by Jordan Ervin
Adam bounced up and down as the truck rumbled across a lengthy grass field, thinking of his family up ahead at the base. Tyler shouted on the radio next to him, though he failed to receive anything but static. Two more pillars of smoke rose to their right—one close to a large blockade that Tyler said protected the inner fort while the other column of dense smoke rose half a mile to the south of that gate. Tyler tossed the radio down to the floor with a harsh curse.
“Just keep going,” Adam said, attempting to sound confident as the truck raced through a sports complex.
“We did everything,” Tyler said, breathing deeply as he glanced at the billowing clouds of blackness to his right. “We set up blockades, we armed our men as best as we could, but now…it all burns. What the hell could we have done differently?”
Adam stared back at Tyler silently, searching for an answer. He had wondered that same question so often over the past few months as he dwelled on the road behind him. Adam had done his best to stop Lukas Chambers, only to lose the nation in the end. He had traveled through war, surviving one small battle after another, only to nearly lose what good remained within. He had struggled, bled, and killed in his quest to find peace, only to think he might die now, so close to the family he had thought dead.
What could you have done differently? Adam thought quietly.
As the truck jostled him around, speeding quickly to his death or deliverance, a whisper of a whisper echoed through his mind, answering his inquiry for him.
Pray.
The word struck Adam like a blast of arctic air and he instantly realized a sad truth about his journey. Over the past four months of hardship and survival—as he teetered on losing what good remained inside him—Adam had failed to pray even once. He had found God in the days before he had lost his battle with Lukas, only to seek out survival and vengeance in the following months. Now, as they raced toward the outpost, Adam knew for the first time in a long time exactly what he needed to do.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, shutting the world out for but a moment as he silently prayed.
God, I am sorry. I failed to seek you out when I needed you most. Please, help me through this. Not just this battle of men, but the battle for my soul. I don’t believe you brought me here to die. I refuse to believe it! But God…I need you. Those we fight who have been turned against their will need you. Fort Harding needs you now.
The world needs you now, more than ever.
Victor Castle shrieked as he was dragged out of hell and cast back to reality. He had no idea how long he had been under, though it had felt like years. The stench of bile filled his nose and he quickly emptied his stomach on the back of a man beside him. He looked around him, trying to remember where he had been.
Trailer...battle…Fort Harding!
As the memory returned, a gruff voice whispered from the tiny Wasp behind his ear.
“The final blockade has been partially breached, though the breaching trucks have been disabled. You will all need to run the final mile by foot and storm the inner base. We have bikes and runners ready to go before you once the gap is cleared. They will clear the path for your advance. We have deployed IRDs above you. Know that they are watching those who might decide to fail us. Remember the pain that awaits cowards and the freedom that awaits the one who finds Adam Reinhart.”
“You heard command,” Victor shouted meekly, resuming his role of authority even though his voice was clearly weak and pathetic. “Don’t stop until—”
A surge of heated air passed through the trailer so violently that it blew out Victor’s ear drums and tore his shirt from his torso. He closed his eyes and shouted as the trailer tilted to the right. Sound fled into a ferocious nothingness and the trailer crashed on its side, throwing everyone about. Victor collided with a wall of human flesh, aware of panic and fear while his ears were most certainly unaware of anything.
He pushed himself up quickly, clawing for freedom from the mass of scrambling men and women. Victor noticed light pouring in from the rear gate and began crawling for it, mumbling to himself as terror coursed through his body. He could see the other semi-trucks slamming on their brakes outside, screeching to a halt as hundreds began leaping from the trailers.
Victor fell from the trailer as a rocket—launched from somewhere near the front of their lengthy convoy—struck a semi-truck one hundred feet to his right. The cab exploded in a silent fury of fire and sparks. Victor looked to the left of the ruined trailer he had crawled from and saw a burning crater where a missile had nearly killed him.
Men and women began running around him, their faces contorted in howls and screams that were indiscernible to him. He looked overhead, his eyes immediately seeing the IRD above. He could almost feel Rendell watching him, waiting for an excuse to put him back under. His bare torso prickled with first and second degree burns while his head pounded in pain. Victor took a deep breath, summoned the last of his courage, and began running with the masses toward Fort Harding, hoping that death would find him and set him free.
Thousands of Praetorians descended upon New Orleans like a cloud of locusts. Lukas observed the wall of screens intently, their chutes billowing as their boots hit the ground. The Yellow Jackets slowly advanced into the city from the south, gunning down every living person who did not have a transponder like those which had been injected in each Praetorian. A grand total of twenty-five hundred highly trained Praetorians now swept through the city, assisted by the drones, fast-moving bombers, and gunships above.
“Intel suggests Sigmund will be located in the French Quarter,” Clark Madison said.
“Use the Yellow Jackets and gunships to subdue the rest of the city,” Lukas replied. “Have the Praetorians concentrate on locating Sigmund’s HQ. Capture him alive if possible.”
“I thought you wanted him dead,” Jacob asked.
“I want him to see my face before he dies,” Lukas replied. “I want the man who nearly cost me everything to tremble as he gazes upon his Sovereign.”
“My dearest chap,” Jacob began, “I know Sigmund quite well. As a matter of fact, I know of only one thing that can make that man tremble and it is not you.”
“Then I will at least look him in the eyes before he closes his to this world,” Lukas said as the Praetorians began spreading out.
“A reasonable request,” Jacob said, patting Lukas on the shoulder. “While I am not one to usually laud victory before finality, I believe you have won. Congratulations, my Sovereign.”
Despite his looming success, Lukas couldn’t help but frown. Jacob was right. The Patriarchs were scattered, New Orleans was falling, and Sigmund was surrounded. Still, as Lukas watched the victory he had dreamt about for months unfold, he glanced at the door, his heart sinking as he wondered if his selfish ambitions had cost him the one person that mattered most.
Where are you, Maria?
Maria stepped out of the car, failing to suppress the tremors in her hands as her feet pressed against the soft grass. She looked over at the guard next to her, nodding with as much elegance as she could.
“Are you okay, my lady?” the man asked.
“Yes,” Maria answered, her voice shaky. She knew what was about to come would likely cost this man his life one way or another and she tried to ignore him. Still, his face was already seared into her memory.
Are their lives worth your freedom? Maria thought as she stepped toward the banks of the Potomac with her chin held high and her hand on her bag. Is anything too costly to free yourself from this life?
She halted next to the river, the tremors growing stronger as she waited. Maria’s moment of deliverance was nearly at hand.
Eric crossed East Park Avenue and burst through an open gate on the inner wall, slowing to a stop as he panted for air. Lieutenant Bren halted next to him while the last of the survivors ran through. A volley of shouts by men behind the inner wall demanded answers, though Eric ignored them. Eric breathed deeply, trying to regain the wind he had lost ret
reating from the breached gate that now left nothing between Fort Harding’s citizens but a few hundred soldiers, a widened creek, and a low wall.
“They’re through,” James shouted as Trey ran up to them. “Send a runner to Nadia and tell her the last of the survivors from the breach are behind the wall. Close the gate, blow the bridges, and get everyone you can up in—”
“Belay those orders!” Eric shouted, standing up and breathing deeply.
“We have to close this gate now and cut them off,” James argued.
“We don’t know if everyone is through,” Eric replied. “You want to tell Nadia you cut off Tyler and whoever survived the Southgate One and Two?”
“You know there is no way anyone else made it,” Trey argued, stepping forward. “We need to—”
“What we need to do is stay calm and keep cool heads,” Nadia said as she stormed into view. “Eric, what in God’s name is happening?”
“All of Little Rock is battering down our door,” Eric replied, glancing backward as the gate closed behind him. “They were using suicide bombers on motorcycles to hit the blockades before plowing through them with armored dump trucks. They had dozens, if not hundreds of semi-trucks bringing up the rear. They breached Southgate One and Two, but we partially held them at Beebe Capps and Benton.”
“Partially?” Nadia said as they ascended steps to the top of the inner wall, peering southward. Multiple columns of smoke now rose to the south—the sounds of resistance had died off as the last of those who had refused to retreat died.
“We disabled the armored trucks they were using to breach each wall, but not before the lead truck’s wreckage crashed into us. A few of the containers collapsed and there’s a gap just wide enough for their vehicles to pass through one at a time, though they’ll have to drive slow. It bought us some time to counterattack their reinforcements, but there’s no way we could have closed that breach.”
“What of our armored vehicles stationed there?”
“They did what they could,” Eric said, watching the men gather around him at the inner campus, knowing his hour of leadership wasn’t yet over. “As soon as they were gone, I ordered all survivors off the wall to rally back here for a last stand. I give us five minutes before they’re crossing the creek and charging this way.”
“Did you see what they were carrying in the semis?” Nadia asked.
“Soldiers,” Eric answered, looking out over the battlefield. “At least a hundred per trailer. They’re blocking video feeds, but Trey was able to catch a glimpse of hundreds of additional semis before we lost the last signal. Whoever is hitting us, they’ve brought thousands.”
Nadia lowered the binoculars slowly, her eyes flickering over to Eric. He could clearly see her inner struggle as she tried to remain courageous and composed. But Eric knew the truth just as well as Nadia did.
In the unlikely miracle that her husband had survived the initial attack, he was now surrounded by a sea of unforgiving fiends.
“Do you…think anyone else survived?”
Eric tried to come up with an answer to comfort her, but his pause gave his real thoughts away. She nodded before raising the binoculars to her eyes again.
“Can we detonate the bridges without radio?” she asked loudly.
“Yes ma’am,” Second Lieutenant Bren said, stepping forward. “We hardwired them and have the detonators below. We can blow them at your command.”
“No,” Eric said, pointing to the bridge one thousand feet directly south of them. “Destroy every bridge but the one closest to here. We’ll leave that one bridge open for any additional survivors until the enemy overruns it.”
“With all due respect,” Trey began, “should we jeopardize the inner base for the hope that someone else might have survived?”
“We’re not jeopardizing anything,” Eric replied, shooting Trey a cautioning look. “They’ll see this as the last crossing and they’ll use it. We’ll funnel them through to this location and make our stand here. If they’re going to hit us hard, we’re at least going to make them hit us where we can counter best. Once they charge, we can blow the bridge. That will confuse them and give us some time to thin them out with the Guard’s mortars.”
“We’ve got a few snipers already in the dorms,” Nadia said, pointing to the two buildings a few hundred feet away that linked up with the inner wall. “Armstrong and Keller have two detachments taking up positions. They’ll have a clear view of the field if we bait them here.”
“Tell them not to target anything outside of two hundred yards,” Eric said, looking over at the two dorms. The buildings were old and made of brick. They’d likely crumble to the ground and bury those snipers should the enemy deploy greater firepower. Still, Eric couldn’t make decisions based on the lives of a few. He had to think about those behind him, huddling in the Heritage Building. Such was the price of victory.
Such was the burden of leadership.
“We need those snipers,” Eric said. “I want them to save as much ammo as possible for when the bastards are in range.”
“Agreed,” Nadia replied. “I’ll deploy reinforcements and make sure they—”
“Runners on the baseball fields!” one of the soldiers atop the wall shouted.
Eric shifted his gaze across the field and immediately located the group of a couple dozen men running across the battlefield. He raised his weapon and looked through the scope, focusing on the men and women who were bolting toward the creek. Their faces were contorted with determination while their clothes were bloodied and stained.
“Not ours,” Eric said, lowering his scope and turning to James. “Blow the other bridges. Nadia, get on the radio with the men in the dorms. I need the machine gunners on the first floor, snipers on the second, and rockets on the third. Everyone else on me, we make our stand here! I want any man that can lift a rifle on this wall and someone send word to the nurses. Make sure they’re ready to work like they’ve never worked before.”
“More movement!”
Eric raised his scope again, expecting to see a larger horde to pour into view. Instead, he quickly located a distant line of pickup trucks and the American flags that waved atop them, bursting into view behind the few Patriarch runners that were nearing the baseball fields.
“Is that him?” Eric asked.
“I can’t tell,” Nadia said. Eric fixated his scope on the vehicles and zoomed in as far as he could, doing his best to keep the moving vehicle in view. The lead truck had steam pouring from the engine and the windshield was missing. Two men sat in the front. Eric didn’t recognize the passenger—a dark-haired man firing a rifle through an open window—but he immediately recognized the driver.
Tyler!
“That’s Tyler!” Eric shouted as four motorcycles raced into view down Beebe Capps, half a mile from Tyler’s convoy and closing fast. Eric turned to the Guardsmen behind the wall and began to shout.
“Mortars on the baseball fields—fire for effect! We have friendlies south of the creek and closing fast!”
“Hang on!”
Tyler’s voice vaporized beneath the roar of their engine and the thunderous rhythms of war. The truck sped through a vacant industrial park and plowed through a row of thick bushes, catching air and causing everyone in the truck to rise with temporary weightlessness. Steam billowed from underneath the hood, the acrid stench of heat and oil filling the cab. Adam braced himself against the dash as the truck returned to the earth with a jolting arrival.
“Almost there!” Tyler shouted and Adam looked up, seeing the beginnings of the old campus for the first time. Brick buildings dotted the landscape, a four lane road and five hundred yards between them and the inner wall. A sparse group of runners were making their way toward the campus directly in front of Tyler’s convoy. Adam looked to the right, his eyes widening as a horde of men and a few battered semis slowly poured through a burning wall of steel containers and wreckage less than a mile away. From the midst of the throng burst four bikes, r
acing at full speed—covering the ground between them quickly.
“Bikes to the right!” Adam bellowed as he hefted his gun and fired. The popping of additional gunfire blared out from the trucks behind them as Tyler steered them around the group of forward runners. Adam tried his best to steady his aim, though the constant bouncing and swerving caused the majority of his fire to strike everything but his target. As the bikes closed in, the howl of artillery suddenly whined through the air, followed quickly by fountains of dirt and fire that ruptured on the baseball diamonds to Adam’s right. Some of the runners fell underneath the onslaught, but the bikes continued forward without hesitation—driving straight into the deadly barrage as though they longed for death’s embrace.
The lead rider took a direct hit, exploding in a concussive spray of fire and shrapnel. The two bikes next to it detonated as well, burning steel and lifeless drivers somersaulting through the air. The fourth and final rider finally fell before the convoy’s barrage of gunfire less than twenty yards away, his bike skipping across the ground with a cascade of debris. The explosives mounted on the bike finally ruptured, sending fiery wreckage slamming into the side of the truck.
Their right front tire burst with a loud bang as the burning bike struck them, causing Tyler’s truck to swerve violently and crash into an empty guard post a hundred feet away from a low bridge that crossed a wide creek. Adam raised his arms just as he hit the air bag, the wind in his lungs and the noise in his ears vanishing into sudden nothingness.
The two men who had been in the bed of Tyler’s truck were thrown over the cab, slamming into the guard post with a life-ending collision. Adam gasped for air as the truck that had been directly behind swerved to miss them, losing its balance before tumbling across the ground and crashing into the creek with a large splash. The remaining trucks sped past them, racing across the bridge toward the campus ahead. Despite Tyler’s instructions to continue onward no matter what, Adam couldn’t help but embrace a deep sensation of horror as they left them behind.
