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Wreck of the King of the Orinoco, Off the Coast of the Bahamas
Backs against the door, fingers on the triggers of their amphibious rifles Danika and Stein opened fire, thick flachettes scything through the water up at the spider like drones scuttling on the ceiling of the Rec Room, metallic bodies drifting down from the ceiling like a metallic hailstorm. After what felt like an age, the sound of scuttling stopped and both the mercenary divers took a deep sigh of relief, before a piercing scream sounded as the 'flying wing' drone from earlier attacked the door, it's silhouette blocking out the light of the window and plunging the rec room into darkness. Aiming his rifle at the door, Stein felt Danika tug his hand down, as she fiddled with something in the darkness. Releasing the hand moments later she swum to the door and twisted the top of her acetylene torch, sparks lighting up the room for a brief second as she stabbed the tool into revolving drill mechanism of the attacking drone, hot sparks spitting around the room for one long moment before, with a thud the drone drifted down to the deck.
Now trapped in the Rec Room, Stein and Sedova searched around the walls for another escape route, and eventually came across a metal hatch that led into the ship's galley. Unholstering his Powerhead, Stein placed the gun's barrel against the blockage and opened fire, the exploding gas cartridge blowing the doors open, dim light know filling the room. Squeezing through the hatch, Danika removed her diving knife and eased the damaged hinges off the hatch thus allowing Stein to follow her into the kitchen. Their path was clear from there, with the main door to the galley blown off their hinges.
"That's not the work of these drones." Danika whispered as the pair of them swam out into the hallway, before crawling back towards the middle car deck only to find the pedestrian doors welded shut. "Somebody attacked this ship before sinking it."
"They're hiding something too." Stein answered, as he swam back towards the galley before swimming down around the ship's portside exterior hull plating, Danika following his wake until they reached the front of the ship, the vehicle ramp to the middle car deck locket tight save for a hole drilled into the steel plates. Keeping their amphibious rifles to hand, the pair of divers swum through the hole and straight into the car deck, the vehicles on board swarming with multiple spider like maintenance drones, each one fixated with either draining the fuel from the cars or ripping metal parts off the cargo. Occasionally one of the drones would scuttle over to a massive structure lined with thick silver canisters, bubbles streaming from the central chimney like structure. Sitting next to the device were four of the 'flying wings' all resting on the deck, seemingly powered down.
Swimming over Danika ran her hand over the disabled drone, before being swarmed by a trio of the spider drones, the gawky little arachnids pushing her away as a fourth drone scuttled over to the machine, removed a canister and carried it over to the drone, before its compatriots flipped open a rear compartment on the drone and slotted in the canister. Shuddering the 'flying wing' surged forward before lazily swung round to the exit hole, and slipped back out into the open ocean.
"Some kind of recharging system." Danika whispered, as a few of the drones deposited the fuel they had stockpiled in their own tanks into the central structure. "If we destroy that then these things die when their on-board batteries run out."
"Got just the thing." Stein replied, as he brought out a bandolier filled with acetylene torch fuel cells. "Slot those into the vacant battery slots." He ordered as Danika took a fistful of fuel cells and quickly slotted them into the slots before swimming to a hole in the floor where Stein was waiting, his hands on his amphibious rifle before taking a few shots, the cell sparking before exploding, triggering the nearest batteries and fuel cells to explode until a chain reaction engulfed the recharging station, the pair of saboteurs dropping down into the relative safety of the lower car deck.
Darting out of the lower car deck, Danika and Stein swam out towards the depth line, their amphibious rifles held close to them despite the surrounding ocean being devoid of the 'flying wing' drones. Clipping onto the line the pair of divers ascended to the bottom of the nearest segment just as a deep thud rocked the King of the Orinoco, and part of the superstructure collapsed in on itself, crushing the repair and refuel station that had been concealed in the bowls of the ship. For a moment everything was silent, but then multiple spider like maintenance drones came swarming out of the ship and towards the depth line.
Pointing upwards Danika watched as Stein tapped his diving watch before opening fire on the approaching swarm, the dart like rounds slashing through the drones, thick clouds of siphoned petrol and dissolved human fat leaking out of the ones he hit. Despite the damage, those drones that remained intact kept on coming, before climbing up the depth line towards the two fleeing divers. Just as the first few drones reached them Stein pointed upwards and swam up the next marker on the dive line. Pursuing them the drones continued to fall as both divers repelled the scuttling invasion.
Suddenly a shadow passed overhead stealing the divers focus away from the drones, as one of the ray like 'flying wings' veered round to get a clean run on its targets. Swimming towards them, the drone almost reached them, only to be blindsided by one of the Proteus's ROVs, the tiny submarines clawed arms pushing the attacking drone down toward the sea bed. Turning their focus back down to the creeping maintenance drones, Stein screamed in pain as one of the spider like crawlers drilled into his leg, the muscle and fat draining from his leg as the drone sucked the chemicals out to refill its internal fuel supply. Dropping down slightly Danika removed the Powerhead from her holster and placed the weapon against the fuel tank and fired, the expanding gas blowing the robot to pieces.
"Go!" Stein ordered as he took the Powehead from Danika before handing her a few spare amphibious rifle clips. "I can barely move, I'll hold the line as long as I can."
"I'm come back for you." Danika whispered as she ascended the depth line as Stein opened fire with the Powerhead, the drones splattering as they were mowed down by her comrade. Stopping at the next point Danika looked up just in time to see another 'flying wing' soaring towards her, its drill apparatus already churning ready for the kill. Firing a few shots Danika watched as all but one of the rounds bounced off, the on target shot hitting the port control surface sending the drone into a spin, straight into the depth line, the thickened cable tangling in the drill before it and everything attached to it was dragged back down towards the wreck of the King of the Orinoco.
Hitting the deck, it took Danika a few seconds to push herself off the bottom, her joints aching as she did so. Swimming upwards she scanned the immediate area for Stein, the hostile drones, the friendly ROV or anything moving in the sediment strewn water, but nothing stirred. Checking her air supply Danika headed upwards, her mind on edge just in case any of the drones returned for another attack, each stop increasing the level of adrenaline in her blood stream so that, when she emerged at the surface, her entire body was buzzing and for good reason too, a fishing trawler had pulled alongside the Proteus, the two vessels connected by a boarding ramp.
Shucking her air tank and checking the ammunition in her amphibious rifle Danika dived under the water and swum under the trawler towards a makeshift dive platform mounted on the rear. Poking her head above the surface Danika took note of the old soviet AA gun mounted on the back of the boat and the three pirates dressed in board shorts and t-shirts smoking next to the ammunition supply, their MP5 SMGs slung over the shoulder. These men were at rest, they must have already pacified the crew of the Proteus and were waiting on orders. Those orders weren't coming, Danika thought, as she opened fire, thick darts stabbing into the men, their bodies hitting the deck with a loud clatter. Not wasting any time, Danika climbed onto the deck, pausing only to grab one of the dropped SMGs and kick off her fins, before walking over to the boarding ramp.
Ascending the ramp, Danika reached the top with only the occasional cink of her shark-suit threatening to reveal her position. Walking over to one of the cranes, Danika slipped under the maintenance platform before letting out a short whistle. Seconds later a pirate armed with a shotgun emerged from the door to the bridge, his gun swivelling as he looked for the source of a sound he'd never find, a quick hail of darts bringing him to the floor. Three whistles later brought three more pirates up from below decks each one falling as Danika emptied the last clip of her amphibious rifle. Dropping the weapon she drew her dive knife and knocked on the door, before stepping to the side, blade raised to stab down into the pirate's skull as he emerged.
The unfortunate victim struggled for a bit, but put up no resistance to her attack, however his gear was streets ahead of the men who'd emerged before him. His assault rifle alone was more advanced than the shotguns and SMGs the other pirates had wielded, and Danika recognised the camera feed scope and uplink helmet he wore from the few times she'd used such equipment. Slipping the helmet on, she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the helmet feed hadn't been synched to any other matching pieces of headwear the pirate crew may have brought on-board. Opening up the link, half of the optics showed the inside of the bridge, the captain on his knees as a tall dark skinned man dressed in military fatigues and a shark toothed bandana pointed a rifle with a wide flat barrel at the bloodied and bruised man.
"Tell me Captain Webber, who was it you hired to aid in the exploration of the King of the Orinoco’s wreck?" The pirate captain asked, as the mercenary wearing the helmet turned to look out the window, before focusing back on the action.
"Someone better than you Andreas!" Webber snarled before spitting on the man he'd just named boot. Danika knew the name, most sailors and mercenaries did, Henri Andreas, a former resident of the land-locked nation Luxembourg was on Interpol's most wanted list for multiple accounts of piracy and mass murder. He was certainly a dangerous foe, one who was laughing at Webber's resistance.
"Fair enough Captain, from one sailor to another I respect your gumption. May you rest in peace." He sighed, before pulling the trigger, hundreds of rounds slashing through Webber, his body vaporizing in a thin mist of blood. "Call the men back, we are scuttling this ship by the hours end. Get the drones ready, I'll deal with the specialist myself, now move, we're on a schedule, anyone who falls behind will be left behind on a one way trip to the depths!!"
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