Kaiju Wars

by Eric S. Brown

  The lead kaiju was a beast out of legend. It stood a towering, three hundred feet tall. Its scales gleamed in the rays of the sun as it led the other kaiju out of the capital towards where the Steel Heart forces were preparing their assault. The ground shook with each step of its massive, clawed feet. The great beast’s eyes glowed a hot red so bright they looked like mini-red suns within their sockets. Thickly muscled arms dangled at the great beast’s sides as it tromped its way onward. Its claws flexed at the ends of those arms in eager anticipation of the battle it sensed awaited it.

  As strong as he was, not even Duala Mate Denkirch could maintain control over so many true kaiju. He released the bulk of the monsters and focused his mental control solely on their fearsome leader. The other great beasts were content in following it anyway. Like the people of the Greenery, the kaiju they created deferred to power. The kaiju were far more intelligent than the mere animal-like monsters they appeared to be in some ways. They were cunning and acknowledged an alpha when they saw one. And there was no doubt that the three-hundred-foot monster leading their progression was the alpha of this batch of kaiju. They would follow it into battle without needing Denkirch’s mental presence inside their minds to instruct them to do so. Battle and destruction were what came naturally to the monsters. It was encoded in their very DNA.

  The journey was unexpectedly short. The Tech forces had apparently gotten moving since the last report from the flyers. They were approaching the city as Denkirch saw them through the lead Kaiju’s eyes. A formation of smaller mechs led the battlegroup. Behind them came the Tech’s hover tanks with the seven, giant mechs, who were the real threat, bringing up the rear. The Techs looked to have been expecting the Greenery to make its stand from behind the walls of the capital. They were utterly unprepared for the army of giant kaiju that they found themselves facing.

  The formations of the smaller mechs and hover tanks broke up, veering away to the sides to take up firing positions as they moved out of the mechs’ path. Denkirch smiled, causing the lead kaiju to bear its razor-like rows of teeth. Under his control, the massive, lead kaiju picked up its speed, charging directly at the seven mechs waiting ahead of it.

  ****

  “All units break formation!” Captain Merrick yelled over the battlegroup’s comlink as the army of kaiju came into view. His heart had skipped a beat as he saw the monsters. There were over three dozen of them, all the giant, true kaiju that were the Greenery’s primary weapons. How the Greenery had shielded the kaiju from the battlegroup’s sensors, he had no idea, nor did he have the time to try to figure it out. The Greenery was supposed to be stripped of resources and without any real number of the giant beasts to deploy against them. He had been expecting to fight his way through the capital’s walls and carry the battle into its streets. Failing that, he had expected a siege of the Greenery’s capital. Nothing had given any sign that the Greenery had such great beasts to bring against him and his men and certainly not in these kinds of numbers. He didn’t allow himself to think about how many lesser kaiju had to be waiting in reserve if the battlegroup managed to survive against the giant kaiju and that was an unlikely proposition at best.

  “Pick your targets and fire at will!” Captain Merrick ordered.

  The hover tanks had spread out into a “V” formation, lining themselves up along what would surely be the sidelines of the main event between the great beasts and mechs under his command. They opened fire. Their main guns flashed as they hammered the fastest of the kaiju that were leading the charge toward the mechs. Bolts of pure energy tore at scale-covered kaiju flash as a barrage of shells accompanied them. The shells exploded on impact as they struck the faster of the kaiju. Captain Merrick didn’t delude himself into thinking that his tanks were going to make much difference in this engagement. They had the firepower to hurt the kaiju but not to take them down, at least not easily.

  The squad of Wolf-class mechs joined in, their hand-held rail-guns and machine guns chattering loudly as they fired a continuous stream of high-powered, armor-piercing rounds into the two kaiju directly behind the largest of the beasts. They concentrated their fire on the legs of the two kaiju, trying to take them down in the path of the others behind them.

  The mechs split up into one group of three and two pairs of two, knowing that none of them would survive very long without another mech watching their back. Four-Arm Fury, Entropic Rush, and Steadfast Warrior held their ground against the center of the kaiju charge while the other two pairs of mechs separated, one to the right and one to the left, charging forward to keep the three of them from being immediately overwhelmed.

  Four-Arm Fury engaged the largest of the kaiju which was leading the attack. She sprang forward, one of her four, clenched metal fists delivering a nasty upper-cut to the great beast that rattled its teeth and knocked it several steps backwards. Had the beast been human, Lillian would have almost sworn that it was grinning as it righted itself and reached out for Four-Arm Fury. She barely had time for Four-Arm Fury to dodge the swing the great beast took at her. Lillian could see she was going to be in for the fight of her life. Four-Arm Fury’s other main arm brought its fist around in mighty arc as it smashed into the side of the kaiju’s jaw. This time, the kaiju stopped sneering at several of its razor-like teeth flew from its mouth in a splash of greenish-yellow blood. Lillian pressed Four-Arm Fury’s attack, lunging in to take a third swing at the great beast. The kaiju caught her fist in one of its massive, clawed hands before it made contact. Four-Arm Fury’s servos whined at max power as Lillian tried to free the mech’s hand from the kaiju’s grasp. Already sensing that her mech wasn’t going to have the power to do that, she lurched Four-Arm Fury forward, closer to the great beast. Four-Arm Fury’s secondary arms moved like pistons, slamming their fists into the kaiju’s lower body again and again. The great beast let out a roar of anger and twisted the arm of the mech that it still clutched. In a shower of sparks, Four-Arm Fury’s main right arm was pulled from its body. The kaiju flipped the arm over in its grasp and used it like a baseball bat against the mech. Four-Arm Fury’s head was knocked sideways on its shoulders by its own dismembered arm with a loud clang. The mech staggered, nearly losing its footing. Lillian lashed out with the mech main left arm, grabbing hold of the great beast’s shoulder, continuing to hold Four-Arm Fury close enough to the kaiju so that the pounding the monster was taking from the mech’s lower arms continued.

  “Get out of there!” Lillian heard Geddy shout at her over the comm. She didn’t believe in backing down from a fight.

  Geddy, in Entropic Rush, moved to her side. On her tactical display, she saw Geddy extend Entropic Rush’s arms over and around Four-Arm Fury’s shoulders. Twin sprays of flechettes exploded from Entropic Rush’s palms, slicing scales and meat from the great beast’s chest. If it had been angry before, the kaiju was royally ticked off now. It shoved Four-Arm Fury away from it straight into Entropic Rush. The two mechs toppled to the ground. Spots of the softer metal of Entropic Rush’s hull crunched and buckled from Four-Arm Fury’s weight coming down upon it. The massive, three-hundred-foot-tall Kaiju would have ended them both then and there had it not been for Captain Mitch in Steadfast Warrior.

  Steadfast Warrior hurled itself forward, coming between the great beast and the two mechs on the ground in front of it. The air itself seemed to bristle with energy as Steadfast Warrior’s sword blade slashed through it to strike at the monster towering over them. Steadfast Warrior’s blade cut a deep groove across the kaiju’s chest, adding to the existing carnage already there from Entropic Rush’s barrage of flechette fire. For the first time since the battle had begun, the kaiju shrieked in real pain. Its eyes blazed brighter as it caught Steadfast Warrior’s blade as Captain Mitch pulled it back, trying to ready it for another swing. The kaiju’s fist closed over the blade, snapping it in half. Greenish-yellow blood dripped from its clenched fist that held the upper half of the broken sword. Steadfast Warrior had no time to dodge as the great beast rammed the
portion of the sword it clutched directly into the mech’s head and through it. The kaiju gave the blade a twist as metal scraped against metal before Steadfast Warrior’s head exploded upon its shoulders in a shower of sparks and flame. Black smoke rolled upwards toward the heavens from the spot where Steadfast Warrior’s head had been. The kaiju wasn’t done with the mech yet though. It brought up one of its three-toed feet in a kick to Steadfast Warrior’s chest that caved in the armor there and sent the mech’s headless form careening backwards to thud to the ground on its back.

  Lillian had gotten Four-Arm Fury on its feet and was settling the mech into a combat stance as the great beast turned its attention towards her again.

  “Move! Move! Move!” Geddy was shouting at her over the com-link. She didn’t understand what he wanted her to do. If he was wanting her to make a run for it, Geddy could go to hell. Four-Arm Fury braced itself as the great beast charged towards the mech. Lillian held the mech firmly in place, its stabilizers at max levels, as the kaiju crashed into Four-Arm Fury. She had caught the kaiju with Four-Arm Fury’s remaining three arms and pushed the mech to its limits as it used the great beast’s own momentum against it. Four-Arm Fury accomplished the impossible, lifting the great beast up over its head in a flipping motion that sent it flying to crash into the ground behind where it stood. Even kaiju had to breathe and the air was knocked from the great beast’s lungs by its impact. Lillian whirled Four-Arm Fury, about to take advantage of the situation, but she found that Entropic Rush already was. Geddy had brought his mech over to the great beast and leaped onto its wounded chest. Both of Entropic Rush’s palm flechette launchers were pressed directly against the great beast as they opened fire. The kaiju’s body shook and spasmed as Geddy emptied everything Entropic Rush had left in them into the monster. Finally, it lay still, greenish-yellow blood pouring from its corpse to stain the earth beneath where it lay.

  Lillian was in shock that they had actually managed to beat the creature, so much so that she didn’t see the warning on Four-Arm Fury’s tactical display until it was too late. They might have taken out the largest of the kaiju but there were still dozens more of the monsters on the battlefield. One of them, a tentacled abomination, crashed into Four-Arm Fury from behind. Its tentacles curled over the mech’s shoulders and waist, wrapping themselves so tightly and with such strength that they crushed entire sections of Four-Arm Fury’s armor inward. Alarms were blinking and giving shrills cries all around the mech’s pilot compartment where Lillian sat. There were fires burning throughout the Four-Arm Fury’s interior. Lillian saw that Four-Arm Fury’s power systems had been damaged and were at only forty percent. Entropic Rush didn’t appear to be faring much better. Two more kaiju had closed in on her and were engaging her as she struggled to get to her feet from where she still sat atop the corpse of the largest kaiju. One of those two kaiju had the head of a shark and the hands at the end of its two arms didn’t resemble hands at all. They more closely resembled two blades made out of bone and chitin. The monster was relentlessly pounding Entropic Rush from where it stood over the mech. Entropic Rush rocked with each blow. The other of the two kaiju was one of the rare hair-covered beasts that was more mammal than reptile. The monster looked like a deformed, five-eyed ape. For the time being, it was holding back so that “Axe-hands” could do its work. Lillian knew Geddy and Entropic Rush couldn’t withstand such a beating for too much longer.

  Four-Arm Fury struggled against the tentacles wrapped around it as they continued to grow tighter about its waist and shoulder joints. Lillian knew that she had to act quickly or she was dead. Using half of Four-Arm Fury’s remaining power, she sent a surge of energy along the exterior of the mech’s hull. The tentacled kaiju squealed in pain, jerking away from Four-Arm Fury. As it did, Lillian spun Four-Arm Fury around to grab its throat with the mech’s remaining primary hand. Four-Arm Fury’s metal fingers sunk into the soft flesh of the monster’s throat and tore it out with single, yanking motion. The tentacled kaiju’s cries of pain were cut short in an explosion of gore as Four-Arm Fury’s hand came away from its throat with a fistful of flesh and other tissues. The tentacled kaiju dropped to its knees, eyes going wide in horror, then thudded face first onto the ground.

  Entropic Rush had managed to shove “Axe-hands” away from it enough to rise to its feet. It stood facing the ape-like kaiju as Lillian watched Geddy bring one of the mech’s sonic-based weapons to bear on the monster. The ape-like kaiju clutched its ears in response to the mech’s attack but it wasn’t enough to save it. Blood ran through its hairy fingers and along the lengths of its arms before its head popped like an overripe melon. Bone fragments and brain matter splattered outward from its exploding head to splash onto Entropic Rush’s armor.

  “Take that, you mother!” Lillian heard Geddy shouting the second before “Axe-hands” avenged the ape. “Axe-hands” brought one of its feet smashing at angle onto the backside of Entropic Rush’s right knee, shattering the joint there. Entropic Rush collapsed in front of the monster as it swung both of its axe hands together on the mech’s head. Lillian screamed as the two blades cut through to touch each other inside the ragged mass of metal that had been Entropic Rush’s head only a fraction of a second before.

  “You bastard!” Lillian raged as she kicked Four-Arm Fury into gear, charging towards “Axe-hands.” The kaiju turned its head to look at her in the moment before Four-Arm Fury plowed into it. The mech and kaiju went down together in a mass of wrestling limbs.

  ****

  Peter in Hulking Diablo and Duvall in Nuke Fist were making a game of the mess that Battlegroup Alpha had found itself caught in. The two of them had broken to the right at first but had plowed their way back around into the center of the kaiju charge, placing themselves directly between the kaiju horde and the position where Captain Mitch, Lillian, and Geddy were making their stand.

  “Come on, man!” Peter complained as Duvall took out another of the kaiju. “That crap isn’t fair!”

  Duvall was laughing as the corpse of the kaiju he had just blown a hole through thudded to the ground.

  “Not my fault you went with melee weapons, bro!” Duvall mocked him as he targeted another kaiju. Nuke Fist’s right hand was glowing. Heat and coils of pure energy leaked from its clenched fist as it powered up again. A ping sounded in Duvall’s ear as the fist reached it its max charge.

  Hulking Diablo was doing the grunt work of keeping the bulk of the kaiju held off Nuke Fist as Duvall took out the creatures one blast at a time. Already, Hulking Diablo had beheaded a kaiju, gutted a second, and left a third without its arm. The giant red mech was swinging its twin axes as fast as it could, hacking at one beast then another. It was taking a great deal of damage too in the process for its efforts which angered Peter to no end as Duvall stood back in Nuke Fist adding to the number of kaiju corpses littering the ground Hulking Diablo. Peter was happy to be racking up the kills but knew that even a mech like Hulking Diablo could only hold out so long.

  Peter flinched inside Hulking Diablo’s pilot compartment as a kaiju unexpectedly managed to dodge the axe he had swung at its skull. The beast’s neck was like the body of a snake, its tiny, fanged head at the top of it as the neck writhed above its body. Peter cursed Hulking Diablo’s engineers for the missed swing as the snake-necked kaiju took advantage of the awkward moment and struck at him. Its mouth opened as its neck angled about to bring the creature’s head downward in a movement so fast the motion seemed to blur. The snake-like kaiju’s fangs dug deep through the armor of Hulking Diablo’s left arm.

  “Holy …” Peter wailed as he saw that the thing’s fangs had injected the arm with something akin to acid. Metal burned and metal inside Hulking Diablo’s left arm as the servos there died and black smoke leaked out of the arm’s joints. “You’re going to pay for that!” Peter swore to the snake-like kaiju as Hulking Diablo’s left arm froze up completely and dangled limply at the mech’s side. The axe clutched in the mech’s left hand slid from its now limp fi
ngers. The weapon bounced onto the ground at Hulking Diablo’s feet, nearly tripping it up as the mech backpedaled so that Peter could get another swing at the kaiju’s writhing neck. This time, the blade of his right-handed axe struck it dead on, severing it. The kaiju’s tiny head and a good-sized portion of its upper neck went flying away from the beast’s body in a spray of rancid, black blood.

  Two kaiju had moved around Hulking Diablo during its fight with the snake kaiju and were closing on Nuke Fist. Duvall saw them coming. The mech’s fist was powered up again so he let the faster of the two have it. A sphere of energy formed around the fist, almost a third the size of the mech itself, and shot outward at the kaiju Duvall had targeted. It hit the kaiju in the center of its torso, vaporizing most of it. What was left of the kaiju collapsed in on itself and toppled to the ground, a smoking mass of burnt meat. Duvall already had the fist recharging as the other kaiju reached Nuke Fist. It was still two ticks away from being able to be fired again though. In order to buy time, Duvall brought Nuke Fist’s other arm up as a shield to block the blow of the kaiju’s clawed hand. This kaiju was “old style” and very reptilian humanoid in its appearance and form. The kaiju’s claws raked against the armor of Nuke Fist’s arm, but thankfully, the beast wasn’t strong enough to get any real penetration with them. Their impact did force Nuke Fist to stagger though, which allowed the kaiju to take a second swing at its head. Duvall grunted as the claws slammed into the side of Nuke Fist’s head and he was jarred about inside the pilot compartment there. Nuke Fist’s system pinged to let Duvall know that the mech’s primary weapon was charged again. Duvall brought the mech’s glowing fist in to touch the scales of the kaiju’s stomach as he fired the weapon. The energy from the mech’s fist blast splattered bits of the kaiju everywhere as the point-blank shot ripped the monster apart in an explosion of cooked internals and bits that were scorched beyond identification. Duvall was about to give a victory cry when he heard Peter yelling, “Look out!”