieve yourself and sinks,” Hawks laughed. “What? Did you grow up in a barn?”