From our distance, the centipede was a worm unfurled over the ground. It was only after I oriented myself that I realized the monster was probably close to two miles in length. And that the “ground” was charred and shredded remains of Pendervale’s business district. The first quarter of its body stood erect like a rearing cobra, long whiskers flailing loosely in the wind.

Our wings shuddered as the pilot fought against the hurricane whirlpooling its way into the centipede’s mouth. The thrum of the turbines keeping us in a stable orbit mostly drowned out the distant scream of the bug as it swallowed the sky through its razorblade maw.

We hugged the underbelly of a cumulonimbus as it was slowly whipped into the cyclone. Out my porthole, I caught a glimpse of the other jets, flying in loose formation around us.

“Deploying demons,” a voice spoke in the main communication channel.

The bellies of the jets opened, and little paratroopers began tumbling out, snapping the extensions of their flight packs to their full length as they dropped.

The swirling winds caught them, and they were slipped into the gale we were all riding.

“What’s going on?” a voice asked in my ear.

As our jet rounded a curve, I caught a view of them behind us. The demons were veering away. Slipping out of the current and climbing into the clouds for cover.

“They’re running away.”

My mother pressed a hand to her ear.

“Hey!” she demanded. “You have to listen to me, remember. Go fight that centipede.”

A new voice chimed into the channel. I recognized it as Michael.

“Finally got this thing working. Listen. Sally. We can’t get close to a hungry centipede. It’ll eat us alive.”

My mother’s brow furrowed as she harshened her tone.

“You have shields and flight packs and guns. You can do this.”

“You don’t understand. We physically can’t.”

“I have a gun with me right now,” she said.

I looked her over and saw that there was, in fact, a small laser pistol clipped to her waist.

“If you won’t help me save this planet, I will shoot myself with it.”

The line was silent. I knew it was just my mother using her threats to goad the demons forward, but was still upsetting to hear her threatening to harm herself.

Especially knowing how my dad had died.

The line was silent for a time.

“Fine,” Michael grumbled, barely audible.

Out my window, radish demons reassembled, lassoed back into formation by her words. They rode the current of the spiraling wind rather than fight it, gently descending toward the centipede. More demons with flight packs blinked into existence around them. Holograms. They were hiding themselves with numbers.

Soon, a swarm of a hundred demons was looping down toward the centipede. My guts shifted in my abdomen as we dropped our altitude to maintain a view of the attack. The turbines on our aircraft growled louder with the strain of fighting the vacuum outside.

A pair of fighter jets peeled off from our formation, diving toward the belly of the beast. They spewed bullets and unloaded a quartet of rockets, which whistled through the air and splattered smoke and fire harmlessly over the body of the bug. We’d known the artillery wouldn’t hurt the centipede. This was just a maneuver to pull its attention away from the demons.

Payload released, the fighters curved hard out of their steep descent, aluminum frames protesting the effort to fight gravity and the suctioning power of the centipede.

A whisker tendril snapped up, extending farther than should’ve been possible, and slashed through the triangle wing of the second aircraft, sending the plane and pilot tumbling downward in a jet fuel inferno.

One plane down, four still in the air.

Plus, a horde of flight-capable demons poised to attack at any moment.

Except they weren’t.

The formation of demons and holograms was growing looser as they approached. Demons peeled off the group and trailed away. Circling, but not approaching. Like an asteroid shedding chips and flakes of its bulk as it crashed through the atmosphere, our fighting force began to collapse as it approached.

A few swooped low and flew close enough to take potshots at the behemothian frame of the centipede. They activated deflection field generators and strafed the segmented body with the lasers, but the creature didn’t react. Whiskers writhed and slashed through the air. Some demons were protected by deflector fields knocking the tendrils away, but other whiskers found purchase, slashing through demons or ensnaring them in a coiled grip.

There were paparazzi flashes of light as ensnared demons activated their shockwave generators. Each flash was thousands of volts discharged into the crushing grip of the whiskers, and they didn’t flinch, crushing radish demons like pecans in a nutcracker and tossing their bodies into the grinding, gaping mouth.

“Sally. We can’t do this!” Michael shouted through my ear.

Desperate.

My mother rose from her seat, holding the headrest ahead of her for stability.

“Michael! This isn’t a choice. You have to fight this centipede, or I’ll die. We’ll all die.”

Her forehead was glistening with sweat. Her voice was loud. Angry. Just as desperate as Michael’s.

“We can’t! Pulling out.”

“No!” my mother shouted back.

She pulled her hand away from the earpiece and turned to me.

“We need to get closer,” she said. “I need to see what’s going on better.”

I forgot that she didn’t have the benefit of magnification lenses surgically installed over her corneas. Her reading glasses weren’t going to cut it here.

I stood and leaned forward, speaking to the cockpit.

“Can you get us any lower?”

“Affirmative. Brace yourselves.”

The pilot banked us hard to the left. I was heaved into my mother’s shoulder, and we were both shoved into the wall of the aircraft. The entire plane shuddered as the winds buffeted us. I feared I was going to vomit. I pressed a button on my watch to administer an antinausea drug. If this plan failed, I didn’t want to die covered in my own emesis.

My mother grabbed my shoulder with one hand for stability. We both peered out the windows as we sacrificed altitude and continued to circle the beast.

Our attack wasn’t working.

Most of the demons had broken formation and were drifting away from the centipede. Compelled by their orders to stay close but too overpowered by fear to actually engage. The few that actually did confront the centipede were ineffective. One or two radish demons alone didn’t have the power to nullify the bug’s control over the physics of this planet.

Their lasers dissolved into nothingness upon contact, fractionated into the power of a birthday candle. Even worse, the few demons that did fight were shredded like lettuce leaves when they danced in range of the thrashing whiskers. Umbrella shields and deflector fields helped, but they were crabs fighting to stay out of reach of octopus limbs. Eventually, a whisker would slip past their guard and knock a demon out of the sky.

Some demons were simply unlucky enough to fly too close to the vortex at the centipede’s mouth. The gaping chasm was pointed upward, and if they stayed below the centipede’s head, the currents weren’t as strong. But if they drifted too high, the vacuum overpowered their flight packs, and they were pulled into the black hole like krill suctioned down the briny gullet of a whale shark.

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It was a demoralizing sight.

“You have to attack all at once or this won’t work!” my mother commanded. “All together now. That’s an order.”

“A part of me wants to help, Sally. But this is just too much.”

Michael had to shout to be overheard over the roaring winds and unending scream.

“It’s me or the centipede,” my mother said. “You all have to make a choice. Now.”

A long pause as the battle of wills raged.

“I…”

“Michael,” she warned.

“I can’t, Sally. I just can’t do it. None of us can.”

Michael’s voice cracked. Was he crying?

Clifton spoke up from the aisle across me.

“What does this mean? We lost?”

“I…I don’t know,” Lannon said. “If she can’t force them to fight the centipede, then we’re bogged. Completely.”

“No,” Vargo insisted. “There has to be something. Something you can say that will kick them into action.”

He turned to my mother.

“Mrs. Parsons. Please.”

She released me and stepped out into the aisle, holding on to seat backs for stability.

“I…I don’t know.”

Whitehall threw his hands in the air.

“This isn’t working. I’m phoning the White House. Maybe we can overwhelm it with enough nuclear power.”

“You can’t beat this thing with nuclear weapons,” Vargo insisted. “To it, your bombs are like water balloons.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you, but we’re all out of options.”

“There has to be something.”

“I’m waiting.”

Vargo looked over at my mother with beggar’s eyes.

Her lips pursed, wrinkling around the pucker with fresh creases. Ones that had been etched into her face by our time under the desert sun.

“They’re stuck between two options right now,” she said. “Maybe, if I can force them into a decision, I can push them past their fear of the centipede.”

“How?” Vargo asked.

“Is there a flight pack on this plane?”

Lannon produced a pack from one of the duffel bags we’d brought onboard.

I grabbed her wrist.

“Mom.”

She looked at me.

“Are you trying to fly with a flight pack? Outside the plane?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve never flown one of these before. You’ll be thrown around by the wind. You’ll get swallowed.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

Lannon stepped forward and offered to strap the flight pack over her shoulder blades. She gently tugged her wrist back, but I held on firmly.

“Laura.”

She met my eyes.

“Do you trust me?”

“What are you going to do?”

“Do you trust me?”

Truthfully, I wasn’t sure I did. But I couldn’t keep holding her wrist. Not while the fate of the world hung in the balance, and she was the only person with an idea that might save it.

I gave her the benefit of the doubt.

“I do.”

“Thank you.”

Lannon strapped her in snugly and clipped a pair of stabilizer jets onto her shoes. He offered her a pair of goggles. She slipped them on.

“How do I get outside?”

“The back of the plane,” the pilot said from the cockpit. “There’s a side door for parachuting.”

We hurried to the back. My mother stepped through a doorway to a small room with a hatch door at the side. We closed the door, but I could see her through the glass and hear her through the communicator.

I opened a private line.

“What are you doing?” I asked, again.

“Forcing them to make a decision.”

She yanked the door open. Howling wind blasted into the chamber. I heard it through the screeching of static in her microphone.

“How are you going to do that?”

She shuffled to the lip of the door, letting her toes hang over the edge. Wind angrily ruffled her shirt and pants, throwing back her hair to reveal the silver strands that were taking root. She held onto the edge of the doorway for balance and turned to look back at me.

“I’m going to let the centipede eat me.”

My hands were on the door to immediately, ripping it open.

“What?”

No. That was insane. I couldn’t her do such a stupid move. I charged toward her, but she raised a hand in parting as she leaned forward and let the leaden grip of gravity pull her out of the aircraft.

She vanished.

“Mom!” I screamed.

I ran to the doorway. Wind blasted my eyes dry, sucking the water off my corneas like a sponge.

“Shield, on!” I ordered.

The body shield crackled to life with its low battery warning. My eyes were protected from the chopping gusts as I grabbed the edges of the doorway and stuck my head out of the plane, frantically scanning for my suicidal mother.

Below me, the wings of my mother’s flight pack had snapped open, controlling her fall. She wobbled but managed to stabilize herself into a controlled descent.

“I’m sorry,” she said in my ear. “But if I told you what I was planning, I was afraid you’d stop me.”

“Yeah, I would’ve,” I shouted. “Come back! This is crazy!”

A hand on my shoulder rested atop my body shield without actually touching me. Lannon. He stepped past me and slammed the hatch shut.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get back to the pressurized cabin.”

I shook his hand off and scrambled to the nearest window in the main cabin, pressing my face against it. The communicator in my cheek was sensitive enough to pick up a whisper, but I was shouting anyways.

“I said I trusted you!”

“I’m thankful you did.”

“Why the hell are you doing this?”

“The threat to hurt myself wasn’t going to be enough to control Michael. Not in the face of something as scary as the centipede,” my mother said.

“You could’ve tried again.”

“No. It wouldn’t be enough. I have to make him choose.”

“By getting yourself killed?”

“If that’s what it takes. All of this started because I let Michael prey on my loneliness. I have to correct my mistake.”

“No, Mom. This isn’t your fault. Please. Come back.”

She was losing altitude quickly. Her flight pack rattled like the wings of a dragonfly as she fought to control her downward path.

I turned to Lannon.

“Get me another flight pack. Now!”

Vargo stepped forward.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Parsons. Your mother is our only hope. We have to let her try this.”

“Fuck you!”

I shoved past him and began digging through the bags we’d packed. There had to be another flight pack in here somewhere.

“I’m sorry I have to say goodbye so suddenly,” her voice rang in my ear, shouting to be heard over the rush of air.

“I’m sorry for everything that’s happened between us. I’m sorry I didn’t take better care of you growing up. After your dad died, I couldn’t even take care of myself.”

“Laura, stop. Please.”

I didn’t even register Lannon pleading with me as I ripped apart the fabric of duffel bags. With my strength, it was easier than tearing apart giftwrapping paper. Their contents spilled out on the floor of the cabin like the entrails of slaughtered animals. Uniforms, water bottles, guns, gadgets, gizmos, but not a single fucking flight pack.

My mother’s voice continued.

“I’m sorry for everything I said about Jack. He’s a good man. And he makes you happy.”

“Please don’t do this,” I said.

“I’m sorry I missed out on so much time to have a relationship with you, but it’s too late to change that now. I’m so proud of you and the person you’ve become, and really,” she cleared her throat to continue speaking over the wind. “Really, I’m just grateful for these last two months. Having you back in my life, even on a different Earth, and even if things weren’t perfect between us, it’s all I can ask for. I’m happy.”

“Mom!” I screamed at her, throwing a duffel bag against the wall.

“Goodbye, Laura. I love you.”

The angry hissing of air as it rushed over her microphone suddenly went silent as my mother disconnected our private channel.

“No!”

I kicked a bag, and navigation instruments spilled out of it.

A pair of arms wrapped around me from behind, hugging me over the body shield and pinning my arms at my side. I squirmed and writhed against them, but they were strong. As strong as I was.

“Laura. Calm down,” Lannon’s voice ordered in my ear.

“My mom’s going to kill herself.”

“I’m sorry. But destroying the cabin won’t help. There aren’t any more flight packs.”

My mother’s voice entered over the main communication line this time.

“Alright demons, listen up, because I’m only saying this once.”

Everyone in the cabin stiffened, hanging on to every word.

“First of all, I’ve got a gun, and I’m shooting myself if any of you fly within a thousand feet of me.”

A pause.

“And second, I’m currently flying into the mouth of the centipede. This thing is going to kill me. You all better kill it first.”

“Sally!” Michael screamed over the line.

“That’s an order,” she said.

Lannon relaxed his grip, and I broke free, rushing to the window.

My mother was the size of a moth flying downhill toward the centipede below. Her flight course was becoming a death spiral. A passage of no return into the black hole chasm.

The previously disjointed demons and their holograms came to life around the giant bug. With violent intent, they gathered into a swarm and dove low, putting themselves underneath the fiercest part of the vortex. As a cohesive unit, they spearheaded into the side of the monster.

I couldn’t see all the details from our altitude, but I could tell that they were no longer afraid. If anything, they’d gone berserk, touching down and grabbing the armor shell of the bug like rock climbers. Nullifying the creature’s energy-morphing shield through their physical touch. Flares of red flashed as demons discharged their spearlight rifles into the side of the beast, some at point-blank range. The thing finally reacted to something we did, writhing in a spasm of pain as florid beams buried themselves into its outer shell.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to stop the vortex.

The giant glutton continued to feast on atmosphere. My mother descended past the event horizon. The point of no return at which the force of the vacuum overpowered the stabilizers of the flight pack. One of her wings snapped violently. She tumbled through the sky, falling, rather than gliding, down into the screaming mouth.

She vanished through the buzzsaw of spinning teeth.

“Mom.”

The words escaped my lips.

“Sally!” Michael screamed over the line. His voice was wild with rage.

The centipede seemed to realize it was in real danger. It flung its head around, attempting to throw off the demons that clung to its segmented shell.

Whiskers slapped against its frame, shattering umbrella shields and splattering oozy blue demon blood. For every three holograms that took a swipe, a real radish demon was cut down. Our numbers were dwindling.

Michael’s offspring continued pumping piercing rounds into the beast. I saw a splatter of green ichor gush from the hole punched in the shell.

It was working.

In the demons’ hands, our weapons were effective in hurting this thing. My mother’s sacrifice seemed to have kicked their instinct to protect her into another gear. One that could overpower their fear of even the centipede.

Just like she’d predicted.

There was a possibility she was alive. None of us knew what happened to things sucked into a centipede’s mouth. If she’d managed to avoid the teeth on her way through, maybe we could dissect open the bug and drag her out of its belly. I wondered if that was what drove the demons into their current desperate attack.

Michael and his offspring were finally inflicting harm, but even fighting all-out, I wasn’t sure it was enough. The centipede was moving dangerously now. It squirmed and slithered. Fast. Rearing a hundred stories into the air as easily as I might rise from a chair.

Radioactive carbon ash was thrown up into the sky, clouding my view of the fight. Whiskers stretched and flailed. They stretched impossible distances, moving paradoxically.

“Hey,” Vargo warned the pilot. “We should…”

His observation was too late.

A razor-edged whisker slashed across the belly of our plane, ripping metal and sending us into a tailspin. I was thrown across the cabin, smashing against the opposite wall. My body shield absorbed most of the impact before fizzling out with an electric snap. My elbow burned with pain from slamming against something hard and metallic. Everyone else was similarly tossed around the cabin like croutons in a salad.

Alarms started blaring. Wind roared angrily as our cabin depressurized.

Shit.