Beyond Armageddon: Book 02 - Empire (15 page)

“Looks like we’re all ready to go,” Jon said as the last soldier disappeared into the passenger compartment. “We’ll rendezvous with the other transports north of here.”

Trevor took a deep breath and then said, “Hey, Jon, we’ve been doing this for five years now, you know.”

           
“Wow. Man, where’d the time go?”

           
“I’m just saying that I don’t think I ever really stopped and told you how much I appreciate what you do around here. You do a lot of the heavy lifting, and I get most of the credit, but I know we wouldn’t have come half this far without you. You’ve been a tough and loyal soldier, and I don’t think I ever said ‘thanks’.”

           
“That’s because you don’t have to. You’re the boss, see? That’s the way things are. Don’t matter if I accept that or not. It’s the way. Just a fact, that’s all.”

           
“Yeah, well, thanks anyway.”

           
“Thank me when I bring these stupid-ass runes back for you. Then I want a week off. Maybe somewhere in the Outer Banks. Make sure Shep clears them out soon. I got a feeling I’m going to be real friggin’ cold for a while. Need somewhere warm to melt.”

           
Trevor smiled, “You got it.”

           
“Mister Brewer!” Reverend Johnny shouted from the Eagle’s open passenger door. “Hurry up with your goodbye kiss!”

           
Brewer shot the Revered a stiff middle finger and then turned back to Trevor who extended his hand and said, “Good luck.”

           
Jon shook it. “Don’t worry, I’m coming back. At least you’d better hope so,” Brewer moved away. “Otherwise my wife will kick the shit out of you.”

           
Trevor watched his General climb the ramp and board the transport. The outer door slid shut and the ramp retracted. A moment later the Eagle lifted off the pad slowly and easily, turned, and flew over the mountains to the north.

–

           
Two miles east of
Fayetteville
,
North Carolina
, Interstate 95 passes under Route 24 in crisscrossing strips of concrete and long sweeping traffic ramps. NCDOT last tended to the intersection five years ago, leaving neglected landscaping separating the parallel north and south strips of I-95 while overgrown brush and trees died along the shoulders and banks.

           
Nearly twenty cars in various states of crash, burn, and otherwise shredded metal cluttered the highways, a memento from the panicked last days of the
United States
.

           
A dreary gray sky delivered a warm drizzle across the entire scene, but the sound of chaos drown the pitter-patter of rain: explosions, rifle fire, and an electric buzz of energy weapons punctuated by human screams and reptilian hisses.

           
The prim-and-proper Kristy Kaufman led an infantry column southward on I-95. Sixty yards to her right on the far side of I-95, Dustin McBride did the same.

           
“Two Firecats at nine o’clock!” yelled his voice from her hand-held walkie-talkie. “They’re coming right atchya, Princess!”

           
Kristy cringed at the nickname, but pushed aside her anger for a moment to wave her Aussie-style cowboy hat in the air as encouragement to her troops. While the hat did not match her Tiger stripe camouflage particularly well, it fit with her personality perfectly.

           
Despite her urging, energy bolts from alien infantrymen attempting to capture the high ground of the Route 24 overpass kept Kaufman’s soldiers pinned. As per Dustin’s warning, two Firecats came over an earthen bank into the midst of Kaufman’s unit. Their caterpillar treads tore into the ground whipping up clumps of mud.

           
She ordered “Into the trees!” referring to the tight cluster of summit ash trees filling the circle-shaped ground in the center of I-95 North’s onramp to Route 24.

           
A golden stream of liquid flame poured from a nozzle on the lead Firecat, filling the air with a noxious petroleum smell and engulfing an older man as he struggled to his feet from a prone position. His skin melted away instantaneously leaving behind a pile of smoldering dungarees and a warped shotgun.

           
Another of her charges ran for the woods but slowed to empty a clip from his AK-47 into the second alien tank. The rounds struck the netting of the cockpit and ripped away at the protective sheath.

Before his bullets could puncture that protection, however, the Firecat responded from a double-barreled swiveling turret lobbing volleys of green plasma. The bolts sliced through the man turning his body into chunks of red gore that splattered on the pavement.

Nonetheless, his foolhardy attack bought time for the remainder of Kaufman’s squad to find cover amidst the trees.

The Firecats could not enter the tightly packed woods in pursuit, so they assaulted the patch of trees and the hiding humans with napalm and energy weapons, circling the perimeter as they fired.

“Keep your heads down!” Kaufman yelled as plasma severed a branch overhead.

She decided to ignore her own advice. After slinging her hunting rifle, Kristy pulled a heavy Desert Eagle .50 caliber from a thigh rig and approached the edge of the woods. Holding the gun in both hands, she poked out from cover and fired.

           
BLAM! BLAM!

           
The gun sounded more a cannon while the recoil threatened to break her wrist. Like the Tiger camo and the Aussie cowboy hat, the powerful silver-plated weapon served her image as much as function, but in this case the added firepower offered more than mere style points.

           
She heard her radio crackle with Dustin McBride’s incredulous voice, “Princess! What are you doing? Get into cover you idiot!”

           
I’m remembering what my Hostiles Database told me, you dork,
she thought as she realized that the hour she spent reading the field manual last week might actually pay off.

           
Hopefully.

           
Her shots aimed for a hose-like conduit affixed to the energy weapon turret. According to the manual, that hose ran the length of the machine and attached to the powerful rear-mounted engine providing energy for those main guns.

           
Volatile
energy.

           
A well-placed shot should rupture that line.

The Firecat noticed her and turned. She saw the pilot through the protective cover that resembled more a net than a windshield. She saw the look of surprise in its reptilian eyes, no doubt shocked at the audacity of the woman to assault the armored killer with a handgun.

           
I wonder how many people this bastard has cooked.
She knew Hivvan Firecat drivers preferred to burn their enemies.

           
In a split-second that lasted much longer to her perception, she saw flammable vapors jet from the Firecat’s flamethrower nozzle…and then the front end of the miniature tank erupted in a splash of green energy as one of her bullets found the weak spot. The gun turret rolled off and clattered along the highway while a ball of smoke filled the cabin.

           
With the sooty mist stinging its yellow eyes, the pilot pushed open the side door and staggered away from the wounded vehicle. The light rain splattered on its white body armor while the fingers on its green hands struggled for a side arm.

BLAM. Another round from her gun finished the job.

The second Firecat moved to avenge its fallen brethren, giving the trapped humans no time to cheer. Kristy saw one, then two of her squad fall to energy blasts.

One of the better-equipped men of her group—an old world soldier by the look of his BDUs and his weapons—stepped into the open and lobbed a grenade from an M203 launcher mounted under the barrel of his M16. The resulting explosion tore up the passing lane of I-95 North but little else. Counter-fire from the ‘cat blasted away the man’s right arm, sending the M16 to the ground and filling the air with his cry.

A second later, that remaining Firecat exploded, forcing Kristy to dive for cover at the base of a tree, while metal, rubber, and pieces of alien pilot rained down.

When she pulled her head from her hands she saw their savior: a green Humvee with a TOW anti-tank missile mounted on top. Behind that vehicle marched a line of armored personnel carriers, trucks, and a dozen horse soldiers with Stonewall McAllister at the lead.

With the Firecats destroyed, the Hivvan infantry vacated the overpass and ran. The Humvee and APCs pursued.

Stonewall collected his officers under the cover of the Route 24 bridge to avoid the rain. His bugle boy—a freckle-faced teenager named Benny Duda—stood a pace behind the General.

“Do tell, I sent you forward on a scouting mission and have to pull your collective souls out of the fire. What, may I inquire, happened?”

The sound of motored military vehicles idling mixed with the falling rain to create a steady drum of background noise. After the loud battle, the atmosphere felt incredibly quiet.

Dustin answered, “Yeah, geez, we saw them heading toward
Fayetteville
along 24 and decided to surprise them. They must’ve seen us first and sent those damn Firecats around our flank. Shit, then
we
got the surprise.”

“Yes, indeed you did. Let us remember that due to your ‘surprise’ several of the troops under your care will not be seeing their wives, or husbands, or children again. I suggest that you endeavor to avoid similar surprises in the future.”

Dustin bowed his head and scratched the tuft of scar tissue where his right ear had once been.

“Yes, General.”

Stonewall McAllister let that sink in for a moment and then continued, “Nonetheless, our progress is ahead of schedule. We’ve barely started the second day of this excursion and our vanguard is nearly half the march to Dillon. Still, it is my understanding that the First Mechanized Division is making even greater progress on their trek to the coast. I shall endure much taunting should General Shepherd’s forces reach
Conway
before we reach Dillon.”

Kristy Kaufman asked, “Our strength is being depleted by all the units we’ve left behind to seal up this pocket. What happens when we get to Dillon?”

“My dear Ms. Kaufman, intelligence informs that Dillon is home to less than five hundred of our friends. It is significant in that it holds a supply depot and logistics base for our opponents, but it is not a well-defended target.”

Dustin asked, “Like, why wouldn’t they send out their troops from
Columbia
to protect it, if it’s that important?”

“First, that would be a long march and we know the Hivvans prefer the comfort of their walls and gun emplacements to the open road. Second, they won’t want to lower their troop strength in
Columbia
. Besides, they almost certainly do not realize the extent to which they are being trapped.”

“Hmm,” Kristy Kaufman grunted.

“You have something to add, Princess?”

Kaufman scowled but remained focused. “What if they realize what’s going on? What if they realize that
Raleigh
is lightly defended?”

“The only way they can threaten
Raleigh
again is with their retreating forces which are currently slipping into our jaws,” Stonewall answered. “If they reconstitute we’ll see that from the air. Regardless of what they do, if we cut off their supply lines they will not last long.”

“Then I guess we’d better get going,” Dustin said. “On to Dillon and all, right?”

“Yes, Mr. McBride. We must press on to Dillon. It is not so far away.”

The General gazed southward and fell silent. They waited several seconds until Kristy prodded, “Do you know this area?”

Stonewall shook himself out of the trance.

“What was that? Oh, yes, I do. Dillon, after all, used to be my home.”

As he gazed up at a perfectly black sky, Jon Brewer realized he had never truly known darkness before the invasion shut off mankind’s power plants and generators. The absolute absence of artificial light took him by surprise during those first months after the collapse. He found it unnerving; the pure blackness made him feel like an animal, naked in the wilderness not knowing from which direction the next horror would pounce.

Conversely, he had never really seen the stars in the sky before the end-of-the-world, either. The very concept of ‘light pollution’ sounded ridiculous to his ears, until he lived in a world without it. Those tiny flickers of light in a vast sea of black came to life in a way he never imagined. So many of them, and so bright; not specks but radiant spheres flashing, winking, and swirling in patterns his mind could not quite grasp.
 

Of course, he regarded those stars with as much suspicion as wonder, considering alien beings came from those heavens through a network of gateways to slaughter his race.