Jeremy Robinson - Kronos

Andrea looked to the waves, trying to see through, imagining what could be down there.

“It’s seems they’ve had an encounter with your creature. Some men must have gone down in a submersible launched from the Titan. Honest to God, I didn’t think it was real, but the fear in those men’s voices…” The captain trailed off and looked over to the Titan. He squinted and crunched his forehead. “What happened to the men fishing?”

Andrea returned her gaze to the Titan, remembering the rush of the men on deck. Coupled with the information she now had, she could picture the crew hurrying throughout the ship, preparing, recovering the submersible, destroying their cover story.

Why?

Andrea gasped. “They’re going after it!”

Trevor burst onto the bridge of the Titan and began shouting orders. Atticus and O’Shea stood behind him. The cabin became a flurry of motion as the captain and crew rushed about, preparing for a rapid pursuit. Remus greeted them on the bridge, his colorful shirt nearly washing out the pitiful look in his eyes.

“I should have been with you,” Remus said to Trevor, with a look of genuine concern.

“Fret not, Remus. Atticus handled the sub like a pro.” Trevor gave the man a pat on the shoulder and moved to the front window.

Remus gave Atticus a scowl and stood next to Trevor, waiting for his command.

O’Shea slid up next to Atticus and whispered, “You better watch out for that one.” He motioned to Remus. “He doesn’t like it when other people get close to Trevor.”

“He’s worried about nothing,” Atticus said. “I’ve only just met the man.”

“You called him by his first name,” O’Shea said.

Atticus shrugged. “So?”

“Only those who criticize Trevor on TV or in the papers, or those in his extreme favor, can call him by his first name. On the Titan, only I get away with calling him by his first name, and that’s simply because he fears the power I represent.”

“I doubt Trevor fears God,” Atticus said.

“No, but he fears eternity. He believes, for some reason, in the power of priests to erase sins and save souls. I am his ticket to a blessed eternal life.”

“That’s not really how it works, is it?”

O’Shea smiled. “Not at all, but he believes it.”

“Then why are you here? I doubt it’s common for a priest to be paid to hear confession.”

“That,” said O’Shea, “is a story for another day.”

Trevor’s voice pierced the cabin again. “Where is the creature now?”

“It’s returned to the school of herring,” the captain said, leaning over the sonar screen, still being fed multiple signals from the array of sonar buoys.

“Must have seen the basking shark as a competitor and driven it out of the area,” Atticus said, unable to stop himself from analyzing the creature’s actions from the standpoint of an oceanographer.

“It’s…it’s rising,” the captain said, his voice tight with tension. “It’s going after the herring.”

Atticus felt a surge of adrenaline. He knew what was coming next.

“Full steam ahead!” Trevor shouted. “I want us on top of it in ten minutes or heads will roll!” He turned to Remus and spoke in a calmer voice. “Prepare the harpoon, will you?”

Remus nodded. “Yes, sir.” Then he was gone in a flash.

Trevor turned to Atticus, a gleam in his eye. “Are you ready, Atticus? The game is afoot. I believe Melville called this portion of the hunt, ‘The Chase’”

“That was at the end of the book,” O’Shea said.

Trevor smiled. “I’m an impatient man.”

White foam burst from the back of the Titan. It lurched forward and churned through the water. “There they go!” Andrea shouted.

Standing in the bridge of the cutter alongside the captain, her shout was unnecessary but understandable. From the moment they’d realized what was happening, the crew had been on alert and ready to move.

“Set a course to follow,” the captain said. “Bring us alongside, but keep a safe distance.”

Andrea braced for sudden movement as the cutter’s engines roared to life. The propellers dug into the water and pushed them forward in pursuit of the Titan. While the captain and crew had their minds set on the chase and the possibility that the sea monster they’d all been joking about was real, Andrea’s thoughts were on the man she’d been pursuing from the moment she’d brought him back to life. She knew Atticus was on the Titan. But as she watched the megayacht pounding through the water, a glint of metal rising from its bow, she realized it might be too late to save him.

While his life might not be at risk while aboard the Titan, he was going to lose himself in the fight. She feared he’d become as much a monster as the creature he sought to kill.

A reassuring hand gripped her shoulder. She turned and found the captain looking at the photo. “He’s why we’re really here, right? He’s the man you pulled from the water, the one who lost his daughter?”

She nodded.

“He’s on the Titan?”

She nodded again.

He squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll get him back.”

“How long have you known?”

“I’ve been a sailor long enough to know what a woman looks like when she’s waiting for a man to return from sea.” The captain smiled. “You’ve been standing on that deck watching that ship with the same look in your eyes I see in my wife’s every time she greets me at the dock.”

Andrea smiled. She’d been found out after all, but, amazingly, it didn’t seem to matter. The captain was a good man. Only then did she realize she had yet to learn his name. “Captain, what’s your name?”

“Nathaniel McCormick,” he said.

“Well Captain McCormick,” she said, “thank you.”

The Titan-Gulf of Maine

As the Titan began its charge through the ocean, its girth surged up and down as it cut through eight-foot swells. At full speed, the ship simply bored a path through the water. Atticus found himself enjoying the slight undulation of the deck beneath him. He felt more at home at sea than on land.

As he headed for the foredeck, following Trevor, with O’Shea close behind, he saw something large rising out of the deck where just the night before he’d been weeping for his daughter. Its polished surface glowed in the sunlight. He recognized it instantly-a harpoon gun.

Remus greeted them as they approached. “Almost ready, sir.”

Trevor nodded and looked to Atticus. “Impressive, is it not?”

Atticus loathed the killing of whales. It drove him nuts that several Japanese fleets still slaughtered the beautiful creatures. “For scientific research,” they said. Only fools believed that as the meat, oil, and fins found their way to Japanese markets. And he knew the only reason anyone would have a harpoon gun strapped to the front of a ship was to hunt whales. He wanted to ask if the harpoon gun had been used on a whale, but the answer was clear. Of course it had. Atticus felt a twist of revulsion inside him. What am I becoming, that a man like Trevor Manfred could become such a close friend so quickly? Are we really that much alike? Could I join this crew and watch as this harpoon gun kills a defenseless whale? How different is what I intend to do now?

Atticus shoved the questions from his mind. The plan wasn’t about sport. He took no pleasure in the act. If an alligator in Florida ate a child, it would be killed. If a bear savaged a family, it would be hunted down. This is no different, Atticus told himself. This is nature.

No, a voice shouted from deep within. When a lion takes a calf from a herd of buffalo, they don’t seek revenge; they don’t hunt down the lion. They mew for the baby animal, mourn its loss, and move on. That’s nature!