Beyond Armageddon: Book 02 - Empire

by Anthony DeCosmo

“It’s okay,” Trevor waved his hand gently. “I’m having a hard time with the titles myself. The word Empire…it’s an old word. And I sure don’t feel like an ‘Emperor.’ No crown and all. But we had to come up with a name and, admittedly, I wanted something that would intimidate our enemies. Maybe I miscalculated how it would sound to our friends. Perhaps we’ll change it down the road.”

  Parsons nodded and rephrased his question, “So how did you go from one of the survivors to such a leader? General Shepherd tells me that you now rule a fair portion of the eastern seaboard. How did that happen?”

  “It all started very small, and grew from there. I had some help…” Trevor stopped and struggled with what he wanted to say. Shepherd felt himself lean forward, perhaps hoping to hear one the secrets; secrets about the woods Trevor often disappeared into, about how he could communicate with dogs and how he carried a library of knowledge in his head.

  Trevor re-worded his explanation.

  “I survived the early days. From there I found one survivor, then two. Then dozens and hundreds. Then thousands. Eventually we became more than a band of survivors, we became a nation.”

  “With all of these people swearing allegiance to you?” Parsons asked.

  Trevor nodded. “Yes.”

  Doss tried to hide the edge in her voice but failed as she asked, “What gives you the right to rule so absolutely?”

  “Results.”

  “Results on the battlefield?” The answer did not impress the councilwoman.

  “Yes, but elsewhere, too. We have a complex system of farms and food services, healthcare including vaccines and surgeons and diagnostic equipment. We even have a couple of dozen guys playing baseball and calling themselves professionals. I’d love to take you to a game between the Yankees and the Red Sox. Of course, that’s the Newark Yankees and Erie Red Sox, but the uniforms look authentic.”

  Parsons smiled and continued to listen.

  “Seriously, though, everything we have is yours. Let me help you.”

  “We don’t need help,” Elizabeth Doss answered, but Shep did not hear much conviction in her words.

  Trevor narrowed his eyes and said, “Tell me you don’t have children who die from illness that antibiotics or a medical procedure could have cured; the type of healthcare that was common five years ago. Tell me that your life expectancy is even fifty years old here. Tell me that you don’t have monsters in that swamp that come out once in a while and grab someone.”

  “We shoot em’ if they do,” a new voice entered the discussion from the chamber doorway.

  Shep turned his head and spotted a big man with broad shoulders and a freckled face striding into the chamber. He fit the description Cassy Simms provided of a redneck/beatnik hybrid, but the grim, angry expression on his face leaned heavily toward redneck. Shepherd felt himself tense, as if a fight might shortly ensue.

  “Billy Ray,” Robert Parsons stood and intercepted the newcomer.

  “It’s okay. I’m okay,” Billy Ray—the redneck/beatnik—stopped and answered. “I’m okay now that I calmed down my kids after a couple of jets shook our house.”

  Parsons introduced, “This is Billy Ray Phelps. He’s our Sergeant-at-Arms.”

  Trevor stood and extended a hand but Billy Ray did not accept that. Shep remained tense. He did not feel comfortable about Billy Ray.

  “Sorry about that,” Trevor apologized and returned to his seat while Billy Ray retreated a step and stood silent. “Standard procedure for us.”

  “No it wasn’t,” Elizabeth Doss accused. “It was meant to intimidate us.”

  “No, that’s not right, either,” Robert Parsons contradicted her. “It was meant to show us that The Empire is for real. Isn’t that right, Trevor?”

  Trevor paused for a moment, and then admitted, “It was important to make a point.”

  “Like I said, to intimidate us,” Doss repeated.

  Once again, Parsons showed his wisdom and answered, “No. It was to show us that Trevor here could have overrun our town already if he had so chosen.”

  “We can defend ourselves,” Billy Ray bragged. “Couple of ugly bastards came out here on some sort of flying bikes last year and we pasted them real good. Big ugly things with big ugly mouths.”

  “Sergeant,” Parsons hit the man with reality. “If Trevor here so chooses, he will send thousands of well-armed, battle-hardened soldiers into this town. He will strafe our streets from helicopter gun ships and blast our beautiful brick walls with shells from tanks, no doubt. You and your men could not hold off such an attack with rifles, pistols, and shotguns.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Phelps growled. “Why hasn’t he done it yet if he can?”

  Parsons answered for Trevor yet again, “Because he’s a reasonable man. Because he doesn’t want humans to fight humans.”

  Trevor added, “I look at your town here and I see the life I want for all people. Besides, I have spent the last five years fighting aliens and monsters. Why would I want to fight other people? I mean, we’re on the same side.”

  “Then turn your army around,” Doss said. “March back north. Leave us in peace.”

  “We want to leave you in peace,” Trevor said and Shepherd heard the tiniest sound of pleading in his voice. “But I have to march south. We are in the midst of a battle.”

  Smugly, Doss told him, “We’ve never seen battle. At least not on your level.”

  Shep said, “I’d call that pretty lucky, if you asked me. Most people haven’t had that kind of luck.”

  Trevor spoke, “I wonder how long it took before the Native Americans in Colorado or Oregon saw any Europeans?”

  Doss tilted her head and asked, “Excuse me?”

  “That’s what this is like, you understand. It’s like North America in the 16th and 17th centuries. Colonists coming to our planet, first a few, then more and more. They have gateways and they are bringing in reinforcements. Time is on their side.”

  “I see,” Robert Parsons responded.

  “No, I don’t think you do,” Trevor corrected. “Because if you truly did, then we wouldn’t need to have this conversation.”

  Doss put a firm finger on the table and argued, “You say there are thousands of these Hivvan aliens not far from here. That they have ruled all through the south the past few years. Well we have never seen them. They have never bothered us.”

  Trevor told them, “The Grand Army of the Hivvan Republic is based out of Atlanta. They take control of areas by occupying large cities and turning them into fortresses. Inside those fortresses they have big transfiguration equipment, what we sometimes call ‘matter-makers’. This is the basis of their industry. Do you know who runs their industry?”

  Trevor looked to each of them one after another and said, “Slaves. Human slaves. Yesterday’s college professors and bellhops and cab drivers are being worked to death in slave labor camps. I know; I’ve seen the camps after we’ve liberated them.”

  “That’s terrible,” Parsons admitted. “But it has nothing to do with us.”

  Shepherd heard the pleading in Trevor’s voice exit and a growl of anger slip in.

  “It has everything to do with you. Don’t you get it? I’m talking about your fellow human beings. Fathers and mothers and children. Living in hot, dark quarters sometimes going for weeks without seeing daylight. They eat food so horrid that some have starved to death because they simply can’t stomach what they’re given.”

  “I wish you luck in freeing them,” Parsons sounded sincere. “But our town wants nothing to do with it.”

  Shepherd saw red creeping into Trevor’s face; pure exasperation, something he rarely saw from his leader. He tried to buy his boss a few seconds to calm by jumping into the conversation with, “You see now, your town has everything to do with it. If you just let us pass, we can complete a move that will cut off thousands of these Hivvan things. We do that, and we’ll be able to drive right down the road to Columbia. There are ten thousand human slaves there.�
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  Elizabeth Doss looked to Shepherd and said, “Find another way.”

  Shep’s mouth opened but Trevor beat him to the punch.

  “It’s too late for that!” Trevor stood. Billy Ray responded by taking a step closer to the table. Trevor went on, “We are in the middle of this operation. I have only a few days to complete this march. If we don’t, our enemy will escape the trap and we will have to postpone our strike at Columbia. If they escape then when we do attack, more of my people will die and by the time that happens more of those slaves will die from exhaustion or beatings. Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” Parsons smiled to try to ease Trevor’s frustration. “Please, sit down, Mr. Stone.”

  The Chief Councilman gestured to the chair and Trevor returned to his seat. Phelps eased as well, but kept his eyes focused like lasers on Trevor.

  Parsons said, “I understand, and my heart goes out to those who suffer under such conditions. But tell me, Mr. Stone, why is it you keep fighting and waging your war?”

  “Like I said, those gateways are pouring reinforcements in.”

  “More than that. Get down to the basic reason.”

  “Because I believe it is the right thing to do. I believe that by winning this war we will save mankind.”

  “Yes! And if the—what is their name again?—these Hivvans win battles and have you on the run, will you stop fighting? Would you just give up?”

  Trevor shook his head, repulsed at the idea. “No, no. We will fight. In the beginning, we fought when the odds were against us. We fought when it seemed as if we had already lost, when the enemy was superior to us in every way. So no, we will never stop fighting until we win or we’re killed.”

  Parsons smiled and asked, “So why is it you ask us to stop fighting our fight? Why is it you think we should give up?”

  Trevor stared at Parsons, the red draining from his face, the anger slipping away. Shepherd wondered exactly what replaced that anger.

  Finally, Trevor clasped his hands together and replied, “I’m hoping you can make this small little concession for the greater good of mankind. You have to know that if I wanted to occupy or destroy your town it would have been done already. I do not want that, I just want to pass through. Is that so great a compromise of your beliefs?”

  “Yes,” Doss said. “It is. We have turned our backs on war. We believe that if we let you pass through our town that may be the mechanism that destroys us.”

  Trevor turned to her and said, “I find that hard to believe. This is not some religious cult. I see reasoned people here. I see intelligence. You can’t believe that some force of fate would punish you like a vengeful god if our army spends a few hours marching through your town.”

  “Of course not,” Parsons answered. “It is a slippery slope, Trevor. If we allow your army to pass because we are afraid of the consequences, we set a precedent that you or others might use against us in the future. This is our way of life. Not a religion in the traditional sense, but as important to us spiritually all the same. What good are our principles if we forget them when confronted?”

  “That’s your decision?”

  “No,” Robert Parsons told Trevor. “Unlike you, no one person makes the decisions here. We don’t have that advantage.”

  Stone closed his eyes.

  “Oh, Mr. Parsons, an advantage? I would trade places with you in a heartbeat. If only…if only the luxury of sharing that responsibility. For me? Well, every decision is my own. No blame to share. No hiding from the face in the mirror. Whatever happens here, in New Winnabow, you will be able to say it was the group. For me, it will rest entirely on my shoulders. There will be no where for me to hide.”

  Parsons responded, “And if there is blood, then that, too, will be on your hands.”

  A short while later, the full council refused passage for The Empire’s army.

  –

  What had been a very pleasant afternoon quickly turned dark as a line of thunderstorms rolled in from the northwest, skirting the top of the mountains and hovering over the lake.

  Streaks of sunlight glittering through the den’s French casement windows flickered and then faded, snuffed out by heavy black clouds.

  “It’s okay now, little feller,” Benjamin Trump—one time owner of the fourth largest fence company in Luzerne County—assured his grandson, Jorge. “Just a storm passing through. A little rain is good for the farmers.”

  JB curled a little closer as he sat on grandpa’s lap.

  “I suppose we need a little light in here,” Trump said and he reached for the desk lamp.

  JB repeated words his father often said, “Do we need the light, grandpa? We have to con-serve energy because no sun means no power.”

  “Is that so? I suppose you have a point, Jorgie, since the clouds have blocked out the sun for a bit and that means those fancy solar panels won’t be collecting any light for a while. But don’t you worry; this little light won’t cause a problem. Besides, how else am I going to read to you?”

  Trump pulled the short chain and the lamp clicked on.

  “Okay, now, where were we? Oh yeah…” Benjamin Trump consulted a red and white Dr. Seuss book. “And, speaking of shapes, now just suppose…” grandpa read slow while JB followed the pictures.

  A flash of lightning lit the room in a sparkle. Three seconds later the boom of thunder followed. The lamp on the desktop flickered. Benjamin Trump eyed it as if to will the power to stay on.

  He read, “Suppose YOU were shaped like these…or those!”

  Light from outside flashed again, but a shadow blocked most of the flash this time.

  “Of all the shapes we MIGHT have been…”

  Grandpa turned to the last page of the children’s book.

  “I say HOORAY for the shapes we’re in!”

  The light on the desk went out. The room fell pitch black.

  “Grandpa, what happened? Did the storm knock out the power?”

  “No, that’s not the storm, can’t be, must be another problem—” Trump caught himself and corrected, “Well, um, maybe JB. Probably. Yes, probably the storm knocked the power out. It will be back on real soon.”

  JB wiggled in Grandpa’s lap and faced the window. He saw the silhouette of a man standing just outside the glass, staring in. Looking at them. Looking at Jorge.

  “Graa…graanddpaaa…”

  Benjamin Trump turned as well. He saw the shape of a man, shaggy around the edges perhaps from torn clothes, maybe from disfigured skin.

  The lightning flashed so brilliant that both grandpa and grandson shielded their eyes. Thunder shook the house at the same moment.

  When they looked again, the shadow remained. Standing there. Staring at them through the thin pane of glass.

  Benjamin staggered to his feet clutching the boy in his arms.

  “Go away! Go away you bad man!” JB shouted.

  The shadow raised a hand…drummed three fingers on the glass–thud-thud-thud—then waved.

  Grandpa tried to move around the desk but he bumped his hip on the edge. This caused him to lose his balance and almost fall over.

  “Security! Security!”

  Two black-clad I.S. agents came through the door but when they looked to the window, they saw only the dark grounds of the mansion and falling sheets of rain.

  Benjamin told them, “He was just there, but he’s gone now.”

  JB corrected, “He’s still here, grandpa. He’s still here.”

  13. Little Girl Lost

  Three days after the Dark Wolves rescued the hostages at Airlie Gardens, Nina Forest remained in Wilmington, much to her dismay. Massive Stumphides no longer hunted the streets, the Mutant gangs no longer terrorized survivors, and both types of Sloths nearly disappeared from the city. However, a job remained. A tedious job, but one she had promised to finish.

  With the larger, more dangerous hostiles eliminated, the Hunter-Killer teams focused on the smaller and more numerous pests. They searched
basements to root out cat-sized acid-spitting roaches, dug holes in parks to reach nests of otherworldly eels, picked through scrap heaps and trash piles for slithering carrion-eating slug-things, and burned nests of alien birds from treetops.

  Nina had hoped that, with the city essentially secure for humans and supply convoys, General Shepherd would send her new orders. However, apparently a problem on the road to Conway occupied the brass’ attention. That left Nina in Wilmington overseeing pest-control and helping rebuilding efforts until someone from civilian administration saw fit to take over the task.

  She began the day leading a convoy to Wrightsville Beach, carrying a health evaluation team, medical screening materials, and a truck of canned food. A reporter from the Baltimore New Press sat in the back seat of the lead Humvee. She allowed him to ride along only after he promised not to quote her or even mention her in his article on the liberation of the area.

  “This was a substantial group of survivors,” she told him. “About one hundred and fifty living near the coast. I think that helped, since they could fish and defending their camp against the threats in the city was a little easier, for the most part.”

  “How’d they react when your forces showed up?”

  “They love us. I think some of them had their first good night’s sleep in five years. I think if they had ticker-tape, they would have thrown us a parade.”

  The soldier driving her Humvee swerved the vehicle to the left. They bounced over a particularly nasty pothole—more a bomb crater—as the convoy turned onto a bridge.

  “That’s cool,” the reporter said.

  “Yeah, but it’d be weird if it were any other way. They’ve been stuck out here, isolated, for five years. Got to give them credit, they really conserved their fuel and they did a good job scrounging supplies, but you have to wonder how many of them died off from basic diseases and simple injuries. Stuff we took for granted in the old days and are only now starting to deal with again.”

  “Did they have, like, a leader or President or something?”

  Nina shook her head. “More like a couple of dominant personalities. People tend to find their place in situations like this.”