Ocean: The Sea Warriors (22 page)

After what he’d just experienced, Kimo could not help but agree. “We’ll work something out,” he said. “This time I’m going to listen to your ideas. But first, I want to see who I can heal—and for those we’ve lost, we must have a ceremony for our dead comrades.”

Kimo was able to heal numerous gunshot and spear wounds in the ranks of his followers, including an injury to Pauline Deveaux’s tail fin and to Bluefish Williams’ left arm. None of the hybrids Kimo treated—more than twenty of them—had received life-threatening injuries anyway, but at least he kept them from getting infections and from needing to be hospitalized. All of those who perished had died quickly—too quickly for Kimo to tend to them at all….

Late that afternoon, the Sea Warriors conducted a simple ceremony out in deep water, with the sun setting, casting a soft golden glow across the sea. All of the surviving Sea Warriors formed a circle on the surface of the water, surrounding a central area where four bodies floated on palm-frond rafts.

Kimo spoke touching words to honor the fallen heroes, and added praise for the fish, whales, and other creatures who had died in battle. “May the Goddess of the Sea protect all of you in the afterlife,” he said.

Then at his signal, the rafts were overturned, and the bodies sank into the sea. Kimo had no doubt they would be consumed quickly by marine animals, and at first he didn’t want to think too much about the details. Then he realized it was a natural process, and he would be part of it himself someday when he died—an everlasting circle of life and death.

That night, Kimo lay on sand beneath an overhang of rock and tried to fall asleep, listening to the gentle lapping of the waves. He knew with a certainty that there had been deaths on both sides of the battle today—and he had been responsible for the loss of the helicopter crew. With a molecular thought-command, he had caused the floating sea birds to take to the air and foul the aircraft’s rotor, bringing it down. Then he had made no effort to rescue the crew members.

He recalled Gwyneth saying she felt a powerful sense of allegiance to the sea and its life forms, and none to humankind. When she’d said this, her body had been changing around her, taking her closer physically to the place she had already been for a long time in her mind—to the ocean.

Kimo felt much that way now, caring more about the swordfish, the sea birds, and other creatures that had died, instead of the helicopter crew or frogmen. Like Gwyneth, he was moving away from his human self—but in his case he still had a body that was, visually at least, human. He wished it were otherwise, that he’d never been contaminated by human genetics.

***

Chapter 23

Floating in the grotto’s tide pool, Gwyneth felt the waves continuously buffeting her as they lapped in and out of the enclosure, calming her with their timeless presence. She had fallen asleep in the pleasantly warm water, and had awakened to see Kimo, Alicia, and Dirk climbing on the surrounding rock formation and taking seats around her. The three of them wore their black Sea Warrior swimsuits. Soft blue light filtered into the cavern through the entrance.

“Good morning, Gwyneth,” Kimo said with a smile. “You said we must do more, and this time we’re ready to listen to your ideas.”

She spoke aloud, still retaining her slight British accent, with her diminutive mouth out of the water. “I have a larger plan, but first I think we need to do some housekeeping. The matter of Vinson Chi’ang and Emily Talbot. They have not yet been captured or killed.”

The trio stared inquisitively at her, and Dirk asked, “You have heard them communicating in the sea?”

“No, they’re too smart for that. But I know approximately where they are because I conducted some experiments last evening before it grew dark. I swam along the seabed in the shallows, and saw hundreds of crustaceans, all migrating in the same direction.”

Kimo’s eyes lit up. “Which direction?”

“Northwesterly. Toward the National Wildlife Refuge of the Hawaiian archipelago. With those two on the loose, all of us must be extremely careful what we say by molecular communication, because they may be able to hear us, even at a distance. I have not yet determined what the maximum range of communication is in the water, but theoretically it could be quite far.”

“We need to capture them,” Alicia said. Her expression hardened. “Or kill them.”

“Exactly,” Gwyneth said, “and we need to accomplish it before we undertake any larger plan. We don’t want them interfering with our operations, or eavesdropping and tipping our hand. I would recommend that we send a full task force to Nihoa, the nearest island in the wildlife refuge. Once we reach there we can then set up a system of triangulation, putting crustaceans in different places in the water, and seeing which direction they go. I suspect that Chi’ang and Talbot are drawing the creatures to them like magnets, and are growing stronger hour by hour as their force is accumulated.

“I recommend a full task force, because those two may not be easy to defeat, and we will need all the weapons at our disposal, including the ones we have already used effectively. I’ve been taking inventory, and we have reef sharks, sawfish, octopuses, stingrays, and puffer fish that are known to feed on crustaceans, as well as a school of longnose sawsharks that I saw in our flotilla yesterday, creatures that have joined us from Australia. Much smaller than sawfish, the sawsharks are remarkable animals. They have sensory organs that locate the movements and electrical fields of living creatures, and then they use their long snouts to root around in the seabed for fish and crustaceans. We also have savage moray eels that live in reef environments, using strong eyesight and cunning to prey on crabs. In addition, we have venomous sea snakes, electric torpedo rays, and a number of other creatures that will be of use in what I foresee as a battle against Chi’ang and his minions. With our many and varied assets, we should be able to win the battle against a more limited opponent, but first we must locate the targets.”

“Yes,” Kimo said, his eyes steely. “They will become
our
prey. Now tell us about your larger plan, Gwyneth.”

She paused, considered how to put it. “I think all of us will agree that the behavior of the whales and other large sea creatures in the Hawaiian Islands took us by surprise. We thought …
I
thought … that once they followed my commands in the initial operation—especially the whales—they would continue to obey me. But that didn’t happen. For whatever reason, it did not happen. Even Moanna cannot detect the force that guides the animals in the blockade, or get them to move. Yet, it may not be the mass suicide we fear. Instead, it could be the largest creatures in the ocean taking a stand for every living thing in the water. They have dug in their heels, so to speak, and might not budge from their positions until they get what they want—which is obviously the same thing we want, an end to human abuses in the sea.”

“You could be right.”

“Keep in mind, too, that it was box jellyfish and stonefish that were involved in this protest early on, as well as dolphins and porpoises that began to resist training—at least these were the things that humans noticed first. All before we became involved.”

Kimo frowned. “So the marine animals started this revolt on their own, and now they’re taking it to another level?”

“It is a dichotomy. The animals seem to want, and even crave, attention from special humans such as ourselves, with our abundant love for them and our superior intelligence. But they also seem capable of carrying on the fight without us if necessary.”

Nodding, Kimo said, “And our means of communicating with the animals, while improving, is not perfect enough to delve into the subtleties of their behavior and their motivations before they take action. To a large extent, we can only observe what they are doing.”

“That’s right,” Gwyneth said. “We’re the first Sea Warriors, the first hybrids, and there are many things to work out. The ocean is a complex universe in and of itself, and has amazing creatures inhabiting it, truly amazing and wondrous creatures. I have proven, however, that there are additional whales and other large creatures that will follow my commands for new tasks. I proved that yesterday.”

“And now you have another task for them,” Dirk said.

“I do. If my plan works, it will force the United States government to stop killing our comrades on the Hawaiian barricades. I propose that we announce a threat in the media, that we intend to shut down additional U.S. ports if they do not halt their aggressive military actions.”

“More blockades, presumably?” Alicia said.

“Starting with one of the west coast ports, perhaps San Francisco, because of the relatively narrow opening from the sea to the bay. With that bottleneck in the Golden Gate channel, blocking it would also cut off the Port of Oakland, and a number of other ports in the Bay Area. It would get the government’s attention even more than we already have, because it shows what we can continue to do—and what we
will
do to expand our power and wreak havoc—if they don’t cooperate. First we make the threat, giving them a small amount of time to halt military action. Then, if they don’t cooperate, we make our move.
And we never make idle threats
.”

Alicia scratched her chin thoughtfully. “And then the creatures just remain where they are, refusing leave the Golden Gate, even if we try to make them move? Doesn’t that aggravate a problem we already have?”

“I sense that the animals will leave eventually and go about their customary lives, but only after humans change their destructive behavior. By bringing the most powerful nation on the planet to its knees, we will get other countries to capitulate as well.”

Dirk let out a long whistle. “If this works, it’s a game changer. But do we have enough whales, plesiosaurs, sea cows, and the like to block San Francisco Bay?”

“I’m sure we do. Large numbers of animals keep arriving in the Hawaiian Islands. Yesterday, I saw many more pods and schools in the sea than were needed for the Hawaiian cordons. Yes, I’m confident that we have enough. Kimo, I also want your authorization to move against oil-drilling platforms on the California coast if the San Francisco blockade doesn’t get the U.S. government to capitulate.”

“What would you do to the oil rigs? We don’t want oil spilled all over the sea.”

“There are many creatures of the sea that can seal up any leaks. I just need to put assets in position before destroying the drilling rigs. It is inevitable that there will be some oil leakage, but I can keep it to a minimum.”

“You refer to marine animals as assets,” Dirk said, with a little amusement. “You’re thinking in military terms, I see.”

“I
have
to. We all have to.” Gwyneth knew she was coming across as intense, but at least she was discussing things with them and not going off on her own.

“I think everything she’s saying is right,” Alicia said. “There are risks involved, but we have to take them. At this point, after everything that’s happened and the resistance we’re facing, we have to take forceful action.”

Both Kimo and Dirk agreed, and they laid out a plan under which the Sea Warriors would make their threat through Jimmy Waimea’s newspaper, and dispatch Gwyneth to the California coast—to prepare to carry out the new blockade if necessary, and possibly the destruction of at least one oil-drilling rig near Santa Barbara. The Sea Warriors had leverage now, with the Hawaiian island cordon and public support beginning to increase for the ocean rights movement, and they needed to press their advantage. This was a war that would be won on a chess board, not in direct combat.

“Now, first things first,” Kimo said. “Chi’ang and Talbot.”

The new task force set off within the hour, with tens of thousands of powerful sea creatures, and many more smaller ones, contributing to the whole with their specialties. Kimo wanted to minimize molecular communication, for fear that it would be overheard, so before departure he stood on land and instructed the Sea Warriors to gather their aquatic animals and follow him, with only minimal communication. Some of the warriors carried backpacks with live crabs inside them, for release when they reached the wildlife refuge.

The task force dipped beneath the surface of the water, to avoid detection from the air. In a few hours they reached remote Nihoa Island in the Hawaiian archipelago, where crabs were released offshore on three sides of the tiny piece of land. They all headed northwesterly. The force continued, until they encountered a seabed jammed with crustaceans of all sorts—reef crabs, packrat lobsters, purse crabs, Japanese crabs, and even a few king crabs that had somehow found their way here from colder Alaskan or deep-ocean waters. Dirk motioned for the Sea Warriors to circle around, to determine the limits of the thick cluster.

They found it, and then Kimo broke the transmission silence to say, “I want this area completely encircled. Then we drive toward the center, where they must be.”

As he said this, the crustaceans began to move around fitfully, as if all of them—and the two beating hearts of evil at their core—were a single organism, and knew it was in danger.

Kimo swam beside Jacqueline, and they drifted over the center of the shifting mass of crustaceans, around ten feet above it. Behind the two swimmers were a squadron of whitetip reef sharks and longnose sawsharks.

Suddenly the jumble of crabs, lobsters, shrimps, and other crustaceans began to grow higher on the seabed, as if something was rising up from underneath them. For a moment Kimo was hypnotized by the motion, without understanding it, until he realized the creatures were piling on top of each other, scrambling over each other, building a hill of multi-colored, clawed creatures. The mound rose surprisingly quickly, and just as Kimo told Jacqueline to command the sharks to attack, a mass of reef crabs launched at her and clasped onto her, ripping at her face and body with sharp claws. For several horrifying moments the crabs kept coming, using her as a bridge to leap onto the backs of some of the reef sharks.

Jacqueline struggled to extricate herself from the ripping claws, and Kimo helped her, while sending his own commands to the sharks to attack the reef crabs and their brethren, to prevent any more of them from rising on the seabed. Kimo managed to pull several of the most tenacious crabs off her, and she pulled others away. Finally she was free, and Kimo took a moment to heal her bleeding wounds, though he could do nothing for her one-piece Sea Warrior swimsuit, which had been torn on the front and back, but still clung to her.

Several small sawsharks ripped into the center of the mound of crustaceans, where Chi’ang and Talbot were supposed to be. But soon it became apparent that they were not there, as the sawsharks cut through to the seabed and found nothing there but sand, writhing worms, and pieces of broken shell.