Kaiju Wars

by Eric S. Brown

  KAIJU WARS

  Eric S Brown

  Copyright 2017 by Eric S Brown

  KAIJU WARS

  The Motta pulsed with power. Its tendrils stretched out, throbbing as electrical surges ran them in place of the wires that would have normally powered an Old World vehicle like this one. One of the tendrils was loose though. Very carefully, with his gloved hand, Sergeant Watson reached down and lifted the tendril back into place. Slamming the hood of the jeep, Sergeant Watson straightened up to his full, towering, six-foot-nine height.

  “Like I thought. It was just a loose connection, boys,” he told Privates McMillian and Joster. “She shouldn’t be giving you any more issues now.”

  “Thank you, sir,” McMillian barked.

  Joster had already slid into the jeep’s driver seat and was cranking it up. Sergeant Watson was glad for it. Time was not on their side and the jeep was blocking the path of the rest of the convoy. It had broken down in the middle of the road right in front of his command car. Sergeant Watson was used to that kind of luck after five years in the Greenery’s defense force. If something was going to breakdown or go wrong, it always seemed to happen at the worst time and in the worst possible way. He knew he could have left McMillian and Joster. Their jeep wasn’t exactly an essential part of the convoy. The other vehicles could easily have driven a bit off the road to get around their broken-down jeep, but he was a firm believer in not leaving anyone behind. Word was that the Techs were on the move in the area and making a push towards the Greenery’s outer-lying towns. If the rumors about the Tech forces were true, leaving them could very well have been a death sentence for the two men. As it stood, the entire convoy would be little more than a moving target if they encountered the Techs. When they had left Blossom Range, the Techs were still being held back at Pickman’s Point. Though the run of Bio-matter was important to the cause, there simply hadn’t been the manpower or firepower to equip the convoy as a truly combat-ready force since the danger to it had appeared minimal at the time.

  Sergeant Watson slapped the hood of the jeep, indicating for Joster to kick it into gear as soon as he had cleared it front, and headed for his command car. Corporal Hanson was waiting on him there, a frown still deeply cutting into the features of his face.

  “Oh let it go, Hanson,” Sergeant Watson told him. “You know me fixing that jeep myself was the fastest way to get it moving again.”

  Hanson opened the rear passenger door of the command car for him as Sergeant Watson approached it. From the treatment Hanson gave him, one would think that he was a fragging general or something instead of a mere sergeant. Private First Class Michael Hanson though was the most by-the-book trooper Sergeant Watson had ever encountered. While he couldn’t fault Hanson for it, sometimes it really grated on his nerves. Hanson closed the door after him as he got into the command car and walked around to get into it on the other side. The command car’s driver got it moving quickly, following Joster’s jeep ahead of them.

  In the Old World, the command car Sergeant Watson rode in was once some kind of luxury vehicle, a limo he thought it was called. It had been refit with a Greenery power source and its body heavily armored up. Above where he and Private Hanson sat was a sliding opening in its ceiling that allowed them access to the machine gun mounted on its roof.

  Following along behind their command car and Joster’s patrol jeep were three heavy transport trucks and two, Greenery-made, combat cars. Though the command car and all of the jeeps had machine gun emplacements, the combat cars were sporting the only true firepower the convoy had its disposal. They were outfitted with Mech Killer missile tubes. Each combat car carried two such tubes, each loaded with a single shot. It wasn’t much but it was all they had should the dung hit the fan.

  The Greenery and the Techs had been a war for over twenty years now ever since they had discovered each other’s existence. Sergeant Watson’s father had died in Battle Jawall some ten years ago. His death was the reason Sergeant Watson had signed up for service in the Greenery’s defense force. All he had ever wanted since he had put his father’s empty coffin in the ground, as there hadn’t been enough of him left to ship home from the front, was to kill as many Techs as he could. And for a while, he had done just that until a promotion had earned him a post at the small bio-center of Blossom Range. For the last year or so, he had been regulated to running convoys like this one from the bio-center back to the Greenery’s fortress of a capital city.

  Most of those under his command were either merely boys or had something off about them which kept them from being deployed to the front. It wasn’t that the Greenery was losing the war. In fact, when it really came down it, they were winning it, but the bulk of the defense force was always held back to defend the capital city. It was the heart of the Greenery, where the truly massive bio-centers spawned not only the power sources that ran its civilization but also where the great Kaiju were manufactured. Those massive monsters were the key to ending the war once and for all, and everyone in the Greenery knew it from the highest powers to the commonest civilian.

  Sergeant Watson was rocked about in his seat as the ground the command car drove along shook beneath it. His heart skipped a beat inside his chest as his eyes went wide with fear. He’d felt such shaking of the ground enough times over his years in the service to know exactly what had caused it.

  “Incoming Mech!” Private Joster cried out over the unit’s Psi-link.

  Sergeant Watson tapped into the unit’s psi-link using his command abilities to see through the eyes of his men. He couldn’t see the mech that Joster had warned the convoy about but he did see two hover tanks. They came, gliding over the sands, on a direct route for the convoy. Their main guns opened up, booming like thunder. One round impacted the road between the command car and Joster’s jeep. His driver had swerved at just the right moment to avoid the round blowing the car to flaming bits. Even so, the round flung chunks of the road at the command car like shrapnel from a detonating grenade. They hammered at its armor. One thudded off the side of the car beside where Sergeant Watson sat within it. He flinched at the noise, throwing himself sideways in the seat. Others struck the car’s roof, hood, and forward window. He could hear the driver upfront cursing as the car jerked again as this time it swung in the opposite direction to avoid the pit the exploding round had dug in the road.

  The second incoming round made contact with one of the heavy transport trucks. The truck buckled upwards from the impact and then finished ripping apart as the round fully detonated. In little more than seconds, there was nothing left of the truck other than scattered pieces of burning debris that littered the road where the heavy vehicle had been roaring along at its maximum speed.

  “Return fire!” Sergeant Watson ordered through the psi-link but his men were already getting into position to do just that. Screw-ups some of them might be but none of them were stupid enough not to put a fight when faced with what was otherwise certain death.

  The other two trucks in the convoy had stopped and their crews were diving out of them to engage the tanks. Sergeant Watson could see two men from one of the trucks readying a Swarm launcher as the convoy’s two combat cars veered onto an intercept course towards the approaching hover tanks. The lead combat car’s right side tube fired, sending a mech-killer missile howling through the air at the closer of the two hover tanks. A startled grunt escaped Sergeant Watson as he saw the missile actually hit the tank. He had expected the tank to dodge the missile given the speed the tank was traveling at but luck appeared to have taken his side for once. The mech-killer missile tore through the tank’s thick, forward armor and then detonated within in the tank itself. The tank burst apart like an overripe melon being smashed by a sledgehammer. Burning pieces of the tank were flung skyward t
o rain back down onto the sands.

  The convoy’s other combat car never had the chance to fire at the second tank. The second tank’s driver had put the pedal down, pouring on even more speed, and closed on it as the tank’s gunner behind the topside-mounted machine gun cut the jeep and those within it to shreds. The jeep, its driver dead at the wheel, veered off the road and crashed into one of the large rocks that were scattered about the valley. Its front end folded up against the rock until its metal couldn’t give anymore and the jeep bounced backwards to sit, dead and broken, on the sand beside the road.

  The two men with the Swarm launcher had it ready now. Sergeant Watson touched their minds through the psi-link and knew they were taking aim at the remaining tank. The tank had changed its course and was on a direct route for the two surviving heavy transport trucks. Its main gun flashed reducing one of them to exploding shards of metal and burnt geysers of bio-gel.

  There was a thunking sound as the two men fired the Swarm launcher. The beehive-shaped bomb it spat shattered as it struck the side of the enemy tank, releasing the millions of nearly microscopic insects it contained. They ate away at the tank’s armor at a speed that still seemed impossible to Sergeant Watson despite the many times he had seen the tiny Swarmers used on mechs and tanks before. It was as if the tank’s side evaporated in an instant, exposing the men inside it. The tank wobbled as the Swarmers ate away part of the underside fans that kept it moving and above the sand it glided over. It veered away from the convoy, trying to make a run for it, but barely made it fifty yards before the Swarmers must have gnawed on something volatile, maybe its fusion core. The explosion was the largest so far in the battle and sent shockwaves of force out that battered Sergeant Watson’s command car and knocked the exposed troopers who had abandoned their trucks to fight from their feet.

  The intensity of Joster’s panic drew Sergeant Watson’s attention back to him through the psi-link. His mind touched Joster’s just as the private hurled himself from the driver’s seat of his jeep. Joster thudded onto the road, rolling out of the path of the giant metal foot that came down on the jeep crushing it and Private McMillian beneath its weight. Through Joster’s eyes, Sergeant Watson looked up in horror at the mech that charged onto the road in front of the stopped convoy.

  The metal of the mech’s armor gleamed in the sunlight. The mech stood at least fifty feet tall, towering over Joster where the private lay. Sergeant Watson recognized it as a single pilot, Ferret class, designed for maximum speed and maneuverability. It carried a belt fed gigantic weapon in its hands and lifted it to aim at the last of the convoy’s heavy transport trucks. The gun chattered, its sound like one sonic boom after another as the rounds it fired pounded the transport truck, ripping the vehicle to shreds where it sat.

  The driver of Sergeant Watson’s command car had continued to take it on a course away from the combat. Though it was out of the battle proper, it was still in range of the mech’s weapon. With one of the convoy’s combat cars and the transport trucks that made up its heart destroyed, there was no reason to stick around and continue the engagement with the mech.

  “All units, disengage! Break south and get the frag out of the thing’s range of fire!” Sergeant Watson screamed with his mind over the unit’s psi-link. Doing so would leave the handful of men from the truck crews at the Tech’s mercy but there was nothing he could do about that.

  The two men with the Swarm launcher were busy reloading the weapon as the two jeeps broke off their course for the enemy mech and swerved wide into a turn that would bring them about and away from it. Even as they did so, their gunners continued firing the mounted machine guns of the two jeeps at the mech. High-velocity rounds sparked and pinged off the armor of the mech’s body, accomplishing little more than scratching its paint.

  The Mech ignored the two jeeps. Its attention was focused entirely on the convoy’s remaining combat car that was charging towards it. The combat car’s left side tube fired. A mech-killer missile streaked outward from it towards the Ferret-class mech. For all its speed, the missile never reached its target. The Ferret’s pilot deployed countermeasures, a series of flare-like projectiles bursting from the twin launchers that rose up on its shoulders sprayed the air, creating a wall of flame in front of it. It was impossible to tell how many of them struck the missile but they got their job done. It exploded several yards out from the mech. The explosion rocked the Ferret-class mech where it stood, pushing the hulking metal monster back, but its pilot managed to keep it on its feet. The combat car tried to veer away as the mech raised its massive gun at the vehicle and squeezed the weapon’s trigger. Its first burst nearly cut the combat car in two, knocking it out of the air. The combat car thudded to the ground, skidding along, carried forward by its own momentum, until it must have hit something under the sand that sent it flying end of over end to land in a fiery flash of flame and exploding shrapnel. The mech fired a second burst of rounds into the blazing wreckage of the combat car, scooting its remains along in the sand from the power and force of their impact.

  With the combat car taken out, the mech turned its attention to the fleeing jeeps and Sergeant Watson’s command car. The command car was already almost out of the mech’s range of fire but the two jeeps were still close enough to be easy targets. The mech’s massive gun roared again, sending a stream of fire at the slower of the two jeeps. They ripped away the jeep’s rear wheels and its back section. Had the jeep been a tech vehicle, it would surely have gone up in flames from its gas tank being ignited. It ran on the bio-power of that was the Greenery’s trademark, however, so instead of exploding, it careened sideways, its front two wheels continuing to try to pull it forward. Sergeant Watson had felt the two men in the jeep die as the rounds from the mech’s gun had reduced them to red pulp that smeared the inside of what was left of the jeep.

  Then it was all over as quickly as it had begun. The command car and the last jeep drove around the base of a small hill to the south that blocked the mech’s line of fire. The Ferret-class mechs were built for close in combat anyway so they were out of the range of its weapon but the added deterrent of the small hill as cover meant they had escaped with their lives unless the mech’s pilot opted to hunt them down. Sergeant Watson figured that was highly unlikely. The mech’s mission had to be to stop the transport of the bio-gel and it had already achieved that goal.

  “Take us home,” Sergeant Watson ordered the command car’s driver and slumped deeper into his seat. Private Hanson, who shared the back of the command car with him, was frowning.

  “That was too close for comfort, sir,” Hanson said, using the backside of his hand to wipe at the sweat that covered his brow beneath his short chopped, brown hair. He had taken his helmet off and placed it on the seat next to him.

  “Tell me about it,” Sergeant Watson grumbled.

  ****

  Joster covered his ears as he ran, his legs pumping beneath him. The booming of the Ferret-class mech’s massive weapon still almost blew out his eardrums. The two hover tanks and the mech appeared to be the only Tech forces in the immediate area. If there were more, surely they would have moved forward by now.

  The convoy’s command car with Sergeant Watson inside it and the last of the jeeps had disappeared from sight and the mech’s attention had turned to the soldiers of the convoy’s truck crews on the road. There were five of them in all, four men and one woman. Two of the men were aiming a Swarm launcher at the mech as the hulking, metal monster brought its gun around in their direction.

  The Swarm launcher spat its beehive-shaped round at the mech before it could bring its gun to bear on them. For a moment, Joster thought the two men might have actually gotten lucky enough to bring the mech down, but the mech threw itself to the side with an almost human agility, dodging their shot. As it regained its balance from the hurried maneuver, the Greenery soldiers on the road scattered, running in different directions. The tactic didn’t help them at all. The mech simply hosed the entire section of the
road with a continuous stream of automatic fire. The soldiers splattered apart like squashed bugs as the mech’s rounds cut them down. Their lives had bought him time though. Joster dove behind a large boulder and took cover there. He didn’t dare sneak a glance around the rock to see what the mech was doing. He knew most mechs carried rather impressive sonar suites, but he still prayed the mech’s pilot wouldn’t bother looking for other survivors unless it was threatened.

  Not even daring to breathe except when he couldn’t hold his breath any longer, and even then doing so as quietly as he could, he waited for the mech to make the next move. The only weapon he carried was his sidearm. His rifle had been in the jeep when he had flung himself out of it and crushed along with his friend, McMillian, when the mech’s foot had come down on its center.

  For long moments, there was no sound at all then finally Joster had the mech’s servos kicked into gear. He listened to the mech’s heavy footfalls as it darted for the far end of the valley back towards the way it had come from. Even after those footfalls had faded to silence, he waited another solid ten minutes before emerging from behind the boulder he had taken cover behind.

  Wreckage and debris were everywhere along the road and strewn about other random parts of the valley’s sand as well. As far as he could tell, he was the only living soul that remained in the valley. Joster tried to tap into his unit’s psi-link but there was nothing left that his mind could reach. Sergeant Watson and the surviving members of his unit had to be out of range of his weak attempt. Joster had never been very psionically gifted but it had been worth the effort to try. At least he knew now that he really was alone.

  The midday sun was hot and cruel without the air-conditioning of his jeep. It blazed down on him, as he stood there trying to figure out what to do. He knew he needed to get moving. The mech could return at any moment with more Techs accompanying it. Staying where he was put him at risk of being captured or worse if the mech returned or other Tech units entered the valley.