a delaying action. Our boys are either going to die fighting or get shot in the back running. Voggoth won’t allow an orderly retreat.”
And for that, Trevor felt compelled to tip his hat toward the sinister mind of Voggoth. That devil had conceived and hatched a plan to draw Trevor’s forces into the open and force a climactic battle. Certainly Jon Brewer’s units mustering on the Mississippi would provide some small challenge, but without the men who would be slaughtered here, today, then the Mississippi would prove little more than a speed bump.
“Um, sir,” Fink sounded embarrassed as he corrected his boss. “I didn’t mean the whole army, sir.”
“Oh? You mean us? Me? The headquarters unit? I guess so,” Trevor conceded but his eyes leered longingly at the battlefield. This was not supposed to happen. This day was to turn the tide. Those reserve tank units were supposed to surprise the vanguard of Voggoth’s ground troops after the Leviathan had fallen and Rhodes’ infantry columns were supposed to slice and dice the belly of the beastly army. That had been the script.
Blasts of tank cannon fired; explosions shook the ground; fireballs of pilots and wings and gore dropped from the sky.
A small part of Trevor—very small and very isolated—wondered if it would be so bad to simply stay in the ruined barn and let The Order’s forces swarm over. It seemed now that day would come, either there at Wetmore, in a few weeks at the Mississippi, or in the Appalachian mountains or at some last stand along the Atlantic coast.
Of course he could not. He would fight. And if he had nearly no army at the end of that day, he would fight on his own from the mountains and caves or cross the sea and join the outposts of humanity in Europe and Africa to muster forces anew.
“Sir..?”
“Yes, of course, let’s go.”
He glanced at his tanks once more. They rolled forward in a line past blasted buildings and across the wasteland swept clear by the Leviathan’s supersonic blast. Their treads creaked and squeaked and diesel engines rumbled and the stench of exhaust floated behind like a foul wake of tainted air. And forward they went into the shadows of the two advancing Leviathan’s no doubt knowing their fate was sealed but doing it anyway because—like Trevor—no alternative remained.
The headquarters unit hastily packed what remained of their gear and followed Trevor as he retreated through the rear of barn. Out back on the far end of a tattered field and protected by a dirt berm sat one of The Empire’s “Eagle” Transports. Those machines had come to Earth from the invaders known initially as the Redcoats then eventually as the Centurians. Humanity had captured several, reverse-engineered the design, added improvements, and now called them their own.
With alien-designed anti-gravity generators providing lift and clean-burning hydrogen fuel to generate thrust, what the boxy Eagles lacked in aesthetics they more than made up for in efficiency.
Soldiers and technicians surrounded the Eagle on all sides working to secure heavy trucks, Humvees, a water buffalo, and portable generators. A palatable aura of panic emanated from the men and women wearing various shades of battle dress uniform. A column of infantry onboard a collection of army trucks and SUVs raced toward the front passing the small encampment on a dusty road.
Trevor and General Fink descended the berm. Far overhead a burning Tomcat barrel rolled in a graceful arc after a ‘Spook’ rammed its rear thrusters.
The two arrived at the transport, walked the short entry ramp, and opened the sliding door with the push of a button. Several of the headquarters techs and soldiers joined them, still more waited behind for the anticipated Blackhawk chopper that planned to spirit them away, if air traffic control could navigate it into the hot zone.
One side of the rectangular passenger compartment offered rows of seats for safe travel, the other side