Beyond Armageddon: Book 02 - Empire

by Anthony DeCosmo

  Before Trevor could respond, Lori Brewer agreed. “Evan is right. We’re not a little lakeside community anymore. I was a counselor in the old days, not an economist, but even I see that we have to build some kind of economic foundation.”

  Trevor closed his eyes, pinched his nose, and said, “Okay, okay. I get it. Lori, I want you and Evan to put together a group to come up with a proposal. Find the best financial minds.”

  Brewer said, “There’s a sergeant in 2nd Mech who used to work for the SEC. I think he spent time in jail for some sort of insider trading or something. I can get you his name.”

  “See, that type of thing,” Trevor nodded. “Sit down, work it out, and then we’ll make some decisions.”

  “Good, great,” Lori said. “This brings me to another question. Kind of a dumb question, actually, but something we have to address. For the last four years, we’ve been fighting and expanding. Hundreds of thousands of people are now a part of this whole thing. We’ve got cities, regional governors, armies, and—I guess sometime soon—money.”

  Trevor grunted, “So what’s the question?”

  “The question is, what are we calling ourselves?”

  “Huh?”

  Lori rephrased, “What do I put on my letterhead? What are we? Who are we? There are only so many times you can say ‘the community’ or ‘mankind’s new nation’ or whatnot. Are we a country? A city? Are we Trevor’s great nation of wonderful folks?”

  “I see,” Trevor came to understand the question.

  “We’re Americans,” Jon Brewer said.

  Trevor thought of the thousands of ‘foreigners’ who were a part of the effort; visitors and tourists in the United States when Armageddon struck. Many served in his military, shedding their blood not for ‘America‘ but for mankind.

  “No, that’s not right,” Trevor said. “We have people fighting and dying for the cause who weren’t American citizens. We have to discard those old boundaries.”

  A variety of suggestions bounced around the room

  “Human Nation.”

  “The Coalition for Earth!”

  “Trevor’s Posse!”

  “Shut up, Dante.”

  The suggestions whittled away to silence.

  “Well, there is something that has been tossed around in a newspaper,” Dante suggested coyly. He apparently knew damn well which newspaper tossed it.

  “Oh?” Trevor looked to him.

  “Empire,” Dante set the stage for another argument. “I think it was, Trevor’s personal Empire.”

  “I see,” Trevor ran a hand over his eyes as he realized where that one came from.

  Evan Godfrey—the man who wrote that particular newspaper article—said softly, “All of the good ones were taken.”

  “What’s that?” Brewer asked as he shot Evan a sharp glance.

  “I said, all of the good empire names were taken,” Evan slid away his chair and stood as his angry enthusiasm bubbled to the surface again. “You know…Roman, Ottoman, Galactic. All of the good Empire names are taken, so I had to wing it. But it sounded about right. That’s what this is, isn’t it? Trevor’s personal empire.”

  Jon Brewer stood, too. “Sometimes I think you should just shut up.”

  “That’s what you want to do, isn’t it?” Evan fired. “Shut me up. Stop that guy from talking about freedom and elections and rights. We don’t want to listen to him. He just keeps on screwing around with this good thing we’ve got going.”

  “You sorry piece of shit,” Brewer growled.

  Trevor held a hand aloft, stopping Jon’s counter attack but both men remained standing at opposite ends of the table, red-faced and angry.

  “You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” Trevor said calmly. “You would just love it if we shut down your newspaper, maybe threw you in jail or stripped you of your position.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “And there you go. Throwing down the gauntlet. Drawing a line and daring me to cross because you want me to cross it. You want me to find you more than just an annoyance. You want me to give you credibility. Shut you down and you become some sort of modern day Thomas Paine, right? The voice so dangerous Trevor had to silence him. Well, I’m not going to do it, Evan. You go on, publish your newspaper and try and convince people that I’m some evil dictator who’s doing all this for personal power.”

  “My mistake,” Evan sneered from his soapbox. “You were picked by destiny, isn’t that the story? The Gods chose Trevor Stone. Oh, I’ve heard the stories about you and your trips into the woods. I’m not buying it. The Egyptians thought their pharaohs were Gods. The Kings of Europe justified their absolute power by claiming divine right. All I see is a man, and no man should have the power you have. The power must ultimately be with the people. If you were really a great leader, you’d see that. You would set up elections. Then you’d dare to run to see if your peasants really do adore you.”

  Dante Jones quipped from the sidelines, “Wow, Evan, just think of the campaign you could run. You could buy TV commercials, have a convention, and make neat bumper stickers. Man, that would be fun! Hey, I’ll put a sign in my yard for you. It’ll be like old times.”

  Lori Brewer’s tongue let fly, “Hey asshole, maybe you haven’t been paying attention but the world is a little different now. And you know what, it’s better. All the politicians and lawyers and accountants are gone.”

  “Better for you,” Evan said. “You know most of the leaders of the Nazi party were nobodies before they had Hitler. Then they got to wear those nifty arm bands.”

  “Why don’t you pack your bags and get out of here then?” Jon Brewer said through clenched teeth, clearly inferring that he would be happy to carry Evan by the scruff of his neck to the border and give him a swift kick toward Hivvan lines.

  Evan stopped as the weight of so many angry faces bore down on his speech. He glanced around the table, shook his head, and as he sat in his seat again he muttered, “Like I said, Empire.”

  The silence remained unbroken for several long seconds until Trevor—his chin resting in his hand propped on the table—said, “I like it. Empire. It has a ring.”

  Evan’s eyes grew wide; incredulous that Trevor took the mockery he created in a newspaper column and embraced it.

  “It’s aggressive, and I plan to be aggressive. It has a sound of inevitability to it, as if it encompasses everything. I think our people will take a comfort in that name for now because it implies strength. For the same reason, our enemies will tremble at the sound of the words.”

  Jon Brewer asked, “So, what, like the American Empire or something?”

  “No, no,” Trevor shook his head. “This doesn’t have anything to do with America or Canada or France or Norway or any of them. The countries are gone now. We just happen to be in this part of the world. Just Empire. The Empire. As if every other empire that came before was something less.”

  Evan said, “I guess that makes you the Emperor. Someone get this man a crown and a cape and some tapestries to walk on.”

  “You go on printing your paper, Evan. Tell your side of the story,” Trevor leaned forward for emphasis. His eyes narrowed and he warned his adversary, “But Evan, if you ever print anything that gives away future operations, or costs the lives of our soldiers…”

  “I’d never do that,” Godfrey snapped. “That’s right, dismiss me as a traitor. Tell yourselves that I’m not a patriot. Point your finger at me and call me that pain in the ass who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. History will show that I was the biggest patriot of them all. I will fight when I have to, but I will not blindly follow, particularly not a despot who sees himself as some divine emissary.”

  “Yes,” Trevor said. “History will judge us all. If we survive in order to make history. Speaking of history, this meeting of the full council is adjourned. Members of the military council will stay behind. Thank you, everyone, for your input.”

  Evan, Eva Rheimmer, and Dr. Maple stood, gathere
d their papers, and made their way to the stairs.

  Reverend Johnny, Jon and Lori Brewer, Dante Jones, Omar and Anita Nehru, Gordon Knox and Brett Stanton remained. Had it not been for the strategic situation, Generals Shepherd, Prescott, Stonewall McAllister, and William Hoth would have been present, too but they were occupied with operations of varying natures.

  Lori Brewer said to Trevor, “You went with the whole ‘Empire’ thing just to piss off Evan, didn’t you?”

  Trevor scratched his chin. “Maybe a little. But, honestly, it makes as good a sense as anything. You know me, I like to keep things simple. If we need to change it down the road, we’ll change it.”

  Dante Jones protested, “We should change it now, before it gets started. I was just kidding around when I said it. Truth is, every empire I can think of has been on the bad side of things. I know you want something that sounds kick-ass, but people are going to think of the wrong things when they hear ‘empire’.”

  “The Romans weren’t so bad,” Trevor mused.

  Dante countered, “I wonder what Brutus would say about that.”

  Lori said, “I can’t wait to read his first editorial about the new evil Empire.”

  “You know, Trevor,” Dante said, “Evan isn’t wrong all the time. You fight him on anything that comes out of his mouth, just because it’s him saying it. The guy may be a pain in the ass, but he actually makes a good point now and then.”

  Before Trevor could reply, the door at the top of the basement stairs closed with a solid thud. Trevor brought the military meeting to order.

  “Fate has decided to test our mettle. We have not one, but two urgent situations that must be addressed immediately.”

  “Now that does not sound too good,” Brett Stanton said. “I mean, well now wait, I think most of us figured things would cool down for a spell now that Raleigh is done, given the supply situation and all.”

  “I have received…” Trevor’s voice trailed as he considered his words. “…information of great importance. An expeditionary force is to be formed and depart immediately for a destination in the Arctic Circle.”

  Eyes widened, scattered gasps, a jaw dropped, and Omar nearly choked on a puff of his cigarette.

  “Listen close. We know that organized alien forces who invaded our planet come through gateways. We have suspected that those gateways provide reinforcements and supplies to our enemies. I tell you now there is a means to close those gates. A device. An artifact—I dunno exactly what it its. But it has been buried in the ice at the top of the world for centuries, maybe a millennium. Maybe longer.”

  “That’s impossible,” Dante said. “How could we march an army to the north?”

  Brewer cut in, “A small force. We’ll fly in stripped Eagles north to Hopedale in northeastern Canada.”

  “We?” Lori Brewer said as if tasting a particularly sour lemon.

  Gordon Knox joined the conversation. His voice held the faintest hint of a New Yorker’s accent even though he had lived most of his life south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

  “There the task force will rendezvous with SSN-750 Newport News, one of our two operational nuclear submarines. That boat is returning from inserting recon teams into Ireland. The timing should be perfect.”

  Trevor continued, “The sub will transport the task force to the glaciers and ice caps of northwestern Greenland. There they will disembark and race to the artifact. I have specific coordinates for the target area. The force will extract the object, return to the submarine, and make their way home.”

  Cross talk ensued. Urgent, confused, and incredulous cross talk.

  “Easy, easy,” Trevor held a hand aloft. “I know this sounds crazy but we have no choice. If we get hold of this object—these ‘runes’—we can effectively shut down those gates and cut off our enemies from reinforcements. This would not ensure victory, but it would be a tremendous step forward.”

  “It’s suicide!” Dante complained.

  “That’s too far!” Lori added.

  Trevor spoke loud enough to override the dissenting voices.

  “OTHER RACES are aware of these runes. They will send forces of their own to obtain them. If they do, it is my understanding they can fundamentally shift the parameters of the invasion of our planet. These runes are sort of a funnel or spigot that affects the flow through the gates. In enemy hands, that flow can be increased exponentially. We could find ourselves facing double, triple, maybe a hundred times more enemies than we face now. The flip side of that is we can shut off that spigot; close the gates.”

  That silenced the debate for a moment.

  Gordon Knox broke the silence. “Task Force Blizzard will need arctic gear including specialized weapons lubricants for the extreme temperatures, snow cats for transportation, and even dog sleds. I have already secured most of this equipment as per the orders given to me prior to this meeting. However, there is still much to do.”

  “And little time to do it in,” Trevor looked directly at Jon Brewer. “I want the force wheels-up in less than forty-eight hours.”

  “We’ll be ready,” Jon nodded.

  Lori threw fire with her eyes at her husband. “When were you going to tell me this?”

  “After the meeting,” Jon answered.

  “I can not emphasize how important this mission is. That is why I have asked Jon to personally lead the force. He’ll take approximately one-hundred men with K9s in a support role.”

  “Wait now, that don’t sound like a lot of firepower,” Brett Stanton noted.

  “It isn’t,” Jon answered. “The emphasis is on moving fast. We’re hoping to avoid contact with hostiles. Still, I’m requisitioning mortars, anti-tank missiles, and a few other goodies in case we run into any problems.”

  “We’ll see what we can scrounge up,” Stanton scratched his head.

  Reverend Johnny said, “May the blessings of the Lord travel with you to that frozen wasteland, Mr. Brewer.”

  Jon smiled at the Reverend. “I’m sure you’ll see to it that they will. Pack some long underwear.”

  “Oh dear.”

  Trevor concluded this part of the discussion. “Jon will hand-pick units to accompany him and the Reverend. Omar and Brett, you’ll be receiving written requisitions for equipment for Jon’s team. Fill those requisitions immediately. No red tape, no hassle. We can talk about this after the meeting as necessary but there’s no more room for discussion now. The decision is made.”

  Trevor glanced around the table and made eye contact with each member of the council. He saw fear and surprise in their eyes, but this was not the first time. They would overcome the shock and focus on their jobs. They had to; there was no other choice.

  “I said there were two items,” he moved on. As Trevor spoke, Brewer produced an easel with a map of North Carolina. “We’ve been fighting the ‘Grand Army of the Hivvan Republic‘ for nearly two years. Honestly, if we had met them that first year we never would have survived this long and Lord knows we’ve had our asses handed to us more than once. So here’s the good news: our offensive in Raleigh was not only successful, it created an opportunity to effectively cripple the Hivvans.”

  “Jesus,” Dante whispered. “I knew it went well, but cripple them?”

  “Listen up. General Shepherd reports that the Hivvans have made a big mistake. That is, they have put themselves in a bad position and we might just be able to break their backs, if we move quickly. Jon…”

  Brewer referred to the map as he spoke. “As you know, the Hivvans used Raleigh as their primary base in North Carolina. General Shepherd has twelve of our seventeen operational military fixed-wing aircraft at his disposal and is using them to bombard, antagonize, and otherwise piss-off the retreating Hivvan Corp. Interstate 40 is the major route leading south out of Raleigh. Twenty-six miles or so south of that city I-40 intersects with I-95 that runs to the southwest. You can see here, that intersection makes sort of a point in a triangle. I-95 continues southwest across the middle of North Car
olina then eventually into South Carolina, here.”

  He stood back and used his finger to outline the roads he mentioned.

  “For its part, I-40 continues southeast toward the coast and Wilmington, um, right here. You can see here that another major road—Route 17— heads out of Wilmington and follows along the coast into South Carolina. The gist of it is, you have two major routes leading from North Carolina into South Carolina, one not far from the coast below Wilmington, the other much further inland.”

  Lori stared at her husband with angry eyes and barked, “But what’s the point?”

  Jon continued, “We expected the Hivvans would follow 40 until hitting 95 then follow that road in a retreat toward South Carolina. Their next major base—in fact their last big one in the region—is in Columbia. But that’s not what they did. It seems they are more disorganized than we thought. During their retreat, and under constant harassment from the air, the Hivvan armies did not follow either of the major routes. Instead, dozens of smaller, splintered formations headed almost directly south along minor roads into the small towns, villages, and wilderness between those two major routes. They are fractured and vulnerable, although they still represent a significant fighting force, somewhere between seven and eight thousand.”

  “Well that’s good, right?” Dante guessed.

  “It’s great,” Trevor agreed. “They are putting themselves in a big trap. They are heading through hard ground, tough terrain. They’ve got the Bladen Lakes State Forest in their path not to mention an uncountable number of streams and lakes. There’s also the impassable Green Swamp to the southeast so they can’t get to the coast.”

  “Okay, but, so what?” Lori Brewer asked.

  “This is a huge force,” Trevor explained. “But it’s fragmented now. It will coalesce at some point, maybe in a few days, maybe a week or so. We know the Hivvans are too smart to stay fractured for long. Then they’ll need supplies, even if only to retreat. Those supplies come from Columbia but they have to go through one of two forward distribution points that Knox’s intelligence people identified. One is in Conway about thirty miles inside the South Carolina border and just off the coast north of Myrtle Beach. The second is inland at Dillon, also just inside the border of South Carolina. We take those two posts out and we eliminate all support for the retreating Hivvans. The lizards starve and their Firecats run out of gas.”