Kaiju Apocalypse (14 page)

It was going to be a very dull three days, she knew.

*****

Nathan sat alone in his briefing room. The news seemed to be getting worse with every passing hour the
Argo
maintained orbit around Earth. Though the
Argo
was still in communication with the two Phoenix combat shuttles on Earth, she had lost contact with the remnants of the force still on the ground. The shuttle pilots only knew that the unit had came under heavy Kaiju attack, which they had provided air cover for, while the soldiers attempted to regroup. Just as quickly as the Kaiju attack had begun, the comms of the men on the ground went silent, as though something had simply cut off their signals at the source. The captain’s gut told him not to give up on the unit just yet.  McCoy was in charge down there, and the man had a knack for pulling off miracles and keeping people alive.

When the shuttles he had dispatched to Tango Zeta 3 station returned, he had hoped for a brief instance that they'd bring some insight with them into what happened on Earth while the
Argo
was gone. Answers were in short supply, though. To make matters worse, it was possible that the entire team that he had sent over to the station had been exposed to some sort of biological outbreak. He had been forced to send them all into isolation, and now Kitty and the others sat in individual decontamination chambers awaiting their fate. Assuming they hadn't brought back something lethal with them that would tear through the
Argo's
inhabitants like wildfire, it would still be days, at a minimum, until he could get Kitty to parse over the data on the bridge where he could watch over her shoulder. Still, it wasn’t a complete loss. He had ordered that she be allowed to work on sorting through it all, while she was in isolation, but even so, it wasn’t quite as good as having a full system, such as her normal duty station on the bridge.

In truth, the
only
good news he had received was the confirmation that the station contained the fuel that the Argo sorely needed for eventual departure from Earth’s orbit and their subsequent search for a new home. That, too, would take hours to transfer all the fuel over to the
Argo
, but at least it was good to know the fuel was there for the taking. If he had to risk, or even sacrifice, a few dozen crewmembers to get it onboard, then he would not hesitate to do so. A few dozen lost in order to save the other thousands of souls on the
Argo
that remained in cryo-sleep was more than a fair trade. Humanity had to survive somehow.

Nathan got up from behind his desk and paced back and forth across the open portion of the room. He hated waiting with a resolute passion, but at the moment, it seemed that was all there was to do. Nathan changed his path as a thought struck him. He headed for the large observation window behind his desk. Not a true window but a computer monitor from which he could see a perfectly rendered Earth as the cameras saw it, it was still close enough or him to often forget that it was just a projection. He stood in front of it and stared out at the planet below. Gone were the luscious greens and whites colors on the planet’s surface from the days before the Kaiju War. Twisted shades of grays and unnaturally deep blues replaced them, making the world appear as dead as the race that had once dominated the top of its food chain.

His intercom buzzed suddenly, interrupting his musings. He grumbled and acknowledged receipt.

“Sir!” Tiffanie called over the comm system. “You're needed on the bridge!”

“On my way,” Nathan answered, while taking one final, lingering look at the changed and decimated planet below that the human race had once called home. His home. His birthplace and, for the billions of souls left behind, a mass grave. He wondered just how history would record the event.

Assuming that there would be anyone around to write it, at least.

He stepped onto the bridge. Tiffanie stood at the sensor station next to Yamilé, the young woman who had taken over for Kitty during her forced absence. From the looks on their faces, he could easily guess that whatever it was they needed him for, it wasn't going to be good news.

“What is it?” Nathan snapped as he walked over to where the duo was stationed. He instantly regretted his tone.

“Captain, the sensors are picking a massive geothermic and tectonic disruption in the southeast area of where Pacifica once stood,” Yamilé said hastily, as if she were unsure of herself and the readings. “Coming from... eighteen kilometers from beneath the surface.”

“And that means?” he asked. “An earthquake?”

“Erupting volcanoes, earthquakes, wide-spread seabed disruptions,” Tiffanie explained.  “It's like the entire ocean bed in that area is tearing itself apart.”

“That’s where the Mariana Trench was, isn’t it?” Yamilé wondered aloud.

“I don't see why this concerns us,” Nathan said. “Earth has always been seismically active, even after the events precluding to the Kaiju War. Especially in
that
area. The Ring of Fire, remember? Besides, we're leaving as soon as things are resolved with the team on Lemura. Focus on your job.”

“It's like nothing the sensors have ever seen before, sir,” Yamilé told him. Tiffanie nodded as Yamilé continued explaining. “The affected area is hundreds of miles wide or larger. I don't know how to explain it exactly, but it's as if the entire Pacific Plate is tearing itself apart down there.”

Nathan sighed and rubbed his temples. “Is the disturbance close enough to affect our team down in Lemura?”

“No sir,” Yamilé answered. “Not unless it gets bigger and kicks off the biggest tsunami mankind has ever seen.”

“Then take all the readings you want for scientific proposes, I suppose, but don't bother me with it again unless it becomes a more direct concern to our team on Lemura.  Understood?”

“Yes, Captain,” Yamilé answered glumly, clearly disappointed with his reaction to her discovery.

*****

“What the Hell is this place?” McCoy asked as he and Grimes walked slowly through the twisting system of corridors inside the bunker. He ran a hand along the concrete walls and whistled.

“Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, sir” Grimes said. “I'm just glad its door appears to be holding. If not for that door, sir, we’d all be dead.”

McCoy shook his head. “I don't think we have to worry too much about that now. You saw the outside of this place, right? A bloody Mother Kaiju couldn't get in here, and not for lack of trying.”

“I bet, if given more time, it could have,” Grimes argued. “I'd guess something drove or lured it away before it could get in, sir.”

“Quit harassing the lieutenant, Grimes,” Gunny Iffland growled, as he appeared from the depths of another corridor. “Get with Sergeant Frandsen and make sure that the door stays secured. Find Kirby and see if he’s found anything useful in this place. Food, ammo, anything that can help.”

“Roger that, Gunny,” Grimes said and trotted back towards the big blast door. The Gunny pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

“Gotta quit letting them argue with you, sir,” he said. “They start questioning your orders, they stop listening.”

“I know, Gunny,” McCoy nodded. “It’s rough sometimes, seeing these kids scared like this and trying to keep them alive and functioning.”

“With all due respect, sir, that’s my job,” the Gunny said. “Your job is to figure out the
what
. My job is to figure out the
how
.”

McCoy chuckled. “Okay then, Gunny. Point made. How’d the count go?”

“We’ve got five total inside before we closed the door,” the Gunny stated, ticking them off on one hand. “Kirby, Grimes, Frandsen – I found it ironic when we dropped on Alpha Centauri Prime and recalled that Frandsen’s nickname was Bigfoot, didn’t you? – myself, and you, sir.”

“Kids,” McCoy said and rubbed his face with an open palm. “A corporal, a freshly-minted sergeant and a private first class.”

“Well,
I’m
not a kid, sir,” the Gunny reminded him. “Haven’t been for a very long time.”

“Thank God, I’m not the only one with gray hair,” McCoy chuckled softly.

“Indeed, sir. We’ve picked up something interesting, but I’m not getting too excited about it just yet. Sensors suggest that there's one life-form down here with us, and it's human, thank God,” the Gunny said as he led the lieutenant down a new tunnel. He patted the sensor strapped to his belt.

“That makes sense,” McCoy nodded, thinking back to what he could remember of Lemura, one of the oldest city-states on Earth.  “Whatever was left of the elite class in Lemura would've come here when things went south. They knew they'd be dead if they didn't.”

“Sensors have been wrong in the past, sir,” Gunny reminded him. “Shouldn't be too much further. Whoever is left down here is making it easy for us. They don't appear to be moving, just staying in the same spot. Almost like they're waiting on us to come to them, sir.” McCoy and the Gunny continued walking until they reached a set of sealed blast doors at the corridor's end.

“Gunny Iffland, will you do the honors?” McCoy asked and motioned at the thick steel doors.

The Gunny struck the center of the doors with the butt of his rifle three times. The clang of reinforced ceramic on metal echoed in the confined space. “Open up! This is Gunnery Sergeant Jonny Iffland of the United World Defense Force! If this door is not open in ten seconds, I will be forced to use drastic measures!”

“Drastic measures, Gunny?” McCoy raised an eyebrow.

“Indeed, sir,” the Gunny said in a somber tone. “I will be forced to raise my voice.”

“And that would be bad...” McCoy nodded, though he was not quite certain where the Gunny was going with this. The two men took a step back away from the door.

“My raised voice involves a polymer-bonded explosive device, sir,” the Gunny clarified. McCoy grinned.

“Ah, yes, that would definitely get the point across.”

The small circular lock on the front of the two doors dilated open, and the massive steel barriers disappeared into the concrete walls to reveal an old man in the tattered remnants of what once had been an elaborate uniform. Long, greasy gray hair spilled over the man's shoulders and down his back. His fingernails were ragged and overgrown, his eyes wild, almost feral. His beard was straggly and unwashed. The old man's eyes bugged as he took in the sight of the two armed soldiers.

McCoy felt as if someone had punched him in the gut as the recognition of just who the man standing before them was.

“Holy crap,” he blurted. “You’re Minister of War. You’re Andre Yeltsin!”

The man's responding cackle was loud and extremely disturbing. “It's been a long time since anyone has called me that. Hasn’t it been? Oh yes, it has.”

McCoy and the Gunny stared at Lemura's Minster of War as the old man rubbed the palms of his hands together. His eyes, which seemed mildly less mad than moments before, were jumping between the two men before him.

“I know you,” Yeltsin said and jabbed a finger at McCoy. “I watched you. You're from the
Argo
, aren't you? I saw it drop into orbit not long ago. Months, years... days? No, hours. It’s all so very quantumly-connected now, isn’t it? Come, come, you must be tired. Let me get you something to drink.” Yeltsin ushered them into what appeared to be makeshift quarters of some kind. “I go by Governor Yeltsin now, though truth be told, there's not much left to be governor of.”

“Do you remember me, sir?” McCoy asked, his eyes watching the not-quite-sane man in front of him warily. “I served under you at the Battle of the Canal, down in Latin America?”

“McCoy, James. You were fresh out of boot, a young PFC, before your were mustanged up to officer in the aftermath due to your exceptional leadership skills.” Yeltsin grinned. “I never forget a face.” Yeltsin poured two glasses of a stout smelling whiskey and offered the drinks to them. Both men declined.