David Golemon - Event

Overhead she heard the powerful turbines whining from the large helicopters settling just above the rooftops. Things in the kitchen began to rattle loudly as the down blast from the powerful five-bladed rotors hit the Broken Cactus. She jumped when one of the hanging frying pans fell from its hook over the stove and clanged to the floor. Then her heart fell to the floor as she was touched on the shoulder from behind. She gave out a yelp and quickly covered her mouth. Billy placed his small hand over his mother's and held up a finger to his lips.

"Shhh," he hissed. "Come on, Mom, what're you doing?" he whispered, removing his hand.

"Goddammit, Billy, get your ass back up those stairs, now," she half whispered, thanking God for the loudness of the turbine-driven engines of the Pave Lows.

"No way, not without you," Billy said, looking around for any sign of the animals that had so ravaged everyone in the town. He had yet to see one of them and didn't ever want to. He was putting up the best look of bravery and defiance he could muster; he just didn't feel either of those at the moment.

Julie pursed her lips, trying hard to' hold her temper. Then she consciously counted out loud to ten, angrily forcing out each number as she did. She calmed a little and opened her eyes.

"Alright, it doesn't look like anyone's here anyway, so let's get back upstairs and the hell out of here."

They were just starting to turn when, over the rumbling sound of the settling Pave Lows, they heard the sound of voices. They weren't traveling down the stairwell from the rooftop, but were coming from the dining area just around the corner out of their vision. Julie raised an eyebrow.

"There must still be people in here," she whispered a tad nervously, as she knew that everyone was supposed to be on the roof.

She took Billy's right hand in her own and gently pulled him out of the kitchen and around the bar. They crept as quietly as they could, stepping lightly over fallen barstools and broken tables, and as they moved, the voices grew louder.

"Whoever they are, they don't speak English. It sounds like French, I think," Julie said in a whisper.

They finally reached the corner of the bar and looked around it. Julie quickly counted sixteen men. They all wore black suits like Ryan and the others who had come into the bar earlier, not the brown desert fatigues of the other soldiers of the 101st. These soldiers were different somehow from the black-clad men of Lieutenant Ryan's outfit. Their uniforms were a different make, and some of these men had beards. They looked, in Julie's unprofessional opinion, lethal.

As Julie started to pull Billy back, a hand fell on her shoulder. She couldn't help it; she hated being this scared and tried not to, but she screamed anyway.

"Hey, can I pay you later for this?" Tony's slurred voice asked loudly.

The men that had been sitting around loading weapons suddenly stood, and the ones who had already been standing brought their weapons up and ran to a better angle inside the dining area and aimed at the intruders. A dozen pinpoints of laser-red light hit the intruders' chests and didn't waver an inch. All Julie could do was raise her hands to show she wasn't armed.

"I'm glad you're okay, Tony, but you couldn't have picked a worse time to wake up," Julie whispered out of the corner of her mouth, taking a deep breath.

"Miss Dawes, what a surprise. I was sure you had vacated the premises with the others," the blond-haired man from the Interior Department said, as he stepped away from his companions.

Gone were his casual clothes, and in their place was this military, black jumpsuit. He had a large pistol strapped to his side and the most lethal-looking knife Julie had ever seen on the black belt across his chest.

"Mr.... uh...?" Julie stuttered.

The man just smiled and stepped up to the three intruders. He placed his hand on Billy's head and rubbed his hair. The smile, all three noticed, didn't touch his now cold eyes.

"We'll leave my name out of it for now, Miss Dawes. And this must be the man of the house. I'm glad you located him. Today isn't one to be roaming around outside."

"My son, Billy," Julie said, looking worried.

"As I said, Miss Dawes, you really should have left on the evacuation helicopters with the others. But as it stands, I'm afraid you'll be accompanying us. I am sorry."

"Okay, okay, what'd I miss?" Tony said, taking the cap off the bottle of Jack Daniel's.

The four F-15 Strike Eagles out of Nellis streaked through the blue sky at twelve hundred feet off the desert floor. Lieutenant Colonel Frank Jessup led the flight of air force jets, who were on temporary duty from Japan, here to take part in Red Flag, a rigorous course to train pilots to fight foreign aircraft and their tactics. And now they had been summoned on the most unusual CAP mission he had ever been in command of. He scanned the ground, watching for any kind of activity out of the norm. He was trying to figure out just what the norm should be when his wingman, Major Terry Miller, called over the radio:

"Drover lead, this is Drover Two, they said unusual activity, correct?"

Jessup thumbed the transmit button on his joystick. "That's what they said. What have you got, Drover Two?"

"Look to your nine o'clock and tell me what you see."

Colonel Jessup looked to his left and down, but his weapons officer in the backseat saw it first.

"What in the hell is that, Colonel?" he asked.

Jessup stared in wonder as the ground below rippled as if a small speedboat were traveling across the sand. Just behind the advancing wave, the ground was caving in as if whatever was causing the wake was traveling close to the surface, weakening the tunnel it was making and causing the ground to fall in just as it passed.

"All right, Drover flight, we have a target of opportunity as per orders. Our ROE are still the same." Jessup didn't have to remind his flight that the rules of engagement were simple: sight the enemy and attack. "Drover Three and Four, sight on target and attack" was Jessup's brief command. "Drover lead will ride high cover."

"Drover Three and Four, sighted and locked."

In all three locations, ears listened anxiously to the radio conversation between the air force pilots as they rolled in and dived on what must be the leading element of the animals as they were exploring the valley. The president's attention went from the live feed in the desert valley to the monitor hooked into the Event Center for a reaction from Niles Compton. But Niles was busy listening to the radio transmission and watching the live feed himself. Then the president looked at the Joint Chiefs in the room, then to another monitor showing the crash site, where the largest audience by far, made up of Event Group technicians, were gathering to hear the exchange between the attacking fighter bombers.

The F-15E Strike Eagle is an amazing aircraft, capable of dogfighting with the best fighters in world, belying that it also has a bomb load capacity almost equal to that of the venerable old B-17 bomber from World War II. The bombs on this flight had been researched and specially chosen. If the animals were traveling close to the surface, the pilots were to use the general-munitions cluster bombs. They didn't have the shaped charge or the weight of the Bunker Busters that the F-16 Fighting Falcons were carrying above the larger fighters at ten thousand feet, but they were accurate, and they exploded with a large bang and killed well for their size. Before the human element went below to fight the creatures, the air force had been given the green light. Now they would see what air power could do to help right the situation in the valley.

The two fighter-bombers streaked in low, maintaining their height at three hundred feet, a dangerous altitude for the large fighter, even in the relatively flat terrain of the desert. Then, at three miles out, the fighter-bombers nosed up and climbed, water vapor pouring off their wingtips as the Eagles fought for altitude. At a thousand feet they leveled off, and Colonel Jessup watched as both Drover Three and Four dropped their munitions wing abreast. This tactic would expand the area of impact and make their killing zone wider, rather than longer, for the best chance of taking out the lead elements of the animals. The colonel watched as four small wing-brakes popped out from the back of the eight six-foot-long bombs, retarding their speed and rate of drop to give the fighters time to get out of Dodge before they impacted. At 175 feet of altitude, a pressure-sensing device activated and blew the outer casing off the eight bombs, loosing two hundred softball-sized bomblets. They struck the ground just two feet in front of the wave of dirt and sand that was caused by at least two of the moving animals, causing what looked like a fireworks display gone awry and exploding on the ground. To the men and women at the crash site it was if someone had set off two hundred grenades at once.