Beyond Armageddon V: Fusion

by DeCosmo, Anthony

  Behind this line rose a trio of hastily-grown structures resembling dead trees with trunks and limbs several feet in diameter. Holes like honeycombs encircled their ‘trunks’, iron pipes created a sort of exoskeleton around the entire structure, and morbid seed-shaped growths hung from the branches.

  Thus stood the eastern most mark of Voggoth’s advance and the outer ring of encirclement around the 13th Mechanized Division.

  The Grenadiers—the ocean of K9s stretching back to the horizon—poured across the fields of Kansas toward that line. The ground shook; a rumble filled the air.

  At 500 yards, a light at the top of one turret, then another, then all blinked on and a muffled, moaning alarm echoed along the perimeter.

  The turrets went into action firing short, sharp bursts of energy like shiny daggers cutting overtop the plains and slicing into the attackers. The bolts cut dogs in two, tore off legs, and decapitated more. But the great mob kept coming.

  The tree-like dispenser buildings activated. From the honeycombs rolled dozens of balls that stopped, sprouted legs, and grew into the Spider Sentries encountered wherever The Order lurked. The Daddy-long-legs-like creatures grew twin rows of tiny gun barrels on the round orbs that served as heads as well as a pointed ‘nose’ attached to a rope-like skewer for close-combat.

  From the seed-like sacks on the ‘limbs’ of the dispensers drooped large green bulbs easily mistaken for discolored bees nests or the rotting remains of Gypsy Moth cocoons.

  The bulbs hit the ground where they shimmied and curled open with a soft crackle. Vile liquid dripped in long, stringy strands as greenish spheres birthed from the sickly wombs.

  From each of the spheres lying among the dead grass of the field sprouted a trio of sharp and boney protrusions. They hinged at an unseen joint and returned to the ground, stabbing into the brown land. At the center of each rose a glowing yellow orb alongside a fleshy cylinder sitting on a tendon-like shoulder.

  The Heavy Duty Spider Sentries –as classified by The Empire—joined their base-model brethren and filled the gaps between the turrets. While the latter met the canine army with lethal rapid-fire pellet guns, the Heavy Duty versions launched more powerful shot from their shoulder-mounted weapons. The blasts could penetrate the skin of armored vehicles so when they hit K9 bodies those bodies vanished in splashes of gore.

  Grenadiers fell, were cut to shreds, and disintegrated into blobs of fir and bone, but the attack did not waver; the line kept coming as more and more dogs stepped over and around wounded and dead comrades with no sense of fear, no falter in their pace.

  Voggoth’s turrets glowed red; the Spider Sentries rocked back and forth on their spindly legs. The wave of dogs came to the highway and swept beyond.

  One by one the turrets pulled free of the ground and walked on four short legs in retreat, firing as they staggered back. Dogs scrambled onto their bases chewing and gnawing at the tubes and coils until causing fatal malfunctions. One—two—ten fell over like toppling towers.

  The Spiders—heavy duty and otherwise—stammered backwards. Dead dog bodies piled up in front of them like sandbags along a river but the Grenadiers kept coming! Relentless! Fearless!

  They grabbed onto legs and bit. The nose cones of the Spider Sentries—like spears on a hose—darted out and impaled dogs one after another but they still came; they piled on and over one another searching for an opening to wound the vile monsters. Sentries toppled and disappeared beneath the mob.

  Despite killing thousands of K9s, The Order’s line of defense splintered and was swallowed like a rotting beachside boardwalk in a tsunami…

  On the northern flank of the Grenadier army, Cassy Simms and 100 of her best riders moved into the bedroom communities south of Newtown. They occupied the burned out duplexes, toppled colonials, and overgrown cul-de-sacs where they dismounted and dug in with machine guns and short-range mortars.

  Voggoth’s version of airborne commandos—who had dropped into Newtown during The Order’s move to encircle Rhodes’ unit—marched south intending to hit the attacking K9s and slow their advance. They looked like skeletons of bronze with pulsating innards resembling a combination of clockworks and biological organs. Their solitary round eyes glowed red and they moved on two metallic legs with a combination foot and rubber wheel at the bottom.

  The commandos fired from metal tubes mounted on their forearms. A few of their number sported small shoulder-mounted bazookas. During their assault on Newton they had glided to Earth via black bat wings but had since discarded them.

  Two hundred of the warped commandos marched into the ruins unaware of the cavalry until they were caught in a well-orchestrated cross fire. Carbine rounds and well-placed pistol shots felled the metallic fighters; mortar shells and fragmentation grenades destroyed more.

  The alien beings communicated in voices coming from unseen mouths in a language of static and screeches. Moving fast and agile thanks to the wheels incorporated into their metal feet, the commandos moved between cover, lobbed explosive charges, and returned small arms fire with the same.

  Cassy’s fighters eliminated nearly one-third of the unsuspecting enemy in the initial exchange, but the rest found refuge among the ruins and settled into a static battle line. Cassy knew hundreds more enemy reinforcements would come from Newton; she only hoped to buy time…

  A rail line ran southwest away from Newtown and, eight miles later, reached the small town of Sedgwick, Kansas. This line—about two miles behind Highway 135—served as the second perimeter of defense and the inner-most ring of containment trapping General Rhodes. The Order situated units all along the line and had established their version of a Forward Operating Base around the Hillside Cemetery on the eastern fringes of town.

  Originally, Shep planned to form all his forces into one sharp instrument to punch a hole through the enemy lines that stretched between Newtown and Sedgwick. Things had changed with the Grenadiers’ arrival.

  For his first move he had sent Cassy Simms north to the outskirts of Newton to hold off the rather effective enemy commandos and their support units stationed there. He knew she could not delay them forever, but if she could bog them down for a short time the new plan should work, especially considering the size of the hole the K9s aimed to punch in the pocket.

  Shepherd led his column south and then west toward Sedgwick on Route 588. Like Cassy Simms to the north, he aimed to draw off a threat to the Grenadiers’ flank and buy time for Rhodes—trapped at Halstead seven miles west of the rail line—to fight his way east to the dogs.

  This revised plan paid immediate dividends. Shep’s armor caught The Order in the middle of organizing a counter-attack toward the Grenadiers. Abrams tanks directed by William Rheimmer smashed into a column of the van-sized, six-legged robots known as Roachbots.

  Powered by harvested human brains and well-armed for mobile combat, the Roachbots exhibited one trait that made them both more dangerous and less predictable: insanity.

  The creatures wore tubular metal frames, a pair of red eyes that mimicked LED displays, and a mouth-like speaker on a front face plate to either side of which rested Gatling guns mounted on swiveling round bases providing a wide firing arc.

  In addition to the standard drones, the Roachbot column included Mortarbots. These silver walking mechanical artillery pieces resembled 18th century cannon wobbling along on a pair of metal legs with their barrels pointing skyward. A face plate similar to those found on a drone was affixed to the bottom of the automatons.

  In any case, a column of fifty of the things moved north on Hoover road from the tightly packed bubble-like structures The Order had grown on the grounds of Hillside Cemetery. The robots were just passing through the flattened remains of a housing development when the human tanks locked on and fired from a nearby field.

  Shepherd directed his Humvees and infantry—a few with Javelin anti-tank weapons—to a tree line east and northeast of the cemetery and kept Rheimmer’s armor in the open blasting away.


  Roachbots—Shep knew—could do serious damage to the K9 advance. They were too tough to bite and could kill from range.

  The drones on the road turned east and advanced on the Abrams getting close enough for Shepherd to hear their trademark call in a synthesized growl: A-hehehehe. Meanwhile, the Mortarbots stood off and lobbed explosive shells into the attacking armor.

  Shepherd—onboard an APC—used his binoculars to spy both the elevated cemetery and the town of Sedgwick beyond. While the forces there accounted for only a small fraction of Voggoth’s advancing army, The Order had certainly planned its encirclement of Rhodes well.

  A giant mushroom-shaped guardian rose from the grounds of the cemetery. One ugly eye drooped from the cap of the creature and surveyed the puny beings daring to attack its base.

  The dome on the guardian shook, vibrated, and then spewed a volley of hundreds of sharp disc-shaped projectiles like circular saw blades thrown as Frisbees. Some of those blades flew into the trees aiming for the infantry but the branches provided significant cover. Other blades hit the tanks in the field where some stuck into armor but did no serious damage.

  A moment later the top of the mushroom—the cap—exploded with two fireballs as an A-10 Warthog swooped from the heavens and struck. What the missiles failed to finish the A-10’s guns did: the plane strafed the Guardian with thousands of rounds ripping its hide to pieces and sending it toppling.

  Shepherd smiled but, at the same time, he saw more Roachbots, a variety of Spider Sentries, and the gray-skinned muscle-bound Ogres forming up on Rt. 588 in Sedgwick…

  General Rhodes’ men mustered on the Halstead High School athletic field that happened to be ringed by a strangely blue-colored track. For more than three days, now, the high school and that field served as their base of operations after they had fortified Halstead from threats on all sides.

  However, word came that it was time to make their escape. The sounds of battle to the northeast at Newton, to the southeast at Sedgwick, and directly to the east provided motivation to get moving, as did any glance to the west of town. General Rhodes saw black storm clouds gathering there. A sure sign that The Order’s main force—Leviathan and all—approached.

  His forces packed up and drove east in an assortment of vehicles ranging from military Humvees and armored cars to an old school bus as well as deuce-and-a-half trucks. While he abandoned much of his heavy equipment, Rhodes did manage to evacuate all of his wounded.

  The ragtag column headed east along CR-576, leaving behind nearly 200 freshly dug graves on the high school’s west lawn…

  The army of Grenadiers hit the enemy defenses along the rail line like a wave crashing into rocks. Turrets and spider sentries, the assimilated humans known as monks, as well as a pair of towering mushroom-shaped Guardians met the assault. Air support in the form of Screamers launched from points west and the floating blobs known as Chariots provided additional support for the enemy position.

  Hastily deployed bouncer mines east of the tracks broke up the initial surge but the K9s kept coming. They died at the rate of 100 every minute, but refused to yield…

  In the suburbs of Newton, the half-robot/half animal commandos were reinforced by a trio of eight-foot-tall creatures wearing hooded cloaks and blasting liquid fire from arms that sported round baffles.

  Simms recognized the creatures from the report filed by Nina Forest and Gordon Knox after their adventure in Mexico last year. The robotic creatures received the official designation of Erasers. They moved slow and fired even slower but their heavy blasters could eradicate all but the most hardened bunkers.

  The Erasers tore apart her front lines with a series of energy streams. However, an AC-130 circled the battlefield in the burned-out suburbs for ten minutes and managed to destroy two of the three hooded robots before the plane suffered enough damage to chase it away.

  By midafternoon the cavalry’s hard points were broken and casualties hit 30%. Cassy had to order a retreat for the legendary Stonewall’s brigades, but she knew they had accomplished their task.

  Despite dozens of sorties from Apache attack helicopters and A-10 Warthog armor-killers, General Shepherd lost half of his armored vehicles and a third of his personnel before pulling back under the cover of a fuel-air bomb that obliterated The Order’s base at the cemetery.

  As the afternoon changed to evening, General Rhodes’ escaping columns crossed Highway 135 after passing through the ranks of the westward-swarming K9 army.

  Just before nightfall the Grenadiers finished off the last of the ground-based defenders along the rail line as well as a legion of enemy reinforcements from Newton and Sedgwick. By then only 10,000 of the fierce dogs remained, but General Rhodes’ men had made it safely out of the pocket and both relief forces retreated unmolested.

  Yet still, the K9s did not stop. They continued to march, beyond the ability of Shepherd or the military to track their movement. The retreating humans only knew that all through the night the sounds of battle could be heard to the west and, come the next morning, The Order had not yet returned to their previous line at 135. Something had given them pause; slowed them; wounded them.

  So ended the march of the Grenadiers.

  Humanity stood alone.

  13. Camelot

  Trevor, Rick Hauser, and two other sailors grabbed oars and rowed vigorously as their boat rode breakers in to shore. When the oars hit bottom, all eight men aboard jumped over the side and splashed into the cool surf, leaving JB and his well-wrapped Bunny stuffed animal alone in the RIB.

  The second boat and its eight men—including the former Executive Officer of the Newport News—followed suit. A minute later the bows hit beach and Trevor helped his son hop from rubber boat to shore.

  Ahead of them lay unknown land shrouded in the darkness of midnight. Only a small flashing beacon lying further up the beach provided any source of light outside of the spotlights on the rim of the boats.

  The waves rolled in to shore one after another filling the air with a gentle but constant roar. A very cool breeze with salt water vapor carried across the beach belying the summer season.

  “Welcome to France,” the XO muttered as his men mustered on the shoreline. “Wasn’t there supposed to be a welcoming party?”

  Rick Hauser moved several paces ahead of the rest and reached the flashing beacon on the sand. He held the small device in his hand and switched it off.

  Trevor said, “We’re more than a day late. Maybe they didn’t stick around.”

  “Father, are we in the correct place?”

  The XO had spent the last 36 hours consulting his compass and maps. His computations resulted in several course corrections during their journey from dying sub to coastline. He answered Jorgie with sureness in his voice, “You are at the beautiful beach resort of Soulac-sur-Mer. Besides, I don’t think it’s an accident that this beacon was here.”

  The sailors stood in a tight group in what would have been the open space of the beach, but the complete darkness surrounding them created the illusion of isolation and cover.

  That illusion shattered as a pair of bright spotlights burst upon them. Trevor raised his hand over his eyes, effectively blinded. He did hear the cock of several pistol slides among the sailors.

  “Everyone stay calm,” he told the crewmen. “If they were bad guys we’d be dead by now.”

  He heard the crunch of footsteps crossing the beach from the spotlights to his position. Slowly Trevor pulled away his hand and squinted in the light. He saw a line of silhouettes approach; human silhouettes. He noted weapons among the strangers: FAMAS military assault rifles.

  The person in front waved a hand in the air and the spotlights changed their aim so as to illuminate the beach, but not blind.

  Trevor took stock of the welcoming committee: four people standing twenty yards back beside a pair of vehicles—some kind of light military cars—parked along the remains of a sidewalk comprised of warped wooden planks. Closer, across from Trevor, stood a trio
of men with their weapons pointing toward the sand.

  The leader of the group stood over six feet tall, although not quite as imposing as Jon Brewer. He was lanky but his forearms and legs struck Trevor as well-toned. He had thin but not balding black hair, stubble beneath a sharp nose, and wore round glasses with a sport strap securing them to his head. He dressed in a black, zippered sweatshirt with red shoulder stripes and the brand name ‘Ducati’ embroidered where a chest pocket should be and covered his lower half in leather pants that featured a variety of zip pockets as well as strategically-placed padding.

  The man in front sort of sneered at Trevor’s wet and tired group, turned to his closest comrade and sarcastically muttered, “The Normandy landings were more impressive, I would think.”

  Trevor snipped, “My grandfather fought at Normandy.”

  His words surprised the men. The leader’s eyes widened and his mouth nearly dropped, but he quickly regained his composure and replaced his surprise with what appeared to be his natural expression: a sneer.

  He said to Trevor, “I thought you were going to bring an army.”

  Trevor glanced at his son and then answered the man, “I did.”

  Again, they appeared surprised.

  “You were supposed to be here yesterday.”

  “We almost didn’t make it at all. But that’s another story. My name is Trevor Stone. Thank you for meeting us.”

  The leader took great pains to sound neither friendly nor antagonistic: “My name is Armand.”

  Jorgie jumped, “Hello, Armand. It is very nice to meet you.”

  “I was told I would meet Alexander,” Trevor said.

  “Well you got me, instead. How lucky am I? We will shelter in what is left of the beach houses for tonight and then take a helicopter out in the morning. It is relatively safe in this area except for the bats. They will eat you if they get a chance. I do not like bats. So we had better get under cover for now. Follow us.”