Beyond Armageddon V: Fusion (47 page)

“This is who you are, Captain Forest,” the Bishop’s voice spoke from alongside the monitors. “Rather impressive, actually.”

The Nina on the mountainside pulled a small device just as Trevor turned to address her. After an electrical flash Trevor Stone doubled-over onto the grass and rocks of the mountain top clearing.

The image jumped. The camera now much closer; the Chariot had landed. Two monks moved from the craft toward Nina as she directed them at Trevor, who writhed in pain on the ground, unable to defend himself.

Again the video jumped, starting from the beginning in a continual loop of her sin.

“Such an accomplished soldier. Why you even used his affection for you as a weapon. You used it to isolate him. To deliver him unto Voggoth. I say again,
impressive.”

The remaining video screen offered a darker image from a monitoring device mounted in the corner of a dimly lit chamber. She saw Trevor there, naked and bound by tentacle-like manacles. She saw herself approach him. And while no sound played, she could see by the anger in her eyes that she berated Trevor; scolded him. Taunted him, even. Much like the Bishop taunted her now.

“You are the greatest warrior of your people, Nina,” the words hissed from the Bishop’s mouth like a snake offering an apple. “Yet you served in his shadow. You won more victories than any other human, but never recognized. Your efforts go unappreciated.”

The image of Stone naked and weak taunted by Nina Forest looped as well. The screens continued to play over and over again. Her hand gripped the hilt of her short sword nearly to the point of crushing the metal. Her eyes left the fun-house-like screens and focused on the shadow of the fake-man standing along the wall.

“Voggoth has taken note of your abilities. There is no reason for you to perish alongside the rest of your species. It would be a shame for a creature of your talents to be thrown away.”

Nina did not speak. She listened. Certainly the Bishop knew she had come to kill, but it did not seem as if he spoke to save his existence. As slickly as he delivered his lines, the words felt rehearsed. A speech made to more than one group, no doubt.

She wondered how often the Bishop—or Voggoth itself—spoke such words. While the looping images tried to raise doubt and regret in her heart, the monster flattered her in an effort to turn Nina away from her kind.

Divide and conquer
; but this time on a micro scale.

“Come, join with Voggoth. I promise the majority of your personality will remain intact but without doubt or regret or fear. With these weaknesses removed, you can be the greatest warrior the universe has known.”

Nina raised her sword.

The Bishop stepped forward. The light washed across him reflecting the crimson, squirming robe.

“I see. You may be under the misguided notion that my destruction will somehow benefit your people on the battlefield. This is not so. The army of Voggoth is replete with redundancy. It relies on no one piece. I offer for the last time a chance for you to survive and become something greater than your species could know; something immortal.”

Nina held steady. Her eyes ignored the looping images and focused entirely on her prey.

“Very well then.”

The Bishop held his arms aloft as if praying to something above. His head shook. Whatever lurked beneath the robe pushed against the cloth.

Nina had no intention of waiting. She lunged forward.

The Bishop’s skull opened like a blooming tulip. A thick appendage shot out from the sprout that had once been a neck. At the end of the four-foot-long tentacle hovered a shiny point of steel.

Nina plunged her sword toward its mid-section, but before her blade struck the robe tore open and a series of limbs unfolded like a fist of crab legs stretching. Behind those tendrils dwelled something hideous. Nina glimpsed it—only a glimpse—before a blast of air in the form of a raucous scream knocked her backwards, rolling away from the monster.

The real face of the Bishop lived there, in what might have once been the chest of a man: a jagged orifice like a broken sore lined with blood-red gums and metal shark’s-teeth; a trio of slits—eyes—around the circumference.

The six smaller tendrils grew foot-long blades of steel. The apparition walked on legs that bulged into stumps where feet should be. It lumbered toward her. The maw huffed and puffed as if catching its breath; each exhale sent a cloud of muck into the air so pungent in smell that it served as a weapon.

Nina gagged and stood, her sword ready; her resolve strong despite the hideous beast she confronted.

The Bishop’s stinger launched as if spring-loaded. Nina side stepped and sliced, eliciting a howl from the round mouth. The other six appendages attacked in a series of lunges, thrusts, and hacks.

She stepped back, left, then right, and countered with a sweep of her blade that cut through the spongy flesh. One of the limbs fell to the ground.

The Bishop staggered a step in retreat. The red eyes narrowed. The stinger darted forward just brushing her shoulder as she leapt away. The three nearest alien blades all stabbed at her; each hitting the floor one after another as she rolled off and collided with the wall of the dome.

Its stinger struck again. She held her sword with the support of both hands and stooped. The blade deflected the attack and the sharp point of the stinger imbedded in the chamber wall. Before the creature could free its primary weapon, Nina hacked it off at the halfway point.

The pain from the blow caused the Bishop to abandon another wave of thrusts by the five remaining smaller limbs. Instead, it made a deranged weeping noise and wobbled backwards.

Nina went on the offensive. The face of the Bishop screamed again. The gust of wind came out like cannon-fire. She stumbled off her feet and back into the chamber wall just below the lost stinger.

With regained the initiative, the beast wobbled forward in a bull-like charge. All five of its remaining weapons came down around her. Instead of retreating—instead of dodging—Nina moved
forward,
directly at the maw of the thing.

Alien blades crashed into the floor creating a cage of arms. Her face hovered inches away from the massive, smelly orifice; too close to raise the sword with any real force. Strands of slimy saliva dribbled from the gaping mouth. The odor caused a ripple of nausea from her stomach to her throat. The monster opened wide; the jagged jaws poised to bite.

The smell—the noise—the trapped feeling inside the cage of talons… Nina’s internal battle computer forged past the horror and acted on instinct. Before the beast could strike, she stuck the one remaining grenade on her utility belt directly into the mouth.

The Bishop reacted as if choking and hobbled in retreat, pulling free its legs and ignoring her while struggling to dislodge the small object jammed in what mimicked a throat.

Nina jumped up, bound two big steps, and dove to the floor covering her head.

The monster flailed its arms and hacked as if trying to scream out the obstruction. The detonation of the grenade ended its struggle. The five remaining legs scattered around the room; a blob of pink and red gore splashed into the ceiling; tiny fragments of bone and flesh sprayed across the dome.

The rain fell in a steady dribble, the only sound filling the space around the massive Sysco warehouse. Off, to the east, the first fingers of sun tried desperately to cut through the gloom as dawn approached.

Nina supported much of Vince’s weight as they limped away from the complex. She knew that when they finished here her first order of business would be finding motorized ground transportation because Vince would not be walking under his own power any time soon.

They reached the berm near the old housing development, the place from where Nina and Carl had spied the Bishop’s arrival last night.

Not only did dawn usher in a new day, but also a new dynamic in Nina’s life. The assault on the complex decimated the Dark Wolves. For years the four of them survived seemingly hopeless battles against Duass infantry, missions into the heart of the Hivvan Republic, an ambush by humans from another dimension, and too many other operations to count.

Yet it had been The Order who managed to inflict the most damage upon them. Fitting, Nina figured, since it had been The Order who had inflicted the most damage on her, personally.

She carefully lay Vince on the soaked black dirt along the ridge.

“We have to move, Nina,” he reminded. “They’ll be sending reinforcements.”

Nina agreed, of course, but the job was not yet complete. The mission had to be more than about her sense of revenge; it had to mean something to the greater effort.

She produced the remote detonator. Bly had warned that they lacked enough C-4 explosives to bring down the entire complex. He had been right. Fortunately, The Order provided the rest of the needed firepower in the form of their fuel depot.

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.