She always slept well aboard-ship. Even harried as she was by the whereabouts of the submarines she‘d been tasked to hunt, not to mention the safety of her own fleet, the familiar twin comforts of the sea, and movement soothed her. For a few moments - scant and fleeting though they were - Admiral Jessica Lowery felt rested and at peace. Before long she was fast asleep and dreaming in what was more a state of sudden and severe unconsciousness than peaceful slumber. She lay still as a mannequin, still in full-dress, on a rack that remained neat and made. It was a matter of minutes before the dreams began to overtake her.
She found herself alone, once again, on the familiar greasy, grey sea. Floating on her back, eyes closed. No current. No distant shore. Nothing but a slick grey fluid stretching for leagues in all directions. As usual, she found herself hovering just above the scene, looking down from a modest height on her own body. She was naked, and again, as usual in this dream, only the very tips of her shoulders and heals were actually in the fluid. The rest of her hovered above it, arms at her sides. She could see her eyes were closed, her breathing was measured. She felt at peace. Safe and comfortable in a place where nothing bad or dangerous could get at her.
It was the same dream she’d been having for ten days, and it had had started the night they’d set out. General Craig himself had found her in the Indian Ocean, completing a tour of the Navy’s readiness there in preparation for whatever followed the giants. The President had used pretty words like “patience,” and “justice,” speaking for the cameras in the wake of the giants invasion and subsequent disappearance. When she joined him after though, the calm talk and platitudes melted off him like so much winter ice melting to runoff in a blazing spring sun. He ushered her in and showed her to a seat directly under the big oak desk. Instead of taking his normal place behind the desk though, he took the second leather guest’s seat. He leaned in close as he began to speak.
Admiral Lowery...Jess: the giants brought this country to it’s knees last week, and then - thank the fates - they had the courtesy to vanish. Unfortunately even as the giants became more and more scarce, a new threat has been detected.
Jess almost didn’t hear the explanation. Instead of listening she’d been studying the President’s face. It had become red since returning to his office. A fine glistening sweat manifest all around his head and neck area. Admiral Lowery could see it bothering and irritating him as the President spoke. His eyes were lidded and black around the edges. He looked a mess. Jess could smell his unpleasant breath and he was leaning in closer with every passing second. His eyes were haunted and spastic, looking at her and then flying around the room and resolving back to his death-lock gaze on Jess.
I know faith is a rare commodity in this town, but I’m asking you to have some in me. The Simnus and her crew have gone off the reservation. They must be brought to heal or else...
The Chief let his words fade and then the two of them just sat in the awkward silence. Jess Lowery hadn’t known the President long, but the fist executive - in her experience - had never been one for embellishment or dramatic spin. If the alternative to capitulation was destroying the Simnus, then something huge was in play. Watching the desperate, exhausted lines in The President's face as he passed the order to pursue, she knew he wasn’t exaggerating now.
***
She could see now, the sea of grey becoming a wide river, a giant lake, a great sea, and - finally - the ocean itself, stretching off into the horizon and meeting the sky hundreds of miles away. It was, all of it, Grey and viscous looking, undulating and bubbling even though she felt no wind whatsoever. She became a bird. A giant tern or an albatross, something that could fly as high as the sun. A thing that could dive and destroy. She roared and hissed and fire came from her mouth and nostrils and eyes. She was encased, she saw then, completely socked by the fire around her. Then she looked down.
The landscape below her had been mountainous. Covered with green pine and laced with snow and ice and wind. Now things appeared to have changed. She didn’t know what she was looking at, but she saw the color: A dark Grey. It was all, it was everything and it ranged to the horizons in every direction. A flat, viscous looking sea of glistening Grey ooze. It revolted her, turning her stomach and making her retch. The Grey sea seemed an evil thing. An unnatural venue for the proliferation of ugliness and despair . She was trying to figure an escape plan, turning all around to find a dot on the horizon where the Grey Thing wasn’t, when the dark sea began to pull her down.
It was tempered at first, as if it wanted to conserve what power it could. Jess felt it mashing her wings into the air currents, trying to get it to bleed altitude until she was flying low enough to be grabbed. For a moment she felt like she might beat it, escape it’s grasp, and find a direction home. Then the thing ramped up the intensity, and she knew she had no chance. She resisted with all her strength but lower and lower she flew. She was tiring though, and fast. Exhaustion was setting in. She ached and her entire being was burning under the stress. With an angry defeated flourish she tumbled and skidded along the slick surface of the ooze. She started sinking as soon as she stopped tumbling.
The Grey Thing enwrapped her and began to squeeze, and then she realized she was going to die. As she sank her body began to buckle under the weight of the oily grey matrix.. The Grey Beast was hurting her. Hurting her and burning her alive. She opened her mouth to scream but instead it filled with the grey stuff and she felt it enter her and fill her up in seconds, and then there was nothing left and she was sinking into the dark grey nothingness.
***
Jess felt the blasts before she heard them. In the three seconds before the death machines slammed into the hull of the Carrier, Lowery had tried to remember what she could about the use of weapons on a United States Navy submarine. The things riding up to meet her now, she knew, were demon missiles. Essentially, the Demon was a torpedo fit with after burners and wings so you could launch it at air, land or sea targets. The difference between the payload of a torpedo and a Demon though was noteworthy. Instead of the 500 pounds of TNT packed into a normal torpedo, demons were made of a moldable explosive called simply “Number Seven.” One direct torpedo strike with a demon could bring a carrier to the bottom in scant minutes. The Simnus had fired two.
She also remembered a companion weapon to the Demon that ramped up the destructive power to a level far above normal. Dark Promise was what they’d named it. It was a weapons protocol involving hundreds of tiny rockets milled from depleted uranium. The rockets were fired at once directly after a Demon strike. While the enemy reeled and spun from the blow, the Dark Promise was loosed to finish the job. Each rocket was designed to strike and then penetrate to a distance of fifteen feet. Before detonation, each DP would release a spray of molten metal ripping through a thirty foot radius, killing and burning whoever and whatever wasn’t handled in the previous strikes. After the hot metal the rockets were set off. A hundred little bombs, each buried deep in the enemy’s hull. Lowery had seen pictures of the results, but she didn’t have time to think on it before most of the ship she commanded was erased from the surface of the sea.
***
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