Dawn of the Giantess (Volume 4)

By Richard C.H. Davies

This story contains: Giantess, giantess attack, military

Sunlight glinted off the deck of the 280m long aircraft carrier, Queen Elizabeth II, as she floated in her mooring at Portsmouth harbour.

She had recently returned from an extended voyage of sea trials with the new F35 Lighting Joint Strike Fighters. They were part of the Squadron 617 Dambusters.

A pair of Marine Squadron F35Bs, also known as VMFA-211, or the Wake Island Avengers, were also taxiing to the side of the launch deck. They had been attached to the British aircraft carrier as part of a joint ally exercise from their home base Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona.

A cluster of seamen and women were jogging circuits around the flight deck.

A beacon flashed near the main primary control tower and a klaxon sounded, all heads looked towards the tower. Protection was being cleared from two F35 Lightning aircraft, their pilots were jogging over, helmets clasped in their hands.

They were soon strapping into the aircraft as ground crews were finalising the preparation for the scramble take-off. Their orders were simple, full speed to intercept, super-sonic permitted, identify the reported sighting and report for further orders.

They hadn’t had an opportunity to assess the threat and make a judgement on their weapon loadout so they were armed with two air to air missiles and a suite of air to sea missiles.

Helicopters in the background were being loaded out with torpedoes.

The engine room increased the power to the aircraft carrier propellers, a standard procedure in heightened warning order situations.

Within minutes the two F35B’s were casting a shadow over the sea as they jetted off the carrier, banking hard in a curving arc, climbing steeply and briefly.

Observers at the National Maritime Museum watched, hands covering their foreheads shielding their eyes from the sun, as they saw the fighters very loudly scrambling from the aircraft carrier.

The two aircraft levelled out and then the pilots applied full throttle.

The flightsuits took some of the G-force but they could feel the crushing power as the Pratt and Whitney turbofan engine roared.

The fighters skipped through the air towards their target.

*

Call sign ‘Black Knight’ gently yawed to the right, the airspeed was at maximum as all four engines propelled the E-3D Sentry closer to the target, towards the Isles of Scilly.

Black Knight had been 190 kilometres away from the target, out on patrol in the Atlantic, but the Airborne Warning And Control System (AWACS) aircraft had picked up the radar anomaly at that range.

Black Knight had sent over the data to RAF command and they had received similar, less accurately placed sighting from various civilian seafaring vessels. The coastguard had been deployed and had also sent over information.

The information was conflicting, there were reports of a giant hairy whale, or a huge walrus. Or other reports stated perhaps it was a giant swimming bear or a mermaid.  Some kind of extra-terrestrial others had claimed.

Now after ten minutes at its maximum airspeed Black Knight had cut that range down significantly, the radar operator was able to get a much more accurate location.

The Sentry was able to pick out a floating object in the sea from over one hundred miles away on a good day. This anomaly was much more than random flotsam. There was also evidence that it was moving much more quickly than floating debris would be if it was just bobbing about or even when it was carried by the strong currents of the sea.

Black Knight’s accurate location was transmitted to the two F-35B’s. They were also highlighted on the radar display, two blue icons demonstrating the friendly status.

Various other civilian aircraft littered the sky, but were now starting to be turned away by the RAF, Royal Navy, Army air force, coastguard and civilian air traffic control. Part of the AWACs crew’s role was to assist in coordinating the clear airspace.

Lastly they were keeping an eye on a pair of red icons that were tittering on the edge of the 400 mile effective range of the AWACs radar. They had unidentified IFFs; but from the profile, speed, size and general approach they were easily recognisable to the seasoned crew as Russian Tupolev TU-142s.

Russian military aircraft were usually probing and pushing the boundaries of the invisible UK or Commonwealth borders somewhere on Earth, particularly around Britain. This in itself was not an uncommon occurrence; however this pair of TU-142s was lingering with apparent interest.

It wasn’t clear whether they were interested in the scrambled launch of the F-35B’s, the sudden change in direction and full- speed angular approach of Black Knight, the presence of several RAF Eurofighter Typhoons that were also jetting across from mainland England, or the immediate and combined re-direction of all civilian air traffic, perhaps it was all of the above.

Either way Black Knight received its instructions from command, new orders were to direct two of the Typhoon’s onto an intercept course with the TU-142s. Further to this they were to direct the F-35’s accurately to intercept the anomaly in the sea, continue to track and record the direction of travel of the anomaly and also importantly track for any other potential threats.

They were also being ordered to direct the upcoming and deploying military task groups as well as they became combat ready.

*

Within seven minutes the F35’s were tens of kilometres away and at over Mach 1.6, the choppy sea was a blur over to their sides.

The rear fighter dropped its airspeed right down and maintained altitude, keeping air cover above its wingman, the lead fighter had dropped down to several hundred metres above sea level and dropped airspeed to a third.

Captain Conroy was the pilot of the lead F35. He was slightly bemused at the radar signal he was receiving.

It was perhaps not a clear picture of what was happening, but it appeared to him to be a large solid mound bobbing up and down in the sea, it was moving quite regularly, but it also seemed to be moving faster than any flotsam.

Black Knight had sent over data but it was unclear to the Captain as to what to expect. They had been told to ignore the civilian reports for accuracy. His on- board VI computer was not making much sense out of the data either.

He rotated his joystick slightly, tilting the fighter, banking the left wing to point down at the sea to grant him with a better view, his fuselage camera was automatically auto tracking the target, the dark blob was visible in the distance and his plane was thundering towards it. He couldn’t rely on visual identification at this time, on a clear day the sea, sky, sun and horizon could all play tricks with human vision.

Sea rushed past at a tremendous speed, he continued to reduce speed, easing back the throttle as he neared the target.

His fighter shot past the dark object, still at relatively high speed, his heart was beating hard in his chest.

He blinked a few times, recalling the image, of what he had just glimpsed, in his head.

It was utterly impossible. He shook his head slightly, opened his eyes wide and blinked several times more. What he had seen, or what his brain had put together, didn’t make sense.

He banked to the right and accelerated.

“Zero-Alpha, this is Echo One, target sighted, over,” he recorded on his tight beam radio.

There was a slight crackle of the other channel opening from Black Knight.

“Echo One, this is Zero-Alpha, confirm target description over,”

“I am struggling to describe the target. It is a moving mound, it looks like a large rock with dark wet seaweed or hair trailing behind, over,”

There was a pause for a few seconds.

“Echo-One, say again, Over?”

“Zero-Alpha I am going in for another visual, unable to identify the object. It was moving, it was a moving mound. It appeared to be moving up and down and also forwards.”

He blinked recalling the image in his head, his brain was trying to process it.

“It looked like a large moving animal, with dark wet hair trailing behind, I could see large eyes, over,”

“Roger Echo-One, keep the channel open and describe as you approach, send through snapshot images as you make your approach, follow with video footage, over,”

“Echo-One Roger, over,” the Captain responded.

“Echo-Two maintain air cover, over,” Black Knight, as the tactical air coordinator, instructed.

“Echo-Two roger, over,” the other F-35 maintained its aerial vigil.

Captain Conroy was struggling to comprehend and process what he had seen.

He had been trained to rapidly process information, inputs and outputs and respond accordingly, but what he had seen was not registering in his brain.

He hadn’t said it but it looked like it was the top of a giant human head, but that was surely impossible. That was what had been confusing him.

Whatever it was, it looked alive. There was a pretty intense look on those eyes, the look kept repeating in his mind.

He started to think about various aquatic mammals, it reminded him of a large walrus but with much longer hair.

No, it wasn’t shaped like a walrus. It was much bigger than any walrus. It looked nothing like a whale, he had seen plenty of those, including basking sharks…

Why would it even be here?

He had gained enough distance, executing a tight turn and pointing his nose back in the direction he had come from. His fighter was now back on another intercept path with the moving unidentified object.

He dropped speed significantly as he flew towards the object, in the corner of his eye he noted the video cam picking up the object and recording.

He fixed his gaze on it directly, it was bobbing up and down, as if it was… swimming… the object turned to look directly at his aircraft as it approached.

It had long dark hair, and dark eyebrows and eyes… human eyes… staring directly at him, a long nose below, and his F-35 thundered past again, leaving it behind.

His heart was racing in his chest.

It had looked directly at him, the stare had sent a chill through him.

It had intelligence and focus about it.

It looked like a huge human head and face.

But that was impossible. It was definitely a living thing… was it… an alien?

He clicked send on the images. Then started the submission of the video file.

“This is Echo-One, visible contact made, it appears to be living, it looks like a giant human head, I have not ever seen anything like this before, I have sent over reconnaissance images, over,”

“Zero-Alpha Received, await further instructions, do not make further contact, hold position, out.” Black Knight closed the channel.

“Echo-One, did you say human head, over?” his wingman asked from above.

“Roger, human head, giant human head, it’s swimming, I could see a set of giant shoulders beneath the water, over,” his wingman didn’t reply, he was absorbing that information.

He was either thinking that Captain Conroy had lost his mind or was wondering what the hell was going on, whether this was some kind of strange training exercise.

“Hello Echo-One, this is Zero-Alpha, slowly approach target with VTOL and record images and video,” he noticed the object on his radar display had been switched to red by Black Knight, they were now designating it as hostile or potentially hostile. “do not engage the target, do not close more than one hundred metres range, record visuals and report, over,”

“Roger Zero-Alpha, Echo-One, Out.” The F-35’s were VTOL capable (Vertical Take Off and Landing), they had the uncanny ability to hover in mid- air with reliable stability. A technology inherited from the Harrier Jump Jet.

He spotted incoming Typhoons on the edge of his radar, they were jetting at a much faster speed than his F-35 was capable of and closing on his position.

Another pair of Typhoons were presumably already intercepting and turning away the waspish TU-142s. He knew they were out there to the south east, but they had left his effective radar range.

The carrier Queen Elizabeth was reporting that she was launching a further two F-35s to provide aerial support.

Two Royal Marine helicopters were also being reported as being prepared, he caught it over the general chatter.

He turned the F-35 in a tight wheel, his heart thudding in his chest as he approached the target again.

He really didn’t know what to think right now. He wondered whether he should engage his weapons. They were only a flick away.

The two Typhoon’s roared past over his left shoulder, causing him to jump slightly.

He had known they were approaching, and he wasn’t the jumpy type, but his nerves felt fragile all of a sudden. His brain was still processing what he had seen and thinking about what he should expect.

The delta wings of the Typhoons glinted in the sunlight, armed to the teeth, studded with several air to air and air to ground and sea missiles. They thundered away, banked hard and undertook their own flypast.

Damn RAF flyboys were going to get no useful data at those speeds and they were just going to piss it right off; whatever it was. Then he was getting sent to hover nearby, great thinking Black Knight, he grimaced.

Captain Conroy focused on his task, he could feel sweat building up on his spine, he felt hot, it felt like a prickly heat. It was probably the adrenaline and anticipation mounting on him.

He closed to a kilometre and then adjusted the throttle to slow the speed right down, the huge turbine engine rotated to engage in vertical thrust, enabling him to hover above the sea and gradually approach the object under a very controlled speed.

The giant head, it definitely was a giant head, was bobbing up and down and gradually approaching. It was looking directly at him, he felt his blood chilling again. It was a terrifying predatory stare. It looked female.

The head continued to bob up and down, the huge shoulders now visible above the waterline, themselves rotating… it was a giant woman’s head. She was swimming breaststroke; he could see her feet kick out behind, a huge hundred foot splash of water behind every so often.

He swallowed hard. This was impossible.

He switched his weapon system to engage, the tracking to target told him she was three hundred metres away and closing.

His fighter continued to tremble under the vertical thrust, he goosed the throttle slightly to bring him closer to the moving object and then settled the plane down. He tilted the nose of his plane slightly downwards.

He closed to one hundred and fifty metres, continuing to record with the fuselage video camera.

The giant head paused, looked directly up at him, it started rising out of the water. He looked in amazement through the cockpit glazing, water reflecting off her giant face, it emerged, he could see the detail of her face, her nose and giant mouth.

Her eyes were directed right at him, not just the plane, his cockpit… him…

He clutched the throttle until his knuckle grew white.

“Zero-Alpha, are you seeing this, over?” He asked over the radio, his voice trembling, his heart thumping in his chest. He felt like he was a child, imagining how he would have felt if he had come face to face with a fairy or Santa… except this was a fucking giant person.

“Roger, Echo-One, we are seeing very clearly, await instructions, maintain safe distance, do not engage, over,”

The giant mouth opened, she was saying something, he focused intensely. It looked like she was mouthing ‘go away’ repeatedly.

A wave of water appeared and he saw a blur as a giant hand emerged from the water, it thrust upwards, it was too far away to be a threat, but what he hadn’t considered was the airborne wave of water that the giant cupped hand had just tossed in his direction.

“Move clear Echo-One,” Echo Two warned, he was already gunning the throttle and banking away. The wave covered his aircraft.

Water splashed over the cockpit, fuselage and wings.

He pushed the throttle forwards, turning away from the giant head.

His chest tightened as he felt, then heard, the large turbine engine splutter.

His wingtips wobbled uncontrollably as the turbine struggled to process the sudden influx of water. It was designed to withstand waves, being a carrier- borne aircraft, but it was not advisable. It was supposed to be resilient to spray rather than actual waves. Every technology had a working limit and threshold.

He gently eased off the throttle, the fighter dropped slightly in the air. The engine spluttered further, choked, and then he increased power again, reverting back to horizontal flight. The engine seemed to recover and allowed him to jet away clear.

The turbine turned the water into vapour and two coils of mist and vapour trails followed his fighter for a few hundred metres as he sped away, clearing himself from the potential threat.

The last thing he wanted was to be the first in the Royal Navy to lose a new F35 and also ditch down in the sea near to this giant creature.

“Echo-One, report, over,” Control interjected.

“Zero-Alpha, Echo-One, contact, the giant… creature tossed a big wave of water at me, I had to fly clear, I will return to approach, over,”

“Negative Echo-One, maintain one kilometre perimeter from target and hold position, undertake a full system check, if there are any risks return to Zero-Alpha-Charlie, out.”

Captain Conroy eased the throttle forwards and clicked to run a full systems diagnostics, it was an automatic system which could run in the background with the flight systems continuing to operate but it was not advisable to run the checks during combat.

He banked into a wide arc and activated the autopilot to hold the arc for a kilometre diameter perimeter around the moving target at his current altitude, maintaining visual contact, and allowed the system to run its avionics, weapons and systems checks.

He glanced up through the glazed cockpit canopy, his wingman was up there in the sky at a much higher altitude but within a few seconds of striking range.

He kept flicking his eyes back to the radar display to check that no further intruders had appeared.

He also caught several glints of sunlight on metal as the pair of RAF Typhoons flashed at high altitude on their new patrol route. They were holding air superiority with top air cover above the F-35s and the giant target.

He glanced back at the progress of the giant head and large pink shoulders, it continued to bob up and down as the giant body swam through the water.

He checked his GPS display and the on-board computer’s calculation of her progress and current line of movement. She must have been using the sun to navigate, somehow she was strong enough to resist the currents of the water. She was heading almost directly for Land’s End in Cornwall.

At her rate of progress she would be there within an hour.

His radio came to life in his helmet earpieces. "Echo flight, Echo-Three and Echo-Four are joining you on patrol. Maintain your distance at one kilometre from the target. Whisky-Hotel-One and Whisky-Hotel-Two are en route, await further orders, out."

Two more Joint Strike fighters were joining them from his squadron and WH-1 and 2 were tactical marine helicopters. It sounded like they were fully laden with marines.

He also noted in the general chatter that a Type 45 Destroyer and Type 23 frigate from the Queen Elizabeth Carrier Strike Group were being tasked to sail on a high speed intercept with the swimming phenomenon.

*

Detective Peterson held his phone out in front of him, he had put it on speaker so that Dawson could hear. They couldn't believe what they were hearing from their contact in the RAF.

A giant human looking head had been spotted in the water leaving the Island and heading towards mainland England's south west coast.

A number of fighter aircraft had undertaken flypasts and visually confirmed that it appeared to be a giant human woman.

There appeared, quite rightly, to be a huge amount of confusion as to how to deal with the situation.

"Okay," Peterson finally replied. "Now that I'm on the Island let me know if there are any other sightings or developments."

He hung up the phone after the conversation and winced as a pair of Typhoon fighter aircraft boomed past overhead. They were on the verge of breaking the sound barrier.

He frowned as his eyes followed their trails. Their delta wings flashed in the afternoon sun, light grey arrow shapes in the sky, as they headed for the horizon.

The thin wings and tail were barely visible just two bright spots where their turbine engines were blaring away.

This was no joking matter; the British military was taking it all very seriously. They were scrambling fighter jets and, he had been told, the most aircraft being mobilised and airborne since the Cold War.

Peterson was certain that the appearance of this giant woman was directly linked to the mysterious organisation that he had been hunting for years and to their more recent hunt for the missing Miss Katie Reed.

The giant woman was heading away from the Isle of Scilly, where he now was.

Peterson didn't believe in coincidences. Something had happened merely hours before he and his team had set foot on the Island.

He also wouldn't have believed in the scientific possibility of a giant woman, had he not already witnessed the organisation's ability and technology to shrink humans.

He knew that Doctor Cook must have a facility here on this island somewhere.

The RAF were currently undertaking a full audit of their GPS imagery and visually and digitally combing the island.

This giant woman had just appeared from nowhere; it seemed. It surely couldn't take them long to locate the organisations' base now that they knew it was here somewhere.

Dawson was talking to the Sergeant of the local police force; Sergeant Daily. They were now crowded around the bonnet of the Sergeant's marked Land Rover.

They had a tablet screen out and were using 4G to review aerial maps of the Island.

"I can only think of two places. Mile End farm and the Johnson farm; well it used to be called that before his family sold it. Both of those estates keep to themselves and people don't really know what goes on at either of them. They don't have public footpaths through them, so there isn't much local gossip about them."

"Can you show me both on the map," Dawson asked the Sergeant.

He scrolled over to show them Mile End Farm on the touchscreen. There was livestock and various farm buildings visible. Not much to speak of.

Then he looked at 'Johnson's' farm.

It was a large estate house and some other cottages nearby on the same estate. A bit further along there was a mound of grass with what seemed to be a large barn doors on it.

There was a wide tarmac road leading from this, along a road which was carved through the estate leading to the cast iron gate entrance. This road then led to the coast where there was a decked harbour.

"That looks like a new road, looks very fancy for a farm don't you think? Since when do farms need a dock on the coast? ... for fishing?" Dawson enquired.

"I've never noticed that,” Daily furrowed his eyebrows, peering closely at the tablet. “Not that I look on aerial photos much. They must have constructed that a few years ago. I don't remember the dock being there. I recall there was a large amount of construction plant shipped in. They were extending the basement or something and they said that they were doing some flood alleviation works."

"I can't see the flood alleviation work on these photos, but I can see a smart looking operation," Sergeant Harvey commented pointing at the long and wide tarmac road and a large number of solar panels on fields surrounding the main estate house.

One of the large roads led up to the large mound of grass. They could see the contours on the aerial image.

They tried zooming in but the image became a blur.

Dawson zoomed out again and they scrutinised the image.

"Time to pay them a visit I think," he stated looking up at the others. He glanced over at the local Sergeant’s land rover and then back at him.

"Do you mind if you take us there?"

"Sure I'll try and fit it in with my busy schedule of helping farmers herd cattle on the road… or finding moggy the lost cat," they all chuckled.

"Well we wouldn't want to disturb your busy schedule," Dawson smirked.

"We joke at the station and sometimes say that we would kill for there to be a murder on this island. Just the one murder, mind..." Sergeant Daily grinned, the others smiled but their smiles soon died when they saw Peterson's sober expression and his very tired eyes looking at the aerial photos again.

"If what I think is there, is actually there I think you will be wishing for just the one murder. Let's go. While we're on the way I think we should put a call into the local Building Control and Planning departments and see if this house has any drawings for these ‘so called’ construction works."

*

They arrived at one of the cast iron gates, sided by a large perimeter fence. But the gate had been left open, but what was of interest was that the left leaf gate had been bent outwards. Something incredibly powerful must have caused that.

A quick examination showed no foreign metal marks or signs of a vehicle impact. They swiftly continued up the road. Soon they could see several vehicles strewn on the side of the road.

They were logistics trucks.

One of them had been snapped entirely in half.

Another truck was lying on its side nearby. It looked like one had collided with the other, but at very high speed or power.

As they proceeded along there were further vehicles that had been smashed up, it was starting to look post-apocalyptic. There was nobody around and a quick check confirmed that they were all absent of human life.

Peterson started to suspect that they were witnessing the aftermath of an angry giant woman. Two vehicles were lying together by the entrance to the large hangar structure. The grass was scorched around them. They were charred. They had been burning. Then they started to see human bodies.

There were still some flames flickering over them but not enough to create much smoke.

Perhaps the Typhoons hadn't spotted all of this from the air yet.

Peterson glanced at the hanger sized opening. To either side there was a sloping mound of grass which covered the entrance and masked it from the air from all but a few angles.

One of the giant hangar sized doors had been ripped off and was several metres away. The other was hanging from a single remaining hinge and severely twisted. He suspected the giant woman was the culprit.

She was clearly extremely strong.

He felt a shiver run up his spine. He wouldn't want to be face-to-face with her when she was angry.

There were quite a few dead bodies near the entrance, they were dressed in tactical gear and weapons were scattered around them. They were all wearing the same type of tactical gear, no evidence of bodies from the other side of the engagement.

"Thinking we might be a bit out of our depth right about now?" Dawson asked from his side, breaking the stunned silence between all four of them.

Peterson glanced at his partner briefly, his eye bags were casting dark rings under his eyes, he felt brutally tired. He rubbed his eyes.

Dawson had a wry smile on his face. He always seemed to be able to read Peterson's mind.

"Yes I was actually," he looked around them, unsure of where to start.

The smell of diesel fuel and burnt metal was pungent in the air, there was a crackling sound from the small fires on the vehicles.

Fighter aircraft rumbled in the distance; like a rolling thunderstorm.

"Time to call in the cavalry I think," Peterson murmured.