by JE Gurley
Talent shook his head. “You forgot about the makai’s prediction that I would die a hero. I wouldn’t want to second guess my people.”
Costas scratched his head. “I’m too tired to keep running. Blow the damn thing and let’s go get them vestal virgins or whatever you keep promising me in paradise.”
Walker looked at both of them proud to be among such men. It was good to die with men who had given it their best shot and were willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good of mankind. Without hesitation, he opened the cover on the arming switch and pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
“What the hell…?” he groaned.
“What’s wrong?” Talent asked.
“The timer isn’t working. It must have been the fall I took.”
Costas face clouded with anger. “God damned sorry way to end a mission because some crack head munitions specialist screwed up. Talent, you got another grenade stashed away somewhere?”
Talent shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry, fresh out.”
“Then maybe you’d better punch some holes in the drum and let the little buggers out.”
Talent searched Walker’s face, but he was out of options. “Do it,” Walker said.
Talent aimed the six barrels of the minigun at the drum and pressed the trigger, punching a line of holes through the neoprene drum. Instead of gushing out like water, the thick sludge containing the nanites oozed out of the holes and ran down the side of the drum, forming an expanding pool around its base. The edges of the pool rippled, as if touched by a breeze. Tiny filaments of linked chains of microscopic nanite robots sprouted like fuzz from the liquid, forming and breaking apart as they sampled their new environment. He backed up as the pool spread across the floor toward him. Then, the liquid K-2 soaked into the floor of the chamber and vanished. Within minutes, fine black smudges appeared in the walls, spreading rapidly as the nanites located small blood veins through which they could move more rapidly.
Once released, the nanites quickly utilized the alien flesh as a source of raw material to reproduce exact copies of themselves, each one pumping its microscopic load of K-2 into the Kaiju’s bloodstream, and then producing more. Multiplied by millions of nanites, the effects were rapid.
Talent was the first to spot the change beyond the crystal wall. “Look,” said, pointing to a darkening in color of the liquid flowing through the tubes into the Kaiju brain.
The walls around them began to darken; then dissolve as layers of alien flesh died and decayed. A glob of Kaiju flesh dropped beside Costas’ boot. “Forget what I said earlier. I say we run like hell.”
He didn’t bother waiting for an answer. To Walker’s surprise, Costas scooped him up and threw him over his shoulder like a sack of flour.
“What are you doing, Sergeant?” Walker demanded. “Leave me here and get out.”
Costas slapped him on his ass. “Shut up, Walker, and stop squirming. You coming, Talent?”
“Yeah, I guess the party’s over here. Uh, unless you can hold your breath a long time, we can’t go back the way we came.”
“Trust me, I know a short cut.”
25
Wednesday, Dec. 20, 1:45 a.m. Brisbane, Australia –
Dalton McKenzie and Geoff Lands had joined line of men along Kingsford Smith Drive on the north bank of the Brisbane River. Most were reservists like him or volunteers like Lands. McKenzie was beginning to think it had been a mistake. The Kaiju shrugged off the barrage from the artillery massed south of the river near Kangaroo Point and Bulimba Barracks. It strode through Eagle Farm without pausing. A Kaiju could destroy a major city in hours. Small towns and communities did not slow it down.
Wasps attacked from the sky like a rain of death. They swooped down from the sky plucking men from the ground or from rooftops, black and orange demons of death. Around him, machineguns rattled and rifles popped but made little dent in their numbers. Where the Wasps went, the guns stopped firing. Behind the Wasps, the Fleas swarmed down the streets, hopping in and out of buildings searching for humans and finding too many, people who should have evacuated when they had the chance. It was too late now. The Fleas dragged their hacked and dismembered bodies into the streets to await the Kaiju, whose long black tentacles picked them up and deposited them in its mouth.
He had injured one Wasp with the Blaser LRS92 they had given him to replace his lost shotgun. The .338 caliber sniper rifle, used by the police Special Tactics and Rescue Group, was a single-shot bolt-action rifle. He had difficulty with the bolt on the unfamiliar weapon and was lucky to hit it at the base of a wing with his second bullet before it got close enough to kill him. It had flown away with one wing hanging limp from its back. As he had suspected, Lands could not hit the broad side of a barn with the 7 mm Mauser. When the injured Wasp returned with its companions, they would die. He was proud that he had not shirked his duty and ran, as Lands had wanted to do, but he was bitterly disappointed that his death would serve no purpose. The Kaiju and its host of creatures advanced as if the armed might of the Australian Defense Force were not present. When the order came to fall back, he knew they would never make it to the helicopter LZ assigned to their unit. They had three choices. They could go to the river and find a boat or swim, but that left them exposed to the Wasps. They could cross the river on the Story Bridge, but there too they would be at the mercy of Wasps or Fleas. That left the Clem Jones Tunnel, affectionately known as the Clem7.
The M7 Tunnel toll road ran beneath the Brisbane River from Bowen Hills north of the river to Woolloongabba south. McKenzie had driven down to Brisbane when the tunnel opened in 2010 to be one of the first to walk its length. Touted as a time saving North-South By-Pass, the three-mile-long double tunnel had been a boondoggle from the start. At a cost of $3.2 billion dollars, the tunnel’s builders had greatly over estimated the amount of traffic that would use it and had quickly gone bankrupt. Two gigantic Tunnel Boring Machines were used simultaneously to dig the tunnels through the dense metamorphic rock. The tunnel offered the safest way for them across the river. He doubted the concrete tunnel would withstand the weight of the Kaiju, but he expected the creature to head directly to the city to continue its orgy of destruction.
“We’ll take the tunnel across the river,” he said to Lands.
Lands was so frightened he could not speak. He just nodded his head. Any place would be better than the firehouse to which the four men were assigned. When McKenzie proposed the tunnel to the other two men, they balked at the idea.
“On foot?” one of them said. “You’re crazy.”
“The helicopter can take us south,” the other said. “We’ll never walk out of here ahead of that monster.”
“The tunnel is safer,” he urged. “We’ll have something solid over our heads against the Wasps.”
“Do what you want,” the first replied. “We’re taking the helicopter, good luck.”
He watched them run away into the darkness knowing they had made a terrible, probably fatal mistake. It wasn’t that he felt he was any wiser than they were, but he had seen what Wasps were capable of. They ruled the sky. Helicopters were just noisy flying treats for the creatures. He and Lands took off at fast trot down Breakfast Creek Road. The northern entrance of the tunnel was at the concrete spaghetti M7 interchange north of them, but that meant going a half-mile out of the way. From his tour walk through the tunnel, he remembered the guide pointing out the giant airshafts on both sides of the river to vent automobile exhaust fumes or smoke in case of fire. One was located due west of them.
The cannonade continued behind them, but had little effect on the Kaiju. In fact, it destroyed as many buildings as the monster. The jets, keeping a safe distance to avoid the arcing artillery fire, had better luck hitting the target with their missiles, but the results were just as dismal. The explosions made for a spellbinding light show, especially the ultraviolet tracings racing along the creature’s ebony shell as it absorbed the energy and converted it for its own
use. The tips of the row of serrations along the edges of the Kaiju’s transverse segmented plates glowed purple and arced, bleeding excess energy into the air.
The Wasps formed a moving front half a mile ahead of the Kaiju, dipping to earth to investigate buildings or attack weapons emplacements. The smaller, but deadly Fleas followed close behind as a cleanup brigade, dragging dead bodies into the streets or killing stragglers the Wasps missed. Wasps also flew close escort to their Kaiju master attacking incoming missiles. To say the artillery and missiles were ineffective did not do them proper justice. While they had little effect on the hulking Kaiju, they did kill many Wasps, but their numbers were so large it made little difference.
A point-blank shot from Land’s Mauser shattered the lock securing the metal grate over the ventilator shaft. The fans were still operating on emergency power though the power was off throughout the city. McKenzie stared down the shaft at ladder and the spinning blades far below it. A second grill covered the rotating blades, but the openings were wide enough for an arm or leg to pass through. One misstep and he would have to rely on his NDA health card for a prosthesis.
“I’ll go first,” he said, “Don’t fall on me.”
“Are you sure about this?” Lands asked, looking at the precarious footing. “The Clem 7 is two-hundred feet beneath the river.”
“It’s not so deep here. Had you rather try the bridge?”
Lands glanced up at the sky. Wasps were getting closer by the minute. “Get a move on, old man.”
McKenzie took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, then placed his foot on the first rung. So far, so good. The air blasting up the shaft was warm and smelled of exhaust fumes, motor oil, and river mud, the last from water and mud oozing through the cracks in the joints of the precast concrete panels of the tunnel lining. The STAR LRS 92 dangled awkwardly from his shoulder and caught often in the rungs. As he descended, the force of the updraft became stronger. By the time he reached the niche in the wall by which the ladder bypassed the fan, he felt as if he could fling himself into the middle of the shaft and the cushion of air would support his weight. However, he did not wish to test his theory.
Inside the tunnel, only the emergency lights were working, casting long, pale shadows along the roadway. Their steps echoed loudly in the enclosed space. They were not the tunnel’s only occupants. Other members of the scattered units north of them had chosen the tunnel over their iffy promised helicopter evacuation. Five men and a woman wearing SASR patches of the 51FNQR came trotting up to them, almost out of breath from the run. The 51st battalion of the Far North Queensland Regiment was a recon and surveillance battalion. These six were Special Air Service Regiment, some of the elite. McKenzie was pleased to see them looking just as frightened as he was.
“It’s getting thick out there,” a sergeant said, jerking his thumb behind him.
The sounds of explosions and collapsing buildings grew louder as the Kaiju approached the city. Dust fell from the ceiling with each giant Kaiju stride. The emergency lights flickered and failed. The sergeant switched on the flashlight attached to the barrel of his 5.56 mm Austeyr rifle. In the dim light, their pale faces betrayed their fright. The constant hum of the ventilator fans slowed and then stopped. Without the fans moving air through the tunnel, the air would soon grow stale and hot. With it came the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning from left over exhaust fumes.
“It will soon get thick in here,” McKenzie told him.
Spurred by what was behind them, they set out at a fast pace across the river. About a half a mile from the southern end of the tunnel, weapons fire rang out behind them from another group of retreating soldiers.
“Someone’s shooting at something,” someone said.
“Whatever it is, I don’t want to meet it,” another answered.
McKenzie silently agreed. Minutes later, he didn’t know if he was the first to hear them or simply the first to turn to look, but they all quickly became aware of the presence of Wasps in the tunnel. He stopped running. Lands slowed down and turned to him.
“What are you doing? We’re almost there.” He pointed to a faint lightening of the darkness ahead of them, the southern entrance.
“We can’t outrun them. I’m going to die standing on my own two feet facing these things, not from a stinger in the back.”
The sergeant pumped his fist in the air several times. The others stopped running. “He’s right. We’ll form a defensive line here. Breckinridge, set up the F89 in the center. We’ll spread out on both sides across the roadway.”
The 5.56 mm Lithgow F89 Para light machinegun was the Australian equivalent of the versatile American M249 SAW or Squad Assist Weapon. The other SASR carried Austeyr 5.6 mm like the sergeant. Those, Lands’ Mauser, and McKenzie’s .338 caliber Blaser were the only weapons they had. It was a thin line of defense against however many Wasps were coming.
“I hope those flying bastards paid the toll,” the female said. “This tunnel is losing enough money as it is.”
This produced a few quiet chuckles, but they died away quickly as the sound of the Wasps grew louder. They appeared out of the darkness, their orange striped bodies reflecting the beam of the sergeant’s flashlight. There were four of them, flying just above the surface of the roadway.
“Hold your fire,” the sergeant said. “Take out the two in the center first.”
McKenzie didn’t know if the sergeant was making a joke or being wildly optimistic of their chances against four of the creatures. The sergeant made them hold their fire until McKenzie thought he could smell the Wasps’ breath.
“Fire!”
The F89 fired in short bursts. The others fired as quickly as they could pull the trigger. McKenzie tried to remain calm to fire and operate the bolt smoothly. Three of the Wasps veered to either the side of the tunnel. One vanished into one of the numerous cross-passageways connecting each set of tunnels. The fourth dropped lower, but continued straight for them. McKenzie aimed for the spot between its eyes and fired. His shot or one of the others’ killed it; however, when it hit the pavement, it retained enough momentum to slide right into them. It missed McKenzie by inches. Two of the SASR went down. The flashlight went out, plunging them into darkness. It rolled against McKenzie’s foot. He picked it and shook it. It burst into life. He shined it on the Wasp. It was dead. So was the sergeant, crushed beneath the creature’s weight. Breckenridge, who had been lying on his stomach operating the F89, fared better. The machinegun was smashed and useless, but he suffered only a sprained shoulder as collision ripped it from his grip.
To add to the confusion, the two remaining Wasps continued flying past them down the tunnel.
“Are they coming back?” Lands asked. He had frozen and had not fired a shot.
“I don’t think so. They’ll go through the tunnel and come up on the boys of the 7th from behind. They won’t know what hit them.”
“But they won’t come back?” Lands asked again.
Lands’ chronic fear and inability to think about anyone’s welfare but his own irritated McKenzie. “No, you’re safe,” he yelled. “We’re all safe.”
He had spoken too soon. A loud explosion just outside the tunnel lit up the entrance. He stared dumbfounded as the flaming wreckage of a fully armed Tiger helicopter, blades spinning, slid sideways down the roadway toward them. Oddly, Lands saved them, not by words but by his action in trying to escape. He ran toward one of the cross-passages. McKenzie saw that it provided their only hope.
“Follow him,” he yelled at the others, just as the missiles the helicopter carried exploded. A gigantic fireball swept down the tunnel. All but one of them made it safely through the cross-passage. A wall of flame engulfed Breckenridge running awkwardly with his dislocated shoulder, and propelled him back down the tunnel. The flames followed McKenzie into the cross-passage. The blast of heat scorched his face and singed his hair, but the flames died before they reached him.
The explosion had been more than the concrete tube lini
ng could withstand. Weakened, the weight of the earth and water above it began widening the cracks. With the sound of a thousand dried twigs snapping simultaneously, the roof collapsed, sealing both lanes of the entrance. Water began pouring through the roof. Faced with drowning like a rat in the dark tunnel or trying to escape through the northern end and facing the Kaiju and its attendant creatures, McKenzie was at a loss. He was tired and what adrenaline he had been operating on was ebbing with the specter of death.
The tunnel they had been using was a sea of flame from burning fuel. Without a word to the others, he shouldered his rifle and began walking north. Silently, they formed a line behind him and followed.
* * * *
By the time they reached the middle of the tunnel, the inrushing water collected in the lowest spot and was now halfway to the roof. They would have to swim. McKenzie discarded his rifle. It was too heavy to swim carrying. The others did the same. The water was almost freezing. The shock of wading in almost forced him back out, but he had no choice. To conserve energy, he lay on his back and used the backstroke. He zoned out, his mind thinking of nothing except the next arm movement. He came out of his trance when his back scraped concrete.
He stood in knee-deep water and counted heads. Somewhere along the way, they had lost one of their numbers, the female SASR. His body was so sapped of strength and numb from the cold he could barely get his legs to move. The skyline outside the tunnel entrance was ablaze. The shells of smashed buildings pumped black smoke into the air. One building had collapsed over the M7 roadway. He didn’t bother searching for Wasps or Fleas. If they found him, he had nothing to defend himself. He turned and faced southwest, toward the city.