Like the rest of the homes around the lake, this mansion was built into the mountain side, meaning it stood further from the water's edge. It also lacked a landing pad, forcing Nina to steer the three Skippers to a clearing among the evergreen trees at the foot of one of the mountains on the southern bank, about half-a-mile from the mansion.
As they flew toward the landing zone, Trevor felt a sense of déjà vu; the same sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as when he returned from the airport flying an Apache for the first time only to find that his estate had been attacked by Red Hand tribesmen. This time, instead of seeing K9 and human bodies on the grounds, he saw a hole smashed in the barrier wall, burn marks on the stone balcony, and bomb craters across the grounds.
A dead place.
Before they landed, he already wrote the script. The Trevor of this world had been chased from his lakeside sanctuary but managed not only to survive, but to build an army and then a city.
Major Forest eased the ship to a gentle landing. The other two set down to either side.
As she shut off the controls, Nina warned for the third time, "This is hostile territory. We can’t stay long and at the first sign of trouble we got to bug out, you know?"
He barely heard her. His mind focused on the mansion and what he might find there.
Soldiers, including Corporal Brewer, disembarked the Skippers, scouts fanning out while the main body marched across the field and through the woods at a fast pace. Something shadowy and slimy scurried off; a bird of some kind cawed from a high branch.
Trevor walked in big strides with Johnny on one flank and Major Forest on the other. They exited the woods and found rubble where a church stood on Trevor's world. As they rounded the pile of debris and approached the road, Trevor stopped.
Two carcasses lay there. Big bodies, scavenged to the bone. He recognized the skeletons by one of the few parts remaining intact: circular rows of teeth that easily identified the cadavers as Jaw-Wolves.
"Dear Lord in Heaven," Reverend Johnny gaped at the bones.
Trevor said to Johnny more so than anyone else, "If Jaw-Wolves had attacked the estate on our Earth in the first few months, we would not have stood a chance, either."
Johnny pointed at the holes in the road ahead and remarked, "Jaw-Wolves don't make bomb craters so they must have had help."
"This whole thing," Trevor said, "it stinks like The Order to me."
He led them forward again, this time at an even faster clip. They walked along the wall protecting the estate until reaching a breach and entering the grounds where they found another Jaw-Wolf carcass.
Major Forest barked orders, "First squad, form a security perimeter. Second squad, split into teams and enter the structure. We’ll wait—"
Trevor did not listen. He chambered a round on his bullpup assault rifle and marched to and through the arch-shaped front door. Nina could do nothing other than follow.
Things differed from his home a universe away. Rougher interior textures, slightly larger doorways with an arched look as opposed to straight rectangles, lighting fixtures shaped like hour glasses, and moist air due to half the building being inside the mountain. The furniture lacked flare—much more utilitarian—but made to fit a human form. The walls had been picked clean of any decorating and the remains of battle—bullet holes, burn scars—littered each room.
Nonetheless, the place felt the same in spirit. A home converted into a bunker; a place big enough to store the seeds to rebirth a world, isolated but still in close proximity to civilization.
Regardless of what had driven him from this place, Trevor's counterpart on this Earth started here. He felt it. He knew it. And that meant answers might remain.
Stone moved quickly through the first floor, his flashlight shining over damaged walls and smashed furniture, chasing away bugs and small mammals. Whatever ghosts lurked here, they guarded their secrets stubbornly.
Frustration turned to anger. He ordered, "No one goes in the basement except me."
"Okay, fair enough," Major Forest said and then she ordered Corporal Brewer, "Establish a command post on the first floor. Set up scanners and communications."
Trevor ascended a set of wide, stone stairs to the second floor. The Reverend and Forest followed. With each step up he moved faster until he ran into what would have been his office.
An oval-shaped table made of some kind of plastic dominated the room surrounded by the remains of broken chairs. Against one wall stood a circular storage rack where only burnt pieces of unreadable paper remained. Piles of plaster blended with the warped and splintered wood planks of the floor giving each of Trevor's steps a crunch, crack, or snap.
The room felt like a microcosm of the entire planet; broken and failing, much like the people of Thebes who were drowning in Armageddon, waiting for the next wave—the last wave—to push them under.
And why?
Because I failed.
He kicked a broken chair sending it spiraling into a wall. He paced back and forth, pumping his fists as if trying to strike the phantoms that had overrun this Trevor's redoubt.
Johnny eyed Trevor, engrossed in the sight of a man facing an image of his own downfall. Nina, meanwhile, strolled through the destroyed room with a sense of awe in her expression, maybe fear; like a child in a dinosaur museum.
"How did this happen? I have to know how this happened!"
"Trevor…" Johnny spoke delicately. "We've seen the evidence in the form of bones."
"There’s a reason. I did something wrong. I made a mistake…"
Stone surged toward Nina, taking her by surprise. She retreated a step but he grabbed her by the shoulders.
"Tell me! He had to have told you something! Why was he chased from here?"
Johnny came to her rescue, "Trevor Stone! Get a hold of yourself!"
The Reverend’s hand looked placid enough but he had more strength in that one arm than many men had in both. He smoothly but forcefully pulled Stone away from the woman.
"Calm yourself!"
"I have to have the answers! I have to know!"
"Maybe you’re not meant to know. Maybe this place is not for you!"
Stone threw Johnny’s hand from his shoulder and grunted. His chest heaved in and out in frustrated breaths. He pinched his nose and closed his eyes as the nightmares that must have befallen the mansion danced in his imagination.
Wind rattled against the cracked, arch-shaped glass doors of the balcony beyond which they heard that wind whistle through the trees surrounding the dead home.
The radio on Nina’s utility belt crackled to life with Corporal Jon Brewer's voice, "Major, we have a radar contact. It's big and coming our way."
"That's it," she said to the men. "We're going to have to evacuate."
Trevor grumbled, "Is it that Steel Guard you told me about? They're coming?"
Nina raised her communicator and asked, "Have you identified the radar contact?"
"One battleship," the Corporal's shaky voice replied. "Approaching from the east."
Trevor stepped to the balcony doors and peered out through the spider web crack in one glass panel. He produced a set of compact binoculars and aimed them east. He saw something…a speck in the blue sky.
He repeated what she had told him earlier, "The Steel Guard of the Geryon Reich."
"Who is that?" Johnny asked because he had missed that conversation.
Nina said, "They control most of the east coast of this continent."
"Based on what she's told me, Rev, we haven't seen these guys yet."
Major Forest stepped toward the hallway and said, "It doesn't matter. We have to go."
Johnny stood in the middle of the room, looking first to Forest as she urged evacuation and then to Trevor who stared out the window toward the approaching threat.
"It does matter," Trevor said without turning. "Will they attack as you suggested?"
"Trevor, look, I know you're eager to get started, but we're not equipped for a f
ull-scale battle. They've got a battleship that could blast apart this side of the lake in about thirty seconds."
"But they won't use it," he said. "That's what you said."
Nina grit her teeth and narrowed her eyes as she corrected, "I said they preferred not to use it. Their main batteries drain a lot of energy. But we’re about thirty soldiers. Their ground forces won’t need the main guns to take us out. We have hardly any heavy weapons."
Footsteps announced the arrival of Corporal Brewer in the upstairs room.
"Major, should I pull in the men and retreat to the Skippers?"
Trevor turned around and Reverend Johnny recognized the glare in his friend's eyes. He told the other two, "I don't think retreat is on Mr. Stone's mind."
"We have to pull out," Nina said. "There’s nothing here, you know?"
He did not appear to hear her. He said, "They’re coming in from the east on the southern side. They’ll pass right over our parked Skippers before they get here."
"Yeah, well, damn good reason to get moving. Their air-to-air defenses will knock the Skips right out of the sky. We’re running out of time."
A message from the Major's radio interrupted their conversation. A message in human tongue but delivered by a monotone voice that could only come from a computer of some kind, probably a translation computer.
"THIS TERRITORY IS CLAIMED BY THE GERYON REICH. YOU ARE ORDERED TO WITHDRAW IMMEDIATELY OR BE DESTROYED."
The speck in the sky grew larger as it approached the mountain rim, becoming a full-blown dot descending as it moved.
Johnny pronounced, "Now order the ranks, and fling wide the banners, for our souls are God's and our bodies the king's…"
Trevor turned to him and asked, "New Testament?"
Johnny admitted, "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I’m expanding my repertoire."
Nina tried to keep things on track. Her voice grew a little louder and a little shakier.
"Trevor, I know you’re upset about this but we don't have either the firepower or the numbers to combat the forces onboard that ship."
"You said they will disembark troops," Trevor repeated the knowledge of Geryon tactics Nina had imparted to him on the way in.
"Yes," she agreed. "They will dispatch Golems."
"Controlled by the Battleship."
Nina clarified, "By soldiers hooked to virtual reality controls. We’ll need heavy weapons to knock out the Golems."
Johnny told her, "I fear Mister Stone is suggesting that you don’t need to knock out the Golems, as you say. You need to knock out that ship."
Corporal Brewer watched the conversation with beads of sweat growing on his forehead despite the cold. His consternation burst and said loudly, "They have air-to-air defenses on that Battleship that can knock anything out of the sky!"
Trevor walked over to Jon Brewer and stood before him, looking up at the taller man.
The discoloration remained from his broken nose but the Corporal refused to wear a bandage anymore. More important, his obstinate, bossy nature suffered an even deeper wound that day in the training center. Trevor hoped that that injury to this Jon Brewer's pride might allow something new to be born, as had happened on his Earth.
"Stop thinking about what we can't do and think about everything we can."
The statement puzzled the Corporal. Or perhaps the way Trevor studied his face unnerved him.
Nina said, "Even if we had a missile, they'd probably intercept it, but that doesn't matter because we don't have any surface-to-air missiles. So we can't take that ship down!"
He stared at Brewer but spoke to Nina, "Look at how they are approaching. Think about what we need to get the job done. Then you'll realize we do have a missile. As for the ground forces, well, me and Corporal Brewer here are going to devise a means of frustrating them. We don't need to defeat them, just buy time."
Corporal Brewer looked to his Major. She gaped back at him, equally dumbfounded.
"Do tell, Mister Stone," Johnny asked almost playfully. "How is it you plan to strike that vessel from the heavens?"
"Actually, I’m not going to do it. Major Forest here is."
Her gasp was audible. She said, "Okay, you have a plan. But what are we going to gain? Why the risk?"
Trevor alternated his eyes between her and Brewer as he said, "I told you I expect victory. How long has it been since you've tasted that? It's worth the risk and it's why you brought me here."
"WITHDRAW OR BE DESTROYED."
"Let me show you—all of you—what we can do."
---
To Trevor's eyes, the Geryon Battleship resembled one very large zeppelin with two smaller, similar blimps bulging out to either side, giving it three nose cones, three tail fins, and room for a very wide carriage underneath.
At the rear of the 'center' dirigible rotated a large propeller that looked more like it belonged on a submarine or under a cruise ship than pushing along an aircraft. Indeed, it spun in a slow, lazy manner to the point that it could not be solely responsible for the ship's momentum.
Colored in a shade akin to rust, the Battleship sported sharp gray lightning icons in circles on both sides of the main fuselage.
A large but surprisingly nondescript undercarriage hung from the belly in the form of a large rectangle with one long, shaded windshield facing forward. However, through his binoculars Trevor spied lines dividing the carriage into parts, suggesting a modular nature.
Several small antennas and radio dishes protruded from various points along the hull. Gun emplacements projected from each of the four corners resembling miniature howitzers. No doubt part of the extensive air-defense network protecting the otherwise vulnerable gas giant. It seemed that knocking it down was a problem in regards to getting close enough to hit it.
Fixed to the bow was an innocuous-looking gadget resembling a cross between a cannon and a transmitter. Further inspection revealed a series of conduits flowing the length of the craft between this contraption and the engine assembly at the rear of the ship. According to Major Forest's account, this main gun could blast the mansion to pieces with one shot, but each of those shots consumed a great deal of power.
Their eyes—particularly Corporal Brewer's—had bulged when he informed that his plan depended on the Geryons using this main gun.
That plan began with Trevor and Corporal Brewer leading the bulk of the human soldiers to occupy a cluster of three buildings not far from the Skipper landing field: a large house, a cottage, and a boathouse. Taken together, they guarded the likely Geryon approaches to the estate both through the woods and along the road.
Major Nina Forest, Reverend Johnny, and two additional soldiers made their way to the Skippers, hurrying to get there before the enemy, which they did. They found hiding spots inside the large helicopter-like flyers.
"Let us hope," Reverend Johnny remarked to the Major as they crunched in a dark corner of a wheel assembly, "that our foe does not merely blast these vessels into smithereens."
"They won’t. As long as there’s a chance to salvage these ships they’ll leave them intact. I mean, the Geryons may be in better shape than we are, but every resource is, like, precious here. You know?"
"Ah, yes, I understand. Currently, Major, I am worried about only one resource, my precious ass. Which is, yet again, in the hands of Trevor Stone."
The Battleship floated three hundred feet above the southern side of the lake and hovered. Smaller propellers on the sides of the ship served as stabilizers.
Two rectangular sections of the undercarriage on the craft broke away—fell—to Earth on cables aiming for a patch of burned-flat woods. Big metal ‘legs’ spun from each corner of the landing barges as they dropped. The featureless blocks hit the ground hard but those big legs absorbed the impact, bouncing while the umbilical cord cables wobbled overhead, still attached to the mother ship.
As they stabilized, the front of each opened to form a big ramp. The Golems of the Steel Guard marched out into the sunshine.
These metallic machines stood ten feet tall on two legs with hydraulic muscles, part of a skeletal body colored scarlet red. Large bolts served as joints on the knees and elbows. Their faces were sharp, almost beak-like with two glowing yellow cameras serving as eyes.
Two arms ended in three thick clamps. Similar but wider designs comprised the ‘feet’. Tubes atop each arm suggested fire arms while other attachments of various design suggested additional means of dealing damage.
Twelve of the beasts marched out of the drop container followed by smaller, tracked machines resembling boxes on wheels—maybe covered mining cars—lined with chutes, tubes, and ports to aid them in re-supplying the remote-controlled Golems.
One final wave of attackers emerged from the container, a squad of ten living, breathing Geryon infantry. These humanoid aliens dressed in battle suits made of some kind of leather/metal mix. A tight-fitting helmet covered their heads with a strap supporting what resembled a ball gag but was, in fact, a communication mechanism.
Only slivers of skin could be glimpsed through slits and openings in their protective gear, revealing a pale, soft hide.
Each of the Geryon infantrymen wielded some kind of high-tech cross bow.
The Steel Guard marched out from under the shadow of their floating Battleship and advanced into the woodlands on a direct course for the field where the Skippers parked. As they did, the cords on the elevator barges grew taut, the doors closed, and both of the crate-like carriers retracted into place underneath the dirigible…
…Jon Brewer stood next to Trevor in the upper level of a home. He had just finished communicating with his squads. Everyone was in place.
"They are headed our way," Brewer spoke with a hint of excitement in his voice.
"Good. They’ll pass by our ships then come here."
"Sir, have you thought about what we'll do if they discover Major Forest and her team?"
Trevor nodded, "Yes."
"You have? And what is it we’ll do then?"
"Die…"
Beyond Armageddon: Book 03 - Parallels Page 20
