Anthony DeCosmo - Beyond Armageddon 04

by Schism

  Brett Stanton reported, “Recharge to twenty percent.twenty-five percent.” while Jon surveyed the damage below from the ‘brain’ module through a night vision scope. The initial assault cut a gorge in the middle of the thing. He saw fluids spraying from cut arteries and flickering lights.

  “Forty percent.forty-five percent.”

  Jon knew this would go on all night. He would fire, recharge, fire, and recharge again. The process would repeat until he melted away the floating complex as well as the growing invasion force on the seabed below.

  Much like Trevor’s mind. How much had Voggoth’s machine melted away The Emperor remained silent in his quarters watched over by his wife and child. He showed no reaction to any stimulus. The possibility existed that he would never return to normal.

  “Seventy percent.seventy-five percent.”

  Either way, Jon knew he had a job to do. He would finish destroying the fake island and then wipe out what the subs had failed to destroy on the ocean floor. Then he would dispatch Eagles to search for any similar facilities. If he found them, they would be destroyed, too.

  Eventually, he would return to Washington and confront Godfrey and his conspirators. Perhaps the evidence of Trevor’s survival would be enough to convince Hoth that his orders were illegal. Perhaps he could rally the military, free Shep from captivity, and overwhelm the I.S. units in DC.

  “Belly Boppers recharged one-hundred percent.”

  “Fire.”

  * * *

  Ashley rested in a chair near Trevor’s bed. At first, the periodic rocking of the Excalibur from its bombardment kept her from sleeping. As the firing continued well into the night, her exhaustion overcame the shudders and jolts and she fell asleep with her son snoozing a few feet away on the couch.

  She lost track of time, of course. She did not know that she slept not only until dawn, but well into the early morning. She did not know that the island that had served as a prison and torture chamber for her husband and son had disintegrated into pieces and that the field of soldiers growing on the seabed suffered a similar fate. She did not know that Jon Brewer dispatched his compliment of Eagle transports to search the waters for hundreds of miles in all directions for any additional threats.

  But she did know that something had changed. She felt herself pulled from sleep by watching eyes. As she woke, she saw JB standing on the far side of Trevor’s bed, staring at a ball of sheets.

  In a groggy voice she asked, “J.JB W-what is it”

  JB pointed to an empty bed.

  “Father has gone away.”

  Wild Things

  “And when he came to the place where the wild things are

  They roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth

  And rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws

  ‘till Max said, “Be Still!” and tamed them with the magic trick.”

  — Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are

  Ashley-with her son in tow-burst onto the bridge to report the disappearance of her husband only to find the crew in the midst of a different crisis.

  Woody Ross had taken over as ‘brain’ but Jon Brewer hovered nearby leaning over a console alongside Brett Stanton. Jon’s wife Lori stood near the entranceway holding two cups of coffee that she had obviously brought to her husband as an end-of-shift gift. Alas she, too, found herself caught in the emergency.

  Ross transmitted, “Scout Four, respond.”

  “What’s his position”

  Stanton answered Brewer, “Northwest of us by about two hundred miles. Now, no, wait he’s making like a bat out of hell for the coast.”

  Ashley’s head swiveled from side to side, her eyes wide, trying to find a voice to alert the crew of a much more pressing matter than an Eagle in duress. Lori, apparently, mistook her expression for confusion and explained, “They just received a mayday from one of the scout ships. Now it’s flying off without a word.”

  JB calmly pointed out, “It’s father, mommy. He took the ship.”

  Jon, Stanton, Lori, and the rest of the bridge crew heard the boy’s words over the commotion. His voice had a way about it.

  “Wow, um JB, what are you saying” Jon asked with a tone that suggested a newfound respect for the child. The lack of defenses at The Order’s complex made him believe that-perhaps-the eight year old boy had, in fact, killed off Voggoth’s minions.

  Ashley answered, “We both fell asleep. Sometime early this morning.I don’t know.we woke up and Trevor was gone.”

  “What do you mean gone He couldn’t even move before!”

  “Jon, wait,” Lori interrupted. “Could he have stowed away on that scout ship”

  Stanton said, “It left about an hour ago. Depends on the last time you folks saw him tucked in.”

  Jon shook his head. “There’s no way he could make it into a hangar area unseen. Not with all the.all the.” Jon stopped himself. Under normal circumstances security guards, technicians, and pilots would certainly have spied an intruder in the hangar bays. In contrast, with his current skeleton crew it would be more likely that no one would be the wiser.

  “Brett, which bay did Scout Seven depart from”

  A pause. An answer: “Level Four Bay Two.”

  “Brett, call up the security cameras form Level Four Bay Two.”

  Before the words left Jon’s lips a monitor on the console presented what the motion sensitive cameras had recorded outside the entranceway to Bay Two. After a second of searching, the grainy image showed a figure dressed in a short sleeve gray shirt, black sweat pants, and sneakers shamble from the hallway and into the hangar area.

  “Oh Christ.”

  “What the Hell is he up to” Stanton grumbled. “Now, I remember thinking that he wasn’t even going to wake up, let alone go off for a ride. He come to his senses or something”

  Jorgie told them in a voice wavering on the brink of tears, “He wants to get away. He wants to run from the bad dreams.”

  “But he can’t,” Lori Brewer, the former counselor, broke in. “He’s trying to run away but he can’t run away from himself. He needs help, Jon. But in some ways this is a good sign.”

  Jon burst, “A good sign What kind of shrink-shit is that”

  “Jon, listen. On some level he knew how to find his way to the hangar bay and stow away onboard an Eagle and if that’s him at the controls now then he’s remembered how to fly it. On some level Trevor Stone is still in there, covered up by layer after layer of all the bad images in his head. The stuff those things put inside of him. If someone can get through to him.I mean, maybe he can still be saved. That is, if he doesn’t become suicidal.”

  Ashley gasped, “Suicidal”

  “Sooner or later he’s going to find that he can’t run away from who he is and all the things he’s done. At that point.” she left the blank unfilled.

  Woody Ross interrupted, “Scout Four has crossed the tambourine line and is headed for Connecticut. She’ll be out of our range soon.”

  “All ahead full,” Brewer commanded. “We have to catch her.”

  Stanton warned, “General, no matter how many false reports your Captain friend sends, sooner or later the Philipan is going to see us for herself. Then she’s going to intercept us and that’s probably all she wrote.”

  Ashley had the answer, “Jon, a battleship can’t bring Trevor back.”

  Jon Brewer looked at Ashley. Her eyes showed a deep sadness that stretched to her very soul. In the old days he had seen this woman as shallow and self-serving. Like his wife, Jon figured Ashley to be a materialistic daddy’s girl.

  No more. As Armageddon had changed him, and Trevor, and people like Reverend Johnny and Garrett McAllister, so too had it changed Ashley Trump. She knew she did not hold Trevor’s heart but yet she understood that heart. She understood his importance.

  And now she stood on the bridge and spoke a simple truth: her husband could not be saved by the military strength, advanced technology, or ev
en the arcane powers at his disposal. If anything could clear his crazed mind it would be something far more personal.

  Ashley explained, “I’ll need Rick Hauser and his transport. A doctor for the pilot if he’s injured and for Trevor. Myself and my son, too. We’ll go after him.”

  Jon tried to object even though he knew it the right thing to do. Stanton saw the General’s mouth begin to express that objection and cut him off, “General, the closer we get to shore the more likely Hoth is going to float out here and kick the crap out of us. He’ll do it, too. But he might not pay a transport any attention. They could follow Scout Four.”

  Jon, frustrated, asked, “But where is he going”

  Lori answered, “Anywhere. He’s just running, Jon.”

  Stanton told them, “He can’t go too much further. The way he’s bookin’ and how far he’s gone, well now, he’s going to have to stop to fill up the tanks soon, assuming he’s in a right enough mind to do that.”

  General Brewer nodded to Ashley and told her, “Okay, go. Take Eagle One.”

  Ashley led JB by the hand toward the exit. Before she left, she turned and spoke to the General. He could have sworn he saw a glimmer of a tear in her eye as she added the one last thing she would need.

  “Oh and one more thing, Jon. We’ll need someone.we’ll need a good soldier. I think.I think that Captain Forest would be.it would be good of her to come along.”

  * * *

  The high speed booster rockets onboard Eagle One closed the distance with Scout Four fast. Hauser dropped low, nearly skimming the ocean top as he punched across the tambourine line. After penetrating the airspace around Connecticut, he rose to cruising altitude but could not locate Scout Four on radar.

  Panic gripped all those onboard until a radio transmission from the ship’s original pilot went out in search of assistance, reporting he had been attacked by a crazed man and rendered unconscious, awakening to find his ship in the middle of a mountainous wilderness.

  Hauser’s voice announced to the passenger compartment, “We have a location on Scout Four. She’s landed in the Catskills. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Sit tight.”

  Ashley let out a heavy exhale, the only sound in the passenger compartment other than the distant hum of the engines. Her son sat quiet by her side on one of the bench seats. In the row behind her waited two medics with first aid equipment. Nina sat in the row ahead running a cloth over the metal of an assault rifle. At her feet rested a black and gray Norwegian Elkhound named Odin, or so Nina had informed.

  Ashley studied Nina’s profile, watching those sapphire eyes staring intently at the cloth and the rifle. Ashley knew exactly who Odin was. She had been with Richard when he had picked the dog up from the breeder to join Tyr at the Stone family home. And now that dog lived with, worked with, and traveled with Nina Forest. The same way Trevor’s heart lived with the woman.

  What made her so special How had she stolen Richard’s heart from Ashley

  No, that isn’t quite right.

  Nina Forest would never have stolen Richard’s heart from Ashley. But Trevor Ashley had never actually held Trevor’s heart, so it was not hers to lose.

  Certainly Nina Forest offered all the beauty a man might desire, although with a rough edge and in the package of a shy person. She looked to be a woman ten years younger, one might even think her more a ‘girl’ than a ‘lady’. Yet she seemed unapproachable. More so, she appeared unconcerned with anything other than battle: the curls of her hair wasted in a ponytail, her body slender but seemingly made of rock like a marble statue. There seemed very little warmth.

  Ashley knew Forest to be a devoted soldier. Perhaps there lay the answer. The Lords of Armageddon had given Trevor a mission, with no room for compromise and no opportunity for respite. Indeed, it may be that no other person in the world could ever understand Trevor as Nina could, and no one could ever know Nina as did Trevor. They were reflections of one another.

  So why had the powers behind Armageddon separated them Surely Nina’s memory loss could be overcome. But no, Trevor had not been allowed to be with Nina for another reason: he was pre-ordained to be with Ashley.

  She turned away from the soldier and gazed at her son. A son with a brain that worked far beyond the capabilities of the normal; a boy with unnatural insights into the world around him. A child who had apparently slaughtered legions of monsters inside The Order’s base with his mind.

  What Trevor had needed from Ashley.what the Gods had fated.her genes. Her womb. She was a vessel, contributing half of a powerful equation. But to what end

  Ashley did not know. She only knew that her life might serve no meaning beyond being a mother, and that saddened her.

  She stared at her hands and listened to the engines hum. Nina went on cleaning her rifle.

  * * *

  Despite their name, the Catskill Mountains are a dissected plateau. This discrepancy, however, made no practical difference to the rescue party onboard Eagle One. The mountainous ranges rolled away from the crash site one after another covered in dense forest with streams, rivers, dramatic waterfalls, and dense foliage presenting a variety of obstacles to any search.

  According to the Scout Four pilot-who had suffered a concussion-Trevor Stone had raced off into the forest when the ship fell from the sky in a kind of controlled crash, what a helicopter pilot such as Nina might call a ‘hard landing.’

  “We can’t search from the sky,” Hauser explained while the medics looked over the wounded pilot in Eagle One’s passenger module.

  “Why not We have to get father!”

  Hauser answered, “Regional air defense has a couple of fighter jets out looking for us. I can get us out of here when the time comes but a slow search over all this terrain is a different story. We’d be an easy target.”

  Ashley-the de facto commander of the mission-resolved the issue. “Then we go after him on foot. He’s got a two-hour head start on us. I can’t imagine he’d get far in his condition.”

  Nina threw a back pack with emergency gear over her shoulders, picked up her M-4, and moved toward the exit with Odin at her heel.

  “Okay then, I say we get going.”

  “Yes, mommy, she’s right. We should get going right away.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Ashley told her boy. “I’m not going to lose you again. You stay here with Mr. Hauser and the medical team. We’ll radio for you when we find his location.”

  Hauser protested, “Ma’am, I mean, shouldn’t we all go”

  “This is not a military matter, Rick, it’s a personal one. Family. Besides, the fewer people the faster we can move.”

  Hauser did not like the idea but had no choice but relent.

  “Okay then, we’ll wait to hear from you.”

  Nina pushed a button and the door slid open. A cool breeze-surprisingly cool for July-eased in as did the smell of wild flowers, the sound of a nearby waterfall, and birdsong

  Eagle One sat on one side of a meadow cut in a deciduous forest by a fire decades before. A few charred stumps remained but otherwise the area had grown over in weeds and flowers. On the other side of the clearing sat Scout Four, its starboard side smashed into a clump of trees.

  Nina and Odin descended the ramp. Ashley followed, saying, “He headed northeast. I think there’s a path-“

  Her sentence stopped in a grunt of pain. Ashley fell to one knee and grabbed her right ankle. Nina snapped about and raced to her. JB eyed his mother suspiciously.

  “What is it What happened”

  “I slipped off the ramp. I think I sprained it. You go ahead. Radio when you find him.”

  Nina hesitated.

  Ashley said, “Go, I’ll be okay. Find Trevor. You have to catch up to him.”

  “Okay, I’ll go. And I promise, I’ll find your husband.”

  She then turned and followed Odin into the forest on a game trail leading northeast.

  Ashley remained on a knee until Nina entered the brush. At that point
she calmly stood and-in perfect strides-ascended the ramp into the ship telling a stunned Hauser, “We wait until we hear from her.”

  * * *

  Nina entered the woods with a sense of urgency, moving at a fast walk and following the obvious signs: footsteps in soft ground along the trail, broken branches, trampled flowers, and flattened brush. It seemed that in his current state Trevor moved like an enraged bull, pushing through and knocking over anything in his way.

  As the day wore on, she realized that while he had not moved softly he had moved quick. Whatever damage The Order had done to her leader, they had left him full of adrenaline.

  The thick green canopy of forest could not keep out the heat of a strong afternoon sun. The air grew heavy with humidity, becoming another weight on her shoulders conspiring to drain her strength. But Nina did not slow. She willed herself forward. Her loyal companion-Odin-suffered even more so due to his heavy black and gray coat.

  At the edge of a great waterfall she hid behind a fallen tree to avoid a massive StumpHide. Its long body and heavy feet crashed through the wilderness reminding her that amidst the natural beauty of the Catskills lurked the unnatural dangers of alien wildlife.

  When the trail seemed to disappear at a stream, Odin’s keen nose miraculously found Trevor’s scent.

  From the top of an open ridge she paused to drink from her canteen and watch the sun begin its descent, its rays changing to burnt orange.

  In the forest again a yard of Bloodhorns crossed their path. She stopped and watched the graceful beasts graze at a patch of berry bushes before moving on. One regarded her through its crimson eyes. The ungulates wore a pair of slender horns similar to pronghorns and seemed to dance, not run. Not all aliens were predators.

  As the forest darkened a wobble grew in her knees from exhaustion. Just as she worried she would have to make camp for the night, she came upon a lonely cabin sitting atop a clearing where a land owner had long ago cut away the trees, and shrubs, and grass and blanketed it all with gravel and rock.