by J. E. Gurley
He checked the depth gauge – 2100 feet and increasing rapidly. The sub was in an uncontrolled dive.
“Blow all ballast tanks,” he yelled.
The sub shuddered as air under pressure forced water from the bow tanks, but the gauge continued to climb. Not all the tanks had responded. The sub was plummeting to the bottom. He examined the object that had gutted his ship through the red haze of mist filling the control room. It had not exploded, at least not yet. If it has a delayed timer, he thought; then, four glowing eyes he had mistaken for gouges on the object opened. The eyes formed a square at the top of the creature’s oval head, moving independently of one another as they scanned the room. A slit below the eyes opened, revealing a mouth filled with hundreds of tiny gleaming razors. Long tentacles forced their way into the room through gaps around the body. One swept across the room, grabbing a damage control crewman putting out a fire and slamming him into the bulkhead, crushing his body. The rip in the hull widened as more tentacles emerged and the creature pulled its way into the ship. The shrill screech of ripping metal sounded throughout the ship as the creatures gutted it. Dent got one last look at the creature crawling through the opening before the dark water rose above his head.
The Colorado and her crew of 132 officers and crew passed 2500 feet and continued her death plunge to the bottom. Steel bulkheads crumpled like aluminum beer cans under the immense pressure. The bow broke away and raced the rest of the submarine to the bottom. Their task completed the Kaiju attack creatures abandoned the dead husk of the Colorado and returned to their host. Hours later, a brief rain of metallic debris showered the craggy bottom of the Pacific Ocean sixteen-thousand feet below.
4
Thursday, December 14, 11:05 p.m. CST Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas –
Doctor Robert Wingate Rutherford, known as Gate to most of his friends, accepted the news of the Kaiju landing in the South Pacific with stoic fatalism. He knew it had been inevitable that the aliens would try again. He had hoped for more time to unravel the mystery of the Kaijus’ origins, but at the rate he was going, that could take years. The aliens were not going to wait that long.
His mind conjured a vivid image of the impact and ensuing tsunami rolling outward from the impact site. He automatically added the numbers – impact speed, blast kilo tonnage, water displacement, wave speed, and estimated deaths immediately after impact. The data came to mind as readily as a NASCAR driver estimating to the last gallon how much fuel needed to reach the finish line, but he was no longer a NASA catastrophist. Predicting the number of casualties and dollar values for the destruction caused by astronomical events was no longer a clinical, theoretical study to him. The three Kaiju that had devastated large parts of the West Coast and the Mid-West had proven his calculations all too accurate. Many others were more capable of taking up his discarded mantle, people who had not watched one of the great, lumbering creatures emerge from its impact crater like an ebony demon from the fiery pits of hell and devour humans; people who had not crawled through the guts of one of the alien killing machines. Now, the numbers had faces; flesh and blood people instead of line graphs on a chart.
His rash impulse to join Captain, now Major, Aiden Walker’s team inside Kaiju Nusku had, if not scarred him, humbled him, and set his mind on a new course of endeavor. His thirst for revenge was still burning inside him, a smoldering flame that time could not extinguish. He had dusted off his old astronomy textbooks and became a working astronomer once again.
He was determined to locate the source of the Kaiju. Unlike many of his colleagues, he did not think their origin was interstellar space, the Oort Cloud, or the alien home planet. Wherever the aliens’ home world was located, they needed a base of operations closer to Earth. The aliens could wage a war of extermination with a months’ long timeframe between launch and arrival on Earth, but the logistics of years or decades between events defied logic. The aliens communicated with the Kaiju. The communications node on the moon that Colonel Langston destroyed proved that. Gate did not believe in FTL communication. No, the aliens, or at least an advanced party, were much closer, watching, listening. The most recent Kaiju landing in Kiribati only four months after the first seemed to prove his point.
His bet was on the Kuiper Belt, a mass of small TNOs, Trans-Neptunian Objects, orbiting the solar system from 30-50 AUs from the sun. 4.5 -7.5 billion kilometers sounded like a great distance, especially for a race that had only recently sent a probe that far out into the fringes of the solar system, but for an alien species that had crossed unknown light years, it was a hop, skip, and a jump.
Photos taken by the New Horizon probe that had reached Pluto in 2015 lay scattered across his desk and spilled into untidy piles on the floor. The public’s intrigue by the exciting revelation that Pluto was geologically active had died quickly, as events around the globe took precedence, but to astronomers, the excitement continued. Pluto had an atmosphere, if only a thin mixture of methane and nitrogen. It was a living world, worthy of further study, but his interest lay in a smaller body beyond Pluto – Haumea, one of only a handful of bodies in the Belt large enough for the designation of planetoid.
Haumea, surrounded by icy chunks containing volatiles – methane, hydrogen, ammonia, carbon dioxide, and sulfur dioxide – was the ideal location for an alien base. Readily available frozen volatile gases would provide building blocks for more complex compounds, such as those recently discovered in the Kaiju tissue. Another reason he had focused on Haumea was the fact that the New Horizon probe mysteriously stopped sending data after it passed around the dark side of the planetoid. His colleagues offered countless reasons for the probe’s failure, all plausible, but Gate did not like coincidences.
For the hundredth time, he calculated the trajectories of Nusku, Girra, and Ishom – his Unholy Trinity – based on data supplied by NASA satellites. Unfortunately, the data was spotty. The DRS satellite had picked the objects up only hours before impact. Most of the trajectory was pure speculation, his interpretation of the best available information. The spaghetti graphs he derived from the satellite images resembled a hurricane path prediction five days before landfall. Lines went everywhere. Even so, enough of the projections intersected Haumea’s orbit to reinforce his initial belief. The aliens were there.
Unfortunately, no spacecraft the U.S. or any other country possessed had the capability of reaching them at such a distance. The Orion was the most advanced spacecraft in existence, but it would take years to reach the Kuiper Belt. If they could find a crew willing to invest a decade of their life to the journey, the Orion still could not carry enough fuel, food, water, and oxygen for the journey.
Gate brushed his hand through his sandy brown hair. He had allowed it to grow much longer after his Kaiju Nusku event. He had no time for haircuts. His tall, lanky frame, once well-muscled and toned from regular exercise, now more resembled a gangly scarecrow. Food, when he took time to eat, had no taste. He slept most nights on the sofa in his office, awoke after a couple of hours of restless, nightmare-ridden sleep, and went directly back to his calculations. His search was not a passion. It was a compulsion. He was on a holy quest.
Kaiju Kiribati’s arrival in the South Pacific had fulfilled another of his dire predictions concerning the aliens. Given the defeat of the first three creatures, he had warned government officials that the aliens would next seek a remote location for an ocean landing where terrain and political divisions would hamper the military’s ability to bring resources to bear quickly. His first two choices had been either Indonesia or Malaysia. Many parts of both nations were sparsely populated, undeveloped, and torn by political strife. Kiribati was his third choice. The landing there validated his point.
Kaiju Kiribati had broken the pattern of the earlier creatures. It had become active within a few hours rather than the usual twenty-four hours the military thought they had to prepare. It landed in a remote location, but his scenario predicted it would head for a heavily populated area, such as Aus
tralia. So far, his predictions were chillingly precise. The aliens were not fools. They had utilized the data provided by the first three Kaiju and incorporated it into the new design. Given the travel time from the Kuiper Belt, even at speeds well beyond the capabilities of human technology, the aliens had worked quickly to prepare this Kaiju. He was certain this creature would have several surprises in store.
Being certain that he knew the origin of the Kaiju and convincing anyone in authority were two different things. Washington had proven slow to act and even slower to consider scientific data. The military insisted on clinging to a conventional warfare mindset that had not changed even with the futility of previous attacks on the creatures. The baby nuke that Walker’s team delivered inside Nusku had worked only because Langston had destroyed the communications node, rendering the Kaiju immobile and the host of creatures inside confused. He had heard rumors of a new weapon the biologists had developed from Kaiju tissue, but killing the creatures one at a time was pointless. The aliens were determined to wipe humans from the face of the planet and take it as their own. This Kaiju was a test. If successful, they would continue to send improved Kaiju to Earth in numbers too large to defend against. The Kaiju and their alien creators had to be defeated at the source.
He splashed water on his face, glanced at his disheveled appearance in the mirror above his bathroom sink, and sighed at the dark circles ringing his eyes. His cheeks were hollow and his skin had a sickbed pallor. He looked more like a refugee than a distinguished scientist. His status as hero for his small part in the defeat of Nusku had opened a few doors for him initially, but that fame had quickly faded when he began hounding anyone who would listen to his pet theories. They were in no mood to consider what was to come. The Kaiju were dead. Long live the victors! He would not sway generals or senators looking like a mad scientist. It was time he discarded his notoriety as a recluse and rejoined the world while he still had one to join.
He still had a few friends willing to stand by him. Director Carl Caruthers, head of NASA, kept him apprised of the latest news that did not reach the media. It was through him that he had obtained the New Horizon photos and the depositions of the surviving members of the ill-fated Lunar One mission. If anyone could get him into the loop on the new Kaiju, it would be Caruthers.
This time, he would not go to Kiribati. He had seen Kaiju more intimately than he ever wished to again. He had fought Wasps. He had witnessed firsthand the destruction of Chicago. He could close his eyes and recall the stench of burning cities and decaying flesh, the stink of Wasp blood, and the miasmic reek of alien smells inside a Kaiju. He wanted no more adventures. Instead, he would remain close to home and channel his energy, his inquisitiveness, and his anger into less dangerous pursuits. If mankind could not locate the source of the Kaiju and develop a means to defeat them, he would face danger soon enough without seeking it out. He did not quaver in his belief that mankind could win if he was determined enough. The one thing Gate Rutherford had not lost was his dogged determination.
5
Thursday, Dec. 14, 2315 hours Bicycle Lake Army Air Field, Fort Irwin, California –
Walker quickly found out Colonel Hassert had not been kidding. As soon as he and Costas stepped out of the jeep and onto the dry lakebed that served as Fort Irwin’s airfield, two crewmen grabbed their gear and rushed it up the lowered tail ramp into the enormous belly of the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy. The two-hundred-fifty-foot-long C-5 looked like a pregnant submarine with wings. The four GE TF-39 turbofan engines whined their readiness to take off, kicking up a cloud of dust from the gravel runway. A harried-looking loadmaster escorted them to their seats, and then checked after them to make certain they had secured their safety harnesses correctly, as if this were their first trip on a cargo plane.
“We take off in one minute,” he informed them, and then disappeared into the crew cabin. Only the two crewmen who had loaded their gear remained in the cargo bay with them. One of them smiled at Walker and threw him a quick thumbs up signal.
The cavernous interior could hold seventy-five men and cargo, but he and Costas were the only two passengers, a testament to the importance of their mission.
Costas leaned over and said, “I never liked these things. They don’t look like they can get off the ground. I would have preferred a nice commercial flight with a hot stewardess and cold cocktails.”
“They’re called flight attendants now, and quite a few of them are males.”
Costas frowned. “I don’t want to see no dude in a short skirt, even if he is as handsome as me.”
Walker shook his head. Costas was as non-PC as they came. His mouth engaged much faster than his brain. If it could be insulted, Costas could piss it off. He understood gays and lesbians, but still had trouble with the concept of transgender, transsexual, and gender uncertainty. To him, it was still dudes, dykes, and dames or worse, babes. The noise of the engines ramped up, and then plane shuddered as it began taxiing down the runway. “I hope they finished that runway extension,” he yelled at Costas above the roar of the labored engines and the crunch of gravel beneath the C-5’s 28 wheels.
Costas, alarmed, jerked his head toward Walker, and wrinkled his brow. “Why?”
“The old runway was only 8,000 feet. A C-5 needs 8,500 feet to take off.”
Costas frowned and craned his neck in an effort to see outside. When he looked back at Walker, Walker was grinning ear to ear. “You’re jerking my chain.”
“Just a little gallows humor before the flight. A C-5 only needs 6,000 feet of runway.”
Costas continued to glare at him as the lumbering C-5 lifted from the lakebed; then, he closed his eyes and settled back for a nap.
* * * *
Friday, Dec. 15, 0530 hours Wheeler Airfield, Oahu, Hawaii –
The C-5 made the twenty-five-hundred-mile journey in just over five hours. The lights of Honolulu blazed brightly below them, but the dark, misty hulk of four-thousand-foot Mount Ka’ala looming to their right drew most of Walker’s attention. It seemed as if the wingtips of the big plane brushed the clouds shrouding the mountain’s peak. He forced himself to relax. The pilot knew his job. He banked sharply and pointed the plane’s nose straight down the Oahu Plain. He reduced power to the engines and lowered the landing gear. The C-5 touched down so smoothly it didn’t even rouse Costas snoring next to him.
Walker nudged him with his elbow. “Welcome to Wheeler Field, Oahu.”
Costas yawned and grinned. “I know this bar in Honolulu, the Pua Pua, where the babes are primo and the booze ain’t watered.” He kissed his fingers and opened them. “Bitchin’! What say we grab a taxi and head that way?”
Walker wasn’t listening. His focused his attention on the five-ton truck rumbling down the runway toward them. As it pulled up, six men jumped out of the back, carrying their gear in hard-shell, waterproof polyethylene cases. He was surprised to see the men wore Navy S.E.A.L. patches with Special Forces tabs on their uniforms. “I don’t think we’ll have time for sightseeing,” he said.
A seventh man, tall and thin but well-muscled, stepped down from the passenger side of the cab. The creases of his uniform were so crisp they could cut glass. His immaculately polished boots shone even in the dim glow of the truck headlights. With his rugged good looks and neatly trimmed moustache, he looked like recruiting poster. He walked up to Walker, spent a few seconds giving him the once over, saluted, and then announced, “Captain Ian McGregor reporting with Fire Team Bravo.” He made a quick jerking motion with his hand and two of his men ran inside the C-5 and grabbed Walker and Costas’ gear. “If you two gentlemen are ready to go, we’ll walk across the field for our ride.”
Walker scanned the airstrip and saw no vehicles other than the truck and the C-5. “Where are we going, Captain, and in what are we riding?”
At that moment, a V-22 Osprey shot above the rear of one of the hangers and edged across the field to a spot two-hundred feet from the stationary C-5. The pilot tilted its twin nacelles
and hovered for a moment before setting down.
“There’s our taxi now,” McGregor yelled over the roar of the Rolls Royce T-406 engines. Smiling, he added, “Compliments of the Navy.”
Walker eyed the Osprey, whose maximum thousand-mile-range would push the aircraft to its limit to reach Wake Island without an in-flight refueling. “What’s our ETA to Wake?”
“Sorry, sir. There’s been a change of plans. We’re headed to Kiritimati, Christmas Island, in Kiribati.”
“How convenient with Christmas only ten days away,” Costas remarked dryly. “Are we looking for anything in particular or just picking up a little shiny something for the Joint Chiefs?”
McGregor didn’t acknowledge Costas’ caustic humor. “We’re rendezvousing with the USS Mississippi one-hundred-fifty miles northwest of the island.”
Walker’s sense of disaster began hammering at him again. Even well-planned assaults presented an inordinate amount of risk. This mission was circling the toilet bowl like a Kaiju-sized turd. Though he dreaded the answer he might get, he asked, “What’s this all about, Captain?”
“We’ve lost track of the USS Colorado. The captain reported contact with a Kaiju shortly before communications ceased mid-transmission. They also reported the British sub the Essex destroyed.”
Two subs lost. Walker didn’t like the way things were going – too many surprises. First, the aliens slipped a pod onto the planet undetected and wiped out an island chain. Then, the Kaiju popped out of its pod early and sank two nuclear submarines. Now, he was undertaking a mission with Navy S.E.A.L.S with whom he had never worked, one of them a spit and polish captain.