Project Hyperion (A Kaiju Thriller) (Kaiju #4)

Nemesis is moving fast now, trudging through the harbor, back out toward the open ocean. As she pushes through the water, pressure waves rise up ahead of her. There are several islands on the outskirts of the harbor. Some with homes. I’m about to contact Cooper and request emergency services for the islands and the areas around the rivers, but she beats me to the punch.

“Hudson!” Cooper says quickly. Her raised voice and tone are very unusual, bordering on unheard of, and instantly get my attention. “Get away from Nemesis!”

“What? Why?”

“You have incoming! Four Tomahawk missiles from the Destroyer and twelve AMRAAMs from the F-22. ETA, thirty seconds!”

“Get us the fuck out of here,” I say to Woodstock.

The chopper banks hard toward land and we pick up speed.

“The harbor is surrounded by dense civilian population!” I shout. “What idiot superseded my orders? Get whoever it is on the line, now!”

“I can’t,” Cooper says, sounding defeated. “The President gave the order. This is no longer a DHS operation.”

“No longer a—then what the hell is it?”

“War,” she says.

“Meaning collateral damage is acceptable,” I say and look back at Nemesis. The orange glowing membranes catch my attention. “It’s going to be far worse than they know. Cooper, you need to tell—”

A loud roar rockets past the helicopter.

“Holy mother of Cthulu!” Woodstock shouts.

The roar is repeated eleven more times. My head spins, watching the AIM-120D AMRAAM “fire and forget” missiles rocket past, closing the distance to Nemesis’s plated back.

It’s too late.

Streaks in the sky above Nemesis catch my attention. It’s the Tomahawks. Their trajectory shifts, heading downward toward the colossal target. Each Tomahawk packs the equivalent punch of twenty AMRAAMs and are designed to level buildings.

A plume of orange fire, which looks tiny in comparison to Nemesis, appears on the monster’s protected back. I don’t think any real damage was done, but the creature turns in the direction from which the attack came, spinning her back toward the Tomahawks, which strike next. The resulting explosion is massive and the fire ball it creates silhouettes Nemesis as she pitches forward from the force, raising her arms and roaring—not in pain, but in anger.

The shockwave strikes in time with the boom that rivals the volume of Nemesis’s roar earlier this morning. The chopper shakes for a moment, but Woodstock levels us out, and I see that we’re back over HQ, heading for the roof.

That’s when I see what’s going to happen. Nemesis’s midsection is exposed. The orange membranes flare brightly in response to the monster’s anger. Five of the remaining AMRAAM missiles strike a tall, spiked plate angling out from her back, doing no damage. Two more strike her arm with a similar lack of effect. Three strike between the patches of glowing skin. But the final missile hits one of the more fragile membranes over her ribs, and explodes.

I feel the helicopter skids hit the landing pad on the mansion’s roof.

But then there’s a flash of light so bright that I can still see it through my clenched eyes. Before the light dissipates, a shockwave strikes. It’s so powerful that I only register its existence for a fraction of a second. Then I’m unconscious along with everyone else within a three mile radius.





39



The pain was intense, but brief, flaring out from her chest and then away. When the light faded, the world around her had changed. The life she had sensed all around her no longer existed.

And it felt wrong.

She didn’t know why. The humans were prey.

Though the whales she’d eaten, while not psychologically satisfying, avoided upsetting her growing emotional side. They also satiated her physical hunger long enough to stay focused on the force driving her since she opened her eyes.

Justice.

Retribution.

Vengeance.

In the silence that followed the explosion, her thoughts cleared. There was nothing for her here, which meant her journey was not yet over. Sloshing through the now boiling ocean, she turned south. From her three-hundred-twenty-foot height, she could see the towering skyscrapers of Boston, many far taller than her. Despite their size, she sensed they were nothing more than man-made mountains and posed no threat.

What she saw between her and the city, which called to her with every beat of her tank-sized heart, were a number of objects that made her pause. She had felt the sting of their weapons, and though she survived, the pain was still fresh in her mind. She thought about avoiding the jets in the sky and ships in the sea, but they would just be waiting for her when she surfaced.

Her competing traits—mind, body and soul—fought for the best course of action. Her mind, which was fueled by thoughts of destruction, violence and unbridled revenge for the wrongs done to her, both past and present, wanted to charge forward and crush everything in her path. It’s what she’d always done. What she’d been sent here for. But her emotions riled against such thoughts, tempering the rage with...mercy.