Up From The Deep Vaughn Jackson (book club suggestions TXT) 📖

Rage. It boils up inside of her. She lets it out in a scream that shakes the foundations of her island nest. Her mighty wings shudder with the force of their own strength as she lifts herself into the air.

Two faster creatures, silver winged streaks, roar towards her, unleashing more fire towards her nest. She catches the rain of fire with her own body, shrugging off the pain. One of the creatures clips her wing. It hurts her, but the creature careens to the ground and explodes on impact. The second one she burns from the sky with an arc of lightning, she whips it across the sky, dragging it into a nearby spinning sky creature. Its wings seize, locking in place, and it begins to dive towards the ocean below.

She scans the sky, swinging her head back and forth. Six spinning creatures, and four more silver screamers. Inkanyamba won’t let them touch any of her children. The clouds above spark with her electric current. She feels a fresh rain begin. The first peal of thunder echoes above. She cries out over top of it, challenging her attackers. They accept.

Lightning arcs from her wings, turning the sky a blinding white. With a gust like a hurricane, she takes off towards them. The force of her flight sucks two spinning creatures into her wake, crashing them into each other in a shower of debris and fire. The screaming creatures rush her, spraying her body with burning pellets. She feels it, like tiny pin pricks on her skin. They pass her. She looks over her shoulder to see them bank and come around for another pass. She waits until they are right up on her and then…a thrash of her tail crushes through one. Her wings flare, stalling her in the air. She feels the second one collide with her adamantine scales. She drops back down to the ground below, devastating the metal forest around her. Giant structures crumble and crash to the ground, sending plumes of dust into the air. She lashes her tail around, completing the devastation and clearing a space for combat.

She whips around to face the remaining attackers. Two remaining silver wings and four spinners. She bares her teeth, feeling them slide out of her gums and lock into place. Fight.Win. Kill.

The silver wings roar away into the distance. She tracks them, ensuring they stay away from her nest. They do, and so she lets them live. The spinning creatures stay, they whir to life and the burning pellets resume for a moment. Then come the fireballs. Neither hurt her. The creatures stop their attack. They turn towards her nest.

Fear. Her shriek shatters all the remaining glass in the area, as she launches herself back to the sky. She rears her head to the sky and lightning courses from her throat up into the storm clouds. It courses through the sky, arcing and jumping before descending in four separate lightning bolts, each striking one of the helicopters to devastating effect. Four sparking fireballs plummet to the ground. Inkanyamba roars in triumph. She knows that she has won. Her children are safe.

Or are they?

She hears another noise. A high pitch whistling that grows louder each second. She sniffs the air. Her head swings from side to side. Scanning. Searching. She notices a black speck on the horizon. As the sound grows, so does the speck. She doesn’t know what it is, but she senses the danger immediately.

Her jaw unhinges, and her frills stand on edge. Lightning strikes her body and courses along her spines, sparking across her scales. Her whole body is wreathed in lightning, and crackles with power.

The speck is near now. She can hear its roar, the sound of it rushing through the wind.

Danger.

A crack of thunder sounds as lightning arcs out from her mouth, dancing along the air and impacting the object directly on its nose. The noise is deafening, a sound like she has never heard before. Light, brighter and hotter than the sun, blinds her. She cannot see, she cannot hear, the air around her burns. The force of the explosion staggers her. The crumbled remains of buildings turn to dust in an instant. She feels scales ripped from skin. The pain is beyond anything she’s ever felt. Her scream is drowned out by the roar of the flames.

Chapter 18

“What the hell was that?” General MacPherson shouted.

“That was a MOAB,” a soldier shouted in response.

“Who authorized that?”

“The strike came from Warren Airforce Base in Colorado,” said another soldier.

“Who’s in charge there?”

“General Corden.”

Dammit. “Get him on video call, now.”

The screen flickered to life. General Corden’s weathered face came into view, all hard angles and aged discipline. “Diane,” he said.

“Marcelle. Care to tell me why you just dropped a MOAB on my city?”

“It should be obvious. Your people failed to take down the creature. We took matters into our own hands.”

“You have no right to decide that!”

“Actually, I do.”

“On whose authority?”

“The president’s.”

“You can’t be serious. There’s no way the president would authorize that kind of strike on American soil.”

General Corden turned off screen. “Captain Sanders, send General MacPherson the document, please.”

A message blinked onto the screen in the bottom right corner. It expanded to reveal a document stamped with the Presidential Seal. General MacPherson’s eyes darted over the words with disbelief. It was all there.

“I presume that will be enough to confirm my statements.”

General MacPherson clenched her jaw so tight she worried her molars would crack. “It does.” She turned to her men. “Get me a status report on the creature, now.”

“The smoke and debris are making it near impossible to get a read.”

“Did I ask for excuses?”

“One of our drones is getting video and sound, but just barely. Putting it on screen.”

To say the image quality was fuzzy would be an understatement. With all the dust swirling around from the explosion, hardly anything could be seen. The air in the room hung heavy, everyone waiting to see the