Jon admitted, “I tend to strike out when I step up to the plate.”
Shep would not let go. “They’re fighting for you this time. You owe em’.”
Jon closed his eyes and ran a hand through his crew cut. And then accepted the radio from Cassy Simms.
“Um—hello,” his voice carried to every squad and vehicle radio in Quincy. “This is General Brewer. I just wanted to say—I wanted to say something—well, something…” he let go of the transmit button and sighed. Then, with resolve, he raised the radio again.
“Look, I’m not really any good at this. Every time I give a speech it just doesn’t sound right. I wasn’t made for this sort of thing. Never was. I’m not a politician. I’m not even a football coach.”
He stopped again, took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and broadcast, “I’ll tell you what I am. I’m a soldier. Like you. Like all of you. Maybe in the old world, you weren’t. Maybe before ‘all this’ you were a teacher, or a scientist, or you pumped gas. Whatever. Point is, since the day this started you’ve been soldiers.”
Quiet settled over the commons, intruded upon only by the call of a lonely bird and the rumble of approaching thunder.
“I know how you feel right now. You have energy, and you don’t know what to do with it. You feel afraid and you’re trying to hide it because you think a soldier isn’t supposed to be afraid. Part of you wants this battle to start right now—and part of you keeps hoping it passes us by. I feel—I feel the same way. My adrenaline is running fast—my mind is imagining what is to come—my stomach—hell, my stomach is doing somersaults.”
A few chuckles sounded in the air.
“Sorry, that’s not really very inspirational. But, here’s the thing; we’ve nowhere left to go. This is the last line in the sand; the enemy cannot cross. We’ve retreated all the way across the country. Our families have been uprooted. We’ve given back nearly all of what we’ve worked for; there’s no more room to give. No more concessions. No pulling back.”
He let the transmitter sag for a second. Memories of his wife danced in his mind. Shep must have seen them, too, because he put a reassuring hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“It’s no longer about territory or victory. It’s about the person next to you. It’s about us—about soldiers doing what we have to do. We did not ask for this fight. We don’t want to die. We don’t even want to kill. No one hates the taste of death more than the soldier because we’re the ones who shoulder the burden. We’re the ones who live with the dead faces in our dreams and the scars on our bodies.”
A long roll of thunder interrupted Jon’s words for a second. Not natural thunder; the sound of the enemy on the move; of the evil storm approaching from the horizon.
“So why did we sign up for this? Civilians? They don’t get it. They don’t understand why we would chose to be soldiers. Do we love guns and violence? Are we misfits who want to pick fights? You bet your ass that’s what some of them think. But you know the reason, don’t you? You just have a hard time putting it to words. I think it’s time someone tried, because you deserve it.”
“You do it so they don’t have to. You do it, because all your life you have taken responsibility. You stand here with me on this riverbank because someone has to stand here.
“You do it because the soldier next to you is your brother or sister and they are worth your loyalty and your courage. Your biggest fear isn’t death—hell, we face that every damn day just training for this job. Your biggest fear is letting them down. Your biggest fear is that if you fail here today, someone back home will have to do the job. Someone’s kid—maybe yours. Someone you love. You stand here and fight the nightmares because you don’t want the charge to fall to them; because you know how terrible this is. You wish no one had to face this but if someone has to, let it be you.”
Jon paused and took a deep breath.
“I don’t know if this makes a difference or not, but you should know that I will stand here with you because I don’t want to let you down. Not in some command center five miles away, but here on the river bank. As long as I draw breath, the enemy will not cross this line in the sand. Until the battle is won I will not move from this river. My wife—my dear wife—once told me that I can be a stubborn son of a bitch. She was right. I refuse to move. I refuse to retreat. I refuse to give way.”
The eyes in the command tent focused hard on Jon Brewer. As he glanced around, he saw soldiers poking their heads out from Humvees or pushing through the crowd to get closer or setting aside their shovel or spade to listen to their general.
“I feel personally responsible for all of you. I put together this army from the beginning. I’ve tried to do right by you. And I’m going to be honest, we’ve got a tough fight coming. Maybe the toughest ever. But I’m not going anywhere. No matter how bad it gets, you’re going to hear my voice through it all; right here, with you. You’re going to see me fighting alongside you. The only thing I ask, is that you do the same. Stand with me, do not yield, no steps back, no second thoughts, and give every last ounce you have one more time. The line has been drawn. They shall not pass.”
No cheers. No hollers. No surge of enthusiasm. For a second, Jon felt certain his words had fallen flat; that yet again he had taken the ball of leadership and fumbled.
He set the radio down and felt the urge to crawl in a foxhole.
Then he saw his soldiers. The Generals and officers in the gazebo, the men and women in BDUs and jeans all along the commons, the bridges, the streets. He saw every last man and woman holding their arms in rigid salute.
His jaw felt loose. The general’s heart thumped. Goose bumps sprung on his arms and tingled.
Jon took a deep breath and stiffened his shoulders. His hand snapped to his forehead and his elbow locked tight returning their gesture with the same pride and courage that radiated from his soldiers.
They shall not pass.
Wild Horse Creek Road ran through the heart of upscale homes nestled among woods and small hills in the western suburbs of St. Louis. A set of railroad tracks ran parallel to the road about 1500 feet to the north where the hills and trees gave way to fields. Beyond those fields between the residential neighborhood and the bend of the Missouri river lay the Spirit of St. Louis airport as well as various commercial and industrial buildings of boxy design.
Nina’s rag tag army used the woods, hills, and vacant homes between Wild Horse Creek Road and the railroad tracks for cover as they chased Voggoth’s army in a maneuver akin to a kitty-cat shadowing a pride of lions.
She used a salvaged and badly dented Chevrolet Trailblazer SUV as a mobile headquarters. Vince rode with her; his leg felt somewhat better despite a mild infection and he could move with the help of a crutch if push came to shove.
The vehicle sat in the driveway of Wild Horse elementary school that served as a temporary mustering point for her forces. Those forces had grown to nearly 300 during the march across Missouri, a march aided by all manner of scavenged vehicles, a few horses, and lots of bicycles.
She had grabbed a map from an old Amoco station a few miles back and now unfolded it on the hood of the Trailblazer to plot their next move. Ahead of them, the road met Interstate 64 which ran southeast into the heart of downtown and toward crossings at the Mississippi. Voggoth’s army had passed through the area an hour before leaving many of the trees and buildings stamped flat.
Nina tried to focus on the lines and landmarks on the paper, but even her soldier’s mind struggled to block out a feeling of oppression; of looming doom that encompassed the entire area. That feeling came from the clouds overhead. They resembled the underside of a big gray quilt. It felt to her as if those clouds hung abnormally low, as if maybe alien eyes spied her every move from behind the thick veil.
A crack of lightning here; a roll of thunder there. One continuously raging storm birthed from the interaction between Voggoth’s unnatural army clashing with Mother Nature.
With the morning sun effectively
blocked, the air under the storm turned cold and gusty winds blew through those few trees that still stood.
Vince, leaning out the open passenger side window with a pair of binoculars said, “I can still see the Leviathan. Damn, that thing is big.”
Nina did not need binoculars to know the Leviathan loomed not far away. She could feel the tremor with each step it took; steps that sounded eerily similar to the dull rumble of thunder.
“They’re probably getting near the I-270 junction,” she forced away her uneasiness and traced the map with a finger. “Their lead elements will be hitting the defense at St. Louis any minute now.”
“Good, they’re focused on the city,” Vince said as he lowered his binoculars. “If they turn around and see us they’d pretty much squash us.”
Nina estimated one Leviathan, at least 5,000 of the well-armed Roachbots, another couple thousand of the mechanical things the Feranites had mutated into, hundreds—maybe thousands—of Mutants with most of them on hover-bikes, and several thousand Ghouls not to mention support from Voggoths’ warped artillery and AA batteries as well as a variety of other monsters in various shapes and sizes. Probably enough to overwhelm the defenses in St. Louis unless the commanders there could bog the enemy down in house-to-house fighting. Certainly more than enough to crush Nina’s vagabond army without breaking a sweat.
And that raised an important question. Exactly what did she hope to accomplish? If The Order’s army shared the same structure as humanity’s forces, then perhaps she could have snuck up from behind and damaged command and control. But the enemy lacked any clear command structure; they exhibited more of a flock mentality. This made them less susceptible to precision strikes or operations to break command and control, as evidenced by the destruction of the Olathe facility failing to disrupt The Order’s march east.
The lifelong soldier knew it had taken great skill for her to move people across the state and start tracking Voggoth’s army without being spotted. Indeed, she found some pride in that. But now that the final battle neared, exactly how could she contribute?
“Captain Forest,” the wounded corporal’s voice came over one of the short range radios in the truck. “You need to see this.”
Nina drove west passing scattered pockets of her ‘army’ moving along the road in cars, on foot, bikes, and horses. She had assigned unit commanders—some ‘commanding’ for the first time in their civilian lives—to maintain order and they all knew to muster at the elementary school. Muster for what remained a question but the summons to the rear echelon might provide an answer.
She followed radio directions to a three-story home on Pine Bend Drive to the south of Wild Horse Creek Drive. The corporal and a small group of citizen-soldiers gathered on the half-collapsed roof at the top of a once-beautiful colonial home. Nina left Vince below with Odin resting in the back seat of the SUV while she went up top.
“What is it?”
“Look,” and he pointed west while eyeing that direction through field glasses. Nina brought her own pair. “That’s Babler Park Drive. It ends there at a ‘T’ with Route 109. They’re turning left—that means north.”
Nina understood exactly what that meant as she watched the alien army march in disciplined columns three quarters of a mile to the southwest.
She said, “That’ll take them to Wild Horse Creek. That means they’ll be coming right up behind us.”
The corporal noted dryly, “All this time we’ve been chasing Voggoth’s army and someone has been chasing us, too.”
Nina studied the aliens. Most wore ponchos with matching hoods and goggles over eye sockets. The material changed color to blend with the green and brown background of light woods and overgrown lawns.
A handful did not wear the hood of their ponchos, probably desiring a few breaths of fresh air. According to conversations she had had with Shep, when humanity first encountered these aliens during the Battle of Five Armies Stonewall McAllister thought them something from a Dr. Seuss book: big puffy cheeks with wiry hair, whiskers, and bald heads on otherwise humanoid bodies.
Their prowess at war fighting, however, belied their benevolent appearance. While Nina could not directly recall her involvement in the battle due to the theft of her memories, she understood them to be skilled and cunning tacticians. The Hostiles Database recognized them as such not only from the encounter during Five Armies, but also when Jon Brewer faced off against these aliens during his trek to the Arctic Circle to retrieve the ruins.
“Chaktaw,” Nina grumbled and lowered her glasses.
In addition to hundreds of foot soldiers several tricycle vehicles with huge wheels and dozens of wagons pulled by elephant-sized lizards marched with the force.
“I don’t think they’re following us,” she said. “I don’t think they know we’re here. I’m just saying, I think they’re coming to be a part of the battle.”
“Well,” the corporal sighed, “either way, they’re going to know we’re here in a little bit. Looks like we’re stuck between these guys and The Order. A real rock and a hard place.”
Nina evaluated the situation and drew a conclusion. “No, this is good. Look, we couldn’t do much against Voggoth’s group. Too many of them. But maybe we can do some good after all.”
“Captain, they’ve still got us outnumbered at least three to one, maybe more. Looks to me like they’ve got light artillery support and lots of nasty-looking weapons. I’m all for it, but I don’t know how we could possibly stand a chance.”
Nina said, “Listen, this is the only way we can do some good. Now get your ass in gear. Tell everyone to bypass the elementary school. We’re going to set up somewhere closer to down town. Somewhere defensible where we can block the Chaktaw’s advance and stop them from hooking up with Voggoth’s group. “
Nina returned her eyes to the binoculars and gave the marching Chaktaw another good look. She had known for days that the odds of victory were long. She hated the idea of falling to one of Voggoth’s warped beasts. But fighting an enemy as worthy as the Chaktaw—there would be some measure of satisfaction in that. Furthermore, if Trevor was right and The Order wanted it to appear as if the other alien forces won the day on Earth, then hurting the Chaktaw might frustrate that goal.
“Let’s go,” she ordered. “We don’t have much time.”
“Incoming!”
Jon stuck his head out from cover and looked west. Voggoth’s army had arrived. He saw the two Leviathans standing far off on the horizon like twin towers from the 9th Circle of Hell. The trees on the western bank of the Mississippi blocked his view of the ground elements, but he knew they were there.
Jon’s forces waited to greet the enemy. Thousands of soldiers sat in sandbagged foxholes and trenches dug into the river bank, open lots, and Bicentennial Park. The buildings along the waterfront provided cover although most had already collapsed—wholly or partly—during the early years of Armageddon. Still more defenders found refuge behind the vehicles—armored and otherwise—lining Front Street and the railroad tracks that ran parallel to the Mississippi.
Machine guns, mortars, and vehicle-mounted weapons ranging from tank barrels to TOW missiles awaited the onslaught. Both bridges—one to the north of the park, one to the south—still stood but explosives could bring them down on a moment’s notice.
Jon’s immediate concern involved artillery, both friend and foe.
Behind him, 105mm and 155mm towed artillery pieces fired high-explosive shells from the center of Quincy, over the front lines, and into the approaching horde. A reconnaissance Eagle hovered above the city acting as spotter. General Brewer listened to the conversation between observer and gunners from his personal pillbox inside a concrete foundation lined with sandbags and made—quickly—into a bomb (or wind) shelter in the center of the defensive line across from Bicentennial Park.
Humanity managed to fire first. The shells hit although that required no great skill; the density of the approaching army meant easy pickings.
&
nbsp; Based on the reconnaissance Eagle’s transmissions, Spider Sentries, Ogres, and Monks led the enemy assault and suffered the worst the human artillery could give. Balloons of black smoke rose from the west and the constant rumble of impacts kept the ground trembling.
Then the observation ship reported, “Wait a second, they’re pulling back. They’re not coming forward. All firing arcs need to be adjusted—oh, shit. Incoming! Incoming!”
Jon heard before he saw. He recognized the piercing tone from a month ago when Voggoth’s assassins killed his wife.
Balls of red and yellow emerged from the tree line on the opposite bank and flew fast across the waters of the Mississippi. Machine gun fire rose to meet the swarm of hundreds of attacking, glowing orbs.
Many exploded over the river triggered by the veil of intercepting bullets. Many more hit the defenders along the bank blowing aside sandbags, exploding against earthen berms, splashing acid on human defenders. Yet even more continued beyond the front lines, weaving through the streets of Quincy like softball-sized cruise missiles.
Jon knew where they headed. He heard explosions and screams from town.
He raised his radio and transmitted, “Shep! What’s your status back there?”
Jon had placed Jerry Shepherd in charge of the artillery batteries and reserve forces from a position overlooking the big guns at Washington Park.
“We lost one artillery piece and a couple of crewmen, but I don’t think that’s gonna put—shit!” Jon felt the ground shake and a loud boom from a few blocks away. “Ah, damn, we just lost a truck full of shells. Make that two pieces out of action and at least a dozen casualties. Jon, you got to have them machine gun nests keep these things off us!”
“You let me worry about that, Shep. You just get those howitzers back in the game.”
Jon did not wait for a response. He turned his attention forward.
The storm clouds generated by the approaching army remained clear of Quincy and to the west, where the heart of the enemy force gathered. However, Jon spied two large whirlwinds, one on the northern flank of Voggoth’s army, the other to the south. He wished he could believe they were natural tornadoes. Unfortunately, Jon had dealt with a similar phenomenon once before at the top of the world.
Beyond Armageddon V: Fusion Page 40