It was a cool, crisp morning off the coast of San Diego.  A large American naval task force was performing exercises.  The lead ship, an aircraft carrier, was overseeing the operation as Osprey helicopters flew in search patterns, trying to locate the various submerged practice targets hidden in the area.  On the bridge of the carrier, the Startide, Admiral Tyson West watched the choppers cruise above the dark blue Pacific Ocean waters.

“Sir,” yelled one of the sonar officers.  “We are getting more of those anomalous biological signals on the sonar.”  There had been weird signals on the sonar all morning.  They were obviously large creatures, but their movement patterns were unlike anything West had ever seen before.  Marine biology was his hobby, and he was instrumental in introducing dolphins into the navies of the Allies.

            He let his curiosity get the best of him.  “Radio base,” he said.  “Ask for a team of Dolphins to investigate.”

            “Aye, sir.”

            Within minutes, the outline of dolphins leaping out of the water could be seen on the horizon.  West watched them through his binoculars, enjoying their antics as they slowly made their way to the task force.  The voice of his sonar officer brought him back to reality.

            “Sir, the biological contacts have moved again.  They are right under us, but 20 feet down.”

            West knew this couldn’t be right.  Whales and sharks never got that close to boats and these things were too large to be dolphins or porpoises.  About the time a massive tentacle reached out of the water and attached itself to the flight deck did West realise what they were.

“What the heck is that?” yelled one of the bridge officers.

“It’s a giant squid!” replied West.  He had heard legends of giant squid dragging down fishing boats and pleasure craft, but never even attempting to grab anything this big.   The muffled screams of the crew on the flight deck running from the thing were drowned out by the lurch the Startide made as the creature began to pull, making the vessel list heavily to starboard.  West started to panic as his communications officer screamed that more had attached themselves to other ships, and were attempting to drag them under the waves.

West looked out of the large glass windows surrounding the bridge, and watched in horror as one of the destroyers, the Seattle, sank beneath waves in the grip of 10 massive tentacles.  There were at least 10 of the creatures, each latching onto a different ship.  West tried to collect his thoughts.  Giant squid were never observed to travel in groups, and their attacking all at once in an organised pattern was even harder to believe.  It just didn’t make sense.

He rushed to the communications console, and ordered the lieutenant posted there it to issue attack commands to the dolphins.  The lieutenant complied, and inputted the commands into the sonar array.  The patterns in which the commands came out would alert the dolphins to their directives, and they would immediately engage the squid.  They were armed with a harmonic shockwave, which they could generate from their echolocation emitters on their bodies.

Another destroyer went down, and the Startide continued to list.    Finally, the dolphins arrived.  Two of them released their shockwaves into the squid attacking the Startide.  The squid loosened its grip as the powerful waves shook it apart on the atomic level.  Finally, the beast was silenced, and the Startide rolled back into an upright position.  The dolphins continued their attack on the squids, and within seconds, Intruders were leaving the flight deck of the Startide and emptying racks of missiles into the creatures.  Soon enough, the last of the squid had been killed, and West began to count his loses.

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