These wolves were not your average wolves. They were the same wolves that had attacked him and Lenny back at Saint Eugene's. He wasn't sure why they had tracked them across the countryside, but they had arrived at the worst possible time.
Throwing caution to the wind, Henry flipped the safety off his M16 and fired several rounds at the large black wolf. The alpha flinched and bounded behind one of the rusted, broken trucks that was scattered across the yard.
"What's going on out there?" Lenny yelled from inside the control deck.
"You don't want to know!" Henry yelled back as he fired upon the slowly advancing wolves.
Another shot rang out, and a fist-sized hole appeared in one of the nearby trucks. A mist of red showered the ground behind the truck door, and another wolf collapsed to the ground. Henry was thankful for the cover fire as he kept the snarling wolves at bay.
"How much longer are you going to be in there?" Henry shouted over the sounds of his M16 firing.
"I got the operating system to fire up. I should be able to access the data core here in a few minutes."
Lenny went silent and then cursed.
"What is it? What's wrong?" Henry asked.
Henry waited for Lenny to respond as he fired yet another barrage of bullets towards the advancing wolves, clipping one of the larger gray wolves in the rear and sending it spinning to the ground. The wolf quickly got up, whimpering when it tried to use its injured leg. It limped away in pain. Henry turned to fire at the black wolf that had begun to advance on him again.
"Hey, are you still out there?" Lenny asked.
"Yes, obviously, I'm still here. What in the world is going on in there?"
"Er . . . we have a problem. I'm not going to be able to copy the data core. The core has been damaged, which is probably why Union Forest couldn’t transfer any data on it back home. So I'm going to have to remove it and take it with us."
"That doesn't seem like that big of a deal. So what's the problem?"
Lenny hesitated. "Honestly?"
"I'm sure you can tell by the gunfire out here that this isn't the best time in the world to . . ."
Henry fired off several more rounds, killing one of the small wolves that had come out onto the viewing platform.
". . . to beat around the bush. Spit it out before these damn wolves eat us!"
"Hey, don't shoot the messenger!" Lenny exclaimed. "Okay, maybe that was dumb to say to the guy holding the large automatic rifle."
"Lenny, get to the point!"
Lenny sighed and stuck his head out the door. "The problem is if I don't disconnect the data core correctly, security protocols will activate, and it will completely erase the drive. If I can do all of that successfully and remove this core, then we’re stuck with only one and I’ve promised it to General Carmine."
"Then don't screw it up!" Henry shouted as he pushed Lenny back inside.
Henry pulled the pin from a grenade and tossed it towards a couple of wolves hiding behind an old pickup truck. He ducked beneath the arms of the rig for protection.
The wolves lunged for the grenade with their teeth and tried to bite at the metal object. The grenade detonated and an explosion of dust and debris filled the area.
Henry peered out from beneath the DT1131i and saw that nothing of the wolves remained.
"What in the hell was that?!" Lenny asked.
"Oh, nothing. I blew up a couple of wolves."
"Oh, that's good . . . wait . . . did you say wolves?"
Another gunshot reverberated off the broken rig, and a dead wolf fell from the broken machine. The wolf must have somehow got around Henry and climbed to the top of the rig, hoping to pounce on him. If it hadn't been for Rick, Henry would have had to fight the whole pack by himself. Henry looked back over his left shoulder and mouthed the words thank you to Rick.
The air swirled down into the large chasm carrying with it the scent of death. The scents twisted and swirled in a chaotic dance towards the colossal beast. The Beast flared its nostrils and breathed in the delectable scent.
They're here!
The Beast craned its long neck skyward to look up towards the opening of the chasm. The light from above barely shone upon its scarred and damaged face. It had used its power off and on over the last few days to heal itself. The healing had slowed as the power waned, and it hadn't fully mended the damage. The Beast used its power to pull energy from the earth to heal its damaged eye. The energy was slow to respond, but eventually the Beast's damaged eye started to lose the pale white film that had built up over it, and the blood red color once again returned to the iris that surrounded its pupil.
My sight is returning! The Beast smiled wickedly. It's time to destroy those humans!
The Beast drew in another deep breath to try to calm its racing heart. Every muscle in its body begged to charge up the chasm wall and climb to the opening high above.
Breathe.
The smell was intoxicating, and the Beast’s desire to destroy the humans grew with every beat of its massive heart. Small metallic popping sounds echoed down the manmade rent into its home. The Beast tilted its head to try to make out the unusual noise. A small creature yelped in pain, and the scent of blood made its way down, tickling its senses. The smell of fear, desperation, and blood hung delicately in the air, enticing the Beast to burst from its home. It shook its mighty head in protest, curbing its natural urges.
I have to wait.
The Beast looked eagerly towards the opening.
Let them believe they can come to my home, take whatever it is they have come here for, and feel they have triumphed against insurmountable odds. Then when the moment strikes, I shall rise, revealing myself, and bathe in their fear and hopelessness!
The Beast smiled its toothy grin as it imagined the terror the humans would feel when flames erupted out of the chasm, heralding their doom. The Beast’s tongue danced over its lips in delight. Then it sensed a small tremor in the ground from an explosion somewhere up above. It pulled its attention away from its imaginings as a flicker of fear crept into its heart.
Concerned, the Beast gazed inward, searching for the center of its power. The power pulsed within its chest as it always did. However, it was weak, barely enough to pull forth the power from the earth to protect it against any attacks from the humans. It would have to strike quickly so the humans could not wound it again.
What if they brought that exploding fire again?
That possibility did not sit well with the large beast. It carefully weighed the options before it. Gunfire continued to ring out overhead as the Beast pondered on what it should do.
Lenny did his best to remain calm while delicately working to remove the data core from the main hub in the control deck. The constant crackle of gunfire along with Henry's persistent nagging to hurry up didn't help Lenny’s nerves. Many times, he had to stop and reassess what he did to make sure he wasn't making any mistakes. Several lights blinked on the main console, which Lenny ignored. He'd been able to bypass many of the security protocols, which was promising. At one point, he had to hardwire his tablet into the data core to avoid the console from wiping the data core.
Lenny twisted another set of wires together to hardwire the security system to the fire maintenance system, which threw the two systems into an infinite loop. Lenny sighed in relief, then glance back towards the door hesitantly before he plugged his laptop into the main terminal, and started copying as much of the data as he could. Millions of bytes of data ran across the data port, transferring engineering specs, work logs, data readouts, videos, internal emails and more in a dizzying flash of lights across the fiber optic connection.
"Okay, now that I've got that done, I can start on the really difficult job—removing this stupid data core."
Something slammed into the side of the control deck and Lenny jumped.
"Can you try to keep it down out there!" Lenny yelled.
Lenny turned back to his work and pulled off the outside casing of the dat
a core. He removed the first panel where a myriad of wires and cables greeted him.
Oh, great! All I have to do is cut the wrong wire and everything’s erased. I doubt Perkins will still honor our deal if we bring him back a dead data core.
Lenny leaned in and cut the first wire.
Sweat dripped from his brow as he continued to work through the tangle of wires to remove the core. One wrong wire cut and the small device will emit an electrical discharge that would fry the core and destroy all the data within in. Lenny's hands trembled as he pulled apart the wires trying to find the correct one to cut. When he found it, he reached over and grabbed a pair of wire cutters from the desk and carefully clipped the wire. When he didn't hear the small electrical discharge from the core, he breathed out a sigh of relief. However, he had two remaining wires to find and cut before he could safely remove the core.
He wiped the sweat from his brow and glanced at the data that continued to transfer to his laptop. Something caught his eye, but it was gone in an instant. He dropped the wire cutters and swiped across the screen to find the video file he had just seen.
Unfortunately, the massive data transfer made it nearly impossible to get back to the file because it flashed files and other data across the laptop’s screen so quickly. He found the file, plugged in his ear buds and clicked play. The video was dated six months prior to the disaster in Ardmore and showed Mr. Perkins meeting with three other unknown individuals, a woman with black hair and a fancy red dress, a Japanese gentleman who wore a well-tailored charcoal suit and an elderly woman that looked like she had spent most of her whole life in a pickling jar.
“Are you sure it’s there?” The woman in red asked.
“According to Shanti’s research the village sits roughly near the creature’s last recorded location.” Mr. Perkins replied.
The elderly women nodded her head.
“And you’re sure we’d be able to control the creature once we capture it?” The well-tailored man asked.
His eyes opened wide as the scene continued to play out on the screen before him.
“Holy Shit! That rat bastard knew!” Lenny screamed.
Gunfire continued to rattle outside the control deck as Henry continued to ward off the onslaught of wolves.
Outraged, Lenny sat the laptop down, took a few calming breaths, made a mental note, and got back to work. Outside, Henry was shouting if he was finished yet.
The large alpha wolf darted behind a barrier to avoid the unseen buzzing things that the humans threw its way. The two-legged creatures were indeed deadly predators, ones that the large alpha had underestimated. The humans had already killed five wolves from its pack, and all the humans had done was point a part of its body at them and then some unseen buzzing thing flew out and struck.
What was worse was it had killed two others by throwing a small object that rolled beneath the feet of two of its pack-mates and exploded into a shower of dust; then the wolves were no more.
Frustrated and fearing the worst, the alpha male barked out an order for the remaining eight wolves to gather for one final run. The alpha’s blood boiled; it wanted to strike down this predator for killing its mates. Nothing else mattered anymore. Two males barked back, advising the alpha to retreat because this predator was too strong. The alpha snapped at one of them, which cowered to the ground, showing its subservience. It did not want to risk having to fight the larger alpha.
The alpha growled through clenched teeth, and the second gray wolf valiantly stood its ground, baring its teeth as well. It would not be cowed. The remaining wolves stood transfixed, looking back and forth between the two wolves, not certain who to show their allegiance to.
Gunfire rang out around them.
Neither male showed any signs of backing down. They were locked in a contest of wills, and sooner or later, one of them had to make a move to kill the other. If the gray wolf won, it would take the pack and flee, but if the alpha won, then it would utterly destroy the mutinous traitors. The muscles of the black alpha grew taut as it prepared to lunge towards the gray wolf. But before it did, a thunderous retort boomed in the air, and the gray’s side blossomed with a spray of red blood. Immediately after, the gray wolf collapsed to the ground dead.
Instantly, the alpha turned to the other wolves and barked out new orders. The remaining wolves did not dispute the alpha’s commands. They all turned and ran off into the hellfire of bullets as directed. The alpha slinked its way towards the two-legged predator while working to remain out of sight.
Rick fired at the wolves, which were making their way towards Henry and Lenny. He had never seen such bold wolves. These wolves didn't run and seemed more determined to reach Henry and Lenny when another of their own fell.
Jacobson sat in the all-terrain vehicle below, waiting for Rick to call him into action. At any moment, Rick could instruct him to rush in and retrieve the package or to rescue the team. While he waited, he ran the scanner making sure the sky was clear of the Beast. Luckily, nothing but the wolves had come up on the scanner. However, that worried Rick. He didn't know why, but the fact that the Beast had not shown up yet either meant they were extremely lucky, which he doubted, or the Beast had flown off somewhere else to lick its wounds, or something far worse.
Rick scanned the area for another target and curiously found a large gray wolf that stood behind one of the broken vans, partially exposed. The wolf stood there not moving, so Rick took the shot. The wolf crumpled.
"Do you see anything on the scanner?" Rick shouted down to Jacobson. “I find it hard to believe that the Beast’s not out there."
Rick spotted another one of the wolves making its way up on to the top of one of the rigs. He fired another shot, which glanced off the broken rig and narrowly missing wolf. The wolf jumped clear of the rig and Rick lost sight of the canine.
"Nothing’s showing up on the scanners. I don't see anything out of the ordinary on the weather scanner either.”
"Keep me posted if anything changes." Rick shouted as he fired the rifle again, finally taking down the gray that had eluded him.
Rick's comm clicked on with Jacobson on the line.
"What the hell!" Jacobson remarked.
"What is it?"
"You know how you wanted to know if anything changed?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I swapped over to the real-time satellite feeds that Lenny gave us access to. According to the thermal scans, the core temperature at the drilling site has risen fifteen degrees in the last five minutes."
Rick cursed under his breath.
"Get everything ready to move out. Prep and load up the heavy artillery. I think we're about to get one hell of a nasty party guest showing up."
Henry slammed another magazine into his M16 and fired at the oncoming wolves. They were relentless in their attempts to get close to him and Lenny. Except now, the wolves were being more cautious, staying behind broken rigs and vehicles instead of darting from place to place. Henry kept an eye out for the large alpha wolf. If he could take that one out, then maybe the others would flee.
"Lenny, are you done yet?" Henry shouted back towards the control deck.
"No, only one more wire . . . But I think I need to tell you—"
Gunshots drowned out Lenny's voice as Henry once again opened fire on a pair of wolves that had almost reached the edge of the viewing platform. Thankfully, there was only one direction in which the wolves could gain access to the platform because the chasm that the viewing platform was built over prevented them from coming up.
"What was that last part?" Henry shouted back.
"I was trying to tell you that I hotwired my laptop into the data core and initiated a data transfer. I've pulled as many files as I could. However, I found something . . . Something big, but I can't be certain of the authenticity of the file until after I disconnect the data core."
"Wait, I thought you said you couldn't transfer the data."
Lenny sighed. "Well, I couldn't transfer it by conve
ntional means, but I could with my laptop, which I planned to do in secret. But that voice in my head got the better of me after watching this video I found. So, yeah, I kind of lied and said I couldn't transfer it. However, Henry, I found a video that shows that Perkins knew this thing was here and he planned on trying to capture the damn thing."
“He was going to do what?”
“How about we make it out of here alive and I will let you watch it for yourself.”
“Sounds good.”
Henry tossed another grenade towards the rusted-out van where the large alpha had darted. The alpha dashed out from behind the van moments before the grenade detonated. The blast shattered the windows of the van as it flipped over rolling across the yard before coming to rest on its roof.
"Damn, that thing is smart!" Henry cursed.
Henry scanned the area again for the wolf as he yelled back to Lenny.
"I understand you are trying to cover your ass with General Carmine. But if you ever lie or keep something important like what you did with the data core from me again, you and I are going to have some words, and I might just punch you in the face."
The silence from the control deck made Henry smile. He could imagine Lenny sitting in the dimly lit room fidgeting as he tried to determine what to say.
Henry broke the silence. "Quit fretting like a little school girl and get the damn data core removed so we can signal Rick and Jacobson to come retrieve us."
A shot whizzed past Henry from Rick’s location and hit another of the smaller wolves. Henry had to wonder how many of the wolves still remained. He knew that they had taken down several already, yet they still attacked.
The Shadow Above The Flames Page 27