Kaiju Seeds Of Destruction (Kaiju Deadfall Book 3)

by JE Gurley

  KAIJU SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION

  Kaiju Deadfall book 3

  A novel by J.E. Gurley

  www.severedpress.com

  Copyright 2017 by J.E. Gurley

  1

  August 11, 2019

  Paris, France –

  The weight of centuries of history rested upon Gunnery Sergeant Lowden Francis LaBonner’s broad shoulders, and the pressure bowed him like an old man. Although only 32 years old, he felt as decrepit as the oldest edifice in ancient Paris, as if the timeworn cobblestones of the streets had replaced his bones and crumbling mortar his blood. His heart and sinew were strong, but his head reeled with the hopelessness of the situation in which fate had placed him, fate, and his determination to get the job done. Surrounded by iconic architectural wonders and priceless works of art facing imminent destruction, he could do nothing to protect them. The Arc de Triomphe, the Arenes de Lutcee, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Basilique St. Denise, La Conciergerie – all the pretty postcard wonders to which tourists from around the world flocked to see – would soon be obliterated by a nightmarish creature that a year ago, Parisians could not have imagined. Not even the dark, fertile minds of Giger, Goya, Dali, or Bosch could have birthed such a monster that now faced Paris.

  Yet, for all their cultural and architectural significance, buildings were mere mortar, brick, plaster, and stone; paintings only canvas, oil, and acrylics. Engineers could reconstruct buildings; artists could copy paintings. LaBonner realized his first priority was to the citizens of Paris, those who had not fled already ahead of the deadly Kaiju’s rampage.

  The reek of blood, sweat, and grime assaulted his nostrils. The sweat and the grime was his, now a part of him after days wearing the same uniform. Dried splotches of blood staining his tunic belonged to one of his dead men. He racked his memory but failed to remember which one. All their agonizing deaths blended into one grim scene that replayed repeatedly in his mind like a looped trailer for a horror movie. Watching men die in battle was nothing new to him. Whether quick and merciful, or slow and suffering, the deaths had been a natural consequence of bullets, explosives, or cold steel. Nothing about his men’s deaths had been natural. They had become victims of alien monstrosities.

  He needed time to think, to clear his head. They had pursued the Kaiju for two days, waiting for the opportunity to destroy it. So far, they had failed. He needed another plan of action, but his whirling mind refused to cooperate. Exhaustion plagued him and sapped his will; rendered him indecisive. He had not slept for over forty-eight hours. To lie back and close his eyes for a while would have been a godsend, just a few minutes alone to purge the dreadful things he had witnessed from his mind.

  Blaming the heat for his vacillation, he wiped the beads of perspiration from his forehead with his sleeve. Immediately, more replaced them, as if squeezed from his pores by the pressure of the situation. Rivulets of sweat streamed down his face, burning the fresh scars on his square chin through the three-day-old stubble. The afternoon temperature hovered around 94 degrees, and the humidity made the rank, cloying air difficult to breathe. Paris in late summer reminded him of his home state of Louisiana, minus the ubiquitous alligators and mosquitoes. Right now, he would gladly take them both, plus a few cottonmouths, over the horrors around him.

  In Plaquemine Parish at the mouth of the Mississippi, when the heat grew too intense to bear, he would sit beneath the shade of a willow tree with a glass of iced tea or a cold beer and watch the sun slip behind the Mississippi River levee. The ground would tremble with the passage of large freighters up the river to the Port of New Orleans to disgorge their cargo, their huge propellers churning water the color of his coffee-and-cream eyes. The gentle vibration would often lull him to sleep on hot, humid nights. He would gladly trade the remainder of his life for just half an hour inhaling the sweet fragrances of gardenias and magnolia blossoms, or the heady aroma of crawfish and heads of garlic boiling in a black kettle over an open flame.

  He ran his finger under his opened collar. God, I’m suffocating! He longed to shed his TEP armor and BPP. Combined, the Torso and Extremities Protection plates and Blast Pelvic Protector weighed over thirty pounds and tended to shift at awkward times, throwing him off balance. The body armor trapped perspiration against his body, roasting him like a rump roast, but at least it offered a small measure of protection against Fleas and Wasps, two of the deadly creatures hosted by the Kaiju, its foraging battle units.

  Around him, protected by the burned-out hulk of a double-decker Transilien railcar, the four remaining members of Kaiju Killer Team Charlie sprawled in varying degrees of fatigue. Corporal Sid Thayer lapsed in and out of near delirium from toxins injected by the bite of an alien Flea. The modified IFAK each soldier carried offered little remedy – a bandage for the deep laceration of the bite, Quik Clot to staunch the bleeding, and a Povidone-Iodine solution to cleanse the wound. Field first-aid kits were for bullet wounds or trauma, not infectious bites from alien creatures.

  LaBonner had given Thayer two aspirin for his fever from a bottle he carried in his shirt pocket for one of his migraines, which seemed to come on more frequently lately. It was all he had to offer the stricken soldier for the pain. Proper medical help was beyond reach for the moment. They could expect no medical evacuation by chopper. The sky above the Champs de Mars was under the control of the Wasps, and the ground was the domain of the Fleas. LaBonner hadn’t seen a Mirage 2000N jet, or a Tiger EC665 or Gazelle SA341 helicopter in hours. Most of the French ground troops either were dead or had fled east to form a new defensive perimeter around the Parisian suburbs. Maybe they’ve just given up, as I want to.

  Kaiju Paris had landed a few miles south of Rouen, France, three days earlier and blasted its way through Mantes-La-Jolie, Poissy, and the French countryside on its way to the heart of Paris. It had made short work of the 1st and 8th Artillery Regiments, stomping through the double line of 155mm AUF-1 self-propelled and 155mm TR-F1 towed cannon placed outside Poissy.

  They had come across dozens of French Leclerc Main Battle Tanks from the 1st Spahis Armored Cavalry Regiment abandoned along the streets. Their 120mm cannon and 80mm grenade launch tubes were no match for a giant Kaiju, and their remotely controlled 7.62mm machine guns weren’t fast enough for the hopping Fleas or darting Wasps. One tank lay on its side, the heavy steel armor gouged deeply by Wasp claws, attesting to the combined strength of the creatures. The only trace of its three-man crew was the dried blood staining the turret hatch, a mini-scenario representing similar scenes taking place all over Europe.

  Crossing the Seine at Boulogne-Billancourt from the Rive Gauche, the Left Bank, the Kaiju, as much manufactured weapon as biological entity, now sauntered down the Avenue de New York on the Rive Droit, the Right Bank, as casually as a Mademoiselle out for a Sunday stroll along the riverbank. The Paris Kaiju was a condensed version of its 900-foot predecessors, smaller, but just as deadly and just as gruesome. The hulking ebony monster measured over 600 feet in length. Its multiple, overlapping body segments acted as impenetrable armor ending in razor-sharp spikes. The ebony armor also served as an energy collector, absorbing solar energy or any kinetic energy directed at it, and converting it for power. The creature used the very weapons aimed at it to fuel its rampage.

  It scuttled across the landscape on twelve, 60-foot-long needlepoint legs – three pair in front and three pair at the rear – that stabbed like massive pikes into the soil and asphalt, shattering buildings, ripping up chunks of concrete and asphalt, and shaking the ground with each powerful earthquake step. Eight bulbous protrusions surrounded the gaping vertical maw in its head. LaBonner had
seen the protrusions in action, a sickening sight. Uncurled, they became 80-foot tentacles capable of snatching people from inside buildings or from the street and transporting them to its hideous mouth. He had witnessed the horror of Sanders drawn into the dark chasm screaming at him for help. He could do nothing but watch.

  Of all the deaths LaBonner had witnessed, those were the most gruesome. Inside the mouth, multiple rows of razor-edged teeth macerated anything the Kaiju ate into a paste and delivered it to a pool of digestive acids from which Wasps, Fleas, Ticks, and other assorted denizens of the Kaiju fed. The stench of death surrounded the creature like a miasma rising from a fetid swamp. LaBonner wished he could channel his hatred of the creature into one massive bolt of energy to penetrate its dark heart. He had watched his men die one-by-one, helpless to do anything about it, taking their deaths onto his conscience, as he could not take their dog tags home. So far, the mission had cost the lives of four of his team, and it seemed more would pay the ultimate price for victory before they stopped the creature.

  As he curled his hands into fists to stop them from trembling, he noticed the dirt and blood beneath his fingernails. His mother would say, “La proprete est proche de la saintete. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, mon cher.” If she could only see me now.

  Corporal Ellis Chalmers interrupted his reverie. “Sarge,” he said, “we’ll never get a shot from here.”

  LaBonner drew himself back into the present and stared at Chalmers, trying to bring the corporal’s face into focus. Everything seemed a blur, as if his eyes, like his mind, refused to accept the reality of the situation. Chalmers, barely out of his teens, a tall, lanky Ohioan from Dayton, was the team’s weapons specialist. His constant contumaciousness bordered on insubordination, but his expertise with heavy weapons made him a vital member of the team. Finally, Chalmers’ thin haggard face with its hawkish nose and jutting chin cut through the mental fog enveloping LaBonner’s mind. Chalmers no longer looked like a boy. His grim mien spoke of the days of stress and fatigue that plagued the entire team. His nasally, whiny voice had become more strident and irritating over the past few days. LaBonner resisted the urge to smash Chalmers’ face with his fist for stating the obvious. Keep your shit together, Francis.

  The broken windows of the railcar’s upper observation level provided an excellent view of the Kaiju, but the firing angle was wrong. They needed a higher vantage point. He had considered the Eiffel Tower, within view and the most obvious feature around. At eighty stories high, it was tall enough, but it offered little protection, and crossing the open ground around it opened them up for attack from above by Wasps.

  Chalmers continued to stare at him waiting for an answer. LaBonner clenched his jaw to keep from yelling at him. “No shit, Chalmers,” he responded with a sharp edge to his voice. “We’ll keep falling back ahead of the Kaiju.”

  Chalmers mumbled something unintelligible. LaBonner was certain it was not supportive, probably derisive, but he let it slide. He didn’t have the energy to argue. He understood Chalmers’ frustration. They had fallen back ahead of the creature for three days, and it had gotten them nowhere. More of the same seemed futile. He studied the wrinkled map in his hand. The lines of streets and avenues danced across the page, twisting like worms in a bait bucket. A bloody fingerprint stained the upper right-hand corner of the map. His gaze focused on it for a moment, unsure how it got there. Is it mine? No, I’m not injured. Whose? He shook his head. It doesn’t matter.

  “There’s a church nearby, the Eglise Saint Sulpice. It has two towers perfect for the job.”

  LaBonner was certain the creature would re-cross the Seine to destroy the Eiffel Tower. The 1,063-foot tower was too conspicuous an artifact to ignore. Then, it would continue its path of destruction through the Latin Quarter and on to the Ile de la Cite, home of Notre Dame Cathedral. After that, the heart of the city was just a few monstrous strides away, unless he and his team could stop it.

  Chalmers glanced down at Thayer. “He’ll never make it that far.”

  In spite of his agony, Thayer roused long enough to pull the Fentanyl lollipop from his mouth and smile. LaBonner had brought a handful of the painkiller treats for just such an emergency. Sanders had carried most of their medical supplies with him into the Kaiju’s mouth. With his curly blond hair, teal eyes, and smooth cheeks, Thayer looked like a kid with a sucker, a reward for a trip to the dentist.

  “Don’t worry about me, Chalmers,” he replied in a low growl. The effort of speaking drained him.

  LaBonner had removed Thayer’s heavy armor to ease his labored breathing and made a pallet of charred bench cushions to make him more comfortable. Thayer pushed himself into a sitting position using his Mk17 SCAR-H rifle for support. He looked up at LaBonner with his face drained of color, and slapped the rifle.

  “Just leave me some extra ammo, Sarge. I have a great view of the Eiffel Tower.” He coughed twice, wincing in pain. “I always wanted to visit Paris, and there aren’t many tourists this time of year. Wish I had my camera.”

  Thayer’s casual acceptance of the situation infuriated LaBonner. He had lost enough men. He could not bear to lose another. “We’re not leaving anyone, Thayer. You can make it. I’ll help you. Dig down and suck it up.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Sarge.” Thayer reached down to pat his hideously swollen right leg. The rip in his pants exposed flesh bruised and discolored from the toxins in the Flea’s bite. The grave expression that crossed his sweat-beaded, pallid face revealed the pain the gesture caused. The pain-suppressant lollipops were no longer working. His chest heaved with each labored breath, as his lungs slowly filled with fluid. “I’ll slow you down. Besides, I don’t think I can hold out much longer. It’s getting hard to breathe.”

  “Shut up, Thayer,” LaBonner snapped at him. “Let me think.”

  Thayer was right, but he had already lost four men and had yet to get close enough for a shot at the creature. His greatest fear was that he had spent their lives uselessly. Each time he replayed a decision in his mind that had cost lives, it only made making new decisions more difficult. His questioning his leadership ability was one thing. Having his men question it, was something altogether different.

  The Wasps overhead were as thick as a murmuration of starlings. He had watched such flocks as a child, fascinated by the sheer poetry of motion exhibited by the birds, swooping and swirling but never colliding. He sensed none of that joy watching Wasps. The swarms of black and yellow Kaiju spawn and the dark clouds of smoke from the inferno sweeping through parts of the city effectively blocked the sun. Daylight had become little more than dreary twilight. The gloom seemed to sap his strength and his ability to make decisions. So damned tired. He checked his map again, searching for a safe alternative. His mind spun. So damn hard to think straight. He bit down on his lip. The pain helped him focus. Still, only one option came to mind.

  “We’ll use the sewers,” he announced. “Underground is safer. Yeah.” He nodded, trying to convince himself his decision was a wise one.

  Chalmers scowled and rolled his eyes. “Wading through French shit ain’t my idea of fighting.”

  “The army issued you big boy boots for a reason, Chalmers.” He looked at Privates Jack Spence and Kris Mayer, the two remaining members of his team. Spence, a thin-as-a-rail twenty-year-old from Dry Fork, West Virginia, and Mayer, a burly, twenty-four-year-old redheaded former roughneck from Odessa, Texas, kept an eye on the terrain. Both looked as if they could use a long nap. Don’t we all. “Gather our packs and the launchers. Chalmers and I will carry Thayer.”

  “No way, Sarge,” Thayer said. He released his grip on his weapon and fell back onto his pallet, moaning. “It’s over a hundred yards to the sewer entrance. You’ll never make it carrying me.” He waved his hand. “Look out there.”

  On the neatly clipped grass of the Champs de Mars, mottled brown from the intense summer heat, hundreds of Fleas hopped and leaped about in search of prey. Each of the dun-colored, German Shep
herd-sized creatures could cover ten feet with one bound. Their legs ended in sharp killing tools, and their vicious bites spread disease. They were the Kaiju ground shock troops, providing prey for the Wasps to ferry back to the Kaiju. The Wasps were the air support. Together, they were an invading alien army. His team was five men, one of them injured.

  “We’ll –”

  Thayer shook his head. The effort made him dizzy. He rolled onto one side and groaned. “Forget it. I’m not going anywhere.” His chest heaved as he gasped for breath to continue. “We both know I don’t have a chance. I won’t cost other lives. You need every man you’ve got, even assholes like Chalmers.” He glared at Chalmers. “I’m staying right here.”

  LaBonner stared at Thayer, torn between pulling rank and facing reality. The hell of it was that Thayer was right. The mission came first. Too many innocent lives were at stake. He nodded. “Okay. Good luck. When this is over, we’ll come back for you.”

  He meant it, but he didn’t think Thayer believed him. A fit of coughing racked his body. When it ended, his face was ghostly pale and his lips thin and drawn. In a weak voice barely above a whisper, he said, “You do that. Bring a bottle of good French Bordeaux wine and some brie.”

  “Roger.” He turned to the others. “Check your weapons.”

  Each of them except Chalmers carried a 7.62mm MK17 SCAR-H rifle loaded with rounds tipped with bits of ebony Kaiju material, the only material hard enough to pierce the Wasps’ armor. Chalmers carried a 7.62mm M134D-H minigun. He handled the 41-pound weapon with the ease of a traveling salesman carrying his samples case. The minigun’s six rotating barrels could spew death at 6,000 rounds per minute. In addition, each soldier carried a Beretta 9mm pistol and two fragmentary grenades.

  They were running low on ammunition. Chalmers had started with six bandoliers. Now, he was down to two 2,500-round belts draped across his chest. Each man carried two extra magazines for the SCARs. The bag LaBonner carried held eight extra magazines of 7.62 rounds, four 9mm magazines for the pistols, and a handful of MREs. They could expect no more supply drops. The Wasps saw to that.