The Unknown Lands: Lightning Strike

~Chapter 1~

Mission: To liberate the Hot Springs of all pirates, avoiding the manta rays.

I tried to listen to my sergeant, but as with most authority figures, Sergeant Abrams was all talk, no action. Get your [wagon] in gear, blah, blah, blah. I didn't care if he noticed me looking out at the sea of bubbling waters known to everyone as the Great Hotspring. If he did decide to yell at me for having more interest in looking for the enemy then his pointless inspirational speech, then it's his problem when the Manta's kill us all.

"Dammit Camden, what the hell are you doing, look at me! Your personal report says nothing about you having ADHD. Pay attention to my goddam face!" I felt the sergeant's spit against my cheek like hot rain drops. If this wasn't a military operation, I would have thrown him into the Hotsprings, watched him cook like a lobster. Doing that during a military operation though was not the best idea.

"Sorry sir." I saluted. The sergeant laughed.

"You losers are all the same, you never back talk, you never do anything. You're the worst group I've ever been assigned. We don't ever have fun!" The sergeant paced back and forth. He stared at each of us. We were twelve strong, we stood in a perfect line, we saluted like good little boys. We were the perfect team. We stood now at the front of this hovership, our guns cradled in the holsters on our backs.

As expected, the sergeant continued his spiel. It was rare not to find him talking. He probably talked in his sleep, talked on the toilet, talked during morning mass (which we were not invited to). He was so damn annoying.

It was another five minutes before he shut up. To the left side of the ship, a giant splash was heard, followed by a tidal wave that reached almost ten feet over the deck of our ship.

"Holy crap!" The sergeant said before the wave crashed into us. The boiling hot water was painful, but our uniforms thankfully were able to stand up to heat. There was a thick membrane inside of it that contained cold water. When needed, it could also warm up. It was terribly cold at the moment. But, it protected my body from the neck down from the water. My head wasn't badly burned, but some of my hair was singed off.

The wave had washed three of our guys into the water below. Now we were down to nine, and an annoying sergeant. All of us were missing patches of hair.

"Why the hell do they give us suits that protect us from the neck down?" The sergeant complained. "Now my face burns like goddam hell!"

I was the first to scream. Once everyone had heard me, they joined in. We all pulled our machine guns from their holsters and shot at the giant manta ray. It flew right over us.

"Oh shi..." The sergeant was the first to be struck by the lightning generating from the manta's stomach. He fell, instantly killed.

We continued to shoot but could not even make the thing flinch.

"Oh my god!" Three bolts of lightning struck the ship, and it began to explode and keel over. We were going to fall into the waters.

Adrenaline kicked in. I ran as hard as I could to the railing that surrounded the deck. I then shot at the water.

The waters started to stir.

"GET OVER HERE!" I screamed out. Some of the men did, the other were too busy shooting randomly, or blowing their own brains out.

Another manta was pulling out of the water where I shot. It was coming up like an elevator.

"JUMP ON!" I then vaulted over the railing and fell on top of the monstrosity. Three others followed me.

"How'd you know?" One of the men asked as the manta continued getting higher.

"I assumed that the sea's floor was actually made up of these things. The electricity that their bellies generate stimulate the algae on their back, like these," I pointed at a towering fungus that was coughing, "which causes them to burp, which, with so many algae doing this, creates a hot, bubbly water, like a hot spring."

"How come the electricity didn't affect us when the wave hit?" One of the men asked me.

"The electrical current is probably not very powerful. They have to focus it in order to create a lightning strike like our friend over there did." I pointed at the other manta, now flying away gracefully. "If not focused, it just scatter everywhere."

"Where the hell is this thing going to take us, besides to those hot springs?"

"If we're lucky it will land next to one of the islands that are found around the hotspring, if we don't we die. But hey, at least this way we have a chance."

I laughed, I never would know why.

The manta ray flew gently through the air like a cloud.