“What about the round table at Camelot?”
Alexander assured in a light-hearted tone that belied his usually serious personality, “I told you last year that everyone would accept the proposal. You need to learn to relax.”
Stone stopped walking, considered, and said, “You know what? In a way this part scares me more than the fighting did. There is an opportunity here, Alexander. I don’t want to blow it. But yeah, once all this is done I’ll relax.”
“Do not get your hopes up. I know human nature. If you’re looking for a storybook ending, you are likely to be disappointed. Besides, nothing ever really ends. Things simply move to a new stage.”
Trevor realized that therein lay the difference between himself and Alexander. He—Trevor—felt born for Armageddon. The three gifts—his sense of responsibility—his very genetics—all groomed for this one fight. Alexander came from a different breed. More pragmatic, perhaps. Not as hasty. Not as driven. Better suited for the long haul.
The world will belong to people like him, now.
Trevor asked, “Where is Armand? Is he coming with us?”
“No. He and Cai are getting married and taking care of southern France for the meantime.”
“Good for him. Do you think he can make the switch back to being ‘just a guy’?”
After a laugh Alexander answered, “I do not think Armand was ever ‘just a guy’. Besides, there is much work left to be done. Lots of nasty things out there that will need to be hunted down, even after the main forces have departed. Voggoth’s pets, the Witiko bases—much more blood will be shed for years to come.”
“Alexander, are you trying to cheer me up?”
The Englishman grunted at Trevor’s sarcasm.
The sight at the docks changed the conversation.
Alexander told Trevor, “About half of the original crew remains onboard. They helped us keep lines of communication open between England and the continent during the worst of times. The remaining officers and surviving sailors of your submarine—the Newport News—have volunteered to serve onboard for the return journey.”
Trevor eyed the magnificent ship from stem to stern. As he did, a stalwart British Captain descended the gang plank. Trevor saw this veteran of the sea as a spiritual brother to Farway; the man who had brought him to Europe a year before and whose sacrifice had bought vital time.
The Captain acknowledged Alexander with a nod and then spoke to Trevor, “It would be an honor, sir.”
“The honor will be all mine.”
Enthusiasm and energy returned to the lakeside estate. Vehicles drove the perimeter road; administrative personnel walked the grounds—even a handful of young K9s served human masters again.
An Eagle transport left the landing pad, ferrying away a Hivvan representative under the escort of Internal security.
In the basement of the mansion at the conference table surrounded by televisions and communications gear, Jon met with Jerry Shepherd, Gordon Knox, and Eva Rheimmer on the topic of logistics: the logistics of transportation and seed corn for the families returning to their homes west of the Mississippi; the logistics of aviation fuel and rail lines for the alien passengers traversing the land in search of the way home; the logistics of bullets and guns for the highly-active Hunter-Killer teams taking to the wilderness in search of monsters.
Jon rubbed his eyes and answered Gordon Knox yet again, “It has been eight months since we saw any sign of a farm or any of The Order’s organized facilities.”
“We have to be sure. You heard the lizard—“
“Hivvan,” Jon corrected as he fought the daily battle of hearts and minds.
“You heard the Hivvan,” Gordon sneered as he accepted Jon’s correction. “One of their air patrols saw a Goat Walker in St. Thomas.”
Shepherd chimed in, “Them things sure ain’t a picnic, but they’re not exactly what I’d call organized forces. The way Anita has it figured, they’re just animals from some older race that got warped into Voggoth’s pets when he got the better of em’. We’re going to be finding them for a long time, but they can’t reproduce so there’s only so many out there.”
“We have to be sure,” Gordon insisted as he did at each meeting, albeit with a little less urgency each time. “It only takes one farm for Voggoth to start building an army again.”
“Gordon, we will never be sure, unless we find something. Until then, we keep our guard up. Omar’s re-starting the dreadnought program and we’ve got a shitload of intel from the other races.”
“One big happy family,” Gordon said with a sardonic smile. “Of course, tell that to the Centurian officer and his regiment that has refused to surrender. Then there’s that group of Duass who slaughtered their Internal Security escort and disappeared into the Louisiana swamps. Like I said, one big happy—“
“It’s not perfect,” Brewer interrupted. “There are also a hundred stories of our people taking revenge out on aliens. Cassy’s cavalry found about a dozen dead Hivvans refugees murdered and skinned just five miles from this mansion. But that’s not the point. Like you always said, we have to tough things out. In this case, we have to tough out the small things so that the big picture doesn’t get screwed up.”
Eva—wanting to move the discussion toward the important matter of food production—egged on Gordon with the question, “Aren’t you going away for vacation soon?”
Gordon—fully understanding her concern for what it was—tilted his head and offered a smirk that doubled for a popular phrase ending in ‘you’ as he answered, “Yes. We leave tomorrow. Thank you very much, Eva.”
The phone buzzed.
“I’ll grab that since there’s nothing going on down here other than a whole bunch of circles being run.”
Shep eschewed the tabletop phone and walked over to one mounted on the wall beneath the stairs. The others took up the issue of re-invigorating fields poisoned by Voggoth’s version of farms, which sucked the nutrients from the ground exchanging barren wasteland in place of fertile plain.
“Jon,” Shepherd called and held up the receiver. “It’s coastal security.”
Brewer left the table and accepted the phone.
“Yes? When—how soon—okay, we’re on our way.”
He hung the receiver harder than he realized; the result of a jolt of energy delivered by the message.
“We need a transport right away.”
“We’re we heading?” Shep asked.
“New York.”
Nina Forest drifted along the short hall in her apartment. Denise and Jake left just minutes before after having spent a belated Mother’s Day in Annapolis. Nina had been thinking about the class she was scheduled to teach later that summer at the academy when the television—left on in hopes of catching a weather forecast—grabbed her ear.
An excited anchorman reported, “We are getting some news from New York City right now—one of our reporters is in the city taping a story on the re-opening of the Statue of Liberty after hundreds of volunteers spent the last month repairing missile damage. Apparently there is a bigger story developing right now. Our reporter is describing it as the most amazing sight she’s seen in a decade. We’re trying to re-establish phone contact and hope to have an update here in a moment.”
Nina knew.
Her wait was over.
During the initial invasion, New York City became infested with alien pack animals gorging and vicious monsters from Voggoth’s realm inflicting horror and pain. Law enforcement as well as neighborhood street gangs battled to survive against an estimated 200,000 extraterrestrial creatures; most hungry and dangerous. The strict fire arms prohibitions in the city, however, made civilians easy targets.
Within 12 months after the invasion, New York City transformed into a new ecosystem including prey animals and predators with humanity belonging to the former category. Pockets of people existed in skyscrapers-turned-fortresses and the best-protected evacuation shelters while National Guard troops held out at LaGuard
ia until the military brass could no longer airlift in supplies.
Then things got really bad.
The forces of Trevor’s Empire attacked Manhattan island nearly six years later and fought in an atmosphere described by those who experienced it as a modern day Stalingrad. However, instead of alien soldiers, artillery, and armor, the human force of liberation fought giant beetles, hordes of Jaw-Wolves, flying Devilbats, and scores of other nightmares all hiding and pouncing from the ruins of the Big Apple.
Only a handful of survivors—many reduced to a primitive, barbaric existence—were found and much of the city suffered from blast and fire damage. The bulk of the five boroughs remained relatively uninhabited in the years since, waiting for the time and resources to invest in rebuilding.
The harbor area served as the exception. Many ships of The Empire’s small navy called the area home while supply vessels sailing from docks at Newark Bay, Jersey City, and Hoboken carried food, equipment, fuel, and passengers up and down the eastern seaboard.
Furthermore, the fishing industry found new life; between eight and twenty trawlers left the harbor every morning and returned to sell their catch to the highest bidders at the historic old South Street Seaport. Refrigerator trucks would then spirit the haul away, some sending the fish back out to sea on those supply ships headed to points south, others driving in-land to rail yards for distribution to the west.
An important link in the eastern security fence or ‘Tambourine Line” was established on Governor’s Island and the old financial district of Lower Manhattan came to life again a few years after Continental dollars replaced an economy of barter.
Ellis Island eventually earned new purpose as a survivor processing center while several amateur playwrights and wannabe starlets re-opened two Broadway theaters and played for small audiences. At the same time, Battery Park became a popular recreation spot.
On the afternoon of May 28, the 10,000 or so people and military personnel working in and around New York harbor enjoyed a spring day beneath a band of white clouds.
The buzz started at about two o’clock with radio chatter coming in from Rockaway Point. Word spread through Internal Security. A half hour later a reporter for the National Broadcast Network on Liberty Island overcame a myriad of technical challenges and cleared a phone line to NBN’s main office.
Within minutes the construction crews, the fishermen, and the businessmen, left their jobs and headed to the harbor. Traffic on the Brooklyn bridge came to a halt as truckers parked their rigs to watch. Dockworkers stopped loading ships and soldiers vacated their posts.
They lined the Jersey coast, the ferry launch at the tip of Manhattan, the piers on Staten Island.
A helicopter flew in from the west, swinging around and set down hurriedly on the park at the tip of Ellis Island. Jon Brewer and Jerry Shepherd bound out onto the lawn, hurrying to the water’s edge.
On liberty island a father hoisted his daughter onto his shoulders to afford a better view but the best view of all belonged to the volunteer construction workers atop Lady Liberty’s torch.
The armada sailed up New York bay in haphazard formation. Hundreds of ships of every conceivable ocean-going kind: small to medium-sized military vessels from a dozen countries, a powered catamaran that once served as a ferry, 20 sea-worthy yachts with sails hoisted, a cargo ship, and a pair of small cruise ships.
Trevor Stone stood on the deck of HMS Cornwall, a British frigate that survived the invasion and fought for the court at Camelot. He stepped forward on the deck as the mixed crew of English and American seamen guided the ship inland.
In a fit of spontaneity, Trevor pumped his fist in the air and let loose a shout of joy. He did not know if that joy came from the sight of his homeland, from the understanding of what he had accomplished, from the war’s end, or from relief at knowing his personal journey neared conclusion.
Whether they saw his joy or heard his shout or merely felt the energy radiating from the fleet, the crowds along the shore and on the bridges burst into a frenzy of celebration. A magnificent ovation of clapping hands, victory cries, and tears.
In their celebration, Trevor felt something greater. A sense of gratitude. Appreciation. For all their suffering, he had taken the responsibility upon his shoulders. He had done what needed to be done, no matter the personal cost. A decade-long act of sacrifice.
The fleet dispersed to the various docks around the harbor bringing the representatives from a thousand human settlements and enclaves; representatives elected not on the basis of political boundaries, ethnic backgrounds, or religious manifestos, but on their ability to speak for the ones left behind.
The Cornwall slid into port at Ellis Island. The crowd at the base of the gangplank roared with approval as Trevor led a procession to shore.
The crowd parted. Jon and Shep approached.
“Permission to come ashore, General.”
Shepherd tipped his Stetson to Trevor then shook Rick Hauser’s hand vigorously.
Jon stared at Trevor with no expression at all for several long seconds before admitting, “I can’t think of anything smart to say.”
“Well—why start now, right?”
Jon took his hand but the handshake turned into a hug. When they released, Jon asked, “Jorgie?”
Trevor’s jubilation hesitated.
“He—he went away.”
“So we won,” Jon laid it out. “But paid a hell of a price.”
Something in the inflexion in his tone—Trevor’s heart thumped hard.
“Lori?”
Jon shook his head and repeated, “We paid a hell of a price.”
The crowd at the pier would not let the mood sour. A wave of cheers carried among the mob. Trevor let a smile—an unsure smile—flicker on his lips.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll remember the dead. Today, we celebrate life.”
29. The Fourth Gift
“I have often thought that in the hereafter of our lives, when I owe no more to the future and can be just a man, that we may meet, and you will come to me and claim me as yours, and know that I am your husband. It is a dream I have…”
–the character of King Arthur in Excalibur
Trevor stared out the closed sliding glass door on the second floor of the estate, watching a gaggle of geese float across the lake waters as midafternoon turned to late afternoon. He saw the dock where Jerry Shepherd used to fish during that first year, before he had moved south as the armies of liberation marched.
He spied Omar Nehru—rolls of blueprints under his arm and a cigarette between his lips—walking hurriedly to a waiting car. Trevor knew that Omar’s wife, Anita would never regain all of the sanity she lost in the bowels of Red Rock.
Nonetheless, the estate felt peaceful. Relaxed. And, admittedly, a little dull.
I could use a little dull for now.
Dull did not describe Trevor’s trip to Montreal the day before where he addressed the global congress of hundreds of representatives from around the world; the people who responded to his invitation to build a better future.
And what did they do?
They bickered. They argued. They demanded. They protested. Some proposed and some rejected. One big mob shouting and pointing at one another.
Trevor had felt certain that the relief of having survived the invasion would result in cooperation. He hoped for a communal spirit that would lead almost immediately to all kinds of treaties, a commitment to one world government perhaps based on a global federalism, and a format for electing representatives: a post-Armageddon constitutional congress that spoke for the entire world.
He had given a speech saying as much, detailing how the old world’s political in-fighting and an overbearing bureaucracy failed man’s nations when the invasion began. He spoke of our common bonds, the insignificance of superficial differences, and the need to reject the pre-Armageddon divides that had made civilization susceptible to outside attack.
They smiled. They nodded
. They clapped at the right moments and in the end roared with a standing ovation. So moved were they that a vote to create a ceremonial position of ‘Emperor’ passed without a single objection.
And then the arguing began anew.
All the old ‘isms’ made the rounds: socialism, capitalism, communism, despotism, along with monarchy, oligarchy, and anarchy. Trevor heard them all. He sat in on the discussions for three hours until a headache forced his retreat to a transport. He left Jon Brewer behind.
Trevor had realized as he fled the convention center that he did not know how to handle the debate because debate had never been a part of his mission.
Evan Godfrey, where are you when we need you?
And there was the irony. If only Evan had been patient. This could have been his moment. His ability to inspire with speeches, to boil politics to their essence, to find common ground—it would have been something to behold and Trevor would have gladly handed the reins to him now, with the world safe.
Instead, chaos ruled in Montreal. The old lines of divide reared their ugly heads: nationalism, ethnicity, religion, tribal loyalties and a plethora of other excuses to divide groups into further divisions.
Trevor came to realize that the concept of one great world government providing peace and prosperity for a re-building planet would not arise from the conference. Still something would come of it. Something better than the old status quo. Something that would recognize the common interests of humanity.
It had to. It must.
Or we did not learn the lessons of Armageddon.
Trevor felt his fingers instinctively moving to pinch his nose and forced them away. He did not need to worry. These problems belonged to someone else. Perhaps Alexander would form a consensus. While not as political savvy as Godfrey, Alexander’s track record at Camelot proved he could bring disparate parties together.
Trevor’s problems had finally changed to a more personal nature. Humanity would need a new leader for this new age.
Beyond Armageddon: Book 05 - Fusion Page 52
