Beyond Armageddon: Book 03 - Parallels (13 page)

            "That’s right, yeah," she told him. "You’re on Earth. And no, it wasn’t a time machine."

            Trevor stared forward through the glass. He spoke with an edge in his voice. "So, I’m on Earth and you’re Nina Forest. Okay then, where are my troops? From what I can tell, we've been flying east for a while now. Army Group North should be around here, somewhere. If this is Earth and we’re still over Ohio some—." He caught himself. "Wait a second, that place…it wasn’t a gateway. I know that. I’ve seen them in action."

            "No, it wasn’t a gateway," she confirmed.

            "But it was a transport. You say we’re still on Earth?"

            "I said, we’re on Earth."

            Trevor understood. He eased into the chair and nodded to himself.

           
Why not?

            So far in his life, aliens invaded his home world, he could communicate with dogs, learned he had a half-brother, and one of his best friends channeled Stonewall Jackson.

            So why not?

            "A parallel--what?--Universe?"

            She smiled. "Wow. I mean, you’re taking that a lot better than I thought you would."

            "I guess I’ve just learned that there’s a surprise waiting right around every bend in my life. Like everything else, I'll just accept it without thinking too hard and maybe I'll stay sane."

            She laughed. He allowed himself a small chuckle.

            There he sat, riding along in a strange flying machine over a world that was like his own but not quite the same. His eyes drifted to her.

           
Nina.

            Different…but the same.

            He said, "I've seen enough movies and TV shows about this type of thing. Everything is pretty close to my world but a little different. Well, at least you don't have a beard."

            "Huh?"

            "Never mind. So okay, you went to a lot of trouble to bring me here. Why?"

            She said, "We monitored your broadcasts when we arrived on your Earth. I could tell you’re doing pretty well. You’ve managed to start taking back your planet. Pretty damn impressive, Trevor."

            "And here?"

            Her good humor faded. "For a while, great, but not anymore. These days the orders are always the same: retreat."

"Retreat? Who the Hell has been in charge around here?"

She told him the answer he feared, "You."

He felt a wave of apprehension build inside. Seeing a duplicate Nina, that had been hard.  But seeing a duplicate of himself, could he handle that?

"I assume I’m going to go meet…well,
me?"

"Yes."

"Why all the secrecy? We’re all human, right? I mean, you are human?"

Nina looked at him again. "Yes, I'm human. Just like you in every way. You're flying in what we nicknamed a 'Skipper'. I know you have things like it on your world."

Just as he had studied her, examining him up and down, taking in the sight. In her eyes he spied something between surprise and awe, between desperation and relief.

She told him, "You need to see everything for yourself. I'm being honest when I say I don’t want to hurt you. You know that, don’t you? You can feel it, can’t you?"

In the last few hours Trevor walked in to a trap, faced and even kissed a second Nina Forest, traveled to some kind of parallel universe, and ran for his life from a wall of evil blackness. He now rode in a helicopter-like contraption—a 'Skipper'--above an Earth where humanity fought the same war of survival as he did. Yet, he nearly felt relaxed.

Why? Because he sat next to and spoke with Nina Forest. She even smiled, a little.

"Yes," he answered her question. "I can feel it."

"Good, we need you."

"Why’s that?"

"Because if you can’t help us, we’ll be wiped out."

He sat in the co-pilot's chair and contemplated that thought. Trevor did not know how he felt about that and he did not know how much he cared. He did, after all, have his own world to worry about. But these people were human, too. Certainly the event's of her universe connected somehow or someway with Armageddon on his world.

Below, the landscape changed from forests and frozen fields to a wasteland of bomb craters, vehicle wrecks, and scattered piles of remains. Occasional mounds of rubble, scorched patches of woods, and a dried riverbed broke the otherwise flat plain of destruction. Gusts of frigid air blew bands of dust and snow flakes over a seemingly dead land.

"Almost home," Nina whispered.

Another sight grabbed his attention; a break in the horizon. As they approached, that break took form. A city. A very large city growing taller and wider as they neared. But first came bands of defenses including trenches, barbed wire, sandbags, and pill boxes. He saw more remains below; fresher carcasses visited by scavengers and apparently stripped nearly naked of any equipment or gear that might serve the living.

You don't leave your own to rot in the sun,
he thought in disgust.

The city filled the cockpit window. At the heart of the place stood a cluster of skyscrapers reaching dozens of stories tall yet lacking any style; any concession to aesthetics. He found them bland and boring; metal and brass structures dressed in a dull, almost sickly green.

That same utilitarian design carried over the entire metropolis. As they descended, he saw an industrial sector where chimneys billowed clouds of white and gray smoke, and squat rectangular buildings arranged like building blocks end to end stood in neat rows as if painstakingly measured to maximize every meter of available space.

It seemed to Trevor this city existed for function, not life. Then again, if mankind stood on its last legs here, then would he not also abandon style in favor of efficiency and purpose?

Still, if this Earth's topography matched his own, this place might just be "Pittsburgh?"

            He apparently thought aloud. "Pittsburgh?" She responded. "Never heard of it. I think there are some differences between our worlds. Things like names. But that wouldn’t matter much in this case. This is the city of Thebes. It’s a new city, sort of. Only a few years old."

            "Oh. What about the other cities? Have you re-taken any of them?"

            Nina put a fine point on it. "Trevor, this is our
last
city. It was built for military purposes. Now it’s all that remains."

            He sat in stunned silence, unable to accept such a thought. If true, would failure here affect the fight on his planet? Had destiny brought him here, too? Was his fight against Armageddon not merely planet wide but…but universal?

"You okay over there?"

He heard genuine concern in her voice.

"Yeah. Well, no. I mean, you're failing here. I'm failing, I guess. The version of me… well, you know what I mean. What I'm saying is, the idea of failure, it's the one thing that keeps me up at night."

"I understand."

 "Sure, but you already met yourself. Now I get to meet me. That’s a weird feeling."

"Tell me about it."

The Skipper flew around the city for a better view. Most parts seemed covered in soot and dirt, a few stood out with glitzy designs resembling casinos on the old Las Vegas strip. Yet most buildings held more in common with warehouses, garages, and hangers.

            "Boring."

            "Like I said, this is all about military. The skyscrapers are dormitories, there aren't any individual houses."

            "Hardly any windows and I see almost no lights. Let me guess, security reasons?"

            "No windows for security, no lights to conserve power. Sorry, it's not very impressive."

            "Feels like a big trap to me," he said but her expression suggested he insulted her so he clarified, "Not for me but for you. You're herded in here behind barbed wire and barricades. Makes for an easy target."

            "Yeah, tell me about it. Hang on, we're going in to land."

            The Skipper descended inside a fifteen foot tall wall. Trevor saw that the wall no longer protected the entire city; enemy fire had turned sections into rubble.

            After the landing gear touched ground, the rotor slowed and the rear door opened.

"C’mon, it’s time for you to meet our Trevor Stone."

Sweat formed in the palm of his hands. He felt a shiver in his backbone.

Nina led Trevor, Johnny, and a squad of soldiers from the Skipper but this time Trevor judged the soldiers' behavior to be less that of guards and more escorts for a VIP. Still, they huddled around to hide Trevor in the midst of their group. He figured they did not want him to be seen. Two Trevor Stones walking around might be too much to handle.

They moved through a set of turnstiles guarded by artillery and an armored vehicle. Their path then opened up at a wide courtyard but Trevor did not see another soul.

"Come here, I want to show you something."

Nina led them toward the center of the square. As they walked, a horde of scrawny pigeons fluttered away. As the flock flew off, Trevor saw something standing at the center of the courtyard draped in shadows cast by the skyscrapers around the perimeter of the yard.

Sounds of distant activity drifted through the air: a bell ringing, the rumble of an engine, a voice barking orders; the wind whispering between buildings.

"My Lord," Johnny gasped as he viewed what stood at the center of the courtyard.

Trevor pushed out from the middle of the gang and approached the object that was the focus of the park. A statue of a man. A bronze statue atop a white granite pedestal. A man holding a sword and raising it in anger toward the sky.

Trevor saw
his
eyes,
his
hair,
his
face cast in bronze.

In Memory of Our Beloved Emperor

Trevor Stone

General Casey Fink led a squad of soldiers out from a garage and across a short parking lot past useless gas pumps. Balls of lethal plasma shot over and around them until they found cover in a drainage ditch alongside the road.

            Casey dared a look from his position; a position that changed drastically in recent days.

Last weekend he stood-in for Hoth at an Imperial military meeting rubbing elbows with the bigwigs. Now he hid in a ditch outside some roadside town in central Ohio that seemingly consisted of a garage, a John Deere dealership, and a church.

            A ball of energy exploded on the slush and snow covered road a few yards in front of Casey’s peeking eyes. He ducked, avoiding a spray of icy goo and blasted black top.

The squad returned fire toward the entrenched Plats. Rifle and carbine rounds smashed dealership windows and strafed the white wooden walls of the Presbyterian house of worship.

            Casey patted the shoulder of Captain Marty Blue. The former school teacher turned around allowing the General access to his backpack of bulky communications equipment.

            "Big Momma this is Gopher, do you copy? Over."

            Fink heard the reply he hoped for: "This is Big Bad Momma, we deliver."

"Shit, yeah, I need a delivery, Momma. Stand by…"

            Fink consulted a hand held map of the patrol area; the area he had the
brilliant
urge to visit for himself; the area supposedly free of Plats and therefore a great route for pushing west.

"Momma, I’m looking at grid reference fifty-two by fifty-five, over."

            An enemy bolt slammed into a black soldier, opening a hole in his shoulder and causing his arm to dangle like a broken tree branch. The squad's medic tended to the grievous wound with bandages and twine from his poorly-stocked first aid kit.

Gunfire, screams, and finally a radio transmission filled Casey's ear: "Gopher, I copy your point of interest. How about we serve up some of Momma’s home cooking, over."

            "Hard copy that shit, Momma. We’re starving here, over."

            "Roger that, Gopher, stand by and get somewhere snug 'cause dinner is served."

            Fink shouted to his troops, "Danger close!"

            Moments later, waves of rockets descended through a low layer of morning clouds and slammed into grid reference 52-55, also known as the John Deere dealership and the church. A wave of heat swept over the frigid battleground as the target buildings disintegrated into shards of plaster and wood, balls of flame, and mushroom clouds of smoke.

            Amidst the ear-splitting explosions and sounds of destruction Casey heard the sweet melody of Platypus aliens squealing like wounded pigs.

            "Gopher, this is Momma. You guys still hungry down there? Over?"