Age of Monsters by John Schneider (books to read for self improvement .TXT) 📗

Clearly, that was not the intended outcome here today.  Once the 'warfare' was settled, priorities would shift to extermination.

In the smoking ocean beneath, the carriers were gone – down to the last ship – the floating wreckage leaked fuel that burned the water's surface like a forest fire.

A number of the smaller destroyers had survived the initial assault and had buzzed briefly about – accomplishing little besides prolonging the crewmen's lives a few minutes more.

Lucas saw several hit from below as the carriers had been.  And that was before the ocean itself began to burn.  It was difficult to tell if any had yet survived.

At least one of the nine-thousand-ton boats had also been taken by something that looked like a giant pair of crocodile jaws, grafted onto the body of a sea-lion – the jaws alone were over a hundred feet, and they had snapped the destroyer in half like kindling.

Lucas had taken note that the follow-up strikes on the destroyers had been in succession – not like the simultaneous first-strike.

It was as if, once activated, whatever guiding force that motivated these beasts, simply allowed their charges to act out as their instincts dictated – their simple nature and the Food of the Gods was enough.

And Lucas no longer doubted there was a guiding force.

The aerial assault alone was evidence enough.  During that first-wave assault on San Fran, the sky dragons had been there – one of them had taken him out – but it hadn't been like this.

This was overwhelming force – intended to stamp them out once and for all.

The flying dreadnoughts filled the sky as far as Lucas could see.

And every damned one of them was a green-eyed, infected giant.

This against a few surviving F-16s.

When the carriers had been taken, most of the fighters had still been on the pad.  Lucas estimated less than a dozen had survived the first strike.

He knew none of the pilots by name – only brief call-signs – 'Ballsy', O'Reilly, 'Gentle Ben', Wilson.  He likewise had no idea how many had already been taken out.

Lucas had seen one pilot eject the moment before his fighter was hit, bare seconds before the craft exploded.  Unfortunately, that still left him dangling in a parachute – a floating morsel with the chute itself practically advertising his position.  He was snapped up within seconds.

The flying dragons also barely noticed their retaliatory machine-gun fire.  Missiles were a little better – pterosaurs were, by design, lightweight – but these sky-beasts stretched wingspans over four-hundred feet, and your clip ran dry of missiles fast.

Then of course, Lucas thought, there was his payload.

It was really no different than any other flight – he just had a nuke on his wing.  He'd done it all the time.

Theoretically, they wouldn't explode on impact – but Lucas wasn't quite prepared to trust that little bit of scientific folklore.

There was one particularly nasty pterosaur – one of the ones with teeth, hard-pressed on his tail – that seemed determined to put it to the test.

It was a fast one too.  It also banked on a dime, cutting angles with its sheer size.

The critter that had taken him down in San Fran had clipped him with its wing when he'd tried to bank.  But Lucas was wise to that trick this time, and instead, he shot straight up, aiming for the stratosphere.

The flying beast followed doggedly after him – literally until it passed out from oxygen starvation.  The giant pterosaur fell slowly limp, cresting into a slow, probably fatal, tumble back to Earth.

As he arced in a plummeting dive back into the fight, Lucas wondered for the first time what was happening on shore.

As he re-entered the air-space, he veered off towards the beach.

That was when he saw that the base itself was gone – completely washed away.

The import took a moment to sink in.

Did that mean everybody was dead – all those people he'd promised to save?

That pretty young nurse, that poor little coffee girl?  That stupid kid who wanted to be a hero?

Doctor Holland – Rosa – who he thought he'd won over right there near the end, and who turned out to be a pretty good kisser.

He'd led them all here to be killed.

But then he shook his head.

He'd spent several days in close contact with Doctor Rosa Holland, and he had come to know her enough to be impressed.  She reminded him of his wife – and not just because she was a good kisser.

She would have found a way – she would have gotten them out of there.  She would have done it just to show that she could.  She had that stubborn streak.

So Lucas did a fly-by over the flooded base, right in the direction he would have taken – to the high-ground back up on the highway.

And sure enough, he spotted two vehicles – right on the road where the cliff broke away – the very bastion that had stopped the wave.  And when he sailed over low, he saw the familiar faces, as they looked up to watch his jet pass.

Lucas smiled despite himself.  You had to hand it to her.

But as he passed the ridge, he also saw what was coming for them out of the forests just beyond.

He flew low over the trees, taking it all in.

He had been right.  This was the extermination part – the search-and-destroy mission, sent in to clean out the stragglers.

'Normals' this time – not the giants.

And assuming strategic consideration, a moment's thought suggested why – the giants would have shown up on the EITS station's scanners.

Now it only remained for the first of them to become infected.

The beasts were already moving down the ridge towards the shattered base.

Well, he