“There has to be another way. You’ve got a lot of men on this boat.”
“A nice chunk of them were in the engine room and the decks below. If that thing is loose, I’m guessing there aren’t a whole lot left. The guys up here will be coming with you. As for me, well, it’s been a good career but since the world went to hell my biggest contribution to the war has been playing taxi. Now maybe I can do something a little more important.”
“Captain…”
Farway ignored Trevor and ordered, “Bridge crew, abandon ship. Planesman, rig for crash dive then get up on the weather deck. XO, break out those RIBs and anything else you can grab then get the hell out of here.”
Captain Farway stood atop the sail—or conning tower—and watched the two rigid-hulled inflatable boats speed away from the Newport News as fast as their small engines could carry them. He took solace in noting the calm seas. With a little luck the boats would make landfall at the rendezvous point about a day later than originally scheduled, depending on how well the men paddled once their fuel ran dry.
The career naval officer gazed at a morning sun hanging above the eastern horizon where it shared the sky with a crescent-shaped band of powdery white clouds. He filled his lungs with the salty but fresh air; always a shock after breathing the stale, super-scrubbed oxygen of his boat.
“A beautiful morning,” he spoke to no one.
The Captain vacated the sail, closed the hatch behind, and returned to the empty bridge. The lights still blinked, monitors still monitored, and the computers continued their routines and software programs all aimed at keeping the Newport News operating at peak efficiency. He wondered exactly how long the sub could manage without a human crew. It scared him—or saddened him—that the answer might be ‘a long time.’
BONG.
Something hammered against the stern bulkhead. The heavy metal there dented—a little.
Farway hurried to the helm and wound the boat’s engines to all ahead full. He then moved fast to the dive station. Out of habit he activated the ‘dive’ alarm. It echoed through an empty boat.
BONG—creak…
A second impact. The water tight door bent further.
Captain Farway grabbed hold of an overhead rail with one hand while working the controls with the other. The forward ballast tanks flooded fast and the nose of the Newport News tilted down—down—down. The hull moaned. The sound of water whooshing by outside created a roar through the control room. Debris fell and rolled and smashed. Momentum built.
Above and behind him, the bulkhead bent and ripped off its hinges with one final push from the invader. Ignoring gravity, the assassin literally poured into the control room and clung to the tilted floor like a blob of muddy water—a horrible thing of eyes and mouths and tendrils. A terrible rotting smell accompanied it and Farway—already forced to turn away from the sickening sight—felt his stomach knot further from the malicious odor.
It made a noise—a gurgling—crying noise as it filled the aft half of the compartment. Inside its rippling skin writhed forms that might be the faces and souls of those already consumed.
Farway reached to activate the rear ballast tanks but hesitated. The sight—the smell—too much for his mind to comprehend.
The monstrosity poured across the bridge leaving an acidic, slimy trail behind as it clung to the sloping floor. A dozen mouths worked open at the sight of fresh prey.
Captain Farway hung precariously with one hand still holding a rail and his feet propped under a console. He produced his side arm, put the barrel under his chin, and pulled the trigger a moment before enveloped by a worse fate.
The black hull of the Newport News sunk into the lightless depths of the Atlantic, making for the bottom at top speed.
12. March of the Grenadiers
“Boy Pullen: You afeared of the Zulus then, Quartermaster?
QSM Bloomfield: One Zulu is only one man—and I’m afeared of no one man—but the Zulu, they come in the thousands—like a black wave of death—in the thousands…”
–From the movie, Zulu Dawn
General Jerry Shepherd sighed a huff of frustration and leaned over and into the tank’s open hatch. He saw a cramped compartment with tiny stools, a computerized work station, and an array of pedals, periscopes, joysticks, and levers. In other words, a chaotic jumble of technology shoved together into a tiny hole made to fit a crew of four in a space that would be cramped for two.
A drop of sweat fell from his cheek and splashed on the metal floor below.
“What are you doing down there?”
Captain William Rheimmer—son of council member Eva Rheimmer—had himself twisted in an ungodly fashion as he accessed a maintenance panel in a corner of the crew cab.
“There’s a problem with hydraulics,” the young officer answered.
“Captain, you’ve got an entire column of some dozen tanks held up for one bum system and we are less than two miles from Highway 135,” as if to accentuate that point, a distant sound like thunder—but they knew it not to be thunder—rumbled across the fields of golden grain surrounding the halted tank column. “You see, we’re at what they call the stagin’ area, Captain and we’ve got about another hour until we got to hit them.”
Shepherd projected confidence but he kept a myriad of doubts to himself.
The first doubt had to do with General Rhodes’ ability to break free from the ring of encirclement. His’ 3rd Mechanized division remained trapped in Halstead after abandoning their transport train. The last communiqué indicated a dire shortage of ammunition but a surplus of wounded.
The second doubt worried Shepherd to an even greater extent. Three days had passed since The Order decapitated a fair number of high ranking Imperial officers. Before that strike, forging a relief force from a collection of widely dispersed units seemed a difficult task. Now it appeared impossible.
After the destruction wrought at Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Harveys Lake, Shepherd managed to re-route elements of the 10th brigade from Rheimmer’s 3rd Armored Division of New Jersey to Kansas City as well as pieces of the re-named “Stonewall’s Calvary Brigade”, the centerpiece of what remained of the 2nd Mechanized Division of Virginia.
He knew it would not be enough. He needed that extra piece in place to the north, air support, and a hell of a lot of luck; all items The Empire appeared desperately short of in recent weeks.
One other concern loomed in the back of Shep’s mind where he hid it away so as to not face it. The Order had executed a rather effective decapitation strike against The Empire’s leadership. A reasonable man would assume they also tried to hit Trevor Stone on his way to Europe.
Point was—to Shep’s way of thinking—just hours after that strike, K9s all across The Empire deserted their posts, ignoring the call of handlers. The vast majority of the dogs—Trevor’s ‘Grenadiers’ as dubbed by Stonewall McAllister years before—no longer followed commands.
That had never happened before. Even when Trevor went to another universe—even when Trevor had been thought killed but was really imprisoned by The Order—even during those times the dogs remained loyal and in tune with their masters; better trained from birth than any dog had any right to be.
At the final meeting exactly one week ago, Trevor suggested his power over the K9s came from nature itself; a sort of built-in defense against the invaders. Shepherd did not know about that, but he trusted his eyes. The K9s helped save mankind from day one and even though the war grew into battles between planes and tanks, the grenadiers still served a valuable role in security, hunting, reconnaissance, and rescue.
To lose them—now…
“Sir, did you hear me?”
“What? Huh?”
“General Shepherd, take a look at this.”
Shep removed his cowboy hat, carefully lowered himself down the open hatch into the cramped quarters next to the very German-looking kid who had grown up working on Eva Rheimmer’s farm.
“Look at this,” and Rheimmer
pointed toward a mess of liquid and tubes behind an open panel. “I think I need a whole new unit.”
Shepherd repeated a saying he had heard at one time or another from just about every old-world veteran serving in the post-Armageddon army: “Haven’t you heard, Captain, this is the new army.”
“Sir?”
“Abandon this bucket of bolts. There ain’t any replacement parts coming. We’re out here all alone with one job to do and we’ve got to do it fast then haul-ass away before we get stomped. We can’t hold up for one tank.”
Shep sounded convincing despite knowing how desperately they needed each and every piece of equipment, particularly armor.
A sound of galloping horses pulled the general’s attention away from the discussion of tank repair. He raised his head and shoulders out the hatch. To the west the amber fields continued on toward the horizon where the Interstate waited along with an entrenched enemy army. Artillery and small arms fire carried over the distance to his ears.
The fields also stretched to the east but the treads of a dozen tanks, several up-armored Humvees hauling short-range artillery, and a trio of APCs had torn scars across that otherwise serene landscape. Men sat in the shade of their vehicles eating protein bars, swigging canteens, and grabbing a few minutes of sleep.
Five riders approached with General Cassy Simms leading the way. Shep had sent her north to Newton City-County airport to make contact with one of the key elements of that haphazard relief force gathering to try and save Rhodes.
“General, sir,” Cassy pulled her mount to a stop alongside the injured tank.
“Cassy. What say you? Was the airport usable?”
She answered, “Yes, General, the airport is still in good shape,” but he could tell by how she refused to look directly at him that good news would not be the order of the day.
“And..?”
“And, well, the Chinooks ferried in the 12th Engineering Brigade.”
Shep—looking one part prairie dog with his head and shoulders poking from the open hatch—gaped at General Simms. Her horse neighed. An explosion far off to the west drifted across the open fields.
She said, “About two hundred men on the tarmac with land mines, a mobile bridge-builder, one reinforced earth-mover, and a bunch of Hummers.”
“12th—Engineering—brigade…”
“Apparently they flew more than a dozen sorties to get all the equipment in. They had to hang the earthmover and the bridge from a special winch underneath the Shit-Hooks.”
General Shepherd narrowed his eyes and his mouth turned down at the edges.
He repeated again, “12th goddamn Engineering brigade? Engineering? Who the hell screwed the pooch on this one? That was supposed to be elements of 13th brigade! How the hell did they eff this up?”
But Shepherd knew the answer. Woody Ross had recently been named commander of the 4th Mechanized Division, parent unit to the both the 12th Engineering and 13th Mechanized Brigades. Ross, in turn, had been a part of the even larger 3rd Corps, which was now commander-less with the death of Casey Fink during The Order’s raid three days before.
Confusion. Misinterpreted orders. Incomplete communications. The type of things that occur when you have a sudden and unexpected change in leadership. The type of things The Order hoped for when they sent their assassins.
Shepherd pulled himself into a sitting position atop the cupola. He wiped the sweat from his brow with his black uniform sleeve and replaced his cowboy hat.
Cassy’s news signed General Rhodes’ death warrant. The Order’s main force complete with Leviathan would hit the Newtown area before the end of the day. Just as bad, in order to buy time to muster a relief force, The Empire had thrown dozens of sorties at Voggoth’s approaching army. It had worked; the enemy slowed their advance, but at the cost of at least a dozen fixed-wing aircraft, not to mention valuable ordnance and aviation fuel.
Combined with Shep’s column of armor, Cassy’s cavalry, and an eclectic collection of helicopter gunships waiting for the strike, the added light artillery and infantry units from the 13th brigade might have been enough to punch a hole in the enemy’s eastern lines running north to south along Highway 135 and free the 4,000 men under Rhodes’ command.
Not now. A communication mix-up caused by holes in the chain of command turned his desperate counter-attack into a suicide mission and no matter how much he wished otherwise, Shepherd saw no choice other to abandon the trapped men to their fate.
“Pull your cavalry back,” he ordered Simms. “Send word for those Shit-Hooks to turn around and pick up the Engineering brigade. Hell, might as well have them mine the airport while they’re there.”
“But, sir, what about General Rhodes?”
“Cassy, what do you want to do? Try and take on that pocket with what we’ve got? I’ve got shit here. Even with the 13th it was a crap shoot. Without them it’s not possible. I’m not going to throw away these boys for nothing. Phil is—well, General Rhodes is a lost cause.”
“Sir…”
“Cassy, don’t make me go sayin’ it again because it tasted pretty damn bad the first time.”
“No, sir,” her voice rose to a near shout, “Look.” And she pointed to the east.
He looked first to his column of vehicles. He saw the men waking from their naps, dropping their canteens and chow, and moving away from the cool shadows of their rides into the sunbaked fields to behold something further behind.
To General Jerry Shepherd, it appeared as if the horizon actually moved; like ripples in water as a wave curls toward the beach. That wave kept coming, pouring over the trampled fields, secondary roads, and farm house ruins strewn about the plains.
He kept his eyes east and climbed from the cupola until standing on the deck of the disabled Abrams tank. Captain Rheimmer poked his head out.
“What’s going on?”
For a moment Jerry Shepherd worried that The Order managed to deploy one of their pseudo-biological weapons to their rear; that his rescue mission had become a trap. His heart raced. The sweat already pouring from his forehead due to the heat doubled.
The swarm came without end. A tremble shook the ground and did not stop. A drone filled the air as the stampede closed.
Soldiers climbed aboard their armored vehicles; some drew their weapons but no one fired as they realized what approached.
Shepherd’s mouth fell open. He yanked off his hat and held it against his chest. In a moment of total awe he gasped, “Oh—oh God.”
They came seemingly without end, a gigantic horde of dogs: the Grenadier warriors who had saved Trevor’s life in the early days, done his bidding at New Winnabow, and now marched as one great army, side by side, packed in columns. Forget individual breeds; that did not matter. Claws and fangs rumbling forward as if one horrible beast.
The march of the Grenadiers reached the armored column and gently parted in the right places to flow around the men and machines. Shepherd watched them pass and realized that of all the onlookers, Cassy Simms’ horses appeared most at ease.
Nature’s attempt to protect its own.
Those words from Trevor’s attempt at an explanation forced their way into Shepherd’s thoughts, cutting through the wonder—and yes—the fear. He felt as if he stood in front of a tornado, or watched a volcano erupt, or felt the ground shake from an Earthquake.
Only nature can do something this big. Trevor had sent the K9s to enforce his will at New Winnabow, but now nature sent a hundred thousand canines to do its bidding.
The constant pounding of paws into the ground generated clouds of dust and created a roar that made it nearly impossible to speak, but Shep heard General Simms’ panicked cry, “What is going on! What is this?”
General Jerry Shepherd saw it clearly at that point. The K9s served as nature’s anti-bodies. Never in history had Earth’s ecosystem been invaded by an outside force. Indeed, not only an outside force but one led by Voggoth and his Order, the antithesis of life.
Nat
ure moved to counter the threat; a threat to the entire body of the planet. Somehow these Grenadiers—these anti-bodies—connected to Trevor via the genetic chain on which he served as a link.
Throughout history, dogs demonstrated sensitivity to human feelings, as evident in breeds ranging from care dogs to seeing eye dogs to guard dogs. Armageddon had grown that sensitivity to the point that the dogs were born better trained than ever thought possible.
And what have the K9s sensed of late from their human masters?
Desperation. Fear. All of it focused on Voggoth’s advancing legions.
One last great mustering of power. The war would be humanity’s to win or lose, but the fantastic Grenadiers offered one final contribution. The only type of contribution they could make in a conflict that had grown into air power and armor and artillery: a deluge aimed at The Order’s lines surrounding General Rhodes’ trapped unit.
They continued to come, stretching from horizon in the east to horizon in the west. Easily a hundred thousand four-legged warriors.
“Cassy!”
General Simms kept her glazed eyes on the Grenadier army as its tail end passed.
“General Simms!”
“What? Huh?”
“Get to your cavalry. Saddle up. I’m going to call in air support and give Rhodes the heads up. We have to move. Now!”
“What are you talking about? What’s going on?”
For the first time in days, General Shepherd smiled in a cocky grin. He thought of their old departed friend Stonewall McAllister and answered in words that might have come from that gallant gentleman’s vocabulary. “We’ve got a battle to fight, General. And it’s going to be glorious.”
A line of twenty alien turrets stood alongside Highway 135 mirroring the telephone poles sharing that stretch of road. They reached as tall as a street light and resembled the upper half of the letter ‘S’ in design with steel-like ribs lining their frames. The outer surface mixed black metal and red flesh. Coils and tubes wrapped around each turret rising from a belt of white-glowing energy sacks. Mounds of dirt surrounded the base of each turret, a tribute to how recently they had burrowed into the ground.
Beyond Armageddon: Book 05 - Fusion Page 20
