The battle mech was an all-together different entity. The mech was clearly constructed from the parts of two different machines. The bottom of the machine looked like two colossal forklifts that had been connected back to back. Each of the forklifts used in the construction of the robot was almost twenty feet across and twenty-five feet long. The top of the mech was made from the parts of at least four Apache Helicopters with the cannons and missiles that would accompany the military helicopters they were made from. Granderson identified the forklift/helicopter hybrid as Whirlybird.
Granderson was confident that the TR-3B’s could fly circles around Whirlybird, but he was fully aware that the seemingly awkwardly constructed mech had more than enough firepower to destroy multiple TR-3Bs. From the areas where the robot’s armaments were positioned, he also guessed that the mech would be able to fire at an opponent in a full three-hundred-sixty-degree range.
Granderson and the other TR-3B had just about completed their flight around the city when Whirlybird rose off the ground and took to the sky. Granderson turned his craft toward the ascending robot and tipped his wings from side to side, indicating to the other pilot that he wanted them to engage Whirlybird before attacking the humanoid robots on the ground. The second TR-3B fell into an attack pattern behind Granderson and they flew toward Whirlybird.
The moment that the two craft fell into an attack pattern, Whirlybird began firing on them with a blitzkrieg of shells and missiles. Granderson pulled his craft to the left out of the firing range of the robot, while the other TR-3B pulled to the right. Without craft-to-craft communications, Granderson wasn’t sure who the other pilot was and he was not able to communicate changes in attack plans directly with him. When Granderson pulled left and the other pilot pulled right, Granderson was pleased to see that the other pilot seemed to know enough about air-to-air combat to coordinate movements based on what Granderson was doing.
Granderson had hoped that by circling around the robot, they would be able to clear its line of fire, but as they circled the mech, Granderson quickly realized that his fear of the mech being able to fire in a full three-hundred-sixty-degree arc around itself was confirmed. Granderson had flown halfway around the robot and it was still firing upon him as well as the other TR-3B.
Neither of the TR-3Bs was able to get close enough to Whirlybird to use either their sonic cannons or their magnetic missiles, and engaging the mech in a traditional firefight was only going to result in both of the TR-3Bs being shot down. Granderson decided that he needed to alter his plan of attack, so he increased his altitude and pulled away from Whirlybird and the other TR-3B followed his lead. Once he was well out of the range of the robot’s weapons, he slowed his craft to a hover in order to let the other TR-3B catch up to him. When the other craft caught up to him, it slowed to a hover as well. Granderson bobbed his TR-3B up and down several times in an attempt to communicate a new attack plan to the other TR-3B. When the other TR-3B reversed the maneuver by having his craft dip down and then come up several times Granderson was satisfied that the other pilot understood his plan. The two pilots then turned their craft around and flew back towards Whirlybird.
As they were approaching the flying mech, Granderson increased his altitude while the other craft descended. As before, when they were in range of Whirlybird’s weapons, the mech fired on them. Granderson angled his TR-3B so that it went into a nosedive, while the other TR-3B ascended. The two TR-3B’s then shifted their craft towards Whirlybird with Granderson flying straight at the mech from above while the second pilot flew his craft straight at the mech from below. Granderson had thought that by flying directly at the mech from above and below that they would not only be out of its range of fire, but that they would also have it trapped in a crossfire.
Granderson’s new plan was quickly put to an end when Whirlybird repositioned its cannons and began firing directly above and below itself at the two TR-3Bs. A shell struck Granderson’s craft, and while it caused some damage, he was still able to keep the craft in the air, but as he and the other pilot continued to struggle to get close enough to Whirlybird to use their modified weapons, he wondered if he should keep the craft in the air.
Granderson quickly decided on a desperate course of action that he prayed the other pilot would pick up on and assist him in pulling off. Granderson sent his TR-3B careening toward the ground and he only pulled up on it slightly. Just prior to hitting the ground, Granderson pulled up on his controls so that his TR-3B skid along the ground instead of smashing into it. Sparks flew as Granderson’s TR-3B skidded across the debris and human bodies that lined the streets of Atlanta. When Granderson saw a piece of rubble large enough to severely damage his TR-3B, he turned on his propulsion system so that he slowed his descent somewhat while still bumping into the rubble. Granderson’s entire craft shook, throwing him from side to side and creating a large dent in the rear of his craft as he slammed into the rubble. He breathed a sigh of relief when he realized that he had managed to prevent his TR-3B from being damaged to the point of no longer being functional while still making it look as if he had died while trying to save himself.
Granderson turned on the outside cameras to his craft so that when he looked in any direction it was as if he was looking through a glass ceiling. Granderson first looked at Blowtorch and Acetylene. He smiled when he saw that both robots were continuing to sift through rubble rather than trying to attack him. He smiled. “Good then, I guess that they think I am dead.” He then looked to see Whirlybird still flying above him. Granderson aimed his sonic cannon at the mech and he set it for continuous fire. Then he looked at the other TR-3B and said, “Come on, bring it down a little, bring it down a little.”
The other TR-3B was circling Whirlybird and firing his machine gun at the mech while the robot continued to attack him with shells and missiles. Each time the TR-3B completed a circle around the mech, it slightly decreased its altitude. Granderson smiled. “That’s a good boy, just a little bit lower. Hang in there for a few more seconds.”
Whirlybird had just about descended to the point where Granderson could hit it with his sonic cannon when the mech struck the other TR-3B with a missile. Granderson screamed when the saw his fellow pilot perish in a ball of flames. He stared at Whirlybird as the mech continued its descent toward the ground, and when it came with range of his weapon, Granderson unleashed the fury of his sonic cannon on the mech while screaming, “It’s called playing possum!”
The sonic cannon cut Whirlybird in half, causing the two pieces of the robot to fall from the sky like shooting stars. As Whirlybird crashed to the ground, both Blowtorch and Acetylene looked in his direction. Acetylene was standing almost directly in front of Granderson, and before the mech could move, the pilot repositioned his cannon toward the mech and fired it cutting the robot’s leg off. The top half of Acetylene fell to the ground with a loud clang. The mech was using its arms to push itself up when Granderson fired another blast of his sonic cannon that shot clear through the mech’s chest, destroying its CPU.
It felt as if an earthquake was emerging from beneath Atlanta as Blowtorch was running toward the TR-3B. Granderson quickly looked behind him to see the giant robot coming for him, and he immediately performed a vertical take-off. He had managed to lift his TR-3B a little over on hundred feet off the ground when Blowtorch punched it, causing the craft to spin as it pulled away from the mech. Grandson’s TR-3B spun completely around several times before he was able to regain control of it. He turned his craft toward Blowtorch to see the mech running directly at him. The pilot quickly fired a magnetic missile into the robot’s chest that caused it to implode upon itself mere seconds before the mech would have destroyed his craft and killed him.
Granderson shook his head. “Damn, it’s just me and a damaged TR-3B heading to Washington.” He then set his craft to slowly float over Atlanta while he played a prerecorded message for any survivors to head for Turner Field where they would soon receive instructions from members of the group known a
s the Horsemen. The pilot only saw a few dozen people crawl out of sewer grates, and he quickly prayed that there were more survivors who would follow them before he turned his craft north toward Washington and his probable death.
Chapter 23
Africa
Okafur had pushed his craft to its limits and beyond, and in doing so, he crossed the Atlantic Ocean in just over two hours. Once they had reached South Africa, the volunteer and the warhead were quickly set into place. As soon as everything was prepared, Okafur had his TR-3B back in the air and rocketing toward Algeria. He and the team he was transporting were ahead of schedule for setting up the World Wide EMP. Okafur just hoped that Williams, Richards, Granderson, and the Kaiju Corps were having as much success as he was.
Two miles outside of Cape Canaveral
The members of the kaiju had been walking in silence for a good hour since they had been dropped off by Captain Granderson. Nick and Miki were holding hands but looking at the ground instead of at each other. Michelle kept her head up straight, but she was walking well ahead of the rest of the group. Jerome could see that the revelation that the Instructors expected them to reproduce was weighing heavily on them. Jerome felt that they would need to address this issues before going into battle with Blackbolt, because if they faced the super robot with their minds not fully focused on it, he feared they would perish.
He took a deep breath and said loud enough for all three of his friends to hear him, “Okay, we are going to discuss all of the unsaid things between us right now so that we have clear minds when we confront Blackbolt.” First, he looked toward Nick and Michelle. “I can see that something is still bothering you two. Like I told you before, I don’t think that it matters what the Instructors want to be the result of your relationship. All that matters, is that you two love each other. So, what’s still bothering you?”
To Jerome’s surprise, it was the usually reserved Miki who spoke up first. “We agree with what you said about it not mattering what the Instructors want from us.” She looked at Michelle. “What matters is that Michelle knew this information for a while and she never disclosed it to us. To me!”
Michelle gave Miki an unsympathetic look. “What did you want me say to you and when did you want me to say it? When you and Nick were pining over each other but neither of you wanted to make the first move? Was that when I was supposed to tell you that if an apocalyptic war broke out that would take generations to win that you and Nick would have been expected to give birth to the next generation of monster soldiers? Or would you have preferred the real truth? That the Instructors didn’t really care who mated with who? That their plan would have called for either one of us to mate with Nick and the other with Jerome?”
Miki began to tear up as she yelled, “You still should have told me, Michelle! You are my friend; more than that, you are my sister. You are the only person in the world who I felt I could trust unconditionally! Now that trust has been shaken.”
Nick nodded in agreement. “Jerome, I feel the same way. How could you have kept something like this from me?”
Michelle’s voice softened. “I am sorry, Miki. I have never been the best at gauging how to deal with other people. I have often looked to you for a model about how to handle social situations. My mind is always focused on how to be a better soldier, on how I can best complete a mission. When I was considering some of the scenarios that we were created for, I came to the realization that we may one day face a threat that would go beyond the scope of our lifespan. It was then that I realized we may have to mate in order to create the next generation of the Kaiju Corps.” She looked toward Nick. “Jerome only learned about this yesterday. In his defense, he truly did not have time to discuss the issue with you.”
Nick nodded and Miki walked over to Michelle. “You still could have told me when you figured this out, Michelle. If for no other reason than you would not have to carry the burden yourself.” She placed her hand on Michelle’s shoulder. “I want to be there for you just as much as I want you to be there for me. I can see how it would have been a difficult discussion for us to have, but it could have been a difficult discussion that we had with each other. We could have worked out our feelings about this together instead of you just moving forward with the knowledge that the people who created us, that our parents for all intents and purposes, had scenarios of what at best can be looked at as a prearranged marriages.” Miki hugged her friend. “More than anything, Michelle, we could have discussed the anguish about giving birth to children specifically to be used as soldiers! If there is anyone who understands that pain, it’s us! You said that I am your sounding board for how to deal with other people emotionally. If that is true, why didn’t you talk to me about this before trying to mate with Jerome? Did you even consider what it must be like for him to send you into battle knowing that you might be pregnant with his child?”
Miki’s words hit Michelle harder than any giant mech she had faced. She walked over to Jerome. “You didn’t want to put me on the backlines because you felt differently about me after we had sex. You were concerned that putting me on the frontlines could have put our potential child in danger.”
Jerome nodded. “I didn’t even realize it at first, but when I tried to look at my decision introspectively, I came to the same conclusion.” He looked at Michelle. “I don’t know that I can serve as your commander and use you effectively in the field if you are carrying my child.” He looked at Nick and Miki. “If they were in the same position, I don’t know that Nick could effectively work with Miki in combat situation either? Could you?”
Nick was wide eyed with an overwhelmed look on his face. “I don’t know. Miki and I just admitted our feelings to each other on the same day that we entered a war. These are deep questions. Will we have kids? Will we raise them to be soldiers? Will we be able to fight with the girls if we know they are pregnant with our kids?” Nick threw his hands in the air. “I don’t know the answer to any of these questions! Right now, I want to focus on winning a war. We will have to face these questions later just as a result of the world that we now live in, but we don’t need it to bog us down now. As long as I know that Jerome wasn’t purposely hiding something from me then I can move forward with this mission and we can cross those other bridges when we come to them.”
Jerome nodded. “I would never hide anything from you. Personally, you are my friend, and when we are in the field, you are my responsibility. I am obligated to give you whatever information that I can to help you succeed.”
Michelle walked over to Jerome. “Jerome, I am sorry. I should have thought things out more before I approached you.” She shook her head as she started to tear up. “I only ever look at things concerning how to complete a mission. When I realized that this war was going to go on for a long time, I just started taking the next steps needed to win it. I never considered how the possibility of being a father would affect you.”
Jerome walked over and hugged her. “It’s okay. I…” Jerome’s sentence was cut short by the sound of a rocket’s ignition starting. All four of them looked toward Cape Canaveral to see a huge rocket lifting off the ground.
Miki shouted, “That must be the first shipment of people being sent back to the Signal’s home planet! We are too late!”
Jerome threw his clothes off. “No we are not!” He quickly changed into the awesome form of Garudasaurus and took to the sky. The rocket was carrying several tons of fuel that it would need to burn to reach escape velocity. The weight of the fuel made the initial part of the rocket’s ascent relatively slow when compared to the speeds that it would reach in the stratosphere. Garudasaurus knew that if he hurried, he could catch the rocket before it left the atmosphere. The avian kaiju flapped his wings as hard as he could, and he slowly gained on the rocket.
As Garudasaurus was streaking toward the rocket, his keen raptor-like vison saw a pitch-black shape with triangular appendages flying toward him. Garudasaurus knew that the shape had to be Blackbolt, but the kaiju wa
s determined that nothing was going to prevent him from stopping the rocket from leaving the planet. Garudasaurus had almost reached the rocket when the powerful slipstream generated by its thrusters pushed him away from it. The kaiju screeched as he looked up to see the rocket pulling away from him. Garudasaurus flapped his wings as hard and as fast as he could, and in a matter of few seconds, he caught up to rocket and positioned his body to compensate for the slipstream.
The kaiju dug his clawed talons into the side of the rocket and began tearing into it with his claws and beak. Garudasaurus had managed to punch a hole into the hull of the rocket when Blackbolt slammed into his side. The robot tried to pull Garudasaurus off the rocket, but the kaiju refused to release his grip. In his mind, he thought, I’ll show these robots what it truly means to be committed to succeeding in a mission!
Blackbolt delivered blow after blow to the kaiju, but Garudasaurus ignored the pain and continued to cause damage to the ever-ascending rocket. Garudasaurus threw his elbow back, striking Blackbolt in the face, but the kaiju was unable to generate enough force to pry the robot off him. Garudasaurus could feel the air growing thin as the altitude continued to increase. The kaiju tore another section of the exterior off the rocket then he reached into it and grabbed as many wires and control panels as he could. The kaiju was in the process of pulling the wires out of the rocket when he felt Blackbolt place its sonic cannon against his ribcage. Garudasaurus pulled out the handful of wires at the same moment that Blackbolt set its sonic cannon to continuous pulse and fired through the kaiju’s ribs and lungs.
Kaiju Corps Page 19