At first, the broad, curved fighters looked like conventional aircraft with wings and tails, but as soon as they entered the vacuum of space, those features retracted, making the Ferox craft look more like limbless crab bodies.
From the mass of several thousand fighters, a single rocket flared out and raced ahead of the pack.
“There it is,” Maigo said. “Go, go, go!”
Woodstock pushed the throttle as far forward as it could go, something they had never tried before. Maigo felt herself pushed back in her seat as the vehicle accelerated to impossible speeds, no longer held in check by the friction of Earth’s atmosphere. But that didn’t stop the g-forces from crushing them back.
While Maigo felt the pressure on her body, she was easily able to overcome it. Lilly was strained, but okay. Freeman looked like he wasn’t feeling it at all. But Woodstock was struggling. He wore a pressure suit for this very reason, but she wasn’t sure how long it could keep the old timer conscious. He clutched the controls, grinding his teeth, pushing ever forward. Once the rocket hit its target, they had just a single minute to slip past the massive craft’s invisible shielding. Assuming the rocket worked, of course. If it didn’t, they would smash into a wall they couldn’t see. At the speed they were traveling, Maigo didn’t think any of them would survive.
She watched the rocket trace a line through the dark sky, and then, in a burst of blue light, it exploded against something that wasn’t there.
Did it work?
Is the shield down?
She didn’t know what kind of weapon the Ferox were using, but she assumed it was some kind of EMP device that temporarily disabled the shield. Since its target couldn’t be seen, there was no way to know if it worked.
The Ferox clearly believed it worked, though. Thousands more rockets blasted out, headed for the mothership, as scads of much larger, barnacle-shaped Aeros fighters raced out to meet the incoming fleet.
“Holy Macross,” Lilly said from the back, as twisting missiles collided with both the Aeros mothership and fighters. Chaos followed as lasers, rockets and explosions filled the gap between Earth and the massive spacecraft.
“Pucker...your...assholes...” Woodstock said. “We’re...going in!”
Future Betty streaked past the zone where Maigo believed the shield would have been and began to slow. Woodstock was covered in sweat, his hands shaking, skin red. He’d pushed their transport to its top speed and was suffering as a result. He let go of the controls as they drifted to the impossibly huge hull. “Lilly,” he said, his voice strained. “You remember...how to fly this thing?”
Before she could answer, Woodstock unbuckled himself and toppled from his chair. But he didn’t fall to the floor, he drifted in the weightlessness of space.
“Woodstock!” Lilly said, tearing her safety belt away. She dove toward him, but collided with the ceiling before reaching him. Using her prehensile tail and clawed feet, she anchored herself and pulled Woodstock to the floor. She felt for a pulse. “I can’t feel anything. He’s...he’s...”
“Move aside,” Freeman said, shoving Lilly out of the way. When she fought back, he pointed forward. “If you do not take control of the ship, we will crash.”
“Do it,” Maigo said, leaving the cockpit and helping Freeman guide Woodstock’s body to the cargo bay.
“Do you know CPR?” Freeman asked.
Maigo nodded. Hawkins had trained them how to save people. Said that killing bad guys wasn’t the only way to save a life. But, she had never performed the techniques on a human being. With one hand holding her down on the floor, Maigo began chest compressions. The challenge for Maigo was pressure. Too hard and she would put her palm through his chest. Not hard enough, and the effect would be worthless. When she’d presented this challenge to Hawkins, he’d instructed her to, ‘Increase pressure with each push, until you feel the ribs break. That will be your two-inch compression mark. Pace out one hundred compressions per minute.’
Maigo pushed five times before she heard, and felt, the old man’s ribs give way under her hand. As tears filled her eyes, she continued pushing, circulating oxygenated blood through his body, delaying tissue death.
Freeman collected the large first aid kit from the wall and carefully opened it. He removed the portable defibrillator and turned it on. He looked concerned, but calm. Then he gave her a nod and said, “You’re doing well.”
When the defib indicator light turned green, he said, “Expose his chest, please.”
Maigo reached into Woodstock’s flightsuit and applied sheer brute strength that the fabrics were never meant to absorb. The suit tore in half, exposing the man’s chest, covered in gray hair and a tattoo of a naked woman riding a bomb that had the name Susan stenciled on the side.
Maigo laughed, as her tears dropped on the man.
“Clear,” Freeman said, applying the electrodes to his chest. Maigo pulled her hands away. A jolt of electricity sent a spasm through Woodstock’s body.
“Hold on,” Lilly said from the cockpit. Maigo looked forward. She couldn’t see what the warning was about, but then she felt it. A sudden deceleration pushed her to the floor, simulating gravity, and likely wreaking further havoc with Woodstock’s body. There was a jarring impact, and then stillness.
“Clear,” Freeman said again.
Woodstock twitched a second time. Freeman reached out, placing his fingers under Woodstock’s throat.
When the defib chimed ready again, he immediately applied the electrodes and sent the charge into Woodstock’s body. The man twitched, and fell still a third time. Freeman reached out again, but never made contact. Woodstock gasped back to life, sucking in three deep breaths. Then he moaned in sheer agony. His ribs were broken, he’d had 1000 volts of electricity sent through his heart three times and he had been dead.
“My old lady...” Woodstock said, his voice a whisper. “Welcoming me to the afterlife.”
When he smiled, Maigo wondered if they’d somehow made a mistake by saving him. But then he added, “She was flipping me off. Giving me both barrels. Guess she’s still holding a grudge on account of Susan.”
His eyes rolled back as consciousness left. Maigo thought he’d died again, but then saw the empty syringe in Freeman’s hand.
“He’ll sleep until we return to Earth,” Freeman said, and he left it there. He didn’t need to expound on the thought as he gently strapped Woodstock into a seat. They all knew the score. There was a good chance none of them would make it back, and in that scenario, Woodstock would die, right here in Future Betty, alone and broken.
Lilly’s next words sent Maigo’s dark thoughts fleeing. “We’re attached. Seal looks good.”
Steeled by growing anger, Maigo said, “Open it up.”
The floor at the center of the cargo bay spiraled open, revealing a three foot wide, two foot deep passage to the Aeros mothership’s hull. They were attached to the side, like a tick, and now they just needed to chew their way through the outer layer and reach the interior, where blood would be spilled.
Maigo glanced at Woodstock’s still form.
A lot of blood.
33
COLLINS
A week into Ashley Collins’s first marriage, she knew she’d made a mistake. It started as a clenched fist, thrust in her face, shaking with jealousy over a perceived, but not real, rival. It wasn’t long before that shaking fist made contact. She tried to rationalize it at first. He had been kind. He had been loving. That man still existed. She just needed to find him again, to soothe whatever wrong had turned him into a monster.
She had endured the man for a year, ending the relationship from the hospital bed where he’d put her. But even then, she didn’t hurt the man. He went to jail for a time. The nurses and police saw to that. But she never confronted him. Instead, she decided to rise above it, to be better than the man she’d left. Stronger. And if he ever approached her again... Well, it wouldn’t be her lying in a hospital bed.
During the following years
of physical, mental and emotional strengthening, she didn’t think twice about dating. She laid into punching bags, pounded out pushups and practiced her fighting forms. When she finally went through police training, it was a breeze compared to what she’d been putting herself through, and she’d graduated top of her class. She could have joined just about any police force. Instead, she’d headed to the backwoods of Maine, where life was quiet, and very far away from home. She arrested the occasional drunk, pulled groundhogs from fences and settled petty squabbles between neighbors.
Life was quiet. Peaceful even. But it wasn’t good. The demons of her past found her in the quiet solitude of her own thoughts. Nightmares plagued her. Awake, she was fearless. In her dreams, she was weak. A frozen deer, targeted for violence.
And then, Jon Hudson.
The man was a wreck from day one, but charming in a cavalier sort of way. His attraction to her, like most mens’, was obvious. A redhead bombshell in a sheriff’s uniform made most men—happily married or not—do a double take. But where most men leered, Hudson treated her with respect, and while their partnership was forced by the arrival of Nemesis, they had worked well together from the beginning.
And now, several years later, her second husband was in another dimension, risking his life to save the world. As sarcastic and silly as Hudson could be, he was also the best person she had ever known. She’d somehow married two men on opposite ends of the nobility spectrum. And right then, at that moment, she missed her new husband. Felt weaker without him. More vulnerable.
For a moment, she worried this feeling would affect her ability to do her job. But then a new kind of resolve filled her. She’d fought monsters. It was what she did, and no matter how big or intimidating they were, if surviving meant she could be with her husband again, she would do whatever it took to win.
And he would do the same to come back.
The difference was that he was just a man, and at the moment, Collins was a four-hundred-foot-tall kaiju covered in deadly, explosive membranes and razor sharp spikes. Deadlier than ever. But according to Mephos, in an equal amount of danger.
She had seen Ashtaroth’s foot, just like everyone else, but that was it. All she really knew about the creature was that it was big.
Really big.
But she had trained for fighting someone larger and stronger than her. And if technique didn’t win the day, she’d fight dirty. She was a kaiju now, after all. There would be no rules in the fight to come.
Collins looked over her shoulders, one at a time. To her left was Watson in Scylla. In a conventional fight, Watson wouldn’t be a ton of help. But in a kaiju, with sharp talons, long teeth and powerful limbs, he might bring the right kind of chaos. And since he was fighting for the lives of his wife and son, he’d do whatever it took.
Beside Scylla was Hyperion. Just hours ago, Collins would have viewed the giant robot as their most valuable weapon against a kaiju attack. It was designed for exactly that purpose, and had, under the guidance of a Voice, defeated Nemesis Prime, and her modern day counterpart, Neo-Prime. It could do things that no kaiju could, capable at close range and absolutely devastating from a distance. But now, under the control of a fledgling, fully conscious AI, there was no predicting how it would behave. Would it make tactical errors? Would it shoot one of them by accident? Hell, maybe it would turn tail and run at the first sign of danger. The instinct to protect one’s own life was powerful in every living creature. If Hyperion was truly sentient, it would have to face that urge for the first time in its very short life.
On her right was the much smaller Scrion, voiced by the man named Rook, whose penchant for colorful language surpassed even Hudson’s. But the man could fight. More than that, he kept his eyes on the prize. While the rest of them got distracted fighting kaiju, Rook had never forgotten the mission—to take down the GUS. And because of that, the skies above the Mountain were clear...if you didn’t count the mothership in orbit. Riding on Scrion’s back, held by a kind of living saddle, was Fiona, the girl who somehow bent the physical world to her will. She had shown her strength, creating a man from a mountain, but it had taxed her. If she was going to help them with Ashtaroth, she would have to pace herself. But like Rook, she was a pro. No one needed to tell her when, or how, to fight.
Collins gazed ahead, her view blocked by a tall, thickly wooded mountain. They were walking down Interstate 93, just south of Plymouth, about to enter the sprawling forests surrounding the small town of Refuge, still several miles to the east. Between Rumney and the coast, this was the least populated area to confront the monster, and according to Cooper, it would reach them before they could get any further. The damage being done to New Hampshire couldn’t be avoided.
But it could be stopped, right here.
Refuge would be the line in the sand. If they didn’t stop it here, the Mountain, and then the world, would be at risk.
Collins glanced back at Plymouth. The downtown was easy to see. A single line of stores sitting opposite a small park and then a University of New Hampshire campus. Not far from the campus was Plymouth Hospital, where Joliet was being treated. The massive form of Typhon was knelt down beside the hospital, its head leaning against the roof, where Hawkins had exited. They’d been in touch with the former Ranger. He knew the plan, and what was at stake. Collins had no doubt he would join the fight, but she hoped it would be sooner rather than later. If any of them could take down a monster more than twice their size, it was Hawkins, who had done exactly that on more than one occasion.
C’mon, Hawkins, she thought, watching the still form of Typhon.
A growl turned her forward again. It was Scrion. Rook. His head was raised, sniffing the air like a dog. Then she smelled it. Something fetid riding the wind from the east, as it rose up and rolled down the nearby mountainside.
She headed for the smell, climbing the mountain like it was a short hill. Standing atop the steep rise, she looked out over the land from a height of eighteen hundred feet.
That was when she saw it.
Ashtaroth.
The monster had hidden itself behind the mountain range by walking on all fours, though it wasn’t really ‘all fours.’ Mephos had described the beast as being an amalgam of kaiju species they had already encountered, and she could clearly see that now. While much of its body armor covered its legs, back, head and tail, along with the collection of orange membranes at the core of its chest looking like Nemesis, just as much resembled other kaiju. Its forearms weren’t arms at all, splitting at the elbow into a writhing mass of spiked tentacles à la Lovecraft. Leaning forward on its arms, the tentacles twisted and coiled, propelling the massive creature forward, while its gargantuan hind legs, splayed wide, moved like a long-limbed insect.
With a sudden shove, the monster stood upright, its dangling arms long enough to rest on the ground, supporting its massive weight. The creature stopped and regarded them with small, but intelligent eyes. Collins could tell that this monster was more than just big and ugly. It was smart, and it was sizing them up.
Despite its size, the creature had a sleekness about it, no doubt inherited from the fleet-footed Giger species. It also had Giger’s long whip-like tail, and crest of curved spines. The strangest feature was the collection of bulbous sacks bulging from its waist. Collins couldn’t think of a good reason to incorporate the GUS physiology into this creature, but she did note that they were precariously close to the orange membranes. She would have to be very careful when attacking the monster’s midsection...if they could get that close.
A guttural growl turned her attention downward. Nemesis had rushed ahead, probably sensing the giant’s arrival in a way they didn’t understand, or just couldn’t. But she had wisely waited for help. Endo, in human form, was a brilliant fighter. He’d been an equal match for her, and had laid out her husband a few times. But he also knew when he needed help, and he had, on more than one occasion, allied himself with the FC-P. And now he stood with them, risking everything for the
world. There was a lot to not like about the man. He’d killed people, and risked their lives. Despite whatever affection Hudson now felt for the man, they both knew Endo belonged in a cell. Instead, he had become part of Nemesis, which also happened to be exactly where he wanted to be. At first, they were mortified by the development, but it turned out that all of Endo’s unbecoming behaviors were conducted to get him exactly where he was. Since he had become Nemesis’s Voice, the monster had done more to help humanity than to harm it, and had stayed largely off the world’s radar.
In the fight to come, Collins would be looking to Nemesis, and Endo, who had the most experience with these kinds of battles, to have her back. And she’d have theirs.
As the rest of her team reached the crest and saw the behemoth for themselves, she dug Karkinos’s big claws into the earth and pointed down, signifying that this is where they would make their stand. There was little more than trees between them and Ashtaroth. Soon there would be nothing but ash, and kaiju guts. The question was, whose guts?
34
HUDSON
I’ve seen violence before, in some of the most gory forms imaginable. Mutilated people, vicious alien species and monstrous kaiju. But none of that holds a candle to the insanity on display in Dimension Zero’s MirrorWorld. The Dread populating this swamp have gone mad. From what I understand, the various species, aside from some that are still wild, are generally unified. Unlike humanity, Dread of different sizes, shapes and colors have overlooked their differences to create a worldwide peace, overseen by the Matriarchs, via a series of hives. Aside from humanity, they have very little to fear, even though creating fear is their specialty.
Project Legion (Nemesis Saga Book 5) Page 21
