Excerpt: Deep Blue Sea II : Harsh Mistress

Two helicopters circled what appeared to be an empty section of ocean. Each was little more than a rotor, a tail and seating for a single occupant, safely sealed inside a bubble of bullet-proof plastic. Rocket launchers had been mounted to the underside of each cockpit. The choppers run without lights and were built for stealth. As their target approached they split, one going high the other skimming just above the waves trusting to the moonlight for cover.

A rusty fishing boat chugged into range of their weapons and both opened fire. One rocket took out the ship’s bridge. The other blasted a hole at sea level and the ship immediately began taking on water. Their work complete, the choppers fled into the night.

Five fishermen rushed onto deck dragging a wounded crewman with them. Two began breaking out the lifeboat, two others breaking off to go searching for survivors in the two ruined areas of the ship. They re-grouped and spoke in hurried Icelandic, sharing news of dead comrades. A secondary explosion below them spurred them on and soon had the lifeboat in the water. Ropes were lowered and men climbed down, careful to avoid frigid sea water. The wounded man was lowered, and pulled on board, and the last two men joined him. They broke out oars and began rowing. As the sun rose across the ocean, they watched their fishing boat cough its last and sink below the waves.

Three dark shapes circled the fishing boat as it sank. Large dark shapes. Two corpses floated free of the wheelhouse and the gigantic fish swept through an swallowed them in a single bite of their jaws. Satisfied that there was no more food to be had from the sinking fishing boat the sharks turned their attention to the lifeboat crawling along the surface.

They tracked its movements swimming in a neat “V” formation lead by the largest of their number, a pregnant female almost sixty feet from nose to tail. Her colouring might have suggested short-fin Mako shark but her shape was more Great White, and yet she dwarfed both species in her sheer size. Her companions, barely more than adolescents, showed markedly less Mako colouring. Technically, six generations separated pregnant female from her two offspring swimming alongside her, and the three developing embryos inside the large female another six generations beyond them. Nature had no name for such a mis-matched family. Science on the other hand called it “back-crossing”.

The large female gave a burst of speed as she tasted blood in the water. Her quarry were close. She counted the oar strokes, gauged their speed and raced upward in a blur of motion. She broke surface and surged into the air jumping a clear ten feet above water before crashing down mouth first onto the boat. Men and wreckage were carried below. One of the two adolescents hung back from the carnage allowing a human to strike for the water’s surface. She lazily rolled and swam, matching his speed with lazy kicks of her tail. She brushed past his feet, allowing him to feel her presence below him. The man redoubled his efforts. She tasted his fear in the water and toyed with him again. Below her she sensed her sister preparing to steal her kill. The youngster was preparing to match her birth-mother’s jump.

Her sister swung away from the man giving her sister space and she took the opportunity. She powered upward from the depths intent on stealing the prize. She didn't notice her sister double back, extend her jaws for maximum power and roll to the side. Her timing was perfect: her teeth closed on her sister’s tail. It was torn clean off. Their mother’s vast bulk moved in for the kill. Above them the man vanished out of the water.