Project Maigo(23)

Not that I’m concerned about height. I don’t think Scrion would be able to reach us at this height while swimming. And then there is the fact that the monster is gone.

Totally.

A crater the size of a football stadium is all that remains.

“Did you vaporize the dang thing?” Woodstock asks, leaning forward in his seat like the extra foot of nearness will help him see more. “Ain’t nothin’ left!”

I have a hard time believing it. Whenever one of Nemesis’s membranes were punctured, the resulting explosion would lay waste to the surrounding area, but it would also cauterize the wound, healing her. But Scrion appears to have been obliterated.

Then I remember my analogy. A cherry bomb beneath a trash can. The energy, directed down toward the Earth, would reflect back and slam into Scrion. While it might not scorch the monster, it would no doubt propel it...upwards.

I lean forward as far as I can, searching the blue sky for an aberration. I toggle Devine. “Any eyes on the target?”

“No, sir,” says the lead Apache pilot. “It’s g—”

“Eagle-Eye Three,” calls out a pilot. “I have eyes on target.”

“Where?” I ask.

“About five thousand feet.”

I can’t help but smile. Woodstock actually lets out a chuckle.

“Forty-five hundred,” adds the pilot.

The new information wipes the shit eating grin from my face. It’s coming down fast, though I still can’t see it.

“Is the target alive?” I ask.

“And pissed,” the pilot says. “Target is above the water. Are we clear to engage?”

“Engage!” I shout. “Engage!”

Looking through a pair of binoculars, I see the planes—three F-22 Raptors, just small triangles in the sky high above—the moment they let loose a barrage of missiles. And these aren’t like the rockets I shot off. Not only are the AIM-7 Sparrow missiles guided and guaranteed to hit a target without countermeasures, they’re real heavy hitters. And they should be since each missile costs more than my yearly take-home pay. Six years of working for the DHS and my collective taxes aren’t enough to pay for just one of those missiles. So when the first missile strikes, the explosion is satisfyingly large, though still dwarfed by the conflagration I caused on the ground. But it’s joined by another, and another. The string of orange flame allows me to track Scrion’s descent.

It’s headed for the harbor, behind us. Woodstock swings us around slowly so we can follow its fall.

“Gonna make one hell of a splash,” Woodstock says.

I barely hear him. I’m too busy trying to control the missiles through sheer willpower. If one of them can sneak inside those now open membranes, there’s a small chance we might actually kill the monster. If not, I have little doubt it will survive the fall and swim away—if not press the attack once more. If that happened, there would be little we could do about it. The only silver lining is that the evacuation is well underway.

Of course, it’s not interested in wreaking havoc. It’s after me. “If Scrion survives, and still has eyes for me, we need to lead it away.”

“Right,” Woodstock says with a nod. “The aircraft carrier.”

The ninth and final missile detonation fills the sky with an orange plume of light. Man-made thunder rolls past. Scrion descends. I find it in the sky, now just fifteen hundred feet up. I have trouble tracking the beast at first, until I bring the lenses into focus. It’s like a giant flying turtle-dog, which is just ridiculous. When I see its flailing limbs splayed wide, Scrion looks borderline silly. But it’s not really funny, because it’s still alive, even after a severe beating. But is it hurt? I shift my view to the side, finding its head.

The still crazed eyes are staring straight back at me like some obsessed ex-girlfriend who doesn’t know when to stop wearing a guy’s jersey, or whatever it is women do these days. “Shit!” I pull the binoculars from my eyes.

“Aircraft carrier?” Woodstock asks.

“Hell ye—”

A mash of voices fills my ears. Shouting. I can’t make out a word of it, but the tone is unmistakable. Shock. Panic. Urgency. Somewhere in the mix, I hear the words “Behind Betty.”

As the words register, a dark shadow falls over us, like a cloud has just blocked the sun. Some days just start out shitty. Like today. No coffee. Then Scrion. And now... I don’t even need to look. The blocked sun and the fear in the voices of military professionals tells me everything I need to know.

It’s like the cliché moment in a TV show or movie, when Jack (or whoever) is bitching about Steve, who just happens to be standing behind him. He stops and say, “He’s behind me, isn’t he?”