With a wheezing breath from his aching lungs, he looked over the projections again. And the overwhelming amount of red that highlighted the numbers. There were the usual shortages of course. In that that way nothing he was looking at surprised him anymore. The hydroponics facilities had failed to make their projections again, even as reduced as they were. Another announcement would have to be made for rationing the colony’s forever dwindling supplies. There would me more discontent. More outrage.
Unable to bear the sight of the reality of their situation Raymond Ryker stood to his feet. The civilian issue exoskeleton that allowed his decaying body to walk whirred obediently as Ryker made his way to his office’s nearby window.
His right hand came up to press against the glass. The pseudo-muscle glove that helped operate his hand covering horrific burn scars that reached from the tips of his fingers down through his shirt sleeve. Extending to cover almost the entire right side of his body. There were options for skin grafts naturally. Even after the surface of the Earth became uninhabitable to human life, but Ryker had refused every time. He may be at a desk now, but he’d been a warrior once. And warriors wore their battle scars proudly.
Stifling a cough Ryker peered through the window at the giant remains of the ark that had borne humanity to the safety of the Subterranean Biodomes they now called home. The massive ship, one of five, were the last ditch attempts to save what was left of humanity after the Kaiju destroyed everything. Part of Ryker still resented it, running like rats from the surface and deep into the Earth’s Mantle to survive. But the decision had been made, he just had to live with it.
All along the side of the Ark were the words SUBTERRAN ARK: TYPHON. He could see streams of people moving from the parts of the ark that had been retrofitted to serve as residences. There was even the beginnings of a market starting to form along the road from the Ark to Doctor Wallenstein’s facilities. These people who were survivors from nations the world over had adapted to underground life with a speed that made Ryker’s heart ache. It wasn’t fair. All of them had lost everything they’ve ever known on the surface but even now. After all that they’d been through. They were still making the most of their lives.
Rubbing his eyes, wishing for the millionth time that someone had thought to clone a strain of coffee to bring down with them Ryker reluctantly looked back to his desk.
I’ll have to talk to the head of hydroponics again. He thought tiredly. See what I can do to help them get-
The alarm blared. And Ryker’s heart went cold.
Despite his years out of combat Ryker leapt for the door and ran like a man half his age. Red emergency lights flashed in urgency as Ryker pumped his arms, grinding his teeth against the pain in his right side as the exoskeleton helped him push forward. In less than a minute Ryker barreled through the door to the Typhon Colony’s main control room and shouted.
“Where are they!?” He shouted as men and women ran around the room in a controlled panic. A frightened woman at the nearby control station turned and called out to him. “Commander Ryker sir! They’ve just tripped our first layer of outlying defenses on the east side of the Biodome! Three hundred meters out!”
A holographic display came to life in the center of the room as a representation of the Biodome whirred to life. Hundreds of meters of rock and minerals surrounded their comparatively small Biodome and in the rock to the east three red glowing dots were making their way towards the east side.
“I’m detecting three Bioreactor signatures! Two stage threes and one stage four!” The woman called out even through the tremble in her voice. There was a collective wave of understanding as everyone in the control room reeled from the news. Everyone knew exactly what that meant.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Get me through to Hydroponics!” Ryker shouted as he came next to the woman at her control station. “They need to get out of there! It’s going to come out right on top of them!”
“Just a second.” The woman said tensely as her fingers flew across the desk before the line went through. And she leaned into the microphone stand in front of her.
“Hydroponics this is Control do you read me? There is a-”
“Cathy!” Ryker shouted into the mic as he pushed the control woman aside. “Get your team out of there and into the Ark! We can’t field the Heavy Armors before the Kaiju break through!”
The audio cracked and sputtered as Cathy Newport’s voice came through the line. Her breaths coming in gasps as she spoke. “The others are already on their way! But I have to get the high nutrient rice samples! We’ll all be dead if we can’t replicate-”
“You’ll be dead if you don’t make it out!” Ryker shouted as he turned to the woman next to him. “How long?”
“Perimeter breach in ninety seconds sir.”
“Cathy don’t-”
“I’m almost there!” She said desperately. The sound of her footfalls echoing through the line with the sound of the alarms. There was the clanking of glass and breaking beakers as Cathy’s voice came through again. “I got them!”
“How long on those Armors!” Ryker shouted out at the room and a man at another station responded almost immediately.
“We’re fielding the first wave now. Standby Heavy Armor pilots are beginning sync procedures with their Armors now.”
“Tell them to skip the diagnostics and control checks. I need those pilots out there now!”
“Yes sir!”
Ryker looked to the hologram in the center of the room and the dots closing in on the edge of their Biodome. He couldn’t see the Hydroponics building from the window the Control room had but he could see its representation displayed in the hologram. His right hand clenched the table hard, willing the incoming Kaiju to change course in any direction that would spare the building. Losing Hydroponics would be a disaster for the Colony. Even if they ended up surviving this attack, without the food to support the colony thousands would starve.
“I’m almost out of the building!” Cathy said panting with exertion. “I got the samples Raymond. We can still-”
The whole control room shuddered as the one of the dots on the screen, the stage three, barreled through the wall of the rock and directly into the Biodome itself. The protective shielding holding in and recirculating the Colony’s air supply caved in almost immediately as the dot fell into the hologram of the hydroponics building. The line with Cathy Newport cutting off at the same moment the building was destroyed.
Ryker stood and stared at the hologram, as the display zoomed in on the red dot and began updating the blank dot with information on the Kaiju’s type and abilities. He heard the other control room techs behind him shout to the deploying Heavy Armors about what kind of Kaiju they’d be facing as the info populated.
[Kaiju Designation: DRILL MAW]
[Stage: Three (Alpha Level Bioreactor)]
[Estimated Height: 150 ft. (45.72 Meters)]
[Detectable Abilities: Rotating Drill Claws, Hyper Acidic Saliva, Short Range Bio-Missiles]
It just wasn’t enough for you was it? Ryker thought. His blood and rage ice cold even as the wounds on his body burned. The billions of lives dead and gone. After you destroyed our homes, our cities, even our entire countries it wasn’t enough. You couldn’t stand having the surface all to yourselves could you? Knowing we’d survived. So you came here… to hunt us down like dogs.
For the first time in a long time, Ryker felt it. The thing that had kept him fighting through disaster after disaster even as the world crumbled to dust around him. In his earlier days of piloting the Mechanized Armors humanity fielded against the Kaiju he’d met men and woman motivated by everything. Protecting their loved ones, the fear of death, even some who found some twisted sense of pride killing the monsters. But Ryker was different, there was no great purpose that drove him, no higher calling. It was as brutally simple as it was ugly.
Hatred.
That hellish fire burned throughout Ryker’s core as he stared into the cameras capturing Drill Maw’s movements as it heedlessly stepped through the remains of the hydroponics building. In it’s shortened rat like face he glared into its eyes with an almost manic fury.
I’ll. Kill. You. Ryker promised the beast. Projecting his thoughts like he was trying to stab their meaning into the monster itself. Like he could end it with the sheer force of his will alone.
I’ll kill you all.