She’d saved his life, and his team had shot her. He would never be able to forgive himself for that.
Reeves picked up the mic and reported their status to Officer Miller.
“Get your crew ready,” he said to Larson.
He caught the second eye-roll as she turned away.
The defiance didn’t bother him. He’d spent several years of grade school being the shortest guy in gym class, so he was used to his peers underestimating him. He’d grown up working extra hard to prove his abilities.
The moment the bridge door closed, leaving him alone, Reeves raised the mic before he could think and found himself blurting, “Sir, don’t you think we’re jumping the gun?”
Silence. Then, “Reeves, the entire Pacific Northwest is being invaded. Civilians are at risk.”
He gazed across the glassy water, beautiful and peaceful. “Sir, there are whales in the area.”
“Now, Reeves,” Miller barked.
Reeves gripped the mic tighter. To disobey would be to lose his job. Everything he’d spent his life working towards would be gone because he was too much of a coward to pull the trigger on a few sea demons.
But was that all they were?
The ship bobbed in silence for a long moment.
Outside, shouts erupted. “Chief!”
Reeves burst through the bridge door. His soldiers stood at the railing, rifles aimed at the water. He hurried to the port side.
They were surrounded. Women—no, mermaids—poked their heads from the water, watching. They didn’t try to scale Perseus’ iron hull.
“Everyone back up,” commanded Reeves before the mermaids could lure anyone.
His soldiers took three synchronised steps back. Reeves averted his eyes from the water, unable to face the lives he was about to end.
Perseus’ deck was bare, unadorned, but the key feature was there. An iron railing in the middle formed a barrier around a coffin-like hole. Larson and two crewmates slipped between the railings and jumped inside. They hadn’t waited for his orders. Reeves’ tongue felt too fat in his mouth to shout at them for this.
The operative weapon was supposed to be controlled from a computer screen, but the engineers hadn’t had time to implement it, so everything had to be executed manually.
He heard Larson barking orders and the clank of machinery. Perseus shuddered. The panel on the keel was opening.
Reeves scanned the members of his team. None looked nervous, but he was certain every one of them was sweating like he was—possibly terrified. What they were about to do was unprecedented, untested, and highly dangerous. The ramifications were bigger than any op he’d heard of in years.
His team, unlike Larson’s, awaited his orders with an air of respect, which he returned in equal measure. They’d worked with him and become his friends over the months. He couldn’t let them down.
Inside the coffin, Larson and her crewmates worked quickly. There was a click and a mechanical groan below as the launcher emerged. Reeves had seen the thing moored; it was the size of a pickup truck with twenty supercavitating torpedoes positioned in a circle, and now they would be pointing into the pure blue depths of the Gulf of Alaska.
Reeves peeked into the water. The mermaids must have felt or seen the weapons, because their peering faces had disappeared.
“Ready to fire, chief,” said Larson.
Reeves’ mind shut down as panic rose inside him, pulse hammering at his throat.
“Chief.”
“I know, Larson!”
There was nothing he could do. He was a pawn. His job was to give the order, and with all these eyes on him, it was his only choice. To back out would be to lose everything, to bring shame on his team, to become a subject of ridicule for Larson’s. He would have to return to Miller and tell him what happened. He would return home to overly supportive but secretly disappointed parents, and live the rest of his life in another line of work, knowing he’d failed.
Someone screamed at the other end of the deck. Reeves whirled to find one of his soldiers collapsed, a sea spear jutting from his shoulder. One of Larson’s crewmembers ran to help.
