Rick Hauser spoke aloud what everyone thought: “Oh shit.”

A sound other than engines and shouts filtered in through the glass windows of the observation lounge: the base’s air raid klaxon springing to life in a wail of warning.

Casey Fink’s dry sense of humor surfaced for the first time in days: “Sounds like another nitpick.”

Trevor pointed through the big windows and said, “Here they come.”

A plume of exhaust on the distant perimeter of the base announced the launching of a Patriot missile. More plumes joined the first and reached into the white clouds drifting overhead. Explosions rocked the heavens; the flashes created lightning in a peaceful sky.

Voggoth’s bombers dipped below the clouds and flew toward the heart of McConnell. Like all of The Order’s weapons of war, these things appeared one part machine, one part animal. In this case the bodies resembled hammerhead sharks but without eyes and several times the size. The gray bodies ended not in a fin but in a point. Openings like gills lined the rear quarter from which slipped streams of white air like a kind of jet engine. Atop the bodies stretched a mechanical frame supporting pinkish fixed wings made from a fleshy material.

The phalanx of 12 flying abominations made no sound as they swooped over the target at speeds approaching 300 miles per hour.

Casey said, “Christ, they’re going straight for the air strip.”

As the lead flyer reached a point above one of the main runways, its entire body bulged like a water balloon filled from a fire hose-and then the entire flying contraption popped into pieces. Flakes of the outer skin and the wings fluttered in the wind while a payload of spherical ordnance-hundreds of black balls-fell from the sky having been released from the innards of the disintegrating thing.

As they fell, the group of balls spread like shotgun shot. Each impacted and exploded in a blast of concussion. Trevor saw waves of energy ripple through the air. The windows in the lounge bent and wobbled.