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.
“A lot has changed since the Argo left Earth, as you may have noticed. Pacifica and Atlantica both fell. Lemura is just about gone. I don’t know how many survivors are buried in the rubble, hiding, praying for some sort of miracle. A miracle which I can guarantee!” Yeltsin laughed. “The Kaiju only think they've won this war. They assume that humanity is finished, and that we no longer fight because we are defeated. But that is not how humans fight. We pull back, lick our wounds, and come up with newer, better ways to defeat our enemy. I still have an ace up my sleeve to be played, and I am so glad you gentlemen are here to see it.”
“Uh, Governor Yeltsin, sir,” McCoy said, looking over at the Gunny for help. The stout gunnery sergeant shrugged helplessly, so McCoy struggled to find the right words without directly calling the old man crazy. “I think you may be mistaken slightly. The Kaiju have won the war, sir. The Argo will be breaking orbit as soon as we're back onboard her.”
Yeltsin shook his head, his face sad. “You really have no idea, do you? Entangled quantum mechanics dictates that this will end the threat once and for all. I’ve lived in the math, and I’ve seen the future.”
“I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean, sir,” McCoy replied. “The human race on Earth is finished, almost completely gone. This isn’t our home, not anymore. It’s time we left and found a new one. This planet belongs to the Kaiju now.”
“We can still stop them, gentlemen,” Yeltsin took one of the filled glasses of whiskey and downed it in one gulp. He grabbed the second. “There is time. It isn't quite strong enough to be free yet. Not yet. The time...”
McCoy sighed. He had assumed that anybody that he or the other soldiers could find might be a little off, but he had not anticipated running into Minister Yeltsin, or that he would be around the bend. “Sir, I really think it's time we were going. The Argo is waiting for us. We need to get back to the surface and call for an extraction so we can get home.”
“Home?” the Gunny repeated the word before he started nodding. “You know, you're right, sir. The Argo is our home now, isn't it?”
Yeltsin’s entire body stiffened suddenly, crushing the glass he held in his hand. Blood and whiskey dripped from where the broken shards cut into his flesh. “You fools!” he rasped, the wild look in his eyes back. “If it gets loose, not even the Argo will be safe! We have to activate the weapon
before we leave. Don't you see? It has to be done at exactly the right moment as she's born or it will all have been nothing! They are already among us in the stars, but without her, they can't leave this system! Once she's born, they'll spread everywhere, across the galaxy and beyond. This universe will burn! There will not be a single planet for what's left of humanity to be safe!”
“Whoa... calm down, sir.” McCoy advanced on Yeltsin slowly, his hands outstretched. He started wondering again if the former governor's prolonged isolation had driven him completely mad. McCoy was determined not to let the old man hurt himself more, but that could be a dicey proposition for him. In his day, Yeltsin had been one the best soldiers he'd ever seen in combat. If Yeltsin really wanted to hurt him, McCoy could only hope that the Gunny would be able to help restrain the governor. “Instead of yelling at us, why don't you try to explain what you're going on about? In not-quite-crazy words, sir.”
Yeltsin's eyes were still wild, but he took a breath and looked down at his bloodied hand. He pulled an oily, filthy handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it around his wounded hand. “The Earth...” his voice trailed off as he tried searching for the right words. “The Kaiju. They're linked, somehow. At first, I didn't understand it, or I refused to see it. Not sure, quite frankly. It’s embarrassing. I should know this. I knew her, after all. I don't know if the Kaiju have always been a part of this planet from its creation, or if they're alien invaders who arrived later. What I do know though is that they're using it. The planet, I mean. While the Argo was away at Alpha Centauri, the war raged. The Mother Kaiju grew larger and more numerous. But you see, all of it, the Mother Kaiju, the Dog Kaiju, the war... none of it really mattered. There was a sort of Overmind controlling all of the monsters. Or at least, that was the theory. We thought we had destroyed it, maybe even won the war, but we hadn't. That Overmind creature was just a small piece of the real Kaiju, like all the others. She was incubating, for lack of a better term, near the planet's core along.”
The Gunny’s expression told McCoy that the older soldier clearly thought the former governor was mad. McCoy couldn't help but be pulled in by the old man's words, though. Even in the depths of the man’s madness, something true and terrifying niggled at the edge of his soul.
“She's awake now, boys,” Yeltsin continued. “Stirring and getting ready to... I don't know, be born? When she does, this planet will die. She'll spread her wings and take to the stars, moving on to the next world. She will leave this husk behind, lifeless, empty... dead.”
“Just how big is... she?” McCoy asked, curious in spite of himself.
“Larger than the Argo, that’s for damn sure,” Yeltsin laughed. “She'll rip this world apart as she leaves it. At least, a very large section of it, and the damage to the atmosphere and outer core will be irreparable. If the Argo is in orbit when that time comes, and we don't use the weapon I've worked at finishing all these years, mankind will truly be wiped out from existence. It may not be today, or even tomorrow, but she will find us. And she will finish us, once and for all.”
“You don't really believe all this, do you sir?” the Gunny asked McCoy. “If I may make a suggestion, sir? Let's just take him and go. We can listen to his stories later, but we need to get back to the Argo. We found what the signal was. Mission accomplished.”
“You have to listen to me, McCoy,” Yeltsin pleaded, tears forming in his eyes. “The weapon is our only hope at existing.”
McCoy frowned but decided that he could spare a few more moments. “Just what is this weapon, sir?”
“It's a planet killer, son, and it'll destroy the Earth. And the mother of all the Kaiju with it.”
*****
“Phoenix Two, this is Phoenix Three,” Commander Brad Handley called out over his comm.
“Go Three,” came the reply from his longtime wingman.
“Fritz... you getting what I’m getting here?” Handley asked as he banked the Phoenix into a wide turn. Below him lay the ruined city of Lemura. He checked his radar again, just to make sure he was not hallucinating or having a systems malfunction. The signatures were still there, and growing in strength and number.
“Yeah, I got it,” Lieutenant Commander Fritz Ling replied in a hushed tone. “I thought my systems were out of whack.”
“I think... I count twenty of them. Repeat, two-zero of...”
“I wish I could say that I think that you’re wrong, Three. But I think you’re right. Let’s hope that the Argo is paying attention up there.”
“I hope Lieutenant McCoy hurries up. I want to get out of here as fast as possible,” Handley muttered. Twenty feet behind and ten down, his wingman silently agreed as more large, unidentified blips appeared on the radar screens. Handley switched frequencies and hailed the Argo. “Argo, this is Phoenix Three. Do you read?”
“I’ve got you, Three,” Argo replied instantly. “Looks like twenty Mothers coming your way.”
“Roger that, Argo. That’s what we counted too,” Handley said as he pulled the Phoenix into a steady climb. “Do we engage or leave them be?”
“We still have men inside Lemura, Three,” the Argo reminded him. “Can you delay the Mothers?”
“Phoenix Flight, this is McCoy,” a new voice cut through the radio chatter. Handley toggled his comm.
“This is Phoenix Three, Lieutenant. Go ahead.”
“One survivor found, requesting evac at secondary LZ.”
“Roger that. Be warned that there are Mother Kaiju in the area.”
“Well, that’s just super fun fantastic. How many do you have, Three?” McCoy asked.
“Enough to make me wish we had about fifty nukes,” Handley replied as he leveled the Phoenix out, Fritz staying just behind him. “Be at the secondary LZ in fifteen minutes, McCoy. Three out.”
Using the sun to make spotting them difficult, Handley peered down at the ground and then out at ocean surrounding Lemura. He could see the large Mothers slowly making their way towards the shores. A small cluster of three was much closer to Lemura than the others were, and would reach the city before McCoy and the survivors would reach the LZ. He flipped frequencies.
“Fritz, we gotta slow those Mothers down,” Handley said. “I may have been a little too optimistic when I told McCoy fifteen minutes.”
“Roger that,” Fritz agreed. “But we’re transports, not Tridents. It’s one thing to hose some Dogs. It’s an entirely different thing to drop a Mother.”
“We’ve got Hellfire missiles,” Handley said. “That might do something.”
“They might. More than likely it’ll just piss one of those Mothers off. You know, someone’s going to look over our flight recorders one day and get on us about a lack radio discipline,” Fritz laughed.
“Screw ‘em,” Handley growled. “They’re not down here.”
“All right, switching over to Hellfires,” Fritz said.
“Let’s begin our attack approach,” Handley said as the two Phoenixes began to dive down towards the approaching Mother Kaiju. G-forces pushed him back into the pilot’s seat as the large shuttle increased speed. He flipped on the guidance system of the Phoenix and listened as the system began to warble at him. Moments later, the warble turned into a growl, signaling that the Hellfire had acquired the target. “Lead target acquired. Fox One! Fox One!”
Two AGM-114K high explosive anti-tank missiles released from the stubby wings of the shuttle and darted forward, their engines accelerating the missiles to over the speed of sound in less than two seconds. The small computer chips in each missile head targeted the lead Mother, identifying the center mass as the best place to explode.
Each of the three Mother Kaiju was a different kind of walking nightmare. The tallest stood over three hundred feet and had a hulking mass that was nearly as wide. Its body was similar to that of a twisted version of a crab that walked on two legs. Its pincers snapped as the midday sunlight reflected off the thick, sleek edges of its exoskeleton. It led the small pack of Mothers towards Lemur
a.
To its left was a strange mix of a fish and a wingless bird. Two glassy eyes stared at the ruined city, ignoring the two approaching shuttlecraft. A beak, sharp and pointed, protruded from the Mother’s face. Scales covered the body, and it moved very much like a chicken as it followed its much-larger kin.
The last of the three Kaiju was the strangest. It had no legs that Handley could see. The Mother was a large, lumbering jellyfish. Hundreds of smaller tentacles writhed and flopped about in the air around it, growing from the transparent central mass that passed for its body. It had no discernible eyes or mouth.
The two Hellfire missiles struck the lead Mother square in the armored chest plates, the high-explosive warhead exploding on the surface of the thick armor. The explosion was so bright that Handley was forced to turn his head to avoid losing his vision to the light. The crab Kaiju staggered, its exoskeleton fractured where the missiles impacted. The thing let out a shriek of pain and anger that could be heard inside both of the Phoenixes miles away.
Kaiju Apocalypse II Page 5
