Reece tasted blood. That quickly led to his first conscious thought, “Well, this isn’t good.”

Then the voices in his head started yelling at each other.

“By the gods, why won’t he wake up!?!” screamed a female voice.

“I don’t know, I gave him enough blood to kick-start a rhino,” came the disembodied answer, another female voice, this one sounding younger. “Why don’t you try? You’ve got more to spare than I do.”

“Fine, I will,” came the first voice’s reply.

A moment later, everything came rushing back in all at once. Reece’s eyes opened to the worried faces of Karina and Aika hovering over him. Aika was just about to bite her wrist. Reece’s hand grabbed her wrist to stop her as he felt energy coursing through his body, compliments of Karina, he presumed. The blood-red eyes on both females opened wide in shock before smiles quickly adorned their beautiful faces.

Their smiles were short-lived. The Phoenix suddenly lurched to the side before leveling back out. Both Karina and Aika grabbed the seat that Reece was buckled into. That was the only thing that kept them both from being tossed across the jet’s large fuselage. Karina turned her head to yell at somebody.

“Jupiter’s cock! Don’t you know how to fly this thing?” she yelled.

“If you think you can do better, you’re welcome to try,” came the reply from a voice that Reece recognized as the male version of Pasha. “On second thought, never mind. If anybody else was flying this thing, we’d all already be dead.”

“Fine, whatever,” growled Karina, using the two words that struck fear in men everywhere.

“I see things haven’t improved since my little nap,” quipped Reece. “What’s been happening?”

“Well, it’s a good news, bad news kind of report,” answered Aika, giving Reece an apologetic look.

“Alright, what’s the bad news?” asked Reece, not sure he wanted to know.

“Where to start, oh yeah... those whales are zombified monstrosities and they are being controlled. They’re completely avoiding the slowing boats and are closing fast on the carrier. The fleet will be lost in a matter of minutes. The cursed things are just too big to destroy with the munitions we have left. They figured out our tactics, probably because it was so like the ones we used with the convoy in Florida. The gargoyles are hanging back, but they don’t look like the regular ones. These are the big ones we saw once before. We’ve already killed a few, but there’s a lot more. Oh, and the Phoenix is almost out of missiles and bullets,” came Aika’s too lengthy reply.

“Ooookkaaayy, that sounds awful,” lamented Reece. “So, what’s the good news?”

“Well, we’re still alive. So, there’s that,” answered Aika sarcastically as she gave Reece an apologetic smile and a wink. “Now, enough laying around. It’s time to get up and get back to work.”

“Yes, ma-am,” answered Reece with a wry grin as he unbelted himself from the seat he’d been strapped to.

Looking around the large jet, Reece saw dozens of people huddled together, some belted in, but most holding on to the cargo nets hanging from the sides of the fuselage. It looked to Reece like the wounded had been taken care of, most likely thanks to Aika and Karina’s ministrations and blood.

Ciera lay in the seat next to him, passed out the same as he was just a minute ago. Reece could tell that she needed some of his energy, but they just didn’t have the time. He heard a loud-but-low growl from behind him and turned to find Hank, the yeti, holding tight to the cargo nets and looking a bit green. Dmitri sat next to him.

“Not much for flying, huh?” asked Reece reflexively.

The yeti just glared at Reece, but Dmitri answered for him. “Apparently not, but how was I to know? We haven’t come across many operational vehicles lately, especially flying ones. Well, better this than dead. Which is what we would be if it wasn’t for you.”

“I don’t understand,” replied Reece. “How did you find yourselves at the compound?”

“We’d been on our way for a week after hearing their transmissions,” answered Dmitri. “We’d been on our own for months and needed a place to rest and recover. If we’d known it was about to be overrun, believe you me, we wouldn’t have bothered. But, once there, it was obvious we should throw our lot in with you guys if we were going to have a chance at survival.”

“In that case,” said Reece as he got up to leave, using the cargo net to steady himself, “welcome to the team.”

Reece quickly headed for the cockpit, finding any handholds he could in case the jet lurched again. Once up the metal stairs that led to the platform that connected to the cockpit, Reece saw that Pasha and Naeva were at the controls. Bjorn was strapped into one of the other chairs, as was Aspen. She was the first to see him appear.

“Glad you could join us,” she told him. “We could really use your input. Things aren’t looking too good.”

Reece looked out the cockpit’s windshield and gasped. Aspen was underselling it. As the Phoenix dipped and dodged as smoothly as Pasha could manage, Reece took account of the fleet below them. There were at least a couple dozen zombified whales chasing the carrier. The nearest was only a few meters behind it as it plowed through the waters at its top speed, clearly not fast enough to escape the unrelenting pursuit of undead flesh. He could see things covering the backs of the whales, crawling all over them like ants from Reece’s vantage point.

Almost as bad was that the sky was filled with massive bat-wings monsters. Some were the gargoyles that Reece recalled, but the Order must have been experimenting on numerous types of flying creatures. The sky was filled with the flashes of tracer rounds and small explosions as the carrier battlegroup’s guns fired into the mass of winged monstrosities. Any that got too close to one of the ships was either cut in half with bullets or exploded. Smoke was everywhere. Reece noticed a large flock of flyers converge and head directly for their jet.

“We’ve got company,” yelled Reece just as Pasha noticed them as well.

“Hold onto something,” yelled Pasha as he dove and put the Phoenix into a spin.

Reece grabbed onto Aspen’s chair in the nick of time. Even so, if she hadn’t wrapped a quickly elongating arm around him, he would have gone flying. As the world came up to greet them, spinning the whole way, Reece could hear another loud growl from the cargo hold. He would have smiled if he didn’t feel the same way himself. Then, underneath his nausea, Reece felt something else. It was like a voice he couldn’t quite hear, but he suddenly knew what he needed to do or die trying.

“We need to get back to the carrier... right now...” grunted Reece, trying not the throw-up. “It’s our only chance!”

Pasha didn’t respond, instead, he looked to Naeva and said, “It’s time. Do it.”

Naeva nodded and immediately started flipping switches and pressing buttons. Reece could hear all the jet’s countermeasures being released above and behind them, burning through the sky. Reece looked out the top of the cockpit and could see several flying creatures burning as the white-hot countermeasures burned through their rotting bodies. The move bought them some space and by the time Pasha leveled off, he was approaching the carrier, a few meters below the deck.

“Pull up, pull up,” yelled Reece as he saw the side of the carrier approaching them uncomfortably fast.

“I got it,” replied Pasha, irritation evident in his voice.

Moments before they smacked into the side of the huge steel behemoth, Pasha popped the bottom thrusters, typically used for landing. The thrusters allowed the Phoenix to suddenly burst upward, just clearing the carrier. A quarter second later, Pasha reversed the polarity and the Phoenix dropped back down, hovered for a moment, and landed gently onto the carrier’s deck.

Although the landing was mercifully gentle, amazingly...the moves to get into the correct position were gut-wrenching. Reece was certain there would be yeti-yack all over the cargo hold. He felt bad for everyone down there, especially Ciera, but couldn’t help chuckling to himself at the absurd thought. Regardless, they were out of time and he had something he needed to do.

“Open the cargo hold,” he ordered Pasha. “If all goes well, I’ll see you in a minute.”

Pasha gave him another irritated look but flipped the switch to drop the hold’s ramp.

“Thanks,” said Reece as he turned and hurried through the jet.

Part of him noticed the mess that the yeti had made of the hold as he quickly flew through it. He didn’t have time to laugh or gag, so he kept moving and slid down the ramp to the carrier’s deck below. As soon as he hit the sea spray-drenched metal deck, he carefully moved across it to the rear of the carrier.

On either side of the massive vessel, he witnessed a half-dozen railguns firing as fast as they could be loaded. Backing them up were high caliber mounted mini-guns slinging lead as rapidly as their 16-barrels could handle without melting down. Most of them were glowing red hot from the friction.

All around the carrier, gargoyles and other monstrosities were raining from the sky to land in the surrounding waters. The sea was red with blood. He didn’t have time to marvel at the defender’s tenacity. Reece knew he needed to hurry, or their labors would be for nothing. Over a minute later, he finally made it to the rear of the carrier and leaped onto the rear platform, clearing all five steps. What greeted him when he looked out over the very back of the carrier made his blood freeze in his veins.

The whale, if it could still be called that, had opened its enormous maw, and was preparing to take a large bite out of the carrier’s rear and drag it down into the depths of the sea. The stench was almost unbearable as Reece gazed at the rotting carcass mere meters from him.

Unlike a whale, this thing had enormous pointed teeth, each easily over three meters long. He saw the remains of boats and gargoyles floating over its forked tongue as the massive appendage lolled back and forth in its hideous mouth. Reece stared right into the things open maw as he grabbed onto the rear railing of the carrier, ignoring the blood-soaked sea spray plastering his body as the carrier sped away from the undead fanged-whale as fast as it could.

“Okay, you big bastard. Let’s play,” said Reece to the monstrosity.

He didn’t care that the thing couldn’t possibly have heard him. It didn’t matter. As Reece stared into the thing, he looked through it until he found what he was looking for, its tiny rotting brain. He concentrated on it, forcing all his thoughts into that one tiny organ. Reece could feel the connection slowly form.

All at once, everything went dark as the zombie whale lunged in and bit down on the rear of the carrier. The fact that he was still alive was proof that the creature had failed to bite into the carrier, instead, gnawing on it with its mutant teeth. Knowing he had no choice now, Reece kept concentrating on the whale’s tiny rotten mind. He could now feel its muddled thoughts in his head. “Open. Bite. Dive.” The thing was so simple. Reece stopped reading the undead creature’s mind and instead forced one word into the thing’s tiny mushy brain. “Open.”

For a moment, Reece worried that he didn’t have the power to control the thing. It just kept gnashing its teeth, breaking them on the hardened metal of the carrier. However, the massive jaws started to slowly separate as the creature opened its maw wide. Smiling inwardly with no small amount of relief, Reece sent it a second command. “Slow.” Sure enough, Reece noticed the carrier finally start to pull away.

Reece began to hear shouting from somewhere above him, but he ignored the sounds. The whale monster slowly fell back from the carrier. A tickle in his consciousness told him there was fighting going on all around him, but his focus remained on the zombie whale. Again, he commanded it. “Turn.” Again, it did what he commanded. The whale-beast began ponderously turning to the right and away from the carrier.

Reece noticed one of the faster decoy boats off in the distance, far behind the whale creatures. He forced the image of it into the mind of the whale and added another word, “Bite.” The slow, dumb monster plowed through two others, knocking some of the things that were crawling on the whales like ants down into the sea below. He heard numerous screams follow them down, clearly, some of them were Order members.

It brought a little smile to Reece’s face as he continued to watch the whale that he was controlling barrel down on the decoy ship. He could only imagine the panicked cries of the Order as the beast they were riding on swallowed the boat whole. A moment later, the thing exploded, flinging greasy rotting meat over a kilometer in every direction around it.

A cheer rose behind Reece through the steady sounds of gunfire, but he didn’t have time to celebrate. Two more whales were moving into attack positions. This time, he tried a different tactic. Establishing a new connection, he used the image of the left-most whale and projected it into the mind of the one on the right of it. Then he sent a single word. “Bite.”

This time, the whales were much closer, so when the one whale turned and took a huge bite out of the other one, Reece could hear all the screams of dying Order members. Looking down, he saw dozens fall into the bloody waters below. Their cries were quickly snuffed out by hundreds of other creatures that crested the surface long enough to snack on the fallen soldiers. These things were smaller than the whales, but Reece only got glimpses of them. Resembling eels, they would be another problem, more creatures that Reece hadn’t noticed before now.

“One thing at a time,” he thought to himself.

As one of the two whale beasts started to sink, Reece ordered the one he still controlled to go for another of the decoy ships that were starting to close in after the whale’s melee had slowed down their attack formation. Using the same trick, he had the whale swallow the decoy and another explosion of meat and blubber rewarded his efforts.

The whales had started to back off by now, whoever was controlling them was probably trying to figure out just what was going wrong. That made Reece genuinely smile. The brief respite gave Reece time to look around and his smile quickly vanished. Fully half the guns were down, and the defenders were in hand-to-hand combat with numerous gargoyles on the deck.

There were also barnacle-covered zombies and a handful of people in navy-blue coats that hung down to their black boots. They each wore a mask over their faces, presumably for underwater breathing. One of the bigger uniformed people, clearly a man, carried a hand-held harpoon gun.

The moment Reece looked at him, the man turned and fired the harpoon directly at Reece’s torso. Caught completely flat-footed, Reece was dead to rights. As the harpoon traveled towards him, Reece felt time begin to slow. The harpoon spun lazily at it cut through the air and splashes of water on its way to bury itself in his chest.

The deadly weapon was within a meter of piercing him when a spearhead swung down, knocking the harpoon into the deck. Almost as quickly, a branch came in from the other side and wrapped itself around the harpoon’s shaft. With a violent flick, the branch lifted the harpoon from the deck and flung it back the way it had come.

Reece could only imagine the surprise on the man’s face when the very harpoon he had just fired found itself lodged in his neck. With a spray of blood, the figure dropped to his knees and keeled over. Looking around, Reece nodded to Karina and Aspen for the major assist. They hadn’t paused to acknowledge his gratitude, however, as more enemies were moving in.

He watched as Karina, Aika, Bjorn, Aspen, and others that he didn’t recognize had formed a defensive bubble of death around him, letting him work. They trusted that he knew what he was doing and were defending him with their lives. Any gargoyle or other nasty beast that came close to them was put down quickly by Karina’s spear, Aika’s katanas, or the numerous deadly weaponry of Reece’s other defenders.

While they all fought well, it didn’t seem like there was an end to the creatures. Looking back out over the carrier’s railing, he noticed that the whales were spreading out to encircle the carrier. His companions were counting on him to do something spectacular, something to turn the tide. Despair started to set in. He knew he couldn’t control enough of them fast enough to save the carrier. Still, he had to do what he could.

So, one by one, he forced whale after whale to attack each other or swallow a decoy boat bomb. This repeated performance whittled down the enemy forces considerably, but still, they came. By the time he had used up the last of the decoys, he figured roughly half the pod of zombie whales had been blown to bits or chomped nearly in half by another of their brood.

Unfortunately, he was growing tired and the whales had successfully encircled the carrier. Despite his best efforts, they would simultaneously rush in and destroy them all. The certainty of it seeped into Reece’s consciousness and he quietly wept at the inexorable loss of everything and everyone that mattered to him.

“Well, it was a fine run,” Reece thought as he prepared for the inevitable.

A strange sensation began in his right leg, like a warm itch. It emanated from just underneath the pocket that held the nightcore. Furrowing his brow, he reached down into his unnaturally deep pocket and grabbed ahold of the strange black rock. He could feel the itchy heat from the thing on his hand. As soon as he made skin contact, he heard Chippo’s voice. The Furdian was weak, distant, and only said one word, but that word filled Reece with wonder, hope, and a little fear.

“Was it possible?” he asked himself, chills running down his spine and surging throughout the rest of his body at the very thought of Chippo’s suggestion.

Without a better idea, he decided to find out. This would be harder to mentally pull off, he reasoned, so he would have to focus a whole lot better. Closing his eyes and ignoring everything around him, Reece concentrated on the ocean floor and began searching the depths of the great seas. After only a few moments and to his surprise, Reece found what he was searching for. It was real and that scared him. If things went wrong, it would be his fault.

Remembering Thato’s teachings, he let the doubts all melt away, leaving darkness and quiet in their wake. Honing his mind on the fearful prize, Reece narrowed his mental focus until only the pinprick of intelligence that he had found so deep in the ocean was left. It was immediately evident that this wasn’t a rotting whale brain. This ancient creature had a measure of intelligence and cunning. The first thought that Reece sent to it was a single word, “Wake!”.

This wasn’t a creature to be controlled, especially in Reece’s weakened state, but it could be communicated with. Reece was just fine with that. All living things in this world had something to lose if they chose to do nothing, including this one. He filled his mind with everything that he had witnessed in an assortment of thoughts and memories and send the whole bundle through the connection to the being below. Reece smiled wickedly when he felt it answer his call.