The Dolphin Ambassador

CHAPTER 2

Haste was of the essence. Breshli heard the nets begin to move and knew there was very little time left. He whistled to the others to hurry, but no encouragement was needed. Everyone in the pod was swimming as fast as they could.

There were forty Crassidens in the group. Breshli was now in his third year as their leader. A lot had changed in those seasons: Style, technique, direction. But the most important change involved their diet. They now ate Stenella.

Breshli could already hear their voices. They sounded like terrified infants screaming for their mothers. It was their own stupid fault for getting stuck in the nets. Breshli felt it was the Creator’s way of punishing them for their arrogance.

It was the Stenella who first began calling the Crassidens ‘False Orcas,’ a name Breshli despised. Crassidens neither looked nor acted anything like Orcas, yet somehow, the name stuck. Some in the oceans even called them False Killer Whales, which irked Breshli even more. Crassidens were solid black predacious whales with few enemies. Nothing more, nothing less, and nothing false.

A vocal fervor began to ripple through the pod. They were closing quickly, but some of the Stenella were already out of the nets. It didn’t matter, because several of them ultimately would be drowned, anyway. Still, it was more fun to catch them in flight and thrash them into smelt food.

The pod began sending echo shocks in every direction. Breshli immediately picked up a small group of Stenella racing directly for the pod. Sharks. The Stenella were being chased. The entire pod of Crassidens turned instantly to the left as if one body.

Breshli knew this tactic well. The swiftest of the Stenella always escaped the nets first, then led sharks away from the others. This left him the perfect opportunity to flank the leaders and intercept others who might still be trapped.

Passing the Border for air one final time, Breshli took his deepest breath and then flipped his flukes upward for a dive. The others in the pod followed suit, dropping the entire group fifty fins down to the edge of the thermocline.

It was only moments before Breshli heard the squeals above him. An enormous group of Stenella splashed about at the Border, racing away from the nets. They were so distracted and hysterical, they took no notice to the stalking pod of Crassidens directly below them.

Breshli whistled the command, and the pod moved as if one giant, black wave toward the Border. Like the others, Breshli picked an individual Stenella and aimed directly for her. He kicked his flukes as hard as he could, accelerating him to maximum speed.

The Stenella never saw him. With jaws open, Breshli hit his mark in the center of the belly directly behind the pectoral fins. And as he had numerous times before, Breshli let his momentum carry him across the Border and completely out of the water. The Stenella wiggled only briefly before he crushed it in midair, then crashed back into the water with his warm-blooded meal.

With the Stenella still within his grasp, Breshli turned back to see how well the others had fared. The Stenella had scattered, but nearly everyone from the pod had scored. They now had more than enough to eat, since one Stenella was sufficient for two Crassidens.

Another hurry. The pod needed to eat quickly before the messy water summoned the return of the tiger sharks, who would certainly frenzy from all of the blood. The sharks were normally not much of a threat to Crassidens, but anything could happen when there was so much blood in the water.

Breshli glanced across the nets, which were now almost completely lifted out of the water. There were several Stenella dangling helplessly in the snares. He laughed, then took a large bite out of his catch. It was turning out to be a very good day.

But not for the Stenella.