Kaiju Wars

by Eric S. Brown

  ****

  War Leader Hoyt watched the men he shared the top of the city’s wall with readying shoulder-mounted Swarm launchers at his command. The battle was going poorly and it would likely only be a matter of time until whoever was leading the Tech forces decided to let the mechs they had held in reserve truly enter the battle. Already, the mechs were making short work of the combat cars under his command. As yet, not a single combat car had even been able to get off a shot with their mech-killer missiles that found its target. Most of the cars had died before even getting the chance to launch one of the missiles at all. War Leader Hoyt knew the city had no real defense against the mechs. Once the hulking machines came stomping towards Canton, the battle was as good as done. Surrender wasn’t an option though. He reached out with his mind over the psi-link he shared with those under his command and thought, “All tank units, engage those mechs while they’re dealing with the combat cars!”

  The line of tanks assembled outside the city’s walls hurried to follow his command. Their barrels rose upwards, targeting the mechs. A cacophony of thunder raged as the tanks began firing sporadically at their new targets. The explosions of detonating shells flashed against the armor of the mechs. The shells the old world tanks fired, however, lacked the power to do much damage to the hulking metal giants but War Leader Hoyt hoped they would get lucky. As their barrage continued to hammer into the mechs, one of them staggered backwards. It was the largest of the mechs. Its color matched that of the sand it stood on. War Leader Hoyt trained his vision enhancers on it. He could see that one of the tanks had indeed scored a lucky shot directly into the interlocking joint of the mech’s right knee.

  “Concentrate all fire on the largest mech,” he amended his previous order. The Techs didn’t fight fair so there was no reason he should either. The mechs were insanely costly things for the Techs to build. Intel suggested it took the techs six months or more to construct a single one of the hulking metal monsters. If he could bring one down, even just one, maybe the loss of Canton would be worth it. At the very least, he would have made the Techs pay for taking his city.

  The tanks shifted their fire concentrating it all onto the single mech that had stumbled. The sand-colored giant fell back, disappearing beneath the flashing explosions of the tanks’ combined fire. Some of the gunners in the tank must have seen the same thing he had because they were aiming for the mech’s weakened knee. Another shell struck it at just the right angle and the mech’s damaged knee gave out. The sand-colored mech half-dropped, half-fell onto the damaged knee, jerking its arms up to use as shields against the rain of shells that continued to hammer it. Those arms, while still mostly intact, were beginning to show signs of real damage now from the concentrated barrage pounding into them.

  All four of the mechs were still out of range of the Swarm launchers the men on the wall around War Leader Hoyt held ready and the remaining few combat cars weren’t having any better luck. They had managed to launch some of their side-mounted mech-killer missiles but none of them had made it through the mechs’ defensive flak.

  As War Leader Hoyt watched, a mech with the name Entropic Rush painted on its armored hull came bounding over to the sand-colored one’s side. It targeted the line of tanks with a burst of flechette rounds that swept over their ranks. One tank after another blew in a cascading series of explosions. The surviving tanks broke formation, pulling out of the firing line, backing up towards the city. Two of them swerved about to make for the city gates while the only other remaining tank shot forward in a suicidal charge towards the mech that had slain its comrades. Its main gun boomed as it closed in on the mech named Entropic Rush. The charging tank’s first shot covered the mech’s right shoulder in flames. Its second slammed into the mech’s chest with no visible effect. Seemingly more annoyed than truly threatened, Entropic Rush brought both its hands around to target the tank. The flechette launchers embedded in its palms reduced the charging tank to an unmoving mass of twisted and ravaged metal. The explosion that followed as the tank’s onboard ammo went up blew what little remained of the tank into bits and pieces that went spinning away from the center of the blast.

  Another of the mechs sprang forward, its eyes blazing. Beams of pure energy sliced downward from them at the two tanks making a run for the city gates. They cut the first tank apart along the middle of its armored body before it too blew up in an explosion that sent slagged chunks of metal bouncing across the sand. The second tank tried to dodge as the mech’s eyes turned towards it. The creature that was its engine shrieked as it strained to pour on more speed but that cry was cut short as the mech’s eye beams washed over the tank’s main body, melting it and cooking those inside its armored body.

  ****

  Major Leiber was screaming orders over the comm. as Campbell hurled Ragnarok Valkyrie into action. The ground seemed to shake from her footfalls as she stomped towards the city of Canton behind Hulking Diablo. The giant red mech had pulled the matching battle axes it carried on its hips from their magnetic locks and hefted them in its hands. Ragnarok Valkyrie was the faster of the two mechs but Campbell was more than happy to let Peter take the lead in Hulking Diablo. Hulking Diablo was the larger of the two of them and was more heavily armored. Peter and Hulking Diablo currently held the record for the highest number of kaiju kills for a single mech unit. If Peter wanted to go crashing into the city’s wall and take the brunt of whatever defense forces was waiting for them there, Campbell was willing to let him do it.

  Geddy, piloting Entropic Rush, had finished the last of the city’s tanks and had taken up a defensive position next to where Major Leiber’s mech, Sand Stomper, crouched. From the looks of Sand Stomper’s arms and right leg, the mech wasn’t going anywhere. Sand Stomper’s right leg was nearly separated from the rest of its body at its knee. Sparks flew from the exposed wiring and servos there. Sand Stomper’s arms had taken a good beating too. They were spotted with ruptured patches of armor where the tanks’ shells had worn through them and Campbell could see some minor fires dancing inside a few of those ruptured areas. Thick, black tendrils of smoke rose from Sand Stomper drifting upwards from where it crouched, their blackness matching that of Major Leiber’s fury as her voice came over Ragnarok Valkyrie’s comm. again, so loudly that it caused him to flinch.

  “Kill those bastards!” she spat. “I want that city burnt to the ground and everyone in it dead!”

  At that moment, Hulking Diablo plowed into the wall that surrounded the city of Canton. An entire section of it crumpled under the fury of the giant mech, caving inward. Hulking Diablo’s axes swung in mighty arcs that hacked away at the rest of the city’s north facing wall. The city’s defenders there died by the dozens with each blow. Some falling to their deaths alongside the chunks of the wall that broke off and thudded onto the sand below; others smeared in gory stains beneath the blows of the mech’s giant axes.

  The awe and horror of the city’s defenders on the wall changed to anger and determination as several two-man crews brought the Swarm launchers they had readied around to target Hulking Diablo. There was a series of popping noises as three of them fired in rapid succession.

  “Look out!” Campbell shouted over the comm. at Peter.

  Hulking Diablo’s upper body shifted, partially turning, to try to dodge the beehive-shaped rounds streaking at it. The tactic prevented one of them from hitting it as it sailed passed the mech and onward into the empty air above the sand outside the city. The other two, however, made contact, bursting against the mech’s armor to unleashed hordes of genetically engineered, metal-eating insects on it. One of the shells had burst on Hulking Diablo’s chest. Campbell could hear Peter cursing over the comm as a car-sized section of the red mech’s armor seemed to evaporate as the insects went to work on it. The other shell covered one of Hulking Diablo’s axes with a mass of the insects. The axe was eaten away to where its shaft protruded from the mech’s clutching fist and then spread onto the metal of Hulking Diablo’s fingers and hand.<
br />
  Campbell jerked up Ragnarok Valkyrie’s wrist-mounted rail-cannons, hosing what was left of the top of the city’s north-facing wall with streams of fire that massacred the remaining men and women defending the city, turning them in pulped masses of shredded human meat. And just like that, the battle was over as quickly as it had begun.

  Whoever had been in command of the city of Canton’s forces appeared to have held nothing in reserve. Campbell heard Peter still cursing inside Hulking Diablo as the red mech plunged onward into the city, kicking at random buildings and stomping the civilians who were trying to flee that were unlucky enough to find themselves in the mech’s path.

  ****

  Joster’s heart leaped with joy when he spotted the abandoned Tech jeep on the horizon. It took all his self-control not to go just running towards it. The rational part of his brain told him that it might not really be abandoned at all. It could be a trap of some sort. He slowed his pace and ducked behind one of the large rocks that littered this part of the Waste. The Waste was what both his own people and the Techs called all of the world that was outside of their towns and cities. The Waste got its name from the lack of vegetation and clean water within it as much as it did for the fact that it was nothing but sand as far as the eye could see in any direction. Whatever had caused the fall of the Old World had left almost of all of the world this way he thought as snuck a peek around the edge of the rock he hid behind at the Tech jeep. Joster was no historian. He couldn’t remember from his classes in school if the Waste had been born of the war that shattered the Old World or some great cataclysm that had caused the war in the first place. He supposed all that was the past anyway and didn’t really matter much now regardless.

  The jeep looked intact though its wheels were partially buried in the sand, as if the Waste had crept up onto the vehicle and was trying to pull it downward into the earth. There was no sign of any Techs about. Nonetheless, he waited, staring at the jeep for a solid ten minutes before he left the cover of the rock and started towards it again.

  Approaching the jeep carefully, he eyed its ignition. No keys dangled there. Whoever had left the jeep behind had apparently taken those with them. The Tech jeep looked very similar to the Old World jeeps that the Greenery refit into its own service. Joster knew some about the Old World jeeps. The keys that were needed to start them worked in a sense like the button in a Greenery jeep. When one stabbed the ignition button in a Greenery jeep, a charge of electrical current was sent into the lifeform that acted as its power source telling the creature to activate its power generation. Joster wasn’t entirely sure, but he suspected that the keys of a Tech jeep when turned caused a spark that activated the combustion of its completely mechanized engine. Tech jeeps ran on gasoline. Joster frowned as he remembered that fact. It meant this jeep was likely useless to him. Any gas left in its engine was surely evaporated or inert by now. Besides, he didn’t have the keys needed to try to crank it and get it going anyway. He had heard of a process called hot-wiring that could be used to start such a vehicle when its keys were lost but he had no intention of attempting anything of the sort. For all he knew, had he pulled off the panel in front of the driver’s seat and started playing around with the wires there, the whole jeep might blow up.

  Still, stumbling onto the jeep was a blessing. He dug around through the bags in its rear and found a Tech grenade there. He shoved the grenade into his pocket after giving it a close examination to make sure he understood how it worked. Joster had certainly seen such grenades used against Greenery forces often enough. Further digging through the bags produced a bag of trail-mix. He tore into it at once, eating handfuls of it at a time as he continued his search of the jeep. It did wonders to stop the growling of his stomach and helped him shake some of the depression that had been weighing on him since he had started his lone trek through the Waste. He also found a battery-powered flashlight, a flare, and a half-full canteen of water. The water was rancid and had to be poured out but he kept the canteen. If he did somehow find more water out here, he would have a place to store it easily and safely.

  The sun was nearly gone from the sky and the cold winds of the Waste night were beginning to howl over the sand. He sat in the jeep’s driver seat, resting and piddling with the Tech flashlight. He turned it on once to make sure its batteries had power. They did. Once he saw that, he turned it back off, wanting to save whatever was left in them for a time when he really needed it. It looked like it was going to be a clear night as the sun finally disappeared altogether and the moon rose. The moon was full and bright, providing him with more than enough light to keep moving if he chose to. Joster was exhausted and the thought of staying in the jeep for the night caused him to linger at it. Sleeping in one of its seats would be much more comfortable than stretching out on the sand; safer too.

  With a start, he realized he hadn’t checked the jeep’s glove box. Leaning over, he reached out to flip it open. His breath caught as he saw the gleam of metal inside it. An Old World revolver rested inside the glove box. Joster pulled it out and checked its chamber. The gun was fully loaded. Snapping its cylinder like chamber back in place, Joster didn’t pocket the weapon. He kept it out and ready as he forced himself to get up out of the driver’s seat. His legs were shaky for a moment, not wanting to support his weight. He steadied himself and took a second to get his bearings before setting out southward again. So far, he had been lucky not to run into any more Tech units on their way towards the Greenery’s capital. He hadn’t run into any of the predators that stalked the Waste either. There were things that lurked out here that were just as monstrous as the kaiju the Greenery bred as its weapons. Joster didn’t know if the Tech pistol would be enough to protect him if he did encounter any of the predators of the Waste but he knew he was much better off having it than not.

  He finished the final handful of trail-mix and tossed the empty plastic bag onto the wind. It blew away, fluttering, into the semi-darkness of the night. Joster washed it down with a slug of water from his supply he had carried with him from the scene of the battle. He didn’t have much water left. The heat of the day had forced him to consume most of the pitiful amount he carried already.

  Like every member of the Greenery’s population, Joster was psi-sensitive to a degree. It was never something he had been exceptionally talented at, but he tried to reach out with his mind anyway. If there was a Greenery unit nearby, he hoped he would be able to at least feel if not link up with their shared psi-link. All he felt was emptiness though. Accepting his fate of being alone out here, he trudged onward over the sand, promising himself he would keep moving until he found help, made it home, or his legs gave out under him.

  ****

  The trip to Councilor Sheehan’s factory was a short one. Colonel Jaeger’s hover car half-turned in the air as it slowed for its decent onto the exterior landing pad. Like all the other factories in Steel Heart, Councilor Sheehan’s was a sprawling mass of black buildings, smoke stacks, reactor towers, and well-positioned lightning rods used to collect what additional energy they could from the storms that often raged above the city. None of the structures were as tall as the buildings of the Old World were shown to be in the history books that remained. Steel Heart had learned very quickly that the sky belonged to the Greenery. Despite their advances in helicopter tech and the development of winged power armor for the Steel Heart infantry troopers that guarded the city proper, nothing matched the agility, speed, and ferocity of the winged kaiju that the Greenery could unleash upon when such beasts were available. Thankfully, that wasn’t very often, as intel suggested the flying monsters were more difficult to produce than even the giant true kaiju that were the Greenery’s primary weapons of mass destruction. Even so, the Council of Engineers had opted to build downward, into the ground, instead of upwards into the sky. Less than half of the city was above ground and the bulk of the sections that were served either purposes that could be obtained in no other way or were military in nature.

  The
pilot landed the hover car and nodded into its rear, letting Colonel Jaeger and Major Steiner know that he was ready for them to disembark. Major Steiner led the way as the two of them got out of the car and headed across the landing platform to where four members of Councilor Sheehan’s honor guard waited for them. Each of the guards wore full suits of power armor. Metal wings were retracted into the protruding bulge of the suits between the men’s shoulders. The glowing yellow lenses that covered their eyes lit the growing darkness of the early evening. In their hands, they carried wicked-looking, shortened rifles out of the bottom of which curved banana-shaped magazines filled with rounds powerful enough to pierce the armor of an Old World tank. Strapped to their right hips were swords that dangled there in their sheaths. The swords were no ordinary blades but energy charged ones designed to slash through the thickened scales of kaiju flesh.

  One of the guards who wore the rank of captain on his right arm of his suit stepped forward to meet them. Giving him an honorary half-bow, the guard said, “Welcome, Colonel Jaeger. Councilor Sheehan has been expecting your arrival.”

  Colonel Jaeger thought he detected the slightest trace of annoyance in the guard’s voice as he spoke. No matter how advanced the suit he wore was, the man beneath it was still a human with all the baggage that came with being one. Likely, the captain and his squad had been waiting on them some time, as he hadn’t exactly left his office in a mad rush to get here.

  Doing his best to keep his own annoyance at being summoned to the factory like a commoner from showing, Colonel Jaeger answered, “A pleasure to visit as always, Captain. If you’d kindly lead the way, I am sure we have kept the councilor waiting long enough already.”