Free Kaiju Apocalypse by Eric S. Brown, Jason Cordova Page B

at that, but refrained from commenting. Survival was important, and how they did it, was not.
     
    “She’s hobbled at the corner of Main and Prosperous Street,” Yeltsin said over the comm. “Let’s bring that big bitch down!”
     
    “Long live Lemura!” came the cry over the comm as thousands of voices responded as one.
     
    The ground around Yeltsin shook. He glanced up and saw that the Mother was still down on one knee, but was struggling slowly back to her feet. He broke into a trot, then a run. They had to keep the Mother from rising, and he wasn’t sure he had the firepower to do so. He risked a quick look at his oversized platoon, which was now numbering a few hundred men and women, some in uniform, most not. The frightened woman he had spotted earlier was now carrying the explosive claymores.
     
    He rounded the corner of Main and skidded to a stop. He had managed to make his way to the rear of the Mother Kaiju, where a small group of uniformed soldiers was trying the shoot the Mother in a most indelicate spot. Judging by the way the Kaiju was thrashing about, Yeltsin was sure that the determined solders were starting to make progress.
     
    “Attack!” Yeltsin cried and the men and women around him surged forward. “Do not let what is written on your headstone state that you simply died here! Fight for humanity! Long live Lemura!”
     
    “Long live Lemura!”
     
    A small form, a young girl no more than ten, clutched a small satchel in her arms. She ran forward, darting around the adults as they fought the Mother Kaiju, her bright brown eyes never wavering as she drew closer to the Mother. Her pigtails bobbed as an adult bumped her unknowingly, but her path did not stray. She drew very close to the exposed underside of the massive beast and stopped. She looked up at the Kaiju, and in a voice that belonged to someone ten times her size, made a declaration in a ringing tone:
     
    “Long live Lemura!”
     
    The explosive in the satchel pack detonated, killing the large cluster of humans gathered close to her position. The ball bearings, which had been packed tightly around the explosive material, shot upwards at over fifteen hundred meters per second, the steel penetrating deep into the Mother’s stomach. The little girl vanished in the blast, but in the process of dying, managed to wound the Mother grievously.
     
    Men, women, and Dog Kaiju were all turned to mist as the ball bearings made short work of the unarmored humans around them. One bearing blew straight through Minister Yeltsin’s pants leg, narrowly missing his thigh. Red blood mixed with orange on the street, and the horrid stink of death and carnage filled the air.
     
    The damage was done, however. The Mother Kaiju bellowed one final time, a cry born of pain and defeat. Her good leg gave out, and the top-heavy beast tottered as her guts began to spill out onto the street. The massive shelled creature began to fall to its side, the heavy creature flattening buildings and killing thousands of people and tens of thousands of Dog Kaiju as she went.
     
    The battlefield became deathly still. Yeltsin stared at the mass in awe at the Kaiju gave one final shuddering gasp before expiring. He felt it in his bones. The blood-chilling roar which had begun from blocks away, one that told him that he had won, that Lemura had won.
     
    The victory cry of humanity was powerful enough to shake the very foundations on which Lemura was built.
     
    Two days later...
     
    Governor Pietro Lanstum was dead, his body somewhere in the rubble of the formerly grand walls of Lemura.  Like so many others, the Governor died when the Mother Kaiju had breached Lemura's walls and let the smaller monsters inside.  According to the report, Yeltsin had read over, the Governor's personal guard had died to the last man to keep him alive. It simply hadn't been enough, and the Governor had fallen amidst the seething hordes of Dog Kaiju.  The whole mess left Minster Yeltsin