“Boy Pullen: You afeared of the Zulus then, Quartermaster?
QSM Bloomfield: One Zulu is only one man-and I’m afeared of no one man-but the Zulu, they come in the thousands-like a black wave of death-in the thousands…”
General Jerry Shepherd sighed a huff of frustration and leaned over and into the tank’s open hatch. He saw a cramped compartment with tiny stools, a computerized work station, and an array of pedals, periscopes, joysticks, and levers. In other words, a chaotic jumble of technology shoved together into a tiny hole made to fit a crew of four in a space that would be cramped for two.
A drop of sweat fell from his cheek and splashed on the metal floor below.
“What are you doing down there?”
Captain William Rheimmer-son of council member Eva Rheimmer-had himself twisted in an ungodly fashion as he accessed a maintenance panel in a corner of the crew cab.
“There’s a problem with hydraulics,” the young officer answered.
“Captain, you’ve got an entire column of some dozen tanks held up for one bum system and we are less than two miles from Highway 135,” as if to accentuate that point, a distant sound like thunder-but they knew it not to be thunder-rumbled across the fields of golden grain surrounding the halted tank column. “You see, we’re at what they call the stagin’ area, Captain and we’ve got about another hour until we got to hit them.”
Shepherd projected confidence but he kept a myriad of doubts to himself.
The first doubt had to do with General Rhodes’ ability to break free from the ring of encirclement. His’ 3 ^ rd Mechanized division remained trapped in Halstead after abandoning their transport train. The last communique indicated a dire shortage of ammunition but a surplus of wounded.
The second doubt worried Shepherd to an even greater extent. Three days had passed since The Order decapitated a fair number of high ranking Imperial officers. Before that strike, forging a relief force from a collection of widely dispersed units seemed a difficult task. Now it appeared impossible.
After the destruction wrought at Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Harveys Lake, Shepherd managed to re-route elements of the 10 ^ th brigade from Rheimmer’s 3 ^ rd Armored Division of New Jersey to Kansas City as well as pieces of the re-named “Stonewall’s Calvary Brigade”, the centerpiece of what remained of the 2 ^ nd Mechanized Division of Virginia.
He knew it would not be enough. He needed that extra piece in place to the north, air support, and a hell of a lot of luck; all items The Empire appeared desperately short of in recent weeks.
One other concern loomed in the back of Shep’s mind where he hid it away so as to not face it. The Order had executed a rather effective decapitation strike against The Empire’s leadership. A reasonable man would assume they also tried to hit Trevor Stone on his way to Europe.
Point was-to Shep’s way of thinking-just hours after that strike, K9s all across The Empire deserted their posts, ignoring the call of handlers. The vast majority of the dogs-Trevor’s ‘Grenadiers’ as dubbed by Stonewall McAllister years before-no longer followed commands.
That had never happened before. Even when Trevor went to another universe-even when Trevor had been thought killed but was really imprisoned by The Order-even during those times the dogs remained loyal and in tune with their masters; better trained from birth than any dog had any right to be.
At the final meeting exactly one week ago, Trevor suggested his power over the K9s came from nature itself; a sort of built-in defense against the invaders. Shepherd did not know about that, but he trusted his eyes. The K9s helped save mankind from day one and even though the war grew into battles between planes and tanks, the grenadiers still served a valuable role in security, hunting, reconnaissance, and rescue.
To lose them-now…
“Sir, did you hear me?”
“What? Huh?”
“General Shepherd, take a look at this.”
Shep removed his cowboy hat, carefully lowered himself down the open hatch into the cramped quarters next to the very German-looking kid who had grown up working on Eva Rheimmer’s farm.
“Look at this,” and Rheimmer pointed toward a mess of liquid and tubes behind an open panel. “I think I need a whole new unit.”
Shepherd repeated a saying he had heard at one time or another from just about every old-world veteran serving in the post-Armageddon army: “Haven’t you heard, Captain, this is the new army.”
“Sir?”
“Abandon this bucket of bolts. There ain’t any replacement parts coming. We’re out here all alone with one job to do and we’ve got to do it fast then haul-ass away before we get stomped. We can’t hold up for one tank.”
Shep sounded convincing despite knowing how desperately they needed each and every piece of equipment, particularly armor.
A sound of galloping horses pulled the general’s attention away from the discussion of tank repair. He raised his head and shoulders out the hatch. To the west the amber fields continued on toward the horizon where the Interstate waited along with an entrenched enemy army. Artillery and small arms fire carried over the distance to his ears.
The fields also stretched to the east but the treads of a dozen tanks, several up-armored Humvees hauling short-range artillery, and a trio of APCs had torn scars across that otherwise serene landscape. Men sat in the shade of their vehicles eating protein bars, swigging canteens, and grabbing a few minutes of sleep.
Five riders approached with General Cassy Simms leading the way. Shep had sent her north to Newton City-County airport to make contact with one of the key elements of that haphazard relief force gathering to try and save Rhodes.
“General, sir,” Cassy pulled her mount to a stop alongside the injured tank.
“Cassy. What say you? Was the airport usable?”
She answered, “Yes, General, the airport is still in good shape,” but he could tell by how she refused to look directly at him that good news would not be the order of the day.
“And..?”
“And, well, the Chinooks ferried in the 12 ^ th Engineering Brigade.”
Shep-looking one part prairie dog with his head and shoulders poking from the open hatch-gaped at General Simms. Her horse neighed. An explosion far off to the west drifted across the open fields.
She said, “About two hundred men on the tarmac with land mines, a mobile bridge-builder, one reinforced earth-mover, and a bunch of Hummers.”
“12 ^ th — Engineering — brigade…”
“Apparently they flew more than a dozen sorties to get all the equipment in. They had to hang the earthmover and the bridge from a special winch underneath the Shit-Hooks.”
General Shepherd narrowed his eyes and his mouth turned down at the edges.
He repeated again, “12 ^ th goddamn Engineering brigade? Engineering? Who the hell screwed the pooch on this one? That was supposed to be elements of 13 ^ th brigade! How the hell did they eff this up?”
But Shepherd knew the answer. Woody Ross had recently been named commander of the 4 ^ th Mechanized Division, parent unit to the both the 12 ^ th Engineering and 13 ^ th Mechanized Brigades. Ross, in turn, had been a part of the even larger 3 ^ rd Corps, which was now commander-less with the death of Casey Fink during The Order’s raid three days before.
Confusion. Misinterpreted orders. Incomplete communications. The type of things that occur when you have a sudden and unexpected change in leadership. The type of things The Order hoped for when they sent their assassins.
Shepherd pulled himself into a sitting position atop the cupola. He wiped the sweat from his brow with his black uniform sleeve and replaced his cowboy hat.
Cassy’s news signed General Rhodes’ death warrant. The Order’s main force complete with Leviathan would hit the Newtown area before the end of the day. Just as bad, in order to buy time to muster a relief force, The Empire had thrown dozens of sorties at Voggoth’s approaching army. It had worked; the enemy slowed their advance, but at the cost of at least a dozen fixed-wing aircraft, not to mention valuable ordnance and aviation fuel.
Combined with Shep’s column of armor, Cassy’s cavalry, and an eclectic collection of helicopter gunships waiting for the strike, the added light artillery and infantry units from the 13 ^ th brigade might have been enough to punch a hole in the enemy’s eastern lines running north to south along Highway 135 and free the 4,000 men under Rhodes’ command.
Not now. A communication mix-up caused by holes in the chain of command turned his desperate counter-attack into a suicide mission and no matter how much he wished otherwise, Shepherd saw no choice other to abandon the trapped men to their fate.
“Pull your cavalry back,” he ordered Simms. “Send word for those Shit-Hooks to turn around and pick up the Engineering brigade. Hell, might as well have them mine the airport while they’re there.”
“But, sir, what about General Rhodes?”
“Cassy, what do you want to do? Try and take on that pocket with what we’ve got? I’ve got shit here. Even with the 13 ^ th it was a crap shoot. Without them it’s not possible. I’m not going to throw away these boys for nothing. Phil is-well, General Rhodes is a lost cause.”
“Sir…”
“Cassy, don’t make me go sayin’ it again because it tasted pretty damn bad the first time.”
“No, sir,” her voice rose to a near shout, “Look.” And she pointed to the east.
He looked first to his column of vehicles. He saw the men waking from their naps, dropping their canteens and chow, and moving away from the cool shadows of their rides into the sunbaked fields to behold something further behind.
To General Jerry Shepherd, it appeared as if the horizon actually moved; like ripples in water as a wave curls toward the beach. That wave kept coming, pouring over the trampled fields, secondary roads, and farm house ruins strewn about the plains.
He kept his eyes east and climbed from the cupola until standing on the deck of the disabled Abrams tank. Captain Rheimmer poked his head out.
“What’s going on?”
For a moment Jerry Shepherd worried that The Order managed to deploy one of their pseudo-biological weapons to their rear; that his rescue mission had become a trap. His heart raced. The sweat already pouring from his forehead due to the heat doubled.
The swarm came without end. A tremble shook the ground and did not stop. A drone filled the air as the stampede closed.
Soldiers climbed aboard their armored vehicles; some drew their weapons but no one fired as they realized what approached.
Shepherd’s mouth fell open. He yanked off his hat and held it against his chest. In a moment of total awe he gasped, “Oh-oh God.”
They came seemingly without end, a gigantic horde of dogs: the Grenadier warriors who had saved Trevor’s life in the early days, done his bidding at New Winnabow, and now marched as one great army, side by side, packed in columns. Forget individual breeds; that did not matter. Claws and fangs rumbling forward as if one horrible beast.
The march of the Grenadiers reached the armored column and gently parted in the right places to flow around the men and machines. Shepherd watched them pass and realized that of all the onlookers, Cassy Simms’ horses appeared most at ease.
Nature’s attempt to protect its own.
Those words from Trevor’s attempt at an explanation forced their way into Shepherd’s thoughts, cutting through the wonder-and yes-the fear. He felt as if he stood in front of a tornado, or watched a volcano erupt, or felt the ground shake from an Earthquake.
Only nature can do something this big. Trevor had sent the K9s to enforce his will at New Winnabow, but now nature sent a hundred thousand canines to do its bidding.
The constant pounding of paws into the ground generated clouds of dust and created a roar that made it nearly impossible to speak, but Shep heard General Simms’ panicked cry, “What is going on! What is this?”
General Jerry Shepherd saw it clearly at that point. The K9s served as nature’s anti-bodies. Never in history had Earth’s ecosystem been invaded by an outside force. Indeed, not only an outside force but one led by Voggoth and his Order, the antithesis of life.
Nature moved to counter the threat; a threat to the entire body of the planet. Somehow these Grenadiers-these anti-bodies-connected to Trevor via the genetic chain on which he served as a link.
Throughout history, dogs demonstrated sensitivity to human feelings, as evident in breeds ranging from care dogs to seeing eye dogs to guard dogs. Armageddon had grown that sensitivity to the point that the dogs were born better trained than ever thought possible.
And what have the K9s sensed of late from their human masters?
Desperation. Fear. All of it focused on Voggoth’s advancing legions.
One last great mustering of power. The war would be humanity’s to win or lose, but the fantastic Grenadiers offered one final contribution. The only type of contribution they could make in a conflict that had grown into air power and armor and artillery: a deluge aimed at The Order’s lines surrounding General Rhodes’ trapped unit.
They continued to come, stretching from horizon in the east to horizon in the west. Easily a hundred thousand four-legged warriors.
“Cassy!”
General Simms kept her glazed eyes on the Grenadier army as its tail end passed.
“General Simms!”
“What? Huh?”
“Get to your cavalry. Saddle up. I’m going to call in air support and give Rhodes the heads up. We have to move. Now!”
“What are you talking about? What’s going on?”
For the first time in days, General Shepherd smiled in a cocky grin. He thought of their old departed friend Stonewall McAllister and answered in words that might have come from that gallant gentleman’s vocabulary. “We’ve got a battle to fight, General. And it’s going to be glorious.”
A line of twenty alien turrets stood alongside Highway 135 mirroring the telephone poles sharing that stretch of road. They reached as tall as a street light and resembled the upper half of the letter ‘S’ in design with steel-like ribs lining their frames. The outer surface mixed black metal and red flesh. Coils and tubes wrapped around each turret rising from a belt of white-glowing energy sacks. Mounds of dirt surrounded the base of each turret, a tribute to how recently they had burrowed into the ground.
Behind this line rose a trio of hastily-grown structures resembling dead trees with trunks and limbs several feet in diameter. Holes like honeycombs encircled their ‘trunks’, iron pipes created a sort of exoskeleton around the entire structure, and morbid seed-shaped growths hung from the branches.
Thus stood the eastern most mark of Voggoth’s advance and the outer ring of encirclement around the 13 ^ th Mechanized Division.
The Grenadiers-the ocean of K9s stretching back to the horizon-poured across the fields of Kansas toward that line. The ground shook; a rumble filled the air.
At 500 yards, a light at the top of one turret, then another, then all blinked on and a muffled, moaning alarm echoed along the perimeter.
The turrets went into action firing short, sharp bursts of energy like shiny daggers cutting overtop the plains and slicing into the attackers. The bolts cut dogs in two, tore off legs, and decapitated more. But the great mob kept coming.
The tree-like dispenser buildings activated. From the honeycombs rolled dozens of balls that stopped, sprouted legs, and grew into the Spider Sentries encountered wherever The Order lurked. The Daddy-long-legs-like creatures grew twin rows of tiny gun barrels on the round orbs that served as heads as well as a pointed ‘nose’ attached to a rope-like skewer for close-combat.
From the seed-like sacks on the ‘limbs’ of the dispensers drooped large green bulbs easily mistaken for discolored bees nests or the rotting remains of Gypsy Moth cocoons.
The bulbs hit the ground where they shimmied and curled open with a soft crackle. Vile liquid dripped in long, stringy strands as greenish spheres birthed from the sickly wombs.
From each of the spheres lying among the dead grass of the field sprouted a trio of sharp and boney protrusions. They hinged at an unseen joint and returned to the ground, stabbing into the brown land. At the center of each rose a glowing yellow orb alongside a fleshy cylinder sitting on a tendon-like shoulder.
The Heavy Duty Spider Sentries — as classified by The Empire-joined their base-model brethren and filled the gaps between the turrets. While the latter met the canine army with lethal rapid-fire pellet guns, the Heavy Duty versions launched more powerful shot from their shoulder-mounted weapons. The blasts could penetrate the skin of armored vehicles so when they hit K9 bodies those bodies vanished in splashes of gore.
Grenadiers fell, were cut to shreds, and disintegrated into blobs of fir and bone, but the attack did not waver; the line kept coming as more and more dogs stepped over and around wounded and dead comrades with no sense of fear, no falter in their pace.
Voggoth’s turrets glowed red; the Spider Sentries rocked back and forth on their spindly legs. The wave of dogs came to the highway and swept beyond.
One by one the turrets pulled free of the ground and walked on four short legs in retreat, firing as they staggered back. Dogs scrambled onto their bases chewing and gnawing at the tubes and coils until causing fatal malfunctions. One-two-ten fell over like toppling towers.
The Spiders-heavy duty and otherwise-stammered backwards. Dead dog bodies piled up in front of them like sandbags along a river but the Grenadiers kept coming! Relentless! Fearless!
They grabbed onto legs and bit. The nose cones of the Spider Sentries-like spears on a hose-darted out and impaled dogs one after another but they still came; they piled on and over one another searching for an opening to wound the vile monsters. Sentries toppled and disappeared beneath the mob.
Despite killing thousands of K9s, The Order’s line of defense splintered and was swallowed like a rotting beachside boardwalk in a tsunami…
On the northern flank of the Grenadier army, Cassy Simms and 100 of her best riders moved into the bedroom communities south of Newtown. They occupied the burned out duplexes, toppled colonials, and overgrown cul-de-sacs where they dismounted and dug in with machine guns and short-range mortars.
Voggoth’s version of airborne commandos-who had dropped into Newtown during The Order’s move to encircle Rhodes’ unit-marched south intending to hit the attacking K9s and slow their advance. They looked like skeletons of bronze with pulsating innards resembling a combination of clockworks and biological organs. Their solitary round eyes glowed red and they moved on two metallic legs with a combination foot and rubber wheel at the bottom.
The commandos fired from metal tubes mounted on their forearms. A few of their number sported small shoulder-mounted bazookas. During their assault on Newton they had glided to Earth via black bat wings but had since discarded them.
Two hundred of the warped commandos marched into the ruins unaware of the cavalry until they were caught in a well-orchestrated cross fire. Carbine rounds and well-placed pistol shots felled the metallic fighters; mortar shells and fragmentation grenades destroyed more.
The alien beings communicated in voices coming from unseen mouths in a language of static and screeches. Moving fast and agile thanks to the wheels incorporated into their metal feet, the commandos moved between cover, lobbed explosive charges, and returned small arms fire with the same.
Cassy’s fighters eliminated nearly one-third of the unsuspecting enemy in the initial exchange, but the rest found refuge among the ruins and settled into a static battle line. Cassy knew hundreds more enemy reinforcements would come from Newton; she only hoped to buy time…
A rail line ran southwest away from Newtown and, eight miles later, reached the small town of Sedgwick, Kansas. This line-about two miles behind Highway 135-served as the second perimeter of defense and the inner-most ring of containment trapping General Rhodes. The Order situated units all along the line and had established their version of a Forward Operating Base around the Hillside Cemetery on the eastern fringes of town.
Originally, Shep planned to form all his forces into one sharp instrument to punch a hole through the enemy lines that stretched between Newtown and Sedgwick. Things had changed with the Grenadiers’ arrival.
For his first move he had sent Cassy Simms north to the outskirts of Newton to hold off the rather effective enemy commandos and their support units stationed there. He knew she could not delay them forever, but if she could bog them down for a short time the new plan should work, especially considering the size of the hole the K9s aimed to punch in the pocket.
Shepherd led his column south and then west toward Sedgwick on Route 588. Like Cassy Simms to the north, he aimed to draw off a threat to the Grenadiers’ flank and buy time for Rhodes-trapped at Halstead seven miles west of the rail line-to fight his way east to the dogs.
This revised plan paid immediate dividends. Shep’s armor caught The Order in the middle of organizing a counter-attack toward the Grenadiers. Abrams tanks directed by William Rheimmer smashed into a column of the van-sized, six-legged robots known as Roachbots.
Powered by harvested human brains and well-armed for mobile combat, the Roachbots exhibited one trait that made them both more dangerous and less predictable: insanity.
The creatures wore tubular metal frames, a pair of red eyes that mimicked LED displays, and a mouth-like speaker on a front face plate to either side of which rested Gatling guns mounted on swiveling round bases providing a wide firing arc.
In addition to the standard drones, the Roachbot column included Mortarbots. These silver walking mechanical artillery pieces resembled 18 ^ th century cannon wobbling along on a pair of metal legs with their barrels pointing skyward. A face plate similar to those found on a drone was affixed to the bottom of the automatons.
In any case, a column of fifty of the things moved north on Hoover road from the tightly packed bubble-like structures The Order had grown on the grounds of Hillside Cemetery. The robots were just passing through the flattened remains of a housing development when the human tanks locked on and fired from a nearby field.
Shepherd directed his Humvees and infantry-a few with Javelin anti-tank weapons-to a tree line east and northeast of the cemetery and kept Rheimmer’s armor in the open blasting away.
Roachbots-Shep knew-could do serious damage to the K9 advance. They were too tough to bite and could kill from range.
The drones on the road turned east and advanced on the Abrams getting close enough for Shepherd to hear their trademark call in a synthesized growl: A-hehehehe. Meanwhile, the Mortarbots stood off and lobbed explosive shells into the attacking armor.
Shepherd-onboard an APC-used his binoculars to spy both the elevated cemetery and the town of Sedgwick beyond. While the forces there accounted for only a small fraction of Voggoth’s advancing army, The Order had certainly planned its encirclement of Rhodes well.
A giant mushroom-shaped guardian rose from the grounds of the cemetery. One ugly eye drooped from the cap of the creature and surveyed the puny beings daring to attack its base.
The dome on the guardian shook, vibrated, and then spewed a volley of hundreds of sharp disc-shaped projectiles like circular saw blades thrown as Frisbees. Some of those blades flew into the trees aiming for the infantry but the branches provided significant cover. Other blades hit the tanks in the field where some stuck into armor but did no serious damage.
A moment later the top of the mushroom-the cap-exploded with two fireballs as an A-10 Warthog swooped from the heavens and struck. What the missiles failed to finish the A-10’s guns did: the plane strafed the Guardian with thousands of rounds ripping its hide to pieces and sending it toppling.
Shepherd smiled but, at the same time, he saw more Roachbots, a variety of Spider Sentries, and the gray-skinned muscle-bound Ogres forming up on Rt. 588 in Sedgwick…
General Rhodes’ men mustered on the Halstead High School athletic field that happened to be ringed by a strangely blue-colored track. For more than three days, now, the high school and that field served as their base of operations after they had fortified Halstead from threats on all sides.
However, word came that it was time to make their escape. The sounds of battle to the northeast at Newton, to the southeast at Sedgwick, and directly to the east provided motivation to get moving, as did any glance to the west of town. General Rhodes saw black storm clouds gathering there. A sure sign that The Order’s main force-Leviathan and all-approached.
His forces packed up and drove east in an assortment of vehicles ranging from military Humvees and armored cars to an old school bus as well as deuce-and-a-half trucks. While he abandoned much of his heavy equipment, Rhodes did manage to evacuate all of his wounded.
The ragtag column headed east along CR-576, leaving behind nearly 200 freshly dug graves on the high school’s west lawn…
The army of Grenadiers hit the enemy defenses along the rail line like a wave crashing into rocks. Turrets and spider sentries, the assimilated humans known as monks, as well as a pair of towering mushroom-shaped Guardians met the assault. Air support in the form of Screamers launched from points west and the floating blobs known as Chariots provided additional support for the enemy position.
Hastily deployed bouncer mines east of the tracks broke up the initial surge but the K9s kept coming. They died at the rate of 100 every minute, but refused to yield…
In the suburbs of Newton, the half-robot/half animal commandos were reinforced by a trio of eight-foot-tall creatures wearing hooded cloaks and blasting liquid fire from arms that sported round baffles.
Simms recognized the creatures from the report filed by Nina Forest and Gordon Knox after their adventure in Mexico last year. The robotic creatures received the official designation of Erasers. They moved slow and fired even slower but their heavy blasters could eradicate all but the most hardened bunkers.
The Erasers tore apart her front lines with a series of energy streams. However, an AC-130 circled the battlefield in the burned-out suburbs for ten minutes and managed to destroy two of the three hooded robots before the plane suffered enough damage to chase it away.
By midafternoon the cavalry’s hard points were broken and casualties hit 30 %. Cassy had to order a retreat for the legendary Stonewall’s brigades, but she knew they had accomplished their task.
Despite dozens of sorties from Apache attack helicopters and A-10 Warthog armor-killers, General Shepherd lost half of his armored vehicles and a third of his personnel before pulling back under the cover of a fuel-air bomb that obliterated The Order’s base at the cemetery.
As the afternoon changed to evening, General Rhodes’ escaping columns crossed Highway 135 after passing through the ranks of the westward-swarming K9 army.
Just before nightfall the Grenadiers finished off the last of the ground-based defenders along the rail line as well as a legion of enemy reinforcements from Newton and Sedgwick. By then only 10,000 of the fierce dogs remained, but General Rhodes’ men had made it safely out of the pocket and both relief forces retreated unmolested.
Yet still, the K9s did not stop. They continued to march, beyond the ability of Shepherd or the military to track their movement. The retreating humans only knew that all through the night the sounds of battle could be heard to the west and, come the next morning, The Order had not yet returned to their previous line at 135. Something had given them pause; slowed them; wounded them.
So ended the march of the Grenadiers.
Humanity stood alone.