Jon Merz - Raider X

“Captain’s orders,” said Thatcher still in German. “I don’t know why. He was busy tending to the dead and dying up on the deck.”

“How many of them are dead?” asked the other sailor.

Thatcher sighed. “I don’t know. Perhaps twenty? The explosion was horrible. I was caught in it too.”

“Since when do you speak German?” asked the first man.

Thatcher smiled. “I’ve been speaking German since I got here. My family is German.”

But the sailor shook his head. “No, I don’t think you have. You’ve spoken English. I’ve heard the others talking about how you don’t speak any German. And now you’re down here with that shell… I don’t think the Captain told you to bring that down here.”

“But he did,” said Thatcher. “Go and ask him yourself.”

“Oh I will,” said the sailor. “But you’ll be coming with us.”

Thatcher hefted the shell. Fifty pounds was getting harder and harder to hold onto. He’d made it this far on adrenaline alone but the fact that he’d been seen now was beginning to affect his strength and he wanted nothing more than to put the shell down.

“Fine,” he said with a sigh. “But I’m not lugging this thing back up to the main deck only to have to carry it back down here when the Captain tells you I was telling you the truth.” Thatcher eased the shell down to the floor and stood it up so it leaned against the wall. He wiped off his hands which were all sweaty and looked at the sailors. “Lead on.”

But as he said those words, a shape filled the area behind the two sailors and Thatcher couldn’t believe what he was seeing. A darkness rose up behind the two men voiding out all of the light in the corridor.

Before Thatcher could even say a word, the two sailors turned at almost the same time and saw what was behind them.

It defied description but then there was no more time. The shape fell upon the men and they both screamed.

Thatcher backed away as the shape fell upon both men and started tearing them apart. He squatted, grabbed the shell, and ran.

Behind him, the sounds of carnage still reached his ears and made Thatcher consider blowing himself up right then. But the engine room lay somewhere ahead of him and he knew now more than ever that he had to reach it and blow this ship to smithereens.

What he had just seen could never be allowed near land.

Thatcher reached the entry to the engine room and paused long enough to place the artillery shell down next to the door where hopefully no one would see it. Then he entered the engine room and called out, “ Hilfe mich! ”

The replacement engine room crew members who numbered three looked up and started running en masse toward Thatcher. He pointed back the way he’d come and shouted that the men in the hallway were being attacked by something. Before they could ask any questions, Thatcher was shouting for them to hurry and they did as he told them, rushing out of the engine room before reason could prevail.

Thatcher waited just long enough for them to get some distance before retrieving the artillery shell. He had just sent those men to their deaths presumably, but he chose not to focus on that at the present time, but rather concentrate instead on the mission at hand: sinking Raider X.

Where to stow the artillery shell? The engine room was a complex affair and Thatcher was unfamiliar with the nature of the engines that he now faced. He could tell that Raider X had two screws, not one. And judging by the names on the machinery, there were four diesel Kupp-Germaniawerft and two Siemens Schuckert motors. What that meant to Thatcher amounted to little but he assumed the engine technology was new and probably gave the Loki a cruising speed of at least eighteen knots per hour.

But he did know that placing the shell close to the bottom of the engines would likely amount to the most damage when the shell exploded, especially since it would hopefully shatter the keel and let thousands of gallons of sea water in as soon as it broke apart. That would help send the ship to the bottom within minutes, Thatcher felt confident in assuming.

Thatcher heard a fresh round of screams issue forth from somewhere behind him. He frowned and sweat broke out along his hairline. If that was indeed Cyra back there killing then there was a good chance she was going to come after him when she was done killing the rest of the crew.

Concentrate! Thatcher chided himself for thinking about her at a time like this. He moved ahead and found a nook underneath the main engines close to the shafts turning the screws where he could nudge the shell into. A moving part was good and Thatcher knew that it was a matter of time before it struck the tip of the shell and caused the explosion. Or so he hoped. Without thinking, he removed the safety pin and then turned to get the hell out of the engine room.

But as he did so, he saw the form of something blocking the exit.

“Hello, Harrison.”

It was Cyra’s voice, he knew, but Thatcher could find no other indication that the creature before him was in fact the woman he had slept with just days previously. What in the world had happened to her?

“What are you?” He asked before reason could prevail.

There was a painless followed by a chuckle of sorts. The air was caked with the scent of blood and Thatcher knew the body count was surely growing by the minute. “I am what you saw before you. What you made love to. Just...different now.”

“You were a woman,” said Thatcher. “Of that I have no doubt.”

“I still am. Just not as you knew me.” She paused. “I am better now. So much better.”

“But how?”

“A special experiment conducted by a doctor gifted with extraordinary foresight. He was intrigued with the idea of melding two life forms to produce a better one,” said Cyra. “I was the first successful recipient of the formula. The ones who got it before me were not this lucky. There are some who, unfortunately, did not accept the alterations as easily as I did.”

“Meaning they died?”

“Meaning they were unfit for being let loose into the world to do the Führer’s bidding,” said Cyra.

“The Führer? You mean you’re working for the Nazis?”

“Of course. I was sent to kill Adamson. He had turned double-agent and was spy for the British. The only just punishment for his treason was death.”

Thatcher frowned. “Fair enough, but we’re on a German ship now. Why would you want to kill the crew and destroy the ship?”

“Orders,” said Cyra. “It was suspected that Schwarzwalder might be aiding his brother. The people who command me determined that this ship should be destroyed as a result.”

“You’re telling me the Nazis would see their newest flagship commerce raider destroyed because the captain might be helping a traitor?”

“Yes.”

Thatcher shook his head. “That makes no sense. You could have easily just killed Schwarzwalder and left the ship alone.”

“That was the original intent, but Schwarzwalder had suspicions about me from the start. That meant that my original plan would no longer suffice, and I had to adapt the plan accordingly. I was told that if I could not get to the captain, then destroy the ship.”

That shook his head. “No, that can’t be all of it. There’s something else special about this ship that the Nazis don’t want falling into British hands. That’s the only explanation for the order to destroy it. What is it? A new radar system? A code machine?”

“I don’t feel compelled to answer those questions,” said Cyra. She paused. “And now that you know all about me, what are you doing bringing a shell down to the engine room?”

“I don’t know all about you,” said Thatcher. “Why kill these men in such a horrific fashion?”