“Alexander, I—“
The Englishman held a hand up and Trevor stopped speaking.
“I want you to tell me, again, face-to-face that you are confident this will work. Convince me, one more time.”
Alexander waited. Trevor returned his gaze and told the truth.
“I don’t know that this will work, Alexander. I only know that if we do nothing then all of your people, and mine, will die. Or worse. We’re running out of time and any hope of victory has now shifted from my Empire to your Camelot.”
Silence. Alexander remained fixed on Trevor’s eyes, until JB tugged at his sleeve.
“My father is telling the truth, Mr. Alexander.”
Alexander closed his eyes, considered, and then opened them again. He first nodded to Trevor, then walked toward Armand.
“Prepare the cavalry.”
Trevor thought of Stonewall McAllister and his gallant horsemen galloping through a cloud of smoke to rescue him, Nina, and Danny Washburn when the Duass had trapped them in a bank building a few miles from the estate during that first year.
Trevor mumbled, “We have cavalry where I come from, too.”
Alexander glanced at Trevor then to Armand. The two Europeans shared a silent communication. Nearly a laugh.
Armand faced Trevor.
“Not like this you don’t.”
Armand’s war horses roared to life filling the garage with a chorus of mechanical screams and the smell of sizzling oil and smoky exhaust. Among the drab gray walls and naked fluorescent lights of the gritty pen, skins of red, black, yellow, and blue glistened.
The steeds wore badges: Kawasaki, BMW, Yamaha, and Triumph.
Riders wore racing gear complete with body armor branded Fox, Thor, Fly and more. They hurried in the call to arms with stops first at the armory at the rear of the chamber and then to their bikes. They grabbed machine pistols of varying types including Micro Uzis, Tuma MTEs, and Czech-built Scorpions. Everyone grabbed handfuls of grenades, a few satchel charges, and some larger packets that appeared to be homemade explosives. A few toted short-range mortar tubes with ammo crates strapped to the rear or sides of their bikes.
Most road singles; a few doubles. Most men, several women; some of the riders young and eager slapping high-fives and punching one another’s arms; others older and cautious checking safety straps and body armor.
Fifty bikes readied for war in the garage. A dozen of them—mainly touring style motorcycles—displayed modified windshields made from some kind of heavy plastic that seemed more to Trevor like a shield. Those riders wore the thickest body armor and carried large metal cylinder-like devices that enveloped one entire hand in a type of grip.
Trevor walked into the noise of the garage following Alexander and Armand with JB who plugged his ears with his fingers.
Armand—a FAMAS rifle slung over his racing gear—spoke as he fiddled with a red helmet. Trevor noticed the helmet came equipped with a transmitter and receiver and realized he was not dealing with a bunch of Hell’s Angels wannabes but a sophisticated force. Cavalry like Stonewall’s, except on steel horses.
Armand said to Alexander, “Hammer and Anvil, yes?”
“Exactly. Anvil will be ten minutes behind you, just as we have trained.”
Armand added, “The other regiments will meet us along the way in Saint-Nectaire and Montaigut-le-Blanc. We will number two hundred by the time we get on the A75.”
One of the riders—a burly fellow with a scruffy beard—paused on his way from the armory to his bike in order to ruffle Jorgie’s hair, apparently amused in a fatherly way at the kid blocking his ears.
JB responded with a smile and dared to pull a hand from his ear long enough to give the soldier a thumbs up. The fellow returned the gesture just before fixing a black and white helmet on his head and straddling a Yamaha Raptor ATV that carried several bundles of supplies strapped to its frame.
Jorgie blocked his ears again but watched the man prepare his ATV for riding. Trevor spied a glaze of awe on his son’s face. He realized he and JB had spoken often of battles, but Jorgie had never been so close to the front lines. At least, that is, other than his mysterious work at The Order’s base last year. But an actual full-scale battle? Nothing like this.
Trevor returned his attention to the two men and shouted over the revving engines, “Sounds like you have a plan.”
Armand turned to him and explained, “We have always known how to take out the Duass roadblocks. The ducks are nothing. It is the other son of a bitches camped out in Clermont-Ferrand that are the problem.”
Alexander clarified, “That is where The Order is held up, in what used to be a major city. From it they can react to any breach of the Duass checkpoints in southern France.”
Armand pushed his helmet into Trevor’s chest just hard enough to grab his attention.
“I will get us past the ducks. Then you had better have a plan.”
“We are committed,” Alexander said loudly before Trevor could respond. “Plan or not, we have voted to fight.”
Armand smiled at them as he answered, “That is what I do best. I hate this sitting around shit. If nothing else than at least the America has given me something to do.”
One of the bike soldiers approached Armand. He was a man of a very black complexion and lanky.
“Armand, what do you want me to do?”
“Take your scouts to Clermont-Ferrand while we kill ducks. I need to know enemy strength there. Meet us at the Duass base after it is our base with whatever you can find.”
“Done.”
The man walked away. Alexander explained, “That was Gaston. One of our better scouts.”
“Gaston is what we call him,” Armand corrected. “No one knows his real name. He was Russian intelligence spying on the French navy when the invasion came. We no longer hold that against him. It is all the same anymore anyhow, right?”
“Armand, be careful,” Alexander cautioned as the entourage came to halt and Armand climbed into the saddle of a red Ducati 999 superbike.
“I can only promise that I will be lethal, not careful. It is a tradeoff, no?”
Trevor stepped forward and extended his hand.
“Good luck, soldier.”
Armand shook it while flashing a cocky smile beneath the tinted black visor of the helmet.
“Good luck or good aim, I will take either.”
He revved the bike, kicked away the stand, and the garage door opened to let in the sun of a bright day.
Armand’s motorcycle cavalry swerved around a bend on the wide pavement of Highway A75 and sped north in a mass of some 200 riders on a variety of crotch rockets, cruisers, dirt bikes, and ATVs.
Fields of tall grass, dirt, brush, and burned foliage flanked the cracked and neglected pavement. Ahead waited the Duass checkpoint. A solidified, blurry but mainly clear gel four-feet-high served the Duass as sandbags often served human infantry. The substance stretched in a long wall from a hundred yards to the west of the highway, across A75, and then another hundred yards to the east.
The strange, duck-billed aliens on three thick legs drew plasma rifles that resembled a cross between a musket and a mega-sized squirt gun. As they approached, Armand and his riders also spied jumbles of heavy weapons, some kind of scanner atop a twenty-foot metal tower, and square temporary buildings built from thin metals.
No doubt the Duass had picked that particular spot due to thick woodland that started just to the north of their wall and reached to the east and west as far as the eye could see. Most likely reinforcements, munitions, and additional threats lurked in those dark woods.
One thousand feet south of the checkpoint the Route de Saint-Sandoux crossed overtop the A75 on an overpass. Atop that overpass lurked several Duass snipers wearing something akin to an American football helmet with a dark visor, a cord from which extended to a long-barrel rifle; a targeting mechanism of advanced design. Most of the Duass soldiers also wore a type of body armor that resembled chai
n mail.
Armand dared to use his short range radio knowing that the Duass would not waste one of their radio-tracking rockets on smaller targets such as the bikes. They reserved those for bases and command centers.
“Heavies, take point and execute the first phase.”
The ‘heavy’ cavalry formed a tight line across the front of the swarming bikers. Their engines roared with renewed enthusiasm. The scenery to either side of the highway became a blur.
As they neared the overpass, the first rounds of sniper fire came. The reinforced glass at the front of the bikes deflected those shots, making for black scars and cracked windshields.
One shot hit the top of a rider’s helmet leaving a smoking hole in place of the upper half of his head. The body fell to the pavement and rolled under the wheels of his brethren. The rider-less bike swerved wildly off into a drainage ditch.
Further north from the main checkpoint more guns came to life, some of a rapid-fire design and a few of a heavier caliber.
Bolts of plasma fired away from the barricade, under the overpass, and into the approaching bikers. Most of the smaller shots either missed or deflected away. One of the larger blasts launched from a powerful cannon smashed into the pavement just in front of one of the heavy cavalrymen. The biker and rider went airborne flying dozens of feet front wheel over back and spinning into the overpass.
The attackers passed under the overpass below the Duass snipers and raced toward the main barricade. As they neared, Armand calmly ordered, “Prepare to split..”
Enemy fire intensified claiming more kills but the cavalry responded with more speed and more intensity.
Faster—engines roaring—sizzling blobs of energy flying overhead and around and into the lead riders—alien tongues shouted commands—throttles revved—enemy infantry at the gel-wall instinctively ducked for cover as the speeding mass bore down—and then brakes and squeals and the smell of burning rubber.
Half of the attacking cavalry turned east, the other half west both running parallel to the boundary. As they changed course several of the ‘heavy cavalry’ soldiers lobbed canisters in front of the barricade. An instant later clouds of protective smoke billowed across where A75 met the Duass wall.
The ducks responded with glowing spheres the size of Ping-Pong balls. These grenades detonated, tossing bikers from their rides and splintering motorcycles into piles of burning steel. A few of the cavalry fired pot shots from machine pistols and hand guns, but they refused to sacrifice speed for firepower. Speed was the essence. Speed meant life.
The veil of white smoke rose like a curtain at the center of the defensive line. The bikers raced in opposite directions creating a different kind of cloud: a cloud of dirt and dust and exhaust.
As the last riders turned away from the barricade, they dropped bundles of explosives that bounced into the wall of solidified jell and came to rest at the center point, hidden from enemy view by the smoke. There the devices waited…
Alexander led Trevor and JB to the shaded park off the terrace at the Hotel le Parc. There—and on the streets nearby—mustered a column of military vehicles. The knowledge imparted to Trevor from his DNA database found entries for most.
He identified a pair of French-built Panhard AML armored cars with the fading remains of “U.N.” paint, one sporting a 90 millimeter barrel the other with dual 20 millimeter weapons for use as an anti-aircraft vehicle; three MOWAG Eagle military cars—based on American Hummer chassis—with what appeared to be anti-tank weapons mounted atop; four six-wheeled Finnish Sisu-Pasi amphibious armored personnel carriers, one of which sported some kind of homemade mortars; two Spanish Pegaso BMR APCs; and a dozen SUVs, some towing small artillery pieces and all hauling soldiers.
It occurred to Trevor that the vehicles ran on wheels, not treads. Alexander had left the Leopard tanks in the motor pool, choosing speed over outright firepower.
Their host led them to one of the half-dozen Sherpas at the rear of the convoy. The one they entered lacked a roof; the others brandished heavy machine guns.
Trevor noticed that Alexander kept closing and opening his one free hand (the other carried his ever-present clipboard) in a fist, repeatedly, as if exercising his fingers. He realized that the action came from nerves when Alexander said, “This had better pay off, Trevor. Even with your shipments our fuel resources are scarce. We have carefully shepherded them, preparing for our next offensive.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed. I see that civilians around here walk, use bikes, or ride horses. Very little vehicles.”
“We do not have access to those alien matter transformation machines you possess. Most of our petroleum resources came from Italian shale oil refined through Schwedt, Germany all the way over on the Polish border. Those facilities are still operating but the Duass and The Order have slowed our supply routes to a trickle. In other words—”
“In other words the gas we burn today may not be replaced for weeks, if ever.”
Alexander sat in the passenger seat, Trevor and Jorgie took the rear. A hard-nosed British Royal Marine slid behind the wheel and started the Renault truck. Meanwhile Hauser found a seat in one of the SUVs with a group of English soldiers who spoke his language.
The thump-thump-thump of helicopter blades pulled Trevor’s eyes skyward. Sunlight filtered through the trees in flickers. Rotating blades added to the strobe effect. As the convoy left the shade of the park he saw two helicopters circling overhead. The first was the green Eurocopter 135 transport that wore the iron cross of the German Bundeswehr. Trevor noted rocket pods affixed to the landing struts and an angry-looking soldier with a big gun leaning out an open side door.
The second bird impressed even more so: a 2-seat Tigre attack chopper wearing French colors.
“Look at it, Father!” Jorgie exclaimed excitedly. Certainly plastic soldiers on the table in the basement conference room back home could not compare to this experience.
The convoy picked up speed and moved quickly through Murol. Citizens hurried to the sidewalks and stared at the soldiers riding off to battle.
A skirmish line of Duass infantry hurried toward the eastern flank through overgrown brush and light forest to meet one end of the humans’ pincer movement. The sounds of the circling motorcycles echoed through the forest and grew louder—louder…
The attackers weaved through the trees aiming for the Duass encampment built on the highway. The smell of gasoline and the wake of dirt and rock tossed by the furious wheels made them seem like demons screaming out of Hell.
Alien soldiers fired. A shot knocked a rider from her saddle, breaking her neck around a thick, old tree and causing the motorcycle to split into front and back halves.
But the cavalry did not stop.
The heavy riders at the front pulled out their metal cylinders. In a series of smaller segments, those cylinders extended into metallic jousting lances twelve feet in length and anchored to the bars on their bikes.
First one then five of the alien fighters were impaled and then trampled. But the effect of the jousts—the sight of the devilish riders in heavy armor and wielding such a primitive and brutal weapon—caused more casualties from fear. The skirmish line broke apart. The motorcycles did not bother with them; they pushed toward the heart of the checkpoint; toward command and control.
That heart sat on the pavement of A75 1500 feet behind the front line and took the form of a trio of huts seemingly built from metal and a kind of glistening cardboard. Nearby, just to the west of the highway, were wooden racks filled with rectangular crates from which came the constant buzz and hum of insects; the equivalent of a Duass farm.
Several formations of alien infantry retreated from the front lines to protect the rear flank as the two pincers of bikers met behind the HQ and circled in toward the road.
A volley of plasma torched an entire squad of cavalry, leaving smoldering wheels and bloody leather behind.
A woman on the rear of a Suzuki super bike steadied her position with one hand
on the driver’s waist while firing armor-piercing bullets from a Mach 10 in the other hand. She raked the enemy with bullets, killing three Duass and wounding several more.
One of the Duass fighters launched a large blob of energy from a shoulder-held tube. It hit one of the ATV’s. The vehicle burst into flames and the rider tumbled away.
A mounted soldier in red body armor sped toward one of the buildings and, with great balance, let go of his handle bars just long enough to yank pins from two grenades. He then bowled them forward, using his momentum to cause the explosives to bounce and roll into the structure. Just as the motorcycle veered away, the grenades exploded, knocking down a wall and sending two burning Duass running from the inferno and hollering an ungodly squealing noise.
Two bikers ditched their rides at the edge of the woods and quickly unpacked short-range motors. Several of the cavalry circled their position keeping the aliens at bay.
Armand communicated, “Second Phase. Everyone remember your assignments.”
Several dozen of the cavalry stopped their motored transport and dismounted, opening fire with rifles and carbines as well as tossing grenades.
The Duass rear area devolved into total chaos. Human bullets and alien plasma fired into, from and around the woods surrounding the base. Blasts of anti-personnel grenades tore apart three-legged aliens. Scorching balls of energy burned leather-clad humans. More soldiers left the front barricade to try and suppress the cavalry that had outflanked them.
Armand turned his Ducati sharply onto A75 and sped south directly toward the largest structure at the middle of the base. A pair of heavy cavalry crossed his path, one with a Duass body stuck on his lance. Bright laser-like blasts and red blurs of tracer shots crisscrossed the road in front of him.
Beyond Armageddon V: Fusion Page 27
