Kaiju Apocalypse by Eric S. Brown, Jason Cordova Read Free Book Online Page B

sure to determine the fate of the entire human species.   He watched the Trident disappearing over the horizon on the command center's view screen and wished he had the resources to spare to blast the ship into twisted, burning wreckage.
     
    Yeltsin shook off his anger at Knight and refocused himself on the battle as a whole.  The Dogkillers were already beaten and fighting an organized retreat from the beach back towards the walls of the base.  Lemura's main cannons were hammering the Mother Kaiju, but the assault on the two remaining Mothers barely managed to slow them down.  They had stopped their charge, slowing them, but the things just kept coming.  The techs were telling him that the cannons were in danger of overheating from their prolonged use against the Mothers, specifically the turtle-like Mother, but they were the only things holding it at bay.  The second they stopped shooting, there would be nothing left to keep the monsters from slamming into the walls of the base.
     
    There had been no word from Captain Thornton or Doctor Bach as to the status of their mission.  Yeltsin knew their ability to locate and destroy the Kaiju Overmind was the only thing that could save them all now.  Lemura's defenses were crumbling and within the hour, the Kaiju would break through to enter the city.
     
    “Sir!” a voice called out. “One of the primary capacitors for batteries just burnt out!”
     
    “We can still fire though, correct?” Yeltsin asked.
     
    “Yes sir!”
     
    “Then we hold, damn it,” Yeltsin growled. “We hold for as long as possible, to our last breath, our dying whisper. I don’t care how we do it, but we shall hold! ”
     
    ****
     
    Deep in the bowels of the earth, Specialist West and the rest of the men and women in Gamma squad closely followed the lead of Alpha squad. They moved quickly down the tunnels, pausing only briefly to orientate themselves before they advanced again. Behind them, West could hear heavy gunfire as Beta squad struggled to hold the entrance to the tunnels, their terse and clipped commands in direct contrast to the carnage they were obviously creating nearer the surface.
     
    “Hold,” Staff Sergeant Smith ordered suddenly, and West and Gamma squad pressed themselves against the tunnel walls. Behind them, Zeta pivoted and covered the rear.
     
    Intently, West watched the glowing dot which represented Alpha Four, who was further ahead of the main body of Dogkillers. The dot suddenly went from green to red, and then disappeared from view. His auditory sensors had picked up no noise at all, despite the typical echo which seemed to fill the tunnels. While West was still new to the Mark II suit, he could tell when trouble was afoot.
     
    Evidently, so could Smith. “Weapons hot! We got incoming!”
     
    West swallowed. There were no heat signatures which indicated that Dog Kaiju were inbound, but he trusted Alpha squad’s expertise. He turned his head and watched Zeta begin to make their way slowly back up the tunnel. There had been a break earlier, and West knew – as every Dogkiller did – that the junction could serve as both a choke point and a potential funnel for Kaiju.
     
    “Gamma Six, this is Gamma Three,” West said as he keyed his comm.
     
    “What’s up, West?”
     
    “I’m not reading anything on my scanners,” he stated. “No heat signatures, nothing. I thought we’d get something down here. I mean, yeah, it’s a bit warmer down here, but nothing ?”
     
    “Wait one,” the squad leader said. A minute passed, then two, before his squad leader got back to him. “I won’t relay what was said word-for-word, West, but let’s just say, you should focus on your job at this time and let Alpha do their job, okay?”
     
    “Uh, yes, Sergeant,” West sighed. He hadn’t thought that Smith’s anger towards him would interfere with her professionalism, but sometimes, you just never knew.
     
    “We got Dogs!” a voice cried over the comm.