by Jordan Ervin
Your battle isn’t over, Judah thought. Alexandra still lives.
“Everyone, follow me!” Judah shouted, hefting his gun as he began to rally the disorganized snipers. “We’re not done yet!”
Maria pulled the mask free and took a deep breath, flinging the water from her gloves. Her dress was plastered tightly against her body, her dark hair matted against her face. She was an absolute mess, a wet rag soaked with apprehension and murky river water, and it was not at all how she had wanted to meet the man who now sat across from her.
“Take your time,” the man said with a hint of ire as the tiny submarine cut through the water. The four Marines who had assisted her sat to her left. Another—the driver of the craft—sat in front of her, concentrating on a computer-assisted screen as he guided the vessel through the bottom of the Potomac. The man across from Maria raised a glowing Stonewall device similar to the one Maria had hidden in her purse, examining the small globe with satisfaction. “You were quite right, Miss Brekor. These are handy.”
“If you’ll forgive me,” Maria began as she wrung water from her hair, “I am not entirely in the mood for speaking right now.”
The man paused before setting the device down beside him. He was a hard-looking man, not quite forty though gray had begun to touch his temples. He stared at Maria quietly, his face calm and unreadable. Maria shifted uncomfortably, glancing over at the other men who also gazed at her silently. Maria suddenly felt powerless, a strange sensation of which she was not accustomed.
This was your doing, Maria thought, taking a deep breath to try to compose herself. You wanted this. You asked for it. You are free.
The man across from her finally smiled, shaking his head and clearing his throat.
“We risked a lot coming to get you,” the man finally said. “To sneak a sub this close to DC wasn’t easy. Our commanders didn’t know at first whether or not to trust you. Me…I’m still not convinced. I suppose I’m not the voice that matters though; I’m just a soldier, following orders. But you see, I risked not only my life, but the lives of these five men in here and the three men waiting with the stealth Blackhawk at Point Lookout State Park. I trust my commanders and I know they wouldn’t have approved this operation had they not thought the reward justified the mission.” The man leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as the smile disappeared from his face. “You are the reward, Maria. What knowledge you hold behind that disfigured face of yours is the reward. I know what you’re going through must be quite traumatic compared to life with the man that plunged this world into war, so please feel free to take a breather. However, I can and will assure you…you will speak and soon.”
Maria inclined her head slightly before nodding. It had been part of the bargain—her detailed knowledge of Lukas, the Imperium, and the Patriarchs—everything she knew in exchange for their help to escape. But Maria hadn’t simply been motivated by a desire for freedom.
She loathed Lukas Chambers.
Maria hated the self-righteous man he had become and the empire he had begun to build. She wanted to see both fall beneath the onslaught of titans. For that, she needed powerful allies, and she could not think of any more suited for the job than the men she had covertly contacted.
“Indeed,” Maria finally said, reclining as a hint of her famous composure returned. “You have your weapons and I have mine. Still, I can assure you that I will do whatever it takes, speak endlessly for days if necessary, to see my husband fall. It is my one and only dream. I simply hope you and your commanders share that passion.”
The man’s smile returned and he glanced over at the other Marines. After a pause, they all chuckled—giving her a nod of approval. The man across from Maria leaned back, shaking his head as the laughter subsided.
“Maria Brekor,” the man began, “I can guarantee you they do. Welcome to the Republic of Texas.”
The control room far beneath the White House erupted into bedlam as the feed winked out.
“What happened?” Lukas demanded, falling back to his chair.
“We don’t know yet, sir.”
The Battle Marshal ignored them all as he shouted at his men, doing everything he could to get the picture back up. Lukas slowly shifted his gaze across the room, breathing heavily as his sanity wallowed in the chaos.
“Strike Seven, report!”
“I want a SITREP on all major coastal cities: New York, Boston, Baltimore, Norfolk….”
“I’m getting nothing from the Gulf.”
“Any eyes on Sigmund?”
“What the hell is going on?”
“Lukas!”
Lukas turned, watching as a Sovereign Guard quickly shoved his way through the pandemonium.
“What is it?” Lukas demanded.
“We found the guards who had escorted Maria.”
“Tell me you found her too?” Lukas asked quickly, leaning forward in his chair—his eyes watering with a choking anxiety.
“Not yet, sir,” the guard replied.
“What the hell do you mean?” Lukas bellowed, earning him a few glances from those who shouted throughout the room.
“Her guards were murdered. We’re searching the area and analyzing all available data, but it appears there was something interfering with surveillance. So far, we have yet to discover any footage that recorded her whereabouts.”
Lukas’ shoulders rose and fell as he drew unsteady breaths, the beginnings of a panic attack creeping upward. He fidgeted for a moment before forcing his lungs to draw in a deep breath. He paused for a moment—a rollercoaster on the cusp of descending into madness—and purged his frustration in the form of a primitive roar. This time, everyone looked his way. His heart pounded, beating like a war drum inside of his ears. Finally, he inhaled and exhaled in a steady rhythm, those gazing at him slowly returning to their bustle.
“Keep searching. Do not give up until she is found.” The agent nodded, turning quickly and accelerating into a sprint as he left the room.
This can’t be happening, Lukas thought as he glanced up at the screen. This can’t be happening! He turned to Clark, his wrath boiling over as he snapped again.
“Where the hell is the picture?”
“We’ve got nothing on the ground,” the Battle Marshal replied. “I can’t—”
Radio static suddenly filled the speakers in the command room.
“…command…Spectre One…copy….”
“Isolate that frequency,” Damian bellowed, stepping forward. “Get me a live image right—”
Before he could finish, Spectre One’s video feed filled the screen. The gunships had been ordered to return home once the Praetorians had infiltrated the city. They were seventy miles east of Breton Sound. Despite the distance, the image was clear.
A thick mushroom cloud slowly billowed over New Orleans.
Silence and the stillness of awe filled the control room. Those standing by quietly soaked up the image of the radioactive thunderhead, knowing the war they had been waging had changed with a brilliant, unforeseen flash.
“My God,” Lukas finally whispered. “They’re gone. The Praetorians, the Yellow Jackets…they’re all gone.”
“As are the Patriarchs, my Sovereign,” Jacob said, turning to Lukas.
“But we lost everything!” Lukas shouted in return.
“No, you rid yourself of the Patriarch’s strong hold. You did what you had to do and gained the world because of it.”
“Did I?” Lukas replied. “My entire fleet of drones and my greatest strike force gone while Sigmund still lives?”
“New soldiers can be trained. Additional drones can be manufactured. Sigmund might have escaped, but I can assure you it has cost him more in the end than the price you’ve paid. The nations will learn of what he has done and we will have time to place the blame for the world’s woes at his feet.”
“But I—”
“Lukas, my boy, trust me when I say that your victory here was worth more than you yet know.”
Adam coughed the dust from his throat as he slowly rose to a crouch. Eric lay next to him, breathing shallowly, eyes closed. All around men either ran, hobbled, or crawled away from the burning breach. Nadia cried out for help as she dragged Tyler across the grass, a thick shard of steel sticking from his stomach—his eyes wide with shock and pain. Details that mattered little to Adam now. The final barrier between the multitudes and his family had been destroyed.
Soon, they’d all join the fallen in the endless forevermore.
Adam glanced back at the wall. A breach fifteen feet wide bored through the center wall where the gate had once stood proudly. Behind the gap, the distant roar of a thousand terrors grew as the masses thundered forward—barely a thousand feet away.
He looked to his left as a group of soldiers ran from the smoldering dorms—eyeing the hole that ensured their demise. They sprinted away from the battle, running toward a large building at the other end of the inner campus.
Maybe they can get them out, Adam thought. Maybe….
Adam growled as he rose to his feet, a primal snarl that awakened a ferocious beast within—not a black dragon, but a sacrificial creature of light that shouted into the abyss, you cannot have them! He looked around on the ground for a gun, but all he found among the corpses of American soldiers was a discarded hatchet and a blackened machete. He reached down and seized them both, breathing heavily as he turned to face the running multitudes, now only eight hundred feet beyond the breach.
“Come on!” Adam bellowed as he slowly advanced toward the gap.
Seven hundred feet.
“You want me? Try to take me!” A righteous rage washed over him with a strange numbness—purifying him with a valor he had never felt before.
Six hundred feet.
He shook with hatred as the ground began to tremble. He knew it was madness to stand as one man against an army, but war had forged him into a madman worthy of such a grand dénouement.
Five hundred feet.
As the army neared the gap, Adam Reinhart began to roar. He shouted for the fallen. He yelled for the injustice that had enslaved the men and women who charged toward him. Adam howled—the defiant cry of a man that had come so close to reuniting with his family, only to lose everything in the end.
The air about him began to swirl violently, almost as though the earth awaited the approaching clash. Adam ignored the wind. It was the end for him and he would stand in the gap as a man of courage. Adam raised the two blades to the side, whispering one last prayer as the throng thundered forward, now within three hundred feet of the breach.
Give me the courage to stand. Give me the courage to die.
And as the masses of wrath approached, the heavens above seemed to fracture and a deluge of death rained down.
Fast moving fighters quickly passed over the battlefield, their guided missiles destroying the Patriarch tanks—black smoke and fire consuming their dense armor. Infernos fountained beneath the feet of those who charged the wall, sending men and debris spiraling through the air. Twelve Blackhawks hovered above the inner campus, bullet casings cascading down upon the swirling trees below like a downpour. All in all, it was a breathtaking sight—a miraculous turning of the tide worthy of capturing the awe of any soldier. But Gene Smith ignored the battle for but a moment, fixing his eyes on the tattered flag that waved violently above the shattered wall, his eyes beading with tears as he realized the patriot within him had not yet died after all.
“All chalks remain in position and cover the gap.” Gene finally shifted his eyes back to the battle, knowing there would be plenty of time to dwell upon the red, white, and blue. “Rangers, deploy and secure the inner base. First squadron, I want one more pass out of you boys. Second squadron, reroute to the fighting on Race Street. Hit the bastards hard and watch for friendlies. Once you’re spent, I want all fighters to head south and regroup with Texas. The Fifth and Seventh should have already commenced their assault on Little Rock and I want you there.”
“Copy that.”
The pilot beside Gene turned to him and nodded his head, a grin splitting his jaw. “Damn proud to be here, General.” Though Gene couldn’t see the pilot’s eyes behind his visor, he knew they’d be glistening with tears, just like his.
The fighter jets banked around sharply on the horizon, though Gene didn’t care to follow their paths. The battle had been won and his place was no longer in the air above.
“Pilot,” Gene said, pointing to an empty parking lot. “Set us down. It’s time I join my fellow countrymen.”
Victor broke through the surface of the wide creek south of the base. He swam to the shore—awaiting the plunge back into hell for his failure to charge the base. His hands sank into the muddy embankment as he whimpered. The ground shook again, though he heard nothing. He pulled himself ashore, rolling over and breathing deeply.
The earth began to rumble even more violently than it had before. Victor looked up, watching and feeling the jets that crossed overhead like a volley of massive arrows. He ripped his eyes away, looking toward the glowing battlefield they passed over. Dozens of bombs and missiles exploded—the heat from their wave of fire blistering his face.
Victor knew the end was near.
He closed his eyes tightly and began to scream, awaiting release from the hell that had been life.
Sarah closed her eyes, her voice quivering as the building shuddered. The wall of darkened glass at the front of the atrium audibly strained against metallic frames and she began to wonder if it would shatter. The rumbling echo of explosions outside resonated inside her chest—a colossal percussionist standing at their door, drumming away without any perceivable rhythm. Nevertheless, Sarah and the women of the hall worshiped, singing defiantly as their end neared.
The front door banged open and Sarah opened her eyes, finding a familiar face at the front of a line of soldiers.
“Judah!” Sarah shouted, the song in the room quickly wavering. Judah’s glistening eyes shifted from Sarah to Alexandra. He stepped forward, actually grinning.
“It’s over!” he cried out.
The song cut off completely as murmurs permeated the room.
“How?” Sarah asked as Judah ran up, embracing Alexandra. The other soldiers ran into the room, each one smiling or shedding tears of joy.
“I don’t know,” Judah replied. “They destroyed the dorm and we were running here when someone hit them from the air. They’re still hitting them.” Judah turned to the room and raised his rifle high overhead. “We won!”
The Battle Choir of Fort Harding erupted—a jubilant exclamation as women embraced their children. Others ran up to the smiling soldiers—embracing them in scenes reminiscent of Times Square and the victory of World War Two. Sarah wanted to shout with joy. She wanted to shed euphoric tears over the miraculous victory and hold those she loved, but she didn’t. She couldn’t.
Not everyone she loved was standing there with her.
She turned to Judah, grabbing his arm as he embraced a weeping Alexandra.
“Stay here and watch the girls,” Sarah said.
“What?” Judah said, looking at her curiously. “Where are you going?”
She turned to the door and ran, giving no answer. All Sarah could do is pray as she ran out of the building—wondering if she had once again lost a man she loved.
“Sarah!”
Adam shouted, holding Eric in his arms as he searched for his wife. A Blackhawk landed a hundred yards away while other soldiers roped down through the trees that towered above him. He ignored them all, his attention focused on the chaotic campus. He had survived, the battle won. America safe. Now, he couldn’t seem to contain his fear
as he wondered if his wife was alive to say the same.
“Sarah!”
“Eric!”
Sarah shouted as she ran out beneath the trees. She shielded her eyes against a towering oak that burned brightly in the center of the commons area. Soldiers descended upon ropes from hovering helicopters above. She watched as a throng of wounded men ran and staggered about the sprawling field, aiding those who couldn’t walk.
Weeping over those who no longer breathed.
Debris and broken trees lay everywhere, increasing in severity as she jogged in the direction of the wall. The men around her were badly wounded. A veil of black smoke billowed from the field just beyond the tattered wall. She knew Eric would have been at the front. He would have stood next to the ground that smoldered with an impenetrable haze. Sarah began to cry, praying for comfort as she began to accept her worst fears.
“Eric….”
Sarah stopped fifty feet north of a burning tree that had toppled and bent at a weird angle near its base. Another group of wounded soldiers passed her, carrying a legless man that howled in agony. Sarah halted, her eyes lingering on the mangled man.
I can’t keep going, she thought, closing her eyes as she began to cry. I can’t….
“Sarah!” Adam shouted, hefting Eric in his arms as he ran awkwardly. The entire commons area was alive with fresh soldiers or wounded men. It was surrounded by dozens of buildings. He stopped to scan the field and catch his breath. His head pounded, his lungs burned, and his legs throbbed with exhaustion. Adam was near the point of failure—a beaten car running on fumes as it attempted to summit a mountain.
She could be anywhere.
He gritted his teeth as he took a deep breath, refusing to abandon his search. He would discover what had happened to his family one way or another before he let slumber soothe his heavy eyes.
Adam stumbled forward, nearing a burning oak that had been shattered by a shell. He took a deep breath and shouted again.
