Kaiju Apocalypse by Eric S. Brown, Jason Cordova Page A

city, for the first time in a long, long while, he realized that he believed mankind stood a decent chance against the monsters from which the oceans had given birth. It was a terrifying feeling, elation.
     
    He smiled. It was not born of fear, or tinged with grimness. It was something he had forgotten, thought lost in the realization of war and extermination. It was a happy smile.
     
    “Long live Lemura.”
     
    *****
     
    Deep in the bowels of Marianas Trench, a singular shudder shook the ocean bed around the slumbering beast. Wings, pressed flat against the massive back, twitched ever so slightly. Creatures unseen by humanity’s naked eye began to stir amongst the depths. Something caused a far-off underwater volcano to begin erupting, spewing lava and ash into the dark waters. In days, it would begin to form a new island, a new home for a new breed of the dark.
     
    Nothing natural lived at these crushing depths. If Yeltsin had known was lay here, resting, undisturbed for millennia, he may have joined Lemura’s Governor in death. Nothing could have prepared him for a creature of such magnitude. It was too large to comprehend, too strange for the mind to accept it. Fortunately, for him, and for all mankind, it remained still as the island formed. Nothing could disturb the creature’s sleep yet. Time was not right, reality not quite bent enough for it to arise.
     
    A single eyelid twitched as the beast lay dreaming. Its children began to spawn forth once more, to devour, kill, and to conquer. Slowly from the depths they came to the island of ash and rock to begin anew. It would take a while, but they had time. They settled in beneath the island, these Kaiju.
     
    ...and they began to adapt.

 
     
     
     
    Part II

 
    Around him, the world crumbled and burn ed, and there was nothing he could do about it.
     
    Captain Nathan Whitmire gasped as the last bit of cryo-sleep began to wear off, his higher brain functions pushing the subconscious reactions to the back as he became aware of his surroundings and his location. His lungs burned as they took their first breath of true oxygen. His throat felt raw and abused. Strength slowly returned to his body as his nervous system came fully online. With that strength, though, came the realization that he was still alive.
     
    Instead of opening his eyes, however, he reached for the dream that had been tormenting him. He knew that scientists believed that when the subconscious mind dominated during a long cryo-sleep, a sort of “precognitive” experience could occur when the changeover began. It was a very rare experience, but Nathan knew that it was always accurate – if the memory could be retained. Science could not explain it, and it was the rare individual who could remember the dream. Unfortunately, the last vestiges of this particular dream slipped from his mental fingers, gone forever.
     
    “Good morning, Captain Whitmire,” a hollow, yet cheerful sounding voice greeted him as he woke up.  It belonged to the Argo's artificial intelligence system, Medea.
     
    His mind drifted back to the faded memory. Something bad was about to happen, he recalled. However, the rest of the dream eluded him. That memory washed out as well as his mind came fully aware of his surroundings.
     
    Nathan stretched out his arms and struggled to wiggle his toes as the cryo-juice was flushed from his system. His stomach gurgled noisily, reminding him that, if all had gone well, it had been over seventeen months since he had last eaten. An intense pressure was suddenly applied to his bladder and a soft moan passed unbidden through his lips.
     
    There was no way around it. The human body was not designed for cryo-sleep, and coming out of it was one of the most painful experiences outside of childbirth. His skin felt like it was on fire as every single nerve in his extremities came alive. If he could have screamed, he would have. Fortunately for his dignity, his vocal cords were not yet up