107
Henry was floating high above the earth again. He watched the globe spin slowly by beneath him and was awed by its beauty. Here and there he saw flashes of lightning leaping through the clouds, and after a while, he began to see a difference in how the lightning moved in some storms. A few storms seemed to be directing where the bolts went. He never saw their fingers of electricity spreading horizontally. Always channeled down the side of the thunderheads to strike the ground, the ocean surface, or another nearby thunderhead. Their bolts were wider as well, blue-white beams of supercharged energy.
He moved closer to a couple of these ‘battling clouds’ over the plains in the middle of… Kansas? From this high up, Henry’s ability to tell where exactly he was, was poor at best. He saw they were over farmland and in the far distance to the south he saw the signs of a small town, still enjoying the sunlight.
He moved closer to the clouds and watched them rumble at each other, pushing and straining to force their opponent down, unsuccessfully. They were both truly enormous but seemingly an even match. Henry was awestruck by their majesty. Something silver and incredibly fast shot past the edge of one of the clouds and Henry’s attention was pulled away to follow the dot as it curved in a long arc that would bring it around to make another pass.
It was an air force jet! Maybe an F-15! Henry wasn’t skilled at identifying jets and planes, but it was exciting to watch. He wondered what it would be like to be inside the cockpit.
Light blurred with motion, and suddenly Henry was looking over the shoulder of the pilot at his controls. He yelped.
The pilot jerked in his seat.
Henry could hear a muffled droning sound, but he couldn’t make out any words. The pilot was speaking to someone, and they were responding but what they were saying was mush to him.
The jet banked sharply and began to rush back towards the two behemoth’s battling in the sky. Henry fought back the urge to whoop with excitement. This was the coolest dream he’d ever had!
Then the pilot prepared to fire on the clouds.
Henry frowned. That felt wrong. Looking at their massive size, it also felt bloody stupid. Like a wasp harassing a whale.
“No,” Henry said.
The pilot jerked in his seat again and squeezed the trigger for a small burst, raking the north side of both clouds.
More droning but with sharper tones as the pilot seemed to be arguing with the person on the other end.
The clouds suddenly changed course and began moving rapidly in a southerly direction, towards the town.Owned by NôvelDrama.Org.
The pilot removed his finger from the trigger for his guns and turned the jet on its side as he arced away from the two combatants. Henry sighed quietly to himself and enjoyed the ride. He was mesmerized by how real it all seemed yet how surreal it felt.
The jet was climbing, and Henry realized they were coming back at the towering clouds from the west at altitude. He glanced down and saw the clouds had covered a surprising amount of ground while they turned and climbed. The town wasn’t more than a few miles south from them at this point. Henry looked at the rows of buildings and smiled at what looked to him like a sleepy little prairie town. The biggest structure appeared to be a small football stadium at the northern edge and-
The sound of the guns firing spooked Henry and he turned his attention forward to witness the high powered rounds once more tearing into the north flank of both giants. The jet was going to pass by right next to the two in a few seconds. The air before the jet began to glow with a blue-white light.
Henry knew what came next and they were about to fly directly into the bolts of plasma. He threw his hands forward as the air ahead of them ripped apart in the plasma beam. In the fraction of a second, before they hit the beam, space before them ripped open in a prismatic burst of colors.
And they were gone.
-=-
“What do you mean he’s disappeared from radar? Did he crash? Did the pilot eject? His only target was some bloody clouds!” Colonel Devlin barked at the flight controller.
Airforce Lieutenant Colonel Michaels frowned at his visitor. “You indicated to me that they weren’t clouds,” he said, pitching his voice for the two of them to hear.
“Yes, yes, technically they aren’t, but they haven’t shown any offensive capabilities to date. Certainly, nothing that should have caused your pilot any issues.” Devlin growled. “I need eyes on the scene.”
“Senior Airman Greer is approaching the last known coordinates of Major Thomas,” the flight controller said as she tracked the second pilot on the radar.
“Command, this is Greer. No sign of the Major or any indication of wreckage in the surrounding area,” the pilot’s voice said over the radio.
“Standard sweep, airman.”
“Yes, sir. I’m coming around. Uh, there’s a major storm to the south, over the small town- SHIT-” the pilot gasped then the signal cut off with a sharp squelch.
“Airman Greer. What’s your situation!” Michaels called out.
There was nothing but static bursting from the radio.
The flight controller looked back over her shoulder in shock. “Pilot down.” She looked at the Lieutenant Colonel. “Sir, that noise at the end. It had the same wave signature as an EMP. A very large one.”
Devlin locked eyes with the flight controller. That was something he was waiting for ever since he received the leaked report from China. He turned to Michaels. “My troops will take over the investigation from the ground now. Thank you for the assist.”
He turned and briskly walked from the room, leaving the Lieutenant Colonel sputtering.
Once he got outside, he called his team as he climbed into the back of his personnel carrier. They were underway immediately, heading back to the base.
“Gordon, ready the troops. We may have a containment situation on our hands. Full hazmat. Be ready to roll in fifteen.”
“Acknowledged.”
Devlin smiled to himself as he hung up. It was good to have his old team back. Minus a few weaklings. Gordon Crane was a damn good soldier and ran a tight unit. Devlin had worked with the First Lieutenant on several ops including his last one, and Gordon was still punishing himself for how that one ended. If that made him more vigilant on this one, all the better.
He still had no idea where these cloud-like creatures were coming from, but he now knew they were showing up all over the globe. The only clue they had were some still images they’d received from the EPA. They seemed to show the clouds appearing spontaneously out of thin air with a burst of color. They were becoming a liability for aviation though there hadn’t been another case of a commercial airplane striking one. Some near misses but no more than the usual near misses between planes.
He’d lied to the Air Force Lieutenant Colonel. He was aware of the creature’s offensive capabilities. They could somehow produce and direct extremely powerful lightning. They also appeared to have other abilities.
The leaked report he’d read on his recent visit to Washington was about a new entity in China. The document mentioned a brief yet abnormally intense storm, and a localized EMP before the entity appeared. It was a man made of a glass-like substance, but it moved. Due to an overly excited soldier, they now knew the entity wasn’t brittle but was able to deflect bullets without any visible damage. Not even a scratch!
And the Chinese government had exclusive access to him.
During the briefing with his contacts in Washington, they’d expressed their concerns with this imbalance. He reviewed the details from the Chinese report and indicated he might be able to resolve it. They didn’t ask him how. They just said to make it so.
When Devlin arranged to have the air force pilot fire on the two specimens he’d located above those rural cornfields he suspected they might respond with equal violence. Injured, they should also move away from the attack, towards the town.
The flight controller’s comment about the EMP was what he’d been waiting for. It meant those creatures were doing their lightning thing.
The Colonel would take his team to that small prairie town and lock it down. If he found what he suspected he might, it would bring balance back to the world. The idea that the Chinese government had something they might exploit against the US didn’t sit well with him. It didn’t sit well with his friends in Washington either.
His country needed him to act, so he made it happen.
-=-
Ikehorn sat in the back of the surveillance van just up the street from the brownstone containing his quarry. They knew the Satyr was involved in the mess at the marina and became injured. Queen Mab had not appreciated hearing that news. Her rage had been terrifying. Now, his team was charged with ensuring no harm came to the Satyr while they watched him.
They had no visibility to the inside of the residence, but they were watching the front and back exits.
The Valkyrie left this morning, and there’d been no activity since. Ikehorn wondered if the Satyr was well enough to take care of himself as he’d been alone for hours.
He was tempted to put on a disguise and ring the doorbell to see if their target would answer.
Instead, he just sat back and waited.
Their tedium was finally interrupted when a black SUV rushed up the street and stopped before the Valkyrie’s brownstone. Two large men exited and looked up and down the street. Ikehorn knew they wouldn’t see him in the shielded van.
“Who are these men?” he asked and Deslin, the Fae operating the computer in the back of the van, captured their faces from the video feed and ran a facial recognition routine on them. As the computer searched, Ikehorn watched them climb the stairs. They didn’t knock or press the bell. One was concentrating on the door while the other scanned his eyes up and down the street. They were breaking in!
“No matches. Unknown,” Deslin exclaimed.
“This is not a sanctioned visit. We’re going to have to stop them,” Ikehorn said eagerly.
Deslin was more of a tech than a field agent, so he wasn’t excited about the prospect of confronting these men. “They look like they’re combat trained. We’re not-” Seeing Ikehorn’s glare he amended that statement. “I’m not combat trained.”
“Queen Mab wants the Satyr kept safe. You passed firearm training, or they’d never let you join a field team. Bring extra clips,” Ikehorn instructed as he checked the spare clips for his gun. He saw the two men slip inside the front door.