Hochberg hooked his feet into either side of the guard rails, firmly intertwining his limbs into the old and slightly rusted steel. His hands drew up the small carbine looking rifle and shouldered it comfortably, the shape a close sort of familiar. The old chief sighted down the optic, setting a tiny dot known only to him on the center of the visual port of te ancient diver helm. The helmet lowered, showing no easy shot in, and the creature was clutched too closely to Wells to risk a deflection off the dense metal helmet. The Navy diver groaned against the drag and tried to wriggle free but it did no good. The ghoul grasping on felt like an iron vice.
“Squid, duck!” Royale commanded.
Wells would normally have taken the chance to remind the Special Operations Sailor that he too was a squid, but at that very moment his grip was starting to slacken. Wells bowed his head as tightly as he could press his helmeted chin to his plated chest and crumpled his eyes shut. Chief Royale had reloaded and recharged his grappling hook and blasted the multi-pronged contraption out in a thump of bubbles. The heavy metal hooked head soared out and clanged hard off the ghouls helmet, knocking his head back, Hochberg took the chance, dropped the velocity of his shot and squeezed the trigger as the darkened visor flicked into his sights.
A thin trail of air pierced out from Hochbergs rifle and zipped straight into the lower edge of the glass circle, te entire window pane spider webbing in a tight held shatter. The old diving suit jerked momentarily and was suddenly limp. As the arms loosened and the force of oncoming water pushed into its lifeless chest the ancient diving apparatus floated back, vanishing into the black behind. Wells felt the absence of weight and hauled himself back in close to the tower, sighing deeply and looking back as the human outline was lost in the dark. Royale swatted Hochberg on the shoulder and the group clambered out and around the edges of the Brunhildes tower.
“Breach, clear!” And a sudden thump of impossibly fast moving water smothered the usually satisfying explosion of a door flying off the hinges. Headlamps all ficked on and Royale pointed to two men to be the first up and in. Without a word of arguement or acknowledgment they swung up and over the edge of the rails, weapons pointed into the jagged hole that had been ripped into the top. As the one diver hooked his legs into the railing to lean forward and peer in, the ship suddenly lurched hard downward. She was diving.
“Hurry up and get in or the pressure’ll kill us!” Kessler barked, his eyes scanning the depth readout displayed in his mask.
The two breach SEALs quickly moved to look straight into the hole when a flash and glint of steel shifted up from the darkness and one of the two drifted up and away, a spear lodged completely through the facemask. The remaining breacher surged into the hole, barking over comms, “Contact inside, just got Kenneth in the face with a spear.”
Ke looked up from her grip in the tower and watched the lifeless body drift away with the spear on equal sides of the head through the silhouette. One of the Corpsman SEALs glared at the sight before lifting himself over and flinging his momentum into the hole. Kessler moved to join the scrum inside, pulling his body through the ripped steel and into the calm of the air lock. Inside was chaos. The first and only remaining diver from the breach team had found the defending spear thrower when he piled into the room, Kessler had bet that he’d shot the ghoul a number of times judging by how much of the black clouding mess was swirling around the scrum. The brass laden diver had a long and serated knife out and was in a stabbing frenzy, crashing through the ballistics plating of the breach man as the SEAL stabbed helplessly back into the arm that pinned him against the wall. The corpsman commando took the chance first and fired a burst nearly point blank into the headgear of the ghoul. In a snap the creature was a drifting heap, the heavy head apparatus rocking on the floor with the shifting of the boat. Kessler kicked at the next hatch, feeling it give and open. The corpsman grasped up his wounded comrade and called over the radio, “We got to head topside, he’s not mission capable anymore!”
Royale, from the outside, acknowledged, “Punch out, see you under the sun.”
Kessler called out next, “Need two more for another breach! We’ve got maybe thirty more seconds before we’re in crush depth!”
In a normal enviornment there would have been some chaos and calamity at such a statement. There would have been men climbing over one another to reach safety first, or piling into the breach to quickly get through the lesser of two threats. This was where the in depth training the SEALs endured payed off, this was when constantly practicing for terrible events until te atrocious was comfortably familiar made sense. Two more breacher a calmly shouldered up their rifles and filed into the hatch. Kessler braced his feet on the flooring and prepared to haul the lid open, expecting a dry room on the otherside to flood and pull them in. The breach team positioned at the sides and latched in caribeaners to ladder rungs, weapons pointed down. Kessler hauled up with all his strength and the bubbles of air getting flushed out by water gushing in nearly smashed him into the wall behind. The two breach team members lazily let a pair of grenades get sucked into the next room and then casually turned to clutch the wall for cover. The flashes from the explosions were so close that it nearly looked like one bright blink. In a moment the next chamber was filled with the sea and the breach team unlinked and darted in.
“Two right.”
“One left”
The reports were stunningly calm given the danger the men were in, Kessler paddled in quickly and called over the radio, “Get everyone in!”
The next chamber in had been one of the diver preparation and disassembly rooms. Now it looked like a constantly moving workshop and repair center for the diving suits. Several hung empty from the walls, peppered with shrapnel from the grenades. Others were moving with unrealistic speed and grace, as though they weren’t underwater, knives and steel spears bared. The two breach SEALs fired into the three as they leapt up from their cover, Kessler watching as one set of shots shattered the face mask of one ghoul and the other clanged off the head gear and zipped into the wall. Hochberg piled past Kessler and the room devolved into madness. The rest of the Strike Team dove into the mosh pit, a fury of bared knives and clouding black and red. The headlamps shifting and blinding as they lit up terrible scenes for brief instances.
Ridiculously strong hands snapping an arm back, a spear embedding in the chest of a SEAL, knives and their glinting steel flashing and vanishing into old leather or new dry suited armor. Kessler could barely parse through the madness of it all but he knew they were committed. He latched the hatch in closed behind them as the Brunhilde slipped well beneath the Atlantic Shelf.