The Kaiju landed hard enough to shake the earth. It was so massive that Katie had to wonder how the rest of the world didn’t feel it coming. As it rose up on all three legs, its mouth opened, head tilted back, and it bellowed at the sky. The sound was like a typhoon had arrived.
The Kaiju Soldiers hung on for dear life as their ride came to a stop. Its chest opened in hundreds of locations as it extruded weaponry to demolish Big Dog.
“How do we stop that?”
Katie thought of her husband stuck in a metal can while being shelled by men like Heinrich Glaus. She was terrified of what it would feel like when the beast crushed them to scrap. Would she die screaming?
“Commander! What’d we do?” Gunny Mack yelled into the intercom.
What do we do? We die, she wanted to shout back.
“Commander Cord, listen to me. We have to move. We must do something or we will all die.”
“We’re all going to die,” she repeated the words.
The engineer must have had enough silence because he triggered the shielding. It started to slide into place.
Heinrich Glaus let himself free from his webbed seat and dropped to the ground. He moved to her command chair and leaned over the console to look her in the eye.
“There are times when warriors are scared. They must swallow that. They must use it. I spent years stuck in a tank while I did the bidding of a madman, and this is my only hope for redemption. Do you see?”
She stared at the man before her and something slid into place. He had been scared? The mighty Heinrich Glaus?
“Get away from me, you monster!” she cried.
“No, fräulein, that is the monster,” he said and pointed at the porthole.
She shook her head and stared at her console.
The beast was coming, and they were going to be crushed. If they just had a way to put the creature down.
She snapped her eyes front.
“Back in your seat, Commander,” she said, and then lifted her transmitter.
“Engineering, extend the support. Do it now!”
The shield reacted and slid into place as hundreds of pellets struck them like thunder.
“We can’t stand this assault,” Gunner Mack cried into the transmitter.
“Stand, that’s what I want. Bring us upright, and I mean now; fully upright. Divert every bit of steam we have. Buy us some time by aiming below the Japanese. Don’t hit one but make the Kaiju think we will. If it has any sense of preservation it should try to shield them.”
The engineers didn’t bother to argue. They must have just conveyed her orders because Big Dog slid back, and then, with boilers howling, her viewpoint rose into the air.
“Faster! I don’t care if you have to kill all the other systems. We need to be upright now and get the brace in place!”
The mode was not fully tested. It worked, that was for sure, but standing Big Dog up was a mechanical feat the experts had sworn would never work properly. The support was mainly used for bracing during heavy work like lifting but now it would act as the third leg of a tripod.
She was thrown back into her seat and Heinrich, for all his nimbleness, barely made it to his station. He dragged himself up the webbing and almost reached his seat when the Kaiju struck.
Hands the size of trucks and bearing seven willowy fingers hit hard enough to nearly knock Big Dog over.
“Fire everything we have!” she yelled into the transmitter.
“We’ll have to drop most of the shielding for that,” came back Gunny Mack.
“Just do it. I have a plan.”
“Plan better involve kissing my…” he trailed off as the transmitter clicked.
The plating moved out of the way, and she was face to face with the monster’s chest. Holes were undulating as rounds appeared. If her plan didn’t work the beast would hold them in place and blow them to pieces. Skin the color of aquamarine, like a bunch of glowing algae, flowed over flesh the color of liver. The beast bellowed again, and it was all she could do to get her hands over her ears.
The guns roared and punched into the beasts shoulder directly under the Japanese soldiers. The Kaiju reacted by moving a hand to protect them.
“We don’t have time to make this pretty. I want that tester ready to fire. Can you do that?”
“But it’s still alive, why would we need a sample now?” Then Heinrich smiled. “Ah, I see. I’ll need help.”
“Fine.” She unsnapped her seatbelts and slid out of the chair and was immediately tossed to the floor.
The guns opened up and bought them some time. At this range they couldn’t miss but they also couldn’t come up to velocity.
The Kaiju fell back and dragged them after. She clung to her seat and lifted herself to the fallen transmitter.
“I want the front arms up. All the way up. I want to hug this son of a bitch!”
If they heard her she was unaware because the rocking beast tossed her across the enclosure. Hienrich managed to reach out and grab her arm before she could slam into the wall. He hauled her to his side and got his hands around her waist to pull her to her feet. Katie resisted the urge to bat his hand aside.
“Is it ready?”
“Very nearly. I think the firing mechanism may be jammed. You get ready to hit the release, I’ll get it back into position.”
“Be careful or you’ll lose a hand.”
“I’ll lose more than that if we fail.”
Brought to Big Dog’s full height, she stared into the face of the Kaiju. Its mouth was filled with razor sharp teeth the size of cars. It had nostrils of a sort but they were composed of willowy membranes that fluttered as it sucked in breath.
Heinrich slithered into a workspace and started banging things around.
Big Dog came to its full height and Katie grimaced a the visage before her. The beast’s eyes didn’t glow with malevolence as she had thought. They were thoughtful and bespoke some intelligence. But that alien intelligence, new to this world, was using its might and might of its brethren for one purpose: the destruction of her and her allies.
“Try it!” Heinrich yelled.
She moved to the console but the beast struck, batting at Big Dog. The metal around her groaned and parts shrieked. Gunny fired again this time blowing holes in the creature but it was tough and thick and, while it hurt the Kaiju, it could not kill it. There was simply too much of the monster to kill.
“Are you going to try it?”
“I’m trying!” she yelled back.
The beast struck again and this time she was tossed across the pod. She hit the wall and saw stars. Another one of those and she was done for.
The console was only a few feet away. All she had to do was get to her feet. Move. One foot after another. She’d been good at that since she was two years old. Now it seemed impossible as the world reeled around her.
She fought vertigo as Big Dog nearly tipped over but Engineering worked some magic and, with boilers pushed to the edge, Big Dog righted itself on legs strained to the edge.
“Now, I can see it. We must strike now!” Heinrich bellowed.
She crawled across the floor on hands and knees and reached the console. She hauled herself up the seat and stared blankly at the buttons as stars swirled in front of her face. She found it by touch and triggered the switch that would arm the needle.
“It’s online,” she yelled back. “I think.”
“Do it.”
“Get out of there.”
“I can’t. I am holding the firing pin. There was damage from the beast, and if I let go it won’t line up to fire.”
“You’ll be killed.”
“No, fräulein. I won’t. Please, do it.”
Big Dog rocked one more time as Gunny Mack yelled into the intercom. “This is it. He’s going to strike at the pod.”
The pod; her. She took a deep breath and wondered if this was the last thing she would do before being crushed like a tin bucket.
Katie triggered the dev
ice.
The explosion blew the back out of Big Dog. The needle was a piece of reinforced metal shaped like an actual hypodermic. At three feet in diameter and over a hundred feet in length after the telescoping inner tubes fully deployed, it was designed to pierce a Kaiju and retrieve a sample.
The Kaiju howled in fury as its chest was punched through. It stumbled back and stared in shock at the giant metal robot before it. Blood, blue and frothing leaked from its mouth.
Katie almost felt sorry for it.
The needle retracted and the Kaiju stumbled to the side so she hit it again.
The second strike didn’t have as much power but it still sank into the beast’s chest.
The Kaiju turned away, took a few stumbling steps, and then collapsed. It’s third leg swept around and struck Big Dog. Even on three legs it couldn’t withstand the force of the blow and toppled.
Katie managed to drag herself into her seat and snap shoulder pads into place.
The rending crash of machinery was horrific and went on forever. She screamed and, after a few moments, realized she was still breathing. Her consoles were a mess. Sparks flew and smoke filled the cavity. One of the port windows had come lose and slid open and fell to the ground.
From her vantage point, she watched a leg kick like a dying dog.
“Fräulein?” a pitiful voice asked.
She unsnapped herself and braced for the four-foot drop to the floor, which a few minutes ago had been a wall. She struck it and pulled herself to the hatch that Commander Heinrich Glaus had descended to save their lives.
She peered over the side and saw him clutching a metal canister in both hand. It was huge and heavy and he heaved it at her. She caught it and pulled it up with both hands. The container was heavy and blue blood had leaked on the side.
“Go. Take the X and go. We are done. The boilers will blow soon. Just go.”
“I’ll pull you up then we can get the others free.
“Go. My legs are crushed, and I can’t feel anything below my chest. I am dead. You must take the sample, you must. If you stay and die then all of this sacrifice would be for naught.” He took a deep breath and met her eyes. “For what it is worth, fräulein, you are a brave commander, and it was my honor to serve under you.”
Heinrich Glaus tried to salute but failed and fell silent. His eyes remained on hers as life faded.
Katie moved.
She hauled herself and her precious package along the wall and then triggered the entryway into X. She had to angle her body to slide into the cockpit. There was barely room behind the seat for the canister but she jammed it in and hit power. The entry slammed shut at the same time as the canopy overhead.
She hit the radio and called for Gunny Mack or Kilmer in engineering but neither answered.
She sobbed as she called in the Mayday, and then launched, hoping the craft wasn’t about to be slammed into a blocked hatch.
Even on its side, the X-227 Marauder was a beast in its own right with powerful engines, a squat fuselage, and stubby wings. As the called over and over for any survivors the plane’s engines kicked in.
She closed her eyes and the plane’s turbines roared.
Katie was pressed back in her seat so hard that she nearly passed out. She dragged the stick to the side and managed to right the tiny jet. As she cleared the battle site, she looked in the rearview mirror mounted over her HUD and watched as Big Dog exploded.
“Craft X-227, identify yourself.”
Katie spoke codes into the radio and waited.
“Big Dog, it’s good to hear you. The general’s waiting to hear your results. Make your way to these coordinates, and we’ll be waiting with a warm deck and dinner. How is Big Dog?”
“Big Dog is a loss but the mission was a success. I’m the only survivor. I’ll be recommending Heinrich Glaus for the Medal of Honor. He saved all of us.”
“Giving a medal to a stinking Nazi? What gives?”
“He paid for his sins many times over. I’ll just leave it at that. X-227 signing off. See you in a few minutes.”
Katie sat back in the seat and hit the afterburners. She got one last look at the smoldering remains of the Kaiju and the dog that had killed it, then they disappeared as she rocketed into the sky.
The Great Sea Beast
Larry Correia
The Great Sea Beast revealed itself.
First, spines of bone, each one as big around as a tree, broke the ocean’s surface. Next came the great bulbous head, its skin a deep red except for where it was covered in barnacles and black growths from the depths. Then the eyes appeared, two great white oozing blobs, and beneath those was a mass of writhing tentacles, longer than anything found on even the largest of the giant squid. There were still freshly drowned corpses of Minamoto clan sailors trapped in those tentacles.
As Munetaka watched, the tentacles moved the bodies into the vast wet hole that served as the creature’s mouth, to be ground into a red paste between teeth like mill stones. The head alone was larger than his ship, and when the shoulders broke the surface, it was larger than a castle. It was so large, so inconceivably vast, that it was like watching the sea birth a new island, only this island was heading straight for them at a seemingly impossible rate of speed.
It was incredible. It was a god made flesh.
The ocean crashed around the creature as if it were a rock cliff. Waves created by the monster lifted the Friendly Traveler and sent it hurtling back down. His tiny wooden ship was nothing before the Great Sea Beast. Several other Minamoto clan vessels had already been smashed into splinters by the thing’s wrath. Their lord’s warship was broken and sinking. They were on their own.
He spied the jagged cliffs. “Hold this course!” Nasu Munetaka bellowed at his panicking crew. He looked toward the opposite horizon. The sun was just beginning to rise. “Hold this exact course.”
It would close with them in a matter of minutes. They would all die, crushed, drowned, or devoured. The brave sailors adjusted their sails and kept them on the wind. Lesser men leapt overboard or cowered in fear. The other samurai were struggling in vain to figure out the magical horn they’d taken from the gaijin, while their priest begged the water dragon to rise from his coral palace beneath the sea to protect them.
But Captain Nasu Munetaka did not ask the heavens for aid nor did he resort to foreign magic. He simply stood at the stern of the Friendly Traveler, calmly stringing his bow, watching the demon that had haunted his dreams come for them.
He had been waiting half his life for this moment.
His hands did not tremble.
~
Twelve years before, he had woken up screaming.
Someone was carrying him, cradled in their arms like he was a baby. They were trying to be gentle, but every touch was made of agony. The half of his body which had been out of the water had been burned crispy by the sun, and the half that had been submerged had been eaten away by salt water. His skin was peeling off in black or blue strips.
Munetaka was the son and grandson of warriors, so he tried not to scream. His throat was so dry it was more of a soundless hiss anyway, and his body was so wrung out that there was no indignity of tears. Then he remembered through the haze of sun drenched pain how he’d come to be here. The village had to be warned. Frantic, Munetaka clutched at his rescuer’s shirt and tried to tell him of the crimson demon rising from the sea, but he couldn’t form the words.
“Bozu! Help us. The fishermen found this boy washed up on a reef.”
With eyelids dried partially open, he could barely see, but Munetaka knew they were inside. He could feel absence of the angry sun. The rescuer laid him on a mat. Thousands of hot needles stabbed through Munetaka’s back. He’d never before realized that his skin served the same purpose as his father’s armor.
Someone knelt next to the mat. Cold hands touched the sides of his face and tilted his head for examination. “A shipwreck?”
“Yes. They said he still had a death grip o
n a broken board.”
“He must have been in the water for several days… Ama! Get my medicine pouch. I’ll need some water boiled. These wounds must be cleaned.”
“We forced some drink down his throat when we found him. He didn’t vomit most of it back up.”
“Good, then he may still live… Can you hear me, boy?”
The crimson demon comes from the sea. Run. You have to run. You have to get away.
The memories came back, breaking through the walls of his mind. He was too young for a voyage up the coast, but he had tagged along on his father’s patrol, sneaking in to hide amongst the piles of rope. By the time he was discovered they would be too far from home to turn back. His father was a stern man, as was required of a Minamoto clan ship captain, but Munetaka knew that he secretly enjoyed having his son onboard his ship. Someday Munetaka would be a captain too, and he’d be the one to keep the seas around Kamakura free of pirates and Tairu clan scum, just like his father, and his father before him. Once found, he’d not even received too much of a beating. He suspected his father had been more than a little proud of his daring. The captain had even told his men that Munetaka was their good luck charm. It was the happiest day of young Munetaka’s life, until the luck ran out and he had watched helplessly as the ocean turned red and the Great Sea Beast slaughtered everyone.
He snapped back to the world of sunburned pain. His flesh was so softened by days spent soaking in saltwater that even the tatami mat was cutting through him and the monk was fretting as Munetaka bled all over the polished wooden floor of the monastery. The monk was asking him another question.
“What happened?”
Death had happened, only somehow it had forgotten to take him.
~
Ten years before, his lord had condemned him.
“You waste my time with this?” Lord Minamoto Yorimasa raised his voice. “I should have you killed for your impudence, boy.”
Munetaka kept his eyes on the floor. He could feel the angry gaze of the court on him.
“Your request is denied. There will be no expedition. The Great Sea Beast is a lie. You are the only witness. A child who drank too much saltwater and cooked his brains in the sun imagined a demon to blame for his father’s carelessness. Your father died in a storm like a fool. Knowing your family he was probably drunk and drove my ship onto the rocks. A stupid man, always wasteful and drunk.”
Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters Page 42