Three huge tentacles, each two hundred yards in length and thick as ancient redwood trunks, rose from the boiling deep pit to strike at the Pacific Fleet.
Their target was the heavy dreadnought Vanguard-Ironclad.
Admiral Douglas Kincaid’s flagship was an imposing three-hundred-meter warship of armored silver-steel and composite baked-clay plating. But compared to the giant limbs of the Thalassic World-Eater Kraken, the vessel looked like a steel toy floating in a storm. The three tentacles swept through the dark salt water at thirty-five knots, their massive suction cups churning the water into foaming vortexes as they came together on the dreadnought’s port flank.
Across the water column, the escort battlecruisers Defiance-02 and Resolute-05 opened fire with their backup heavy depth-charge dispensers.
Dozens of high-explosive sound canisters tumbled into the salt water, exploding along the margins of the approaching limbs. The concussions sent rolling blast waves through the water, shattering stone-hard coral formations on the seabed. But the Kraken’s hard shell was too dense. The shrapnel simply bounced off its living armor like gravel against a stone wall.
On the flagship’s bridge, the crash alarms shrieked with ear-splitting urgency.
“Brace for impact!” Admiral Kincaid’s voice boomed through the shipboard intercom. His hands were locked onto the tactical overhead frame. “Port-side damage control teams, seal all watertight doors! Backup torpedo bays, fire point-blank spread!”
