by J. E. Gurley
“It’s too risky. Get back in here.”
He saw Meyers swimming twenty yards off the port side of the DSRV. “Too late. They see me.”
A flash of gray Squid zipped by the porthole. He began to turn the sub toward Meyers.
“No, don’t,” he called out. “Finish the job.”
Murdock hesitated, but then resumed his course to the pod. “Good luck, son.”
The first Squid shot a tentacle toward Meyers. He jammed the shark stick into it and laughed into this radio. “Hurts doesn’t it?”
The Squid backed off a few yards and studied him as it waited for its companion. Murdock saw him raise the spear gun, but he didn’t have a chance to fire it. The Squid shot through the water like a torpedo and encircled him in its tentacles. Murdock heard his muffled curse just before he started screaming in pain as the creature tightened its grip. It pulled him toward its open mouth. Too close to use the spear gun, he yanked the spear from the barrel and jammed it in the creature’s mouth. Murdock saw a brief flash of light from the flashlight, and then the C4 exploded, shredding the Squid’s head. Squid and Meyers sank slowly to the bottom.
The diversion had allowed Murdock to get close to the alien pod, but the remaining Squid came at him in all its alien fury. He had just enough time to ram home the manipulator arm into the gap in the panel. Now he was irrevocably linked with the bomb. He set the controls to take both sub and bomb into the depths of the New Hebrides Trench. If he was right about its resistance to pressure, he had won. If not, he would never know what hit him.
The Squid attacked the sub and wrenched free the propeller, but Murdock had already blown the reserve air tanks. He and the pod were barely sinking, but he had one more thing he could do. He could flood the DSRV and sink it. He opened the hatch between the control cabin and the pressure chamber, sat back down, and began pounding on the cracked porthole with a tool. The noise enraged the Squid. It came to the front of the DSRV and dove straight at the porthole. The glass splintered. Water shot inside with three times surface pressure, not enough to kill, but the pressure was more than enough to quickly fill the DSRV cabin and flood the pressure chamber. The DSRV and pod began sinking faster.
Murdock held his breath though he didn’t know why. He could never reach the surface without bursting his lungs. The Squid was not finished. It pulled its body through the smashed porthole and wedged itself inside the small control cabin. Its bulk pushed him into the bulkhead. He heard bones snap. The air spilled from his lungs, filling the water in front of him with bubbles. He stared the creature in its four alien eyes and smiled. Then he used his last breath to push the button, activating the underwater Oxy-arc cutter attached to the manipulator arm. The flame dug into the creature’s body. He watched it writhe in pain before blackness took him.
* * * *
Lieutenant Commander Dobbs watched the DSRV sinking on the sonar screen. Instead of dismay, he felt a sense of pride. The Mississippi’s captain had succeeded at the cost of his own life. There was still a chance the bomb would explode, negating Commander Murdock’s sacrifice, but Dobbs hoped the universe did not work that way.
“I’m picking up noise of the pod imploding, sir.”
Dobbs smiled and nodded to the sonar operator. Murdock’s assumption concerning the pod’s vulnerability was right. The world was safe – for the moment. There was still the Kaiju to deal with. He turned to the drivers. He preferred the old terminology.
“Helmsmen, take us out of here. Inform USPACOM that we are in pursuit of the Kaiju.”
21
Wednesday, Dec. 20, 0320 hours Inside Kaiju Kiribati –
Costas, Hightower, and Perez formed a lethal arc of firepower, holding the creatures at bay as they slowly backed toward the dark opening. Captain McGregor stood motionless staring at the mutilated corpses of Sergeant Rhoades and Wiggins as if waiting for them to arise miraculously from the dead. Talent wanted to shout, “We don’t have three days to wait for their resurrection,” but his half-forgotten Catholic upbringing curbed his blasphemy. Suddenly, in a fit of rage, McGregor raised his MP5 and, roaring obscenities at the top of his lungs, held down the trigger. He continued to yell even after he emptied the clip. Costas grabbed him by his shoulder, spun him around, and shoved him toward the opening.
“Move it, Captain!” he shouted, “Or I’ll kick your sorry ass through the nice exit Talent just made for us.”
McGregor tensed and fixed Costas with a deadly glare. Talent thought that he would have shot Costas if his weapon had not been empty. However, Costas was not intimidated. He pushed his face into McGregor’s and repeated, “Move it.” McGregor turned and walked calmly toward the narrow opening.
Walker and Perez waited at the opening, firing into the advancing Squid and Wasps to cover their retreat. Perez’s Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun looked too large for the petite S.E.A.L. to handle, but she used it effectively, shredding flailing tentacles and shattering Squid eyes. Walker’s 7.62 mm SCAR L-CQC sprayed Kaiju-killer bullets that ripped through ebony armor and gouged out chunks of alien flesh. Ignoring the threat of the armor piercing rounds, the Squid continued to press the attack. They seemed to understand just how much room they needed to utilize their multiple arms effectively. For every creature that died, another pressed through the entrance of the chamber to replace it. The Kaiju seemed to have an endless supply of replacements, but Fire Team Bravo did not. With two members already down, they were hard-pressed to make an orderly retreat.
As soon as McGregor and Costas passed him and entered the opening, Walker yelled for Talent to fire three grenades into the midst of the tightly packed group of Squid. Talent popped off three quick rounds and ducked into the opening with Walker and Perez pressing close behind him. The grenades were standard issue, but were highly effective nonetheless, exploding in quick succession, spraying lethal shrapnel into the close ranks of Squid and the Wasps flying above them. Those creatures at the forefront of the attack became bewildered, thinking a new enemy had appeared behind them. They milled about in confusion seeking the new threat.
Seeing the disorder, Walker turned to Talent. “Fire a flash grenade.”
Talent spun the drum to an M-84 flash-bang grenade, aimed through the opening, and fired. The grenade arced over the throng of Squid and exploded with a thunderclap so loud it shook Talent’s insides. The brilliant burst of light that accompanied it spilled back through the opening. Talent closed his eyes, but the bright glow penetrated his eyelids, almost blinding him. He hoped it incapacitated the Squid as much as it did him. He rubbed his watering eyes, blinking until they cleared enough to see, and peered through the opening. No creatures pursued them, daunted either by the narrowness of the slit or by some instinct to guard the hatchery. They were safe for the moment, but they had lost two men and one of the K-2 drums. It was an expensive victory.
The space in which Talent stood was almost as narrow as the opening, a four-foot-wide gap between two towering crimson walls. He shined his flashlight upwards and saw mats of fibrous material dangling from protrusions in the walls as far up as the beam of the light would penetrate. The mats undulated in the slight, warm breeze. They were in one of the Kaiju’s cooling ducts. The cloying, earthy stench of the hatchery was less obvious here, though a decidedly alien smell still permeated the air.
“Which way?” Costas asked.
Walker did not hesitate. He pointed his light down the right hand corridor. “This way.”
“And do what?” McGregor demanded loudly.
Everyone stopped to stare at him. Washed in the glow of flashlights, the face beneath the helmet appeared demonic, pale flesh dominated by two dark eyes glaring at Walker, his mouth a rictus of anger set in his clenched jaw. His chest heaved in anger. Talent could understand his agitation. He had just watched two of his men die in a horrendous manner, making four casualties in his original six-man team, but Talent could not comprehend McGregor’s insistence on focusing his anger at Walker. The remaining two members of his team –
Hightower and Perez – looked on in confusion.
“Wiggins is dead,” McGregor continued. “So is Sergeant Rhoades. Wiggins had one of the K-2 bombs.” He shook his head. “Two more of my men are gone, and we’re stuck in some … some Kaiju back alleyway nowhere near our assigned target. Just what do you intend to do, Major Walker – kill the rest of us?”
Both Perez and Hightower instinctively positioned themselves to back their captain, but his untimely outburst placed them all in danger. He was rattling the links of the chain of command, so integral to the core of their training, the glue that bound all soldiers together. McGregor was testing to its limits their loyalty to him, and it rankled them, especially Perez who shuffled her feet and shook her head sadly, looking as if she had rather be any place but there. Her conflict was evident in her tortured face.
Walker’s reaction took the captain and the others off guard, even Talent. He pulled his M9 Beretta, placed the barrel against the side of McGregor’s temple, and clicked off the safety. “I’ve had it with you, Captain,” he said. His voice remained calm but his eyes matched his action, conveying the depth of his ire. “If you open your mouth one more time except to say, ‘Yes, sir,’ I’ll put a bullet in your head. I’ve got no time to fight you and the Kaiju.” He nodded his head down the passageway, his cold gaze never leaving McGregor’s face. “This shaft leads to an intersection just above the passageway paralleling the blisters. I intend to use one of the transverse corridors to travel deeper into the Kaiju, find the shaft to the brain, and detonate the K-2. As the nanites eat away the control mechanisms, the Kaiju will be helpless, an unguided behemoth floating in the ocean. Once we reach the junction, feel free to blast a way through and leave.” He turned to Perez and Hightower and his expression softened. “You two can go with him if you want. I won’t order any man to follow me to his death.”
Talent waited to see if McGregor and the others would respond. He did not doubt that Walker would pull the trigger if further provoked. A dark part of him hoped Walker would carry out his threat and shoot McGregor. Like Walker, he was fed up with the mealy-mouthed son of a bitch’s insubordination. To his disappointment, McGregor retained enough of his wits not to test Walker’s mettle. He remained silent. Neither Perez nor Hightower made any sudden move for fear of reprisal by Costas, who calmly kept them covered with his weapon from his position near the opening. Satisfied by their lack of response, Walker holstered his Beretta and went back to retrieve the pack he had left beside Costas.
It is said that disaster strikes when least expected. In Talent’s case, that was doubly true. The tension froze time in the small corridor, but beyond the wall, time continued to flow at an alien pace. Without warning, the slit he had blasted ripped wider and half a dozen Squid tentacles shot through the opening, striking the wall. Walker dropped just in time to avoid decapitation and rolled away from their reach, as they snaked along the wall searching. Costas could not fire at the tentacles for fear of hitting other members of the team. He backpedaled away from the opening, dragging Walker with him.
To Talent’s ears, the high-pitched squeal of Squid teeth grinding into the armored wall was worse than long fingernails raked across a chalkboard. He went to one knee, aiming his MP5 upward at the writhing tentacles, but withheld his fire until he was certain Walker and Costas were clear. Hightower was not as cautious. A shower of hot 7.62 mm shell casings sprayed over Talent’s head and shoulders as the corporal stood over him and unleashed the fury of his M 134 minigun. Squid flesh and blood splattered the walls of the passageway as the stream of bullets ripped into the tentacles, but for every tentacle he severed, two more took its place.
Within minutes, the Squid had enlarged the hole sufficiently for the first Squid to squirm through it. It died quickly under a hail of weapons fire, but the tentacles of those creatures behind it dragged its corpse back. A second and then a third soon joined it, forcing the divided team away from the opening. Costas and Walker went one direction, and Talent and the rest of the fire team the other.
The Squid filled the narrow passageway so tightly there was no chance of friendly fire. Talent added his fire to that of the others. Beyond the creatures, he could hear Costas’ SASR belching out .50 caliber rounds, but the sound diminished as the creatures gradually but relentlessly forced the two groups farther apart. Then, the Squid began to employ a new tactic. As the bodies of their comrades piled up, they scampered up the sides of the passageway as nimbly as they had the side of the Radiant Princess to come at them from above. Talent leaned back as far as he could, firing straight up at one particularly nimble creature. It presented an almost impossible target in the darkness as it scurried in and out of the beam of his flashlight. Finally, Hightower joined him and killed it with a blast from his minigun. The Squid fell from its perch and wedged in the narrow gap between walls, creating a temporary barricade.
Over the rattle of gunfire, Talent heard Walker’s voice in his headset, but the signal was weak and difficult to make out.
“. . . more Squid are attacking. Find a good location, set the timer on the K-2, and get out.” A muffled yell in the background abruptly ended the transmission.
Talent did not want to abandon Walker and Costas, especially if they were under attack, but hands gripping his collar dragged him backwards down the narrow corridor, as the Squid set about methodically dismembering the Squid-corpse barricade. The tight confines prevented the Squid from overpowering them by superior numbers, but their tenacity forced the fire team to retreat, firing as they went, placing greater distance between the two groups with each step.
“Walker,” he called over his headset mic, but heard only the soft hiss of static. He repeated his call until Hightower said, “Forget it. The Kaiju armor acts as a sponge, dampening any E-M signal.”
The Squid had mysteriously abandoned pursuit. Talent was betting they had not forgotten them, but he was too tired to question their tactics. McGregor led the team forward in silence. Talent trudged along behind them, but continued to glance back for Walker and Costas. A dark depression descended on him. Such men who unselfishly risked their lives to save others deserved a more fitting fate – medals, adulation, and a long, happy retirement, Costas with a bevy of attending women.
As they marched, a wall of warm, moist air, fetid with alien smells, pushed down the tunnel into their faces, growing in intensity as they progressed. The mats of fringe flapped frantically in an attempt to propel the onrush of air down the passageway. With his head bowed to avoid the brunt of the foul wind, Talent began to notice patterns in the crimson walls, fine traces of black lines threading through the flesh just beneath the surface. He stopped and pressed the flesh with his finger, surprised by its softness. The area around his finger quivered and turned dark, as the black threads migrated to the pressure point. He removed his finger and the threads retreated to their original configuration. Fascinated, he wanted to experiment further, but McGregor’s glare forced him onward.
For half an hour, they negotiated tight bends and squeezed through narrow enfolds of the passage that funneled the strong wind into a gale-force wind. It was with immense relief that they reached the junction Walker had described. Talent did not wait for orders or permission. He was too exhausted to care what McGregor thought. He collapsed against a wall to rest his aching muscles. Seeing him, McGregor motioned the others to join him.
The junction was a small chamber, the intersection of seven passageways forming an axis node. Two X-axis branches led left and right from the central chamber in which they stood, and two Z-axis branches split from the one they had just traveled, continuing forward, separated from each other by a thirty-degree angle and rose at a twenty-degree incline. One more branch bisected the chamber vertically, forming the Y-axis. The upward vertical shaft was not climbable, and they no longer had enough rope to attempt the descending shaft, a yawning five-foot-wide chasm in the center of the chamber. In addition to transporting the second drum of K-2, Wiggins had also carried most of the rope a
nd climbing gear.
The chamber was composed of the same crimson flesh as the passageway, but here the dark threads were more numerous, so tightly packed they formed bands of black streaking the walls, especially at the points where passageways entered the chamber, where they formed thick orifices. As Talent watched, the orifice of one passageway began to expand, protruding toward the center until they met, sealing the passageway, and diverting the rush of air in a different direction. It was a vivid reminder that he was inside a living creature.
Talent’s anger at McGregor bubbled to the surface when after only a few minutes’ pause he roused his men and directed them down the right-hand branch. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “We can’t leave. What about Major Walker?”
“Walker’s dead.”
The smugness of McGregor’s answer rubbed Talent the wrong way. His hand rested on the hilt of his kukri, itching to plunge it into McGregor’s heart, but he restrained himself.
“You’re here on sufferance, Talent. Don’t tempt me to leave you here. You heard Walker’s transmission. We’re placing the K-2 here and setting the timer for 30 minutes. The air will move it through the creature. The mission went FUBAR.”
Talent scowled at McGregor. “I thought S.E.A.L.S were braver than this.”
Before McGregor could deliver his rejoinder, disaster number three was upon them. From the two inclined shafts in front of them poured a score of mottled gray, bloated creatures the size of a javelina, but their closely set, heavily lidded red eyes made them look meaner than the ubiquitous native Arizona peccary. The four-foot long creature raced at them on at least eight pairs of short, spindly legs, each tipped with a vicious, sharp claw. They moved so swiftly, Talent was uncertain of the exact number. The castanet-like clacking of their foot-long mandibles was as unsettling as their loathsome appearance.
“Ticks,” he moaned, recognizing them from Costas’ vivid description. “I’itoi, give me a friggin’ break.”