It happens.
A rocket punches through the top membrane and detonates. But even as that explosion begins, at least eight more rockets pierce the other two slices of orange flesh. I don’t even have time to cringe at what I’ve done.
The way people experience explosions is basically a race. The light, traveling at 186,282 miles per second, comes first. The bright white forces my eyes shut for a moment before it fades to luminous shades of yellow and orange. Next, comes the shockwave, which contrary to popular belief, travels faster than sound. The science of it is gobbledygook to me. Something about the compression of wave fronts or some such thing. What’s important to know is that you’re going to get punched first and then yelled at.
And the punch is hard. Kaiju Mike Tyson hard. The helicopter is slammed back, and for a moment I’m looking through the windshield at nothing but blue sky. Warning lights flash. Woodstock utters a string of unintelligible curses like it’s the Pentecost. Before all the shaking is done, the sound hits. If not for the sound-canceling headphones on our ears, I’m positive Woodstock and I would be deaf. The pulse of sound knocks the air from my lungs and pitches me forward as my insides quiver. Woodstock somehow manages to fight this effect and not only keeps his hands on the controls, but regains control of Betty. He brings us level again, about a mile from the explosion—over the harbor—but just a couple hundred feet up.
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.”