Leviathan Rising Part 25

With a sudden violent rush of escaping air the dead Carcharodon and the still living Miss Celeste were jettisoned from the airlock. The Ahab hurtled onwards, thanks to Selby's last act before he had died, the engineer having switched on the submersible's autopilot.

Ulysses turned his attention back to the rear viewing port. He could see the Kraken even closer now, grasping limbs outstretched, hideous jaws angling open. And he could see Carcharodon's chair sinking towards it, falling in slow motion through the churning water. And he could see Marie Lamprey kicking against the currents, arms flailing, as if trying to swim free, mouth open wide, silvered bubbles of air escaping her lungs in one last defiant scream, wide staring eyes, piercing Ulysses' own, staring straight into his soul, chilling him to the core.

The first thing she thought as she peered up through the porthole above her was how blue the sky was. She had almost forgotten, she had been dwelling down there in the ocean depths for so long. Seeing it now she could almost believe that what had happened down there, so far below, had been nothing more than a bad dream.

Only it hadn't been a dream. It had been a nightmare, and one from which she would never - could never - wake up.

The bathysphere bobbed on the rolling waves, making her feel a little queasy. She had stopped crying now, her tears spent, but the pain was still there, an aching hole in her heart, a hole that she knew time could never hope to heal.

She peered up again through the porthole. There were seabirds now, wheeling over the ocean under the porcelain sky, and something else, an iron hull, streaked red with rust, plying its way through the water towards her.

The vessel b.u.mped against the side of the pod with a resounding clang. The bathysphere bell rang again, tolling an arrhythmic tattoo as it knocked repeatedly against the hull of the s.h.i.+p. A death-knell for those lost to her, far, far below the ocean waves.

She could see a ladder now - rungs black with pitch, crusted white with salt - and a man descending it. Ropes slapped against her small round window on the world and she could hear the shouts of sailors as the pod was secured to the side of the s.h.i.+p.

At last a face appeared at the gla.s.s above her. It was lined and weather-beaten, having something of a doting aged relative about it that comforted her. And then a kind smile spread across the crab apple features as twinkling eyes caught sight of the little girl inside.

"It's a child," she heard him say, his voice m.u.f.fled. "A little girl, for G.o.d's sake."

Strong hands worked the hatch handle on the outside of the escape capsule and the sailor pulled it open, letting out the musty, stale smell of fear and letting in the rich aromas of brine, fish guts and stale tobacco. It was a heady mix of scents which, in that instance smelt like heavenly perfume to the terrified little girl.

A calloused hand reached into the pod.

"Come on, my little sparrow," the sailor said warmly, his voice thick with the apple orchard accents of the West Country. "Let's be having you."

Tentatively she reached up, putting her small, soft white hand into her liberator's meaty paw. His fingers closed around hers firmly and, in a trice, he had hauled her through the open hatch out of the musty pod.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" came a voice from among those crowded at the deck rail above them.

"What's your name, little sparrow?" the kindly sailor asked.

"M-Marie," she stammered, her mind reeling as she tried to take everything in.

"Marie?" the sailor repeated.

"Marie," she said again.

She listened now to the murmurings of the crew on deck. "What's she doing out here, all alone?" someone was saying.

"Who'd abandon a child like that, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?" asked another.

"Marie, did she say?" said a third. "Would that be Marie Celeste then?"

She looked up, trying to find the face in the crowd, the face of the man who had named her.

Marie Celeste, she thought. She liked the sound of that name. She wondered what sort of a life Marie Celeste would have had so far. With a name like that she had probably had a much happier life than little Marie Lamprey had had to endure until this time.

Yes, Marie Celeste. She liked the sound of that.

And then, jaws agape, the Kraken swallowed them - chair, Carcharodon, Celeste and all. The ma.s.sive jaws hinged shut and, for a moment, Ulysses thought that the creature was slowing, pulling back, satisfied at last. But it was not to be.

With a flick of its tail the monster powered forwards again, closing on the Ahab once more.

This is it, Ulysses thought. This is the end. There's nowhere left to run now, no aces left to play.

The suckered tentacles reached for the sub, the vessel's autopilot still directing it straight up towards the surface, that hideous angler-fish mouth opening once again, the grotesque limpid jelly-saucer eyes locked on its new prey.

And then the bomb detonated.

The beast's stomach swelled violently, distending horribly. Ulysses could almost believe that there was a look of startled surprise in the leviathan's eyes. And then there was fire in the water, fire and an expanding ball of concussive force.

The Kraken underwent one last appalling transformation as its body - grey-green flesh, cybernetic endo-skeleton, waving tentacles, and crustacean armour plating - was ripped apart by the explosion, destroying it utterly from the inside out.

Marie Lamprey, Jonah Carcharodon and the Kraken were gone. For good.

EPILOGUE.

Britannia Rules the Waves The Ahab surfaced first, closely followed by the Nemo. Within moments, Ulysses was standing in the open air on top of the Ahab, drawing in great lungfuls of salt sea air, relis.h.i.+ng the freshness of it, delighting in the warmth of the sun beating down on his face. The pressure suit stood unoccupied within the sub. In his hand he held his bloodstone-tipped cane once more, having recovered it from Marie Lamprey's stash that she had carried on board the Ahab.

Constance Pennyroyal huddled next to him, anxiously watching the Nemo for signs of her beloved fiance. Her patience was rewarded a moment later when Nimrod popped the hatch of the Nemo's conning tower, the equally anxious John Schafer emerging after him. Without even a pause for thought, Schafer took a swan dive off the top of the sub into the Pacific and, with confident strokes, covered the stretch of choppy water between the two vessels to be reunited with his sweetheart once more.

As the elated crying couple renewed their promises of love, Ulysses and Nimrod made use of hawsers to pull the two tubs together.

"Where's Cheng?" Ulysses asked, as he offered his manservant a hand.

"I took the liberty of securing him below, sir," Nimrod said, with a hint of satisfaction in his usually impa.s.sive voice.

"Well done, old boy. Good thinking."

Nimrod looked exhausted and unwell. The trials they had all been through, and the wound he had suffered during the Kraken's final attack on the base, were taking their toll, now that the adrenalin rush of the chase and their escape from the beast had pa.s.sed.

"That was a close call there," Ulysses said, flas.h.i.+ng his loyal family retainer a wicked grin, "I don't mind telling you, I thought we were all done for that time."

"I had faith in you, sir," Nimrod said, struggling to maintain his mask of professional detachment.

"Thank you, Nimrod."

"So, am I to take it that the Marianas killer has been brought to book, sir? They have been made to pay for their crimes?"

"Oh yes, there's no doubt about that," Ulysses said, a wry smile on his lips. "Remind me, Nimrod, when we get back to civilisation to send a letter of condolence to Jonah Carcharodon's family."

"Really, sir?"

"Really, Nimrod."

"And what about Miss Celeste's family? Will you be sending them a letter of condolence as well, sir? Or flowers perhaps."

"I don't think so," Ulysses replied, his face suddenly hard as stone.

There was the roar and chop of a propeller starting up, and the water behind the stern of the Nemo became a churning spume of white froth. The tiny sub slid forwards, pulling the ropes holding it to the Ahab taut, for a moment even dipping the nose of the larger vessel, before, with a sharp crack, they snapped.

"Nimrod, what did you secure Mr Cheng to, I wonder?" the dandy said, his features relaxing again.

"I do apologise, sir," Nimrod said, his rigidly maintained facade of indifference suddenly crumbling, his face flus.h.i.+ng in embarra.s.sment, "there really wasn't very much else to secure him to. Should we pursue, sir?"

"I don't think so, Nimrod. I don't know about you, old chap, but I've had quite enough of breakneck pursuits for one day. Haven't you? I think we can leave him to his own fate now. After all, he's going to have to face the wrath of his superiors, and I'm sure that whatever they have in mind for him will be much worse than anything our government would dare to implement against an agent of the Chinese Empire. I'm not sure our new Prime Minister is ruthless enough."

"So, if I might be so bold, sir, what now?"

"Now, Nimrod? Now we just have to wait for the Royal Navy to pick us up. We're broadcasting on all bands a general distress call so it shouldn't take too long. A day or two at most."

"Very good, sir."

"And seeing as how the young couple are so bound up in each other, that just leaves you and me, Nimrod."

"Yes, sir."

Ulysses was quiet for a moment as he gazed out over the Pacific, nothing but sea and sky to the horizon in every direction. It was a beautifully calm day, but something was still troubling him, deep down.

"Nimrod," he said after several minutes' silent thought, "there's been something I've been meaning to ask you."

"Go on, sir. You know you can ask me anything."

"Very well then." Ulysses paused again and took a death breath before continuing. "What did you know of my father's involvement in Project Leviathan?"

Far, far below the surface, beneath the spot where the Ahab bobbed like a twig on the roiling surface of the Pacific, past the wreck of the Neptune and beyond the ravaged remains of the ruined base, beyond the hunting grounds of the Megalodons, deeper even inside the haunted depths of the Marianas Trench, something stirred.

Woken by the seismic disturbances that had followed both the destruction of the Neptune and the undersea facility, drawn for a time by the distant signal that had briefly been projected into the abyss, it rose now from those same untold depths. Disturbed from its slumber of ages, active once more, its original programming rebooting, it rose from its resting place within the trench, a gnawing ache deep within its ma.s.sive gut.

The giant sharks sensed its approach and fled before it, but in moments all were devoured whole.

It swept past the ruined domes of the devastated Marianas base, something like memory recalling its connection with that obscene place, that was now just another watery grave.

It glided over the teetering liner, the backwash of its pa.s.sing sending the greatest submersible liner the world had ever seen over the edge, to be claimed by the hungry abyss at last.

It pushed on through the sinking cloud of flesh and metal debris, pausing for a moment to taste a few particles, its augmented mind attempting to reconstruct what had happened, what threats it might encounter itself.

Hunger like nothing it had ever known seizing the primitive, instinctive, unadapted portion of its mind, it continued to rise, seeking the surface.

And at its pa.s.sing, a st.u.r.dy sheet of paper, a blueprint plan not yet turned to mush by the water flew and flapped in its wake, on it a schematic image of a bio-weapon twice the size of the Kraken, far more lethally equipped to hunt and kill, and a coded designation: Project Leviathan - 002.

Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? Or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?... Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? Or his head with fish spears? Lay thine hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more.

(Job, ch.1 v.1) THE END.

Jonathan Green lives and works in West London. Well known for his contributions to the Fighting Fantasy range of adventure gamebooks, as well as his novels set within Games Workshop's worlds of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, he has written for such diverse properties as Sonic the Hedgehog and Doctor Who. To date, his books have been translated into French, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish. The co-creator of the world of Pax Britannia, Leviathan Rising is his second novel for Abaddon Books.

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PAX BRITANNIA.

VANIs.h.i.+NG POINT.

Jonathan Green

~ October 1997 ~

I - THE HAUNTING OF HARDEWICK HALL.

Hardewick Hall was definitely haunted, of that there could be no doubt. Madam Garside had declared it was so within only a matter of minutes of entering the crumbling Gothic pile, her nose wrinkling as she was confronted by an atmosphere heavy with beeswax polish and camphor. A seance had to be held, she had informed Emilia, to discover why the spirits were restless. That way they could then discover which ghosts it was that were troubling her and lay those spirits to rest, although Emilia was sure she knew who it was who was trapped within the house, unable to escape to eternal rest in paradise. And of course Madame Garside decreed that the seance had to take place on the night of All Hallows' Eve, which was auspicious for such an undertaking, when the veil between the worlds was at its thinnest and spirits might more freely cross from the other side, into the land of the living.

So it was that on the evening of the 31st October 1997, as dusk was drawing on under a sky bruised purple-black with the promise of a coming storm, a group of disparate individuals gathered at the brooding manse in Warwicks.h.i.+re, at the personal invitation of Emilia Oddfellow, daughter of the late Alexander Oddfellow, scientist, inventor and eccentric.

Seven of them were to take part in the seance itself, with Madam Garside taking the lead, but of course such honoured guests could not be expected to attend without bringing their own staff too.

Emilia Oddfellow paused before the doors to the Library where Caruthers had gathered her guests to await the arrival of the lady of the house.

Lady of the house, she thought. That was a term that would still take some getting used to. Her father had been gone these last three months, but still she couldn't quite believe it, perhaps because of the manner of his pa.s.sing.

She paused to adjust the cameo brooch that had once been her mother's, pinned at the collar of her high-b.u.t.toned mourning dress. Her hands were shaking: she blushed in embarra.s.sment at herself. Then, taking a few controlled breaths to compose herself, she pushed open the doors and stepped into the Library to greet her guests.