Kaiju Apocalypse (5 page)

****

Alarm klaxons rang out all over the island of Lemura.  Citizens raced for their homes and designated shelters as panic filled the streets of the domed city.  Minister Yeltsin was cursing up a storm in central command.  The group of Kaiju off the coast that had been detected turned out not to be the only one.  The Kaiju had Lemura surrounded and swarms of the creatures, each numbering in the thousands strong, were converging upon it.  Worse, three Mother Kaiju had shown themselves as the attack began.  They rose from the waters, juggernauts of sheer, primal power, and followed the lesser Kaiju towards Lemura's defended shores.

Yeltsin had already dispatched every available Dogkiller to meet the lesser Kaiju.  Either they would hold the monsters on the beach or fall back to help defend the city if they failed.  The Mother Kaiju was what concerned him now.  There were four Tridents remaining on Lemura and Yeltsin scrambled them.  The great ships lifted through the top of Lemura's dome.  Even in the best of circumstances, four Tridents would have a hard time dealing with one Mother Kaiju. With three, it would be nothing more than a minor delaying action. Lemura's main defense batteries slid from their resting places to target the closest of the three Mother Kaiju.  The formation of Tridents broke apart as two ships headed in the direction of each of the other monsters. 

“All batteries, this is Minister Yeltsin, fire at will!” Lemura's main cannons thundered, shaking the ground beneath the city, as they spat beams of pure blue energy particles.  The lead Mother Kaiju, the primary target that the majority of the base’s defenses had locked onto, had the beak of a squid and rows of eyes, three long, that ran down the length of the sides of its face.  One of its massive arms ended in a pincer and the other a mass of writhing tentacles.  Covering its chest and back was the thick armor plating of something very much like the shell of a turtle.  The blasts of the cannons hammered into it there, causing the giant beast to stagger.  It sunk partially back into the water before it regained its footing and continued to advance. The plates of its shell were slightly charred, but far from punctured.  The cannons whined as they rose on their axis to target the Kaiju’s head as it loosed a shriek and began to advance upon Lemura once more.

****

Captain Daniel Walker was the senior pilot of the Trident flight, and while he had been pissed initially at being left behind at Lemura, was now more than ready for a chance at a Mother Kaiju. He brought his Trident, nicknamed “Scather” by her flight crew, up high and in the sun, using the bright light to prevent the Kaiju from seeing the ship. He toggled his heads up display and frowned as he inspected the giant, lumbering beast from a safe distance.

The Mother Kaiju looked like a giant, walking shark.  A fin as large as the Trident protruded from its spine.  Its arms ended in hand-like, three fingered hands and the scales covering its body glistened in the light of the stars above. Row upon row of teeth filled the giant mouth of the creature, and a long tail extended out behind it. Large black orbs on each side of the mouth rotated independently, the eyes lacking any sort of emotion. Walker recoiled a little at the realization that this Kaiju was different from any other he had seen before.

“Not like it matters,” he whispered as he twisted the stick, pulling the Trident into a forty-five degree dive. He pulled the ship onto its back. “Trident Flight, this is Trident Lead. Target acquired. Fox Three! Fox Three”

Twin AIM-199 AMRAAM missiles streaked from the Trident towards the beast, leaving a thin trail of smoke behind each as they flew towards their target. The “Kaiju Killers,” as they were affectionately known by the Trident crews, locked on the massive Kaiju, using the latest radar information relayed to the Trident from Lemura Base. Both impacted cleanly on the Mother Kaiju and managed to blow chunks of meat from the monster's massive torso.  The Mother Kaiju wailed in pain but trudged onwards. Walker flipped his bird back over and clawed for the sky as the Mother Kaiju hunched her back. Small, blister-like bubbles formed all along her spine.

“What the...?”

The sky was suddenly filled with tiny projectiles as each blister erupted violently. One projectile narrowly missed Walker’s Trident, and he managed to get a brief glimpse of it outside his window as it screamed past.

“Holy shit!” his copilot, Commander Sean Osborne, screamed.  He had seen it as well. “Did that thing have wings?”

“Get on the horn with Tower,” Walker ordered as he twisted the craft while more projectiles shot past. “Tell them that the Kaiju had adapted. We have anti-aircraft Kaiju.”

Walker pulled the Trident into a hard turn, angling back towards the Mother Kaiju he had wounded. His targeting screen was cluttered with smaller icons now, nearly blotting out the Mother. His HUD zoomed in on one of the projectiles and he blinked as he identified what he was looking at. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head as the computer confirmed what he saw.

“That’s one big flying lizard,” he growled and switched over to the 105 cannons.

“Tower, this is Trident Lead,” Osborne said over the comm. “Kaiju has anti-aircraft personnel in the air. Repeat, the Kaiju have launched some sort of creature into the air. Looks like... I am designating the new targets as Dragons. Repeat, new targets identified as Dragons. We have a count of four-five-zero Dragons, over.”

He cut the comms and looked over at Walker, who had an incredulous look on his face. Osborne shrugged.

“Not every day you get to name a Kaiju,” he pointed out.

“You’re insane,” Walker said. He flipped back over to the comm network. “Flight, this is Lead. Guns, guns, guns!”

Walker depressed the firing mechanism of the ship's forward cannons with his thumb.  The pintle-mounted tri-barrels swung back and forth, spraying the sky with streams of armor piercing, explosive rounds. The firing mechanism tracked every object in the sky, allowing Osborne to prioritize them as they locked on to their target. The new Kaiju began to fall from the sky as the 105 rounds tore into them.  Walker smiled grimly.

“No armor whatsoever,” he muttered.

“That’s handy,” Osborne nodded.

“Target acquired,” Walker said. “Fox–”

“Incoming!”

Walker was a combat veteran, one of the few who had survived both New Orleans and Las Vegas. His skills had been honed on the white-hot forge of the battlefield. His list of battles was a mile long. London. New York. Rio de Janeiro, twice. Sydney.  He claimed to have the reflexes of a cat, and the eye of a falcon.  He also had the record to back up those claims.  He was arguably the best pilot still alive. Those skills, combined with two lifetime’s worth of good luck, were the only thing keeping him and his copilot alive as the smaller, flying Kaiju began to spit out streams of molten metal at the four Tridents.

Walker jerked his stick all the way back and the Trident responded, the aircraft tilting upwards in the sky and rocketing away. The lithe craft had almost made it away clean, but a stray stream of molten metal tore at the undercarriage of the vessel. Alarm klaxons howled as the targeting system of the Trident went down, completely destroyed by the liquid metal. The rudder of the craft began to shake, dropping Walker’s ability to maneuver to almost none. He swore and kicked the floor pedals, disengaged the thrust and waited for gravity to catch back up with them.

“Jesus...” Osborne whispered and pointed at the screen. Walker looked at the screen and blanched.

Trident Three, crewed by Lieutenant Commander Etienne Moynier and his copilot, Lieutenant Larry Southard, had been completely destroyed as dozens of liquid metal projectiles tore through them. Pieces of the flaming wreckage crashed to the ground, creating a mockery of a funeral pyre for both warriors, something that the cynical pilots of the Tridents often joked about. Dark humor was what kept them going, although today, it would not be gallows humor keeping them alive. The Mother Kaiju roared triumphantly and continued her march towards Lemura.

“No chutes,” Osborne announced as he turned in his seat and scanned the sky. “Repeat, no chutes! Damn it...”

“Weapon targeting system is down completely,” Walker announced as the Trident went through a brief moment of weightlessness before the nose of the aircraft pointed back down towards the earth. As they began to accelerate, he pushed the throttles to full and the engines roared to life. “Landing gear is shot. 105 is down, comms are down. We have engines, but we’re low on fuel. Not much else we can do now, really, except...”

“Except... what?”

“You want out? You have plenty of time to eject. Hell, you may even survive.”

“And land in the middle of that nastiness? Nope,” Osborne said with a shake of his head. “I’ve come this far. Besides, this is something I never thought I’d hear you say.”

Walker grinned. “Prepare afterburners. We’re gonna ram that bitch.”

“Hell yeah.”

Walker put his hand on the secondary throttle, which sat beneath the primary and was almost never used. The Trident, capable of speed six times faster than sound, never really needed to use the afterburners. He wanted to be certain that he had enough momentum and energy behind what he could only think of as a kinetic strike on the Mother Kaiju. Beside him, Osborne jiggled the circuitry of the weapons for a second before he whooped triumphantly.

“Can’t fire the missiles,” he announced. “But I sure as hell could arm them!”

Walker’s grin turned feral. He pointed the nose of the Trident towards a spot right behind the head of the Mother Kaiju. He looked over at his copilot.

“Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Osborn allowed.  “What a way to go, eh?”

“
Bonzai!
” Walker screamed and pushed the afterburners to full.

The Trident leapt as the higher-octane fuel was pushed rapidly through the pistons of the engine, increasing the power and air-intake. The engines, already pushing out enough energy to rattle the entire craft, doubled the maximum speed of the Trident in exchange for the loss of structural integrity. The craft turned into nothing more than the afterimage of a blur as it struck the Kaiju perfectly, the Trident nothing more than a very large explosive bullet as it burrowed completely through the spine of the Mother Kaiju. Munitions aboard the craft exploded, severing the head from the rest of the massive beast’s body, and secondary explosions rent the upper body into shreds.

The massive fireball which erupted from the disintegrated Trident swept through the air, clearing the sky from the Kaiju Dragons as well as charring a few unfortunate Dog Kaiju on the ground. The massive Mother staggered under the blow, not quite realizing that she was already dead as she tried to continue forward. Nerves, finally catching up with her body, caused her to lose a step, then two. She began to fall.

The Mother Kaiju's corpse tumbled onto the sands of the beach, crushing hundreds of Dogs beneath her as she collapsed heavily to the ground.  A cheer erupted from the walls of Lemura upon the sight of the massive Mother falling dead. However, they quickly faded as the two remaining Mothers renewed their attack.  The artillery crashed through the sky, and the fight raged on.

****

Captain (j.g.) Charles Knight liked to play things safe. Unlike the other Trident pilots, he was not known to be a hotdog, and didn’t possess the typical fighter jock attitude that the others wore openly on their sleeves. He was a deliberate, calculating man, which had helped create the image of a man who was in complete control of his faculties at all times.

Now, though, his icy persona was being tested in battle for the first time. Sticking close to his wingman, he brought the Trident behind and to the right of the other aircraft.  Ensuring that his wingman’s six was clear of any hostiles, he began to engage the few smaller Dragon Kaiju still in the air. The 105 cannon ripped them to shreds, the fine orange mist drifting downward after the guns had ruined their bodies.

“Captain,” his copilot, Chris Cox, warned as he brought up the targeting display. He and his pilot, unlike the other crews, had never managed to become close. As a result, the captain’s call sign, “Tsumetaikaze”, was almost never uttered.  It would have been unprofessional, Knight had claimed. Cox wondered if the man was simply too egotistical and vain to allow himself to be called anything other than his rank.