Project 731 (Kaiju #3) by Jeremy Robinson
Prologue
Oregon Coast
“Looks like a ghost ship.”
Sean Johnson’s hands squeaked over the Zodiac’s rubber skin, holding his body steady, but not his nerves. As the newest addition to the five-member black ops team, he wanted to prove that he was the right man for the job. He’d been recruited straight out of the U.S. Military Academy, just days after graduation, and here—not five days later—he was on a mission, slipping through the glassy sea, concealed by the night’s darkness.
He never thought of himself as an exceptional student. He was mediocre, at best, in all things. So it came as a surprise when he was interviewed and recruited by a secret division within DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. DARPA was the brains behind the U.S. military, and despite the word ‘Defense’ being in their name, he knew that much of what they developed was actually used for offense. Drones, weapons systems, advanced armor and the stuff of science fiction movies.
Johnson’s night vision goggles were one of those advances not yet released to the public, or even to the standard military. Though it was dark, in the middle of the ocean, with no light sources other than the stars and a faint crescent moon, he could see, as clear as day, in full color. Accessing countless online photos, videos and satellite images, full color was rendered and projected on top of the standard green night vision, which could still be used in situations where no reference was available. So as he looked at the backside of the approaching derelict research vessel, he could clearly read the name printed on the aft: Darwin.
All he knew about the ship was that it had been searching for the Magellan, its sister research vessel, which had been lost at sea. Contact with the Darwin had been lost years ago, the ship presumed sunk in a storm. But the Darwin hadn’t sunk. Instead, it had made slow revolutions around the Pacific, following the North Pacific Gyre, circling the massive garbage patch it had been tasked with studying alongside Magellan. After years at sea, the currents had set the ship free, sending it toward the U.S. West Coast, where it had been spotted by fishermen.
“It looks like a ghost ship because it is one, you dumb shit.” The reply came from the man behind him. Shadow. Johnson didn’t know his real name, but like all the men in the BlackGuard, his codename reflected the clandestine nature of their black ops team.
Johnson wasn’t recruited for his brains. He knew that. They wanted him for two things: his skills as a soldier and his ‘unwavering loyalty.’ Their words. While he wasn’t sure about his skills on the battlefield, they were right about his loyalty. With no brothers or sisters and both his parents deceased, the military was the only family he had left. He would follow every order to the letter.
So when they asked him to join this night mission off the coast of Oregon, to inspect a derelict ship, he hadn’t questioned why DARPA was interested, what they were after or whether it was dangerous. He’d simply said, “Yes, sir,” to the man he knew as Silhouette, leader of the BlackGuard. Silhouette sat at the Zodiac’s aft, operating the engine, which was impossibly silent—more DARPA tech.
Johnson thought better of replying to Shadow. Instead, he looked to the others, hoping to find a pair of sympathetic eyes. He found none. The other men on board the Zodiac, known only as Obsidian and Specter, kept their goggled eyes straight ahead, on target, which was exactly where Johnson realized he should have been looking.
The Darwin was just fifty feet ahead, sitting still in the nearly placid sea, eerily peaceful. The research vessel, its faded blue metal hull showing patches of rust, was larger than Johnson had expected, despite knowing there had once been fifty people on board.
Fifty people...damn. What happened to them?
“Eclipse,” Silhouette said. “Prep for landing.”
Johnson looked up at the vessel now looming above them. At two-hundred-seventy-feet long and three thousand tons in weight, it was the largest ship he’d seen up close. Most of the hull rose up, thirty feet above them, but the dive deck on the back was accessible by boat. He remained locked in place, watching the deck get closer.
“Eclipse!” Silhouette hissed, making Johnson flinch. He was still getting used to his new callsign. “Tie us off.”
When the Zodiac bumped against the dive deck, Johnson stood on shaky legs and straddled the distance to the deck. The up and down motion of the Zodiac was much faster than the big ship’s, and it threw him off balance. He stumbled forward and caught himself on the ship’s aft ladder, but not without cramming his face against the cold hull.