Dragon Over Washington (The Third War Of The Bir Nibaru Gods) (37 page)

“Get the Hummer turned around! Leave the motor running!” Montoya shouted to Jim, their driver. The sergeant watched the gunner loading his Mag and turned to Reimer.

“Put those rounds here,” he said. Montoya turned the Javelin power switch from OFF to NIGHT. He removed the missile’s end cap and opened the covering on the CLU’s lens. He sat down with his legs crossed and put his eye to the CLU’s eyepiece. The seven status indicators indicated green, informing Montoya that the missile and the CLU were operational. Montoya selected the wide-field-of-view mode of the night vision system and scanned around, searching. The black and white thermal image he was seeing had two short lines at the top of the image, indicating to the Javelin gunner what observation mode he was currently using. Through the CLU’s eyepiece, the ground ahead, warmer than the night air, was white; the trees showed dark; and the sky was almost completely black.

“I’ve got HQ on line, Sarge. They say target is inbound, five minutes!” Jim shouted from the Hummer. Montoya waved with one hand. He continued to scan, looking towards the northwest. He gradually widened his pattern of searching. Something on a hill to his left caught his attention. A van was parked there, and several men were unloading equipment. He quickly identified the huge M107 anti-materiel rifle. He started as a man with luminous buggy eyes turned towards him and waved lazily. Probably an NSA agent with night vision goggles.

“Damned agents,” Montoya muttered, continuing to scan ahead.

Whooom!

“Hey, Sarge, did you hear that?” Reimer asked.

***

Benson was alone when the sirens started, the soldier’s having left him. People were running, carrying weapons. Vehicles roared away into the night, their lights blazing into the darkness. Benson moved back towards his rock. No one tried to stop him in the confusion in the camp. The small lizards were still there, still frozen in position, their gazes turned northward.

“I’ve got to go. I think you guys should go too. Peace, man,” he said. He bent down to pick up his backpack and then moved out from behind the rock that hid him from the base. A forlorn squeak stopped him. He turned around to face the lizard. The broken-tailed lizard moved forward. It squeaked again, urgently, its large eyes never leaving Benson’s. Benson looked at it for a moment, smiled, and then turned back. He started to move, but felt something tug at his pants. The small lizard had sunk its teeth into the thick fabric of his overalls, as if trying to tug him back, and its small claws were leaving furrows in the earth as Benson dragged it forward. Benson tried to gently shake it off, but the little thing wouldn’t let go. Benson had no choice but to let the creature drag him backwards, to his place behind the rock. The little lizard unclenched its tiny jaws only when Benson stood behind the rock. Benson smiled at it sadly.

“I - I can’t remain here. I - I need to —”

Whooom.

Benson turned slowly northwards and gradually sank down behind his rock. A glance around him showed him that all the lizards clustered close around him.

***

“What’s going on, Sarge?” Reimer asked.

“Shut up,” Montoya snapped.

“Right, Sarge. Shutting up, Sarge,” Reimer said.

“Sarge, HQ says weapons are free! Weapons are free! Engage target on sight!” Jim yelled from the Hummer. Montoya was scanning the sky. Nothing. He lowered his CLU and looked at his team. The Mag gunner and his assistant were ready, machine gun aimed forward, ammo belts ready. The Hummer was behind them, its motor running and doors open. Montoya even looked around towards the NSA agent’s position, though it was too far away in the night to see without the thermal camera in the CLU.

Whooom.

Montoya raised his arm before him. A sudden downdraft ruffled the sleeve of his army fatigues. Something made him look higher. The stars that had filled the night sky were vanishing as an inky, fathomless blackness spread above the hill they occupied. His hands shaking, Montoya raised the missile system, putting his eye to the eyepiece. Now he didn’t see a black, cold night; he saw the sky blazing with heat. Something was above them - something that radiated heat, something that was so big, it blotted out all the sky. Montoya blinked when he saw the huge, circular bulging shapes - overlapping scales drifting above him. The sergeant could tell that something unimaginably huge moved above him, but because of its sheer size, he couldn’t make out its shape.

Come on, man. You’re the sergeant, Montoya thought, gritting his teeth.

Finally, Montoya unfroze.

“
Vaya la infiemo!
” he whispered as he selected the seeker view on the CLU’s left handgrip. The missile’s seeker came to life and Montoya saw track gates surround an irregularity in the enormous, uniform sea of white, heat-radiating scales moving above him. Crosshairs appeared, blinking in unison with the track gates. Montoya pressed the seeker button and the track gates and the crosshairs solidified, tracking the irregularity. Holding down the seeker button, Montoya squeezed the trigger on the CLU’s right handgrip. A loud explosion erupted next to Montoya, making him start. The missile roared out of its canister, leaving a cloud of smoke behind it. About thirty yards away its main motor ignited, speeding the missile onwards, a speck of flame trailing smoke behind it. Regulations called for Montoya to track the target with his CLU to assess the damage, but Montoya lowered the CLU and watched the small flame climb upwards with his bare eyes.

“Come on! Come on!” Reimer muttered beside him. Suddenly, the black starless sky was lit with an orange fireball. The missile had exploded.

“Oh, yeah!” Reimer shouted out. Montoya remained silent. In that brief moment of illumination, Montoya had managed to make out an enormous, scaled body passing overhead. It glided on, as if nothing had happened.

***

Agent Mathew left the communications trailer and stood next to it, looking northwards, his hand gripped his P90. Most of the lights in the camp were off and Mathew had a good view. Nothing could be seen for a while and the agent turned to reenter the trailer when a noise echoed around.

Whooom.

Gigantic wings beat in the darkness, raising a huge cloud of dust and making trees shake like twigs. The agent turned. His eyes widened as the stars began to disappear, winking out one by one as darkness approached from the north. The base’s tents flapped as if caught in a hurricane. Mathew thought he could smell something in the air, an odor he could almost identify. Suddenly he jumped. A missile had been launched from one of the positions on the hills. A small flame climbed up and up and finally a small orange fireball erupted. For a short instant it illuminated something dark and larger than anything Mathew thought possible. The fireball winked out almost immediately and the night stars continued to vanish. In that bare instance that the fireball had shed light, Mathew had seen a sky full of scales. A hiss resonated in the dark night - a snake’s hiss so loud, it shook the world. Mathew saw soldiers and agents cringe, gripping their weapons and whimpering. Whatever it was, it was coming for them.

“Holy mother -” Mathew begun, and then the whole sky lit up. It was like the gates of hell had opened. A river of raging fire fell down to earth from enormous jaws, one hundred fifty yards northward of Mathew’s location. Instantly, a wall of rampant red fire, more than thirty feet high, rose and started to move incredibly fast in Mathew’s direction, engulfing everything in its path. Any vehicle it passed exploded instantly. Mathew threw himself down into a ditch, covering his head with his arms as the roaring inferno reached for him.

Montoya heard Reimer curse beside him. The small Latin-American sergeant did not blame the corporal who was frozen in place as he watched the flame-filled gullet close, and the monstrous jaws locking the fiery hell within the great beast. The river of fire that the monster had exhaled surged across their camp, exploding vehicles and engulfing tents and trailers in an instant, creating a red false dawn filled with flames.

Two more large explosions sounded as the two remaining Blackhawk helicopters exploded.

A rhythmic pattern of shots from his right took a moment to register. Montoya looked sideways. The small mound behind which the agents were taking cover was briefly illuminated with muzzle flashes as the huge anti-materiel rifle was aimed at the monster.

“Sarge, no one told us these things can breathe fire,” Reimer murmured, awe-struck.

Montoya shook himself.

“Fire! Fire!” he screamed. His machine gunner opened up, the Mag sending out a long stream of red tracer shots into the darkness. They streaked towards the monster, which was gliding effortlessly over the hell it had unleashed on the ground. The raging fires on the ground illuminated parts of the being as it moved by: a clawed foot, a wing and a scaled belly becoming occasionally visible. Montoya could not attempt to guess as its size. He slowly realized it was longer than the camp itself.

Montoya pressed the CLU’s release fasteners and selected one of the two Javelin missile tubes lying next to him. He mounted the CLU on the tube and put it on his shoulder, eyes watching through the thermal sight.

“Sarge, you’re firing at the camp!” Reimer exclaimed.

“Just look at it, no one could have survived that! But I’m going to get that
Puta!
” The sergeant growled. He tracked the monster, positioning the crosshairs on the thing’s triangular head. The reticule lines closed and blinked around the image of the scaly, armored head, which was glowing white with heat in the missile sight. Its eyes resembled small suns.

“Die!” the sergeant screamed. He pressed the trigger and his missile roared away into the darkness. The missile's main motor ignited and the missile soared on. The Javelin missile’s seeker locked on to the visual image of its target and its onboard processor directed it in flight. Montoya kept his eye on the CLU sight. He tracked the missile, a small, hot flame streaming against the backdrop of the huge monster floating over the fiery destruction it had wrought over their camp.

Two more missiles, fired by other teams, roared away. A fusillade of automatic fire flew at the monster, clearly visible in the thermal sight as tiny pinpoints of light flying in long streams. The gigantic monster continued on for a moment then a monstrous wing, beating powerfully, suddenly appeared in Montoya’s field of view. He hurriedly switched to the wide field of view of the CLU. The monstrous creature turned, coiling around like a serpent of unimaginable proportions. Montoya watched, disappointed, as the missiles and most of the bright specs of automatic and machine gun fire flew past it, defeated by its quick maneuver. Montoya lowered the CLU.

The monster executed a ninety-degree turn in mid-flight and headed towards them. Even without benefit of the thermal sight, Montoya saw the monster’s eyes: huge, fiery green lamps with black, vertical, reptilian pupils. Red tracer rounds from the Mag were still flying up towards the monster, as the co-gunner fed the fast-firing machine gun with a three hundred round belt right out of an ammo box. As the bullets passed near the monster, the streaks of red light illuminated it briefly. Suddenly, it veered down.

“We got it!” Reimer shouted. Montoya opened and closed his mouth in amazement. A small fireball erupted some three hundred yards down the ridge of small hills they were occupying. The triangular head appeared again, surging up.

“No, idiot. It got one of ours. We’re moving out!” Montoya yelled. He dropped the CLU and grabbed Reimer. He started to run towards the waiting Hummer.

“Move!” he screamed at the Mag team. He reached the Hummer and let Reimer get in. He looked back. The co-gunner was running fast, but the gunner still carried his Mag.

“Drop it!” Montoya yelled. The co-gunner reached the Hummer, opened the left rear door and jumped into the vehicle, closing the door after him. Montoya’s eyes widened as he saw the monster’s triangular head appear over the hills, one hundred yards downrange behind them. The gunner reached the Hummer. He threw his Mag into the opened rear cargo compartment and jumped in after it.

“Go, go, go!” Montoya screamed at Jim, the driver. The Hummer roared away, its sixteen-valve engine growling powerfully. Montoya hung on to the steel frame and looked back. The only thing he could see in the darkness was the pair of the iridescent eyes heading towards them, burning the night away.  Shots and brief flashes of light were still being emitted from the hilltop the agents occupied, as they kept firing at the monster bearing down on them.

Suddenly, a huge eruption of earth and trees rose up from that hilltop. The monster glided on, its gigantic wings beating powerfully. Montoya looked at the hilltop. Rocks, trees and dirt were raining down on it. The monster emitted another hiss, a primordial sound of menace that flowed through them. Montoya almost lost his grip on the Hummer’s frame, but he somehow hung on, fighting an irresistible urge to curl up on the ground and await his own death. No more shots came from that hilltop.

Montoya entered the Hummer’s cabin and strapped himself in. He breathed heavily for a moment and then looked back over his seat. The lantern eyes were approaching, visible through the rear window of the Hummer, getting bigger and bigger. The gunner fired his Mag. Short bursts of red tracer rounds flew into the great triangular head with no visible effect.

“You better step on it, Jim,” Montoya said. The three-hundred-fifty horsepower engine pulled the squat, high-mobility vehicle quickly over the rough terrain. The independent front- and rear-end suspension system absorbed some of the road shocks, but the passengers were still shaken badly as the vehicle raced over rocks and earth. Montoya looked back.