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

The mind revolted at the thought.

She hadn’t found what she was looking for in the condo building, but she could sense guilty humans all around. There were innocents, too, but their deaths had once been acceptable. Now... If not for the explosion, which was not her doing, she would have left the harbor without laying waste to it. Her pursuit for justice took her somewhere else, and when she found the object of her rage, which her intellect did not yet understand, nothing would stand in her way.

Her body was a driving force when hunger struck, the need for sustenance superseding all thought or feelings. Right now, the body sent warnings of imminent pain, but continued to grow and change in ways that supplied the mind unceasing confidence.

A wave of energy suddenly passed through her, drawing her eyes to the tall buildings. She could feel...something. A signal. A beacon. Then it came clear and for the first time she knew. She remembered.

Her emotions welled up, and for the first time since they emerged, they were in concert with her intellect and body, screaming for vengeance. Functioning as a whole, she opened her mouth and let out a roar that every person in Boston, every jet in the sky and every ship on the sea, would hear. They would know she was coming.

If they were smart, they would flee.

If they weren’t, they would die.

She lunged forward into the water, casting up waves that crashed to shore, pulverizing charred homes. She flattened her arms and legs against her body and with a thrash of her tail swam out to sea.

She made no effort to hide her approach or avoid a fight.

Adrenaline fueled her body.

Rage filled her thoughts.

Bloodlust drew her forward—not on a straight line for her target, but on a path that would bring her into direct contact with each and every human that wished to do her harm. That was something she would not stand for. Not ever again.

Seeing in the ocean lacked the clarity that being in the open provided, but her powerful eyes amplified light when needed, and as the images viewed by the eyes were processed by the brain, the distortions created by currents, waves and pollutants were compensated for. The result was a fairly clear image of a submarine three miles away and closing.

Doubling the submarine’s speed, she plowed through the ocean, slipping beneath the surface when it became deep enough to accommodate her size, which was still expanding, and once again growing tight and itchy.

Two small cylinders shot out of the front of the submarine while it was still a mile off. Then two more, two more and two more. The way they were fired, in quick succession felt like the panicked kicks of a zebra being chased by a lion. She knew the cylinders were weapons. They might cause her great pain. But she also knew they would not kill, stop or slow her down.

She closed her eyes, lowered her carapace and took all eight torpedoes head-on. They stung, like bees, she thought, but she had only a hazy memory of what that meant. The sound of the explosions rang loud in her ears. In response, she let out a roar. The powerful sound carried perfectly through the water and reached the submarine at full strength, filling the metal tube with an echoing rage.

She could hear the men inside screaming in pain, ears shattered by the force of her roar. The sound drew her closer, fueling her thirst for destruction.

The 377-foot-long submarine was about the same size as her body if measured snout to tail, but it lacked her bulk, maneuverability and ferocity. Before it could fire another salvo, she swam alongside the massive sub, gripped the front of it in one clawed hand and the back in another, freezing it in place.

The modern killing machine was now nothing more than an oversized banana in the hands of a hungry child. Opening her massive maw, Nemesis wrapped her mouth around the sub’s midsection and bit down. Exerting an unimaginable amount of pressure to the diamond hard tips of her teeth, she bit through the hull, filling it with dozens of puncture wounds, each several feet in diameter. When she withdrew her teeth, fountains of bubbles exploded from the sub’s interior. She flexed her arms and the weakened hull snapped in half. Air exploded into the water and rose up as a shimmering cloud. It was followed by the bodies of sailors, some still living, sucked out into the ocean.

She was about to eat the men, but a distant thrum, thrum, thrum turned her south toward Boston. Vengeance was near.

The cleaved halves of the sub sank to the bottom, the ballasts ruptured. Thirty-two sailors remained behind, free floating in the ocean’s depths.

She left the scene, swimming fast again, cresting the surface where she found two large ships, six helicopters and four circling jets waiting. Brow furrowed, eyes narrowed, jaws snapping, she let out a war cry that made the hearts of the men standing in her path quake with fright.

Then, she charged.





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