Grunt Work

Departures

'All hands,' said the no-K captain Catona over the intercom, 'now entering silent mode. Loud noises and anything louder than a whisper is prohibited until we exit the danger zone.'

As the intercom switched off, I heard the whine of the submersible's engines die.

'Be a good boy and play dead,' I told Mr Huggles as I used my vibrator to send the same message to him in his own language. 'Time to play hide and seek.'

Mr Huggles nodded, closed his eyes and disappeared under the surface of his pool. It was much smaller than the one at the hideout, and I worried about him in it, but he was used to long trips in the submersible and tended to treat it as an opportunity for a longer nap. With no one to talk to, I headed out of the Underwater Departure Lounge and into my bunk room, being careful to close the large metal doors carefully.

'Do you think the Pebble knows?' Katya asked as I sat down on my bunk above hers.

'Don't call him that,' Theo hissed.

Katya snorted. 'He can't hear us call him names, you know.'

'You don't know that,' Theo nervously looked up at the ceiling. 'They say 'Aumakua can hear everything that goes on in his realm. And he doesn't like being called that.'

'He's a bloody rock, mate,' Johnnie grumbled, rolling over on his cot to look down at Theo. 'We've no nothing feart for. This is just a precaution.'

'Better a rock than a splinter, anyway,' Manish said from his bunk. 'Ka 'ili'ili will crush you and that'll be that. Jangseung will tear you apart with a thousand splinters.'

'Quit scaring the boy,' Katya told him off. 'Besides, we're going in literally the opposite direction of Korea. We won't have any issues with Jangseung.'

'No one's heard of her in a while though,' Manish pointed out, grinning wickedly at Theo. 'And didn't you have a splinter in your hand the other day?'

'I thought that was from sanitation duty,' I pointed out. 'From the mop with the broken handle?'

'Truly, she is mysterious,' Manish nodded gravely. 'She can take many forms, and deliver her judgment from any device.'

'You don't think that was her, was it?' Theo said nervously. 'You're just pulling my leg?'

'Dead serious,' Manish said, straight faced, then threw a box of matches at Theo, who yelped and jumped out of his cot. Manish shuddered with laughter.

'Shh!' said the rest of the grunts from their bunks besides us. We all stopped and looked at the bulkheads. Deep, resonant creaks broke the silence, but that was it.

'Guys,' I said, 'let's be sure to keep things quiet. Captain's orders. Captain without the K, I mean.'

No one said anything for a while until Katya spoke up. 'Do you think we can handle the Pebble?'

'Sure we can,' I said confidently. 'We've all read his file. We ran multiple simulations. Practiced a couple of strategies. We can do it. Besides, we have the Kaptain. The kaptain with the K, I mean. We're in home turf.'

'Technically we're in the Pebble's territory, now,' Johnnie pointed out. 'The Kraken controls the water, true enough. But Ka 'Aumakua controls the sea bed. If he wanted, he could make a hole to the centre of the earth. Swallow us whole. Or make a new volcano. Or even a new island. Bring it up from the ocean floor, crush us in seconds. I'm hoping for that death, to be honest.'

'I'm hoping to see the centre of the earth,' I said. 'I saw a movie once where people went there. There were dinosaurs and everything.'

'I don't think that's quite true, boss,' Katya said delicately. 'More like a big molten metal rock.'

'Hmm. Might be a bit tricky to live on that, yeah.'

'I think that's the point,' Manish nudged Theo.

'So anyway,' Theo spoke up, his voice cracking. 'Anyone fancy a game of cards?'

We spent the rest of the trip playing a Scottish version of Texas Hold 'Em. Johnnie was the only one who knew the rules, so the rest of us struggled a fair bit, and the Scot ended up winning every round. I almost won once but it turns out you can't have a flush of the same suit, and so Johnnie won that round again. Before I knew it, the engines started up their rumbling again and the captain without a K told us that we were in safe waters again and that we were a only a few hours away from land.

'That's our job done,' Johnnie said, settling back into his cot. 'Time for a wee kip, I think.'

As the rest of Team SubBeastible settled in to relax, the rest of the grunts around us readied their kit, checked their weapons. I decided to go check on Mr Huggles. He'd want to know that he could splash about again. He likes splashing water.

Mr Huggles wasn't alone in the Underwater Departure Lounge any more. Several of our squads would be making landfall by going underwater, as an added precaution. We weren't really expecting any resistance, at least not until we got to the nuclear base in Nevada, but it never hurt to play it safe. I watched as they suited up and performed quick tests on their underwater thruster motors, and then their weapons.

I say we but it was really them. Me and my team were there to keep them safe while we were in Ka 'Aumakua's territory, but that's it. We wouldn't be joining them. Our new air forces were currently making dummy runs on other parts of the US as a distraction, but as our ground forces began their march on Nellis, they'd come and give us - them - cover.

I left Mr Huggles to splash water on the underwater teams and made my way up to the front of the submersible. Just in time, too. As I stepped into the cargo bay that was packed with grunts clad in head to toe black armour, the warning klaxon sounded out and we all braced ourselves as the submersible became just a mersible as it rammed itself onto the shore line. The entire sub shuddered and, below us, a terrible screeching sound filled the room as the metal hull hit the pebbled shore.The sub came to a rest and the sides of the bay opened up as the hull swung outwards, letting the sun in and the grunts out, using the hull as a shield as they made their way inland. I tucked myself into a hole in the wall, out of the way of the squads of grunts who came from the deeps of the submersible, who waited their turn to get out. There were dozens of them. Hundreds even. Nearly the entirety of the Kaptain with a K's forces. The Kaptain didn't come down here, of course. He and his henchlings had their own exit up top. I could hear a couple of them swooping overhead even now.

As the last of the grunt squads headed out, I followed them to the door. 'Good luck, everyone!' I yelled and waved them off. The huge hull doors began to swing shut and I headed back inside, a little put out. I wanted to go with them. As much as I enjoyed my time at the base, and as much as I loved hanging out with Mr Huggles and the SubBeastibles, I hated not being a part of the main force. It just made me feel like I wasn't good enough. I headed back to my bunk as the submersible powered up its engines to take us off the beach, and take us home.