“Isn’t that supposed to be some sort of nautical olive branch?” Miller was confused.
“Sure, it could be that, it could also be a ship looking around for nearby dangers and assessing its options.” Replied White as he released the intercom mic. The Pennsylvania was buzzing with movement as men jumped into seats or dove through hatches to man battle stations. Captain White looked down at his sonar and radar teams, their faces glued to the consoles that continued to feed a constant stream of data. Miller was still unsure of the matters and loathed people who stayed attached to protocols. Special Operations was a community that prided itself on knowing dozens of different ways to solve hundreds of problems and combining those solutions into makeshift tools for each of those problems. To Miller, Captain White immediately assuming battle stations was prudent, but displayed a lack of dynamic problem solving. The special operations captain leaned against the bulkhead, trying to evaluate how the skipper was going to make his next move. His eyes fell on the tiny blip on the sonar screen, slowly rising toward them on the monitor.
In the darkness of the ocean, hidden from the shimmering light near the surface, the Brundhilde was drifting upward steadily. Kessler stared hard at the rising depth gauge and glanced to Taylor for any sort of feedback that may have started. The old captain radioed to his medical staff for a report and stared at the scarlet war flag in front of him.
There was a pause for the report and Doc replied steadily, as though reading down a grocery list, “We’ve got six urgent surgical casualties and three priority. Supplies are short, Cap’n. One of these guys probably has a solid ten minutes before we’re going to be doing percussive maintenance on him.”
Kessler reached out and pulled down the war flag, balling it up and tossing it into the bloody corner. For a moment he watched how the woolen material hungrily devoured the wasted oily black and red on the deck. “How do you mean ‘percussive maintenance’, doc?”
“He means chest compressions, he means they’ll be dead and we’ll be trying to do CPR to sustain salvageable organs for the others to use.” Ke had a much less flowery, certainly more direct way of putting things.
The old Captain glared at the depth gauge, watching the needle skim past 50 meters. He looked back toward Taylor, probing the SEALs expression for any sort of reaction. The warrior looked back, the goofy looking headset resting lopsided on his head as he shook it. There were no two ways about it, Kessler needed Hochberg up at the deck to help gain communication with the Pennsylvania, as he reached out to the radio console he glared at the contraption, angry with himself for having never learned all the protocols during their time underway. Or perhaps he had learned and he’d simply forgotten? His mind was a flurry of too many memories of too many machines from too many fights. Hochbergs team was surprisingly intact, 7 SEALs including the grizzled Master Chief. He deployed two of his men to lay side by side on their bellies and the others pressed to the sides of the bulkhead as much as possible, the odds of opening the hatch into the gyroscope and being greeted with near point black small arms fire was more or less guaranteed at this point in the day. The old chief took a gamble and had one of the SEALs, his best shot, crawl up into the heavy piping along the side bulkhead and lay out prone with his rifle shouldered and ready to do some surgical work. Hochberg took one more glance at all his men to ensure they were in some level of cover before wrenching down on the latch and hauling the heavy watertight door open. The metal creaked and rust-dust plumed off the hinges. Inside was pitch black and the infrared lasers splashed a ghostly light in the night vision. Hochbergs cracked screen only working over one eye as he struggled to peer inside. The SEAL to the old chiefs rear tapped his leg and they quickly surged into the room.
It had been nearly 80 years since the chief had seen in the inside of the room. The last time he had spent next to the heavy gyroscope mechanism with its hungry jaws that were fed cogs that helped to whirl the entire ship inside the hill, the enormous contraption the size of a panzer and probably just as heavy as one. When Hochberg had last come to this chamber it was to plant directions on how to scuttle the room. A single piece of paper that illustrated which knobs to turn and leavers to pull in order to flood the entire chamber. Lastly, he left a single grenade, the screw cap already removed and dangling bead ready to be yanked, the whole explosive had been cleverly placed in the crux of the actuator mechanism, ensuring a jam if all else failed.
Sitting neatly on top of the gyroscope control console were the meticulous directions Hochberg had hand written for Sajer, held under by the grenade. As soon as the old chief as it he dove against the bulkhead for cover, struggling to spit out the words. “Get clear, ‘sa trap!”
A clatter of bullets smacked into the bulkhead and wetly battered the third man into the room who crumpled in a heap. Infrared lasers scanned and darted around the room in a frenzy, the muzzle flashes from the incoming fire moved too quickly. Another burst of fire took the second SEAL square in the mask and he stumbled, a hand pressed into the wall to try and steady himself as the world went black. Hochberg thought he saw something moving for a moment, too quick to be fully seen but slow enough to make out a shape. Underneath the console was a neatly folded dive-suit with the heavy brass helmet laid atop it. The rubber and leather covering had Kaptains insignia haphazardly sewn into the shoulders and Hochberg’s fury bubbled up, shouting into the microphone, “Kessler, ‘ze fuckers in here with me, I’m buttoning up inside ‘za gyro, the rest of the team is gonna seal the room!”
The SEALs outside the room slammed the hatch shut, locking it down and stepping back cautiously. Hochberg was ready to face his old demons, if only he could see him. The old chief stood up and ripped his facemask away, staring into the blackness and bellowed out in his best English: “Burton, you slimy bastard, come out here and chat wis’ your old chief!”
Metal clicked someplace in the blackness and Hochberg tensed, ready for the incoming bullets. A low and heavy switch droned along the metal of the hull and lights poured into the room from dozens of string together and salvaged lightbulbs. Standing on an improvised catwalk over the gyroscope engine stood a nightmare made flesh. Hochberg’s gnarled and knotted flesh paled in comparison to the churned out process that stood naked under the flooding white light.
A low voice emanated from inside the belly of the beast and for the first time in a very long time Hochberg remembered what fear of the dark was. “There’s no room for traitors in the new world, Schwabian.” It was as though the sound of a roaring flame had been harnessed into a voice.
The thing had two legs, two arms, a torso and a head sitting atop it, but that was as much as it had in common with another human. Its skin was slick as though it had just finished being flayed, the muscles bulged with massive striations as though he was made of old wood, and the muscles were enormous. Shoulder muscles merged into the arms and neck, leg muscles protruded horrifically and seemed to be pierced with heavy bolts to keep them from rupturing away from the body, and the head was a near bare skull with lips ripped back from skin pulled taut from such muscle generation. The eyes were set and filled an opaque black, it was impossible to tell who this thing had once been.
“You’ve been a busy boy, Englishman, playing with ‘za Fuehers toys while he was dead. Naughty-naughty.” Hochberg slowly stepped to the side, letting the rifle fall to his side and pulling his balaclava back to bare his face.
The thing showed no reaction and was as still as a picture, “I see your traitor friends tried to copy my work. Still growing out that gebart?”
The old chief stopped by the console and pulled away both his tactical gloves, bearing his fists as he glanced over from the beast, pondering if he were fast enough to disengage the gyroscope before he’d be shot. He’d peered everywhere for a weapon on monster but couldn’t make out anything. Hochberg chanced his luck and reached for the console, a bullet zipping past his head and smacking into the screen. He slowly looked back to see the creatures left arm extended, a broomhandle mauser gripped in its claws.
“You came all this way to ruin everything, the Kettle is perfect now. It’ll make the world as perfect as I am. Capable of swimming in the deepest depths, climbing to the coldest peaks, surviving the worst conditions and healing faster than any wound can kill me. Tell me, Schwabian, did the Yanks give you any of that?”
Hochberg was out of options and probably outmatched, but he would never be at a loss of things to say. The old chief unclipped his heavy battle rig and squared up his shoulders, fists clenched and raised up. He probably wasn’t as strong as the crazed zealot, but he knew how to fight and had been doing so for the past hundred years and wasn’t about to let some half-assed lunatic wander the world into another nightmare.
“C’mere and let me show you what ‘zay gave me.”