“Trust me,” Jon huffed. “I am worried about it.”
“I wish I could tell you what you’re going to run into, I just don’t know. I told you everything I can.”
Jon repeated all of what Trevor had shared. “I’m looking for a structure northeast of Qaanaaq, Greenland. I’ve got the exact coordinates and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the Globestar GPS satellite is still functional.”
Trevor assured him, “Knox’s crew at the Pentagon checked the data at Space Command. They believe you’ll get a good GPS signal to follow.”
“Anyway, I get there and find these rune-things. Two pillars, about six feet high. Then I…then I…are you sure?”
Trevor nodded.
Jon shrugged for what had to have been the hundredth time since he received his instructions. “There’s a round ball of some sort on top of each pillar. I touch each one, one with each hand.”
“That’s right,” Trevor said.
“What is that supposed to do again?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I have a theory. I’m thinking it sort of reboots whatever force is controlling the gateways.”
“Reboots?”
“Somehow or another these gateways were opened to our world from other worlds. My guess is that once you come in contact with the runes you sort of establish that this world belongs to you, a human. Then the runes won’t allow any more non-humans to come through. Got it?”
“Shit no, I don’t got it.”
Trevor warned, “If some alien touches those things, then…”
“Then they get to start pouring in here as if they own the place. I guess I never realized that this invasion thing could actually get worse.”
“Think of it this way,” Trevor said. “There are rules governing all this, and some of those rules are controlled by these runes. Whoever gets there first gets to change some of the rules.”
“Looks like we’re all ready to go,” Jon said as the last soldier disappeared into the passenger compartment. “We’ll rendezvous with the other transports north of here.”
Trevor took a deep breath and then said, “Hey, Jon, we’ve been doing this for five years now, you know.”
“Wow. Man, where’d the time go?”
“I’m just saying that I don’t think I ever really stopped and told you how much I appreciate what you do around here. You do a lot of the heavy lifting, and I get most of the credit, but I know we wouldn’t have come half this far without you. You’ve been a tough and loyal soldier, and I don’t think I ever said ‘thanks’.”
“That’s because you don’t have to. You’re the boss, see? That’s the way things are. Don’t matter if I accept that or not. It’s the way. Just a fact, that’s all.”
“Yeah, well, thanks anyway.”
“Thank me when I bring these stupid-ass runes back for you. Then I want a week off. Maybe somewhere in the Outer Banks. Make sure Shep clears them out soon. I got a feeling I’m going to be real friggin’ cold for a while. Need somewhere warm to melt.”
Trevor smiled, “You got it.”
“Mister Brewer!” Reverend Johnny shouted from the Eagle’s open passenger door. “Hurry up with your goodbye kiss!”
Brewer shot the Revered a stiff middle finger and then turned back to Trevor who extended his hand and said, “Good luck.”
Jon shook it. “Don’t worry, I’m coming back. At least you’d better hope so,” Brewer moved away. “Otherwise my wife will kick the shit out of you.”
Trevor watched his General climb the ramp and board the transport. The outer door slid shut and the ramp retracted. A moment later the Eagle lifted off the pad slowly and easily, turned, and flew over the mountains to the north.
Two miles east of Fayetteville, North Carolina, Interstate 95 passes under Route 24 in crisscrossing strips of concrete and long sweeping traffic ramps. NCDOT last tended to the intersection five years ago, leaving neglected landscaping separating the parallel north and south strips of I-95 while overgrown brush and trees died along the shoulders and banks.
Nearly twenty cars in various states of crash, burn, and otherwise shredded metal cluttered the highways, a memento from the panicked last days of the United States.
A dreary gray sky delivered a warm drizzle across the entire scene, but the sound of chaos drown the pitter-patter of rain: explosions, rifle fire, and an electric buzz of energy weapons punctuated by human screams and reptilian hisses.
The prim-and-proper Kristy Kaufman led an infantry column southward on I-95. Sixty yards to her right on the far side of I-95, Dustin McBride did the same.
“Two Firecats at nine o’clock!” yelled his voice from her hand-held walkie-talkie. “They’re coming right atchya, Princess!”
Kristy cringed at the nickname, but pushed aside her anger for a moment to wave her Aussie-style cowboy hat in the air as encouragement to her troops. While the hat did not match her Tiger stripe camouflage particularly well, it fit with her personality perfectly.
Despite her urging, energy bolts from alien infantrymen attempting to capture the high ground of the Route 24 overpass kept Kaufman’s soldiers pinned. As per Dustin’s warning, two Firecats came over an earthen bank into the midst of Kaufman’s unit. Their caterpillar treads tore into the ground whipping up clumps of mud.
She ordered “Into the trees!” referring to the tight cluster of summit ash trees filling the circle-shaped ground in the center of I-95 North’s onramp to Route 24.
A golden stream of liquid flame poured from a nozzle on the lead Firecat, filling the air with a noxious petroleum smell and engulfing an older man as he struggled to his feet from a prone position. His skin melted away instantaneously leaving behind a pile of smoldering dungarees and a warped shotgun.
Another of her charges ran for the woods but slowed to empty a clip from his AK-47 into the second alien tank. The rounds struck the netting of the cockpit and ripped away at the protective sheath.
Before his bullets could puncture that protection, however, the Firecat responded from a double-barreled swiveling turret lobbing volleys of green plasma. The bolts sliced through the man turning his body into chunks of red gore that splattered on the pavement.
Nonetheless, his foolhardy attack bought time for the remainder of Kaufman’s squad to find cover amidst the trees.
The Firecats could not enter the tightly packed woods in pursuit, so they assaulted the patch of trees and the hiding humans with napalm and energy weapons, circling the perimeter as they fired.
“Keep your heads down!” Kaufman yelled as plasma severed a branch overhead.
She decided to ignore her own advice. After slinging her hunting rifle, Kristy pulled a heavy Desert Eagle. 50 caliber from a thigh rig and approached the edge of the woods. Holding the gun in both hands, she poked out from cover and fired.
Blam! Blam!
The gun sounded more a cannon while the recoil threatened to break her wrist. Like the Tiger camo and the Aussie cowboy hat, the powerful silver-plated weapon served her image as much as function, but in this case the added firepower offered more than mere style points.
She heard her radio crackle with Dustin McBride’s incredulous voice, “Princess! What are you doing? Get into cover you idiot!”
I’m remembering what my Hostiles Database told me, you dork, she thought as she realized that the hour she spent reading the field manual last week might actually pay off.
Hopefully.
Her shots aimed for a hose-like conduit affixed to the energy weapon turret. According to the manual, that hose ran the length of the machine and attached to the powerful rear-mounted engine providing energy for those main guns.
Volatile energy.
A well-placed shot should rupture that line.
The Firecat noticed her and turned. She saw the pilot through the protective cover that resembled more a net than a windshield. She saw the look of surprise in its reptilian eyes, no doubt shocked at the audacity of the woman to assault the armored killer with
a handgun.
I wonder how many people this bastard has cooked. She knew Hivvan Firecat drivers preferred to burn their enemies.
In a split-second that lasted much longer to her perception, she saw flammable vapors jet from the Firecat’s flamethrower nozzle…and then the front end of the miniature tank erupted in a splash of green energy as one of her bullets found the weak spot. The gun turret rolled off and clattered along the highway while a ball of smoke filled the cabin.
With the sooty mist stinging its yellow eyes, the pilot pushed open the side door and staggered away from the wounded vehicle. The light rain splattered on its white body armor while the fingers on its green hands struggled for a side arm.
BLAM. Another round from her gun finished the job.
The second Firecat moved to avenge its fallen brethren, giving the trapped humans no time to cheer. Kristy saw one, then two of her squad fall to energy blasts.
One of the better-equipped men of her group-an old world soldier by the look of his BDUs and his weapons-stepped into the open and lobbed a grenade from an M203 launcher mounted under the barrel of his M16. The resulting explosion tore up the passing lane of I-95 North but little else. Counter-fire from the ‘cat blasted away the man’s right arm, sending the M16 to the ground and filling the air with his cry.
A second later, that remaining Firecat exploded, forcing Kristy to dive for cover at the base of a tree, while metal, rubber, and pieces of alien pilot rained down.
When she pulled her head from her hands she saw their savior: a green Humvee with a TOW anti-tank missile mounted on top. Behind that vehicle marched a line of armored personnel carriers, trucks, and a dozen horse soldiers with Stonewall McAllister at the lead.
With the Firecats destroyed, the Hivvan infantry vacated the overpass and ran. The Humvee and APCs pursued.
Stonewall collected his officers under the cover of the Route 24 bridge to avoid the rain. His bugle boy-a freckle-faced teenager named Benny Duda-stood a pace behind the General.
“Do tell, I sent you forward on a scouting mission and have to pull your collective souls out of the fire. What, may I inquire, happened?”
The sound of motored military vehicles idling mixed with the falling rain to create a steady drum of background noise. After the loud battle, the atmosphere felt incredibly quiet.
Dustin answered, “Yeah, geez, we saw them heading toward Fayetteville along 24 and decided to surprise them. They must’ve seen us first and sent those damn Firecats around our flank. Shit, then we got the surprise.”
“Yes, indeed you did. Let us remember that due to your ‘surprise’ several of the troops under your care will not be seeing their wives, or husbands, or children again. I suggest that you endeavor to avoid similar surprises in the future.”
Dustin bowed his head and scratched the tuft of scar tissue where his right ear had once been.
“Yes, General.”
Stonewall McAllister let that sink in for a moment and then continued, “Nonetheless, our progress is ahead of schedule. We’ve barely started the second day of this excursion and our vanguard is nearly half the march to Dillon. Still, it is my understanding that the First Mechanized Division is making even greater progress on their trek to the coast. I shall endure much taunting should General Shepherd’s forces reach Conway before we reach Dillon.”
Kristy Kaufman asked, “Our strength is being depleted by all the units we’ve left behind to seal up this pocket. What happens when we get to Dillon?”
“My dear Ms. Kaufman, intelligence informs that Dillon is home to less than five hundred of our friends. It is significant in that it holds a supply depot and logistics base for our opponents, but it is not a well-defended target.”
Dustin asked, “Like, why wouldn’t they send out their troops from Columbia to protect it, if it’s that important?”
“First, that would be a long march and we know the Hivvans prefer the comfort of their walls and gun emplacements to the open road. Second, they won’t want to lower their troop strength in Columbia. Besides, they almost certainly do not realize the extent to which they are being trapped.”
“Hmm,” Kristy Kaufman grunted.
“You have something to add, Princess?”
Kaufman scowled but remained focused. “What if they realize what’s going on? What if they realize that Raleigh is lightly defended?”
“The only way they can threaten Raleigh again is with their retreating forces which are currently slipping into our jaws,” Stonewall answered. “If they reconstitute we’ll see that from the air. Regardless of what they do, if we cut off their supply lines they will not last long.”
“Then I guess we’d better get going,” Dustin said. “On to Dillon and all, right?”
“Yes, Mr. McBride. We must press on to Dillon. It is not so far away.”
The General gazed southward and fell silent. They waited several seconds until Kristy prodded, “Do you know this area?”
Stonewall shook himself out of the trance.
“What was that? Oh, yes, I do. Dillon, after all, used to be my home.”
7. Goat-Walker
As he gazed up at a perfectly black sky, Jon Brewer realized he had never truly known darkness before the invasion shut off mankind’s power plants and generators. The absolute absence of artificial light took him by surprise during those first months after the collapse. He found it unnerving; the pure blackness made him feel like an animal, naked in the wilderness not knowing from which direction the next horror would pounce.
Conversely, he had never really seen the stars in the sky before the end-of-the-world, either. The very concept of ‘light pollution’ sounded ridiculous to his ears, until he lived in a world without it. Those tiny flickers of light in a vast sea of black came to life in a way he never imagined. So many of them, and so bright; not specks but radiant spheres flashing, winking, and swirling in patterns his mind could not quite grasp.
Of course, he regarded those stars with as much suspicion as wonder, considering alien beings came from those heavens through a network of gateways to slaughter his race.
On this particular night, those mysterious and dangerous orbs hid behind a thick blanket of cloud cover.
As his armada of nine Eagle air ships paused one hundred miles northeast of Montreal on the northern bank of Lake Edouard, he felt his nerves jitter once again, perhaps because he felt surrounded by darkness.
While he did not feel alone this time-not with one hundred well-armed soldiers and a compliment of K9s under his command-he felt vulnerable.
The lake stretched nearly two miles north to south but little more than a quarter mile across at its widest point. Tall coniferous trees dominated the land around the lake, stretching off into the unseen distance; a vast void of nothingness dwarfing the small ring of light carved by the floodlights of parked ships occupying the only stretch of open ground for miles.
Two specialty Eagles parked at the water’s edge near a sagging rack of canoes once rented to summer vacationers now left rotting on the rocky dirt and rough grass comprising the shoreline. Instead of rectangular passenger modules, a large round gray tank occupied the space between nose cone and engine baffles. One big hose ran from each ship to the lake, sucking H2o into the purification filters onboard the customized craft. Several soldiers oversaw the extraction process aided by lights mounted above the landing struts.
Five troop transports and two cargo carriers landed further inland, two of which were on the receiving end of the ‘fueling’ ships. The fleet formed a circle of sorts.
Jon walked toward the fueling pumps alongside Captain Casey Fink, an old-world military veteran and a big man; so big he could have been a professional wrestler. Around them within the circle, men sat on the ground or on access ramps enjoying a few minutes respite from the cramped quarters of the transports.
“Cold out,” Jon muttered in reference to the bite in the Canadian air; a frosty-white exhale accentuated the point.
“Refreshing
,” Casey flapped his arms as if jump-starting circulation. “I managed to catch some shut eye during the trip. A little nip in the air is just what I need to wake up.”
“That’s because you didn’t ride with Reverend Johnny. The man snores loud enough to wake the dead.”
“Praise the Lord,” Casey mocked. “Either way, the men are happy to be out of those ships for a few minutes.”
“I’m not,” Jon cocked an eye toward the darkness threatening to engulf their oasis of light. “I don’t like it. Wish we didn’t have to refuel. Can’t those pumps work any faster?”
They arrived at one of the specially equipped Eagles filtering lake water for use in the airships’ hydrogen-powered engines. The hum and swoosh of the working pumps forced the men to raise their voices a notch.
Casey touched the metal tank and said, “Better let them take their time. Last thing we want is to have dirty fuel grounding one of the birds in the middle of no where.”
Jon snapped, “We’re already behind schedule. I wanted to get here before dark, but look at it. It’s dark.”
“Our pilot said it must be all the extra weight with the gear and the vehicles in the cargo ships that’s slowing us down. If we went any faster we never would have reached this stop.”
“That’s one excuse. Two ships were late getting started, one had mechanical problems and needed to be switched out, and then we find out someone miscalculated our cruising range so we had to power down to a flying crawl. This whole mission is borderline FUBAR and we’re not even at the sub yet.”
Casey peered at the northwestern sky. “I think it’s going to get worse. Must be a storm coming, I just saw lightening. Funny, it was pretty close, but no thunder.”
One of the K9s at the center of the makeshift camp barked. Then another. And another.
Jon felt his nerves kick into overdrive.
“Mother…Casey, get these pumps going, I want out of here.”
“Yeah…yeah sure,” any good humor drained from the soldier’s voice as more of the Grenadiers howled in warning.
Jon left Casey at the fueling ship and hurried toward the center of the sphere of light. Relaxing soldiers stood and tensed; others wandered out from inside ships.
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