ALL NOVEL Chapter 113 – Holding On
1850 June 18th, 2020 CE
America Center Drive, San Jose, California
The lead Abrams came to a stop in the parking lot. It swiveled its turret to the right.
“Fire!”
The tank fired towards the beaches full of Lancefishes. The shell found its target as aLancefish’s head was blown off and its remaining body collapsed. The machine guns on the tank started firing, punching holes into the creatures.
The lead tank moved into the parking lot which still had a couple cars parked here and there. Behind it, Abrams, Bradleys, and Humvees poured into the parking lot.
Some of the Lancefishes have already reached the asphalt of the parking lot from the grassy beaches. One was even beside the massive glass cube building that had the sign “Hewlett Packard Enterprise'' on its top left.
A TOW missile streaked out of the Bradley towards the forwardmost Lancefish, its autocannon pummeling the second closest one. Soldiers rushed out of the open doors of the Humvees and the back of the Bradleys.
<<<”Keep them contained in that area. We cannot let them breakthrough. There are hundreds of civilians at Levi’s Stadium behind you. Air support is also available.”>>>
Levi’s Stadium
After a bit of directions, the students found that their parents had all been waiting together at a western end of the football field. Luke found his mom first. She looked very tired. “You alright hun?”
Luke smiled “Yeah I’m fine. I'm a bit tired.”
His dad chuckled and he ruffled Luke’s hair as he approached from behind. “You have definitely seen better days.”
Luke didn’t resist at all. He felt all energy leave his body as he embraced his mom and dad’s hug. His dad let go first. “We still need to get out of here. Come on, I know you are still tired but I got a backup of your stuff. Here. We are boarding the next helicopter we can get in.”
“Neat you got my laptop.”
In the middle of the field, various helicopters were taking off and landing.
100 miles off of San Francisco
40 JASSMs cruised through the air at subsonic speeds. There were anti-air frogs on top of the creature that started firing its grapeshot into the air. However, the JASSMs were skimming the ocean surface.
Bits of the creature’s flesh erupted and flew off in chunks as the 1000 pound armor piercing warhead slammed into the right side of the massive block of flesh. The creature started moving and wiggling as if in pain. Then it finally stopped and started sinking into the ocean.
March Air Reserve Base, California
A drone operator had an aerial view of Oakland, California. An MQ-9 Reaper was circling right outside the suspected range of the monster’s anti-air. His officer nodded as he got off of his radio. “We got the go-ahead.”
”Approaching their air defense zone.”
“Let’s see how far this drone can go.”
“Understood.”
Minutes passed as the drone got closer and closer to the San Francisco Bay. The officer got onto his radio again. <<<”No anti-air response in Oakland, California. We will be proceeding to check out the airspace over San Francisco. The skies should be ours.”>>>
A few minutes later
Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada
“Seems like that thing was some sort of radar system. We got the all-clear for Oakland and we are pretty certain that also means their air defense is down in San Fran.”
The Colonel who was in charge of the base, screamed to the men in the room. “You heard him. Get all the planes off the ground. We are sweeping these things out of San Francisco!”
A few seconds later
<<<“Eagle Two is taking off”
“Good luck and come back with both of your wings this time.”>>>
The voice over the comms chuckled.
1903 June 18th, 2020 CE
Above Lafayette, California
An E-3 Sentry, an airborne early warning and control aircraft, circled Lafayette, California. A Surveillance Operator rubbed his eyes and looked closer at his radar screen. “There’s an unidentified aircraft approaching from the ocean. It's… it's huge. Sir, we need to contact Command. Look at the size I’m reading from this.”
The Tactical Director got onto the comms. <<<“We have detected a very large flying object approaching San Francisco at a speed of around 100 miles per hour. It will reach San Francisco in an hour and a half. It seems to be something that is 1500 feet wide and 500 feet long.”>>>
2230 June 18th, 2020 CE
Washington D.C.
Ronell sat back in his chair, exasperated at the news he received a couple minutes earlier. “Do we have any idea what that massive thing is?”
“We have just received satellite imagery of it. It's a dragon. Its coloring is similar to the monsters in San Francisco. Based on the data from the E-3, it is possible that it has a wingspan of more than 1500 feet and a length of 500 feet. It has a wingspan of about eight Boeing 747s. If it reaches San Francisco… the amount of destruction it can cause will be horrific.”
Ronell sighed. “One thing after another. How long do we have?”
“An hour and a half.”
A few minutes later
General Schmidt of the US Northern Command appeared on screen. “General, I want everything on hand that can intercept that thing to intercept that thing.”
“Mr. President, I already understand the situation and we are working on it. The Air National Guard and the Air Force will be responding in a moment’s notice. Rest assured, we will do everything in our power to shoot that thing down.”
Fresno Air National Guard Base, California
With the not yet setting sun in front of them, F-15Cs and F-15Ds of the 194th Fighter Squadron lifted off from the runway of the airport.
Hill Air Force Base, Utah
F-35As of the 388th Fighter Wing sat on the tarmac. An officer shouted at the ground crew as he walked past. “Get it into air-to-air beast mode. There’s a massive air target approaching San Francisco. Let's go. Let's go.”
The ground crews rushed to attack missiles onto the F-35s. Missiles were loaded into the internal load bay and onto the hardpoints on the wings. 14 AMRAAMs and 2 Sidewinders were loaded onto each F-35.
Washington D.C.
Ronell tapped his hand on the desk. “How long till we engage it?”
“It's gonna take about 10 minutes for our first wave of aircraft to have the target within missile range of the AMRAAMs. The Air Force and AIr National Guard will be intercepting it. We are not sure how much of an effect the AMRAAMs will have on it but hopefully enough ordnance can kill it.”
1945 June 18th, 2020 CE
Forester Street, San Francisco, California
<<<”We are barely holding on to the City College of San Francisco. Everything north is basically overrun.”>>>
Eric spoke into his comms after listening. <<<”This is Corporal Eric Lu of 2nd Platoon, Echo Company of 2/4th Marines. I’m with Lance Corporal John Felder and Corpsman Ian Stevenson of the same company. We are currently behind enemy lines. Specifically in a house on Forester Street. Can anybody get us out of here?”
“Negative, Corporal.”
The voice sounded very familiar.
“Second Lieutenant?”
“Yes, Corporal. The entire 2nd Battalion has been pushed back. You guys are cut off. It's impossible to get to you. You will have to figure something out.”>>>
Eric had his back against a wall and he looked to the other two. “We have to retreat. We are cut off.”
Ian was kneeling on the ground tending to the wounded John. “Let me finish patching him up.”
“You alright? That's a bad looking head injury. Do you see how many fingers I’m holding up?”
John nodded “Yeah Doc, two, tis but a scratch.”
Ian chuckled. “I think you may need to get your head checked if you are quoting Monty Python. But yeah you seem fine enough.”
John laughed back. “Let's get our asses out of here.”
Eric peeked out the window besides him. “Well, we can’t go through the front cause a fucking monster is outside.”
John stood up and responded. “Let's try the back door.”
“Alright. Be quiet when exiting, we don’t want to alert the damn things.”
Eric slowly opened the back door and peered out. “Clear. It's a fenced in backyard. Should be safe. Let's go.”
They exited the house and into the backyard. Eric peeked over the fence. “It's just all backyards. There seems to be a street on the right but we are gonna need to vault over multiple fences and I’m not sure how safe that street is.”