"Put it up on the main tactical screen," John ordered, stepping toward the center of the command bridge.
"Yes, sir," the operator replied, rapidly typing away at his terminal.
The holographic display above them instantly transitioned. The high-altitude drone feed of the beastkin settlement shrunk into a secondary picture-in-picture window, replaced by a massive, real-time tactical naval map displaying the perimeter waters around the island.
Thirty nautical miles off the island’s southern coast, the blue blip of the guided-missile destroyer USS Arleigh Burke was actively patrolling, trailing high-frequency active and passive sonar sweeps across the continental shelf.
Beside the ship’s icon, a flashing crimson contact marker pulsed rhythmically.
"Report," John barked, his sharp blue eyes locking onto the blinking red data block.
"Sir, thirty minutes ago, the destroyer began an AN/SQQ-89 bathymetric seabed mapping sweep to chart the southern underwater trenches," the tactical watch officer reported over the comms speaker. "Ten minutes in, their hull-mounted active sonar and towed array picked up a massive acoustic return rising from a deep trench at six hundred meters."
A live sonar waterfall display cascaded down the right side of the main screen, showing a dense, colossal acoustic shadow moving with deliberate, serpentine rhythm.
"How big is it?" John asked.
"Length is estimated at over one hundred and twenty meters, Commander. Displacement is easily tens of thousands of metric tons," the operator stated, a trace of tension in his voice. "Initial profile did not match any biological or mechanical submersible in the database. It is ascending rapidly, closing the distance to the surface directly beneath the destroyer’s patrol sector."
Elenore watched as she observed how John and his men operated. And so far, she was impressed, especially with their magic tools and communications.
Before John could reply, a live audio link crackled through the overhead speakers, followed by the tense, disciplined voice of the destroyer’s tactical action officer.
"TOC, this is Warship One Actual. Sonar reports target is breaching thermal layers at twenty knots. We have heavy surface cavitation! Optical sensors tracking the wake—"
"Switch to the ship’s electro-optical director feed! Put eyes on it now!" John commanded.
BZZT.
The primary screen switched instantly to the high-resolution day/night camera mounted high atop the destroyer’s superstructure.
The calm, azure ocean several hundred yards off the ship’s port side suddenly began to boil violently. Millions of white frothing bubbles burst upward in a massive, circular upheaval, followed by the sea literally parting open.
SPLAAAASH!
A colossal, nightmarish horror breached the surface in an explosion of sea foam.
Thick, muscular tentacles lined with rows of razor-sharp, barbed suction cups, each tentacle as wide as a city bus, erupted into the air, whipping violently against the waves. Behind them rose a titanic, rubbery mantle covered in dark, mossy barnacles and pulsating bioluminescent rings, centered around a massive, golden-yellow predatory eye that locked straight onto the gray steel hull of the warship.
It was an ancient, mythical Kraken.
Elenore’s breath caught in her throat, her hand flying to her chest as her delicate pointed ears flattened back in pure, instinctive dread.
"A... a Kraken!" she gasped, her melodic voice trembling. "An ancient sea scourge! John, your vessel, it is going to be dragged into the abyss!"
Well, he won’t let that happen.
John stepped forward to the primary communications terminal, keying the direct fleet transmission link.
"Warship One, this is Eagle Actual," John spoke firmly into the microphone. "You are weapons free. Engage and neutralize the threat immediately."
"Copy that, Eagle Actual! Weapons free! Engaging hostile surface target!" the captain’s disciplined voice blared through the operations deck.
On the massive tactical monitor, the scene unfolded in real time.
The gray warship didn’t flee. Instead, its bow cleaved through the churning white swells as the ship began a sharp evasive turn to unmask its forward weapons. On the bow deck, the angular turret of the 5-inch/62 caliber Mk 45 naval gun traversed rapidly with an audible hydraulic whine, the long barrel elevating and locking dead center onto the Kraken’s massive, pulsating mantle.
BOOM!
A blinding flash of orange fire and a dense cloud of white propellant smoke erupted from the warship’s bow.
A split-second later, a 70-pound high-explosive fragmentation shell slammed directly into the monster’s leathery hide at Mach 2.5.
KABOOOOM!
The concussive detonation blew apart thick layers of barnacles, tearing a crater of black, ichor-spurting flesh from the creature’s rubbery flank. The Kraken shrieked, a guttural, subsonic roar that rattled through the microphone feeds, thrashing its massive limbs as the sea churned into violent foam.
Elenore gasped.
"What... what kind of spell was that?!" she mumbled. "There was no magical incantation! No mana circle! It hurled a thunderous strike faster than lightning itself!"
"That wasn’t magic," John said coldly, watching the screen as the warship’s gun loaded its next round in three seconds flat. "That’s five inches of American steel and high explosives. And we’re just getting started."
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The warship fired in rapid succession, laying down a merciless barrage of heavy kinetic fury directly into the ancient terror of the sea.