“Thank you,” he said.
“Why are you here again?”
He just grinned, but then his eyes went wide. “Hold on!”
Maigo turned to see the Tsuchi slide out of the smoke, moving on its four back limbs, standing tall.
Nemesis still hadn’t turned around. The Tsuchi, despite its size, moved silently. Its mandibles twitched hungrily, eight eyes focused on Nemesis, and then...on them.
“It sees us,” Maigo said, remembering how quickly a Tsuchi could pluck a person up and eat them. It could eat us both and still have time to catch Nemesis off guard.
She glanced up. She could lunge up once, maybe twice, and reach the tendrils, maybe in time to avoid the Tsuchi’s sneak attack, or at least to turn the tide of this battle. But she’d have to leave Endo to do that. She didn’t know him well, but she knew Hudson had a complicated relationship with the man. She didn’t know if they were really friends, but there was a mutual respect between them. And while Endo had his own goals, he’d been helpful in the past. He’d saved people. He didn’t deserve to die here.
During Maigo’s deliberation, the Tsuchi took one more step, two of its forelimbs clearly poised to strike out.
“Maigo,” Endo said. “Sacrifices have to be made.”
Is he telling me to leave him?
“But not always the way we expect. Or want.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying.” Endo digs his claws deeper into Nemesis’s skin. “You need to let her go.”
Before Maigo could react to the words, Endo struck out, his speed like that of a Tsuchi, striking the small button beneath her chin, twice, in rapid succession.
“Why—” Maigo started to say, but she was ripped away as the two rockets on her back fired for a full five seconds. She didn’t watch her rapid ascent. Instead, she kept her eyes on Nemesis, and the Tsuchi closing in. “No!” she screamed. “Turn around!” But it was too late. The Tsuchi launched its attack, burying its talons in Nemesis’s back.
But if Nemesis felt the giant blades slipping into her flesh, she didn’t show it. She stood there silently, and then, as though a dog irritated by a puppy, she began to growl, the throaty warble shaking the ground, which now raced up to meet Maigo.
Maigo deployed her secondary chute, which didn’t fully deploy, but added enough drag to slow her to a survivable speed. Her tough body, covered in high-tech armor, absorbed the impact from the landing and the sprawling roll that came next. And then, without missing a beat, she got back to her feet, running toward Nemesis. Endo hadn’t saved her, he’d doomed them all...unless she reached the monster, scaled her body and finished what she had come here to do.
43
“I can’t see anything,” I shout. “Take us lower!”
“Any lower and we might land on one of their heads,” Woodstock complains. “We’re liable to get slapped as it is.”
He’s right, I know. After Maigo and Endo jumped, he took us down to an altitude of five hundred feet. We’re dealing with three-hundred-fifty-foot-tall Kaiju, with hundred foot reaches and who knows how high of a vertical leap—not to mention the possibility of another explosive immolation. We are definitely in the danger zone.
The view outside is like a swirling desert with a blue sky above. The tan dust and smoke cover the city to an altitude of four hundred feet, hiding both Kaiju and any remaining buildings.
“There!” Alessi says, the desperation in her voice matching my own. As much as I care about Maigo, Alessi cares for her half brother. She points to our port side, where the dust cloud swirls, rises and disperses, revealing the Tsuchi. It stands tall, flexes its four upper limbs back and turns in a slow circle. Then it stops like it’s detected something we can’t see.
Like how it can find people without seeing them. Part of my mind considers that it might be able to detect electromagnetic fields like a shark, or a platypus, but the rest of me just doesn’t give a rip. Right now, all that matters is that it’s found something and is already closing the distance.
And then I do see it. A half mile away, smoke and dust billow up and away. A moment later, Nemesis stands, her head cutting through the smoke, facing away from us. Away from the Tsuchi.
She’s too far away for us to see Maigo, if she even made it. “Get us closer to Nemesis.”
“I’ll try,” Woodstock says. So far, all he’s done is lower our altitude. Flying a UFO-like aircraft that moves fluidly in three dimensions isn’t exactly the same as flying a helicopter. But he’s an experienced pilot and—
“Whoa!” The X-35 tilts sharply to the side, but goes nowhere.
“Figured out how to roll us,” Woodstock said. “Sorry ’bout that. This’ll be easier when both arms are working.”
We start moving sideways a moment later, without any detectable tilt.