This is a repost of an older short story. It kinda is a remastered version as I fixed a few typos and gramatical erros but did no major changes.

Sun, Dec 31, 2017

Despite wearing high heeled Louboutins the raven haired woman made no noises when she entered the dimly lit room. Just scratching sounds her dogs claws on the carpeted floor where barely notable. The door closed automatically behind them, but the roughly dozen people in the room did not notice it or at least did not paid any attention to it.

All of them sat in front of several screens each and wore headsets. Each of them was in charge of a different part of a military operation they were coordinating and all wore an expression of panic or shock on their faces. Changes in status were announced with trembling voices.

The woman stayed in the back for about a minute and took in all the information on the screens and communicated by their call outs. About half of the SAS team they monitored were already dead, most of the other injured to varying degrees. The exfiltration helicopters were destroyed and from the look of it, not by a weapon. It rather seemed something just smashed them.

On one of the screens the corpse of an fallen enemy was still showing and she recognized the markings. These were not the ISIS combatants the team was expecting and the bloody eyes, the black outline of their veins gave them a rather frightening appearance.

Finally a young man looked up to her and gave her an irritated look. He was about to complain and send her out when he spotted the ID badge. Not only was the woman part of the diplomatic corps, the badge also showed the royal coat of arms. But no name. “Ma’am?” He said in a confused voice, his stress and schock showing.

A small gesture of the diplomats hand and the German Sheppard let out a short bark. Enough to get everyone’s attention. “In the name of her majesty, I take command of this operation.” With these words she handed her orders and authorizations to the officer in charge. He checked them for a moment, then nodded. He called someone to verify the authenticity but the woman did not wait for that and grabbed a headset.

“I need a line to our allies in the area, the US drone operators in Rammstein and the German Tornado wing that is in the air over Afghanistan right now.” She ordered the communications officer and her slight German accent showed. She looked at the map on one of the displays, then tapped her headset to talk directly to the ground forces

“Captain, I am taking over command. Callsign is Guardian Angel. We will get you and your men out off there.” The words were said with calm confidence. There was a murmur in the room. Most of them had heard some rumors of an female agent with that call sign. But until now, they had not believed that this woman would actually exist.

But an hour later, they knew better. This woman had taken control, had gotten support from units that usually would not be available on that short notice and gotten their team without further loss out of the small town they were operating in. Her predictions of enemy movement, her timing of their own had been flawless.

But there was one problem left. A huge underground IR signature followed the team around was getting closer and closer. They would not even know about it, if it was not for the surveillance gear mounted on the German aircraft.

“Captain, I need you to take cover behind the next hill, a danger close strike with tomahawk missiles is incoming.” The woman took a deep breath. She switched to a private channel and only whispered. “I know you have been through much and what I’m going to tell you will sound crazy. I still need you to trust me here …”

Captain Stevens was not sure if he should laugh or cry. What the woman going by the call sign ‘Guardian Angel’ had told him sounded so crazy, it had to be a joke. On the other hand, she had managed to get them out, even enabled them to kill those crazy cultists and free a number of locals, among them the hostages they had come for in the first place.

He ordered his men into defensive positions on the foot of the hill, roughly in a half circle. The civilians and his two most injured men were ordered to keep moving. According to ‘Guardian Angel’ there would be helicopters be waiting for them.

Then they heard the two missiles streaking through the otherwise quiet night. The flash when the hit the ground was even visible from behind the hill and a split second later their heard the explosion, saw the shock wave blowing dust and sand over the peak.

Nothing could survive this brute force, right?

They heard crumbling noises, felt a trembling in the ground beneath their feet. Stevens’ blood froze when he heard a chirping sound. Again. Fuck, this had been the sound they heard before the helicopters were smashed, and now it was coming for them again.

He raised his rifle and against the stars of the night sky he could see the outline of a giant creature. It definitely was a insect with translucent wings, just as the woman had warned them. And it did not even seem damaged. How were they supposed to kill it?

“Smith, Jackson, keep your target lasers on this thing, no matter what. Everyone else, fire and retreat.”

After the Tomahawks hit their targets hell broke loose in the operations center. All electronic equipment seemed to have malfunctions and glitches. Communications to the team broke off completely.

All gear but that of the woman in charge. She had slipped on a pair of glasses and followed the action in small windows that were projected into her vision.

She smiled wide when she saw how well the SAS troops were handling the situation. “Target marked. Weapons free.” She whispered into her headset on an encrypted channel, the people around her were not aware of.

Their bullets had no impact on the creature at all. As spectacular as it looked when the men opened fire, tracer rounds illuminating the scene, so desperate it was. The ammunition, even that of the heavy weapons, just bounced off the giant Ak’ab.

“Cover!” Captain Stevens yelled when he heard the familiar sound of hellfire missiles incoming. Explosion after explosion boomed through the night, more ordnance than a single Predator could deliver.

When the men rose up again, they saw the last remains of the creature burning down. The bright flames indicating that at least one of the missiles had been loaded with phosphor payload. Stevens frowned, this was illegal and how would anyone believe them if all evidence was burned down like that?

There was a strange smell in the air, like burned insects and … honey …

About an hour later the woman was standing on a balcony in a huge palace, her raven hair covered with an elegant headscarf this time. The Saudi prince to her right turned his head to her and offered a wireless detonator to her.

“Just for you, Rovena. I know how much you love the firework.”

She just grinned and pressed the button. "Happy new Year." If he knew it was not her first firework today...