by J. E. Gurley
“Damn!” Talent yelled, and turned his attention to a second Wasp attacking the Filipino bartender. True to her word, she didn’t run. Her anger and thirst for revenge fueled her desperate assault. Her bullets were finding their mark, but the small caliber pistol couldn’t penetrate the creature’s overlapping plates of ebony armor covering the nine-foot-long orange-brown body. As the Wasp moved, small gaps appeared between the plates, but she was firing wildly without taking aim, and the bullets were bouncing off.
“Aim between the eyes,” he yelled at her. “Shoot at anything that’s not black and shiny.”
She nodded and took careful aim at one of the eyes. It took her two shots to hit it, but the creature reared in pain, exposing a gap in its armored abdomen. Talent shoved his pistol into its holster with his right hand and pulled the kukri from its sheath at his waist with his left in one fluid motion. He ducked beneath a deadly flailing forelimb and landed on his knees. With a double-handed grip on the machete’s handle, he sliced into the belly along the gap in its armor. The flesh was tough and unyielding. It was like hacking into a six-inch-thick piece of dried jerky, but his anger sparked an adrenaline surge that lent him strength to force the tip of the blade deeper into the alien flesh. Using his body weight, he pulled the kukri downward and across the creature’s belly.
An explosion of hot, yellow ichor drenched his arms and chest. The creature flung its body down to crush him, but Talent rolled between two rows of seats that held the creature’s weight off him. While the injured Wasp attempted to extricate itself from the tangle of seats and railings, Talent released the machete, grabbed the .357, and emptied it into the open wound. He had no idea where the creature’s vital organs were located, but his luck held. The Wasp hissed loudly, shuddered, and went still. He yanked free the machete and reloaded the pistol.
As he crawled from beneath the Wasp, he spotted the bartender going head to head with a second Wasp. She wore a smile on her face as her barrage of bullets forced the creature to retreat, but she failed to see a third one diving from the ceiling toward her. Before Talent could shout a warning or bring his own weapon to bear, the hovering Wasp clasped her body to its chest and rammed home the stinger. The sharp barb exited just below her right ribcage amid a spray of blood. She glanced down at the object protruding from her midriff and raised the pistol to her head. Talent assumed she was seeking a quick way out, but to his surprise, she lifted the pistol higher and fired one last round into the creature’s face. Then, it yanked her from the floor and flew away to join a growing line of Wasps bearing similar packages of dead or sedated passengers back to the Kaiju.
Her courage and final act of desperate defiance gave him goose bumps. He vowed to go out the same way, kicking ass and taking names. Although he was a full-blooded Tohono O’odham, he had always identified with the more aggressive Southwestern tribes, such as the Apache or the Comanche, than his historically peaceful people. The warlike Apache had called the Tohono O’odham Papago, a derogatory term meaning tepary bean eaters, a name the Spanish Conquistadors kept alive for centuries. His refusal to be a traditional tribal member had earned him the name Lobo, a lone wolf, a name he had embraced with pride. He had used his reputation as a lone wolf to become a recluse, to avoid mingling with people of his own tribe or Whites, except on business.
Why then, he wondered, am I ready to die for strangers?
The number of defenders fell rapidly, as the Wasps systematically attacked anyone with a weapon with abandoned frenzy. They began pouring through the entrances as the remaining defenders fell back under the concentrated onslaught. Two of the ship’s officers, standing out even in the muted light in their white uniforms, directed a stream of passengers out one of the side exits, many of them dropping their weapons as they fled. Talent shook his head in disbelief. Where did they think they were going? Alone and out in the open they would present easy targets.
He didn’t have time to dwell on their fate. One persistent creature forced him backwards down the side stairs to the lowest tier of seats. It had learned from watching the demise of its brethren. It kept its head low to avoid exposing any weakness in its underside armor plating and continuously bobbed its head to foil any shot to its vulnerable eyes.
Talent felt the wall at his back and cursed. He had allowed the creature to back him into a corner. Suddenly, the Wasp turned and thrust its stinger at him like a Bengal Lancer. The barbed tip ripped splinters from the wooden wall as it withdrew. He parried the second thrust with the kukri he held in his left hand but the force of the blow numbed his hand. As the creature edged closer, he dropped over the balcony railing and landed on the raised walkway crossing the theater. When the Wasp leaned over the railing in pursuit, he fired into the soft tissue inside the creature’s open mouth. It reared, bellowed, and collapsed with the upper part of its body flung over the railing, missing his head by only a few inches. When one of the legs twitched, Talent placed the barrel of the pistol beneath a gap in the armor and fired one more shot into the side of its head to make certain it was dead.
He sought refuge in one of the balcony boxes to reload and catch his breath. As the feeling slowly returned to his left hand still, he discovered he had sprained his wrist. He flexed it experimentally and groaned as a sharp, stabbing pain lanced through it.
“This sucks,” he groaned.
The carpeted deck beneath him shuddered three times in rapid succession, followed by the loud screech of tearing metal. He cursed under his breath. The sound could mean only one thing; the Squid had returned to join the Wasps in the attack. They were hastening the ship’s demise by punching more holes in the already compromised hull. His fighting platform was rapidly sinking beneath him. It was time to abandon ship and take his chances at sea.
His reloader rolled across the floor as the ship suddenly listed several degrees to starboard. He lunged for it, missing it by inches. It rolled off the edge of the balcony to the floor below. He cursed and began reloading one cartridge at a time. Owens had disappeared during Talent’s fight with the Wasp. He searched the room for the detective and saw him standing beside a man wielding an axe at the corner below the stage. They were defending a small crowd of passengers against one of the Wasps. As he watched, the man with the axe went down, slashed almost in half by a swing of the creature’s forelimb. A passenger tried to climb up onto the stage; only to have her back ripped open shoulder to waist by the same creature.
Owens was weakening. The barrel of the shotgun sagged to the floor between shots. Each time, he lifted and fired more slowly, leaving himself exposed. If not for the easy pickings of panicked passengers around him rushing within reach of the creature’s jaws and legs in their haste to escape, it would have killed him already.
Talent watched with disgust as one man dragged a young girl in front of him as a shield when the Wasp lunged at him. The girl died; he lived. Talent was so enraged that he almost shot the man, but decided to save his ammo. He felt a sense of cosmic karma when a second Wasp flew overhead, ripped the man’s head from his body, and continued toward the exit with it dangling from its talons.
The emergency lights went out, leaving the theater in complete darkness except for the minute scraps of light filtering in down the corridors and through the doors. The faint light created long, deep shadows, making it more difficult to target the Wasps. The Wasps, on the other hand, seemed to have no difficulty in finding their prey in the dark.
The theater was clearing of Wasps as the creatures killed and carted away the passengers that hadn’t already fled in panic. The muffled screams and scattered reports of gunfire from outside the theater confirmed his belief that the creatures were waiting for just such a foolhardy attempt to reach the lifeboats. He spotted an opening in a side door that would take him down the corridor to the exit and felt an overwhelming urge to go through it, leaving the remaining passengers to fend for themselves. He had known Owens only a few hours; and yet, felt closer to the Chicago cop than most of the members of his own tribe.
It was likely they would all die together, but he decided to give Owens a fighting chance.
Wires from the overhead stage lighting ripped out by the Wasps dangled from the ceiling, providing the quickest way down. The balcony was higher than the stage. He quickly judged how much cable he needed and jammed his pistol down the front of his jeans. He grabbed the cable with both hands, being careful of his injured wrist, and wound his leg in the cable. With a running start, he dropped over the side of the balcony. The cable jerked as he reached the end of its slack, sending shooting pain through his wrist, but he held on.
The arc of his swing carried him across to the stage. He stifled the urge to emit a Tarzan yell. In the dim light, he misjudged his landing and released too late. He dropped six feet to the stage and skidded to a stop on his boot heels. He pulled his pistol from the waistband of his jeans with his left hand, leaped from the stage, and landed astride the Wasp’s back just in front of the first pair of wings.
Clinging to one of the wings with his good right hand as it was were the bull rope he used to stay atop bucking bulls in Tucson’s La Fiesta de los Vaqueros, he fired a round into a small gap in the creature’s ebony armor just behind the head with his left hand. Cocking the hammer and squeezing the trigger brought agony to his wrist, but he bit back on the pain and fired two more rounds. The giant Wasp bounced and twisted its body in its attempt to dislodge him, but he had always done well in the bull riding and bronco riding events at rodeos. The certainty that bucking off would mean his death kept him clinging to his precarious perch. Seizing the opportunity Talent had presented him, Owens rammed his shotgun into the creature’s throat and pulled the trigger. Talent jerked his head back just in time to avoid a geyser of ball bearings and gooey Wasp blood shooting from the fist-sized exit wound. His alien steed stumbled and collapsed on the floor. He slid off and faced Owens.
“It’s time to go,” he said.
Owens looked at the few remaining passengers around him. “They’re coming with us.”
Talent figured the odds of reaching a lifeboat and lowering it into the water before a Wasp or a Squid got them was slim to none. Riding herd over a group of frightened passengers lowered their odds even further, but he knew Owens would never abandon them. He nodded. “Okay, but we’re going to have to move quietly. These things have excellent hearing.”
They climbed onstage and passed through a side door into a corridor filled with costumes and stage props. There were no emergency lights. Owens used the light of his cell phone to pick a path through hanging racks of sequined tights, gold lame dresses, feather boas, and rows of hats. Gunfire outside punctuated the muted screams of people and the screeches of the creatures. Talent smiled as he recognized the familiar bark of an Mk46 Squad Automatic Weapon.
“Sounds like the cavalry has arrived,” he said to Owens.
He pushed through the tangle of costumes toward the exit. Just as he reached for the knob of a second door leading into the main corridor, the sound of heavy caliber weapons erupted just outside the door.
The door pushed open and a grim-faced black man clad in military camo stared at him. “Don’t just stand there. If you want to live, you’d better get your ass in gear and come with me.”
He turned and disappeared back into the corridor. Talent glanced at Owens. “I say we follow him.”
Talent’s luck was still holding.
10
Saturday, Dec. 16, 1000 hours USS Mississippi, eighty miles north of Enderbury –
When word of the sinking cruise ship reached the USS Mississippi, Commander Murdock defied his orders and set a course to rendezvous with the Radiant Princess. He couldn’t order Walker to help. Fire Team Bravo’s mission was more important than the rescue of a sinking ship, but Walker applauded Murdock’ decision. Like the captain, he wasn’t going to let three thousand passengers die. He had seen enough death in his lifetime. His orders required them to make contact with the Kaiju. If it was near the cruise ship, conducting the rescue mission offered a win-win scenario.
It would take the Mississippi over two hours to reach the stricken cruise ship. Murdock radioed the V2-Osprey and ordered it to return to the sub. After reaching the surfaced sub, the pilot had once again shown his skill at hovering by keeping the landing gear barely touching the sub’s foredeck in the rolling sea. This placed the side door within an easy leap, saving the time required to climb ropes. The pilot didn’t mention his low fuel situation, but Walker knew the Osprey would never make it back to Hawaii if it continued on to the cruise ship. The pilot would have to take his chances on finding fuel at one of the small airfields on one of the nearby islands and hope he didn’t find Wasps waiting for him instead.
When they reached the Radiant Princess, Walker noticed the ship’s stern low in the water. He also noted the swarm of Wasps buzzing the ship. He spoke to the pilot.
“Hover over the Sun Deck. We’ll rope down to the Lido Deck beside the pool. Once we’re down, make one pass with your weapons to cover us while we set up; then, get the hell out of here.”
The pilot nodded.
“Good luck,” Walker called to him.
The pilot gave him thumbs up and grinned.
They approached on the ship’s port side. As they got closer, Walker saw several lifeboats already in the water. Wasps had ripped the fiberglass roof from one of them and were busy plucking passengers from the lifeboat. A second lifeboat had suffered a similar fate and had capsized. The pilot made one pass along the length of the cruise ship, giving the crew chief a clear shot out the open side door with his M240 machinegun. He killed the two Wasps attacking the lifeboat, but the sky was full of the creatures. Reluctantly, the pilot abandoned the lifeboats to their inevitable fate and returned to the cruise ship.
He waited until he was almost over the ship before cutting back on the power and converting the nacelles for hovering. He expertly edged the Osprey into the confined space between the ship’s communications towers and the deck railings. The engines’ backwash scattered towels and chairs across the deck. Walker took the first rope down. As soon as his feet touched the deck, he took a position to cover Costas with his 7.62 mm SCAR. Costas hit the deck behind him two seconds later and moved to the opposite side of the Osprey. Simultaneously, Captain McGregor and Corporal Hightower descended the second rope. As soon as all four were in position, Walker signaled the remaining five members of the fire team to join them.
So far, the Wasps hadn’t spotted them on the deck, but they had noticed the arrival of the V-22 Osprey. The vehicle had spent exactly eighteen seconds hovering above the deck to disgorge the team before the pilot rotated the nacelles and zoomed away. As soon as the Osprey took off, the camera-operated Gau-19 minigun on the Osprey’s belly opened up on the creatures, swiveling back and forth in tight arcs as it ripped into their bodies with a stream of .50 caliber bullets. Two Wasps died instantly. Another fell into the sea with shredded wings. The crew chief fired bursts from his M240, adding a flurry of 7.62 mm bullets to the fray.
Instead of the single-covering pass Walker had requested, the pilot made three daring strafing runs across the deck of the sinking cruise ship, killing at least a dozen Wasps. On his outward leg, he passed over the lifeboats, offering what protection he could to the hapless passengers before lack of fuel forced him to break off and head to the nearest island. Walker hoped he made it.
When the roar of the Osprey’s engines faded, Walker heard small-arms fire coming from inside the ship toward amidships. A line of Wasps converged on the area a few decks below them. His face turned grim at the bodies the Wasps carried as they winged their way toward the Kaiju. Memories of the digestive pool inside Kaiju Nusku’s head were still too vivid to talk about. His written and his oral reports to the military had been the last time he had discussed the horrors he had seen with anyone. He turned to Costas, who cradled his .50 caliber Barrett M107 SASR in his arms as he peered around the corner.
“Costas, take three men and move aft down the port side. I’l
l move down the starboard side with the others. We’ll meet in the elevator area amidships. That seems to be where the action is.”
Costas looked at the bodies lying around the pool, some covered with blankets, others lying in the open. “Looks like they had some action here.”
Captain McGregor motioned to Walker. He pointed to his eyes and lifted two fingers. They were about to have some company.
Walker motioned to Privates Wiggins, Stimson, and Sergeant Rhoades to join Costas. McGregor, Corporal Hightower, Specialist Perez, and Private Watts would accompany him. The men needed no prompting to spread out and take cover. McGregor had trained them well. He hoped the Wasps were simply inquisitive and would pass them by. Any firefight would slow them down and draw the attention of more unwelcomed guests. The Wasps might not have spotted them, but they smelled the corpses and the blood smearing the deck and came closer to investigate. Walker waited until both creatures were fully out of sight of their brethren before signaling to fire.
Hightower, a 6’1’, 255-pound bruiser from New Jersey, cut loose with his M134 mini gun. Six rotating barrels spat a swarm of its own, hurling 7.62 mm bullets toward the nearest creature at 2,800 ft/sec. The lightweight version of the minigun he carried weighed half as much as the larger version, but he held the 41-pound minigun like a water hose spraying death and destruction at the Wasps. Spent shell casings bounced across the deck, as the deadly hail of bullets ripped into alien flesh. Chips of ebony armor and globules of icterine yellow blood flew from the creature’s body and head. Each new chink in its armor exposed more flesh. Hightower, in a state of murderous ecstasy, emptied the 5,000-round belt in just over a minute, and then slipped another into the weapon from the four he wore crisscrossing his chest.