Her eyes marked the buildings infected with Voggoth’s machinery one last time through the steady drizzle of a dark morning.
Silently she whispered, “Aaawoooo,” in a wolf’s cry to her fallen friends.
The explosion started at the center of the complex as a flash, followed by the roof rising as if poked from below, then collapsing. Licks of fire danced in frosted windows. Then came the alien fuel drums. As they burst Nina heard moans of pain from the burning alien equipment.
The secondary explosions knocked out walls sending beams and planks like missiles over top her head and into the dead houses of the residential neighborhood behind. The fire spread in an eagerness to consume the pestilence of The Order’s works. The flames glowed a fierce yellow cast over the highway, the tree line, the parking lots, and the silent homes of Olathe, Kansas.
19. When Gods Weep
“Logistics is the ball and chain of armored warfare.”
–General Heinz Guderian
Armand’s blue Ducati—his tenth such motorcycle in the last year—joined with fifty other of his mechanized cavalry in creating a yellow dust storm rising from the flat steppes of Ukraine.
Fields of thinning yet tall grass surrounded the small road—more of a glorified path—for as far as the eye could see, except a mile to the north. There the jagged remains of a city disturbed the horizon’s otherwise even plane. The broken brick walls stood like ghosts staring through the lifeless eyes of windows hollowed by fire and collapse. Most of those fires and collapses had occurred long ago, but bursts of artillery and the crack of rifle fire signaled the return of warfare to a land whose history knew too much of invasion and battle.
Like the rest of the riders, Armand’s fashionable leather outfit and menacing black helmet and visor looked less cool covered in that chalky film, but they moved with a purpose as they flanked the southern side of Zhytomyr.
Purpose.
Armand gnawed on that word. As much as it pained him to admit it, Trevor Stone (no longer ‘the American’) had brought purpose to their consortium of enclaves.
The court of Camelot had saved the splintered and distraught tribes of Europe from the fires of Armageddon. Alexander proved himself a master at diplomacy, at building consensus, at understanding the details of survival and making a collection of diverse parties act as one. Indeed, Armand would have gladly given his life to protect that court or to act on Alexander’s commands. But Stone was a different animal.
The flock of bikers swerved—in unison—around an elephant-sized carcass of bones half-blocking the route. As he rode, radio transmissions from the battle in Zhytomyr played on Armand’s headset. Fortunately the last of the Duass outposts were squarely in the human horde’s rear view mirrors, reducing the chance of encountering that alien’s radio-attracted missiles.
“Command—requesting more artillery on those coordinates; enemy forces are preparing for another assault.”
“Roger that, request received. Stand by.”
Armand blocked out the chatter. He would be a part of the battle soon enough.
Different. Yes, that’s how he saw Trevor Stone. He failed to recognize that difference at first. He mistook it for something left over from the old world. But in the 11 days since breaking out from Murol and beginning their march east, Armand came to see that Trevor Stone was not a diplomat, not a self-important egomaniac, not a man of arrogance. He was a leader finely-tuned to this specific crisis. That exact moment in human history.
He doubted Stone would have made a good President or Premier or even King. Yet at the same time, Armand doubted any other person in all of human existence could understand the nature of their predicament with any more clarity.
“Twenty more of them coming in from the southeast sector! Damn it! They are riding those things again! Shit! Man down! Man down—”
Armand saw that difference for the first time when they found Voggoth’s armies disappeared from the battlefield. Apparently Trevor had anticipated that disappearance, but initially kept it to himself as if knowing no one in the court of Camelot would have believed it until they saw with their own eyes.
When they did, Stone’s credibility surged.
And when he said “we march” he meant it.
No waiting around for supply trains to gather, no delays in beginning their trip. Mere hours after the fall of that first Duass blockade the cavalry started out followed by a column of armor and trucks full of infantry. By the next morning the remaining forces from Murol joined the crusade and brought Danish armor, Italian horse soldiers, and German motorized infantry.
Armand sent couriers around Europe to call out all who would come, but the legion would not stop to wait. A Swiss artillery regiment met the group on the third day. Belgium troops barely found the rear echelon on day four, and a column mixed with Austrian citizen-soldiers and Hungarian regulars made contact in Prague on day five.
Armand eyed a split in the dusty path and signaled his riders to turn north. Their maneuver to the rear of the enemy neared its final stage. The motorcycles bounced over the rocky surface that one old map dared label a road.
Armand remembered how annoyed Trevor appeared on day seven when Alexander insisted they halt the advance outside of Krakow to wait for a battalion worth of hard-nosed Turkish soldiers to fly in on aging NATO cargo planes. Their numbers swelled that day, but Trevor reacted with only the slightest hint of approval.
Instead, he kept repeating that they must keep moving; that time served as their number one enemy. Armand could see part of that concern for time revolved around what might be happening in North America. The other part focused on the most important weapon in their arsenal; surprise.
After breaking out of the Duass’ choke hold on the countryside around Murol, they expected to encounter Voggoth’s great army; the army sent—according to Stone—to knock the Europeans down before The Order dealt a death blow to The Empire. That great army had vanished, possibly reappearing in North America although no lines of communication existed to confirm that suspicion.
Stone said on more than one occasion that Voggoth would not have pulled those forces from Europe had he not believed Trevor dead onboard the submarine. Yet as the days passed and the army grew in size it seemed Voggoth grew suspicious.
On Monday, June 8th—the same day, unbeknownst to Armand or Trevor, that Nina Forest set The Order’s Olathe compound alight—the Europeans crossed into Ukraine. Twice in the three days since they encountered large gatherings—‘forces’ would be too strong a word—of alien creatures blocking their way.
First came a pair of giant Goat Walkers which descended from the Carpathian mountains and intercepted the column at the airport just north of Pustomyty. Choppers and shoulder-fired AT weapons killed one of the beasts and drove off the other.
Two SU-24 Strike fighters from the remains of the Belorusian Air Force landed at the airport and joined the ragtag army. The planes were low on armament and would need to leapfrog between landing strips, but were welcome nonetheless.
At Rivne a mob of primitive Ghouls numbering nearly 500 charged the convoy’s flank. A contingent of Irish infantrymen and Italian cavalry bore the brunt of the assault and suffered a couple hundred casualties. Many of the injured were left behind under the care of volunteers so as to not slow the march.
After that battle Gaston’s intelligence unit traced the attack route of the Ghouls to an abandoned automotive manufacturing factory where he found hundreds of blobs of green goo.
If Trevor were to be believed the Ghouls had traveled through space and time from as far away as Cincinnati, Ohio; from the time when Trevor’s Empire seemed unstoppable in its expanse Voggoth, it seemed, scrambled to blunt the European advance.
And now came Zhytomyr where a couple hundred Mutants—the humanoids with big ugly mouths, beady eyes, and hover-bikes—manned barricades in the ruined city.
The easy part of the maneuver ended. Armand’s attention refocused on the mission. He radioed, “Tighten thing
s up, everyone. Heavy weapons teams hurry to your mark and dismount. The rest of you with me to keep these bastards busy.”
The motorcycle cavalry gained speed as they swung in unison to the west again, riding fast for the destroyed city. Heaps of bricks and collapsing walls remained where buildings once stood—telephone poles lay splintered and toppled—roads were pot-marked with craters and lined with rusted Avtovaz sedans—bones here and there from various species—these were the sights of Zhytomyr.
An artillery shell burst in the blue afternoon sky in a puff of black and gray. Then another. The rat-tat-tat of assault weapons echoed over the ruins answered by the deep booms of alien flintlocks.
The cavalry spread into a skirmish line. Their approach did not go unnoticed.
A line of Mutants onboard hover bikes raced from the shadows of a shattered warehouse and rode to intercept in numbers nearly equal Armand’s troop. The aliens seemed a warped reflection of the human cavalry: both wore leather, although the Mutants’ gear appeared harder and bulky. Both brandished weapons: maces, chains, and clumsy pistols for the aliens; assault rifles and swords for the humans.
The forces raced toward one another across the fields east of the destroyed city, weaving and swerving to avoid piles of burned bodies and the weed-infested fuselage of a crashed passenger airliner.
Armand lowered his head as if he might be a human battering ram.
The two formations of riders smashed into one another. Rifles shot Mutants from hover-bikes. Maces smashed helmets. Collisions sent rides of both flavors into death spirals.
The cavalry pushed through.
While the remaining Mutant bikers swept around to make another pass, Armand gazed at the battle ahead. He saw hordes of the aliens huddled around barricades of tires and steel beams trading fire with soldiers. He saw 15-foot tall dinosaurs shooting streams of flame from barrels seemingly screwed into their necks with Mutants riding in saddles high on the creatures’ shoulders.
He saw what Trevor saw: an obstacle to be smashed and cast aside so that the mission could be complete. Armand saw purpose.
“Heavy teams, dismount and cut these bastards down. The rest of you, follow me!”
Night fell over Zhytomyr. The city that had been broken and torched at the outset of Armageddon burned yet again, although it surprised Alexander to find any kindling remaining among the rubble.
Overhead, a legion of peaceful stars belied the confusion below. The army marched forward, kicking up clouds that joined the smoke of a battle won to create a foggy ceiling nearly blocking any view of those heavens. The entire place smelled dusty, like an old closet opened for the first time in years.
Alexander walked hastily away from a group of officers in eclectic clothes who gathered beneath one of the few remaining ceilings in town. He left behind their campfire that cast a yellow glow over the chipped plaster of what had once been a small café.
The European leader carried what he always carried: his clipboard and a shoulder’s worth of worries.
The growl of truck motors, the drum of marching boots, the whirr of an unseen helicopter, and the occasional crack of distant gunfire played as background music to Alexander’s thoughts. Unhappy thoughts at that.
They had finally punched through the Mutant blockade just before nightfall, but his army had grown into a nearly unmanageable snake. The rear most elements—if they could even be identified—were just passing through Rivne, nearly 100 miles behind. Additional units spread to the north and south; a few completely disappeared due either to misdirection or attack.
And they kept coming. Volunteers poured in with the latest being dozens of Russian partisans traveling in horses and carts. Their knowledge of the lands to come would prove valuable but Alexander could no longer be sure he possessed an accurate roster.
That reminded him. Alexander erased the listing for “Romanian armored car group”. Their pair of light military vehicles failed to start after a rest stop that morning. A few of their number jumped in with the Polish mobile hospital, the rest remained with their vehicles hoping to effect repairs. In any case, they no longer deserved a listing in that all-important roster.
A fuel truck kicked a wooden plank from the road which rattled into the remains of a concrete divider wall a dozen feet from Alexander. The noise drew his eyes away from the clipboard and to the column of trucks. He wanted to believe the fuel trucks carried topped-off tanks, but he knew differently.
Fuel. Gasoline.
Reserves from stockpiles in eastern Germany and Romanian refineries alleviated the petrol problem for a few days, but even the tanker trucks needed gasoline to keep moving. He could not fathom how they would make it all the way to the Urals without a significant influx of petroleum.
On top of that, fuel for the thousands of horses and mules also grew scarce. He hoped the fertile grasslands of Ukraine would provide some relief, but only time would tell.
Fuel for the soldiers—the human soldiers—was less of a problem than the other two kinds. Word spread of the great march east. Thousands of volunteers continued to join and those settlements who could not spare fighters sent foodstuffs: canned goods over a decade old, recently harvested grains, smoked meats from game hunts, and bins of seafood all found their way to the army. While the diet lacked consistency, at least the marchers ate.
Another reminder.
Alexander penciled a question mark alongside “5th Highlander Brigade.” While those Scotsmen remained in the march, a bout of dysentery kept a fair number of their rank confined to a few select—and isolated—wagons. Medicine, for the Scotts as well as everyone else, remained a rare commodity. Most of the supply wagons that did not carry ammunition or fuel stayed at the rear where they were far from those in need and subject to guerrilla attack, which increased in frequency each day.
Alexander stopped walking and gently banged the clipboard off his head in a sign of frustration. At the same time, a half-track loaded with Albanians singing a marching song and swigging bottles of scavenged wine drove by and covered him in a layer of dust.
“What’s wrong, Father? Did we not win the battle?”
Jorgie’s observation lacked his usual enthusiasm for the marching armies of humanity. Perhaps the fast pace had finally taken its toll. Perhaps he did not sleep well in the back of a van. Perhaps the strange surroundings—a world away from home—made him uncomfortable.
“We won the battle, yes.”
Trevor suspected something else deserved the blame for JB’s lack of enthusiasm. After all, Jorgie used to love hearing the stories of war, of aliens routed, of heroic human soldiers. He ate the tales like a kid munching popcorn at the movie theater.
But now he lived those stories. Now the battles raged around him. Many of those heroic soldiers died fast and violent or—worse—lay on the ground begging for morphine while blood and hope spilled from their gored bodies.
“Was it—was it glorious, Father?”
Jorgie’s eyes tried to widen as if forcing zeal.
Trevor told him the truth as they sat together in the back of a parked armored van. Bundles of supplies, ammunition, and several footlockers filled the rest of the space. JB lay atop a tiny mattress on a small cot while Trevor sat beside a wooden crate.
“No.” Trevor coughed and then repeated. “No, it was not glorious.”
“Did people die, Father?”
“Yes, Jorgie. Many people died today. But the army is still marching. We pushed through.”
“How many people died?”
Trevor felt it good that his boy finally started to understand the consequences of war. But he wondered if his fascination might go too far.
“Don’t worry about it, JB. You just get some sleep.”
“How many?”
Trevor ran his hand over his son’s forehead; his fingers through blond hair. Those big blue eyes remained locked on his father.
“A couple of dozen, Jorgie. A lot more wounded.”
Jorgie turned his eyes to the ceil
ing of the van. He whispered, “Some of them were kids, weren’t they?”
Trevor tried to answer, “I don’t know. Depends on what a ‘kid’ is. We were all kids once, JB. Me, your mother—every person. When I was a kid I didn’t have to worry about fighting and killing and all that.”
“What did you worry about?” The boys eyes found his father again.
“Little league and schoolwork; chores around the house and summer vacations. Point is, Jorgie, this isn’t how things are supposed to be. Kids shouldn’t have to grow up learning how to shoot a gun at the same time they’re learning to read and write. It’s not how the world was meant to be.”
JB’s head cocked slightly askew in an expression of curiosity.
“But, Father, if it had not been for the war you would not be a great leader.”
Trevor placed a fatherly hand on this son’s cheek.
“I’d trade it all for a normal day, JB. I would have loved to have been a normal dad to you. The way a father and son are supposed to be.”
“But you’re a hero.”
Trevor could not be sure that word fit. But instead of arguing he suggested, “Every dad is a hero to his son. My dad was my hero, and he never saved the Earth. He was just a dad. That’s how life is supposed to be. The little things, Jorgie. That’s what this invasion has stolen from us. From me—and you.”
“And Mommy.”
“And Mommy, too, yes. Now you get to sleep. Once the fuel trucks get here we’re going to be on the road again.”
“Father, what is it you’re expecting to find when we get to where we’re going?”
Trevor pulled his hand from the child’s cheek and sat stiff.
“I don’t know for sure. I’m desperate, JB. I don’t know what else to do. What you did at The Order’s base last year gave me an idea. You’re a very special boy, you know that, right?”
”Because you’re my father, yes.”
Trevor smiled.
Beyond Armageddon V: Fusion Page 35