by JE Gurley
People moved around him. He wet his lips and tried to speak but only a weak croaking sound emerged from his parched throat. His stirring attracted a nurse. She rushed over and offered him water from a glass with a flexible straw. He took a few sips of the lukewarm water and forced it down his throat. He nodded, and she removed the glass.
“Where am I?” he asked in English.
She shook her head. “Je ne parle pas anglais. Parlez-vous Français?”
He remembered where he was – France. “Oui.” He repeated his question in French.
“A first-aid center in Nantes,” she answered.
Nantes was near the coast on the Loire River over two hundred miles from Paris. “Nantes? How did I get here?”
“Some children found you in the Eglise St. Sulpice in Paris after the Kaiju stopped. Many of the injured from the city came here by truck, by train, by helicopter. So many.”
“What about my team, Spence and Mayer?”
She shook her head and frowned. “There was only you, monsieur. No others.”
He remembered Mayer in the clutches of a Wasp after she fired her rocket. He had lost his entire team, eight good soldiers, to bring down the Kaiju. It was a steep price to pay. Sometime during his sleep, his subconscious mind had sorted through his fears and hit the reset button on his hatred of the aliens. He focused on that hatred. He could not just lay there while other Kaiju threatened the rest of Europe.
“When can I leave?” He tried to sit up again. This time, he ignored the pain until his feet dangled over the side of the bed. Then, he stopped to catch his breath.
“No, you will tear your stitches,” the nurse reprimanded him. She laid her hand against her side to indicate his injury. “The doctor removed shrapnel from your side, here. Your burns are very bad. You are very lucky to be alive.”
He didn’t feel lucky. He had killed his team. “Get my clothes. I have to report in.”
“Your clothes were too badly damaged to salvage.” She touched his arm gently, but he still winced at the pain. “I will bring the doctor to explain why you must stay.”
He didn’t have time for explanations. “Yeah, you do that,” he told her.
He struggled to slide off the edge of the bed. It took all the strength he could muster. He ached all over, as if a building had fallen on him, and realized it had. His head spun. His muscles cried out in pain. He focused on his surroundings and noticed scores of people, mostly civilians, in serious condition lying on cots around him. Nurses and volunteers raced around the tent helping where they could, but they were obviously understaffed and overwhelmed. People moaned, prayed aloud, or cried depending on the severity of their wounds. Some of them suffered in silence, dazed and in shock by what they had endured.
He noted a Geiger counter on a stainless steel rolling tray near the section of the tent in which his cot sat. Around him were several patients with severe burns, possibly from the nuclear rocket his team used to kill the Kaiju. They would have received a large dose of radiation, as he probably had. The number could have been higher. Most of the populace of Paris had evacuated the area prior to the blast. The nuke was small to limit fallout, but radiation would contaminate the area for years. Those few affected by the radiation, including him, were unfortunate collateral damage.
He spotted two dozen bundles wrapped in sheets lying on the ground near the rear wall. A cold, hard knot formed in his chest when he realized that they were bodies. Not everyone had made it to the hospital alive. In no mood for arguing, he did not wait on the nurse to return with a doctor. He stood, wobbly at first, and forced his feet to move. His legs worked. He yanked out the IV and left it dripping on the cot. He winced as he loosened the Velcro strap securing his arm to the board, as it also removed hair and blistered skin. He walked barefooted across the canvas floor, avoiding still wet spots of blood. Near the exit, he passed a rack with stacks of folded hospital scrubs. He stopped long enough to shed his hospital gown and don a pair of green scrubs, noting the livid bruises and numerous burns covering his torso. From a box of polypropylene booties on another shelf, he grabbed a pair of the disposable shoe covers and slipped them over his bare feet.
Outside, the night sky was ablaze with stars. Because of the smoke and dust from the Kaiju landing and Paris burning, it was the first time he had seen stars in days. The tent was one of a dozen erected in the parking lot of a hospital. The sign read Hospital Bellier. Nearby in a railroad marshalling yard, ambulances and trucks unloaded rail cars filled with more injured from Paris and the surrounding cities. The hospital normally dealt with hundreds of patients. The thousands descending upon them overwhelmed their resources. They didn’t need one more reluctant patient. He had to get back to his base in England to report on his mission, and, if possible, cadge an assignment to another Kaiju Killer team. He just wasn’t sure how to accomplish it.
The fear and indecision that had gripped him for days had vanished, almost as if the nuclear explosion had expunged it from his body, leaving behind a throbbing ache for revenge. The others had all died, and yet, he had survived. He had to make that count for something. For all he knew, the radiation might have saturated his body. He might only have months to live or weeks. Cowering behind his wounds wouldn’t accomplish anything. He wanted to go out fighting like a soldier.
A U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter passing overhead gave him an idea. He watched it land in an open area a short distance away and headed that direction. He was still unsteady on his feet and stumbled over the multiple railroad tracks, barely making it out of the way of an oncoming train. The rocky ballast was sharp-edged and cut into his feet through the thin booties. He tiptoed across it until he reached bare dirt. A couple of tents, portable buildings, and a handful of military vehicles sat at the edge of the lighted open space in which the Blackhawk had landed. He pushed through some bushes and startled a sentry. The young private raised his rifle and eyed LaBonner suspiciously, taking in his hospital garb and bandages.
“Who are you?” the private demanded.
“Sergeant L. Francis LaBonner, service number 1325468991 with Kaiju Killer Team Charlie. I was in Paris.”
The sentry scratched his head and lowered his rifle. “No shit. You helped take down that monster.”
“My team did. They’re all dead.”
“Pardon my saying so, Sergeant, but you look half dead yourself.” He glanced toward a collection of portable shelters, trailers, and trucks. “Do you need a medic?”
“I need a lift back to England.”
“Maybe you had better talk to Colonel Mitchell. He’s in the second shack. Ask for Lieutenant Muldoon. He’s the duty officer.”
“Thanks, Private.” He took a step and wobbled.
“You sure you don’t need a medic?”
LaBonner shook his head. “No. No medic.” A medic would take one look at him and send him back to the hospital.
The first truck was a mobile communications unit. A satellite dish on an extendable mast protruded from the roof of the vehicle. A portable generator hummed away between two DRASH tents. The first Deployable Rapid Assembly Shelter was a barracks. The second was an office. He walked up to the open door. A fan sat on the canvas floor in an attempt to fight back the heat.
Muldoon was a young second lieutenant sitting in front of a laptop scanning maps. He glanced up at LaBonner when he entered; then, did a double take. He noted the scrubs and the bandages. “How can I help you?”
LaBonner snapped a crisp salute. The sudden movement sent another spasm of pain shooting up his arm. “Sergeant L.F. LaBonner, K-T Charlie reporting in, sir.”
“Kaiju Team Charlie?” Muldoon pulled up a chart on his screen, quickly scanned it, and then looked at LaBonner. “K-T Charlie was assigned to Paris. How did you get here?”
“No idea, sir. We took out the Kaiju, and a church fell in on me. I woke up here in a civilian field hospital.”
“Well, good job, Sergeant. We thought Team Charlie was KIA. Glad you survived. What can I
do for you?”
“I need a lift to England, sir.”
“Hmm. I’ll inform the colonel. Wait here.”
He rose and passed through a door into the colonel’s office. He returned less than a minute later with his superior, Colonel Mitchell, a tall, older man with a sunburned shaven head, who looked LaBonner over for a few seconds, and then shook his head.
“You look like shit, son, but I commend your desire to get back in the game. Under normal circumstances, I would send you straight to a hospital for some R&R and TLC, but we need you if you think you can cope.”
The colonel’s statement puzzled LaBonner. “What circumstances, sir?”
“You haven’t heard?”
“I just woke up a few minutes ago.” LaBonner noted the expression on the colonel’s face – fear. “What’s going on?”
“Then you’ve been out the better part of three days. Word is thirty more pods are inbound for Earth. ETA for the first ten is 1400 hours GMT tomorrow. Twenty more follow a week later.”
LaBonner’s legs folded as if someone had punched him in the gut. He collapsed into a metal folding chair beside the lieutenant’s desk, suddenly dizzy and weak. He glanced at the lieutenant. The lieutenant had heard the news before, but his face still blanched as the colonel pronounced Earth’s doom. “My God,” LaBonner gasped. The vein in his temple throbbed to the beat of his heart. He resisted the urge to reach up and massage his temple.
The colonel nodded. “Exactly.”
“Where?”
“We don’t know yet, but it looks like the States, Eastern seaboard. The others,” he shrugged, “who knows.”
LaBonner swallowed hard and tried to shake off the panic burrowing like a mole to get inside his head. What had it all been for – the deaths, the devastation, the mass exodus of cities? Were they just trying to prolong everyone’s misery? They couldn’t deal with the eight remaining Kaiju. Now, the aliens were sending thirty more. It was hopeless. The urge to curl up on the floor and cry threatened to overwhelm him, but he didn’t. Now was no time to lose it. He reached down deep inside, as he had advised Thayer to do, found one small spark of courage, and tried to fan it into flame.
“What’s the plan?” he asked.
The colonel clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes. “Plan? Why, we fight the bastards to the last man. There is no alternative. They mean to wipe us out.”
He could handle that. He was probably dying from radiation poisoning. Dying at the hands of a Wasp or a Flea would be quicker than a slow, lingering death, if any of them got the chance to linger.
“Can you get me to RAF Lakenheath? That’s Kaiju Killer Team command.”
“Can do, son. You got lucky. I’m sending my reports to London HQ by chopper. I’ll have Lieutenant Muldoon here inform the chopper pilot that you’ll be joining him. He’s refueling now. You’ll be there within an hour.”
LaBonner saluted. His finger trembled slightly as he held the salute. “Thank you, sir.”
Colonel Mitchell returned his salute. “My pleasure, Sergeant. You get back in the game as soon as you’re able. We need your experience.”
The colonel returned to his office. Muldoon looked at LaBonner and grinned. “Let’s get you home, soldier.”
LaBonner relaxed and rubbed his temple. “Do you have any aspirin?”
Muldoon stared at him a moment. “I think I do. Maybe you need a shot of Jim Beam to wash them down.”
“I could use a jolt, sir.”
* * * *
LaBonner learned from the chopper pilot that K-Teams in Hamburg, Germany; Tiran, Albania; and Sophia, Bulgaria, had eliminated their Kaiju targets. Two of the teams had suffered heavy casualties but had made it back to Lakenheath. K-Team Foxtrot in Hamburg had failed to report in. That left five Kaiju: Malaga, Spain; Zagreb, Croatia; Rome, Italy; Brussels, Belgium; and Budapest, Hungary. They were batting .500 – Not high enough to win the pennant in this league.
Colonel Mitchell had insisted he allow a combat medic check him out before he left France. The ‘Doc’ had tsked LaBonner’s leaving the hospital as unwise, but relented and rewrapped his head wound, bandaged his left hand, and reapplied burn salve to both arms. He had stood by, eyeing LaBonner like a mother hen until he swallowed two pain pills. The pills had knocked the edges off the aches but left him groggy. He wanted to curl up for a long nap, but already he had wasted away over fifty hours while unconscious. He couldn’t afford to sleep.
Over the English Channel, they flew over a fleet of U.S., British, and French warships sailing north toward the North Sea. It was an impressive sight, two carriers and sixteen escort ships, but not all the ships in all of the world’s fleets would be enough to deal with thirty more Kaiju. For the first time since the aliens had sent the Kaiju monsters, LaBonner wondered if Earth’s best was good enough. The aliens were grinding humanity down to the point that rising again would be impossible.
At Lakenheath, he learned just how much had happened while he was unconscious. Command had ordered surviving members of hard-hit Kaiju teams and key personnel from existing teams to Groom Lake. He was the only unassigned Kaiju Killer remaining. Whatever mission lay in store for them, he would not be in on it. He cursed his luck. A day late and a dollar short. He expressed his disappointment to Kaiju Killer Team commander Colonel Leonard Eckhart.
“I wish to follow the others on the next available flight, sir,” he said.
Eckhart looked him up and down carefully. His close-set sea moss green eyes squinted beneath bushy brown eyebrows showing the first hints of gray. “Sergeant, you look like you were on the receiving end of a gangbanger ass kicking. I’m surprised you can stand.”
“Mostly bruises and a little flash burn,” LaBonner lied, fighting to stand straight and not wobble. “I can fight.” He put as much force in his words as he could muster.
The colonel expressed his doubt just as emphatically. “Sergeant, you couldn’t fight my eighty-year-old arthritic mother, but I admire your spunk. Look, I know you want to join your unit, but emergency flights only have clearance to fly until the pods land. Fact is your fellow unit members are no longer on Earth.”
LaBonner’s jaw dropped. He wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. “No longer … Where the hell are they,” he demanded; then, remembering he spoke to his superior, added a respectful, “sir.”
“They’re on their way to fight the aliens on their home turf.”
The colonel’s answer punched him like a hard left jab to the kidneys and left him gasping for breath. “You mean … The Kuiper Belt?”
“That’s right.” Eckhart shook his head. “I don’t know all the details. That’s above my pay grade, but rumor is we’re using the aliens’ gravity drive technology now.”
“Is Major Walker with them?”
“He’s leading the assault team.”
LaBonner was crestfallen. Walker needed him. He needed to be with Walker’s team. “Damn it to hell!” The words slipped out before LaBonner could catch it. It didn’t faze Eckhart.
“I know how you feel, Sergeant. I’m sitting here fiddling while Rome burns. My Kaiju Killer Teams are giving everything they’ve got and coming up short.” He shuffled a few papers on his desk as he considered something. LaBonner hoped it was good news for him. It wasn’t. “We’re losing this war.” He hung his head and shook it. “We don’t have the resources to stop the aliens. Individual nations are taking matters into their own hands.”
A cold knot formed in the pit of LaBonner’s stomach, sending icy tendrils into his arms and chest. He had heard rumors. “You mean nukes?”
“I do.”
“Aren’t the Kaiju causing enough destruction without us adding to the carnage?”
“People are scared. Nations are scared. Frightened people aren’t rational. Sometimes they do stupid shit.”
LaBonner’s shoulders sagged. Every hurt and pain he had endured to stop Kaiju Paris fought for dominance. “The Nazir must be laughing their asses off.”
�
�No doubt. Captain Caulder will be arriving shortly.”
“Finally, some good news.” LaBonner knew Caulder. He was a good man, dedicated and obstinate. He saw the grim look on Eckhart’s face. “Any casualties?”
“Most of them. Only Caulder and one other member of his team survived.”
“I know how he feels. He has my sympathies.”
“Washington wants me to withdraw all American personnel and bring them home to meet any new threats on U.S. soil.” He made a fist. “I’m ignoring the order. They can damn well court martial and hang me. Hell, they can draw and quarter me if it will make them feel better, but I won’t abandon Europe to those … those things, not yet. I’ve giving the teams in the field time to do their jobs. They’ve spent too much blood to quit now. Instead, I’m putting together as many teams as I can from survivors, new recruits, and volunteers. You will be leaving for the States tomorrow morning. Get some rest, son. You look like you need it.”
LaBonner could not give up so easily. “Sir, I …”
Colonel Eckhart’s face turned stone cold. “Sergeant, I can just as easily send you back to a hospital for a few weeks.”
LaBonner looked into Eckhart’s eyes and realized he had lost the argument. Eckhart was bucking command and might pay a high price for his treason in the name of commitment. He saluted. “Yes, sir.”
The colonel reached into a drawer. “Before they court-martial me, I’d like to do one final thing.” He pushed a small box across the desk to LaBonner. The box held a pair of silver captain’s bars. “This is your reward for a job well done, more headaches. You’ve earned them, Captain.”
LaBonner saw the glint of the silver bars and cringed. The last thing he wanted was more responsibility, having the power of life and death over more men and women. The colonel defied procedure by jumping him from sergeant to captain instead of to a second lieutenant. “I don’t want –”
“Captain, you don’t get the luxury of refusing. We need your experience if we’re going to win this war. You can do more good as a captain than a second looie.”
LaBonner was not happy. He didn’t want more responsibility. The loss of his team was too poignant a reminder that he didn’t deserve a promotion. His first impulse was to shove the bars into a certain part of the colonel’s anatomy. Instead, he reached for them.