Read Online Kronos by Jeremy Robinson - Free Book Online Page A

deck, Trevor stood from his plush lounge chair and approached the front rail. He grasped it with one hand and downed the beer, chugging it like his chums on the college rugby team used to. The beer emptied, he wound up and sent the bottle sailing over the deck. He watched the brown missile spinning end over end, falling for a quick three seconds until it splashed into the ocean and disappeared, far, far below the forward deck of Trevor’s mobile mansion on the ocean.
    The Titan, five hundred feet long and seventy-five feet wide, was the world’s largest megayacht—Trevor’s megayacht. Its design was trendsetting, sporting a loggia that stretched over the whole width of the yacht, linking the fully stocked salon with the resplendent dining room. At the stern of the ship was a round room featuring a three-hundred-degree view. A garage that opened to the ocean below held a submersible at the lowest point of the ship. A black Sikorsky VH-3D helicopter (the same helicopter that transported the president of the United States) sat on the helipad at the highest point of the ship, just behind the pool.
    Every piece of décor had been purchased, or otherwise obtained, by Trevor and placed specifically where he indicated. Banisters were topped with gold gargoyles or naked women…sometimes both. The pool on the Titan ’s top deck was shaped like a Chinese dragon, undulating up and down and curving around on itself. The bow, like those of ancient ships of old, was adorned by a beautifully sculpted and scantily clad woman bearing a trident and shield, and wearing a horned helmet. Statues, pilfered from the ancient cultures of many nations, decorated everything from bathrooms to the grand library, which contained thirty thousand books. The centerpiece of the ship was the collection. Trevor’s pride and joy. Put simply, it was a huge accumulation of art, relics, and natural phenomena over which the Museum of Natural History would salivate. The entire ship, from bow to stern, reflected the taste of a man obsessed with mythology and ancient history. But for Trevor, it wasn’t enough to satiate his need to explore the unknown, to experience fresh new ideas or ancient wonders.
    The bottle resurfaced and bobbed in the five-foot swells. Trevor realized that while he was the fifth richest man on the planet, who had all the world’s oceans as his playground, he had been reduced to watching a floating bottle as entertainment.
    “Bored, sir?” The voice was firm yet subservient, like a pit bull barking at its master.
    Trevor didn’t turn around. He simply looked across the endless blue expanse stretched out before him. For a brief moment Trevor understood how humanity had once believed the world was flat. From his high perch, it certainly looked as though one could simply fall off the edge of the world. He shrugged and spun to meet Remus, his head of security, who was dressed as though he were on a pleasure cruise—khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. “Bored doesn’t begin to do justice to the drudgery that has become my existence…nor to the lack of imagination implicit in your outfit. Good God, man.”
    Remus smiled, ignoring the jab. “There is always Shanghai, sir.”
    The thought brought a smile to Trevor’s face. The pleasures of Shanghai were always enticing, but Trevor was not in the mood for wine and women. “I crave an adventure, Remus.”
    “A whale hunt perhaps?”
    Trevor looked down to the deck, at a three-foot-wide, six-foot-long rectangular seam. Hidden below the two men was a powerful harpoon gun, containing a razor-sharp, titanium-tipped projectile capable of piercing solid steel. “The end is predictable. No creature in the ocean can outrun the Titan. ”
    “Perhaps violence is not the way to satiate your earthly hungers?” A third, more melancholic voice added. The man approached, wearing a broad grin on his young face. He wore the garments of a priest, but walked with the cocksure gait of a movie star. His