Out of Space

Chapter 223: Friendly Giants

Bursts of salty water sprays drizzled over Dr. Sharon as she soaked in the sun on the forward decks as the PT boat engines roared over the sounds of crashing waves. She carefully shuffled her way next to a green faced Magister Thorn who looked like he was gonna collapse anytime.

"How are you doing?" Dr. Sharon grinned at the sickly looking Magister.

Thorn gagged as he tried to keep himself from vomiting from the seasickness. "Th- this is not wh- what I call enjoyable..."

Dr. Sharon laughed and whooped as the craft bounced higher while the crewmen secretly sniggered behind their stations. Despite being only a 15 minutes ride, the rough journey made Thorn seriously sick as he had never experienced something like this before.

"Look, we are reaching already!" Dr. Sharon grabbed Thorn and shook him excitedly, making him groan and leaned over the side to puke.

"Hold on to ya hats!" A cry came out from the pilot house and suddenly the PT boat swung madly to starboard, turning a sharp 180 degrees and throwing a large sheet of water into the air.

Magister Thorn yelled in fright as he felt himself flying off the buckled seating while Dr. Sharon laughed madly.

The PT boat finally settled down next to a curious Island Whale which the pod of Island Whales had stationed themselves several kilometers away from land.

The huge beakhead of the Island Whale peered out from the water surface and blinked its beady eyes. There was a pale scar that ran from under its left eye all the way down to its long neck. It bayed out a cry of greeting before sinking its head down underwater to feed on the numerous plankton and jellyfish like organisms.

The pilot smoothly reversed the PT boat so that the stern of the boat faced the creature and the crew dropped two inflatable dingies over the side.

"Thorn?" Dr. Sharon dug into her medical pouch and handed him a space sickness pill and a bottle of water. "Take this, it will help you with motion sickness."

Thorn gratefully accepted the pill and swallowed it with the water. After a while, he felt better, the giddiness had subsided and he here no longer felt like vomiting.

The crew called out for the Science Team to gather at the stern to board the dingies. On the other sides of the PT boat, similar scenes played out on two other PT boats as Marines boarded the dingies in ones and twos.

Seaman Lero ensured his shotgun was strapped securely behind his back as he took the spot on the electric motor of the dingy. The Science Team slowly made their way down to the dingies, five on each with two naval crewmen with them.

Once everyone had settled down, Lero powered the motor up and pointed the dingy towards 'land'. The inflatable dingies were taken from the life craft of their spaceship scrapped gently up the beach of the Island Whale.

"Alright out!" Lero yelled out to the team on his dingy. "Everyone help pull the boat up! We don't want it to be washed away by the waves or tide!"

Dr. Sharon's boot hit the sandy beach and she looked around in wonder. "How this creature is able to carry an island on its back?"

She returned to help the rest tug the boat up the beach and quickly turned her attention to her surroundings. If she did not see the head of the Island Whale, she would have thought that this was a real island!

The only difference from a tropical Earth type foliage was the colors of the leaves and species of trees and plants. Driftwood and other sea debris littered what appeared to be a tide line. Sharon could even see several small crustaceans species running about on the sand.

Cries of wyvern nesting in the trees echoed out together with sounds of other creatures and insects that vied with each other for attention.

"This is amazing!" Dr. Sharon cried out as she activated her shoulder mounted video camera while the Marines that landed spread out in a protective formation.

Lero and the other naval crewmembers lugged out crates of equipment from the dingies and a few Science Team members quickly set up instruments and other unknown equipment that Lero could only guess their purpose.

"Hey, Doc!" Sergeant James Bone walked over and greeted Dr. Sharon. "How's it going?"

"Hey there Sarge!" Dr. Sharon smiled as he recognized the Marine. "You look a lot better since the last time I said you laying on the hospital bed bleeding all over my floor!"

"Ha!" James grinned. "Marines are meant to be mended and patched!"

"Don't make it a habit," Dr. Sharon advised. "There only so few of us left..."

"Yeah," James nodded as he promised. "Anyway, what do we have here?"

He looked at the topical setting of the island which greatly clashed against the drifting snow and cold winds.

"Well, my guess is these creatures migrate from one place to another during the cold seasons, most likely to seas with warmer currents, hence tropic floral," Dr. Sharon said.

"Than why are they still doing here?" James watched Magister Thorn leading a couple of Science Team members poking at some stuff here and there excitedly.

"Your guess is good as mine," Dr. Sharon frowned and gestured out to the sea. "But if I would guess, I say they find it safer here? Another guess will be that they are recovering from the attack of the Krarga and once recovered they will move on."

"Hmmm," James thought that it made some sense. "Well, I got my boys to keep your team safe. Make sure none of your team moves without any security escort. We don't know is inside the jungle."

Dr. Sharon nodded and James gave a quick salute before he left to yell at his men. Even with the rumbling voice in her head, it didn't dampen her spirits as she looked at the new things that could be found here!

-----

UNS Singapore, Command Bridge

"Captain, the Science Team has landed safely on the Island Whale," An operator reported from his station.

Blake nodded and continued watching the live stream of the Science Team. He was surprised that there was such a creature here, which reminded him of those tales of turtles carrying the world on their backs, but in this case, it was an island.

I wonder if we could tame them? Thought Blake as he watched the ongoings on the back of the creature. If they could be controlled, won't they make good refilling bases for ships and planes?

"Captain," Commander Ford greeted Blake as he entered the Command Bridge. "How's the expedition force?"

"They landed and so far so good," Blake replied. "How about your end?"

It has been two days since the Fleet returned to the docks and the sea monster processed for scientific studies.

"Both ships will be undergoing refits and repairs. And with the weather forecast for the coming week showing that the seas gonna be very rough," Ford joined Blake at watching the imagery. "The Fleet will be stranded. So it's a good time for the ships to have some dock time."

Blake nodded, "Next week will be Founding Day, it's going to be the biggest holiday for everyone, I hope nothing unexpected turns up."

"Well, I can't really be surprised much now," Ford admitted. "But seriously, I think I need to rethink the manual for naval operations now."

"Also we gonna need depth charges, torpedos, and more firepower," Ford said. "That thing took all the 3" shells like we were just pissing at him."

"Lucky water transmit shock waves pretty well, if not I don't think we could have killed it," Ford pointed out their weakness. "Either that or we have to aim for its eyes."

Blake nodded, "Well, Ordnance is working on a larger variant of the 3" guns. Depth charges shouldn't be too hard them to come out with. But torpedos..."

"Torpedos are not really armor piercing weapons," Blake said to Ford. "well, we can still have Ordnance to do some research on it and come out with a viable plan later on."

Ford nodded, "Dragons, sea monsters, and now swimming islands. So what's next?"

-----

Back of Island Whale 'Scar'

The Science team gathered soil samples and bagged floral while the Marines played babysitters on the back of the Island Whale they called Scar due to a scar along the side of its head. James's booted feet crunched as he stepped on frozen insects and plants that were slowly wilting under the cold temperature.

"Hey Doc," James called out. "Isn't the cold bad for the ecosystem here?"

He toed a half frozen colorful wyvern with bright red and green feathers and a long feathery tail. Dr. Sharon bent down and carefully picked up the frozen creature the size of a chicken and gently wrapped it with thermo foil to help warm it up.

"Yes, the ecosystem here is dying due to the weather," Dr. Sharon busied herself with saving the poor shaking wyvern. "We see what we can share and collect. But I doubt much could be saved."

"Will it affect the Island Whales?" James asked as he shifted the weight of his rifle sling. "I meant with the island on its back dying, will there be any erm, problems for the whales?"

"I seriously don't know," Sharon replied. "I can't even imagine how we can even look at the biology makeup of these amazing creatures! And I still have a sea monster waiting for me back at the lab!"

"Happening times," James commented as he watched the wyvern coming back to life. "I wonder if the whales would allow us to take a blood sample?"

"Gauging by the strength of the Krarga," Dr. Sharon carried the revived wyvern up. "I think we might something a lot larger than the needles we have that can poke into the hide of these creatures."

"Heh," James laughed as they made their way back to the camp. "Wait!"

Dr. Sharon froze as did the rest of the team and the Marines. "What is it?"

"What is this?" James used his rifle muzzle and pushed away at some of the floral, exposing a glittering column. "Oh, my gods..."

Dr. Sharon and the rest of the team all looked stunned at the object that James had uncovered. A cluster of shimmering crystal columns glittered under the dim sunshine as the shriveled up plants covering its surfaces were pulled away.

"What is this?" James repeated as he looked at the rainbow glitter from the crystals. Each column was about the size and thickness of a human, and even with the weak sunshine from the overcast skies, the crystals gave off a glittering rainbow sheen.

"Spread out and see if are they any more of these crystals clusters!" James commanded his men, who started to search around the area and found several more clusters overgrown with floral.

"They seemed to grow out of the ground!" Dr. Sharon replied excitedly. "Call Magister Thorn over! He might know something!"

James nodded and gestured one of his men to do it while he continued to clear more of the vine and leaves away.

"What, these look familiar!" James frowned as he ordered his men to help clear the foliage away.

Dr. Sharon turned to James, "You are right, they do look familiar..."

"Isn't these those energy mana stone we gotten off that T Rex Godzilla monster?" James leaned forward and observed closely. One of the first classes given to the Marines is to not touch anything with their bare hands when outfield with the Science Team. Several images made up by Magister Thorn showing effects of someone touching an unknown magical artifact that backfired had the Marines' itchy hands controlled.

"Y- you are right!" Dr. Sharon stared wide eyed as she read the readout charts on her portable analyzer.

"It's energy reading is off the charts!"