104. Get Me Air Force Command

Get Me Air Force Command

For a while, the entire room was silent, save for the hum of computer fans and the almost inaudible buzz of countless electronic devices.

Dozens of screens displayed all kinds of information: casualty lists, abnormal weather across five cities, emergency evacuations of several towns, desperate rescue operations in the storm.

Inside this hastily assembled and badly overburdened command center, everyone ignored all of it.

Their attention was fixed on one of the larger displays, which was relaying footage from a high-altitude reconnaissance drone.

The image showed an area of total devastation: countless fires, smoking craters, heaps of rubble, and cracks in the earth clear enough to be seen from nearly twenty kilometers up. Almost no one cared.

The swarming masses that looked like countless ants crawling over the ground were actually man-sized monsters—or worse. No one paid those much attention either.

Over the past few days, everyone had seen such things too many times to count.

What held the full attention of every person in the room was the humanoid figure near the top of the screen. In an image covering four hundred square kilometers, it occupied a considerable portion of the frame.

The mountain-sized figure was crowned in actinic glare, lightning flickering across its horns and badly distorting the image. Its head had just been swallowed by a burst of fire and dust.

Yet despite the poor image quality, everyone from the lowest analyst to the most senior general present held their breath.

They watched the colossal humanoid stagger, lean dangerously forward, and then crash to the ground with enough force for the earth itself to visibly tremble and deform.

“My God,” someone whispered. In the silence, the words sounded shockingly loud. “They really did it. They really killed that monster.”

The mounting tension finally broke.

The room erupted into victorious cheers, curses, questions, and comments, voices tangled with every kind of emotion as silent fear gave way to loud relief.

“Quiet!” an older voice rang out with authority, cutting through the chaos by sheer weight of rank and experience.

These were soldiers. They were used to obeying commands like that, so even under this level of pressure, and even after one catastrophic loss after another, they restored a measure of order within seconds.

“Their weapon is still firing,” the general pointed out.

Sure enough, thin, dazzling beams kept cutting across the image, shooting from the city’s ruins toward the fallen giant.

The beams continued to carve into the giant’s head, each shot blasting away tons of flesh.

“Damn it!”

That exclamation drew every eye in the room. A junior analyst was scrutinizing the drone feed through more than a dozen filters, trying to extract every possible scrap of data.

“Uh…”

The pressure of being stared down by dozens of superior officers, combined with the tension of the current situation, made the man freeze at his own slip of the tongue.

“What is it? Take your time,” the older general asked patiently, his calm tone once again easing the strain in the room.

“Sir! Despite the damage to the back of the target’s skull—its equivalent of the occipital bone appears to have been shattered—thermal imaging, seismic readings, and ground-penetrating radar all indicate that the target still has a heartbeat, sir!”

The analyst pointed to several filtered images. A few officers showed interest, though not comprehension.

“The target does not bleed the way we do, so death by blood loss is unlikely. It is also still showing involuntary reactions to energy-weapon fire. In addition, the wound is shrinking.”

Everyone understood that last point.

Another round of curses rippled through the room.

They had already seen how some monsters could recover from truly horrific wounds. Why would the enemy’s superweapon not have the same ability?

It had nearly every ability those weaker enemies had displayed, plus several they…