Alexander answered for the man, “You are addressing Sir Hadwin. He represents the survivors in England. The southern stretch of the British Isles, that is.”
“I thought that would have been you,” Trevor said to Alexander.
A young woman—perhaps mid-twenties—with short red hair, freckles, and fiery green eyes answered with—surprising for her looks—a gentleness in her voice, “Alexander did represent that territory at one time, but we elected him to lead.”
Alexander provided a verbal nameplate for the speaker: “Lady Tarah, of—”
Trevor cut Alexander off with a smile, “Ireland, of course.”
Alexander nodded and returned the smile, albeit not so heartily.
One of the other men at the table—a strong-looking fellow with shoulder-length blond hair—broke up the cordial conversation. “Where are the giant flying air ships? Where are your panzer brigades and jet air craft? I see only a man and a boy here. This is not what we expected.”
Alexander: “Sir Tobias, representing a confederation of clans in Austria and refugees from the Czech Republic.”
Trevor met the man’s glaring eyes and replied, “Things changed drastically for us last summer. We had—well—the enemy has hit us with surprising strength. All of our resources are committed to the battle.”
“So what are you saying?”
Armand, from his position along the wall, gave that answer, “It means this is all we get, a father and his son. We have been waiting around for the Americans all this time and they have made us more empty promises.”
“That’s not fair,” a defense came from a middle aged athletic-looking woman with a muscular build and deep voice. “We have been receiving supplies from the Americans for several years as well as technical advisors and intelligence.”
“Lady Verena,” Alexander whispered. “Of Switzerland.”
Armand protested, “I have been saying for years that we should not wait for them. That we should have been doing more. But you kept telling me to wait. Well what has it gotten us? Now we cannot fight back like we could have last year. Wasted time!”
One of the women at the table—a lovely girl with shiny black hair that stretched all the way down to her waist—waved for Armand to approach her. He did and as she spoke quietly to him she stroked his arm in a gesture of familiarity and warmth. He nodded his head, as if relenting in some fashion, then returned to his position against the wall.
Trevor asked Alexander, “What is he talking about?”
“Of course, you do not know,” Alexander answered. “Most of our radios had to be shut down and apparently you were—um—dead last year.”
A stocky man with a complexion that suggested a hint of Caribbean in his background offered an explanation, “Last year the group which calls themselves The Order launched a major offensive against our villages in central Europe. They, and the Duass, wiped out an armored division we had been building for years. Many of the spare parts and fuel you sent us were destroyed in this offensive.”
“That is Sir Jef, representing Belgium and survivors in parts of the lowlands.”
A young man—maybe twenty-one at best—but with the build of a football player, chimed in, “Those tanks were planned to be a critical part of the offensive we were supposed to launch when you sent one of those air ships over here. We had an opportunity to take back areas of the continent from the enemy, but we were told to wait for your reinforcements.”
“Lukas is correct,” broke in a tall man of middle age with a shaved head, “the Americans made promises and we waited—for what?”
Armand jumped, “Same old thing. Wait around to see what the Americans want to do. I say we do not need them. We never have.” A disapproving glance from the woman with the long black hair stopped Armand’s rant. He seemed to slump against the wall as if trying to disappear.
Trevor asked, “What happened?”
“They hit us very hard,” the man with the shaved head explained in an accent Trevor identified as Scandinavian, perhaps Norwegian. “We had taken back much of the countryside and some cities from the Duass. We developed communications links with survivors in eastern Europe, Spain, and even Turkey.”
Alexander continued, “Then they came at us. Very violent. Very fast. The Order led the way with the Duass mopping up pockets of resistance. They hit areas where our population gathered in significant numbers—slaughtered civilians without regard.”
“The worst,” Lady Verena of Switzerland added her deep voice, “was that they found and hit our largest military concentrations. We had two operational air bases and nearly a dozen jet fighters combat ready. Both gone in the first day of the assault.”
“Our armor and heavy infantry units suffered the brunt of the attack,” Alexander said.
Armand spit on the floor with disgust and in French boasted, “We made them pay a high price.”
“But not enough,” Jef of Belgium spoke in English but obviously understood Armand. “We have been set back five years! All in no more than three weeks of fighting. Now we are like caged animals.”
“What?” Trevor asked. “What does that mean? Caged?”
Armand moved away from his position against the wall and strolled toward Trevor in a gait he could think of only as a slink. A cocky and angry slink.
“You want to know, American? Those dumb ducks have occupied the big cities and placed road blocks all through France and Europe. They have cut off our lines of communication. It took us days to get all of the knights here to meet you. My cavalry brought them here at great risk. I lost ten of my best men in the Ruhr valley and two of Sir Hadwin’s escort ships were blown to pieces crossing the channel.”
Alexander said, “We were forming up, becoming a nation until last summer. Now we are back to small groups of survivors holding out in the mountains, the forests—piecemeal.”
Armand stopped in front of Trevor, jabbed a finger into his chest, and growled, “For what? Huh? Tell me, American.”
“I told you, I’m not an American,” Trevor kept his calm. “If you keep thinking like that, you’re more piecemeal than you know.”
“What I know? What I know is that you sat over there on the other side of the ocean and told us what to do but it was not what was best for us, it was best for you. Well to hell with you. We never needed you. We still—“
“Armand!”
The shout stopped his words in mid-sentence. That shout came from the woman with long, black hair who rose to her feet to accentuate her command.
Armand did not look at her; he kept his eyes on Trevor who could feel snorts of breath from his sharp nose like a dragon puffing when it would prefer to blow flames. Nonetheless, Armand retreated a step.
The woman with the dark hair walked slowly—gracefully—from the table to where Trevor and JB stood. She smiled warmly.
“My name is Cai. It is a pleasure to meet you, Emperor.”
And she bowed her head in the slightest; a sincere show of respect.
Trevor did not know what to say.
Jorgie spoke instead, “Where are your people from, Lady Cai?”
She knelt before the boy and studied him the way a mother might examine her newborn; searching for the answers of life in his eyes with both warmth and wonder.
“I represent the people of Wales. It is a beautiful place. I wish you would come and visit there with me some day.”
“I would like that.”
“Please excuse our selfishness, Master Jorgie. In our haste to share our troubles, we have neglected to ask about your people. I sense things are not well where you come from.”
Jorgie admitted, “Bad things are happening. People are dying.”
While Cai remained on a knee studying JB, Trevor shared with the room in a humble voice, “From what you tell me, I believe the attack against your positions was a prelude to what is happening in North America. The Order launched a full-scale invasion on our western coast. They had planned an invasion on the east as well, but w
e managed to stop that before it started. Point is, they hit you hard enough to knock you back into place before they came after us full bore. Now my military is on the verge of breaking. We’ve lost tens of thousands of soldiers and as many civilians. The Order hit you good to slow you down and is now intent on destroying us.”
An Italian man with a prickly beard and wearing a sport snap cap asked, “What is it that makes you think you are the first priority of this Order?”
“Simple. We’re further along than you folks. This time last year we had secured the heart of North America and were prepared to hit alien positions in Mexico. Our industry was running great thanks to some alien technology, we no longer had major shortages of anything, and we had developed the means to project power anywhere on the globe. To put it bluntly, we were winning. None of the alien races could stop us; not since we shut down the gateways a few years ago.”
“That’s what you told us,” Sir Kaarle—the man with the shaved head—of Scandinavia countered, “but then The Order attacks us with an entire army. Right now there are large formations of Voggoth’s forces supporting the Duass and penning us in.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, Trevor,” Alexander confirmed. “That is so.”
“There is a lot we don’t know,” Lady Cai—still sharing smiles with JB—interrupted. “And you’re here to tell us a great deal. Is that not true?”
Her hand reached out and touched JB’s cheek. She closed her eyes as if bathing in the child’s essence.
Armand stepped forward and in French asked her, “What is it, Cai? What is it with this boy?”
Trevor asked in English, “I don’t understand.”
Alexander shared, “Lady Cai—she—I’m not sure how to explain this…”
“I feel things,” she did the explaining for herself. “I have a very natural—oh, what would I call it? Sensitivity.”
Trevor—the man who spoke to dogs, periodically met with a mysterious old man in the woods, and had magically gained access to a library of genetic memories—asked in a skeptical tone, “What do you mean? A, like, psychic or something?”
“Father!”
Cai found that amusing. She exhaled a soft, comforting laugh.
“Nothing so exotic. Sometimes I feel things. Call it an understanding of people. Of things.”
“She sells herself short,” Armand said although the sneer in his voice showed that he did not like having to explain to the American. “She has had dreams of things to do, things to come. And she can tell a good heart from a bad one.”
Trevor remembered Stonewall McAllister. A vision had led him to the lakeside estate during that first year.
Cai jumped, “And Armand, what would you say if I tell you these two have good hearts? Would you stop projecting your frustrations onto them? Would you treat them as honored guests?”
Armand fidgeted but held his tongue.
The Lady then removed her hand from Jorgie’s cheek and addressed the boy in a soft one, “You are a very special child. But you know that, don’t you?”
He nodded. His eyes held the same fascination for her as she did for him; the same wonder.
She said, “I have thought about you before.”
Trevor asked, “You knew he would be coming?”
She corrected, “I knew he should come. Not that he would.”
“Trevor,” Alexander tried to move the conversation in a more purpose-orientated direction. “You say your army is in a battle for its life. You say you do not have the forces to spare to help us right now. To be blunt, why is it you came here? Why did you need to see us?”
Trevor realized his next words would cause a stir, but he had no choice other than to say them.
“Because if The Empire falls, all of humanity loses.”
Grumbles and snaps in a variety of languages circulated the room. Armand appeared ready to burst.
“It is not always about America!”
“We survived without you, we will keep on surviving!”
Alexander stepped forward and raised his hands to calm the commotion. The ‘knights’ quieted but the scowls and narrowed eyes suggested they did not calm.
Trevor sidestepped Alexander and addressed the gathering, “This is not about America, or Europe, or Asia or whatever. It is about our species, and that means a lot more than you might think.”
“If you are destroyed,” Sir Jef observed, “then we will remain in hiding until our strength returns. We spent years stockpiling fuel and raw materials. What we imported from you has been a great help, yes, but we will continue on. We will survive.”
“No, you will not,” but it was not Trevor’s voice that said those words. It was Jorgie’s.
A hush fell over the room. Lady Cai appeared quite pleased with JB. She touched his cheek again briefly, then rose to her feet and addressed the group.
“You keep calling him arrogant, but I think we have enough arrogance in this room ourselves. We still use names that have no meaning any more: England, Wales, Germany, Ireland. Pride can be a source of strength, but not vanity. Set that aside and listen to him. I am sure we can teach Mr. Stone a few things. But I am equally sure he has come here to share with us important information.”
Alexander asked, “What is it you expect from us?”
Trevor slowly surveyed the room, making eye contact with each of the knights and when he came to Armand he offered the answer that that man craved as surely as Nina Forest craved it.
“I expect you to fight.”
14. Scorched Earth
The southern half of the National Beef processing plant existed only as ruins: a few standing exterior walls resembling cheap sets on a stage play, jumbles of felled steel beams, collapsed walkways, and melted machinery. Like Air Force bases and bivouacked armies, The Order saw food production facilities as targets for their bombers and artillery. And while the processing plant had never reached its pre-Armageddon levels of output, it had distributed thousands of tons of meat products for The Empire’s population prior to its most recent evacuation.
In contrast to the southern half, the northern half of the plant remained fairly intact albeit open to the elements. From the shadows there came Nina Forest running through the beams of dawn’s first light between debris piles and darting behind an overturned, rusted conveyor belt just as a large explosion sent shrapnel and dirt flying all into the air.
She did not stop, however, and neither did Vince Caesar who paralleled her charge a dozen yards to her left as they advanced toward Route 400 on the southeastern edge of Dodge City, Kansas.
Working in unison, the two sprinted from what would have been the outer wall of the meat plant and across what had once been the employee parking lot.
Two more explosions tried to halt their progress. One sent the remains of a Volkswagen spinning over Nina’s head, another caused an ancient light poll to bend then topple.
Nina leapt over a heap of metal and rubber that might have once been a Chevy S-10 pickup and raced toward a jackknifed 18-wheeler so fast that her momentum only stopped when she slammed shoulder-first into the toppled truck’s roof. Another explosion—just six feet in front of her—let fly a lethal halo of metal and rock.
She huffed several deep breaths, nearly gagging in the process: the stench of spoiled meat loitered over the entire complex making her stomach churn.
Her black BDU’s showed the signs of four days’ worth of guerrilla fighting behind enemy lines; mud and blood stains and a frayed utility belt. The glimmer of the sword strapped to her thigh seemed dulled through overuse.
She fit her black beret a tighter on her head and then looked over to Vince. He huffed, too, while kneeling in the cover of a rusting dumpster.
Next she glanced around the front grille of the dead truck and took stock of the opposition. The enemy supply convoy stood still on Route 400—also known as East Trail Street—exactly as the ambush plan anticipated. The explosives had turned the lead vehicle into a jumble of wires, veins, m
uscles, and wheels while digging a deep trench across the pavement.
The second vehicle had done as anticipated, too, in swerving into the field to the south in order to circumvent the disabled leader. The landmines there blasted four of the eight wheels off the boat-like truck and left it sideways with its contents of various sized spheres spilling out.
Three vehicles remained, two of which were more of the greenish canoe-like transports with eight wood-looking (but not) wheels.
The third—the one in the middle—presented the greatest challenge. This escort car wore shell-like armor and rode on a cushion of air very close to the ground. On top rested a circular turret with a small barrel that fired high-velocity rounds capable of ripping open the best ballistic armor. To the rear of the tank-sized craft swiveled a tube that delivered explosive shells at the attackers.
Six of the robed monks with their swords and forearm-mounted pellet guns took cover to either side of the escort tank while one of the gray-skinned Ogre fellows stood blazingly in the open, prepared to take on all who dared.
The turret saw Nina peaking and opened fire. She pulled her head back just as a series of shots ricocheted off the MACK grille.
She closed her eyes and drew a tactical map in her mind from memory. She saw the lot of broken cars between her and the road. She knew they needed to keep the enemy’s attention for Carl Bly’s sake; any moment he would reveal his position in the tree line to the convoy’s southeast and would be easy prey for the turret should his Javelin miss.
Nina heard the sound of Oliver Maddock’s high-powered sniper rifle firing from somewhere among the ruins. She knew if he pulled the trigger he most certainly found a kill. But she also knew those high-powered rounds would not pierce the belly of the Ogre from distance, so he must have killed a monk.
Any thoughts of pity or hesitation in killing The Order’s monks had faded years before. By the time assimilated humans were equipped with the arm-mounted pellet guns they had passed the point of salvation. The long-departed Reverend Johnny—an expert of Voggoth’s machinations—had taught as much.
Reverend Johnny—he pulled the implant from me…
Beyond Armageddon: Book 05 - Fusion Page 23
