General Brand swore as he paced outside the command tent. The latest news he had just received could hardly have been worse. In the wee hours of the morning, he had sent in a squadron of eight soldiers from the 75th Ranger Regiment to take out the monster. They carried hand grenades and grenade launchers with the plan of luring the beast to take one of them, and, when it opened its mouth, the grenades were to be tossed or launched down its throat. According to the Windham kid who had escaped from the monster, its one weakness was its belly. The creature reacted to his burning and cutting from the inside, seemed to have been hurt by it. But the Rangers never had a chance because the monster never gave them one. Instead, it slid around and crushed the elite soldiers, almost as if the monster knew why they were there. Not once did it try to open up and lasso a soldier. Only two of the Rangers returned alive.
From the west came the booming sound of heavy choppers. Brand gazed down toward the island where the monster hid. Soon the big guns would be arriving.
"Sir, the third of the triple sevens is now in place," Captain Gerhardt announced. He referred to the last of the M777A2 howitzers brought in by the Chinooks. The triple sevens fired 155 mm shells with a range of nearly fifteen miles with the conventional rounds, twenty-five miles with the Excaliburs. The island was nowhere near that distant. The guns had been arranged along the ridgeline a couple of hundred yards apart from each other, the closest being 150 yards from the command tent. "We have 12 Excalibur rounds and 69 conventional rounds."
General Brand lowered the field glasses. He now had half a dozen FiSTers spread out along the ridgeline overseeing the river, and more were headed to the ridgeline on the opposite side of the Mississippi to spot where the beast was at and what it was doing. FiSTers were the Fire Support Team, the forward observers for the artillery. But he needed to look at the monster himself before giving any commands to attack.
"Load the conventional rounds only," he ordered. The Excalibur rounds were GPS guided shells, but their accuracy would not be needed at this close range. Besides that, he was concerned about the reports of how electronics often seemed to fail when close to the monster.
"Yes, sir." Captain Gerhardt ordered into his com, "M107 rounds. Lock and load."
"Keep getting updated coordinates of that thing from the FiSTers. I want the guns pointed at it at all times and ready to fire at a moment's notice." Brand raised the field glasses once again. Several vehicles rolled north out of the town below. Some people had already left before he ordered the evacuation, but now it was underway in full. He hoped everyone would be gone by sunset.
"Get Lieutenant Colonel Sikowski on the com," Brand ordered. "Find out how long until the Abrams are in place."
Captain Gerhardt disappeared into the command center and then reappeared a minute later. "One tank will be in place to the north within fifteen minutes. The other in less than thirty."
"Good!" Brand nodded and then whipped his head toward the radio next to him that now squawked. He was finally getting some real firepower. Weapons that could take out a monster.
"Target is moving due north at 15 feet per second," reported one of the FiSTers. The captain shouted out new coordinates for those manning the guns as Brand lifted his glasses back up.
The giant worm slowly slid north until it reached the end of the island. It was at nearly the same spot as when it entered the river after the Chinook crashed. The giant worm halted and remained still for a spell. It seemed to be waiting or sensing. Then it slid forward a small distance and stopped again, right at the river's edge.
The giant worm was pointed toward the road where the vehicles sped out of town. The monster seemed to sense the evacuation. Brand blinked. Was it his imagination, or did the monster just quiver?
Brand could wait no longer. He let the field glasses drop to hang by their strap and popped plugs into his ears.
"Fire now," he yelled.
Boom! Boom! Boom! All three guns fired within a second of each other. Even with the earplugs, the nearest blast rang in Brand's head. The ground shook as if a mini-earthquake had just hit them.
"Reload!" someone bellowed out from the nearest gun.
Brand brought the glasses back up and stared at the island. The rounds took about four seconds to reach the island, and all three exploded in rapid succession. Two direct hits to the backside of the giant worm, and the third exploded right next it. If it had been a building, even the last shell would have flattened it. A tree toppled over from the last shell.
But Brand was stunned by what he saw. The monster appeared to be as intact as before being hit. No wounds or gouges, scorch marks or any other sign of damage. Those shells should have sliced the creature into sections. Tossed the sections like salad in a bowl. And blown its innards into the channels on both sides of the island. Instead, the monster seemed unscathed, not even touched by the explosions. Not even blast marks where the shells hit.
The sound from the explosions finally reached the ridgeline and then reverberations from up and down the valley, sounding like rolling thunder. The monster lifted its front section, about one-sixth of its total length, off the ground.
"Hit it again!" Brand yelled.
Boom! Boom! Two of the howitzers fired a second time. Boom! A third gun fired a few seconds after the first two.
As Brand stared through the glasses, the monster extended what appeared to be two enormous flippers out from its side where its front section had just left the ground. That was new.
All three rounds exploded along the backside of the giant worm. All three were direct hits, but no damage. The triple seven teams were superb in their accuracy, and yet their ordnances were about as effective against the monster as tossing marshmallows against the side of an elephant.
Then something almost as extraordinary happened. The front of the worm dropped, but its mid-section rose. Then that section dropped and the rear section rose. The front section rose again. A ripple along its length, and the monster lifted off from the island.
A third round of shells came in, but they blasted out craters as the monster had left the tip of the island behind. The giant worm appeared like a giant eel or snake swimming through water, except it undulated vertically through the air rather than horizontally. And it was far larger than any creature of the sea. Even blue whales were no match for its length.
It rose above the river but not far. The rippling giant headed north and then dove into the trees where the line of vehicles fled along the road in that direction.
Brand pulled the plugs out of his ears. "Get a platoon up that way to help those civilians," he ordered. "And get the secretary of defense on the line for me."
He stared down at the havoc the monster created. It crashed into the trees lining the road and crushed them. His jaw clenched. Civilians were under those trees, and now how many of them many were injured? How many had just been killed? He needed a way to bring down the monster, but so far it was only the monster inflicting the damage.
"I have Secretary Pollock on the line, sir," Captain Gerhardt called from the tent entrance.
Brand scowled before he turned, strode into the tent, and took the secure-line phone.
"General Brand, tell me you have this alien creature under control."
"I wish I could, Mr. Secretary, but it's far from under control. This thing's a monster, and it's impervious to our 155 mm artillery rounds."
"You're trying to destroy it?" The secretary's voice was accusatory.
"It's attacking the local civilians, Mr. Secretary."
"Well, in that case, by all means we must destroy it. We can't have it killing American voters. Use any and all weapons in your arsenal, except we're not dropping nuclears on American soil. At least, we're not discussing that option yet."
"Yes, Mr. Secretary."
"I need to update the President on what's going on out there. Tell me, General. What do we know about the –" The phone died.
"Oh, Christ!" Brand scrambled out of the tent and scanned the sky, knowing the monster often affected electronics.
Sure enough the translucent monster rippled straight overhead, and it was coming toward them.
He waved his arms wildly about him and pointed at the beast in its dive-bombing run. "Everyone, get down!" he yelled. Soldiers scrambled and threw themselves to the ground.
The monster dove, and Brand also flattened himself to the ground and covered his helmet with his hands. He peeked upward though, needing to know where the monster was. What it was up to.
At the last moment, the creature pulled out of its dive, and its head began to climb. But its tail end crashed down into the ground like an enormous whip right across the nearest triple seven. Parts of big gun flew outward, but most of it was simply crushed. Then the monster's tail rose.
But the head end came back down and then back up. The tail end followed down and crashed into the next howitzer down the ridgeline. Then it continued along and took out the third gun.
Brand jumped to his feet and dashed toward the nearest howitzer. From a distance it appeared like a broken toy with parts littering the ground around it. Closer, it was worse. The wheel chassis was bent, the tires flattened, and the control box smashed to pieces. The gun would never fire another round. He glanced toward the position of the next howitzer. It too had been smashed. The last gun was too far and out of sight, but he was pretty sure it had suffered the same fate as these two.
He stared up at the monster flying in a circle over the valley. "What the hell are you?" he whispered.
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