Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [43]
A few yards away, Mother and Rebound were also approaching the deck.
Rebound swam hard as Mother turned in the water and fired her MP-5 under the surface. One of the first things they teach you at Parris Island, the legendary training camp of the United States Marine Corps, is the resistance that water offers against gunfire. Indeed, the average bullet will lose nearly all of its velocity in less than two metres of water. After that it will just slow to a halt and sink to the bottom.
Such physical laws, however, didn’t seem to be bothering Mother right now. She just waited until the killers got close and then she fired hard. The bullets appeared to penetrate the outer skin, but they didn’t seem to do much damage. Mother fired and hit, and the killers momentarily darted away, but they always seemed to come back, unhurt, undeterred.
Rebound hit the deck and was about to climb up onto it when he turned and saw Mother behind him.
She was looking down to her left, her gun arm jolting repeatedly as she fired at something under the water. And then suddenly her gun arm stopped its jolting movement and Mother looked confused. Her gun wasn’t firing anymore.
Frozen ammo.
Rebound watched as Mother shook her MP-5 in disgust, as if shaking it would somehow make it work again.
It was then that Rebound saw an ominous dark shadow slithering upwards underneath the surface, silently approaching Mother from her right.
‘Mother! Check right!’
Mother heard him and spun instantly and saw the killer whale rising beneath her. Her gun now useless, Mother just pivoted in the water and lifted her legs up sharply and the killer barrelled past her, missing her feet by inches.
But then, just when Rebound thought it had passed Mother by, the killer whale abruptly changed course and broke the surface of the water and wrapped its jaws around Mother’s gun hand.
Mother yelled in pain and released her MP-5, yanking her hand free just as the whale bit down on the gun.
A gash of red appeared instantly above her wrist. Blood slicked her entire forearm.
But her hand was still there.
Mother didn’t care. Now gunless, she just swam like hell for the water’s edge.
Rebound hoisted himself onto the deck and turned and urged Mother on.
‘Move it, Mother! Pick it up, baby!’
Mother swam.
Rebound knelt at the edge of the deck.
Black shadows cut back and forth behind Mother’s frantically swimming frame.
Black shapes everywhere. Too many of them.
And then, suddenly, it dawned on Rebound.
Mother wasn’t going to get to the deck in time.
Then, as if right on cue, a massive black silhouette appeared in the water right behind Mother’s frantically kicking legs.
It closed in slowly, through the rippling translucent water, and Rebound saw a pink slit appear across its enormous black-and-white jawline.
Its mouth was opening.
Teeth appeared and Rebound felt his blood run cold.
Through the crystalline water he saw the black shadow slowly rise and rise behind Mother until it overtook her legs and allowed them to kick inside its wide open mouth.
And then with an ominous sense of finality, the big whale’s jaws closed slowly around Mother’s knees.
The jolt that Mother experienced was incredible in its ferocity.
Rebound watched in horror as the killer whale yanked her under. The water around Mother started to froth and bubble and blood began to fan out, but Mother was struggling fiercely, putting up a hell of a fight.
Suddenly, she broke the surface and so did the killer. Somehow, during their underwater scuffle, Mother must have managed to get one of her legs free from the killer’s jaws, because now she was using it to kick down hard on the big whale’s snout.
‘You motherfucker!’ she screamed. ‘I’m gonna fucking kill you!’ But it had her