“Amateur,” Shadow grumbled from the Zodiac.
Ignoring the comment, which Johnson knew was what his drill sergeant had called ‘fuckup bait,’ he tied the Zodiac to the dive deck without a word, moving quickly, fighting his shaking fingers. “Good to go,” he said, praying he’d tied the knots right.
Moving silently, the five-man team scaled the ladder up onto the Darwin’s aft deck. The deck was clear, swept clean by winds and rough seas over the past years. If anything had been left on the main deck, it was gone now. A crane for moving small boats, ROVs or supplies sat alone and bent on the deck, coated in rust, a solitary chain swaying in the breeze.
“Two teams,” Silhouette said, his voice a whisper, but clear through the earpieces the BlackGuard wore. “Shadow, Obsidian: sweep below decks. Take Eclipse with you. Specter and I will clear the labs and bridge before rendezvousing with you.”
Without verbal confirmation, Shadow and Obsidian, looking their part in all-black tactical gear from head to toe, moved toward a nearby hatch. Johnson followed, not giving voice to his questions. What are we looking for? Why are we whispering? If the ship is abandoned, why are we all carrying KRISS Vector submachine guns? The future weapon fired heavy hitting .45 caliber rounds at high speed, without recoil or muzzle climb. It made them exceedingly deadly and accurate. A little overkill for an empty research vessel. But his job was to obey, not question, and that’s exactly what he did.
The interior of the Darwin flickered to night-vision green for a moment before flickering back into full color. The ship’s interior, along with just about every piece of equipment and object inside, was identified by some distant computer, labeled, colorized and illuminated.
The floor was empty except for a pile of clutter at the end, too distant for his eyes or the computer to distinguish. The walls were white and clean. Spartan.
Shadow opened a hatch to the left and swept the room on the other side, left to right. “Clear.”
Obsidian continued forward, stopping to open the next hatch. While he swept the room, Johnson took his cue from the others and continued to the next hatch, which was already open.
“Clear,” Obsidian said, behind him, his voice gruff and baritone. He was a massive man, but he moved with the swift agility of the rest.
Johnson, on the other hand, had to lean against the doorframe when a wave canted the ship to the side, nearly throwing him inside the room he was supposed to be checking. Holding on to the hatch with one hand, he scanned the room from left to right, remembering to keep his weapon raised halfway through the sweep. As he lifted the submachine gun, his vision flickered in and out of night vision, muddling the image. Squinting like it would help, Johnson took a step inside the room. “Something is—”
The image resolved, exploding into full color.
Johnson stumbled back with a shout, pulling the trigger on his weapon. He toppled back into Obsidian’s large arms without firing a shot; the safety was still engaged, blocking the trigger from depressing fully.
Shadow walked past him, entering the room while shaking his head in disgust. Obsidian propped him up and grumbled, “Pull your shit together, kid. You haven’t seen scary yet.”
Yet, Johnson thought, standing up. He imagined the two corpses inside the room. Could there be anything more horrible? He knew the answer. More horrible things existed. Three-hundred-foot-tall horrible things. City destroyers. But they had come and gone. Even Nemesis, the three-hundred-fifty-foot tall Kaiju with ominous glowing membranes, plated armor that modern weapons couldn’t get through and the ability to harness the sun itself as a weapon, who had left her mark on Boston and Washington D.C., was dead. And he had never seen those giant monsters up close.
His thoughts returned to the bodies. Sealed away from the humid ocean air outside, they hadn’t rotted normally and hadn’t been consumed by insects. He re-entered the room and stood next to Shadow, while he inspected the dead. Obsidian stayed in the hallway, watching the ship’s interior, gun raised. The bodies were petrified. Husks of what they once were. Dried leather stretched over bones. Frozen in death, sprawled beside what looked like an operating table, the corpses told a violent story, torn open as they were, from the inside out. Gnawed on. Surrounded by dark stains. This is what happened to the crew of the Darwin.
This is why we’re carrying the KRISS submachine guns. But... “The Darwin went missing two years ago. Whatever did this is gone or dead now.”