by G. R. Carter
Instinct gnawed at him again. The delay in ARK’s attack just wasn’t right, they were distracting Horab’s defenders. He wasn’t sure if he’d figure it out before they hit, but after the surprise at Old Appleton, he couldn’t afford to have any more of his limited forces cut off and lost. Hopefully, the marshy ground being deluged with river water would slow ARK when they finally did decide to attack and give him time to react to whatever surprise they had in store.
He took one final look around, then a brief glance up to the sky. He couldn’t see anything but dull green glares coming from hundreds, maybe thousands, of feet up. A deep sigh at his inability to do anything about those…or her. He swung a heavy boot towards the ladder leading to ground level.
Just below, two converted grain trucks idled, half concealed in a cloud of biodiesel exhaust smoke visible even in the limited light. The wheeled monsters were an odd site, devoid of any cab or the box once used to carry corn and beans to a grain elevator. Instead, a long gun barrel stuck out over the rear axles, with just enough recoil room behind to keep the muzzle from sliding back into the driver’s seat. The only armor was a thick steel plate surrounding the loading area, any other protection had been sacrificed for time and weight. The cannons were based on plans for the WW2 era FLAK 88, capable of firing armor killing shells, high explosives, or even anti-aircraft. The latter was an oversight on his part; this mounted design didn’t allow the guns to be elevated enough to hit airborne foes.
Mt. Horab didn’t have many of the amazingly versatile weapons, and only the Red Hawk Republic knew they had any at all. Bolin had hoped to knock out a few of ARK’s armored trucks as they came careening towards the wall. He knew he’d probably lose them here after ARK punched through with overwhelming numbers. But maybe, just maybe, the sight of their vehicles bursting into flames would curb a little enthusiasm they had for rushing in.
So what are you up to Diamante? You want me to miss something…what do you not want me to see? He climbed into a crew seat welded onto the frame of the mobile guns. He wasn’t just commanding this group, he actually helped crew one the guns himself.
“Where to, sir?” Austin asked from the driver’s seat.
“Take us up to Big Bend Road,” he replied. “Let’s check in with the Bertling Street outpost there. They’re kind of out there on their own between us and the river. Let’s just make sure everything’s okay over there. “
*****
Essie Hamilton tried to keep from becoming fixated on the scene below - Mt. Horab was burning. Fires appeared small from her altitude, but she knew raging infernos consumed the ground where her fiancé was. The beautiful little city she had adopted as her own looked like a postcard just this morning. She knew no matter how successful they were in holding off ARK’s overwhelming assault tonight, it would be years before the damage could be repaired.
She tried to clear her head and focus on the task at hand. Taking off in the dark hadn’t been particularly difficult. She knew her plane and the runway layout with her eyes closed. She spent every available minute around both. But now that she was up a half mile above the ground the rage and adrenaline of the moment faded, replaced by the somber realization of what she was up against. Not only did she have to find and engage an enemy she could barely see, she had to keep from running into them. Then to survive she had to find the airport again to attempt a landing with no lights. This was her maiden solo night flight, aloft in the dark for the first time without the watchful eye of the Republic’s ace pilot. Sam Hamilton would probably ground her, literally, for the rest of her life after this stunt. She hoped he’d have his chance to be mad at her...
Blurry outlines came into view as reflections of the blazes sparkled off an airship’s shiny skin. Her eyes scanned back and forth, trying to do a quick count on how many were circling; six was the number she settled on. A plan developed in her mind as she banked to head south over the river. Memorial Bridge, Mt. Horab’s lifeline to Republic territory on the eastern side of the river, was pitch black but she knew there was a convoy there carrying as many Buckles and their belongings as possible. Just below on the river would be any surviving boats in Mt. Horab’s navy, doing the exact same thing.
The Electors had agreed the city itself was probably lost and that the most important thing was to save the people. They also acknowledged that after the events of the last few weeks ARK would be out for revenge. If they were willing to fire bomb the city, nothing would stop them from using the Gatling guns on their airships to try and finish as many Buckles as they could during the escape. Rage boiled in Essie again. Fighting was one thing, but killing innocents, that was too much. Even when bands of ditchers were wiped out children were always spared and placed in Unified Church orphanages. ARK was going to wipe out her people tonight if she didn’t stop them.
Satisfied she had covered enough distance, she banked around and headed back towards the bridge. A few fiery clouds still lifted up from Mt. Horab itself, giving her some hope that she could stop the ARK before they began strafing the bridge. The massive cigar shape of an airship appeared out of nowhere, filling her windscreen. Instinctively she flipped the safety off her trigger and squeezed a burst from the wing mounted cannons. Streaks lashed out and disappeared, apparently with no affect. Disappointed and desperate to stop the hulking threat, she jerked the stick to bank the plane and make another pass. She flew a few seconds and then banked again to make the return run, suddenly shocked and dazzled at the huge blaze hanging over the river. The view of a burning airship was spectacular in the daytime, but at night it was indescribable. The nose of the stricken craft was already beginning to point up as the tail settled. Orange tongues of flame licked up towards the stars as the skin peeled away revealing a glowing metal crisscross framework skeleton inside.
The flames illuminated the bridge and boats below and a brief fear slipped into her mind that the molten remains of the airship might land on those she was trying to save. But the bridge was further away than she thought, allowing her a moment of peace. Other airships were highlighted by the flames, their bright shiny skins like a lighted billboard of her youth. They were arrayed almost as a shooting gallery, nose to tail in a line just past the bridge. Essie guessed they were each waiting their turn to take a run at the bridge, and grinned under her scarf. What are you going to do now tough guys?
She tried not to look at the engulfed airship, but already her night vision was ruined for the moment. Essie blinked out the vision of the burning vessel, looking out into the pitch black sky to the south. She pushed the plane to gain altitude, turned and searched past where her first target was still descending into the river. Her surviving prey had changed position. Now instead of the clear silhouettes of their massive flanks, all she could see was the occasional reflection off a tail fin. They were headed north, back towards the safety of their bases. Her heart leapt for a moment, with a few rounds of cannon fire she had prevented ARK from slaughtering the people on the bridge below!
Her elation was short lived, as long pointed blasts from the Gatling guns mounted on the belly of the airships sent metal death into the city. She gunned her engines, once more determined to take out as many as she could. She pitched the plane up, then nosed back over, searching for tear drop shapes bracketed by the flames of the city. She picked one out of the lineup and fired, missing wide and to the left. She pulled up slightly and tried to put another one in her sights, but the angle was wrong. Without a clear shot she decided not to waste the precious cannon shells. There was no flying back for rearming tonight. Have to make each one count…
*****
The forest around John seemed to explode in splinters. He threw himself on the ground, trying in vain to get underneath the death flying at him from all directions. He raised his head just enough to catch a glimpse of his surviving 88, now burning like its twin. The other was still sitting in the road, pointed towards the two ARK trucks it had dispatched before being torn to shred by return fire. That crew had all been killed a
ccept one, who scrambled to help John destroy two more ARK trucks with the gun that now burned in front of him.
John could hear men moaning, and some screaming, all around him. He thought he had ARK’s advance stopped here on Big Bend Road. His instinct told him something like this was in the works. Apparently ARK’s plan all along had been to distract Mt. Horab’s defenders toward the more obvious main routes, then utilize this back way into the city. Besides bypassing the more heavily fortified interstate approaches, this route could be supported by ARK’s river gunboats, had they managed to show up on time. I’m glad I was wrong about you Captain Oliver he thought to himself.
The multiple ARK trucks taken out by Buckle guns partially blocked the roadway, and John began to hope they might just stop the armored column in time.
But something changed that. Something he couldn’t see, but apparently could see him. Death from above, seeking to destroy his men and reopen the back door for ARK to drive right through.
More ear piercing echoes rattled in his brain, more flashes from the sky above, more splinters, more screaming…it was his own voice this time. Not from terror, or pain from the metal and wood shards buried in his leg, but frustration. No matter what he did, his men were dying, his city was burning, and ARK was winning. He needed a miracle.
*****
The old training plane strained as Essie pulled up on the stick. The T-34 was a tough bird and she was certainly testing its limits tonight. She could feel the clock ticking in her head. Fuel would be running low soon, as would any chance to keep the enemy craft from emptying their Gatlings onto her people. Another pass, maybe two was all she’d have time for, then a decision about how far to follow just for a chance at revenge. Actually, not a choice at all…I’m going to make some mobsters regret being here tonight, at least for a few minutes before they’re dead she thought with grim determination. No matter what it takes.
The nose of the plane aligned with an airship. This time she slowed her airspeed to near stall, took a deep breath and concentrated on the shot. With a one second squeeze of the trigger seventeen rounds reached out from each wing, again disappearing into the dark. A brief fixation on the tiny little flashes of impact left Essie unprepared when the night sky erupted into daylight with the explosion of her target. No slow motion show this time, a wave hit the T-34 just as she gunned the engine for altitude. The invisible push almost caused her to stall but she held on and let the hours of lectures from her older sibling take hold. She flowed with the airplane instead of against it, and let the plane find its own comfort level. Satisfied the worst was over, she tilted her wing and began to bank, partially searching for more targets, partially to observe the destruction she had wrought. Essie felt no remorse. Those weren’t people in those burning death traps, those were demons. She was gunning for ace tonight. She still had rounds left in the cannons and it was too late to turn back for an airport she’d probably never find in the dark anyway.
Another shape came into view. The airships were much slower than she was, so she took her time to make sure this run counted. Dawn was beginning to fill the eastern horizon, giving her renewed hope.
“Hang in there John,” she said out loud, willing her fiancé to make it through the hellish landscape below. “Just a little while longer. We can make it.”
*****
Screams of shock pierced the temporary quiet that fell over the battle field. Groaning metal and a crashing sound made John look up from the ground where his face was buried into the leaves and forest debris. The surreal sight of glowing metal beams and white hot flame spilling down over the road made him gasp. For just an instant, he saw an ARK Peacekeeper look up in disbelief at what was coming down on top of him, then he disappeared in a glowing orange flood. Metal folded in front of his eyes, briefly giving him a glimpse of the word Tulsa in large black letters, then it was gone.
An intense heat surged over his skin, sucking all the breath out his lungs in an instant. Shock saved him from the pain of the burns, leaving only the satisfaction of knowing the road ARK needed to attack what was left of his city was now littered with burning wreckage - blocked for any foreseeable future. He’d bought more time for his city than he ever thought possible. He wasn’t sad or disappointed now...he never expected to make it out of this alive anyway He would have fought to the last regardless of when the inevitable came. Some part of him was satisfied. His men’s resistance here must have caused the Peacekeepers to call in air support, meaning those damned airships weren’t raining death down on his civilians.
They had done it together. He had stopped them and Essie had killed them.
He had no more strength now, exhaustion held him down on the ground like a boulder. Essie’s face appeared, the smile a perfect combination of sweet and mischievous. He could see her climbing out of her beloved old airplane. The sky was filled with daylight and the birds were singing in a gentle breeze. His mom and dad were there, too. They looked proud of him, like the day he told them he would become a Marine. A little sad, but beaming with pride at their only child. He missed them, it had been so long since he’d been with them, since before the Tribulation took them away. They embraced, then he felt his father’s strong hand grasp his, urging him to follow.
“Okay, Dad,” John murmured through swollen lips. “I’m coming with you. Just let me say goodbye…”
*****
Firefly rocked across the river’s churn as Oliver tried to create a moving target for the guns targeting her. He was at the wheel himself, the two young men who had been here previously were both below decks with the medic fighting for their lives. He was fighting for all their lives now, weaving in and out of the burning wrecks floating helpless downstream. Their funeral pyres lit up the river surface as his cannons fore and aft kept roaring. They were no longer concerned about hitting their sister ship as she sat grounded in the muddy bank. There was no time to help them now, he’d have to hope that they made it off before the conflagration consumed the entire ship.
Everything else still afloat belonged to ARK, and Oliver intended to fight them until the last of his ammunition was spent. Without slowing the engines, he spun the wheel to angle back to the other bank. Firefly really hadn’t moved north much since the battle began. His plan all along had been to stay just downriver of the old Grand Tower power plant where Levi Marshall had set up the Buckles only hope of stopping ARK’s invasion.
A bright flash and boom reminded Oliver of the location of that secret weapon, and he adjusted Firefly’s course appropriately. The tube of their 88 mm cannon was visible again in a flash, Levi must be having no trouble finding targets as they appeared around the river bend. Firefly’s mission was to keep ARK boats away from the old grain barge lashed to the power plant’s pier. So far, any ships that had slipped through seemed content just to make it past the gun, not knowing that the Buckles had other surprises waiting for them at Devil’s Bake Oven and Tower Rock. The two natural chokepoints just south of the power plant made the perfect place for land based defenders to engage passing ships. Anything flying the black and white lambda flag that made it through every line of defense would be in rough shape by the time it made it to Mt. Horab.
ARK had provided a couple of nasty surprises themselves tonight. Oliver thought he knew every weapon in his former employer’s arsenal, but he was wrong. Being a student of history, particularly the United States Civil War for obvious reasons, he recognized the profiles of the era’s state of the art weaponry. Even in the uneven visibility of tonight’s battle, he could have sworn he saw what looked for all the world like a river monitor – the ironclad class created by the Union with a rotating turret on top of a flat hull. He’d glimpsed it twice, only briefly, but he was absolutely sure one had steamed past along the western bank.
A guilty part of him hoped it passed on, Firefly’s weapons would be no match against such a vessel. Levi’s barge mounted 88’s shells could penetrate it, but it was set in place, only able to adjust firing lines slightly right to
left. The monitor would have maneuverability on its side, probably meaning the fight would have a quick end. So much more to worry about right now. He couldn’t head south to chase it on a hunch, he’d have to keep fighting the immediate threats.
Pounding clangs against Firefly’s armored wheelhouse reminded him there was still plenty else out there that could kill his boat. His visibility was limited through the narrow opening in the armor, he’d have to rely on his gunners to find and engage their own targets. He shoved the throttle forward and felt the satisfying surge of power under his feet. The old girl was in fine form tonight, rising up to each challenge of sudden rudder and prop inputs. The whole vessel shuddered as the fore turret engaged something in the dark. Oliver tried to watch where the tracers were headed, straining to make out a reflection shimmering just above the water.
“Holy…” Oliver didn’t finish the thought, instead slamming the throttle all the way down and spinning the ship’s wheel starboard as quick as he could. He had seen it clearly this time, a cylinder on a flat hull – his ghost monitor was back and headed straight for Levi Marshall’s barge.
There was really nothing Firefly could do to stop a true ironclad. He was completely out of the hand held rocket tubes that his men had used to damage several ARK vessels. When Levi Marshall had issued them to his volunteers, Oliver finally realized what had severely damaged Wasp that day near Kaskaskia. The hybrid between a bazooka and a panzerschrek had been his other secret weapon; another gift to Mt. Horab from the Red Hawk Wizards - just not enough to stem the flood of vessels from the north.
Oliver willed his gunner to keep firing, doubting the small shells could penetrate the rounded armor of the monitor, but hoping to at least distract the ARK ship from the 88’s position. Without it, the rest of the ARK flotilla would have an open door to Mt. Horab. He kept the engine’s RPM maxed. In the back of his mind he heard his engineer cursing him but there was no time to worry about overhauls…