by JE Gurley
The small arms were for protection against Wasps and Fleas. They were no threat to the Kaiju. As part of the U.N. Early Response Force, better known as Kaiju Killers, LaBonner’s Army Ranger team carried two Mk-54B boosted fission, nuclear-tipped, shoulder-launched rockets, each capable of delivering an equivalent of 20 tons of explosive power to a chosen target. His job was to get his team close enough to fire a rocket into an open blister of the Kaiju. The mouth would not do. The same energy-absorbing ebony crystalline material that formed the creature’s exoskeleton lined the creature’s mouth. An explosion there caused little serious damage. The ebony exoskeleton would only absorb the energy of the blast and use it to power the creature.
It had been an arduous task. The oblong, nine-foot by six-foot blisters along the Kaiju’s flank opened only when disgorging swarms of Wasps and then remained open for only minutes. Guiding a rocket through the flying mass of Wasps and into the open portal required split-second timing and a lot of luck. A near miss did nothing but cause more destruction. Only an enclosed explosion could produce significant damage to cripple or kill a Kaiju.
Major Walker had been the first to prove that with the monster Nusku in Nevada. Six months later, when Kaiju Kiribati, an aquatic Kaiju, struck the South Pacific, nuclear weapons were not an option. Instead, Walker and his team delivered K-2 nerve toxin to the heart of the creature. Though successful, K-2 was much too dangerous to use near populations. LaBonner didn’t know if a mini-nuke posed less threat than toxic nanites, but he followed orders. Due to the very nature of the threat, few people survived long in close proximity to a Kaiju or its subordinate creatures. Radiation was the least of their problems.
Making as little noise as possible to avoid alerting the patrolling Wasps, LaBonner piled benches from the train around Thayer’s position to form a barricade, hoping that if the Fleas did not see him, they would not attack. He hoped to send help back in time to save Thayer, but the odds were against him. Thayer knew it as well. As he placed the last bench, Thayer said, “Don’t worry, Sarge. I knew the risks coming in. It’s a tough job, but someone always gets the short straw.”
LaBonner nodded. The brass had handed them the short straw on this mission. He unwrapped the last Fentanyl lollipop and placed it in Thayer’s trembling hand. “Try to stay quiet.”
A spasm of pain washed across Thayer’s face. When it had passed, he nodded.
LaBonner’s men were ready. He hoped he was. He surveyed each one for a moment, assessing how much they had left to give. They were on the edge of physical collapse and emotionally drained, but they were not beaten. They all understood what was at stake, if not the fate of the world, at least this little piece of it.
“We’ll make a dash for the storm drain using the flower beds and hedgerows along the sidewalks for cover.” He glanced at Chalmers. “Chalmers and I will go first. We’ll open the drain and provide covering fire for you two.” He fixed Spence and Mayer with his gaze. “I’ll signal you when to start out. Not before,” he warned.
He watched until a large group of Fleas hopped by and disappeared behind a grove of trees. The nearest Wasps were five hundred yards away over the Seine. He tapped Chalmers on the shoulder and started across the open parkland at a sprint. Chalmers followed close on his heels. Three days earlier, the Champs de Mars had been a place of joy, a rendezvous for lovers, and a favorite spot for tourists viewing the Eiffel Tower. Now, he tried to ignore the dried bloodstains on the concrete sidewalks and the scattering of personal items – purses, parasols, books, blankets, sunshades, telephones, and cameras – detritus left behind by fleeing or dead sunbathers. That was the eerie thing about the aftermath of an attack by Kaiju: unlike a conventional battle, no bodies remained, neither human nor alien. Even dead Wasps and Fleas became fodder for the Kaiju.
Feeling as if every alien eye in the city was staring at him, he raced across the open ground. He kept his gaze focused on his goal with one thought only in his mind – killing the Kaiju. Making it to the small gazebo-like structure housing the entrance to the sewer unscathed came as a surprise. However, their luck did not hold. Within minutes, the first Wasps arrived, drawn by the slightest movement. A hexagonal-shaped metal door comprised of eight triangular sections covered the entrance to the sewer. While he worked feverishly to lift the heavy lids, Chalmers cut loose with the minigun, spraying the Wasps with a lethal dose of ebony crystal-crusted lead. The creatures’ ebony armor made them difficult to kill, but the furious rate of fire from the minigun chipped away at the crystalline armor. A few bullets found the vulnerable spaces between armored plates, killing two Wasps, but too few rounds struck home to make a dent in the gathering horde.
As he feared, the noise drew more unwanted attention to them. Fleas by the hundreds began converging on the area. They were running out of time. He clicked on his throat mic, hoping it still worked. They had no more batteries, and they had lost their solar charger.
“Spence, Mayer. Go now!”
Lugging the heavy launchers and their weapons, the pair moved slowly. LaBonner mentally urged them to hurry. 22-year-old, 5’8” Kris Mayer was as strong as any man on the team; her muscles toned by lifting heavy drill rig pipes in the Texas oil fields, but the days of stress and the heavy armor had taken their toll on her. She struggled to keep pace with Spence. When the shadow of a Wasp fell across them, she turned and fired her SCAR from the hip without slowing, hitting the Wasp in its thorax. It flapped away, licking its wounds.
Spence tripped while leaping a flowerbed wall, tumbled headfirst, and disappeared from view. Mayer reached down, dragged him to his feet, and slapped him on his helmet. They continued their crossing, but they had lost precious seconds.
Both LaBonner and Chalmers poured intense fire into the Wasps, keeping them at bay, but it would be a tossup as to who arrived first – his team or the pursuing Fleas. LaBonner stood aside as Spence and Mayer rushed up, almost out of breath, and dropped through the drain opening. Mayer urged Spence to hurry down the steps by shoving him in the back. Chalmers fired one more burst from his minigun and joined them.
The sound of another SCAR drew LaBonner’s attention to the railcar. Thayer stood outside the car, leaning against it and firing his rifle in short bursts at the Fleas, providing cover fire for the rest of the team.
“Go back, Thayer!” LaBonner shouted into his mic, but Thayer did not have his helmet on and couldn’t hear. He focused his attention on the thick mob of Fleas pouring across the Champ de Mars. LaBonner watched in horror as a Wasp dropped down from directly above Thayer, enfolded him in its four pairs of legs, and jabbed him through the back with its three-foot-long stinger. Without his TEP body armor, the slender stinger easily pierced his chest. Venom spurted from the tip, dripping down the front of Thayer’s shirt. He stopped firing and dropped his weapon, hanging limp and transfixed upon the deadly stinger as if upon some macabre crucifix. LaBonner hoped he was already dead, as the Wasp jerked Thayer’s body into the air for the short trip back to the Kaiju.
LaBonner dropped down the opening just as a Wasp made a lunge at him, ripping through the gazebo roof. Pieces of splintered 2x4s and plywood fell on him. He reached up and pulled the metal covers back in place. A ripped piece of a poster announcing a Paris air show dropped in front of him. He stared at it as if a tarot card a reader had lain before him on a dark table. Paris had gotten its air show all right, but not the kind they had anticipated.
A length of plywood prevented the last section of grate from closing. As he struggled to dislodge it, the Wasp shrugged aside the remains of the flimsy gazebo, and landed beside the cover. It poked two legs inside the narrow gap and threw the triangular section aside. LaBonner stared up into the Wasp’s face. As the two stared at one another, he detected no intelligence in its alien countenance. The creature was simply a cold-blooded, organic killing machine. This was no meeting of two intelligent alien species. It was a case of predator and prey. It cocked its head to one side to get a better view of him, while emitting a high
-pitched droning sound. LaBonner didn’t know if it was a sign of the creature’s irritation or a call to its brethren.
The opening proved too small for the Wasp to force its way inside, but he was certain it would eventually open enough grates for the Fleas to pour into the sewer. He poked his SCAR through the opening and fired into the Wasp’s triangular head, aiming for the green band across its face that served as its visual sensor. Viscous yellow ichor splashed over his arm and face. Injured, the Wasp backed away but refused to abandon its position. It stamped at the opening with four of its legs, rattling the metal grates until the sound thundered down the sewer tunnel, drowning out the echoes of his team’s fleeing footsteps.
He abandoned the opening to join them. The power remained on, and the lights strung along the walls of the drains illuminated their way. Behind him, the injured Wasp or one of its companions had returned, scratching frantically at the steel cover. Glancing back, a patch of sunlight illuminated the opening. Moments later, more light appeared, as the creature lifted a second panel. They were learning fast.
“Hurry,” he yelled. “We have company.”
2
August 11, Homeland Security, Washington, DC –
Major Aiden Walker sat unmoving and uncomplaining in the straight-backed wooden chair he believed was designed to increase the discomfort and vulnerability of anyone visiting the office of Homeland Security. Nervous tension gave him cottonmouth, but he didn’t want to disturb the busy receptionist for a glass of water. He didn’t see a water cooler or door marked bathroom. He wondered if she made the long walk down the outside corridor whenever a call of nature occurred. He swallowed hard to wet his parched throat.
The Secretary’s receptionist, a young woman so absorbed in her work that she had not glanced in his direction in twenty minutes, looked up, frowned at his barely audible interruption, and then resumed her duties. Walker glanced at his watch. His appointment had been for 10:30. It was now 11:15. He was military. He was used to waiting, but the time seemed to drag by on leaden legs. Each minute blurred seamlessly into the preceding minutes, marking no distinction between one moment and the next.
That the office was so quiet astonished Walker. Equally surprising was the fact the Secretary of Homeland Security had a single receptionist and not a full staff. He had expected a bustling operation. In 2016, before the first Kaiju had arrived, the annual budget for Homeland Security had been just 41 billion dollars. This year’s budget was three times larger – 120 billion. Protecting the country from terrorists had been child’s play compared to protecting it from alien Kaiju.
The Secretary, former Air Force General John C. Robinson, had summoned Walker from London where he had been coordinating fighting techniques with U.N. Kaiju Killer teams. He was not happy with the summons and unsure of the reason for the meeting, but one did not refuse or dally when Washington called. Even after the seven-hour plane ride from RAF Lakenheath, his blood still boiled from the images of the devastation and carnage of flattened cities. The east side of London lay in smoking ruins from Edmonton to Dartford, and north to Bishop’s Stortford. They had lost two insertion teams before bringing down the Kaiju on the banks of the Thames. So far, they had managed to destroy only the London monster and the one threatening Tiran, Albania. Large swaths of Europe still lay in the path of the remaining creatures.
After the defeat of the last alien Kaiju monster in December, the world had breathed freely for eight months before the arrival of the next batch of Kaiju. Now, the alien Nazir had gone gangbusters, sending ten of the creatures to devastate Europe in their bid to annihilate humanity. These monsters were smaller and more mobile, but just as deadly as the originals. Swarms of Wasps and Fleas released by the creatures wreaked havoc on the human population, reducing humans to food to fuel the creatures. The Kaiju – giant, unstoppable, ebony bulldozers – pushed across the landscape, destroying everything in their path.
The first alien Kaiju invasion exactly twelve months to the day as this third-wave attack had caught the Earth unawares. Crawling from their impact craters, the three giant creatures, code-named Ishum, Girra, and Nusku after Mesopotamian fire gods, had destroyed San Francisco and parts of the West Coast, as well as Chicago and a deadly swath through America’s heartland. Walker had led Fire Team Bravo, which had infiltrated the insides of Nusku north of Las Vegas and delivered a baby nuclear bomb. It had been the first taste of victory in the war with the aliens, but it had not been enough. The sacrifice of astronaut Commander Erwin Langston when he crashed his Lunar One Orion spacecraft into the alien communications pod on the moon had finally stopped the creatures, but not before tens of thousands of people had perished and millions displaced.
Six months later, a single Kaiju landing in the island nation of Kiribati in the South Pacific had almost succeeded in detonating a gravity bomb that would have activated most of the tectonic plates of the Pacific Ocean, causing global destruction. Walker and a special team, including Sergeant Costas, had entered the Kaiju while submerged and had delivered a container of deadly K-2 nerve toxin derived from Wasp venom and Novichok A-230, a Russian acetylcholinesterase inhibitor. Microscopic nanites flooded the creature’s blood, producing prodigious quantities of the deadly neurotoxin.
The two incidents made him an expert Kaiju killer. He now wondered why the politicians in Washington had interfered with his job. He slumped slightly in his chair and stretched out his long legs to soothe the cramps in his calf muscles. The secretary glanced over at him. He thought he glimpsed a flicker of sympathy in her avocado green eyes as he smiled at her. Maybe he did, for two minutes later, with no intercom buzzer, phone call, or signal he could detect, she dropped the sheaf of papers she had been perusing on her desk, turned to face him, and said, “Secretary Robinson will see you now, Major Walker.” He wondered if all visitors received the mandatory forty-five minute waiting period.
He stood, grateful to stretch his back. His rigorous training schedule had pushed his body to its limits. He needed a long rest, but it was unlikely that was the reason for his recall. No rest for the weary.
“Thank you,” he replied.
She brushed against him as she ushered him into a surprisingly small office. The contact was fleeting, but Walker detected a spark pass between them. Some people had called him handsome, so he attributed her subtle body contact as a sexual advance, one he would have gladly reciprocated, but her smile as she looked up at him was not coy but one of pity, an emollient to his bruised ego. She turned and closed the door behind her.
The Secretary’s office was Spartan in detail. A dark mahogany desk sat before the single window, its polished surface marred only by a telephone, a desk pad, and a gold-framed photo. A single leather chair faced the desk. Two more of the uncomfortable wooden chairs he had endured in the outer office lined a wall in case of multiple visitors. A picture of the capitol building, the Washington Monument, a portrait of the President, and a photo of the general in his uniform standing beside a B2 bomber graced two of the walls. General Robinson sat behind the desk in a worn leather chair, a black man of about 56 years old with thinning cottony hair and a frown on his haggard, deeply lined face. His hazel eyes looked tired but still hinted at the force of character that had propelled him to his high position. As an African American, Walker was proud that someone of his own race had reached such a powerful position, a position that, due to the war with the aliens, was considered by some more powerful than that of President of the United States.
“General,” Walker said as he entered.
“Mr. Secretary, now,” Robinson replied. “My generaling days are behind me. Have a seat, Major.”
Before Walker had settled in the chair, infinitely more comfortable than his previous seat, the Secretary began. “I guess you’re wondering why I pulled you from your job.”
“Yes, sir. There’s still a lot of work to do.”
Secretary Robinson’s eyes smoldered like embers. He made a fist with one hand and rested it on the desk. “
Well, it’s urgent, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“So I assumed, sir.”
Walker noted the tension in the Secretary’s haunted face and decided Robinson did not direct his ire at him personally. The reason for the visit was direr than he had expected. A sense of despair wafted from the Secretary like cheap aftershave.
Robinson took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then released it. His tone softened but the tension remained. Walker noticed a slight tic in his right jaw. “The gravity detectors on the LISA have picked up multiple pods inbound for Earth.”
Walker frowned at the unexpected dismal news. Because the current ten Kaiju were smaller than the originals, 600 feet long instead of 900 feet, many of the experts had decried the aliens were running out of raw material. More Kaiju meant big trouble. It also meant the experts were wrong. What else were they wrong about?
He cleared his throat before asking, “How many?”
“Thirty.”
An icy hand gripped Walker’s heart and squeezed hard. His hands dug into the padded leather chair arms for support as he half rose from his chair in shock. The room closed in on him, as the air became too thick to breathe in. His mind numbed, refusing to grasp the number the Secretary had just announced. It seemed impossible, inconceivable.
“Thirty?” he repeated. His voice cracked with the question, hoping the Secretary would correct him; say a much smaller, saner number.
The Secretary glanced down at his hands folded on the desk. One hand gripped the other tightly, as if trying to keep it from trembling. His voice lost some of its assertiveness, as he said, “This could mean the end for us.”
Walker could not picture thirty more Kaiju set loose upon the Earth. The destruction and loss of life would be catastrophic. He knew instinctively the thirty Kaiju would land across the globe, leaving Earth’s already stretched defenders unable to bring their full potential to bear. He feared the Secretary could be right.