DV-1. This was Dakuvanga. If the bridge tower they had seen in the depths of the night had been the brain of the Tavuto , this had to be its heart. Or at least its gigantic, muscly arm.
Clumps of decking clung to the vertical immensity of the structure like bracket fungus encrusting an ancient tree, pocked with windows and sprouting booms, cables and pulley-clubbed cranes. As he watched, one of Dakuvanga’s subsidiary arms swung ponderously across the deck; in its grip, a boat that would have seemed enormous in a less insane context was lifted from its bracket on the central hull and into the mist-hidden chaos ahead.
Wrack found his attention torn from the huge boat’s progress by the throaty rumble of a diesel engine; a battered flatbed truck had pulled up beside their clump of stragglers, and the overseer in the cab was leaning out to engage in frantic conversation with their herder.
“We reeled out a chunk of the Bahamut as a decoy, but ET saw past it—it’s come for the whole thing,” shouted the truck’s driver, above the growing din of grinding metal and klaxons.
“Is it going for the ship?” said the grille-faced woman, spreading her arms in bafflement.
“How the hell would I know?” snapped the driver. “Either way, we’re going to need all the meat we can get amidships, and we need it already there. So are you going to load up or what?”
The overseer leapt up into the cab with surprising agility, and the engine revved. Before he could look around for Mouana or the commander, Wrack found himself picked from the floor like a side of meat by the brutish arms of an overseer and tumbled into the back of the truck with a mass of other zombies. Two other bodies were lumped on top of him, arms and legs flailing like turtles in a barrel.
The vehicle lurched into motion just as Wrack was trying to right himself, sending him slamming back into the once-human meat pile on its back. Acceleration shoved his face against the mass of sores coating another zombie’s belly, and his neck made a noise that would have made him wince if he had been alive. Thrusting away from the rotting body, he managed to hook an arm over the truck’s side, and pulled himself out of the writhing mass of confused bodies to rest on the metal edge.
With another mechanical growl, the truck burst through the dissipating mist hanging above the Tavuto ’s starboard flank and barrelled onto empty decking. A stray zombie folded under its bull-bars with a cracking thud; one side of the truck lurched into the air for half a second as it went under a wheel.
Wrack’s teeth clattered against his tongue as the truck hit the ground again, filling his mouth with the cloying reek of what passed for blood. Gripping the side of the speeding vehicle with trembling ferocity, he craned his neck and took in a scene of unreal proportions.
To their right, the Tavuto ’s side opened up into a vast lagoon; a sea-filled bay at least half a mile long, steel-floored and encircled by tower-studded walls. Along its inner wall, a row of mighty cranes bristled with house-sized cutting equipment, while on its outer edge, enormous latticed gates stood open to Ocean.
Inside the lagoon was a corpse of incomprehensible scale. Filling the bay from end to end was a fish, or a whale, or something else, collapsed and flabby and distended in death. Swathes of its skin were crusted in barnacles, corals and tubeworm casts, while barbels and fins the size of streets rose and fell on the swell of the waves. The Bahamut, Wrack assumed.
A cloud of grey water was birthed from a sprawling wound in its belly, spilling indistinct clouds of innard; spawning a boil of lampreys, hagfish, saw-suckers and carrion skate. The bay’s gates were sliding slowly shut, but the hoary slick of filth flowed through their lattice, fountaining over the lip of the lagoon and into the currents beyond.
It had been smelled.
As the truck sped along the row of saw-cranes, Wrack watched transfixed
Clumps of decking clung to the vertical immensity of the structure like bracket fungus encrusting an ancient tree, pocked with windows and sprouting booms, cables and pulley-clubbed cranes. As he watched, one of Dakuvanga’s subsidiary arms swung ponderously across the deck; in its grip, a boat that would have seemed enormous in a less insane context was lifted from its bracket on the central hull and into the mist-hidden chaos ahead.
Wrack found his attention torn from the huge boat’s progress by the throaty rumble of a diesel engine; a battered flatbed truck had pulled up beside their clump of stragglers, and the overseer in the cab was leaning out to engage in frantic conversation with their herder.
“We reeled out a chunk of the Bahamut as a decoy, but ET saw past it—it’s come for the whole thing,” shouted the truck’s driver, above the growing din of grinding metal and klaxons.
“Is it going for the ship?” said the grille-faced woman, spreading her arms in bafflement.
“How the hell would I know?” snapped the driver. “Either way, we’re going to need all the meat we can get amidships, and we need it already there. So are you going to load up or what?”
The overseer leapt up into the cab with surprising agility, and the engine revved. Before he could look around for Mouana or the commander, Wrack found himself picked from the floor like a side of meat by the brutish arms of an overseer and tumbled into the back of the truck with a mass of other zombies. Two other bodies were lumped on top of him, arms and legs flailing like turtles in a barrel.
The vehicle lurched into motion just as Wrack was trying to right himself, sending him slamming back into the once-human meat pile on its back. Acceleration shoved his face against the mass of sores coating another zombie’s belly, and his neck made a noise that would have made him wince if he had been alive. Thrusting away from the rotting body, he managed to hook an arm over the truck’s side, and pulled himself out of the writhing mass of confused bodies to rest on the metal edge.
With another mechanical growl, the truck burst through the dissipating mist hanging above the Tavuto ’s starboard flank and barrelled onto empty decking. A stray zombie folded under its bull-bars with a cracking thud; one side of the truck lurched into the air for half a second as it went under a wheel.
Wrack’s teeth clattered against his tongue as the truck hit the ground again, filling his mouth with the cloying reek of what passed for blood. Gripping the side of the speeding vehicle with trembling ferocity, he craned his neck and took in a scene of unreal proportions.
To their right, the Tavuto ’s side opened up into a vast lagoon; a sea-filled bay at least half a mile long, steel-floored and encircled by tower-studded walls. Along its inner wall, a row of mighty cranes bristled with house-sized cutting equipment, while on its outer edge, enormous latticed gates stood open to Ocean.
Inside the lagoon was a corpse of incomprehensible scale. Filling the bay from end to end was a fish, or a whale, or something else, collapsed and flabby and distended in death. Swathes of its skin were crusted in barnacles, corals and tubeworm casts, while barbels and fins the size of streets rose and fell on the swell of the waves. The Bahamut, Wrack assumed.
A cloud of grey water was birthed from a sprawling wound in its belly, spilling indistinct clouds of innard; spawning a boil of lampreys, hagfish, saw-suckers and carrion skate. The bay’s gates were sliding slowly shut, but the hoary slick of filth flowed through their lattice, fountaining over the lip of the lagoon and into the currents beyond.
It had been smelled.
As the truck sped along the row of saw-cranes, Wrack watched transfixed
Similar Books
