Age of Monsters John Schneider (digital book reader TXT) 📖

faded into the dark depths, it could see the usurpers – massive shadows gathered on the surface.

For the moment, it waited.

Megalodon – code-name: 'Big Tooth' – was at once an extremely complex and extremely primitive creature.  Intelligent like a smart-missile, it responded to programming – rather than conscious will, it acted on instinct.

But when those instincts were activated, there was no arguing.

It didn't know why it and others of its kind had congregated here – other than the basic impulse to follow a scent.

Beyond that, it was a simple matter of targeting surface prey.

And now a shadow crossed directly above – much like whales that had once cruised these waters – stalked from below the way modern white sharks targeted seals.

The Meg did not know the circumstances of its own existence – it was unaware its kind had been absent from these oceans for upwards of four-million years – just as it was unaware of the green glow that now highlighted the once-ebony blackness of its unblinking eyes.

It was a simple creature.  And just like white sharks sometimes mistook kayaks for seals – activating a simple sight-and-strike mechanism – so did similar stimuli, a comparable shadow on the surface, activate the Meg.

It did not know, as it turned towards the surface, that it was no longer a 'normal' version of its own species – it had no idea of the scale as it locked on its target.

Over six-hundred feet from nose to tail – and unguessable weight – it rose to the surface like a force of nature.

Chapter 27

Sitting in the cockpit of his F-16, waiting on the launch order, Lucas knew things were already going to hell.

Well-begun is half-done, as his father used to say.

By that standard, they were already screwed.

But battle was an extremely fluid environment – Lucas waited on his orders – because either way, this was crunch time.

The first thing that happened, with ten-minutes and counting, was General Rhodes breaking in on all channels and informing them they had lost contact with the EITS.

“Communications are completely down,” Rhodes told them all at once.  “That means the silos are forfeit.”

Rhodes had left them perhaps ten seconds to absorb that information.

It was skillful, Lucas noted – he waited until just the moment where you'd waited too long and then he said, “Gentlemen.  This means it's up to you.”

Amazing, Lucas thought, how the psychology worked, even when you were trained in it.

He understood as much as he needed to – their prospects had gone from dim to ebon.

But he could feel Rhodes' words activating his own grim resolve – a psychological response – almost instinctual.

It was not so different from the beasts themselves.  Maybe it was even what was necessary to fight them on their own level.

The countdown to launch continued.

He turned his eye to the coast, where he'd left Rosa behind.  He never even knew where on the base she and the others had been stationed – probably sequestered together.

He wondered if Rosa had volunteered at the infirmary yet.

Lucas smiled a little.  There, he thought, something else to fight for.

Today, for the first time in his life, 'up there' and 'down here' were the same thing.  The balm of separation was gone.

'Lieutenant Walker' was now 'Lucas'.  And he was emotionally involved.

To serve and protect.  Death from above.

Kick a little ass.

“Command order,” Rhodes said in his ear, “Fighters wave one.  Launch.”

Lucas felt his anchor-cable fall away and he fired his engines.

The explosion of power was beyond what God ever intended in the hands of any one human being – that's why He made so few pilots.

That was not to mention the nuclear death he carried on its wings.

Lucas roared down the runway.

And even as he did, he felt the impact from below.

As if hit by a giant rocket, the entire carrier lifted in the water.

Lucas felt his wheels twist, and for a moment his nose dipped – if he touched on the tarmac, he would roll and explode.

Instead, he jerked the flaps down and launched the fighter into the air.

He arced into a near-vertical climb.  As he did so, he looked back over his shoulder.

The entire carrier had been knocked bodily from the water.

Cresting in mid-air – an impossible weight pausing almost in flight – the carrier's stern was locked in the jaws of a gigantic shark.

The carrier itself ignited into flame, as nearly a hundred thousand tons of steel crashed back down into the water.

In the next moment, the entire ocean seemed to explode.

The carriers were hit from below – ALL of them – across the entire chain of artificial iron islands.

Megalodon, Lucas thought – Big Tooth.  It had been on his list.

He had seen footage of Great Whites hitting seals – carrying them their full body-length into the air – the impact utterly destroying its target.  He'd even seen speculative reconstructions of Megalodons hitting whales.

This was an entirely new dimension.

It had taken the Titanic three-hours to sink after hitting that iceberg.

The biggest aircraft-carriers went almost half-again the size of Titanic, and were taken out in a single strike.

Some of them exploded on contact, others broke and took water.  But every one was hit and every one destroyed.

There was a buzz of flying wasps as a handful of fighters managed to escape the sudden conflagration.

Static blasted in Lucas' ear as General Rhodes shouted into the radio.

“Report!  Anyone!  Goddamnit, is anyone alive out there?”

Lucas veered back towards the other circling jets, who were falling into formation together.

Below him, the sea boiled.

And then, Lucas thought, 'the skies fell'.

As he looked towards the coast, he realized the sky had darkened.

Dark clouds, coming from the east, over the mountains.