SUB-ZERO Page 3

  He turned his attention to the sailor in the helmetless ADS, Cole Triplett. Trip looked more suited for the science team with his lean build and thick, black-rimmed glasses, but his knowledge of the ADS’ systems made him the best man for the job when it needed to get wet. Trip had helped design some of the upgrades long before they set sail and logged an insane amount of hours inside of it.

  Similar to Gianna, Trip was intellectually gifted, but like House, he preferred the independence the open ocean offered him to, say, an office setting or a laboratory. The younger man would’ve excelled in both environments, advancing further than most at his age.

  He has both here, House thought, smiling a little. Trip excelled on the Endeavor, impressing House in a variety of fields, specifically dive tech and mechanical engineering.

  “Next time,” Trip said, struggling out of the suit, “I’m strapping a harpoon to Stay Puft’s arm, and I’m going fishing!”

  House crossed his arms and grinned, getting a confused look out of Trip.

  “You going to keep complaining, or are you going to get out of that suit and tell me what happened?”

  “You weren’t watching?”

  House shook his head. “I was a little busy, you know, being a captain and all.”

  Trip smiled and seconds later, a sound resembling an oversized deadbolt unlocking filled the air. Next, the chest and upper back sections separated, allowing Trip to shimmy out of the one-of-a-kind Atmospheric Diving Suit. There wasn’t another piece of equipment like it in the U.S. Navy.

  The back and legs each had thrusters attached to them, allowing the pilot, Trip, to navigate through the water effortlessly, and all without a separate propulsion system—an underwater jetpack. Steering it wasn’t as easy as Trip made it look either. House attempted to pilot the suit once—once—on a bet from the Endeavor’s head engineer and failed miserably in front of the entire crew.

  Damn you, Buddy.

  Chief Engineer Marcus “Buddy” Malone was an even older seadog than House. He was in his early seventies but ran laps around those forty years younger than him. House brought the man in to be his head of engineering because of their days together aboard the Harry S. Truman. Buddy held the same title on the carrier before retiring over a decade ago, and House didn’t trust anyone more than him with machines. Plus, it didn’t hurt that they were both Georgia natives and die-hard Bulldogs fans.

  Go Dawgs!

  A technician to House’s right operated the winch holding the ADS aloft, and while he carefully guided it, and Trip, over to the suit’s docking station near the pool, the diver recounted what had happened to him.

  “Seriously, Captain, that thing—whatever it is—is no joke! There I was, hovering just above the seafloor, when BAM, it reached out for me and latched onto my helmet.”

  House laughed softly.

  Trip had an imagination like no other. Loved over-the-top fiction stories—movies, books, graphic novels…

  “So,” House said, eyebrow raised, “the squid wanted a kiss? That’s what’s got you all hot and bothered?”

  Trip’s eyes widened. “The hell it did, sir! Look what that thing did to my helmet!”

  House watched the man for a few seconds and realized that Trip was wide-eyed scared, well, maybe a little, but he was also having trouble seeing. He wasn’t going to say anything yet. If Trip were really having sight issues the next time House saw him, then he’d order him to the medical bay to see the ship’s doctor.

  Shifting his attention from the spooked diver to the ADS’ helmet, House was stunned at what he saw. The octopus had apparently used its beaked mouth to carve grooves into the suit’s usually stout, machined armor. In all his years at sea, House had never seen anything like it before.

  He needed to find out what, exactly, had just boarded his ship.

  “Run diagnostics on the ADS and report back to me ASAP… If you’re up to it?”

  Trip looked offended. “Just because I got a little…startled…” he blinked hard, “doesn’t mean I can’t do my job, Captain.”

  House loved the sailor’s attitude, but on the inside, he was worried about him. He was fond of Trip, and the more he came to like the young man, the more he approved of his daughter taking a liking to him.

  Turning away from the scene, House looked for Donovan and his team, growling in anger when he couldn’t find any of them. They had totally abandoned a crewman in need, all for the “sake of science.” The first thing House would do when he found Donovan was to threaten to shove a broken test tube up his ass. Everyone on his boat looked after one another. The sea was judge, jury, and in some cases, the executioner of them all. They were entirely at her mercy, like a flea on a dog’s back.

  He snarled. “Donovan…”

  * * *

  Forced to climb the stairs the whole way up, House wasn’t happy. Donovan’s team had entered the launch bay via the freight elevator. It was how they moved most of their bulky, or weighty, gear about the Endeavor. Unfortunately, the next closest lift was toward the forward section of the ship.

  The launch bay sat near the rear of the boat and was on the bottom level, built just in front of the engine room. Donovan’s core lab had been built on the top deck, per his instructions, and was connected to other pods within a network of corridors. The above deck workspaces were constructed to make use of the, otherwise, empty expanse of nothing. From above, they resembled a honeycomb of steel-framed boxes.

  It was an easy way for the crew to get from Point A to Point B without having to brave the frigid outdoor air. Everything inside the Endeavor was temperature controlled. House didn’t mind being comfortable. His people performed better when under less stress.

  Warmth definitely made an Antarctic mission seem less terrible.

  And with the extra workspace up top, each crewmember was, in turn, given more accommodating quarters below deck. Everything within the belly of the Endeavor had been stripped down and redone. House whistled when he had first gotten a look at where he’d be living for the next three months.

  House wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon—Gianna either. Neither of them had anything to go home to with Karen gone. Both had signed a short-term contract with DARPA with the hopes of it being extended.

  The thought of being back out at sea full-time—and with his daughter by his side—made House smile.

  What didn’t make him smile was the fact that Donovan was ignoring him. He had phoned the man three times already and he never picked up. Either the Endeavor’s state-of-the-art communications array was down, or the scientist had taken his earpiece out.

  House knew it was the latter. Gianna told him several times that their array was unkillable. Along with some of her friends from home, Gianna had personally seen to it. Those friends, House was assured, would make their system infallible. He just wished that they were legitimate programmers and not underground hackers.

  Gianna was a master of both.

  * * *

  Donovan and his team drained the seawater from the pill-shaped containment unit, letting its remnants spill out onto the floor without care. The drains at their feet would take care of any flooding problem if there were ever enough water to constitute a flood.

  Laser-focused on this task, Donovan wasn’t concerned about anything else. The specimen wasn’t exactly what they were looking for. Still, it no doubt carried the same potent neurotoxin that its cousins did. Regardless of what this octopus really was, it would serve its purpose: Advancement.

  With rubberized gloves and aprons, they carefully laid the octopus out on the examination table, strapping down its limbs one-by-one. They needed to gain access to its salivary gland and extract the tetrodotoxin within. If this creature was as closely related to the dangerous blue-ringed variety, then its venom was some of the deadliest on the planet and would need to be handled with extreme care.

  Donovan looked over his scalpel. Then, with a steady hand, he got to work.

  3

  Pounding up th
e stairs, House was about to try Donovan again, but instead, got a call from Damon Becker. Rolling his eyes, House knew it was wrong not to inform the government liaison about the current goings-on.

  He tapped the WiMP’s corresponding icon, keying his comms unit. “House here.”

  Becker got right to it. “What do I hear about a killer sea monster coming aboard our boat?”

  House knew that Becker understood what pushed his buttons and calling it “our boat” instead of the “government’s boat,” or worse, “my boat,” was the perfect way to avoid House’s wrath. Becker wasn’t the captain. He was.

  “Talk to Trip, did you?” House asked. Trip was the only one that would’ve called the smallish creature a “killer sea monster.”

  “Since he was the only one to answer the damned phone, yes! Also said he was fighting through a migraine or something.”

  House cringed for both Becker and Trip.

  He hadn’t known that Becker was trying to reach him, or that Trip’s condition was as bad as it sounded. Since everything had happened, House hadn’t gotten a chance to check his messages. He had no excuse though because their system provided easy access to them, just in case a team member was out of pocket.

  Or, the thing still has a few bugs that Gianna has yet to fix.

  The comms system wasn’t perfect, ever-changing as DARPA deemed, putting them in a position to be testing new updates all the time. The Endeavor was an experimental research station after all. That’s what they did here, experiment, and research. They lived by trial and error.

  “Sorry about that, Damon.” He really was. The last thing House wanted to do was piss off the people that paid the bills and gave him his ship.

  “Yes, well, what about this animal, Captain?”

  Breathing hard, House wasn’t sure what to tell him. “Honestly,” he said, entering the outer door to the topside lab, “I have no idea. The one thing I do know is…”

  House’s voice trailed off when he stepped into the room. The next set of doors led into the lab itself. From where he was, House could already see Donovan and three others leaning over an operating table. He knew the scientist didn’t screw around, but this was insane! There was no way that they could’ve prepped the octopus for dissection unless...

  Damn you, Seth, House thought, knowing Donovan wanted the specimen as fresh as possible. He’s going to put it under and cut it open while it’s still alive.

  House wasn’t a doctor, but he knew that there was no way to tell how the animal would react under such conditions. He could picture it waking up halfway through the procedure with its guts hanging out and going ballistic.

  House kind of hoped that’s what was going to happen.

  Grabbing the door handle, he pulled, intent on testing the strength of the hinges. But nothing happened. He, the captain of the Endeavor, had been locked out. He quickly slid his keycard through the lock. It answered him with a buzz and a red light.

  He grabbed the handle again, this time with both of his powerful hands, and yelled at the top of his lungs. “Donovan!”

  House. Was. Livid.

  Never—not since boarding this ship—had someone defied him like Donovan just did. After House’s keycard didn’t work, he knew, for a fact, that he’d been purposely locked out, and it wasn’t some random anomaly. There was no door on board the Endeavor he wasn’t allowed access to, per the ship’s safety protocols.

  He called the only person that could help him.

  “Hey, Daddy-O, what’s up?”

  His daughter’s leisurely way of addressing him threw him off for a moment, but then, House watched as Donovan cut into the unconscious specimen.

  As the scalpel blade connected with soft tissue, the room bloomed to life with a crackling, electric-blue explosion of light. The octopus was unconsciously reacting to the procedure.

  The light show got House’s brain back on track.

  “Get me into the topside lab, now!”

  “Oh…Okay,” Gianna replied, caught off guard by her father’s outburst. “Give me a second to override the locking mechanism.”

  She didn’t say anything more. He was glad too. He wasn’t in the mood for explanations. Sometimes, his daughter was just another body on this ship. He hated to think of his little girl like that, but unfortunately, in the end, it was the truth. Yes, he was her father, and he loved her more than anything, but he was also her superior.

  She hung up, and House’s comms went off again immediately with another incoming call.

  “Captain?” It was Trip. “Sorry to bother you, but I’m not feeling too good down here. Gonna go lie down for a few, okay?”

  “No problem, son,” House replied, trying to calm down. It wasn’t Trip’s fault that Donovan was going rogue. House needed to focus his rage on the scientist and not Trip. “Get some rest.” Before they disconnected, House threw in, “Good job down there today.”

  Trip laughed. “Never a dull moment around you, sir.”

  Hanging up, House sighed as another call came in.

  Ugh, why me? But he knew why… He was the man in charge. Comes with the title.

  He answered. “Go for House.”

  “Sir?”

  Sam Ferguson was the Endeavor’s Executive Officer, House’s right-hand man. But more than anything, right now, he was tracking the incoming storm and plotting alternate routes back to McMurdo.

  “Fergie,” as some liked to call the freckled redhead behind his back, was a straight shooter. House didn’t think the man had a funny bone in his body, nor had House ever seen him smile or laugh. Sam’s specialty? Being a damn fine sailor. House knew Sam would be moving up the ranks within the Navy soon after their job in the Antarctic was done and that Sam’s time as his XO was soon going to be over.

  Still unable to gain entry in the lab, House relaxed and gave his number two his full attention. Sam wouldn’t be contacting House mid-warpath unless it was urgent.

  “What do you have, Sam?”

  “The storm, sir.”

  “What about it?”

  Sam took a breath. “We miscalculated its speed and intensity.”

  Shit, House thought, rubbing his salt-and-pepper, stubbled chin.

  “How much time do we have?” he asked, already knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer. No one ever miscalculated something and had it be in their favor. Ever. Whenever something got screwed up, it was always for the worse. House took it as a good sign, usually, since his crew rarely ever “screwed the pooch.”

  Buddy loved saying that.

  The ship tilted slightly beneath House’s feet, startling him.

  “Now,” Sam simply said. “Right now—and it’s projected to be one of the worst storms in years.”

  The boat shuddered violently.

  House grumbled another curse. “Any chance it was miscalculated a second time?” House was hopeful…slightly.

  “No, sir. This is going to be really bad.”

  House nodded, thinking. “Alright, then. Sound the alarm and make the necessary preparations.”

  “What about you, sir?”

  House took a deep breath. “I’m gonna do my best to try and not kill Seth.”

  Before Sam could reply, House ended the call.

  He was left in peace for a grand total of nine seconds before Gianna rang him back.

  “Almost there, Dad. How you doin’ up there?”

  The wind was howling around House now, making it difficult for him to hear her words. The lab was built into the top deck, which meant it was taking the brunt of the force. The lab was also situated at the front of the ship. House and the others within it were taking the storm head-on. The Endeavor was pointed back at the mainland, heading for McMurdo Station. Everyone inside was in the worst possible spot for what was coming.

  What’s already here.

  “So far so good, G,” House replied, lying.

  The United States Antarctic Research Center was built on the southern tip of Ross Island, just off the co
ast of continental Antarctica. In a joint partnership with New Zealand, McMurdo Station was the most-populated community in all of Antarctica, housing a whopping 1,200-plus residents during the warmer winter months.

  It was also the Endeavor’s port during their time in the Southern Ocean. Now, House wasn’t so sure they’d be able to complete an entire docking sequence and get ashore. They’d more than likely have to wait out the storm on board which meant lots of sick men and women. Even House’s iron stomach could only handle so much.

  Probably should’ve asked Sam about an exact timeframe, House thought, shrugging it off. It didn’t matter right then. He needed to put a stop to Donovan’s tunnel-visioned, inhumane madness. Typically, they’d do nothing more than put the animal under and extract a bit of its venom—but not this time. Donovan was intent on tearing the thing to ribbons if it meant getting what he wanted.

  The ship tilted again, spilling one of Donovan’s assistants to the floor. House was still latched onto the door handles, keeping himself upright with the best of his ability. The team member that went down fell facing House, and quickly got to her feet and relayed his presence to Donovan.

  House growled in anger.

  The fact that she didn’t immediately open the doors told him that no one in that room held any loyalty to their captain—just Donovan.

  Now, he was beyond livid, wanting nothing more than to rip the doors from their hinges and beat Donovan to death with them.

  Calm down, Sebastian. Easy…

  Donovan barely gave him a look, only nonchalantly glancing over his shoulder. House raised his fist to put it through the shatterproof, glass door. He didn’t, of course, knowing his hand would more-than-likely break. The lab, along with the other topside pods, were specially constructed to absorb Mother Nature’s fury. Just another of DARPA’s experiments aboard the Endeavor. House’s anger was something to behold, worthy of a pay-per-view billing, but he was not nearly as strong as a planet, so he laid off the glass and waited for his daughter to do her thing.

  “G!” House roared, his typically patient demeanor running on empty. He could hear her speaking to someone in low whispers off-mic. “Any time now!”