“But Voggoth’s gunsmiths use words like ‘pain’ and ‘terror’ and ‘suffering’. You’ve got to hand it to them, they’ve boiled war to its essence. You have to admire their honesty.”
There came no noise from the blast of wind exhaled by the mighty Leviathan because that wind moved faster than sound. From the top of the loft Fink and Stone watched a storm of dirt and dust blow away tanks, artillery, and pieces of what used to be soldiers.
That supersonic blast of air twisted out of the mountain passage, through the center of the defensive line, and across the jagged land between the battlefield and the command center. The sound caught up to and overtook the slowing gust, reaching their ears in a beastly howl.
Fink shoved Trevor to the hay-covered floor. The lethal blast of wind dissipated fast but still hit the barn with hurricane force. Chunks of roof tore away, the map table flipped and rolled; the barn doors exploded in toppling gear and sending the staff diving for cover.
It passed.
Something metal and squeaky swayed back and forth at the rear of the barn. Static broadcast from radios. A cloud of hay, dust, and papers floated about. Soldiers emerged from under chairs and tables with soft groans and sharp cusses. The barn grew brighter with half the roof blown away.
Fink had fallen atop Stone in order to protect him from debris, but Trevor quickly broke free and returned to his view of the battle.
A wide swatch of smashed, toppled, and otherwise obliterated landscape lay between the south side of Wetmore and the battlefield, as if an F5 tornado had roared through. That battlefield had been cut in half—a north side and a south side—nothing between. Nothing where the Leviathan’s weapon had struck.
Sharp reports and blasts broke the quiet as what remained of The Empire’s front lines regained their composure and faced swarms of infantry pouring forward around the giant’s legs.
Fink knew this to be the pattern. It could nearly be called a game, something like rock-paper-scissors. Wherever The Empire formed defensive lines, along came the Leviathans to blast through. Fortresses? Trenches? Caves? Mountains? It did not matter. Anything in the direct path of the supersonic winds would be tossed aside.
Then the hordes would come.
With a great deal of effort, the full force of a dreadnought could destroy a Leviathan if that Leviathan could be directly engaged. And the Empire’s ground forces with proper support could hold off the tide of Voggoth’s insane foot soldiers. But the combination of the two? Deadly, as proven multiple times since last Summer, especially considering that Voggoth had found ways to deal with the dreadnoughts.
Of more immediate concern, today—at the centermost of the day’s war zones—no dreadnought waited. Today Trevor Stone prepared a different plan, one born either from desperation or invention, Fink could not be sure which. Then again, had not all of Stone’s tactics over the years been the same?
“Is it in position? Damn it, Fink, get on the radio with Simms!”
But Fink did not need to get on the radio. As the staff officers on the ground floor of the barn re-assembled their gear they eavesdropped on a conversation between Simms’ observation point and Woody “Bear” Ross’ fleet of MLRS vehicles.
“Hawkeye to Thor, do you copy?”
Ross’ deep voice answered, “Copy, Hawkeye.”
“Target is in position. Repeat, target is in position.”
Fink hurried to Trevor’s side to watch the plan unfold. A veil of debris clouded their view of the battlefield, but the monstrous towering beast could be easily discerned as it stepped across the threshold of mountain pass to open terrain.
Artillery flashed around its feet blasting apart formations of Voggoth’s Ogres and Monks and Spider Sentries. More crystal rolling cruise missiles launched from another of those coral-red hovercraft platforms. More of Trevor’s forces suffered but they gave as good as they got.
Yet Fink knew it did not matter. Any moment the Leviathan would suck in more air then aim another deadly blast at one side of the line or the other. Then repeat until the path lay bare.
“Get your reserve units ready to roll forward,” Trevor told Fink in reference to the twin columns of tanks and mobile infantry waiting on the far side of Wetmore. “And Rhodes, too.”
Fink reminded, “General Rhodes has been ready for hours. Just waiting for the go-word.”
Another noise trumped the chorus of destruction playing at the gateway to the Rockies. This time that noise did not come from Voggoth’s massive war-beast but from one of the many war-beasts at mankind’s disposal.
They came like a rainstorm of smoke and metal, line upon line of rockets fired a dozen miles away by Woody “Bear” Ross’s formation of mobile M270 MLRS vehicles, expending the last stores of their available munitions.
Fink shivered at the sight of nearly 100 rockets streaking toward the pre-designated target area on Highway 96 just outside the mountain pass where the Leviathan now stood, having walked right onto the planned bulls eye.
“C’mon…” Stone mumbled an urge that, to Fink’s ears, sounded one-part prayer.
The Leviathan did not lack defenses. As the bombardment closed, pores along the upper torso of the machine-creature ejected small cubes that detonated around the beast causing ripples of concussion. Some of the rockets shattered and burst prematurely, others were sent tumbling off-course. But for every rocket destroyed or deflected, three punched through.
Blasts of orange, yellow, and black smoke tore across the Leviathan’s mid-section. One after another they hit until the monstrous creature burned. Trevor’s grin grew wider with each impact. But would it be enough?
Between the debris cloud still floating after the wind storm, the plumes of rocket fuel, and the puffs of smoke coming from exploding rockets, the view of the battlefield from the command post became even more obstructed. But even through the smoke Trevor and Fink spied vile liquids spraying out from wounds, they saw the tendons wrapping the beast’s torso spring undone like the cables of a suspension bridge pushed beyond cohesion.
It fell in two pieces as the mid-section could no longer support the weight. Two massive pieces of war machine tumbled to Earth crushing hundreds of Voggoth’s foot soldiers. An earthquake shuddered across the landscape.
Trevor shouted, “Get Rhodes going! Get him going, now!”
Phillip Rhodes had come to Trevor’s post-Apocalypse lakeside estate 11 years ago with the group of U.S. soldiers who survived Armageddon on the run with Thomas Prescott.
During that first year Rhodes participated in the attack on the extraterrestrial Gateway outside of Binghamton, New York only to break his collar bone on the return trip when his Humvee rolled in a snow storm. Four years later it had been Rhodes’ unit that stumbled upon the strange cave outside of Blacksburg, Virginia where Trevor Stone’s half-brother dwelt.
For a brief time last summer Philip Rhodes commanded the vaunted 2nd Mechanized Unit of Virginia, known as “Stonewall’s Brigades”. When Thomas Prescott died during Voggoth’s invasion at Long Beach, Rhodes received another instant promotion to the leader of the decimated Second Corps.
Despite the haughty rank and long title, Generals Rhodes fought on the front lines, riding along with the 3rd Mechanized Division as it struck at the heart of the enemy. More specifically, his formation held the key to turning the tide of a war that had been deteriorating for months.
Essentially, he was tasked with saving The Empire, if it could even be called that anymore. The word did not roll as smoothly off the tongue when retreating.
Still, as he rode north in a Humvee as part of a snake-like band of infantry and light armor weaving between the crumbling rock walls hiding Highway 165, General Philip Rhodes believed his mission would be successful. The plan—Trevor’s plan—made perfect sense.
Voggoth marched his forces with a simple but effective strategy: engage and destroy humanity’s armies. He left his lesser minions—the Mutants and Wraiths and Roachbots—to infest cities and eradicate stragglers. But
his main forces—his Leviathans and Spider Sentries and Chariots—sought to engage mankind’s organized forces.
And that is why The Order rigidly followed Highway 96 through the mountains and into battle against the main human army encamped at Wetmore. As such, Voggoth had ignored Highway 165 that sprouted away from 96 in the middle of the Wet Mountains. Highway 165 had become difficult to pass, anyhow, due to years of neglect. Landslides had turned it from a modern road into little more than a rocky path.
While heavy armor would have difficulty negotiating the downed boulders and debris cluttering the tight roadway, Humvees and infantry could push through. Rhodes’ strike from 96 would cut the alien force in two once the Leviathan fell. At that point, armored reserves hiding near Wetmore would attack the head of Voggoth’s column. Between the two attacks they would slice up and liquidate the enemy.
Of course, Rhodes knew his fight to be one of three that day. He knew that the Phillipan and the Chrysaor moved to intercept the other two prongs of The Order’s push east. And therein lay Voggoth’s mistake. With his heaviest weapons—three Leviathans—split between three different battle groups, The Empire could deal a decisive blow to the center and roll back the entire front. If they could draw out and knock down that walking battering ram.
The order to advance meant that part one of the plan had succeeded. While a tough fight remained, victory now appeared plausible with the Leviathan toppled.
A gamble, true, but all their victories since the invaders came had been the results of gambles and it seemed to General Rhodes that Trevor Stone rarely rolled snake eyes.
“Boppers charged to eighty percent,” Hoth echoed the display on his Weapons Status monitor for the benefit of the XO and crew. “Target in range. Preparing to fire.”
Beyond the windows and far out past the tip of the flight deck, loomed the incredibly large biomechanical monster known as a Leviathan. Near the top of its skyscraper-sized form hovered a patch of gray and black thunderheads, seemingly the remains of a storm long gone. Far below swirled a thick white mist pumped by The Order’s machines to hide the other components of Battle group North that threatened Denver.
Hoth knew the first Leviathan had fallen at Wetmore. He knew Rhodes launched a surprise attack. He knew it meant he had to keep his end of the deal. Those who knew Hoth understood that the General always kept his end of the deal. Ever since his days playing football for Army, the career-officer lived by the military code.
Indeed, on that fateful day last summer when Trevor Stone returned from the dead, the General had been prepared to blast the Excalibur from the sky because those had been his orders from the recognized chain of authority. That chain had changed that day, to the relief of all, but perhaps no more so than to William Hoth.
Indeed, while Hoth would never let his feelings show, he had found a great deal of satisfaction in watching the returned Emperor’s purge of the Senate, governors, and Internal Security. Not so much the public executions—they felt a tad gruesome—more so the eradication of the bureaucracy. In an instant, a library’s worth of post-Armageddon laws, regulations, and procedures vanished.
The remaining politicos served more as administrators implementing Trevor’s will, and no one complained because the results of Godfrey’s folly were on full display as Voggoth marched east. Voggoth’s invasion served a scary reminder and the people ran for Trevor’s protection yet again, as if he might be a messiah who could work his magic twice.
In fact, that magic appeared ready to work again. Success at Wetmore seemed the most unlikely of the chips that needed to fall and fall they had. Now Hoth had to do his job.
The Phillipan drifted into position. The mighty Leviathan did not move or react in any way, to the point that Hoth wondered if the beast had been activated. No matter, he felt no shame in shooting a big fish in a proverbial barrel.
“Firing main batteries.”
Two blobs of energy soared from the forward guns of the Phillipan. The energy bursts crackled and bubbled as they cut through the sky beneath the gray, churning clouds and above the ocean-like veil of mist. The entire dreadnought shimmied and bucked.
The energy blasts hit the ungodly war machine dead center. In an instant the creature shattered and crumbled into a shower of flakes and shards.
Silence fell across the bridge crew when there should be cheers.
The XO stood nearby and said with more hope than proclamation, “We did it, sir.”
Hoth mumbled aloud, “Is there anything down there? Anything at all?” He then announced to the bridge crew, “We’re turning about and setting course for Wetmore. Brace for maximum speed.”
“Sir, what is it?”
Hoth answered his XO, “A decoy.”
The line of soldiers stretched ahead of Rhodes’ lightly-armored Humvee. With all the rock slides and debris to either side, he felt more as if they marched through a big trench than a road.
He took note of his troops. They looked dusty and grimy and tired, their graying uniforms nearly matched the complexion of the stony, shadowed passage they traveled. Yet he knew his boys were in their best spirits since he had taken command. For the first time since the California War, Third Mechanized attacked instead of retreated.
Most of his troops were citizen soldiers molded from necessity, not recruitment drives. Their ages ranged from under 16 to over 60. Their equipment—even the graying uniforms—appeared only the least bit standardized. Most carried M16s or similar models such as M4s or AR15s, a few sported AK-47s while fewer still dealt with semi-automatic hunting rifles. All wore Kevlar helmets and some form of body armor in conditions ranging from pristine to threadbare.
Most important, each of those soldiers realized the stakes. Each was prepared to fight because they believed in Trevor Stone, the man who had saved them when the world seemed over, the man who had traveled across dimensions, the man who had returned from the dead.
They marched forward under the command of General Rhodes, but they marched for Trevor. He would lead them to victory again.
As he considered all this, Rhodes felt his morale rise. Then the screams started.
The driver instinctively stopped when a commotion rolled through the ranks. Heads turned skyward. Rhodes opened the passenger door and followed their gaze.
Up into the sky—toward the swirling storm clouds—rose black dots, one after another sent flying among the forward ranks.
No, not black dots. People. Arms flailing, a few letting loose horrified screams, but most already dead.
Another one went, this time only a few dozen yards ahead of Rhodes’ position. He heard a blast of vapor and saw the soldier go flying into the sky, dozens of feet, hundreds of feet, a thousand feet—lifeless arms and limbs shaking and waving. Then gravity took hold and the body plummeted to earth where it landed in a crowd of panicking infantry.
“Bouncers! Fucking bouncers!”
The column halted. Everyone stepped back, almost in unison.
“Sonofabitch,” Rhodes growled at his driver and anyone who would hear. “Bouncer mines. Why didn’t the dogs sniff em’ out? Christ this is going to slow things down.”
FFLLOOOOOOPP!
FFLLOOOOOOPP!
Another man, then another next to him, exploded skyward as a camouflaged packet of highly pressurized gas exploded from the ground beneath. One of the men screamed. The other—like most—could not because the force from the gas expulsion shattered his spinal cord or brain instantaneously.
“Get the dogs up! Get em’ up now!”
One of Rhodes staffers inside the car frantically called forward the K9 bomb sniffers, but Rhodes knew that if this breed of mines could be easily sniffed they would have been sniffed when the recon teams had gone through before dawn. Voggoth had changed the scent. That meant planning. That meant The Order had anticipated this move. That meant—
Something flickered ahead. Shadows and light danced on the walls of rock surrounding the road. More screams. Fire.
Two amber
comets of flame roared a dozen feet overhead the army, each ball of fire dripping burning fuel that fell on the people below like napalm. Shouts of ‘Incoming!’ stated the blatantly obvious while men and women scrambled for cover.
Rhodes watched the pair of flying comets of fire come closer and closer. He could see two dark spots on the burning round balls that might be eyes and a shadowy maw smiling or screaming, all surrounded by a mane of golden yellow inferno.
“General! Take cover!”
The command Humvee quickly emptied as two grunts, a radio technician, the driver and the General hurried for a depression in the dead grass between the cracked pavement of the road and the rising wall of rock.
SWOOSH!
An anti-tank missile intercepted one of the weapons, exploding it in a howl. The dying creature’s remains showered fire and destruction onto the fleeing soldiers below.
The remaining ball of fire streaked past Rhodes. Its wake killed a dozen men within the General’s view and caught his Humvee on fire. It burned for ten seconds before the fuel tank exploded.
“Get me a goddamn radio!”
The radio technician who served in Rhodes’ entourage panicked, “I’ve got nothin’ but static, sir! I think the damn things are jamming us!”
The General barked an order but no one seemed capable of complying. “We’ve got to let command know—they were waiting for us. Sonofabitches were waiting for us!”
Cassy Simms remained at her observation post, first confirming the destruction of the Leviathan then reporting on remaining enemy strength. She hoped the armored reinforcements from Wetmore and Rhodes’ strike up from Rye would come soon because the flow of forces from beneath the mist continued at an alarming rate; more than anticipated.
Ogres and Spider Sentries by the hundreds, thousands of converted humans, and three more of the rolling artillery platforms all covered by the low-flying blob-like ships known as Chariots. It added up to much more than she would have expected from one Battle group.
Beyond Armageddon: Book 05 - Fusion Page 2
