Trapped in Time-Extinction (22 page)

• • •

The next morning, the Commandant heard a knock on his door. He opened it and saw his senior Admiral with his head bowed, “Sire, we’ve launched rockets to confirm all is well with our picket ships and none of them have responded.”

The Commandant shook his head, “That doesn’t surprise me. We expect the enemy fleet to arrive today. Why are you bothering me to tell me this?”

“The Commander boarded one of our ships to go check on them and his ship hasn’t responded either. Who should we take our orders from if he doesn’t come back?”

The Commandant was shocked speechless. “Why didn’t you come and tell me he was leaving on one of our ships!?”

“Sire, we thought he had cleared it through you.”

The Commandant was beyond rage and he pulled his gun and pointed at the Admiral who put his arms over his head. The Commandant screamed, “Auuuggggghhhhhhhhhh!” He lowered his gun and said, “Come with me!” He walked to the wall and looked out at to sea. The sun was just above the horizon and he didn’t see anything. He called the Ground Forces Commander and the Admiral together and said, “You will command our defenses. Are you up to date on the plan?” Both of them nodded, but neither of them knew the plan. However, they knew they were dead men if they admitted it. “I will be in the Government Tower. Keep me notified on what’s happening.” They both bowed and the Commandant stormed off the wall.

The Admiral looked at the Commander, “Are you familiar with the plan?”

“Of course not.”

Suddenly they heard, “Multiple sails on the horizon!”

They looked out to sea and saw sails appearing at the horizon and the numbers were growing by the minute. The Admiral shook his head, “You take command of the spitters and I’ll command the cannons. Sound the alarm and get the citizens moving to the wall.”

The Commander grabbed the Admiral’s arm, “Why didn’t the former Commander not fire our cannons at the attacks on our harbor defenses?”

The Admiral pointed at the closest island as another gun powder keg exploded deep inside the fortress, “What good would it have done? No one could have lived through those explosions; neither our forces nor any attackers that were still there. It would have been a waste of ordinance we’re going to need today.”

The Commander released the Admiral’s arm and saw an explosion at the southern fortress. The explosion arrived twenty seconds after he saw the blast. He wondered how this enemy had penetrated the fortresses to set off the stores of gunpowder. The simple truth was that the initial blast had turned over every lantern in the fort causing fires to spread inside. It was simply a matter of time until they reached the powder magazines.

• • •

Rory sat beside Mindy and watched the Doctor putting stitches in her arm. She was unconscious and had lost a lot of blood on the flight back to the fleet. He had no idea how she had made it and she had been unconscious when the warriors caught her as she landed on the bow of the ship. She was breathing shallowly and he felt his tears and didn’t care who saw them. She had acted with such bravery and he was ashamed that he hadn’t been there instead of her. The Doctor had already removed a bullet from her left leg and he said he didn’t know how she had made it as long as she did. John came in the door and said, “Rory, it’s time.”

Rory nodded, bent down, and kissed his sister on the forehead. “I’ll make you proud, Mindy.” He wiped his tears and left the room. Mindy didn’t hear him and remained unconscious.

• • •

Tyler heard loud horns start sounding across the city. He looked out over the wall and saw thousands of Destroyer citizens rushing out of their homes and leading their slaves at gunpoint toward the coastal wall. He saw Olivia rubbing her eyes and he said, “It’s time to get ready.” Olivia nodded and took her blaster out of its holster and pushed the activate button. Tyler took the quiver of arrows off the branch where he had tied them off and put it over his shoulder. He activated his blaster and put his bow over his other shoulder. He began moving down the tree and looked for the pesky T-Rex. It wasn’t anywhere near him. He arrived at the ground and saw the other Fliers had also moved to the ground and waited on him to lead the way. The eleven hundred fliers gathered and the outer warriors raised their blasters to hold off any opportunistic predators that might attack. He waited for the next phase of the attack and after forty-five minutes, he saw Lance’s warriors moving toward the wall ahead of him. Now it was time to start moving. All of the infants should have arrived at the Care Center by now. He heard the cannons at the coastal wall open fire and the noise was deafening.

• • •

When the horns started sounding, all the Destroyer Warriors scattered around the city began rushing to the citizens’ homes and rousing them out to move to the wall. The Destroyer Unit Commander knocked on the door and did not receive an answer. He knocked again and then decided he didn’t have any time to waste. He kicked the door in and rushed into the house. No one was present. He looked out through the back glass and saw the slaves’ rooms were all open. They must have been ready to leave when the horn sounded. He ran out the front door and moved to the next home. He shook his head. That house really smelled bad. He wondered how the owners could stand to live there.

• • •

There were five hundred of the new spitters anchored on the forest wall. That placed a spitter every hundred and fifty feet for the entire fifteen-mile length of the wall. Lance’s Group of five hundred fliers climbed the wall and all arrived at the top together. They raised their blasters and fired at the crews manning the new spitters.

Jack climbed the wall close to where Tyler’s Group was going to enter the city. He noticed that Tyler and the female with him were already on top of the wall when he fired his blaster at the spitter between him and the warriors climbing over the wall. His blaster failed to fire. He fired again and turned it over; the blaster had been damaged when he landed in the tree. The crew manning the spitter looked around and didn’t see any of the other crews at their guns. What was going on? They turned the spitter toward the south and prepared to open fire along the top of the wall.

Tyler looked north and saw the warrior assigned to the spitter just to the right of them was pointing his blaster at the spitter crew but nothing was happening. He was twenty-five feet away and the crew was turning the spitter in his direction. There was no way the warrior was going to get his bow off his shoulder in time to fire an arrow and Tyler had just pulled Olivia to the top of the wall. He knew there was no way to escape the wall of projectiles about to be fired at him.

Suddenly, the surviving spitter crew was paralyzed by a deafening roar. The T-Rex leaned over the top of the wall and grabbed both members of the gun crew in its massive jaws and bit down on them with the terrible force of its jaws. It came down from its full height and ran away into the forest with the two dead Destroyers in its jaws to enjoy its meal without the distraction of other predators coming to steal it. Olivia saw what happened and then saw how white Tyler’s face was. She grabbed his arm and said, “Now you owe it again. Let’s get moving.”

Tyler grabbed her arm and shook his head, “Everyone will stay at the base of the wall until Gordon completes his mission.”

Olivia nodded, “That’s fine, but get off the wall.”

The fliers were scrambling over the forest wall and gathering in their units at its base. The five hundred fliers in Lance’s Group sat down at the spitters and fired them randomly over the city. Tyler watched and then saw the one hundred and fifty two bombers in Gordon’s unit come screaming over the forest toward the coastal wall. There were large gaps between them and they flew with four fliers in each group. They all flew powered gliders into the wind and were moving at high speed toward the coastal wall. Tyler yelled, “Everyone get down now!”

The fliers manning the spitters saw Gordon’s gliders go streaking by overhead and they rushed back over the wall jumped the last eight feet to the ground where they waited.

Less than five seconds behind the first wave of gliders, thirty-eight pairs of gliders followed the leading wave toward the coastal wall. The Destroyers had built thirty-eight gunpowder magazines inside the wall that were spaced evenly along the entire length of the coastal wall.

There were pulleys and wooden elevators to lift the gunpowder to the top of the wall for the cannons to use. They also housed the belts of ammunition used by the spitters. The thirty-eight groups of four gliders flew over each of the magazines and dropped four large pouches of oil on them just before they flew over the top of the wall. The oil pouches had orange dye in them and they hit and broke apart on the wooden roof covering the munitions. The Destroyers working in the magazines heard the heavy thuds of the pouches hitting the roofs above them and they immediately smelled something after the impacts. Gordon led the final thirty-eight pairs of archers, who arrived at the ammo centers less than three seconds after the first wave had passed. The two archers in each group already had a hot arrow burning as they flew over the soaked roofs and they fired them into the orange oil stains. The wood exploded into flames as the second wave of archers flew over the wall and dove for the sea. Fifty of the fliers were hit by the random fire of the spitters as they came over the wall but most of them survived.

The oil spread the fire and then the inevitable happened. The roofs collapsed in on the thousands of gun powder kegs and munitions. The fliers hugging the ground at the forest wall heard a giant series of massive explosions rock the ground under them. The gigantic blasts blew into the stone coastal wall and then blew out into the city next to it. Most of the wall was blown away and every building within a mile of the explosions was knocked flat. The concussion from the blast was unbelievable.

• • •

Tyler felt the wave pass over him and he yelled, “Get up and get moving. Olivia, lead the way! Spread out and shoot anything that moves.” Olivia jumped up and started running into the city. The Care Center was a mile and a half away and they had to get there quickly before the fliers from the fleet arrived and started beaming the city. The last week of Tyler’s training was spent running.

The fliers left their gliders at the wall to be protected by Lance’s warriors manning the spitters. They rushed out into the city and beamed every building they passed. The warriors at the front of the charge continuously fired their blasters in front of them and the eleven hundred saw hundreds of orange dust clouds blowing in the wind in front of them. Tyler shot a Destroyer on the roof of a building and yelled for the odd numbered warriors to watch the roofs. Tyler constantly stared at the sky watching for the fliers from the fleet to arrive and he pushed his men even harder. He was amazed and proud at how fast Olivia led the warriors through the city. It was going to take some time for the Destroyers to organize after the massive blasts but he knew they wouldn’t take very long. Their lives depended on it. Olivia turned a corner and pointed ahead of her, “That building is the care center!” Tyler shook his head. He didn’t need her to point. He could hear the infants wailing from more than three hundred yards away. He pointed at the lead ranks and yelled, “Go to the roofs and set your cutters, NOW!!”

The fliers peeled away from the main group and rushed into the four buildings surrounding the care center. They fought their way to the roofs and once they were on top, they used their cutters to punch holes in the stone. They jammed their cutter’s handle into the holes and turned on the beams to their maximum intensity and length. Tyler rushed into the Care Center and a brief fight broke out before the old guards could be eliminated. Twenty infants were killed by bullets fired by the guards. They had no regard for the babies’ safety.

• • •

Andy stood on the stern of the ship and watched massive explosions walk the stonewall next to the coast blowing out huge sections into the ocean. He looked at Zeck and smiled, “It does appear Gordon’s group has been successful. Send up the launch flags and get the fliers in the air.”

Andy saw the blue and white flags pulled up the tallest mast and looked around at the ships holding station out of range of the huge Destroyer cannons and spitters. There wasn’t much left to fire at them but he wasn’t going to put the fleet in danger. He put on his head cover and saw a large cloud of fliers moving up into the morning sky and then head toward the city and harbor. He sighed. He had promised to kill the leader of that evil civilization with his own hands. He smiled at the indulgences of youth. He really didn’t care how he died…as long as he did. He had made sure all the flyers knew that some of their own were inside the city and to make sure they didn’t attack Tyler’s forces. Still, the Destroyers had those rifles. They couldn’t be too careful. He hoped Tyler would get the cutters up quickly. The fliers would beam everything inside the city that wasn’t inside the cutters. He really hoped Tyler and Olivia weren’t killed along with all the infants…but…today, this civilization was going to end.

• • •

Tyler ran over to Olivia, “Can you handle things in here?”

“There are so many.”

“CAN YOU DO IT!?”

Olivia was startled and she jerked her head to Tyler and nodded. “I have to go outside and organize the defense. You are going to have to take care of everyone in here.”

Olivia nodded and hugged him quickly. He ran out of the building and Olivia called all the slaves into the center of the room and began speaking.

Tyler ran out the front door and saw hundreds of his warriors standing outside. He shook his head and yelled, “EVERYONE GATHER UP!” The warriors all gathered around Tyler and he said, “Our cutters can be seen from the air so the fliers coming from the fleet should not fire on us.” He saw his men breathe a sigh of relief. “However, the Destroyers aren’t stupid. Once our fliers start killing them, they’ll quickly determine that the only place in this city where they won’t be killed is if they can make it inside our ranks. We have four buildings with cutters on top of them surrounding the Care Center. I want one third of you on top of the building with your bows. They won’t be able to see you firing in your camouflage suits if you stick to your bows. I want the other two thirds taking shelter inside the walls of these four buildings and I want you to beam anything that moves outside our perimeter. Any questions?” Several hands went up and Tyler said, “Stay behind. All the others go to your positions. You can’t allow the Destroyers inside our positions! Now move!” Tyler turned to the warriors that had questions and said, “We are in a state of war. What question do you have that so important.”