Eric Brown: The Kraken Rises

Slumping down further in the copter’s pilot seat, he listened to the hissing and screeching of the squid-like monsters as those that hadn’t entered its interior wandered about its deck. Taking off appeared to be the only option left to him. He slowly reached up to start the copter’s preflight routine. Seconds ticked away between each of his movements as he did his best to remain hidden from the squids. What should have taken only a few minutes to do stretch to over half of an hour. When he finished the last of the checks and saw that everything was green, he took a deep breath, steeling himself, and leaped up right into the pilot seat. He kicked the copter into gear. As its blades began to spin and the copter roared to life, every squid on the platform seemed to turn towards the copter. It would take about sixty seconds to get airborne. Louis could only pray the squids would give him that much time. None of the things were close to the helicopter. The closest of them still had a decent amount of distance to cover to get at it. The squids moved as one. They came swarming over the platform’s deck towards the copter. Louis watched them coming and knew the copter wasn’t going to be able to lift off before they reached it. The creatures were insanely fast. Their movements reminded him of the tripods in H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, only on speed. He shifted more power through the copter’s systems. It rose from its landing pad as the first of the squids reached it. One of the monsters launched itself through the air, springing onto the forward window in front of him.

“Frag!” Louis wailed but the copter was airborne now. He jerked it hard to port and away from the deck of Platform Alpha One. The squid on the window slid off of it, unable to find anything to hold on to. As it fell one, of its tentacles lashed out to hammer at the window. The blow sent hairline fractures across the glass but didn’t shatter it completely. Louis was just happy to be able to see again. The copter rose in the sky as it cleared the side of the platform from his spur of the moment evasive maneuver. He wasn’t out of trouble yet though. Several of the squids clung to the copter’s skids and were even now pulling themselves up slither inside it through the open side door.

Though it was against regulations, Louis kept a .45 strapped to the underside of his pilot seat. He reached for the weapon and slid it out from underneath the seat. Turning to angle himself where he could fire into the copter’s rear, Louis took aim at a squid. His hand was shaking. He forced it steady as he pulled the pistol’s trigger. The pistol bucked in his grip as he fired. As strained as his nerves were, he nearly dropped it, but his shot flew straight and true. It blew a chunk of out of the squid’s central mass. The thing screeched and lost its hold on the side of the copter. It vanished from sight as it fell downward into the waters of the ocean below. A second squid took its place almost as quickly as it had fallen. Louis had counted four of the things in total that had made it onto the copter’s skids. He could see the third squid behind the second waiting for its turn to slide through the copter’s side door. There was no sign of the fourth and that worried him.

Louis acted faster against the second squid. He didn’t aim so much as just point the pistol’s barrel in the creature’s general direction and let loose. He emptied half the pistol’s mag. into the squid. The creature gave a high -pitched, pained wail that stung his ears as the rounds hammered into its central mass. Louis didn’t know crap about the weak points of the squids’ bodies, but apparently, he had gotten lucky and hit something vital. The squid slumped forward to collapse onto the floor of the copter’s rear. It laid there, a pool of black blood growing around it, as the third squid entered the copter. Louis jerked his head around as the copter’s window shattered and shards of glass rained over him. The fourth squid must have somehow crawled along the underside of the copter to scale up its front. The already fractured window had stood no chance against the thing. The first blow from its tentacles had smashed it open. Several of the shards of glass had struck Louis with enough force to pierce his skin. He grunted at the pain, swinging his pistol around at the squid that was nearly on top of him. Louis squirmed in the copter’s pilot seat, dodging tentacles that lashed out at him, as he emptied the remainder of the pistol’s magazine into the squid, point blank. Black blood splashed over his face and got into his mouth. It tasted like a mix of vinegar and motor oil. Louis spat it out even as the squid was knocked from the front of the copter and fell out of his sight. The copter had started to spin out of control. Louis grabbed the flight stick and tried to right it. He had forgotten about the last squid in the copter’s rear until one of its tentacles burst through both his seat and his body. He looked down at the spear-like tip of the tentacle that impaled his body, blood rushing up his throat to leak from the sides of his mouth. Louis tried to scream as the squid ripped the tentacle out of his body and moved around the pilot seat to come at him from his side. Alarms were blaring as the copter continued to spin out of control. Louis tried to reach of the flight stick again as he had lost his hold on it when the squid’s tentacle had plunged through him but found he couldn’t move his arms. He figured the tentacle must have severed his spine as it had impaled him. The squid gave a hiss and lunged at him, its mouth coming at his face.

Seconds later, the helicopter struck the surface of the ocean like a fist punching through a pane of glass.

Captain John Weaver sat behind the desk in his office replaying the distress call for the fifth time.

“This is research station Platform Alpha One! Mayday! I repeat, Mayday! We are under attack and require assistance!” the voice yelled. He was sure the call was real. Nobody short of a professional act could fake the degree of panic and utter terror in the man’s voice who had made the call. There was nothing more to the call though. No indication of who was attacking the platform or anything else in regards to whatever was happening there.

Weaver had his XO, Ennis, pull everything there was available on Platform Alpha One. It turned out that the platform was a corporate-owned research facility dedicated to the study of marine biology and deep sea exploration. The facility was a small but high tech one. Such a platform was an unlikely target for all but the most desperate of pirates. Weaver figured a terrorist attack on the platform was a much more likely assumption but even that didn’t make much sense. Unless Alpha Platform One was conducting unauthorized experiments in biological weapons or the like, there was no reason that came to mind that would make it a target for terrorists either. Why waste time and money on hitting such a secluded and relatively unknown target if you were a terrorist wanting to make a statement?

Rubbing at his cheeks in frustration, Weaver leaned back in his chair. His ship, the USS Braxton , was on routine training maneuvers and most of his crew was made up of newbies still getting a feel for the ship and how he ran it. Though the ship was fully armed and ready for action itself, his crew wasn’t.

Weaver sighed. The Braxton was the only ship close enough to be able to respond in kind of reasonable amount of time though and that left him little choice. If he didn’t answer the platform’s distress call, whatever happened there was on him and he knew it.

A knock sounded on his office door. He looked up to see Ennis standing in the open doorway staring at him.

“Come on in, Ennis.” Captain Weaver motioned his XO towards one of the chairs in front of his desk. “And close the door behind you if you would.”