It wasn't easy... continued

Continued from earlier...

No, it didn't look like Dr. Zoidberg, but that's an awesome painting.  Not one of mine, unfortunately.

The first thing I had to do was stop the alarms beeping... and as I hit both the radar and sonar switches, I saw a gigantic tentacle fall right in front of me.  It was so close, I knew I had only one chance.  I saw that the tentacle had too much downward momentum, I knew that extending the sub-surface fins and diving under wasn't an option, so I did the exact opposite.  I pushed the throttle forward to full, and I was pushed back in my chair as the triple engines raged to their maximum thrust.  The bow raised up as I went from a hard left at 60 knots to  a straight run at 120.  The bow hit the top of the partially submerged tentacle, and I went airborne.  I knew this was my chance to get the best shot possible on most of the creature, so I grabbed the weapons joystick and jabbed the reverse angle button on the viewer.  I quickly targeted about half a dozen flailing tentacles, and just on chance, I sent another three missiles toward what I estimated as the center of the whole mess.  I closed my finger around the "fire" trigger and two seconds later the boat hit the water.

I saw a blinding flash in the viewer and a split second later it surrounded the ship, lighting up the ocean like daylight for a half mile in every direction.  The boat bounced across the water twice like a flat stone on a lake, then grabbed hold of the water and shot forward fully powered again.  I glanced between the rear viewer and the sonar for a minute, and breathed a sigh of relief as I saw several separate blips fading away behind me on the sonar.  The big blip kept moving though... I could tell it was still alive.  

I had made it, survived The Kraken.  We had survived it before, aboard The Abyss... but we were a crew of many on a large ship then.  I knew it was rare to see it twice, but since it was in the area I felt bad that I couldn't warn the skeleton crew left aboard my old ship.  I don't know what's worse, The Kraken or those Nazi Pests, but I hope they survive both.  I know we'll meet again somewhere, some day.  Maybe Singapore, maybe The Maldives.  Who knows?  It's a big ocean... 

It wasn't easy...

Right after I jumped from "The Plank" to the hull of my boat, (almost exactly like Earthrace, only a dazzling blue and green paint job) I felt a remarkable sense of calm come over me.  There's a reason the word "freedom" begins with the word "free".  Freedom doesn't mean do whatever you want, of course, but any restrictions on freedom should be reasonable and not end up costing any sane person a large part of their sanity.  When freedom ends up costing too much it becomes costdom, and there's no room for costdom on this planet.  Wow, I just saw Carrie Fisher on a weight loss commercial.  Imagine that, Princess Leia turned into Jabba The Hutt.  Looks like she's making a solid effort at reversing the damage. 

Anyway, I digress.  the sun was setting as I roared off into the expanse of the seemingly boundless Pacific  ocean, waving that special finger at the evil Nazi Pests, (as they'll be referred to any time the unlikely event arises where I MUST refer to them).   I set the boat on auto cruise, and went up on deck for a cold beer and a shmoke.  I knew I'd see my friends aboard The Abyss again, but I felt kind of sad as I watched the ship get smaller and smaller behind me.  When it finally disappeared over the horizon, I went back inside and cooked a nice big bacon cheeseburger.  I throttled back to half so I'd run the shipping lanes in the daytime, and set the volume on the radar to maximum then I reclined the Captain's chair waaaaay back, and dozed off. 

I woke up to a sound I hadn't expected... and as my brain cleared, I recognized the alarm I was hearing not as the radar, but the sonar.  I also realized that based on the pitch, it was something massive, larger even than blue whales which I had passed close by before.  Then another alarm filled the cockpit... this time, the radar!  I flipped on the external floodlights and swerved the boat hard over to avoid whatever was directly in front of me.  I saw a huge towering column of writhing flesh, easily ten feet in diameter, and as I passed by, I saw the suckers... as big as sewer hole covers!  It was the Kraken!  Aaaaahhhhhhh!

To be continued...