Bursts of salty water sprays drizzled over Dr. Sharon as she soaked in the sun on the forward decks as the PT boat engines roared over the sounds of crashing waves. She carefully shuffled her way next to a green faced Magister Thorn who looked like he was gonna collapse anytime.
"How are you doing?" Dr. Sharon grinned at the sickly looking Magister.
Thorn gagged as he tried to keep himself from vomiting from the seasickness. "Th- this is not wh- what I call enjoyable..."
Dr. Sharon laughed and whooped as the craft bounced higher while the crewmen secretly sniggered behind their stations. Despite being only a 15 minutes ride, the rough journey made Thorn seriously sick as he had never experienced something like this before.
"Look, we are reaching already!" Dr. Sharon grabbed Thorn and shook him excitedly, making him groan and leaned over the side to puke.
"Hold on to ya hats!" A cry came out from the pilot house and suddenly the PT boat swung madly to starboard, turning a sharp 180 degrees and throwing a large sheet of water into the air.
Magister Thorn yelled in fright as he felt himself flying off the buckled seating while Dr. Sharon laughed madly.
The PT boat finally settled down next to a curious Island Whale which the pod of Island Whales had stationed themselves several kilometers away from land.
The huge beakhead of the Island Whale peered out from the water surface and blinked its beady eyes. There was a pale scar that ran from under its left eye all the way down to its long neck. It bayed out a cry of greeting before sinking its head down underwater to feed on the numerous plankton and jellyfish like organisms.
The pilot smoothly reversed the PT boat so that the stern of the boat faced the creature and the crew dropped two inflatable dingies over the side.
"Thorn?" Dr. Sharon dug into her medical pouch and handed him a space sickness pill and a bottle of water. "Take this, it will help you with motion sickness."
Thorn gratefully accepted the pill and swallowed it with the water. After a while, he felt better, the giddiness had subsided and he here no longer felt like vomiting.
The crew called out for the Science Team to gather at the stern to board the dingies. On the other sides of the PT boat, similar scenes played out on two other PT boats as Marines boarded the dingies in ones and twos.
Seaman Lero ensured his shotgun was strapped securely behind his back as he took the spot on the electric motor of the dingy. The Science Team slowly made their way down to the dingies, five on each with two naval crewmen with them.
Once everyone had settled down, Lero powered the motor up and pointed the dingy towards 'land'. The inflatable dingies were taken from the life craft of their spaceship scrapped gently up the beach of the Island Whale.
"Alright out!" Lero yelled out to the team on his dingy. "Everyone help pull the boat up! We don't want it to be washed away by the waves or tide!"
Dr. Sharon's boot hit the sandy beach and she looked around in wonder. "How this creature is able to carry an island on its back?"
She returned to help the rest tug the boat up the beach and quickly turned her attention to her surroundings. If she did not see the head of the Island Whale, she would have thought that this was a real island!
The only difference from a tropical Earth type foliage was the colors of the leaves and species of trees and plants. Driftwood and other sea debris littered what appeared to be a tide line. Sharon could even see several small crustaceans species running about on the sand.
Cries of wyvern nesting in the trees echoed out together with sounds of other creatures and insects that vied with each other for attention.
"This is amazing!" Dr. Sharon cried out as she activated her shoulder mounted video camera while the Marines that landed spread out in a protective formation.
Lero and the other naval crewmembers lugged out crates of equipment from the dingies and a few Science Team members quickly set up instruments and other unknown equipment that Lero could only guess their purpose.
"Hey, Doc!" Sergeant James Bone walked over and greeted Dr. Sharon. "How's it going?"
"Hey there Sarge!" Dr. Sharon smiled as he recognized the Marine. "You look a lot better since the last time I said you laying on the hospital bed bleeding all over my floor!"
"Ha!" James grinned. "Marines are meant to be mended and patched!"
"Don't make it a habit," Dr. Sharon advised. "There only so few of us left..."
"Yeah," James nodded as he promised. "Anyway, what do we have here?"
He looked at the topical setting of the island which greatly clashed against the drifting snow and cold winds.
"Well, my guess is these creatures migrate from one place to another during the cold seasons, most likely to seas with warmer currents, hence tropic floral," Dr. Sharon said.
"Than why are they still doing here?" James watched Magister Thorn leading a couple of Science Team members poking at some stuff here and there excitedly.
"Your guess is good as mine," Dr. Sharon frowned and gestured out to the sea. "But if I would guess, I say they find it safer here? Another guess will be that they are recovering from the attack of the Krarga and once recovered they will move on."
"Hmmm," James thought that it made some sense. "Well, I got my boys to keep your team safe. Make sure none of your team moves without any security escort. We don't know is inside the jungle."
Dr. Sharon nodded and James gave a quick salute before he left to yell at his men. Even with the rumbling voice in her head, it didn't dampen her spirits as she looked at the new things that could be found here!
-----
UNS Singapore, Command Bridge
"Captain, the Science Team has landed safely on the Island Whale," An operator reported from his station.
Blake nodded and continued watching the live stream of the Science Team. He was surprised that there was such a creature here, which reminded him of those tales of turtles carrying the world on their backs, but in this case, it was an island.
I wonder if we could tame them? Thought Blake as he watched the ongoings on the back of the creature. If they could be controlled, won't they make good refilling bases for ships and planes?
"Captain," Commander Ford greeted Blake as he entered the Command Bridge. "How's the expedition force?"
"They landed and so far so good," Blake replied. "How about your end?"
It has been two days since the Fleet returned to the docks and the sea monster processed for scientific studies.
"Both ships will be undergoing refits and repairs. And with the weather forecast for the coming week showing that the seas gonna be very rough," Ford joined Blake at watching the imagery. "The Fleet will be stranded. So it's a good time for the ships to have some dock time."
Blake nodded, "Next week will be Founding Day, it's going to be the biggest holiday for everyone, I hope nothing unexpected turns up."
"Well, I can't really be surprised much now," Ford admitted. "But seriously, I think I need to rethink the manual for naval operations now."
"Also we gonna need depth charges, torpedos, and more firepower," Ford said. "That thing took all the 3" shells like we were just pissing at him."
"Lucky water transmit shock waves pretty well, if not I don't think we could have killed it," Ford pointed out their weakness. "Either that or we have to aim for its eyes."
Blake nodded, "Well, Ordnance is working on a larger variant of the 3" guns. Depth charges shouldn't be too hard them to come out with. But torpedos..."
"Torpedos are not really armor piercing weapons," Blake said to Ford. "well, we can still have Ordnance to do some research on it and come out with a viable plan later on."
Ford nodded, "Dragons, sea monsters, and now swimming islands. So what's next?"
-----
Back of Island Whale 'Scar'
The Science team gathered soil samples and bagged floral while the Marines played babysitters on the back of the Island Whale they called Scar due to a scar along the side of its head. James's booted feet crunched as he stepped on frozen insects and plants that were slowly wilting under the cold temperature.
"Hey Doc," James called out. "Isn't the cold bad for the ecosystem here?"
He toed a half frozen colorful wyvern with bright red and green feathers and a long feathery tail. Dr. Sharon bent down and carefully picked up the frozen creature the size of a chicken and gently wrapped it with thermo foil to help warm it up.
"Yes, the ecosystem here is dying due to the weather," Dr. Sharon busied herself with saving the poor shaking wyvern. "We see what we can share and collect. But I doubt much could be saved."
"Will it affect the Island Whales?" James asked as he shifted the weight of his rifle sling. "I meant with the island on its back dying, will there be any erm, problems for the whales?"
"I seriously don't know," Sharon replied. "I can't even imagine how we can even look at the biology makeup of these amazing creatures! And I still have a sea monster waiting for me back at the lab!"
"Happening times," James commented as he watched the wyvern coming back to life. "I wonder if the whales would allow us to take a blood sample?"
"Gauging by the strength of the Krarga," Dr. Sharon carried the revived wyvern up. "I think we might something a lot larger than the needles we have that can poke into the hide of these creatures."
"Heh," James laughed as they made their way back to the camp. "Wait!"
Dr. Sharon froze as did the rest of the team and the Marines. "What is it?"
"What is this?" James used his rifle muzzle and pushed away at some of the floral, exposing a glittering column. "Oh, my gods..."
Dr. Sharon and the rest of the team all looked stunned at the object that James had uncovered. A cluster of shimmering crystal columns glittered under the dim sunshine as the shriveled up plants covering its surfaces were pulled away.
"What is this?" James repeated as he looked at the rainbow glitter from the crystals. Each column was about the size and thickness of a human, and even with the weak sunshine from the overcast skies, the crystals gave off a glittering rainbow sheen.
"Spread out and see if are they any more of these crystals clusters!" James commanded his men, who started to search around the area and found several more clusters overgrown with floral.
"They seemed to grow out of the ground!" Dr. Sharon replied excitedly. "Call Magister Thorn over! He might know something!"
James nodded and gestured one of his men to do it while he continued to clear more of the vine and leaves away.
"What, these look familiar!" James frowned as he ordered his men to help clear the foliage away.
Dr. Sharon turned to James, "You are right, they do look familiar..."
"Isn't these those energy mana stone we gotten off that T Rex Godzilla monster?" James leaned forward and observed closely. One of the first classes given to the Marines is to not touch anything with their bare hands when outfield with the Science Team. Several images made up by Magister Thorn showing effects of someone touching an unknown magical artifact that backfired had the Marines' itchy hands controlled.
"Y- you are right!" Dr. Sharon stared wide eyed as she read the readout charts on her portable analyzer.
"It's energy reading is off the charts!"
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I feel super sleepy ... thunderstorm this morning woke me up at ard 2am ... and I couldn't fall back aslp.... urgh...
"Its tensile strength can be comparable to graphene which is around 200 times that of steel," Dr. Sharon said as she stood at the head of the conference table.
She displayed an image of a cut out portion of a slab of purplish white meat. Pointing to the skin portion which information overlays appeared, "The skin or hide of the beast is roughly two centimeters thick on average with the thickness raising to five centimeters thick covering vital organs of the creature."
"Tests showed that it can withstand anything below our 3" guns or 70mm rockets as long as the impact point is not at an oblique angle," Dr. Sharon reported. "The hide of the creature, however, isn't so resistant to sharp implements."
"But that doesn't mean that the creature is vulnerable to sharp implements like blades or armor piercing weaponry," Dr. Sharon continued. "It has a second layer underneath that skin which acts as a force absorbent."
She pointed to the next portion highlighted on the image. An animation showed the skin separating from the thick yellow white layer underneath. "This is what we would call the blubber or fat of the monster."
"It's on average 40 centimeters thicks in most places and up to sixty centimeters on selected parts of its body," A rendered image of the Krarga showed up on the display and several locations were highlighted out.
"This fat acts as a shock absorbent and also as a self sealing band-aid," Dr. Sharon showed another image. "We dug two of this out from its body, buried inside its blubber." An image of two battered looking 3" shell heads was laid out alongside dozens of other items.
"We also found a total of 86 expended .50 cal bullets and 43 20mm shells intact inside its body," Dr. Sharon read out a list. "Hundreds of shrapnel, most likely from the bombs casing or shattered ammunition and also dozens of what we believed to be teeth or claws of other sea monsters embedded inside its fat."
"Cause of death is by overpressure," Dr. Sharon said next. "The High Explosives impacts from the 3" shells and the 50kg bombs ruptured its internal organs. You should have seen the mess it made in the science labs, the guys will be cleaning out that place for months!"
"So, Doc," Chief Engineer Matt spoke up, "Does this means our current conventional weapons are useless against it?"
"Yes and no," Dr. Sharon replied. "Hmmm, low caliber weapons will be useless, but thermobaric weapons should mess them up pretty well."
"Hmm," Blake frowned. "This creature sounds a lot like the Swarm..."
The people both gathered around the conference table or attending online all mumbled in agreement.
"Well genetically they do not match each other," Dr. Sharon explained over the concerned mumblings. "Don't forget that the Swarm takes on the traits of the species it consumed. So I will not be surprised if the Swarm had encountered a similar creature like this over the galaxy and took on some of its traits."
"Alright," Blake clapped his hands to gather everyone's attention. "The way to kill it is to bomb it till it dies from internal injuries or hit it with a bigger gun right?"
Dr. Sharon rolled her eyes before replying, "In a simplified way, yes..."
"Ok..." Blake turned to Master Sergeant Pike's image and said, "Top, I want you to get Ordnance to work out some kind of depth charge for both the Navy and Airforce and also to expedite the new guns."
Pike nodded as he took down some notes. "Yes, Sir!"
"Doc, continue your research on the creature and see if we can make use of it hides or blubber for any military or civil applications," Blake ordered. "What else?"
"Continuing on," Dr. Sharon switched the images again and this time, an image of an Island Whale appeared. "We found some interesting things on these creatures."
"By luck, we actually found the backs or islands of these creatures to contain several lodes of energy stones," Dr. Sharon said excitedly. "If you all could remember, we fought and defeated a T Rex Godzilla like monster inside the dungeons."
"On its body, we harvested crystals we dubbed as 'Energy stones', which are in essence a solidified condensation of pure energy," Dr. Sharon explained. "These stones had all been converted into a stable liquid electrolyte that is currently been used for the Point Defense Laser turrets and the ship's main rail gun batteries."
"The amount we harvested from the T Rex only limited to over a dozen charges," Dr. Sharon said. "But we struck gold here!"
"We estimated from the amount we managed to uncover that the Island Whales has close to over a hundred charges or more of the Energy stones!" Dr. Sharon displayed the next few imageries of their findings on the Island Whales.
"Captain, I propose that we increase all resource to mine this material," Dr. Sharon said to Blake. "As we do not know when will the Island Whales depart as clearly, they are migrating creatures as evidenced from the tropical floral on their backs."
"What are the risks?" Blake asked as he pondered on the Doctor's request. "We do not really need to rely solely on the energy stones as our power grid is now able to handle most of the ship's onboard weapons."
"Risks..." Dr. Sharon frowned before answering, "I have no guarantees on the risks as we totally have no idea nor any habitual information of these Island Whales. But so far, they are pretty docile."
"We managed to extract some blood from one of the Whales and even mined some samples of the energy stones out," Dr. Sharon clarified. "So far the Whales reminded as they were as before, feasting on plankton and jellyfish."
"I believe this is an opportunity that we shouldn't waste," Chief Engineer Matt spoke up for Dr. Sharon. "Having another energy resource at our disposal allows us to have backups in case of SHTF* (*Shit Hits The Fan) situations."
"What do you think?" Blake turned to Ford and asked.
"I would agree too," Ford replied. "If we can harvest more resources, it will only help us in the long run."
Blake nodded and said, "Go for it but take all precautions. I don't wanna lose lives just for a few energy stones."
"Yes, Sir!"
-----
"Captain!" Pike remained behind in the video conference as everyone left or logged out. "A minute of your time, Sir!"
"What is it, Top?" Blake stopped in his tracks.
"Sir, I think you might want to come down to Ordnance for a look," Pike smiled mysteriously.
"Ok, sure." Blake agreed and Ford gave a shrug as Blake gave him a questioning look.
-----
Ford stepped on the accelerator of the Jeep and grinned, "Damn, I missed driving!"
Blake laughed as he sat back on the seat while Ford continued, "I have spent like almost a month out at sea and at the port, it's not like I have any chance to drive!"
"Well, go slow, I don't wanna spend my time in the hospital under Dr. Sharon's care!"
"Heh, well, I think I know who you would rather care for you, yes?" Ford shot a sly grin at Blake who laughed back.
"So how's the princess?" Ford asked as he took an exit out of the side streets and towards the East Gate. "When you guys plan to wed?"
"Hmm, we still haven't thought of when is the wedding," Blake sadly replied. "That's just too much on our plates now."
"Oh come on!" Ford moaned. "Just set a date and leave the rest to the staff to handle! Is it that hard to do?"
"True," Blake nodded. "I will talk to her later about this."
"Goddamn," Ford shook his head. "I seriously worry for your relationship!"
"How about you?" Blake quickly changed the subject. "Anyone, you are interested in?"
"Ha! Who can I find when I am mostly out at sea?" Ford replied as the guards waved them through the checkpoint at the East Gate. "I just leave it to fate."
"Hmmm," Blake smiled. "Well, maybe I should let you meet up with the Islanders more, that girl Megan is quite pretty!"
"Don't you start!" Ford raised an eyebrow as he raced down the Eastern Highway. "I'm not that desperate... yet!"
"Hahaha," Blake laughed. "I wonder what Top wants us to see?"
-----
1 km East of Base Colony, Ordnance Research Divison Facility
Ford pulled the Jeep to a stop and reversed into a parking lot before the two officers exited the vehicle. They entered the secured facility and found Pike at outside a hangar like structure.
"Sirs!" Pike with the rest of the waiting techs and staff saluted as the two officers walked up and returned the salutes. "Welcome to ORD."
"Well, what's the urgency here?" Blake asked as he followed Pike towards the hangar doors.
"Hehe, Sir," Pike grinned. "I think you would like this!"
Pike turned to one of the techs and nodded, and the hangar doors crunched open while everyone stood back from the doors.
Blake waited with curiosity at the side and he suddenly laughed madly as he saw what stomped its way out of the hangar. "Hahahaha, goddamn it! You guys really did it?"
A five meter tall, six-legged multi-joint walker, similar in design to the ASASGs walked out of the hangar with a crab like grit. An open hatch with clearly a pilot sat on the forward facing of the spider tank and with a turret on its back.
It looked like a 21st century armored vehicle but without tracks, having six multi joint legs instead. while a machine gun blister sat on each side of the walker.
"The Manned Armored Walker 'Bushmaster' or MAW," Pike proudly presented the walker as it stormed its way over to a testing field. "Armed with a 3" stub gun and a dual 10 cell 70mm rocket pods with a coaxial MG, a cupola mounted MG, a co pilot MG and an MG casemate on the flanks."
"It runs with a crew of 7 and can carry up to 30 tons of gear and equipment." Pike led the awestruck officers to the testing field. "Its multi jointed legs allow it to easily maneuver over the roots of the trees in the forest giving it an average speed of 19 kilometers per hour,"
"While moving over relatively flat terrain, it can go up to 28 kilometers per hour," Pike said. "It also can go wheels down, which will increase its speed to 46 kilometers per hour."
"Damn, I didn't expect you guys to really come out with this!" Blake grinned as he admired the walker painted in the local forest green blue camo scheme.
"Well its design and programming came from Senior Spaceman Tae-joon Pak, Spaceman Hideo Koichi, and of course, Irisval who crafted the frames of the golems." Pike gave credit to the trio. "As we lack AI cores, we decided to have a person pilot these instead."
"With the so called 'Magic programming code' which SS Pak and SM Koichi invented, " Pike struggled with a straight as he explained. "They managed to devise a system which the golem will move following a certain set of controls."
"Since the golem does not need any processing power for autonomous control, the amount of energy it uses also is greatly reduced," Pike patted the spider tank. "It can function on average, ten hours on combat situations and sixteen hours on non combat situations."
"Armor is 50 mm thick rolled homogeneous steel with explosive reactive armor plating," Pike pointed to the blocking stabs lining the sides of the spider tank. "Internally the framework of the golem is made out of porous stone mixed with ceramic clay that allows it to absorb any shock and giving it some flexible to prevent any breakage."
Blake and Ford stared up at the sloping side armor of the spider tank and followed Pike's lead as he climbed up from one of the multi-jointed legs.
The test crew stood on the top of the tank and showed off their new vehicle with pride as the two officers gawked at the machine.
"Damn, just in time to show it off for Founding Day!"
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Here comes the mechs!
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