Ice Station

One yard away.

He looked up desperately at Sarah, and she dropped to her knees at the edge of the deck.

He got there. Slammed into the metal rim of the deck like a Olympic swimmer hitting the wall at the end of a race. He reached up, grabbed Sarah's outstretched hand. Sarah was just beginning to haul him up onto the deck when suddenly the water behind him parted and one of the killer whales burst up out of it. The big whale opened its mouth wide and enveloped Conlon's body from foot to chest.

Conlon went bug-eyed as the killer clamped down hard on his chest and Sarah tried desperately to hold onto his hand, but the killer was too strong. When it dropped back down into the water it yanked so hard on Cordon's body that Sarah felt the terrified scientist's fingernails scratch her skin and draw blood, and then suddenly his hand was out of her grasp and she fell to the deck and watched in horror as Warren Conlon disappeared under the water right in front of her eyes.

A few yards away, Mother and Rebound were also approaching the deck.

Rebound swam hard as Mother turned in the water and fired her MP-5 under the surface. One of the first things they teach you at Parris Island, the legendary training camp of the United States Marine Corps, is the resistance that water offers against gunfire. Indeed, the average bullet will lose nearly all of its velocity in less man two meters of water. After that it will just slow to a halt and sink to the bottom.

Such physical laws, however, didn't seem to be bothering Mother right now. She just waited until the killers got close and then she fired hard. The bullets appeared to penetrate the outer skin, but they didn't seem to do much damage. Mother fired and hit, and the killers momentarily darted away, but they always seemed to come back, unhurt, undeterred.

Rebound hit the deck and was about to climb up onto it when he turned and saw Mother behind him.

She was looking down to her left, her gun arm jolting repeatedly as she fired at something under the water. And then suddenly her gun arm stopped its jolting movement and Mother looked confused. Her gun wasn't firing anymore.

Frozen ammo.

 Rebound watched as Mother shook her MP-5 in disgust, as if shaking it would somehow make it work again.

It was then that Rebound saw an ominous dark shadow slithering upward underneath the surface, silently approaching Mother from her right.

'Mother! Check right!'

Mother heard him and spun instantly and saw the killer whale rising beneath her. Her gun now useless, Mother just pivoted in the water and lifted her legs up sharply and the killer barreled past her, missing her feet by inches.

But then, just when Rebound thought it had passed her by, the killer whale abruptly changed course and broke the surface of the water and wrapped its jaws around Mother's gun hand.

Mother yelled in pain and released her MP-5, yanking her hand free just as the whale bit down on the gun.

A gash of red appeared instantly above her wrist. Blood slicked her entire forearm.

But her hand was still there.

Mother didn't care. Now gunless, she just swam like hell for the water's edge.

Rebound hoisted himself onto the deck and turned and urged Mother on.

'Move it, Mother! Pick it up, baby!'

 Mother swam.

Rebound knelt at the edge of the deck.

Black shadows cut back and forth behind Mother's frantically swimming frame.

Black shapes everywhere. Too many of them. And then, suddenly, it dawned on Rebound.

Mother wasn't going to get to the deck in time.

 Then, as if right on cue, a massive black silhouette appeared in the water right behind Mother's frantically kicking legs.

It closed in slowly, through the rippling translucent water, and Rebound saw a pink slit appear across its enormous black-and-white jawline.

Its mouth was opening.

 Teeth appeared and Rebound felt his blood run cold.

Through the crystalline water he saw the black shadow slowly rise and rise behind Mother until it overtook her legs and allowed them to kick inside its wide open mouth.

And then, with an ominous sense of finality, the big whale's jaws closed slowly around Mother's knees.

The jolt that Mother experienced was incredible in its ferocity.

Rebound watched in horror as the killer whale yanked her under. The water around Mother started to froth and bubble and blood began to fan out, but Mother was struggling fiercely, putting up a hell of a fight.

Suddenly she broke the surface and so did the killer. Somehow, during their underwater scuffle, Mother must have managed to get one of her legs free from the killer's jaws, because now she was using it to kick down hard on the big whale's snout.

'You motherfucker!' she screamed. 'I'm gonna fucking kill you!' But it had her by the other leg and it wasn't letting go.

Abruptly Mother shot forward in the water, raising a wash of white waves in front of her. The whale was pushing her forward, toward Rebound and the deck.

And then?clang!?Mother slammed down hard against the edge of the deck and, amazingly, managed to get a handhold on the metal grating.

'Fucking kill you! You son of a bitchl' Mother yelled through clenched teeth.

Rebound dived forward and grabbed her hand as she grimly held the deck and struggled with the killer whale in a tug-of-war over her own body.

Then Rebound saw Mother draw her powerful Colt automatic pistol from its holster and level it at the killer whale's head. 'Oh, fuck me ...,' Rebound said.

'You want to eat something, baby?' Mother said to the whale. 'Eat this.'

She fired.

A small blast of yellow light flared out from the muzzle of Mother's gun as the flash of her pistol ignited the gaseous air around her. Both she and Rebound were hurled a full five yards backward onto the deck by the concussion wave.

The whale wasn't so lucky. As soon as the bullet entered its brain, the killer convulsed violently backward, snapping upward. Then it just fell limply back into the water amid a cloud of its own blood, its final prize?garnered in the split second before it died?a portion of Mother's left leg. Everything from the left knee down.

Schofield and Kirsty were still out in the middle of the pool, caught halfway between the diving bell in the center and the deck twenty-five feet away.

With their backs pressed against each other, they both looked fearfully about themselves. The water around them was ominously still. Quiet. Calm.

'Mister,' Kirsty said, her voice barely a whisper. Her jaw was quivering, a combination of fear and cold.

'What?' Schofield kept his eyes trained on the water around him.

'I'm scared.'

'Scared?' Schofield said, not exactly hiding his own fear very well. 'I didn't think kids these days were afraid of anything. Don't they have this kind of stuff at Sea World?'

At that moment, one of the killer whales shot up out of the water right in front of Schofield. It rose out of the water and arced down fast, heading right for him and Kirsty!

'Go under!' Schofield yelled as he saw the two rows of jagged white teeth open wide in front of him.

He held his breath and ducked underwater, pulling Kirsty down with him.

The world suddenly went silent as the killer whale's immense white underbelly thundered over the top of