“Understood. ETA five minutes. Holding position until everything else is in place.”
“We’ll be set up before you know it.” She peered out towards the crater and switched channels. “I see helicopter squad one in place. Others confirm.”
Gunner’s voice said, “Squad two right where we need to be.”
“Yeah, we’re here,” came Skids’ reply.
Inkanyamba lowered her head, submerging her neck in the water. A sound like an earthquake rumbled from her chest. They maintained a position out of reach of her head, just in case.
“Deploy brackets,” Greenwood ordered.
The sound of several braided steel cables being severed filled the air. She heard the rush of wind followed by the thunderous boom as the copper wrapped arches impacted the ground. Each one had a pair of seismic drills attached to the bottom. As soon as they made contact with the ground, the drills activated and embedded the arches as deep in the ground as they could before splitting apart into heavy-duty anchors. The three brackets locked Inkanyamba in place. The creature struggled against the braces, and while the structures screamed and groaned, they held fast.
“Raise altitude,” Greenwood said. “Bunk, it’s your turn.”
Inaudible chatter, followed by, “I’m told all the guns are firing…now.” Six thunderous roars from the distance were all the confirmation Greenwood needed. A whistling sound grew louder as the projectiles approached. The impact would be devastating. She waited for them to drop. Six blurs of black passed in front of the helicopter’s window. The sounds of their impact were drowned out by Inkanyamba’s shriek of rage and agony. She thrashed around, causing fresh streams of blood to pour from the wounds where the tungsten rods tore clean through her body, further pinning her to the ground. Despite her previous failed discharge, the creature began to charge up again. Greenwood watched the sparks course through the copper coils, grounding Inkanyamba and beginning the heating process of the coils.
“No matter how much electricity you muster, it won’t matter,” Greenwood said. Then, as another pang of guilt stabbed behind her chest, she added, “sorry.” Her radio crackled static. “Tungsten. Move in.”
“You got it.”
A few minutes passed before Greenwood could see the dehydrators, giant microwave generators on fifty-foot poles, rolling across the craggy remains of the San Francisco streets. She knew the ex-Tempest soldiers were present but seeing their black body armor, like something out of a far-flung dystopia, interspersed amongst the fatigues of her brothers-in-arms was still jarring. They’re helping us, she reminded herself. For now.
She watched the difficulty in setting up the dehydrators, keeping them out of Inkanyamba’s range and staying away entirely from her thrashing tail. Seeing the small lake of water, she was glad that General MacPherson had insisted on her taking two drainage trucks that began the process of pumping the water out of the crater. The microwaves kicked on, their red-orange light bathing Inkanyamba in a way that made her wounds look all the more gruesome. Her thrashing grew more sluggish almost immediately. Greenwood wasn’t sure if it was the blood loss or the suddenly intense heat, or a combination of everything the creature had been through up until now that was taking its toll, but she was thankful that this was proving to be a fairly easy endeavor.
“Radio to Captain Brannigan. Tell him he is good to engage his targets,” she said to the pilot.
#
Brannigan had been hoping for no more issues during the mission when the call from Lieutenant Greenwood gave him the all-clear. He knew that it was a stupid hope, as stupid as hoping that the silver-haired bastard had lied to them about Tempest’s plan to capture and use Inkanyamba’s children to their own ends. The sudden appearance of soldiers dressed like the nightmare version of Wolfenstein solidified his newfound belief that hoping for good in the midst of bad just made things worse.
The idiots had come in quietly enough, but upon seeing the creatures, they began playing the whale noises Tempest had used to manipulate Inkanyamba. All of the demons perked up at the sound.
“Are they stupid?” Brannigan hissed through clenched teeth.
“What’s wrong?” Arnett asked.
Raymond answered in a hushed tone, “The whale noise worked on Inkanyamba because she remembered that whales had been her prey at one point. Her children have no such understanding. To them it’s just an intruder, and—”
“They’ll attack,” Brannigan finished. “Stay low.”
The screams and gunfire started at the same time, right when the first Tempest soldier lost his head down the throat of one of the demons. His body was swatted aside and sank into the sludge.
Several bullets pinged off the walls near where Brannigan crouched in cover with his squad. “Don’t move.”
A lone soldier, deserting the rest of his men, sprinted towards their tunnel. Brannigan’s face darkened. As the fleeing soldier planted his foot just to his right, he shot out and grabbed the man by the head, ripping his mask off and plunging him face first into the sewage. The man struggled, his writhing and thrashing drowned out by the gunfight going on in the main chamber. His body twitched a few more times before succumbing to stillness. Brannigan met the horrified looks of his squad. “An enemy behind you is always a threat,” he said.
“But that was…” Arnett started.
“Quiet?” Brannigan said. “Yes. And also brutal, I know. But personally,” he hissed, “I’d rather not have a bunch of those things swarming me right now.” His eyes scanned the assembled faces. “That’s what I thought.”
The gunfire had already died down, with the demons having made short work of the unsuspecting soldiers. Now, Brannigan noticed, all the creatures were on alert, scales and spines bristling as they scoured the chamber, sniffing and searching. They’d be caught if they didn’t act soon, but they’d most definitely be caught if they acted now.
He pointed at the tunnel across the chamber. “The retaining wall is down that one. All our detonators are long range frequencies, and that one will
