Call of the Lonely
Hours crawled by as the scientist worked their diligence at their terminals. Boris Yaroslav meanwhile had sat himself in silence with eyes closed. He allowed the puppets to continue their business while he would catch a few minutes of sleep. The stresses of the weather, added with the horrible visual sight of the demon that had destroyed the installation before, was enough to weaken even the most powerful of men. There was no use for him to be awake while the unaware civilians did their busy work.
Gaafa in the meantime had taken his friend by the arm and lead him away from the group. They plunged down the dark and cracked corridors of the facility. Brief flashes of luminescence from the swaying overhead lights gave limited vision to the blundering men. The entire expedition had reeked of something much darker than the military was letting on. The men outside had fortified the area with enough guns and weapons to start a small war. The general had been stringent with the scientist's work. Time was apparently a factor that was becoming more urgent and salient as time slipped by. This base was not for radar scanning, that much Gaafa had been certain of. And he was bound and determined to find out what it's true purpose was.
Turning left, the two men continued their path into sanity's requiem. The dark gloomy atmosphere was like something lifted out of a gothic tale. The howling wind seeped through the damaged building, echoing the fate that had befallen the Russian structure. A few more steps were taken before Gaffa heard the faint echo of hollow metal. The heavy set gentleman looked down to see the outline of a square door hatch laying sealed like a gate to hell in the floor.
"Um, and that would be…," Vadim questioned with cocked eyebrows. "Maybe it's the generator room? Oh maybe it's the basement where they do all the experiments on E.T.?
Gaafa ignored the young man's joke with rolling eyes. This was not a time to for jest. They did not have a lot of time to find out the lurid secrets of this place. Before they had begun their journey he had overheard one of the computer techs mention that they were close to seventy percent finished with their work. Once they were done, Gaafa was sure that the loathsome Boris Yaroslav would be announcing their leave. Gaafa could not allow this opportunity to pass him up.
Unhooking the locked latch, the door creaked with life. It took both men to open the heavy reinforced steel door, that stood as the underground room's face. Once freed, the men plunged into the dismal subterranean chamber. Their mouths gaped open in awe when their feet hit the bottom of the stairs. Across from them, sat a massive mess of lights and screens. The machinery hummed and ticked away with preprogrammed instructions, that it was carrying out beyond their creators deaths. The machine sat alone, there was nothing else in the room except for this Avalon like pillar of technology. There were dozens of screens that danced like esprit fireflies, around a ten foot wide central display. The hulking liquid plasma screen played a vibrating emerald green wave of vim, something like you would see of a recording of a sound wave would do on an electronic display.
"I have never seen anything like this," Vadim spoke lively. "The university I went to has nothing on this place. Have you seen anything like this spectacle?"
"No," Gaafa replied slowly, not taking much notice of what was even being said. "I've never seen anything like this. This technology is way more advanced then what we saw in the control room upstairs."
"Hey maybe the little green men helped them out with some of their computers if they promised to hook them up with some Vodka," the paleontologist laughed softly. "I don't know about you but this stuff has got to be worth millions. Can't believe this is in the budget for the Russian government. Maybe the Americans, you know they love to spend that printed cash."
Vadim continued to babble on, with joke after joke, but Gaafa had no time to listen. Creeping forward the large volcanologist placed his hand against the buzzing machine. It felt warm, yet alien at the same time. The very essence of the machine surged and raked into his heart. It beheld a purpose that was too complex for either men to understand at this time. Yet, there was an individual whom would be able to help them he realized. Moving with frantic speed, the chubby man moved all around the device, searching for something in particular.
"Hey, hey, what the hell do you think your doing," his companion gasped. Don't touch that thing, what if that old sourpuss comes down here and sees us fooling around with this."
But the words fell on deaf ears. His fingers groped around until they finally found what they were looking for. The man's eyes widened with joy at the sight of the small metal box that was attached to a few colored wires. Quickly pulling the circuit packed tendons away, he ripped the box from it's housed spot. Gaafa examined it momentarily for damage. Seeing none, he popped the valuable item into the wool lining of his overcoat.
"Dude, you are so going to jail for that man!" Vadim spoke with irrational fear.
"I don't care," Gaafa replied heatedly. "This base was doing something very important and I don't think it was good. I got a friend that might be able to deceiver this and tell me what this program was doing. There is too many unexplained things here. The guns, the secrecy, the moving volcanic activity, and this base itself. It looks like it was pulverized by a giant. I mean where did everyone go? Just for a little stroll out into the freezing tundra! Something happened here and might happen again and I think everyone has a right to know what our government has been up to." Vadim was about to continue to raise his voice of decent when suddenly they both heard a voice call out from above.
"The downloading is complete," one of the scientist had blurted out. "The hard drive is cloned."
Gaafa and Vadim exchanged fleeting, worried glances. Their time was over. They had to get back to the group before their absences were noticed. Like lightening they shot up the stairs and moved back through the labyrinth of gloom. Gaafa cursed under his breath as they neared their target. He could swear that he could hear the laced footfalls of the general. Seconds passed before they stopped at a doorway that lead into the control room. Through the opening they could see one of the eager faced civilians hand Boris a plastic encased external hard drive. The man smiled with little triumph as he mechanically packed it beneath the layers of his garb.
"Well done gentlemen," he spoke gently. "You have done your government very proud. What you did today will forever shape the power that Russia will attain once again."
The general was about to speak once again when he was interrupted by a frantic voice from behind. Jogging into the room, the young soldier Vaslov stopped just short of his commanding officer. Fear was bulging from the man's eyes. A cringing primordial fright had grasped his mortal frame like a bird of prey upon a mouse. Sweat dripped from his brow. His chest heaved with great labored breaths.
"It's here," he fumbled with the words. "It's about seven hundred yards to the north and it's coming towards us."
Vaslov tried to continue with the bad news before the air was shattered by a howling roar. The winds carried the fowl cry through every bone of the men in the station. It was a bellow that screamed of ages long since gone. It was a sound that accompanied death. It was a call that mortal ears were never meant to hear.
"Tell the men to ready for an attack," Boris snarled. "And I want you to get the Kirvako and the Udaloy on the radio now and inform them of our situation."
Swerving his head around the room, the general spied the gawky fossil expert in a doorway. Taking great strides he closed the distance between him and the now cowering man. Boris Yaroslav reached over with a hand of iron and gripped Vadim's shoulder like a vice. Lowering his head down so close that the peak of his cap pressed against the brow of the young man, the general spoke with cold demeanor.
"Now you are going to earn your fare on this little excursion doctor," the brawny military born being growled.
The air was cold like always. The icy crisp wind licked and beat the frozen tundra with claws of frozen might. The rich blue sky paled in comparison to the stark white and angelic lay of land that stretched for miles on end. Normally this would be a dead zone, an area that was devoid of mortal life. An area that drew upon the silence of solitude to keep it company. Now, it was unmarred by a forbidding life form. For millions of years the glaciate land had been it's prison. Now, through ignorance of beings, wishing upon manifesting hopes of being gods, the creature was free. In it's time it was the sadist master of it's territory. Any animal that sought comfort in it's domain would be exalted with it's own laborious demise. Death was not an uncomforting emotion to this beast. It was an act that had been repeated, lustfully, many of times.
Releasing several lengthy and bellowing roars into the frosty sky, the behemoth that had been dubbed Maguma by several of the previous scientists that worked at Mjöllnir's Summit as a joke, moved across the ashen expanse. The beast looked like hell's version of a walrus. It's yellow hued eyes were large and bulbous. It's body swayed from side to side as it wobbled forward on huge prodigious webbed feet. It's twin saber tusks were a mirror of prehistoric evolution at it's perfection. Maguma paid little attention to the algid temperatures that beat against it's layers of suety blubber. To Maguma, this was home, this was his silent and wonderfully rejoiced speck of manor that he would fight tooth and nail to keep. He had visited this area of his kingdom before. Maguma had crushed the vile smelling animals that had attempted to carve out a den for themselves. The giants fury had seen to wrathfully trample their ignorant stupor. None had survived it's systematic and savage act of barbarism. It would seem these vermin were laggard in their learning. The hulking kaiju would have to once again prove it's vigor and make these tiny beings rue their decision to return.
Moving now with greater speed, Maguma could now spy the low lying remains of the buildings he had graced before. Around it's trampled walls, scores of tiny pests were scouring about. The walrus' previous attack had been quick and decisive. This time, Maguma would let the assault linger. Perhaps then the tiny pets would learn their place and flee from his world finally. Maguma released one final bellowing roar that hung in the air like Damocles' dagger. It was a call that harked and warned of the brute violence that was to take place in moments to come.
Mjöllnir's Summit was full of terror and dismay. The once calm and proud Russian soldiers now quivered with fear as they clutched to their guns and weapons. Their sanity was hanging by a thread as the oncoming horror clamored again and again with roaring mirth. The only person that was steadfast was the lantern-jawed Boris Yaroslav. The proud man stood against the slamming sounds of cries with an emotionless expression. His second in charge Vaslov wore a face of scowl. Boris could see the hate and anger swell within the young man at the creature that was racing to them on thundering strides. The inexperienced soldier was naïve and quick to anger. Boris saw a younger version of himself in the lad. And for the first time since that accursed mission began, that memory brought a quick and flickering smile to his face. But it was quickly wash away as the situation at hand interjected itself upon his quiet thoughts.
The computer techs, who had gathered outside after hearing of the devilish roar, gasped in awe at the demon that rose against them. Vadim meanwhile could only look on with strange respect. Through the binoculars that the General had handed him, he could make out the titanic features on the kaiju. His childhood dreams of seeing some prehistoric beast where answered. Yet at that moment, he was not so sure that is what he wanted.
"So what is it?" Boris Yaroslav asked the young paleontologist with guttered authority.
"To be honest I am not quit sure," Vadim replied cautiously. "It is certainly a prehistoric member of the Odobenus rosmarus species but it's just too big. There is no fossil on record that would adhere to the animal being as large as it is. Most likely it is an unknown species but golly the size is just so impossible! He must be nearly fifty meters from foot to brow. Man I cant believe I am seeing this!"
"Sorry to cut your enthusiasm short doctor but I believe that we have situation here," the General spat with annoyance laced growls. "This creature, Maguma, has already destroyed this base one time, and it looks like he is intending to do that yet again. If you can provide us with information of how we can attack this monster, it would be greatly appreciated."
Vadim's jaw dropped in astonishment from the military personal's question. He was about to raise a voice of protest about attacking such a rare animal, but a forbidding glare from the General turned his spine to jello. He looked around at the armament that was positioned around the squat ugly building. Some powerful machine guns, bolted down mortar launchers, and bazookas.
"There's nothing here," he began to inform the commander in charge, of the bad news. "Modern day walrus's can have skin and blubber up to six inches thick. This Maguma, by the size of him can have skin and blubber up to six feet! There's no way any of your guns here can get through all that. All your weapons are going to do is just going to piss him off.
Suddenly the rolling sky was filled with a new noise. Replacing the demon's howling warbling cries, was the sound of low rhythmic like puttering. The clamor became louder and louder with each passing second. Craning his chiseled face skyward, Boris Yaroslav saw the approach of Russia's finest. Cutting through the polar heavens, a squad of twelve weaponized Ka-29 Helix class helicopters approached. Normally these machines would be armed with anti submarine torpedoes and surveillance, but Boris Yaroslav had them outfitted with more appropriate technology. Word had reached the government a week before that Mjöllnir's Summit had experienced a run in with a dangerous kaiju that had surfaced. The General at that time had felt that UB-20 rockets and fuel-air bombs, added with the gun turrets, were more than enough to push back any animal. Yet, now as he stood on that icy tundra, he began to question his decision. The monster was massive and dwarfed his imagination.
Maguma, continued to howl and rage with unbridled fury as Boris Yaroslav reached down and took a black walkie-talkie from it's resting holster. Barking into the intercom, he gave the order for his army to begin the attack. Several the buzzing machines of man, arched downward and strafed across the walrus' hide with their heated metal. Hundreds of steel jacketed lead poured from the hollowed gun turrets, raining their cold and tasteless lives against tens of thousands of tons of rolling flesh. The monster bellowed into the skies, letting his pain linger and roll like a volcano erupting. Pain was not the feeling that assaulted his senses. It was annoyance. The stings of these pesky bug's bites gnawed at his muscled body. Craning skyward Maguma snapped and chewed at the machines with no avail. It was a vain attempt because the pilots knew full and well not to come close to the animal's wrathful fury.
The next strike to come was much more suiting for Boris Yaroslav eyes. He growled in disgust at the ineffectiveness of the 7.22 mm machine guns, but gleamed with pride when the rockets were used. Salvo's of tempered iron were hastened into Maguma's hide. The blossoming explosions dotted and ravaged the animals skin. Scarlet flames and searing metal tore into the layers of blubber. Maguma's cries now became more frantic and louder as his senses were rent with pain. It was a bearable ache but the animal could see small and gory wounds began to dot his body. Maguma would not be push back from his goal. It would take more than the teething bits of these pint-sized pests. His beastly eyes glared from above, down towards the squat building ahead. Throwing back his head to the sapphire skies Maguma shrieked his lust. Soon the creature was back on the move, barreling through the waves of baptizing rockets, towards his destined target.
New realizing fear gripped the soldiers that stood their ground at Mjöllnir's Summit. The helicopters attacks seemed to do nothing more than to angry the beast. Now the creature was moving with new speed and greater hate. It would not be long before it would trample their pathetic lives into the death ridden snow. The General was the only one who still stood looking on as if nothing had truly happened. He was studying the epic battle that was raging. His time-aged mind analyzed the scene, trying to piece together a plan of attack that would be successful against this elephantine foe. The military vehicles at hand did not have the required power to overcome this beastly god that raged it's might before them. It would not occur to him the answer was already conceived from the most of unlikely minds at his side.
"The ground!" Gaafa exclaimed with surprised intensity.
The General spun around on his heels and eyed the scientist whom he so distastefully hated. He took two ogre sized steps and lowered his face to meet the man's own. His ashen eyes daggered themselves, looking into the man's soul.
"The ground beneath him," Gaafa spoke with courage that amazed even him. "Look at the ground beneath the monster. Watch when a missile hits it."
Boris Yaroslav turned once again too see the battlefield. He watched closely as one of the dozens of rockets hit the tundra beneath the monster. The ground quaked and cracked. A small branching rift danced across the ground's surface. It was utterly insignificant by itself. Hardly something to even bother to take notice of.
"Let the choppers hit the ground beneath him," Gaafa began again. "If we can damage enough of the ice, we can make him fall in. With his sheer weight it shouldn't be that difficult to break enough of it."
"Then we will let the Kirvako finish him off," the Russian military man half mumbled under his breath to himself.
Lifting the walkie-talkie to his wind chapped lips, he outlined his next plan of attack for the pilots of the Helix choppers overhead; that still continued to drench their armament with little avail. He then testily spoke to the captain of the Kirvako to prepare for the creature's return to the sea. As a response, the lead helicopter tilted his air vehicle from left to right; signaling his orders were well received. Within seconds, the war machines began their offense again. The belly doors of the choppers creaked open and birthed from them a hail of small sable black bombs. The tiny fragments dropped from the sky and rained their explosive lives upon the now startled kaiju. The land ruptured as hundreds of flowering fireballs graced its surface. The ice buckled and cracked beneath the unnatural power and flames of man's destructive maelstrom. Maguma bellowed forlorn screams at his attackers as he felt the ground beneath him give. The sheer weight of the gigantic beast was too much. The floe broke and shattered. The sere toned creature was sent plummeting into the icy dark coal depths of the Pacific Ocean. Shimmering seas was sent spiraling into the sky from Maguma's wake.
The General beamed with victory. His planning and preparedness had paid off. He did not congratulate Gaafa for his input, in fact he paid little heed to the man's presence at all. Trudging through the still amazed masses of civilians, Boris Yaroslav approached his second in command. His face was once again a frozen statue of frigid vigor. Lowering his tone to barely audible levels, he ordered the final instructions that was to be taken upon the limply damaged facility. Vaslov Chvoz saluted his commanding officer quickly and darted towards a group of sentry soldiers. Within seconds, they too were on the move. Reaching and riffling through a few unmarked black bags beside them, they soon pulled free several loaf-sized yellow logs from their resting place. Gaafa and Vadim were far from being military experts, but they had seen enough action films to recognize what C4 explosive looks like.
"What the hell are you doing!" Gaafa exclaimed with feint pitch.
"Our final orders," Boris Yaroslav replied with little hesitation. "That earthquake will soon hit this area and our government does wish to chance that anything will be salvageable for any country to find. This base has served it's purpose and so have we. Once my men have finished wiring the facility, we will began our trek to the nearby Destroyer, the Udaloy. That creature Maguma will soon be finished off by the Kirvako submarine that is beneath us now. You should be thrilled Mr, Tolya. Your going to be going home soon."
