Chapter 20

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A tactical team of stealth submarines, using combined acoustic and fluid cloaking, monitored the leviathan's movement. The US military restricted all air and water space within a hundred-mile circumference of the threat. While the special squadron awaited orders, it emitted infrasound, employing long wavelength noise in the water.

The waters turned hypnotizing; nanos fine-tuned the buoyancy of their vessel. They struggled to ignore the spellbinding clatter. Titan hung twenty-five meters below the surface. At that depth the water density muffled the buzz that threatened to bewitch him.

The nanos monitored the cloaked submarines lurking in the distance.

Titan sorted through the noise and listened for his family's coda. He kept his family a safe distance from the enemy that lay in wait. Thoughts of his clan and their activities filled his mind. He envisioned one particularly boastful friend herding a school of mackerel toward their pod. He pictured her pridefully slapping her tail on the water in delight as her family feasted. He knew a certain pock-faced elder, her massive head white with scars, would scold such arrogance.

Titan vowed never to expose his pod to danger again. The brutal retaliation Titan had executed against several ill-fated submarines had ended quickly. Clearly, the danger was after him. He knew it hid close by.

Safety of the biological fleet/family is critical.

Periodically, Titan edged closer to the shadowy threat that hovered in the distance, while nanos scrutinized counter maneuvers, watching for any threat.

The nanos no longer adjusted for emotional state – nano and temperament functioned as one. The joint awareness understood his ability to focus on attackers and destroy them.

Titan examined the past several months. Nothing added up, but everything made sense. Though he had been undoubtedly injured several times during the previous attacks, there were no visible wounds. Memory of familiar faces and places differed from the vistas and visages he'd encountered since his return to the pod. However, there was no doubt he was with his family.

Indisputably his body was the least fragile of his pod, but he tired easily at the surface. His vision was imprecise. None the less, when he focused hatred onto an object, he destroyed it. He had done it, and now danger stayed away. As long as he heard his pod, he had no reason to attack. The unnatural hum vibrating throughout the water numbed him. He continued to listen to his pod, and if they fell silent, he would attack again.


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