Kaiju combat university.., p.1
Kaiju Combat University : Book Two, page 1
Kaiju Combat University
Book Two
M.J. Michaels
This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © M.J. Michaels 2026
Cover illustration by TaterArt
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINTEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
EPILOUGE
* * *
PROLOGUE
8:19 AM, Thursday, March 16th, 2179 AD, on approach to Terra Nova
Captain Richard Xavier came back to life with all the grace of a man being born again. Pink goo clung to him like half-set gelatin, cold and sticky as it oozed down his body. The cryo-pod lid hissed open, spilling a wave of frigid air that stabbed straight through his skin.
For half a second he didn’t breathe, then his body remembered what lungs were for and tried to do everything at once. Xavier gagged and yanked the thick feeding tube out of his throat. Then he puked, protein sludge and nutrient slurry splattering across the grated floor, the faint, nauseating stink of bananas and hotdogs rising with it.
“This better be the last time,” he croaked, wiping his mouth with the back of his shaking hand.
First one awake. Standard protocol. The captain always rose before the crew so he could make sure the ship wasn’t on fire, exploding, or actively headed into a death spiral. But nothing about this mission had been standard.
Seventy-five years in the black. Four million souls depending on him. One shot at a brand-new world.
Xavier swung his legs over the edge of the pod and dropped to the floor. His knees buckled, muscle atrophy after a decade wasn’t exactly a surprise, but it still pissed him off.
He caught himself on a railing, muttering, “Let’s try not to face-plant this time.”
The cryo bay lights were dim, running on a low-power amber glow. Ranks of pods stretched out in perfect lines around him—rows upon rows of sleeping colonists, each sealed in their glossy white capsules and trusting him to get them to the finish line intact.
The UNSS Odyssey creaked softly, more like a fat, lumbering whale than the sleek star cruiser the propaganda videos showed off. She was built for one purpose: to get from point A to point B. Her bones would one day become skyscrapers and factories on a virgin world.
That was the plan, land, disassemble, and build humanity’s next home.
Captain Xavier shuffled to the diagnostic station, slapped the interface, and let it stab him with half a dozen needles. The screen flickered to life.
Cognition Test: Green
Motor Function: Yellow
Memory Recall: Yellow
Psych Evaluation: Pending
He snorted. “Still me, then.”
Another ship wouldn’t arrive for two more decades, then another two after that—assuming Earth even stuck to the schedule. The Ark ships were massive, each one taking years to build.
Out here they were truly all alone.
He glanced at the largest display, the one showing their target, which was about the size of a baseball right now. Terra Nova was a swirling blue-green jewel, beautiful and hopefully untouched.
Captain Xavier placed his hand flat on the console and let the reality settle over him. “We made it,” he whispered to the empty cryo bay, straightening as much as his thawing muscles allowed.
* * *
4:54 PM, Thursday, March 16th, 2179 AD, Orbit around Terra Nova
Captain Xavier sat in the command chair and tried not to sway visibly. The bridge spun only a little. Hyper-sleep sickness hit everyone differently, but the one universal symptom was the feeling that gravity was drunk and leaning on you for support.
One by one, his flight crew staggered through the sliding doors like hungover pilots at a mandatory 8AM meeting. Some clutched the railings. Some clutched their stomachs. Chief Engineer Stallings carried a bucket, because he had a very bad experience last wake up cycle.
“Afternoon, folks,” Captain Xavier said, voice steadier than he felt.
A couple of them snorted weakly.
“Only seven civilian cryopod failed since the last wake-up cycle. Grim, yes, but some would call that a miracle. I call it luck. Let's get to work.”
Terra Nova hung in the main viewport, not the size of a dinner plate. Blue oceans wrapped around a single massive landmass, one supercontinent the size of Earth’s combined land area. Clouds drifted lazily over mountain ranges and river systems that no human eye had ever seen.
Xavier leaned back, letting the sight fill him. For years he’d told himself not to get attached to the idea. Not to expect anything other than barren rock with an atmosphere that instantly kills them.
“This is really happening,” he murmured.
Around him, his crew slowly settled into a rhythm. Consoles hummed. Buttons beeped. Someone in the back dry-heaved.
Probably Stallings again.
Dr. Xi Zheng was already pacing like a caffeinated ferret, clutching his tablet with both hands. His hair was sticking up at angles that defied physics, giving him the appearance of a mad scientist who’d just seen the face of God.
“Captain, Captain… look at this partial readback,” Zheng said, practically thrusting the tablet into Xavier’s lap. “I’ve been running atmospheric cross-sections and the oxygen levels are even higher than projected. Look at this! You could run several kilometers your first day down there with ease”
“Let’s make sure no one passes out during the pre-landing meeting first,” Xavier replied.
Zheng ignored him entirely, pacing again. “Flora signatures… possible megafauna… water purity readings off the charts… Captain, this planet is a treasure trove. A literal perfect world. I cannot overstate the importance…”
His words drifted back to his native Chinese dialect.
“Doc,” Xavier said gently, “you’re about to vibrate through the floor.”
Zheng froze mid-step, blinked, nodded once, then resumed pacing at half speed.
Captain Xavier rested both palms on the arms of his chair. “Alright everyone,” he said, voice steady, strong. “Let’s go down there.”
* * *
7:04 AM, Tuesday, March 21st, 2130 AD, In orbit around Terra Nova
The plan was simple. At least, that was how the engineers phrased it. Land a megabuilding-sized interstellar ark by dropping it into an alien ocean like a toddler tossing a toy boat into a bathtub.
Captain Xavier stared at the holo-display of their descent trajectory and swallowed hard.
“Simple,” he muttered. “And I’m the King of Terra Nova.”
The pre-launch briefing claimed The Odyssey would float. Xavier still had no idea how. The ship had the turning radius of a planet and a silhouette like someone had welded two refrigerators and a cathedral together. Nothing about her said seaworthy.
They’d spent the last thirty-six hours bleeding velocity in low orbit, performing long, slow braking burns that made the whole ship shudder. Below them, Terra Nova turned peacefully blue and green, blissfully unaware that humanity was about to belly-flop onto it.
A few hours. That was all the time left before the attempt. There was no plan B. If they failed, then millions of frozen colonists went down with them.
The weight of that sat on Captain Xavier’s shoulders, but the crew were buzzing like kids on Christmas morning. Probably a side effect of being awake for more than a few days and finally having something to do that wasn’t maintenance or diagnostics.
Volkov slid into her nav station, still pale but bright-eyed. Dr. Zheng practically sprinted to his science console, tablet already in hand. The helmsman, McDaniels, cracked his knuckles like he was about to arm-wrestle with the devil himself.
Captain Xavier took a breath. “Alright,” he said, voice steady across the bridge. “Let’s get this fat bitch ready to swim.”
The words rippled outward, energizing the crew.
“Volkov,” he continued, “initiate pre-approach sequence. Engineering, status check on thermal shielding. Zheng, keep those atmospheric readouts coming. I want to know if so much as a shrub down there sneezes.”
A chorus of “Aye, Captain” filled the bridge.
Panels brightened. Consoles flickered awake. The Odyssey groaned and vibrated, old systems turning on for one last run.
Captain Xavier leaned forward in his command chair, hands clasped. “Everyone,” he said, quiet but firm, “this is it. Let’s bring her down safely.”
* * *
3:45 PM, Sunday, April, 3rd 1 AC (After Colonization), Surfac e of Terra Nova, Tethys Ocean
The Odyssey bobbed gently in the alien waters. If the UNSC engineers could see this, Xavier might’ve kissed each and every one of them on the mouth. Or punched them for not telling him how this was possible.
Either way, they deserved a drink.
The main viewscreen showed the shore, a glittering stretch of pale sand and strange purple vegetation waving softly in the wind. And there, tiny white shapes moving across the beach.
The first humans were now walking on Terra Nova. They moved with careful, deliberate steps, each one encased in the newest generation of bio-adaptive suits—white and silver, almost ceremonial-looking, with translucent faceplates that caught the sunlight. Every inch of their bodies sealed beneath layers of organic filtration mesh and bio monitors.
Everyone going outside for the next couple years would be wearing one. Humanity didn’t survive a seventy-five-year voyage to get ambushed by a microscopic bastard too small to see.
Captain Xavier watched them fan out across the beach, collecting samples, planting survey markers, and lifting up leaves shaped like oversized dragonflies. A slow grin crept across his face.
“We’re really here,” he whispered.
The view made him feel like one of Earth’s earliest explorers standing on the deck of a wooden ship. Except his vessel wasn’t wood, nails, and linen. His was a nuclear-powered space ark with an Ion Drive, radiation shielding, thrusters the size of office buildings, and the hopes of an entire dying planet.
Captain Xavier leaned back in his chair, narrowing his eyes at the pristine beach. Nothing had gone wrong, which was suspicious as hell.
“Alright, Terra Nova,” he muttered. “What’s your secret?”
There had to be something lurking out there. Some eight-legged xeno-horror ready to scuttle out of a cave and devour them. Perhaps an ancient alien virus lying dormant in the sand, waiting to turn the entire colony into zombies. Or a carnivorous, moving tree monster.
That was his private nightmare fuel.
“It can’t be this perfect,” Xavier said under his breath. “Can it?”
The last person who said something like that in a sci-fi movie died five minutes later. He wasn’t superstitious, but still—he made a mental note not to go anywhere near any dark caves, mysterious ruins, or ominous looking eggs.
For now, the first steps of humanity’s new chapter stretched before him on a screen filled with green landscapes, water, and possibility.
* * *
9:13 AM, Friday, January 1st, 3 AC, Surface of Terra Nova, Tethys Ocean
It had been two excruciatingly long years of muscle rehabilitation, recycled water, and dehydrated rations. While the colonists slept, the crew slowly lost their damn minds.
When humans spent years locked in a floating metal can the size of a small city, they didn’t stay civilized. They got stir-crazy and started forming subcommittees about hallway etiquette and declaring wars over laundry machines.
Captain Richard Xavier was no longer merely a ship captain; he was a principal in a school filled with bored, misbehaving teenagers. The crew saw a perfect world outside waiting for them, and Xavier was the one person telling them no.
It wasn’t long before rumors of another impending mutiny crossed his desk. But this time, he doubted his supporters would stop them.
He let out a breath of relief at the news, because even he shared their thoughts—but his duty as captain required him to follow the mission plan.
Personally, he could not wait another three years of quarantine. That was why he was the first to volunteer for the historic excursion onto the surface without three layers of security and a helmet that made everyone look like anxious marshmallows.
If someone was going to die horribly from alien pollen, he wanted it to be him, not some grad student who had signed up for the botany team. Better to get it over with now than stay locked up in here for another day.
Xavier stood in the airlock of a dropship with a dozen others, wearing nothing but simple expedition fatigues.
Everyone looked naked. Emotionally naked, existentially naked, and spiritually naked. Nervous energy ping-ponged between them. Someone cracked a joke. Someone else laughed too loudly and long. Xavier wasn’t sure if it was funny or if they were all seconds away from passing out from sheer anxiety. Then the countdown began, and that shut everyone up.
Five.
Metal clanks echoed through the chamber as the airlock seals disengaged.
Four.
A hiss of depressurization sounded like a snake whispering.
Three.
Xavier’s heartbeat synced to the rhythm of the numbers.
Two.
He felt sweat bead at the back of his neck.
One.
“Godspeed,” crackled the voice over the speakers.
The hatch cracked open with a hydraulic sigh.
Xavier was the first to breathe. He drew in a lungful of air, so clean it felt like drinking cold water after a day in the desert, fresh in a way Earth’s polluted air never was. Then the sunlight hit him. It was warm in a way no lamp or simulated emitter on the Odyssey had ever managed.
For a long moment, no one moved. Everyone was crying too hard. Xavier cried with them and fell to his knees right there in the hatchway, tears dripping onto metal from their homeworld.
They were finally home.
When Xavier finally stood, blinking through the blur, the world sharpened into focus. The brightness was overwhelming; sky so blue it hurt, grass so green it felt supernatural.
He swallowed, reached down, and slowly untied his boots. Pulled off his socks and set both aside. Then he stepped forward. The grass was cool. Dew-slicked. Silky-soft between his toes. The sensation ran up his spine like an electric current, grounding him in a way nothing ever had.
He laughed, a wild bark of joy.
Behind him, the others followed suit, ripping off their shoes like kids ditching uniforms on the first day of summer break. They stumbled out of the hatch together, then ran. Laughing, crying, shouting, and spinning in the grass. Full-grown adults, scientists, engineers, and soldiers were all racing barefoot through the field like children.
It was finally time to wake the rest of the colonists.
* * *
10:32 AM, Novaday, April 33rd, 64 AC, New Washington, Hippocrates Memorial Hospital
Robert Xavier hated going to this place. Hated it in a way that sank into his bones. The air inside the medical wing was always too sharp, too sterile, and acrid with artificial cleanliness that clung to the back of his throat. The lighting hummed with that faint, electric buzz that made his teeth itch.
And the machines…
God, the machines. There were so many of the damn things. The constant beeping of monitors always pushed him straight into sensory overload.
At fifty-four years of age, no place unsettled him as much in his life as a hospital did. But none of that compared to the sight of his father, the reason for his repeated visits.
Former UNSS Odyssey Captain, Richard Xavier, lay frail and sunken beneath a thin hospital blanket, the hero and pioneer who had brought humanity to Terra Nova. Ninety-eight years old, and the last surviving member of the ship’s crew.
His skin looked translucent, stretched over bones that had once carried the hopes of a million people. His eyelids, thin as paper, fluttered like they barely had the strength to close. When they finally opened, they drifted upward, struggling, until they found his son.
“Bobby…” he rasped, voice barely a whisper.
Robert Xavier forced a smile, even though it hurt. “I’m here, Dad.”
His father blinked slowly. The movement looked like it cost him something. “The other ship…” He paused, chest rattling with the effort. “Has it… has it arrived… yet?”
Robert hesitated. Because every time he gave the answer, it carved a little more out of both of them. “No, Dad,” he said gently. “It still hasn’t come. I don’t… I don’t think it ever will.”
His father’s lips thinned in something like a weary smile. “What a shame… I would have… liked to see… what wonders… they would bring.”
Robert exhaled through his nose, fighting the tightening in his throat. “I doubt they’d bring wonders. The last two ark ship reports got worse and worse. I don’t think they sent another one. Not after the terraforming project on Mars failed. They said the United Nations was on the brink of collapse back then...”
