by Jonah Buck
Basically, she was about to hop inside a flying snack bar and use it to lure a giant monster straight toward a hostile warship. What could possibly go wrong?
“Ready.”
EIGHTEEN
TURBULENCE
The airplane rolled out of the hangar and onto the long, flat stretch of ice ahead of it. Denise sat in the rear seat, the Nitro Express propped straight up between her knees. She hoped she could just keep the gun there the whole time without ever having to lift it. Everything would go exactly according to plan, and the flyrannosaurus would follow them out to the coast without ever buzzing close enough to pose a real threat. They’d reach the coast, and the creature would break off to investigate the other humans. Denise would cut the hunks of meat free from the plane, if that helped direct the creature’s attention. She and Fletch would be safe as lambs the entire time.
That was the goal, at least. Denise had seen enough bad situations to know that things never went as planned, though. Never. That’s what the Nitro Express was for. She waved one last time to Cornelia and Metrodora as the plane moved down the ice away from the rest of the station.
Grimacing, she turned back around as the plane picked up speed. The engine’s putter turned into a roar, and they bounced and slewed their way forward. The katabatic winds had temporarily died down, but the movement of the plane meant that cold air kept blasting Denise in the face anyway. Her tinted goggles kept her eyes relatively safe from the buffeting winds, but even her facemask could only do so much to keep her warm. Before, she’d almost gotten used to the cold, or at least she’d come to accept it. Now that she’d had some time to warm up in the heated station, the cold was more savage than ever. It felt like tiny wolves with freezing teeth were biting her face and trying their best to tear her skin off. Everything prickled and hurt.
After gaining a bit more speed, the plane lurched up into the air. Fletch patted the controls like he was saying hello to a faithful dog.
“Everything’s working the way it should?” Denise asked. She had to yell over the wind and the sound of the plane’s engine.
“We’re good. It only needed a little maintenance after being left out in the cold for so long. Nothing a little elbow grease couldn’t make normal again.”
That was something, at least. It would be bad enough if some essential component gave out while they were still clawing their way into the freezing air. Plunging right back down to the ice in a blazing fireball would be unpleasant, but at least they’d die warm.
Unpleasant though a massive failure right now would be, there was at least a chance Fletch could divert course and limp back to the hangar. They wouldn’t have that option if the plane broke down while the monster was hot on their tails. They’d either be battered out of the air and crash, or they’d get sprayed with acid and get to watch their flesh melt off their bones before they hit the ice.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Denise said. The plane circled upward, banking around until it was high above the station. Looking down, Denise could see a couple of dots near the hangar. That must be Cornelia and Metrodora. There were a few more dots congregated around the far side of Merovée Station. They moved aimlessly between the buildings. From up here, Denise couldn’t tell if they were merely ghouls or more advanced insectoid horrors.
Still gaining altitude, the plane finished its long, slow return angle and flew the rest of the way over the station. They reached the rim of the impact crater after a few seconds.
Denise had trouble telling exactly how fast they were moving. The scale of everything from up high was so much different than when she was on the ground. There was no way to estimate just how much faster they would be moving than the flyrannosaurus. Hopefully, it would be enough to keep a comfortable distance between them the whole way.
When she first brought up her plan, Fletch said that it would be about a ten-minute flight from Merovée Station to the coast when they flew a direct route at maximum speed. Even if the French scout plane spotted them right now and tore back to Dagenais, that wouldn’t give them much time to prepare for what was coming.
Ten minutes out. Ten minutes back. Not even long enough for a lunch break. Then, Fletch would drop Denise off to wait for the ship. Once they contacted their rescue ship and gave the all clear, Fletch could bring people to the coast one at a time. Faster and safer than using their motor sledges to travel back.
Denise didn’t think Dagenais knew as much as she did about the creature. The research notes at Merovée Station indicated that none of the bug men had pupated to their final, horrible form yet. Even Benoit and his team seemed unaware of the creature’s existence. Its attack on the snow tractor had been the cue Dagenais needed to level Delambre Station without too many pesky questions about appropriateness afterward, but Denise didn’t think he had a clue what the thing was or the expertise to deal with it quickly. Hopefully, the French soldiers would be able to mortally wound it after it served its purpose. If it was still alive and kicking afterward, it would only make Denise’s plan more complicated.
Fletch steered across the chasm the fecal meteor’s impact had carved in the ice and started to circle around the entrance to the storage chamber where Denise had found the horse meat. Down below, Denise could see the wreckage of the cable car at the very bottom of the crater. There wasn’t much left. The car had been smashed and pulverized until it was barely recognizable. Swinging around again, Fletch kept the plane moving around in a tight circle high above the chamber entrance.
Nothing happened. Denise glanced around to the sides. She was pretty sure the creature was still inside the chamber, where it had retreated back to its trash heap nest after failing to eat herself and Metrodora, but it was possible that the monster had flown off while none of them were paying attention. She didn’t think that was likely, though. Its wings made a lot of noise when it went anywhere. She already knew they could hear it from inside the station when it flew past.
However, the last thing they needed was for the damn space monster to blindside them. There wasn’t any sign of it on the horizon, though.
Denise was still trying to wrap her head around the creatures. She suspected that no matter what Colonel Dagenais did, none of the research at these stations would ever make it into public hands. The French government would want to keep this to themselves. There wouldn’t be any scientific awards or public laurels for this project. They were dealing with genuine aliens.
Denise kept thinking of the creatures as flies now, but that wasn’t quite accurate. They were really just an example of convergent evolution. There were so many flies on Earth because they were efficient little pests. They fed on detritus and the planet’s inexhaustible supplies of filth and decay.
Somewhere deep out in the wild black yonder, something had followed a similar evolutionary trajectory. Only instead of being tiny, buzzing annoyances, the full-grown specimens were the size of freight cars and capable of hunting human-sized prey. It was like peering into an alternate world where the insects had come to dominate the planet instead of dinosaurs millions of years ago. Certain environmental niches would always be filled, and certain templates were apparently quite good for certain tasks, regardless of scale.
It did make Denise wonder just what had flown past Earth and brought the fly creatures here, though. The creature must have been huge, some sort of space-faring leviathan slithering through the uncharted depths of the solar system. It was both alarming and humbling to think there might be an ecosystem out there amid the darkness.
Her musings were interrupted when a gigantic head poked out of the chamber entrance below. The head didn’t need to swivel upward to see them. Its compound eyes took in everything around it.
“It’s down there,” Denise yelled.
“I see it,” Fletch yelled back. He maneuvered the plane around and started toward the coast, moving at a nice leisurely pace for the moment.
The flyrannosaurus emerged from its lair and stood in the bright sunlight. It used its
front legs to clean its head. The creature’s movements were fast and jerky. Every movement it made looked like a film that was being cranked too quickly.
A second later, those huge, translucent wings unfurled from the creature’s back and started to beat at the air. As it gained lift off, Denise could hear the growing buzzing sound filling the air. The flyrannosaurus tucked its legs up under its body and straightened its tail out, reducing drag to a bare minimum.
Then, it was after them.
Denise blinked in surprise. The creature moved fast. Damn fast. It came up toward them like someone had fired it out of a cannon. “Fletch, go.”
Fletch glanced back at the creature and set the throttle to maximum. The plane surged forward through the air, and Denise felt an invisible hand squeeze her stomach. The force of the wind increased until it was like she was trying to shove her way through a tornado. All around her, the airplane’s frame rattled and squeaked as Fletch pushed it toward its limits.
Forcing herself around, Denise looked for the flyrannosaurus. It was coming up behind them, rising like a shark about to seize a seal from below. Denise pulled the Nitro Express from up between her knees and swung it around.
This might have been a big mistake.
They were already out past Merovée Station, eating up the distance. From up here, Denise could even see the ocean and its glistening white icebergs. However, they just weren’t going fast enough. The creature was gaining on them as it rose up to meet them.
“We’ve got a problem,” Denise said.
“I’m working on it.”
Denise twisted and swung the Nitro Express around to try to get a bead on the creature rushing toward them. She had to resist the nearly overpowering urge to pull the trigger right away, though. She felt like a sitting duck just watching the monster approach, but she knew she had virtually no chance of hitting it from this far out. She’d just be wasting her ammunition.
“Look up ahead,” Fletch said.
Denise swiveled back around and saw something on the horizon flying toward them from the front at a lower altitude. Was there a second creature? Had she somehow not realized that there was already more than one of the monstrosities loose on the continent? If there were two of the creatures ready to box them in, they were well and truly screwed.
It took Denise a second to focus her eyes, but the dark speck moving toward them wasn’t another monster. It was the French scout plane.
The pilot must have realized what he was seeing in front of him at roughly the same time, because the plane started to bank and turn around back in the direction of Delambre Station and the cruiser. He’d been cruising at a casual pace, probably watching in case Denise and her team tried to slip back toward the coast on motor sledges. The hasty effort to turn around only slowed the scout plane down even more.
However, the sound of the creature’s wings was a steady gale of noise now, like a rumble of thunder that simply refused to end. The flyrannosaurus had nearly caught up to them now. Denise started to bring her Nitro Express around to aim again.
“Hold on to something,” Fletch shouted over the noise of the engine and the creature’s approach. Denise tucked the elephant gun back inside the cabin just before Fletch pushed the controls down.
The plane lurched into a steep dive, threatening to pluck Denise out of her seat and send her tumbling through the air toward the ground below. Her stomach rose up to the base of her throat and tied itself in a knot.
The plunge toward the earth built up the plane’s speed up, letting the engine and gravity work together. Where the creature had been right behind and below them before, now it was above them and considerably further away. A second later, it realized its prey was trying to escape and it threw itself toward the earth as well.
Fletch touched the controls and brought the plane out of its dive. Denise’s stomach went from the base of her throat to somewhere around her knees as gravity reasserted itself with a vengeance. She could feel the pull of the earth in her bones, like it was sucking them in. The plane levelled out and continued forward, and the feeling disappeared.
The big burst of speed had put them slightly ahead of the French scout plane, which was still gathering steam. The French plane was built for speed and maneuverability so it could survive its various outings in a war zone. Eventually, it would outrun the larger research plane.
However, the scout pilot didn’t have until eventually. The flyrannosaurus came down almost directly on top of him, like an owl swooping down on a mouse. Its legs extended out from its body and latched onto the scout plane.
A claw crunched down on the left wing, first crushing it and then ripping it away entirely. Another claw sank into the fuselage, piercing the thin material. Pieces of cloth and metal rained down to the ground below. The plane’s tail snapped away as the flyrannosaurus grasped at the wreckage.
Pulling the plane up to its head, it hacked a gob of vile jelly out onto the pilot. Denise couldn’t hear any of what was happening over the sound of the creature’s beating wings and the wind, and for that, she was grateful. She could see the man flailing for a moment, trying to crawl out of his seat in the wrecked plane. His arm fell off and sailed out into the abyss before he could leverage himself up and out, though. A second later, it looked like his entire form sort of collapsed in on itself, like a piece of paper crumpling as it burned. The flyrannosaurus stuck its proboscis down into the mess and sucked it all up while it was still moving. When everything had been slurped up a few seconds later, it dropped the crippled plane, which fell back toward the earth.
That maneuver had bought Fletch and Denise some space, but it wasn’t enough. The flyrannosaurus barely even slowed down to kill and devour the French pilot. Now, it had locked onto the remaining plane again.
Denise watched as the creature tucked its legs back into their most aerodynamic position, and it started gaining on them again. She cursed and looked toward the front of the plane. They were over halfway to the coast now, but she wasn’t sure they could make it before the flyrannosaurus caught up with them. The plane had lost about half its original altitude, which meant that Fletch could make another dive for one more quick speed boost. After that though, they’d be skimming the ice. Gaining altitude again would only slow them down and make them easier to snatch.
The pieces of horsemeat smacked against the plane’s skin as they flew. Denise had thought that they might need a scent trail to help lure the creature along behind them, especially if they got too far ahead. It didn’t look like that was going to be a big problem. She leaned as far out of the plane as she dared and cut one of the lengths of twine anchoring the meat to the side of the plane. The slab of meat plunged away from them and landed far below, creating a small explosion of horse jam. She repeated the process on all the lengths of twine she could reach, lightening the load ever so slightly.
She felt like a sailor on a doomed ship throwing furniture and cargo overboard as the water threatened to swamp them. The pieces of horse meat were dead weight, but the real problem was simply that the monster was too fast for their airplane. They’d had a head start, and Fletch’s maneuvering had bought them some time, but it was like some nightmare version of a fifth-grade math problem. If a plane leaves the station going one hundred fifty miles per hour, and a monster leaves the station a minute later going on hundred sixty miles per hour, how long until the plane’s occupants are eaten alive like screaming soup? Right now, it wasn’t a question of if the creature would catch up to them; it was a matter of when.
Denise swung her elephant gun around and fired at the fast-approaching creature. She could actually feel the plane jilt a little in the air from the gun’s recoil. The monster didn’t slow down. She couldn’t even tell if she’d managed to land a hit on it. The Nitro Express had blown off a couple of its claws earlier, but its armor was probably fairly weak there. She had no idea if the elephant gun could even penetrate where the creature’s plating was thicker.
She fired again anyway, hopin
g for a lucky shot. Screw her original plan of luring the thing out to Dagenais. They weren’t going to make it that far at this rate. If she actually managed to down the creature somehow, they’d fly back and try to take the motor sledges overland to safety. The French scout plane was gone now, so Dagenais had lost his eyes in the sky. Maybe they could do it.
Her second shot didn’t do any noticeable damage either. She couldn’t even tell if it connected. The monster didn’t slow down or jerk in the air. It only continued to draw closer.
She loaded two more rounds into the Nitro Express and snapped it closed. There wouldn’t be too many more opportunities to fire at the creature before it caught up to them. She wanted to save her next shot until it was close enough that she could aim for the monster’s eyes. Just about every other part of its body was covered in iridescent chitin. Those bulging eyes were her best targets at this point.
“I’m going to try something,” Fletch shouted.
“You better try it fast.” Denise turned back around and looked at the creature again. She could practically spit at it now.
“Okay. Hold on tight.” Fletch jerked the stick straight back, and the plane shot upward. Denise suddenly found her back to the ground as the plane went vertical. The gravitational forces at work made her vision swim for a second. It was like being strapped into a ride built by mad carny geniuses, and the contraption was trying to break free from its restraints to attack the authors of its misbegotten existence.
The sudden ascent dramatically slowed them down, but it had happened too quickly for the flyrannosaurus to snatch them out of the sky. Momentum sent the creature barreling ahead before it could change course. It slowed, turned around, and buzzed upward, heading straight for them again.