With an unlit smoke in his mouth, Omar climbed into the gunner’s position on one of the mobile anti-air weapons. He scanned the strange symbols above buttons of various geometric shapes for three seconds, and then went to work.
The barrel elevated, swerved side to side, then down, then up again. The control panel on the anti-aircraft weapon beeped and bleeped.
"Omar…" Jon lead.
The professor muttered, "What are they going to be doing, Mr. Brewer? No weapons are onboard those ships of their's. Nonetheless, I need one…moment…too…"
With an electronic buzz, a thin line of energy flew from the big gun like an arrow made of light. It hit the flying ship, neatly cutting away its mid section as if magically turning the metal there to dust. The remaining pieces of the craft fell to Earth and exploded.
After sweeping the camp one more time, Trevor and Nina tackled the Redcoat checkpoints one after another where they found alert but confused soldiers. It seemed their discipline worked against them. Had they abandoned their posts and rushed to the camp, the aliens would have thwarted Jon's small strike team and retained control of their artillery.
Instead, the Apache preyed on small, clustered groups of sentries at scattered guard posts and dispatched them at the cost of fifty percent of the helicopter’s thirty-millimeter cannon ammunition and two Hellfire missiles.
While the Apache sought out checkpoints, Omar taught a crash course in alien artillery. Forty-five minutes later the big guns fired again.
Trevor and Nina took position near downtown and served as spotters.
The first shots fell randomly around the city; the aim so poor that the Redcoats-huddled in their defensive positions-did not realize the artillery aimed for them.
Until Omar and his gunners found their mark.
The 1 ^ st Regiment, tightly packed inside the big "Bicentennial Building," suffered the worst. Artillery blasts shook the foundation and vaporized support pillars. The inexperienced Commander ordered the evacuation too late. The entire complex crumbled to pieces, killing nearly all the troops housed inside. Those not killed by the demolition, faced a horde of opportunistic ghouls.
Shortly thereafter, Omar aimed for the 3 ^ rd and 4 ^ th Regiments along North Main Street.
The human gunners did not handle the artillery pieces as expertly as the Redcoats. The difference in their success lay in the targets. The Redcoats had tried to stamp out a handful of guerrilla fighters by destroying entire blocks. Their chance of hitting those individuals had been relatively small compared to the size of the area targeted.
In contrast, the Redcoats packed themselves tightly into their points. Every blue bolt that hit one those buildings caught at least some of the enemy soldiers in its blast radius.
Discipline and doctrine were not the only Redcoat traits turned against them that night. The Redcoat artillery had been so intuitively designed that the humans not only learned fast how to fire effectively, but also had no trouble maintaining the barrage: the big energy guns ran on H2o and a special powdery compound added to the artillery much like mixing Kool-Aid into a pitcher of water.
– Dawn brought a dramatically changed battlefield.
Trevor-in the Apache's gunner's seat-watched the landscape scroll below as they flew toward downtown after having refueled at the lake.
Nina-steering the chopper on a steep bank over center city-craned her neck to look down at the broken Bicentennial Building. Omar's artillery barrage had scooped out the center and the outer walls collapsed in. Red-clothed cadavers lay throughout the wreckage.
She said, "Looks even worse now that the sun's up. Most of them died at their posts."
"Not all of them; look south."
Nina did and saw two alien soldiers running from a dozen floating jellyfish creatures.
"Poor bastards," she joked.
"Hey, no, really, we should thank them. You know how many hostiles they took out in town? Hundreds; maybe thousands, I'll bet."
They circled for another pass and then flew northeast toward the captured base camp.
Nina said, "I think I saw something moving over by the boulevard. I want to-oh shit!"
Trevor saw them, too: eight Redcoat soldiers standing in the parking lot of a Bowling Alley. They clearly held the helicopter in their sights.
Nina turned hard and accelerated. Trevor tried to lock-on with the cannon but fired wildly as the chopper bucked.
A volley fired toward the helicopter, but Nina's evasive flying avoided the meat of the shot. A glancing blow hit near the rear-rotor. Alarm bells and warning lights blared in the cockpit; Nina's feet furiously worked the suddenly limp pedals.
"I got it, I got it," Nina's assurance sounded hollow.
The chopper spun left, then right, all while descending dangerously fast first over residential roofs, then nearly into the side of a Wendy's restaurant.
"We're going down! Hold on!"
With a last second jerk on the stick, Nina turned a crash into a hard landing. They settled to a stop a few yards from the remains of the Redcoats' Kidder Street checkpoint.
The two exited the cockpit, drew side arms, and inspected the damage.
"She’ll fly again," Nina predicted as she ran her hand over the skin of the craft. "We just need to find some spare parts."
Trevor changed the subject: "Good job up there."
Nina smiled. "Yeah. You, too."
They stared at one another for three long seconds, then nervously looked away.
Trevor and Nina walked Kidder Street to the parking lot that had once been the Redcoats’ camp. Four of the alien airships, four big pieces of artillery, two tanker vehicles of a kind, and two mobile anti-aircraft guns sat in that parking lot.
Omar shuffled between the guns and planes like an excited child on Christmas morning.
Trevor and Nina approached Jon and Lori.
Nina spoke first: "We kinda trashed the Apache and there's a squad of Redcoats still roaming the boulevard."
Jon Brewer said, "Don’t worry about them. If something doesn't eat them by this afternoon, they'll be on the run out of the valley."
Trevor gave Jon a solid handshake.
"Well done… General. What’s our status?"
"Stonewall and Bear have headed for the estate; they need to rest and refit before they can do anything more. Some other volunteers drove in a while ago and are helping search for enemy stragglers. Personally, I'm exhausted and it's damned cold out here. But you want to know something? I feel like I could do this all day."
"Adrenaline," Lori said. "Winning something like this, the way the odds were stacked against us, it's like a drug, I suppose."
A message came over the radio from Tolbert.
"Yo, boss," he meant Brewer. "We found a couple of them holdin’ up in a corner bar. Could use some extra guns."
Jon told Trevor: "Tolbert’s got a team searching over there," and he pointed to a residential neighborhood below the ridge and to the north before transmitting to Tolbert: "We can’t have them drinking our booze, now can we?"
Jon slung his rifle, took a step in that direction, then turned to Nina. "Hey, you wanna help me out on this or is infantry work too good for the fly girl?"
She shrugged and followed him, rifle in hand.
Trevor stood with Lori Brewer and watched Nina and Jon walk across the parking lot, climb over the guardrail, and disappear down the grassy slope.
"Hey," Lori put an arm on his shoulder. "How is it you knew this would work? How is it that we’re alive when we were outnumbered and outgunned?"
"How did you know when you came up that ridge that you would wipe out this base and survive to tell the tale?"
Lori answered, "I didn't know. Honestly, I was sure we were going to die."
"Yet you did it anyway?"
"Sure," she said and tried to smile. "It didn't seem like I had any other choice other than letting my husband get killed by himself."
"Well there you go. It isn't that I knew it would work
, it's that we didn't have any other choice."
Tolbert's voice-from the radio-interrupted their conversation: "They're taking pot shots at us. Where’s our support?"
Jon’s voice: "We’re coming. Over your right shoulder, cutting through the yard."
Tolbert: "’Bout time."
Trevor told Lori, "Your husband…he did a hell of a job."
"Don’t tell him that; he’ll be impossible to live with."
Bang.
An explosion blasted from the neighborhood to the north. Trevor flinched, then saw a puff of smoke drifting from the far side of a house.
His heart stopped as a message broadcast over the radio: "Nina is down! Nina is down!"
Trevor instantly stepped toward the slope but caught himself. In the distance, the smoke rose and dissipated.
Lori growled, "What are you waiting for? Get your ass down there, Trevor. Run…"
Trevor, confusion and fear all over his face, glanced at Lori then moved toward the grassy slope. His walk grew into a jog.
"Run! Go! Now!"
His jog became a trot became a sprint. Trevor bound down the hill nearly falling as he pushed through dead stalks of grass. He stumbled over the railroad tracks and raced across a small street then hopped a decaying old metal fence into a backyard where he stopped at the base of a rear porch.
In front of him, a block away, he saw the bar full of barricaded Redcoats. Jon, Tolbert and others fired into that bar neutralizing the threat. He did not see Nina.
Where is she?
His eyes searched desperately; his mouth gaped…
…Nina stood in the shadows of the porch holding an ice pack on a minor bump to her head. A stray Redcoat burst had hit a propane tank on a gas grille. The explosion merely knocked her to the ground. Jon left her behind with an instant-cold pack from his first aid kit.
Trevor did not see her, but she saw him; she saw him come running around the house searching for her. She saw the look of desperation in his eyes. Nina saw his feelings, forced to the surface by fear. She took a step forward. The boards creaked and grabbed his attention.
He saw her standing with the pack to her head. She did not need it, though. She tossed it aside at the same time that his look of desperation turned into a massive smile of relief.
Then he caught himself. The smile vanished. For a moment, it appeared he would walk away; retreat.
No. No more retreating.
Instead, he walked in big, deliberate-almost angry-strides to the porch. He climbed the stairs. Nina backed into the corner. Her heart raced; she trembled.
Trevor grabbed her shoulders and locked onto her eyes.
"Now you listen to me!" He shouted. "I don’t want to be alone anymore! I don’t want to be afraid anymore!"
She breathed a sigh and a sob all in one exhale as he continued, "I can’t spend every night thinking about you then every day running away from you!"
She shook; her eyes watered.
"Tell me to go away and I’ll go. But you have to tell me that because I’m done hiding from you!" He paused for only a split second then implored, "Say something! Say anything!"
The words flooded out: "What do you want me to say? I’m afraid, damn it, I’m scared!"
"We’re all scared!"
Their words mixed.
"I’ve never been like this before…I’m confused…and I keep wondering…I don’t want to be just a killer…"
He pushed, "Tell me something Nina! Tell me to leave but tell me something!"
"…and I betrayed you…and they made me hate you… but I think I love you!"
The words slipped out; no conscious thought directed them.
Everything stopped. All the mixed words. All the confusing emotions. Time halted.
Nina Forest filled with fear. She had never felt vulnerable before and now she stood there with her heart wide open. He could have shattered her with a word. He could have killed her if he walked away.
Trevor moved his arms from her shoulders to her back and gently pulled her in close; her face buried in his chest and the warmth of their hug chased away the cold of the day.
She whispered softly, "I don’t know…I don’t even know what that means."
"We’re going to find out," he stroked her hair. "We’re going to find out, together."
24. Farewell
The Apache buzzed over barren treetops with Nina at the helm. She scanned the horizon seeing the late morning sun, brown grass fields with isolated patches of ice and snow, and thin forests laid overtop a series of rolling hills. She did not see what they searched for.
Three vehicles following an old dirt road emerged from a cluster of light woods and stopped at the edge of a clearing.
The sound of the Apache somewhere in the sky filtered into the cabin of the lead Humvee. Trevor, riding in the passenger’s seat, worked the ‘send’ button on his radio.
"Hey, hawk eye, see anything?"
Nina’s bird banked and gained altitude.
She answered, "Look, for the third time, I’ve got nothing up here."
Trevor worked the radio again. "Well what am I paying you for?"
Her static-laced reply: "You haven’t paid me a nickel."
"Well, you haven’t earned it yet. Get on the stick and stop fooling’ around up there."
A series of colorful descriptive phrases-proposals as to how Trevor could best carry his radio-scorched the airwaves.
Trevor called to a different listener: "Jon, you doing’ better?"
Brewer stood on the open face of a hill flanked by Tolbert and Cassy Simms. Specks of white snow lay on the ground around them. All three wore camouflage and carried motorcycle helmets. Three hovercraft bikes sat parked behind them.
The elevated position afforded Jon a fantastic view of the countryside.
Jon answered over the shared radio frequency, "Ah, that’s a negative, Trev. All I can see is a helicopter flying around sort of aimlessly out there, like it’s lost or something."
More obscenities came from that pilot. Trevor, meanwhile, sat in the Humvee and let loose a series of frustrated mumbles. He warned the driver, Reverend Johnny, "If that lizard fed us a line I’ll rip its neck out."
"That may be difficult, my friend. I believe our informer has long since departed this area as per your instructions. I must confess my surprise at your decision to let it live."
"I was in a particularly good mood," Stone said in regards to the intelligent, bipedal lizard they had found on the outskirts of Shavertown and interrogated with the help of a Redcoat translation device. "Besides, if it’s right, there’s something pretty cool out here."
Overhead, Nina stopped in the midst of mumbling and radioed, "I think I see something. Look, about a half-mile northwest of your position."
Following her directions, the vehicles came upon a long, wide trench cutting across a meadow and ending at a bluff of red rock. A mound the size of a yacht rested there covered in upended soil and frosty snow. Nina’s chopper hovered above.
Trevor radioed Nina: "Um, howabout doin’ a sweep around here. I know how much you’d hate it if we got ambushed by a couple of Deadheads or something."
Nina’s rebuttal crackled over the radio: "Gee whiz, that’d just ruin my day."
The Apache dutifully circled the area.
The ground team disembarked. Omar (a smoldering smoke jabbed in his mouth), Jerry Shepherd, and a mass of K9s exited the convoy of SUVs.
"Here we go," Trevor said as they walked alongside the trench. "According to that lizard-thing, this ship crashed last summer, thanks to an F-16."
Omar said nothing; he couldn't-not with such a huge grin on his face.
Shepherd grabbed Reverend Johnny’s shoulder.
"Hey, what exactly is it that critter said we’d find here?"
"Some sort of industrial equipment built, no doubt, for the vilest of purposes."
"Not exactly," Trevor cut in. "The lizards who owned this ship were transporting an industrial-strength matter
transfiguration device."
"A what?"
Omar explained, "A machine that manipulates matter on the molecular level."
"One more time?"
Trevor tried: "A big piece of equipment that some aliens were using to build things they needed by changing other things. Like, oh, taking wood and changing it into metal. For example, um, you ever watch Star Trek?"
"No."
"Really? You never watched Star Trek?"
"Seemed a right bit too far fetched for me," Shepherd considered the new world, scratched his head, and admitted, "Guess that makes me the asshole."
Trevor went on, "Okay. All things are made up of molecules. Wouldn’t it be neat-o if you could take something that you didn’t need and re-arrange its molecules into something you did need? Like taking a cardboard box and transforming it into glass for a solar panel."
Omar said, "I am thinking that Mr. Stone is being overly simplicity in his words. But if it is here then we have found the important piece of an alien factory."
"And that’s both good and bad," Trevor told them. "Something like that working for us could help with supply problems."
Reverend Johnny boomed, "Praise the all mighty! Where is the bad?"
"The bad," Trevor said, "is that it means the new arrivals on our planet have the means to set up their own heavy industry. It means, gentlemen, that they’re here to stay."
– Jon pointed to the map on the desktop in the Command Center.
"We found a bunch of Redcoats here, but they weren’t a problem after a few bursts from the artillery."
Trevor said, "It's been nearly a week since we broke them up, and there are still some of them around?"
"Shows you how lucky we got. They're tough, especially once they establish a position. Problem is, however many are left they are running out of food and ammo."
A week since the battle for Wilkes-Barre, the true scope of the victory was becoming apparent. Not only had they managed an against-all-odds rout of a larger, better-armed opponent, but the Redcoat army had slaughtered hundreds of hostile animals.
Before the battle, Wilkes-Barre hosted a den of nightmares. Not any more. Despite their defeat, the Redcoats had thinned the monsters in the city while also leaving behind their artillery, stores of the explosive powder used in those guns, and many chargeable Redcoat muskets.
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