Kaiju Preservation Society(86)

I looked back at Aparna. “You’re strapped in, right?”

“I thought I was, but now I’m not sure,” Aparna said.

I nodded. “That’s the right attitude.” I looked over to Satie. “All right, do it.”

In the glow of the instruments, I could see Satie grin. He made Chopper Two climb in altitude, and then started a rapid descent toward Bella’s head.

“Oh, I do not like this. I do not like this at all,” Aparna declared.

“Yuuuup,” I agreed. I was trying very hard not to wet myself.

Chopper Two came in hard on Bella’s head, scraping the landing skids across it. At one point, it felt like one of the skids caught and that we would pitch forward and die, but then whatever the skid was caught on let go. Bella screamed at that.

“That got her attention,” I said.

“Not enough,” Satie said, and dropped Chopper Two directly in front of Bella’s face, so the tail rotor was inches away from making contact.

From the screaming, I could tell this was enraging Bella. I looked up at the monitor to see the rear view.

“Teeth,” I said, urgently.

“On it,” Satie said, and we dived suddenly and in a very unsafe manner.

Bella followed, determined to make us pay for annoying her.

“She’s not flying slow anymore,” I said as I watched her gain on us, with what I hoped was not complete panic in my voice.

“How much more time, Dr. Chowdhury?” Satie asked.

“She’s ready,” Aparna said. “I’d be guessing any minute now.”

The faint lights of the wrecked site were visible now.

“Your friends had better be ready,” Satie said to me.

“They’ll be ready,” I promised. “Let’s hope we can time this thing.”

“Uh, folks,” Aparna said. “Look at the monitor.”

I looked. Bella was gaining on us, mouth open, screaming. From inside of her, there was an emerging glow.

“I think we’re out of time,” I said.

“Almost there,” Satie said.

“Almost isn’t gonna work right now,” I assured him.

We cleared the trees to the site as Bella screamed and released her blast, which shot over the top of Chopper Two.

Satie dived and flew what felt like inches above the ground. Around us, the world turned golden. Behind us the world was dark in the monitor as Bella’s blast tore up the ground, flinging earth and soil into the sky.

“Hang on,” Satie said. He jerked us up just enough for Bella’s breath to skip over the capacitor perimeter. A wide, brilliant wall of light flew aside Chopper Two. It was beautiful, and close enough that I could almost reach out and touch it. It would kill me if I did so.

We passed the other side of the perimeter and the beam shut off. In front of us, large trees were coming up impossibly fast. Aparna and I screamed. Satie pulled up just in time and then hovered over the treetops. He turned Chopper Two around.

Bella and her eggs were gone.

And not just gone.

It was like they had never been there at all.

I stared at the place where Bella wasn’t. “It worked,” I said. “We did it.”

“Look,” Aparna said, pointing. Kahurangi and Niamh were running toward the perimeter, awkwardly, packs in tow.

“Nice shooting,” I said to them, once they were in Chopper Two, strapped and with headsets on.

“You didn’t tell us you were coming in right over the damn treetops,” Niamh said. “I barely had time to signal Kahurangi. We almost missed it.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t.”

“How did you get her to follow you?” Kahurangi asked.

“We enraged her,” Aparna said.

Kahurangi nodded. “That sounds about right.”

“Let’s hope kaiju don’t have good memories,” Satie said. “Otherwise life is going to be very uncomfortable for Chopper Two when we get back.”

“Do you think she’s safe?” I asked Aparna. “Bella, I mean. There wasn’t a lot of time between her intervals.”

“I don’t know,” Aparna said. “I think so. But I don’t know. What I do know is that she has a chance now that she’s back where she belongs. She didn’t have one here.”

“We did our job,” Kahurangi said. “We preserved a kaiju.”

“Maybe,” Aparna amended.

“I think maybe counts this time.”

“What happened to that asshole Sanders?” Niamh asked me.

“The same thing that happened to everyone else here,” I said. “Just on the other side of the barrier.”



* * *



We landed at Canadian Forces Base Goose Bay at five a.m. and with Chopper Two flying on literal fumes. Because we were entirely unscheduled and appeared as if from nowhere, with no itinerary, we were welcomed by an impressive array of Canadian military.

“That’s nice,” Niamh said, eyeing the layout of military. “How are Canadian military prisons? Asking for a friend.”

“You’re not going to prison,” Satie said.

“What are we going to tell them?” Aparna asked.

Satie looked back at her. “You aren’t going to tell them anything. None of you are. You’re going to leave this to me.”