The southern half of the National Beef processing plant existed only as ruins: a few standing exterior walls resembling cheap sets on a stage play, jumbles of felled steel beams, collapsed walkways, and melted machinery. Like Air Force bases and bivouacked armies, The Order saw food production facilities as targets for their bombers and artillery. And while the processing plant had never reached its pre-Armageddon levels of output, it had distributed thousands of tons of meat products for The Empire’s population prior to its most recent evacuation.
In contrast to the southern half, the northern half of the plant remained fairly intact albeit open to the elements. From the shadows there came Nina Forest running through the beams of dawn’s first light between debris piles and darting behind an overturned, rusted conveyor belt just as a large explosion sent shrapnel and dirt flying all into the air.
She did not stop, however, and neither did Vince Caesar who paralleled her charge a dozen yards to her left as they advanced toward Route 400 on the southeastern edge of Dodge City, Kansas.
Working in unison, the two sprinted from what would have been the outer wall of the meat plant and across what had once been the employee parking lot.
Two more explosions tried to halt their progress. One sent the remains of a Volkswagen spinning over Nina’s head, another caused an ancient light poll to bend then topple.
Nina leapt over a heap of metal and rubber that might have once been a Chevy S-10 pickup and raced toward a jackknifed 18-wheeler so fast that her momentum only stopped when she slammed shoulder-first into the toppled truck’s roof. Another explosion-just six feet in front of her-let fly a lethal halo of metal and rock.
She huffed several deep breaths, nearly gagging in the process: the stench of spoiled meat loitered over the entire complex making her stomach churn.
Her black BDU’s showed the signs of four days’ worth of guerrilla fighting behind enemy lines; mud and blood stains and a frayed utility belt. The glimmer of the sword strapped to her thigh seemed dulled through overuse.
She fit her black beret a tighter on her head and then looked over to Vince. He huffed, too, while kneeling in the cover of a rusting dumpster.
Next she glanced around the front grille of the dead truck and took stock of the opposition. The enemy supply convoy stood still on Route 400-also known as East Trail Street-exactly as the ambush plan anticipated. The explosives had turned the lead vehicle into a jumble of wires, veins, muscles, and wheels while digging a deep trench across the pavement.
The second vehicle had done as anticipated, too, in swerving into the field to the south in order to circumvent the disabled leader. The landmines there blasted four of the eight wheels off the boat-like truck and left it sideways with its contents of various sized spheres spilling out.
Three vehicles remained, two of which were more of the greenish canoe-like transports with eight wood-looking (but not) wheels.
The third-the one in the middle-presented the greatest challenge. This escort car wore shell-like armor and rode on a cushion of air very close to the ground. On top rested a circular turret with a small barrel that fired high-velocity rounds capable of ripping open the best ballistic armor. To the rear of the tank-sized craft swiveled a tube that delivered explosive shells at the attackers.
Six of the robed monks with their swords and forearm-mounted pellet guns took cover to either side of the escort tank while one of the gray-skinned Ogre fellows stood blazingly in the open, prepared to take on all who dared.
The turret saw Nina peaking and opened fire. She pulled her head back just as a series of shots ricocheted off the MACK grille.
She closed her eyes and drew a tactical map in her mind from memory. She saw the lot of broken cars between her and the road. She knew they needed to keep the enemy’s attention for Carl Bly’s sake; any moment he would reveal his position in the tree line to the convoy’s southeast and would be easy prey for the turret should his Javelin miss.
Nina heard the sound of Oliver Maddock’s high-powered sniper rifle firing from somewhere among the ruins. She knew if he pulled the trigger he most certainly found a kill. But she also knew those high-powered rounds would not pierce the belly of the Ogre from distance, so he must have killed a monk.
Any thoughts of pity or hesitation in killing The Order’s monks had faded years before. By the time assimilated humans were equipped with the arm-mounted pellet guns they had passed the point of salvation. The long-departed Reverend Johnny-an expert of Voggoth’s machinations-had taught as much.
Reverend Johnny-he pulled the implant from me…
Nina felt a little light headed. Perhaps due to the stench of rotting beef.
She shook away the cobwebs and turned toward Vince. He waited for instructions. She needed him to circle further to the east: a couple of cargo trailers over there could provide cover.
Nina used hand signals. She pointed toward Vince and then used her fingers to make a walking motion…
Nina pointed to Trevor, then at her own eyes with both fingers, then made a walking motion with her fingers, then motioned toward the building.
In essence, she told Trevor to peek in one of the windows to ascertain the situation.
Trevor made an okay sign then surprised her by waving a flat hand over his head.
Nina bit her lower lip.
Stone had signaled that he understood and then told her to cover this area…
Vince gaped at Nina. She held her hand in the air halfway through a series of hand signals but distracted by-by what? A memory? A memory of something that happened a long time ago. Something during that first year.
Nina closed her eyes and tried to remember but the ghosts vanished as quickly as they came. The act of giving Vince hand signals had served as a prompt to summon those recollections from the recesses of her mind, but whether those memories belonged to her or had escaped to her mind during its connection to Trevor, she did not know.
The sound of another high-powered rifle shot brought her into focus again. She finished relaying orders to Vince and he moved off to his left, working through the remains of abandoned cars. Nina acted to draw the enemy’s attention.
She loaded a round in to her M203 launcher mounted under the M4’s barrel, stepped around the grill of the overturned truck, and delivered a grenade at the enemy convoy. It hit between the Ogre and the tank. The gray-skinned creature flinched and wobbled as the shrapnel dug into its back, but it did not fall.
The tank’s turret locked on and fired at Nina. The pellets tore into the engine compartment of the truck. She fired one more shot that missed high and then retreated to cover again.
Then came the really big explosion and the turret stopped firing.
But the sniper rifle fired-and fired-and fired.
Nina came around the truck with her weapon raised. The shell-covered tank burned blue and green smoke into the partly cloudy sky, the result of a well-placed Javelin shot from Carl Bly’s anti-tank weapon fired from his ambush position on the far side of the convoy.
Nina could have sworn she heard a cry of agony escape from the burning vehicle, but she could not be sure. Regardless, the monks scattered from the blaze, two already on fire and done for. Caesar-advancing parallel to Nina-dropped two more as they ran blindly in his direction. Maddock’s sniper rifle finished off the remaining monks from distance.
The Ogre stood alone with only its sheer strength as a weapon.
Nina and Vince Caesar approached it from opposite sides. The monster alternated attention between the two.
A sniper rifle round hit the thing’s chest. It staggered and a piece of gray about the size of a dollar bill fell from its body, but so did the splintered bullet.
Nina whistled.
Odin and two more elkhounds came from their hiding places in the parking lot.
Two thousand years prior, the Vikings used Norwegian elkhounds to hunt moose and bear the same way Nina now used them to hunt the Ogre. They ran at the beast, barked, and dodged its swings and kicks. Not attacking, but distracting.
Vince fired at its head, causing the thing to whiplash.
“Save your ammunition,” she ordered because she knew they would not get another supply drop for two days. “I’ve got this.”
Nina dropped her assault rifle and pulled her sword. The Ogre gave her a glance but the K9s kept its attention diverted. Caesar stepped closer, pulled the Mac-11 machine pistol he wore-like Nina-in a shoulder holster, and readied to offer her support if needed.
The dogs and Nina worked in concert. She ran in, they barked and backed off just as the monster punched at them, and she slashed the creature across the knee with her blade. It appeared Ogres were more susceptible to edged weapons than bullets.
It growled and stepped toward her but Odin bound in front of it and the old dog nipped its arm, then escaped before the creature could retaliate.
With its attention elsewhere again Nina stepped in, hacked, and opened a wound on its back from neck to ass. A red liquid that tried hard to mimic blood oozed from the wound and dripped on the road. The Ogre howled and turned to her.
The dogs ripped its lower legs from behind. It stomped and missed.
Nina swung again aiming high to decapitate the eight-foot-tall humanoid. Her blade hit true, but stuck in its throat like an axe into a tree.
It gurgled and stammered. She struggled to hold on to her blade as it remained lodged in the creature’s throat. The Ogre grabbed the sword with its large hands and, with a grunt, pulled it free, shoving it toward her with great strength.
Nina-her weapon in hand-fell backwards to the ground but turned the topple into a roll and ended facing her foe from one knee.
The Ogre stood defiantly for a moment-then the phony-blood poured from its throat, down its chest, and to the ground. Even the brave K9s backed away from the foul-smelling bile. The muscle-bound monster dropped to the ground dead-or whatever passed for death among Voggoth’s children.
Nina recovered her assault rifle while commanding, “Vince, sweep around the back side and cover Carl as he comes in,” she then faced the meat packing plant and waved her arm. Oliver Maddock emerged from a hiding place.
Vince circled around the burning tank and crinkled his nose at the sour roasting smell emanating from the destroyed vehicle. The dogs sniffed at the corpses and when one of the once-human monks twitched they tore out its throat.
Nina approached the rear-most supply vehicle and used her sword to lift a skin-like canvas covering the top of the canoe-shaped vehicle with eight wheels. Underneath the tarp she found a nest of gray balls of various sizes. She knew these to be ammunition for the coral-like artillery platforms, the Ogres’ slings, and various forms of Voggoth’s heavy guns.
“Tres funk, Captain,” Maddock spoke in Welsh slang with a light heart as he approached Nina and the convoy. “Of course, Carl won’t shut his cakehole all day about hittin’ the bastard right-on like that.”
Nina did not care if Carl Bly boasted or what Oliver Maddock thought about it, she just knew they had taken out another of The Order’s convoys. She only wished she could convince herself that it made a difference.
“Arty balls over here,” she said as Carl approached the last remaining cargo-hauler forward of the burning tank. “What you got?”
He peaked under the canvas and his nose curled.
“Seeds,” he answered. “Smells like more goddamn nest seeds. I think The Order is movin’ their farms east.”
“Then that’s our next target,” Nina answered as the remaining two members-including a smiling Carl Bly-joined her alongside the road. “I’m just sayin’, I want to start hitting things that make the bastards say ‘ouch’. We’ve got bridges, patrols, and a couple of these convoys. I want something bigger.”
She gave each man a good look in the eye and then ordered, “Vince, Carl, burn the bitches. Then we’ll break down the gear and hump outta here.”
While Nina, Oliver, and the dogs retreated toward their hideaway in the meat plant, Oliver and Carl Bly tossed small canisters into each of the remaining vehicles.
“Fire in the hole!” Bly warned.
Nina walked backwards to watch the show. She whispered an imitation of a howl that might just come from the wolf’s head with ruby eyes patched on her shoulder.
“Aaaawwooooo…”
The canisters exploded turning the remaining vehicles into fireballs. A horrible screeching sound came from the transport hauling Voggoth’s seeds. The second vehicle ripped apart as its contents caught fire and detonated. Smoke from the burning convoy rose a thousand feet into the morning sky, mixing black soot with gray cloud…
The Dark Wolves found a garage with several four-wheel all-terrain vehicles and siphoned gas from nearby cars. They used a couple of towed wooden carts to carry the three elkhounds that comprised the non-human contingent of their SpecOps team and equipment.
They traveled northeast for the first part of the day along a route that, according to Vince Caesar, followed the Santa Fe trail of Old West days.
In order to avoid the searching eyes of a flying Chariot the team hid in a farm house’s tornado cellar for an hour, taking that time to have an early lunch of tinned rations and dried meat. Later that afternoon a column of Voggoth’s monks backed by Spider Sentries blocked Route 50 around Spearville.
Nina, in response, moved her unit south and across a stretch of fields and rolling hills. They made slow progress and, due to several more Chariots scouring the area, abandoned their vehicles and moved on foot, lugging their equipment on their backs.
Just before sunset the Dark Wolves sheltered inside the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church at Windhorst. Nina spied a keystone dated May 4, 1912 and marveled at how the magnificent stone and brick building had survived not only time, but Armageddon, The Empire, and now Voggoth’s great march east seemingly without a scratch.
A little before midnight the K9s raised the alarm as a group of five human refugees sought shelter in the church, too. Nina noted that they were escaping west, not east. When the refugees told them why, Nina knew she had found their next target and hurriedly rigged a transmitter to contact air command…
Nina stood in a patch of warped, dying woods and watched the target through binoculars. It sat in the center of what had once been nine holes of fairways and sand traps. But now the greens of the Kinsley Country Club were cracked and brown not merely from negligence, but from the infection of Voggoth’s machines.
Most of the sky above remained blue, but overhead of the large structure at the middle of the club’s grounds a thunderhead of black churned to life.
The Order’s building stood 30 feet high and covered an area of 50 square yards. To Nina’s eye, it resembled a bronze and black snow globe held in a greenish base lined with bony ribs and covered in strands of yellow like a fishnet.
Cords slithered away from the centerpiece in a circular pattern resembling roots from a diseased tree. Rows of white fungi-like growths bubbled out from those roots, pulsating as if the sacs breathed, although Nina knew that to be a hideous irony.
She counted hundreds of Voggoth’s offspring squirming and growing across this farm. The entire field smelled of decay. Flies swarmed like deranged bees trying to pollinate the dead.
As she viewed those incubators she saw not only artificial flesh and gore but materials resembling iron and steel: a stark reminder that the biology of The Order’s machines defied any attempt to classify it as natural or alive.
Using her field glasses, Nina surveyed a pair of domes planted in the ground just outside the ring of growths. She knew these to be guardians that would rise up to face any ground threat. Further off, a tree-like dispenser unit sat ready to launch Spider Sentries at the first alarm.
None of those defenses mattered to Captain Forest because she saw the opportunity to truly hurt The Order. In a few days this farm would hatch Ogres and maybe artillery platform components, and perhaps worse.
Nina dropped her binoculars, glanced down to her left at Vince Caesar and pointed forward. Vince knelt behind a small camera-like device mounted on short tripod legs. He put his eye to the lens and followed his Captain’s direction. Coded pulses of laser light shot out from the targeting device and bounced off the big ball at the center of the farm.
Nina spoke into a transmitter, “Angel Eyes, this is Wolf. We have painted the target…”
Five miles back and high in the sky an F-15 barrel-rolled as it descended through a layer of misty-white clouds. The bombs beneath its wings glinted in the sun for a moment before the craft leveled and steadied course.
The female pilot waited for a target lock indication from the onboard LANTIRN system. When she heard that tone, she released a set of PAVEWAY II precision-guided bombs from weapons pods beneath the wings. The smart bombs glided away with their guidance systems locked on to the laser signal…
Nina dropped to the ground for cover as she saw the bombs fall at their target, which they hit perfectly. The center of The Order’s farm disintegrated in an explosion that began in golden flames and morphed into a cloud of brown and black. The thunderclap of the strike reverberated across the country club grounds and to the surrounding Kansas plains. The impact tremor caused a gray, dead tree not far from Nina’s position to crash over.
As the remaining pieces of the main structure collapsed into a pile, the buds on the tendrils bulged and rocked as if something trapped within tried to escape the embryos. Muffled cries-some animal-like, others closer to mechanical whirs-called from the field of dead.
Nina brought the binoculars to her eyes and delighted in the death throes of Voggoth’s children.
A shower of soil and biomass fell over the wasteland as the explosion faded. As Nina watched, she spied something amazing. There-surrounded by the brown earth and sickly tendrils of the dying farm-a bachelor’s button with its blue, starburst-like flower stubbornly refusing to yield its piece of land despite the encroachment of The Order’s sinister vines to either side.
A kernel of life surviving in the midst of death incarnate.
The roar of the F-15 swooping low to survey its handiwork drew Nina’s eyes to the sky. The plane’s wings rocked quick in a secret salute to its spotters and then banked hard and climbed. Nina saw missiles under its wings-the cockpit-the pilot steering her aircraft…
“You guys need a little help down there?”
Nina radioed Jon Brewer who responded, “Damn straight, Ghost Rider. Tear em’ up!”
Trevor sat in the forward seat controlling the gunship’s armaments. Gunner and pilot both wore night vision goggles.
Nina swerved the ship around searching for targets.
“Hold.”
She responded to Trevor’s order and held the craft steady.
The rapid-fire cannon whirled and bullets flew. Two enemy soldiers and the parked car they hid behind shredded to pieces.
“Starboard! Starboard!”
Trevor turned the gun sights to his right at Nina’s warning. A trio of Redcoats stood inside the windows of the electronics outlet, apparently thinking the darkness provided cover.
The ‘copter’s gun fired again. Glass smashed, parts of the store’s ceiling fell, and the aliens broke apart…
The F-15 fired its afterburners and sped east hurrying to return to friendly skies.
“Nina! Captain!”
“What? Huh?”
Nina shook away her trance and saw Vince packing up his targeting gear.
“I said, Voggoth’s boys are getting agitated over there. We should bug out before they figure the bomber must’ve had a spotter.”
“Yeah. Okay, um, yeah,” she regained her composure. “Move out to the south then hook east. Move it!”
Nina and her team withdrew from the Kinsley Country Club without incident, moving a mile south before following Country Road 30 east for about five miles. There they stumbled upon a dented but still working Dodge Ram with a cab on the back. Two badly-picked at corpses lay on the road alongside the truck, including one with a hunting rifle in his or her hand.
The canines and gear rode in the back, the Dark Wolves crammed into the crew cab up front, and they traveled north all afternoon with the occasional stop to take cover.
Early that evening one of the blob-like Chariots spotted the Dodge and opened fire with The Order’s equivalent of a machine gun. The team attempted to evade the airship on the streets of the tiny hamlet of Lewis, Kansas. The Chariot gave up the chase when Vince Caesar-behind the wheel-worked his way among the silos and cargo trailers of a cattle feed storage and distribution center.
After abandoning their car for lack of fuel the Dark Wolves proceeded north on foot. That night the team camped at the edge of Coon Creek outside of Garfield. Vince built a small fire and they boiled jerky in tin cups to try and moisten the meat. It did not work. They ate it anyway.
As dinner finished Nina sat against a tree and stared out at the field and the sparkling heavens above. She had never taken much interest in astronomy but could knew how to find the big dipper, the North Star, and a few others not because she held an interest in the universe, but because such points could serve as navigation aids.
On that night, however, she tried to see something more up there. She scanned the lights scattered on that black tapestry. She tried to comprehend that many of the armies who invaded her planet eleven years ago came from some of those stars. She wondered why the idea of alien invaders had not knocked her off balance during those first days when even the most veteran soldiers struggled with the idea of fighting monsters and extraterrestrials.
A cool breeze billowed across the field causing the rows of knee-high grass to bend and sway. Behind her the men sat around a dim fire and talked about the mission, what might be happening on the front lines, and sentiments for back home.
She heard Bly make a joke about how he should have been an accountant instead of a soldier. Caesar replied that he could not imagine being anything else. Maddock said he had a dream one night about being born a circus clown to which Bly offered a series of remarks that led to good-natured insults and a laughter.
Nina wondered about her dreams. She rarely had them. Or, at least, rarely remembered them. Often times she woke with emotions fresh in her mind but no idea about the substance of her sleeping fantasies.
She closed her eyes. The breeze draped over her. Her mind drifted…
“And where would we have lived?” Trevor asked.
“Hmmm,” she smiled. “Well, Philly of course.”
“Because that’s where you worked?”
“Well, I mean, I was a cop, you were-“
“A car salesman. I know, I know.”
“Philly is a great place. Lots of things to do. We could go to the zoo. Catch a Phillies game. Stroll through the museum.”
“Now that’s a funny image,” he laughed. “You and I, strolling through the zoo. After all we’ve seen I think a couple of giraffes would be kind of anti-climactic.”
“This is a different world,” Nina whispered. “A world where I’m not a soldier, and you’re not a leader. It’s a dream world. We’re we could just be together. No responsibilities.”
He put his hand on her cheek.
“That’s a lovely world. A wonderful dream.”
She wrung her hands.
“And after tomorrow, you get to dream it. I won’t remember enough to want to dream.”
“Memories make us who we are. Take them away, and you change the person…”
Nina’s eyes snapped open. A feeling of warmth mixed in her heart with frustration; frustration that something important was stripped from her.
Her words-spoken seemingly by another woman-replayed, “This is a different world. A world where I’m not a soldier, and you’re not a leader. It’s a dream world. We’re we could just be together.”
Nina checked herself and considered. Could it be true? As far back as she could remember she had only wished to be a fighter. It encompassed all she was. Her reflexes, her eye for battle, her instincts-all smaller parts of the greater sum of a soldier. And she had never considered any other possibility. Sure, she had faked her way through school and kept her true self hidden, but never had she denied the fabric of her person.
Now she wondered-is there more?
Nina shook her head.
Now is not the time to think of these things.
For a soldier, confusion could prove deadly and she found more confusion in her heart than ever before.
She pushed hard. She pushed hard to kick any doubts-no, not doubts. Hope. Hope for being more. For having more in her life the way Denise had given her more. Having a daughter had not made her any less of a soldier. In fact, she accomplished more in the years with Denise than in all the time before. Denise gave her a reason to fight other than instinct. A real purpose.
“Hey, Captain,” Carl Bly’s voice pulled Nina from her thoughts. She appreciated the interruption.
“Yes, Carl,” she answered sarcastically, “You made a hell of a shot with that Javelin the other day. Now shut up about it.”
Oliver Maddock found that very funny.
Nina knew Carl had not been bragging again, but it felt like the right moment for a joke. She had one or two such moments a month.
She stood, walked to the dying fire, and sat next to them.
“Shit, Cap, I was just wondering where we’re headed.”
They knew she had received a list of possible targets during a radio transmission earlier. Their choice of missions remained entirely at her discretion with the occasional intel reports from command serving only as suggestions.
“We’re heading further north. Seems Voggoth has got an implant camp out at Fort Larned. I want to hit them.”
“Whew,” Carl reacted. “Implants? Won’t that have some heavy stuff guarding it?”
“No,” Nina shook her head. “Nothing to it. They grab a bunch of unarmed folks and march them up there to get a slug slipped in. Probably light infantry. Easy target if we do it right and along the way, well, I’m just saying we can save a lot of people who would otherwise be monks.”
“Love it,” Caesar grinned.
They grew silent as the soldiers contemplated the next mission.
A thought popped in to Nina’s mind. A question, actually. She could not be sure from where it came, but it slipped out of her lips and around the fire before she could stop.
“What do you guys miss from before all this?”
They stared, confused at the question.
Vince asked, “What, well, what do you mean?”
“You know,” Nina felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment but she suspected the dim light hid her blushing, “what do you miss from before the invasion and stuff. You know- all this.”
The other Dark Wolves knew the expression ‘all this’, but never once had their Captain shown any interest in life before Armageddon.
The way the men gaped at her-well it made Nina wish for a Stumphide to come charging from the forest and cause a firefight to break out.
“That was a long time ago,” Bly said. “Not sure I can even remember what that was like.”
“The mountains back home,” Oliver Maddock answered in a different tone; softer. In the orange flicker of the fire, Nina saw his eyes glaze over. “We rock-climbed Snowdown-that’s the biggest bloody mountain in all of Wales-a couple o’ times before I joined up.”
“Who was ‘we’?” Nina asked.
Maddock shrugged. “Just a girl-well, she was a little younger than me but we grew up together outside of Cardiff. Gentle creature; foxy one she was; far too good for the likes of me.”
Bly joked, “Now how come you never went talking about no girl before. Afraid I’d swim over there and steal her away?”
Maddock smiled through a fog of lost memories as he answered, “Never anythin’ serious, you hear? I ‘spose I always hoped it would be. She had this way ‘bout her. She could look at you and it was like she was lookin’ right through ya’. You know what I’m sayin’? Last time I saw Cai we spent the day down along Three Cliffs Bay before I shipped ‘cross the pound to hang out with you trogs.”
“Best move you ever made, limy,” Carl Bly slapped Oliver on the back.
“Yeah, well, the shit hit the fan and that’s ‘bout the end of that story, mun.”
“What about you, Captain?” Vince asked and he studied Nina close, as if hoping to peel away another layer of his mysterious leader. “What do you miss?”
Nina shook her head. For a split second the answer ‘pineapple’ came to her mind but she could not fathom why.
“I don’t know. I honestly-I honestly don’t know.”
“Captain was born for this shit,” Bly grinned. “Hell, yeah, if it weren’t for all this, she’d be bored to hell.”
A few chuckles broke out. Nina flashed a timid smile.
Fort Larned sat on flat ground five miles west of Larned, Kansas and just south of Route 156. An access road cut from 156 through a tree line then across fifty yards of grassland to the fort’s buildings which were arranged in a square shape around a large courtyard. Light woodlands brushed against the eastern and western perimeter while the south offered wide open plains and a clear field of vision for the defenders.
Nina, Vince Caesar, and the three elkhounds hid in cover to the west; Bly and Maddock to the east.
Nina spied one Spider Sentry walking on its spindly legs across the courtyard and one of the muscle-bound gray-skinned Ogres. Unlike the one guarding the convoy, this Ogre carried a giant iron mace with a spiked cube at the end.
Most of the facility’s garrison consisted of monks dressed in various shades of cloth stitched to resemble robes. Nina expected they wore lethal pellet-guns on their forearms but she saw each wielding The Order’s weapon of choice: swords, although their blades lacked any sense of style or even a true hilt; merely thin, sharp poles.
In any case, she stopped counting monks at 20 because a more important count grabbed her attention: people.
They came in a variety of shapes and sizes. Through her binoculars she saw several elderly men wearing clothes that gave them away as farmers, a teenage boy in ripped jeans, a soldier in green BDUs with his arm in a sling, a young couple with a daughter no more than eight clinging to her parents. The monks herded the group out from the barracks toward a bent flag pole at the center of the courtyard.
Nina watched one of the assimilated monks shove a middle-aged woman. She spotted a couple of young black boys try and slip around a corner only to be turned back by the Ogre.
She counted 20 human beings congregating in the middle of the place. Nina heard sobs, pleas for mercy, and moans of agony.
Her binoculars fixed on one of the two larger buildings on the north side; the Company Officers Quarters. The stately white rails along the front porch were now covered in wiry vines that grew like a cancer upon the vintage 1800s structure. The openings where doors and windows had once been now appeared more like cave entrances laced in a thick buildup of slimy green mold.
Implant incubator, she thought. And she knew the people in the courtyard would be sent inside that chamber of horrors in small groups.
The Order did not need such assembly lines; implants could worm their way into the hide of victims easily enough, but these assembly lines both improved the odds of successful implantation and allowed for faster processing of prisoners.
However, Nina found it odd that she saw only 20 people preparing for implantation. That seemed a small catch for an implant center. It struck her that Voggoth appeared most focused on destruction as part of his push east, not assimilation. This contradicted their contact with The Order during those first years. In those days The Order would kill, yes, but they preferred to capture and control, as if implanting and mutating humanity better served Voggoth.
“Do not fear, my children!”
The voice came from a woman wearing a dark robe and gliding among the hostages. “Be comforted, friends, for you will soon be one with the living God.”
Cries of ‘no’ and ‘please’ and ‘I’ll do whatever you want. just let me go!’ rang out.
Nina used binoculars to eye the speaker: a middle aged woman with a drawn face and thin long fingers. She spoke in a booming voice that made Nina think of radio preachers from the pre-war days dictating the gospel across late night air waves.
“Do not fear! Soon you will know the touch of Voggoth!”
Nina heard more voices, just below that of the missionary woman. She could not quite understand those voices-she concentrated and closed her eyes-a memory from long ago came to the front of her mind; something from a long time ago…
“I can’t hold it steady! We’re leaking hydraulic fluid!”
“Goddamn it, I knew you’d get me killed you dumb bitch!”
“Merede! Scott! Shut your ass or I swear on Mary’s name I’ll choke the hell out of you with my bare hands!”
“Scott, Sal, quiet! Nina, we gotta find somewhere to set her down. I’m thinkin’ just about anythin’ flat will do. Wait-look, to the right here-there’s a pad on that hospital roof.”
“Shep, I don’t think we can-“
“Just try, Nina. I reckon’ that and prayin’ is about all we have left.”
Helicopter blades-a gunning engine-shouts and grunts…
“You missed! Goddamn-“
“I can’t control it-power is almost-almost gone.”
“Nina! The parking garage. Aim for it!”
A horrid metallic screech. Glass splintering. A cry of pain. A scraping sound…
She tried to re-focus on the woman preaching the virtues of Voggoth to a terrified crowd of human prisoners. Instead, she felt pressure on her throat-on her wrists-and heard voices in the dark…
“She is quite strong. She will do nicely.”
“But your Excellency, she is very dangerous. She destroyed many of Voggoth’s children before we could capture her. The male would be easier to-“
“No. He is too weak and shallow-minded. This operation requires much more complex thinking capability in order for the new implant to remain hidden. As for her strength, this is an asset. They will accept her without question.”
“You desire the new procedure? The prototype? Is it not too soon?”
“Yes, the new prototype. It has passed the test on parallel battlefields with other races; it will work here, too. Humans are, in the important ways, identical to the other inferior species. Now do as I command. Then make preparations to return her to the city, somewhere near the crash site.”
“And the male-I shall prepare him for the standard drone implant.”
“No! If they count him among our number in the future, then they will suspect her. As much as it pains me to deny Voggoth another child, terminate him.”
“It will take time, Excellency, to prepare phase two of the process. The memory reconstruction alone will take several hours and-wait, your Excellency, she is conscious.”
“It matters not. She will not remember. Or rather, she will remember only that which we give to her. Proceed. Hello, my child, do not fear for you will serve Voggoth in a most special way…”
Nina’s attention returned to the historic fort, the humans inside, and most especially the missionary who preached the blasphemous word of Voggoth.
She spoke to the trio of K9s, “Odin, Mallow, Campion-decoy!” And she pointed to the north.
As Grenadiers are apt to do, they followed her orders as if they could do more than listen; as if they could read her mind. The black and gray dogs bound away from the cover of the tree line and into daylight. They curved north as they ran, barking when they reached the perimeter of the fort.
The Spider Sentry opened fire; six of the monks-with their pseudo-swords drawn-pursued as the dogs bolted north behind the historical buildings on the western perimeter, just skirting the forest as they ran.
A few hundred yards to the east, Bly and Maddock left their hiding place in the woods. Bly toted an M249 machine gun and dropped on his belly at the northeast corner of the Fort, just to the east of the implant building and opposite the side where the dogs had drawn attention.
At the same time, Maddock moved to the southeast corner with his PSG1 sniper rifle.
The dogs continued to run and the Spider Sentry and monks gave chase in an almost comical fashion. Instead of cutting them off they followed the K9s movements precisely, as if stuck on a path.
Nina Forest and Vince Caesar left cover and advanced from the west coming up behind the pursuing Spider Sentries and monks. Both fired grenades from the M203 launchers under their M4 barrels.
Nina’s grenade landed amidst the monks. A thud of an explosion launched black smoke, discarded swords, and chunks of mutated human bodies against the outer walls of the historic buildings.
Caesar’s grenade hit the spider sentry with brilliant accuracy, severing its rear-most legs and causing the ‘head’ to fall and roll while firing pellets at an insane pace directly into the sky.
The three remaining monks among the pursuit group turned to face the new threat. But so did the K9s, who reversed course and set upon the robed villains from behind. Despite their forearm-mounted firearms, the monks were torn to pieces in a few moments.
As Nina and Vince rounded the corner of one of the stone buildings, the monks in the courtyard opened fire forcing the commandos behind the wall for cover. The corralled humans fled to the south, some entering the barracks others making for the open field.
“Blasphemers! Feel the wrath of the living god!”
Voggoth’s priestess produced two fleshy balls slightly larger than softballs. She threw the objects and they rolled across the dusty courtyard. As they did, the balls expanded in mass, not unlike a cartoon snowball growing larger as it cascades down a slope.
The objects grew to the size of very large beach balls and stopped rolling. Thin appendages pushed through the surface of the balls into the air, bent at some sort of joint, and reached to the ground lifting the round center into the air. Two more Spider Sentries joined the fight.
Instantly, the first one disintegrated as Carl Bly raked the courtyard with light machine gun fire from the northeast. Puss oozed from the ‘face’ of the Sentry and it dropped into a lifeless mess.
The remaining monks-more than a dozen-alternated their attention from corner to corner of the fort. They fired at every human they could see, soldier or civilian; striking down several of the fleeing captives in the process. Meanwhile, the Ogre roared and charged at Carl Bly’s position.
Maddock opened fire with his sniper rifle. In an instant he emptied an entire clip of five bullets, killing three monks in the process.
Nina and Vince poked around the corner of the building and joined the firefight with bullets and anti-personnel grenades. More of the monks died.
The remaining Spider Sentry advanced on Nina’s position. The nose cone on its ‘face’ darted out like a skewer on a hose and slammed into the stone wall of a building, cutting loose a large chunk of rock.
“We need to fall back,” Vince said.
Nina answered with action, not words.
She jumped out from around the building, rolled to a kneel, and launched her M203 directly at the Spider Sentry. The grenade flew wide, arced into the courtyard, and exploded harmlessly a few yards in front of the implant factory.
The monster launched its skewer and fired pellets at the same time. The sharp cone pierced the ground next her feet. The tiny bullets peppered the ground all around her.
Vince followed Nina’s lead. His grenade-as it had with the first Spider-hit true. The ball at the center of the legs broke apart into goo.
On the northeast side, the gray-skinned Ogre charged at Carl Bly’s machine gun. The soldier gave his attention to this threat, hitting the muscle-bound fiend square on in the chest with a series of 5.56 rounds in rapid succession. While the bullets bounced off the creature’s chest, the impacts caused pain and slowed its approach.
Click.
The M249 ran dry. The barrel sizzled with heat.
The wounded Ogre raised its heavy black mace above its head…
Bly pulled his Desert Eagle side arm and fired four shots into the Ogre’s knees. The flesh there exploded. The creature-dazed, exhausted and surprised-dropped its mace and fell to one knee directly in front of the machine gun. It sort of hovered there, not quite ready to die but lacking focus.
Bly calmly pulled a new ammunition box from his kit and slipped it into place on the 249. The whole time the half-dead Ogre swayed side to side with its eyes glazed. Bly smiled at the disabled monster and winked just as he slipped the ammo box into place.
Then he unleashed a firestorm of bullets at nearly point-blank range into the Ogre’s face. It tore the beast apart. Bly then returned his attention to the battle on the courtyard where the last remaining monk fell to Vince Caesar’s assault rifle.
“Carl,” Nina commanded as Bly stepped into the courtyard, “Burn that hole down,” and she pointed to the implant center. “Vince, Oliver, get those civvies back here. We don’t want them running away blind and ending up Jaw-Wolf feed after all we went through to save them.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You will kneel before the great Voggoth.”
The priestess-wounded from a sniper round-hobbled in retreat from Nina.
Nina switched out the clip on her M4.
“Feel his wrath!”
Squirming tentacles burst from the once-human woman’s neck; grayish appendages on which rode an acid-smell.
Nina filled the priestess with bullets in a series of three-round bursts…
Smoke rose from the burning implant center and drifted into the afternoon sky. It filled the area around Fort Larned with a foul, bitter stench.
The Dark Wolves moved the survivors a hundred yards east of the Fort where they waited in a clearing surrounded by trees.
The plume of smoke rising from The Order’s torched facility not only gave Nina a sense of satisfaction, it also served a more useful purpose: a beacon.
Nina heard high-pitched jet engines and glanced up. A C-141 Starlifter passed over their position. From the big plane dropped a pallet of supplies. A heavy parachute opened and while the cargo plane turned away and headed for home, the supplies drifted in the afternoon sunshine until coming to rest with uncanny accuracy among the group of survivors and soldiers.
Nina stood at the perimeter of the group watching The Order’s facility burn. Filthy embers from the inferno drifted to adjacent buildings and the flames spread. She hated to see such a historical place-a place where soldiers like her had offered travelers on the Santa Fe trail protection and shelter-burn, but that place had been infected by Voggoth. It needed to be purged.
She turned and watched as the other members of her team encouraged the raggedy band of survivors to pull aid kits and food stuffs from the supply crate. At the same time, the soldiers found and removed ammunition and rations from the cache.
With her gun hanging loosely in her tired arms, Nina stepped closer to the group. She saw two people sitting together apart from the rest and showing no interest in the supplies. Nina recognized them. They were the young couple with the little girl.
Nina shot her eyes around the clearing from person to person in a frantic search for the daughter, but she was nowhere to be found.
She stared at the young couple who sat beneath the shade of a hickory tree. The woman had long but very dirty hair and blood splashed on her arms. The man appeared even worse; wounds from monk pellets peppered his shoulders and arms. None appeared lethal, but all appeared painful.
Yet it seemed he did not even notice the injuries. His mouth worked open but no sound came, his eyes cringed and his fingers flexed into fists, open again, then closed one after another. She saw tears streaming down his cheek.
In his grief, the man fell into the woman’s lap. To Nina, the woman appeared shell-shocked and sad but strong. She kept her own heartache at bay and held the man in her lap, stroking his hair gently and whispering something-some attempt at comfort-into his ear.
The sight amazed Nina. Such strength, but such compassion. She wondered-she wondered if she…
“I am tired of this game! I don’t want to be the leader anymore. I don’t want to have peoples’ lives depending on what I say. I don’t want to fight anymore. I want to go hide and cry myself to sleep. I don’t want to be strong and sure and none of that shit ANY-MORE!”
Nina said nothing. What could she say?
“There’s your great leader, Nina. I’m not the man you think I am. I’m Richard Stone. I sell Chevrolets. I live at home with my parents. I don’t know who this Trevor guy is. I don’t think I like him very much.”
Nina forced an arm around him. He tried to pull free, but she would not let go. She tugged him close. He started to push free again but instead began to sob.
“Let it out-you can-you can let it all out with me. You can try and chase me away, but I’m not going away.”
He buried his face in her lap.
Nina stroked his head and told her lover, “I know Trevor Stone. He’s got a tough job, but he does the best he can; better than anyone else could do. I know it used to be a lonely job but that’s not true anymore. Trevor Stone is never alone as long as I’m here. As for this Richard Stone guy, I’ve seen him from time to time. And you know what? I love him, too. So I don’t care who is here next to me, Trevor or Richard. You don’t have to hide from me. But when you need me to, I’ll hide with you-in the dark.”
Without thought, without planning, Nina found that, yes, she could give comfort to another human being. She could do more than kill; she could deliver mercy, too…
Nina felt the world spin. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to find mental balance. Instead, she heard voices from a past she should not remember; she felt the satisfaction in holding Trevor in her lap and shepherding him through a night of misery. She felt the chill of a December evening as she stood on a balcony in that black dress and he gave her their new world; the world they were trying to remake.
Why now? Why am I remembering all this now?
The bridge to Trevor’s mind through that old man-had that given her Trevor’s memories of them being together or had that power somehow unlocked hidden secrets that survived the removal of the implant? Or was it more? That old man-he was no old man; he was something of much higher power. Being so close to something so powerful-could that be the reason?
“Enough.”
She spoke aloud to herself.
They took control from me when they stole my memories. And now they are returning but I refuse to let them control me. I will not be distracted. I have a mission.
She opened her eyes again and surveyed the ragtag group of survivors rummaging through the supply crate. Vince Caesar approached her with a sealed envelope that had been mixed in with the supplies.
“I think your buddy Gordon Knox sent us something,” Caesar said.
She opened the envelope and found a map and aerial photos.
One of the survivors from the fort approached. It was the man in BDUs with his arm in a sling. The rank on his shoulder said ‘corporal’.
“Excuse me, Captain; can I join up with you? I still have some fight left in me.”
He held his arm in a sling yet Nina wondered if he might not be a better choice than her; at least his mind remained focused on fighting.
No, I will not let these memories rule me. They were taken from me by force, now I will control their return. I am in control!
Vince jumped, “What about the rest of the them, Cap? We’ve got quite a haul here. We can’t take them with us but if we just let em’ hike away they’re going to come to a bad way.”
Nina ran a hand across her forehead both to wipe off sweat and to express frustration.
“Look, corporal, I need you to do something.”
“Anything you want, Captain.”
“Lead these people out of here. Take them to…” she glanced at the map sent to her by Intel and searched for a place where she might be able to send any survivors they might come across. “Take them to here-Clinton, Missouri.”
“What’s there?” The corporal asked.
“I don’t know. But it’s close enough to the front lines that maybe command can send in some choppers or something. Just stay as far away from KC as you can.”
“Nina,” Vince said, “the front lines, I think, are moving east every day.”
“Well it’s something, Vince.”
The corporal pointed out, “Captain, I’ve got a bum arm and there’s nothing but civvies here.”
“Listen, corporal, just about everyone was a civvie before all this. They’ll make do,” Nina considered, nodded to herself, and then called, “Odin, Campion, Mallow!”
The three dogs hurried to her position.
Nina placed a hand on the corporal’s shoulder, looked at the K9s, and instructed, “Protect. Follow.”
“Captain?”
“They’ll listen to you, just keep it simple. They won’t let anything sneak up on you.”
Nina knelt to the ground in front of Odin: the one consistent friend she’s had through all this. She patted him on the head and he licked her nose in affectionate response. It occurred to her that the elkhound probably had a better chance at survival than her.
Then she stood. The three K9s shuffled over to the corporal’s side.
Caesar asked, “What about us, Cap? They give us something fun to do?”
Nina glanced at the proposed target on the map and smiled.
It might be our last mission-but it’s going to be good.