The Canavar

Chapter 23: Air Superiority

Things could hardly have been going worse for the general. The monster had destroyed his tanks and howitzers and killed 22 of his soldiers. Even worse, the number of civilian casualties was high. He couldn't get an accurate number on how many of the townspeople had died, but it was at least 30 of them already. Many more had injuries, some severe, and they needed hospitalization.

The monster was still out there, circling above the town, seemingly as if guarding its territory by attacking any moving vehicle or any significant gathering of people. He had to call off the evacuation and ask people to return to their homes and hunker down for the time being. In an odd sense he was actually relieved by that. Everyone else out to fifty miles from the town was being told to evacuate. If he and his troops could get everyone out of this hellhole of a place, then they would be clear to drop the ultimate weapon if all else failed. But he did not want to go down in history as the general who nuked Iowa.

Two of the scientists had arrived and now followed him around. One, by the name of Dr. Jorgenson, was a short thin blond woman who said little, but her eyes were always scanning everywhere. The other was a tall older gentleman with a large grey beard and a bald head and went by the name Dr. Porchinsky. In contrast, he talked a lot.

At first they set up several instruments, but they got few usable readings of the creature. Photographs from a distance in visible and infrared light was about it. Dr. Porchinsky mentioned numerous times how he would like a sample of the creature's skin. Brand disliked the man, but he understood the request. The creature's skin might yield clues about how to build nearly impenetrable armor. Whichever nation got that armor first would have an overwhelming military advantage. And it had be better be the U.S. rather than one of its adversaries. For all anyone knew, there might be more of the creatures, and one may be in Russia or China.

Jorgenson and Porchinsky were also at a loss to explain how the creature was able to get off the ground, much less fly around and maneuver with a great degree of precision, and yet slam down against the ground with such tremendous force. It seemed as if the monster had a great store of mass but was barely affected by gravity. A contradiction that was a complete mystery, like so much else about the monster.

After a very unpleasant conversation with the Secretary of Defense in which he had to explain all the casualties and admit that his forces had been defeated, he had called General Fergus and asked for an air strike. The monster had not shown the ability to fly faster than a slow-moving prop plane so far, and jets should be able to fly circles around the thing. Whether they could do any damage to the monster was another question entirely, but they had to at least try before considering nuclear weapons.

About the only good development was the air had finally cleared out, giving visibility of the monster again.

The jets would not take long to arrive since the pilots had been waiting in stand-by mode. In fact, the entire U.S. military was in stand-by, ready to go to war against the creature. Everyone was tuned into what was happening in Iowa, and the state was getting the most attention it had ever received.

Brand put up to his eyes the field glasses he now carried with him constantly, and he scanned the sky toward the northeast above the ridgeline across the river. That was the direction of Truax Field in Wisconsin from where the jets had taken off. According to the update he received, they should be approaching very shortly.

From his high vantage point, he spotted them well before there was any sound. He spun toward where he had last spotted the monster. It was to the south of the town and circling counterclockwise toward the east. Soaring at just under Mach 1, the four jets streaked past in a flash, and the loud roars of their engines echoed through the valley after the jets had already passed. The newest American fighter jets, the F-35 Lightning IIs. Everyone hated that name and unofficially referred to them as Panthers.