“I don’t want you to go, Daddy. Please stay.”
Jon knelt in front of his nine-year-old girl and ran a hand over her long, dark hair. She usually returned his gaze with beautiful eyes that were-as much as any could be in that new world-innocent. But eleven days ago her mother had been murdered by The Order’s assassins.
Together, Jon and Catherine Nina Brewer had drifted through a memorial, a funeral, and a bereavement dinner. Worse, they drifted through a quiet house with daddy sleeping beside his daughter each night to stem her nightmares and to keep from facing his own empty bed.
The knock at the front door came for a second time. A soft knock. Courteous. Somber.
Catherine glanced at the closed door then back to her father.
“If you go, you won’t come back and I’ll be all alone. I don’t want you to go!”
How could Jon answer that? Voggoth’s armies had firmly established their operating facilities in Kansas City and western Missouri. All of the enemy’s preparations appeared ready and the most recent intelligence reports-perhaps the most terrifying and puzzling reports ever provided by Gordon Knox-suggested the great battle along the Mississippi river would be a human slaughter.
Adding it all together, Jon did not expect to return home; he did not expect to see his daughter again, despite the fancy plan brewing in his head.
Desperate plan.
Of course, he could not tell her as much.
“I have to go, honey. I don’t want to. But I have to.”
She stuck out her lip and glared at him as if anger might accomplish where pleading failed. Jon turned from her and answered the front door.
“Jon. How are we doing?” Ashley asked as she followed Gordon Knox-rolling in his powered wheelchair-inside.
“As expected,” the general answered and then addressed Catherine. “Like I said before, Ashley and Mr. Knox will look after you while I’m gone.”
Ashley followed the cue and approached Catherine in an effort to make small talk about things they would do, fun to be had, and lots not to worry about. Jon took the opportunity to speak quietly with Gordon Knox.
“Anything new on your end?”
Knox shook his head and answered, “No. Jon, my people have no idea how The Order built up to such a level, even accepting that they might have established more farms faster than ever before. There is just no accounting for it. The SR-71 did another run yesterday evening and it’s still the same picture. We’re estimating his main force to be more than double what it was after the Rockies fight. What about you?”
“Wow. I just don’t get it. They came out of thin air,” he shook his head and answered Knox’s question, “Operation Baseplate should be ready to go tomorrow. I’m flying out now to brief Shep and the rest. The fuel supplies and armament load-outs are already at the airfields.”
“With the Chrysaor still out of action, it could be a suicide run,” Gordon spoke plainly with no drama and not as a critique of the plan, just a fact.
“She won’t be up and running for three more days. I don’t think we have that long. Besides, everything we do now could be a suicide run. But just waiting around for them to hit us…”
“I hear you,” Knox offered one of his trademark smiles that came across as much scary as in good humor, wheelchair or not. “We’ll just tough things out on this end.”
“I’m going to stay out and see this through. I probably should have left days ago.”
“Don’t say a word, Jon. You did what any man would do. Any husband-or father. Don’t second-guess yourself.”
“I suppose I do that a lot,” Jon admitted. “I guess no one is perfect.”
“Speak for yourself,” Knox smiled even broader and the scariness went away. “Anyway, if things go, well, badly out there then you can count on Ashley here to keep Catherine out of harm’s way.”
“Exodus protocols ready to go?”
“Not for me,” Gordon tapped the handles of his wheelchair. “This old thing becomes a bit more of a liability if we start running and hiding again. Besides, that was never my style. But your girl will be on one of the first boats out if we activate Exodus.”
“That’s your decision. Monitor what happens out west and if you lose contact with me, make the call.”
Knox nodded.
Jon returned to his daughter. Despite Ashley’s best efforts, Catherine would not willingly accept the situation.
“Honey, I’ve got to go now.”
“It’s not fair.”
He took her tiny fingers in his big hands. He thought about her words. He thought about the whole damn invasion, the war, and the deck Voggoth stacked in his own favor.
“It has never been fair. Fair just isn’t a part of it.”
Before Armageddon, St. Clair Square held the distinction of the largest shopping mall south of Chicago thanks to more than 140 stores on two levels brightened by sky lights and 1,000,000 square feet of retail space.
During The Empire’s march west the mall re-opened as a barter center and-with Interstate 64 directly to the north and two air fields within minutes-a shipping waypoint.
As the last of the civilian population pulled out of the greater St. Louis area, St. Claire Square played a new role: command center.
From the point of view of General Jerry Shepherd, St. Claire served as the most recent command center. Not quite two weeks ago he survived-barely-The Order’s assault on his HQ at Riverfront Park in Kansas City. Shep knew that that park now operated as a center of operations for his enemy. Needless to say, this did not sit well with the general but battlefield reverses had become the norm during the last year.
St. Claire felt a lot like Riverfront had the day of the assassinations: vehicles driving to and fro; crates of supplies scattered around the large parking lot and a collection of weary veteran troops withdrawing east mixing with green newbies marching west.
Inside the mall different units created command centers out of what used to be shops. As Shepherd strolled the second story promenade he saw a group of soldiers standing beneath the facade of what used to be Bath and Body Works. The scented candles and gift baskets were long gone replaced with ammunition boxes, a metal filing cabinet on a hand truck, and radio equipment. Freckle-faced Benny Duda wore his black officer’s uniform with a patch on his shoulder depicting a hand gripping an axe; the icon for the 1 ^ st Mechanized Division.
He saw more men with more patches moving between stores-turned-unit-commands. He saw a young courier with a cowboy hat with a patch of a hand brandishing a broadsword on his shoulder. That patch indicated the 2 ^ nd Mechanized Division of Virginia.
Another such patch-this time on a slender brunette wearing Sergeant’s stripes-displayed a hand in a fist inside an armored glove: the calling card of William Rheimmer’s 3 ^ rd Armored Division of New Jersey.
The men and women shouted among each other, hurried the hall with important papers tucked under arms, or searched through boxes to find one need or another. Many sported trophies from the withdrawal across Kansas: slings, bandages, limps, bruises, and eye patches.
Shepherd shook his head in silent tribute to the marks of sacrifice, but then forced those thoughts from his mind as he walked inside what had once been a clothing store for children named ‘Abercrombie’. There Shepherd found a large round table in the center of the store, maps on the walls, and a gathering of important personnel. He finished his return trip from the restroom just in time to hear Jon Brewer tell the assembled crowd, “Any minute now.”
“Everything is still a go?” Shepherd came to the table and glanced-for about the one hundredth time that day-at the map of Missouri and Kansas.
“I just got off the radio with Carl Dunston. 2 ^ nd Tactical support’s fixed wing assets are in the air and joining up with the rest,” Jon answered and then took a sip from a glass of water.
“Not much left of them,” Shepherd said in reference to both the 2 ^ nd Tactical Support unit as well as the overall amount of air assets at The Empire’s disposal. He tapped the map in a spot northeast of Kansas City. “Still no idea how they built up so fast?”
Jon ran a hand across the back of his neck because that particular mystery remained a large pain there.
Shep shared that pain. He recalled the Blackbird’s surveillance photos depicting a massive amount of Voggoth’s bio-mechanical weapons in place and ready to fight. Many more-tens of thousands more-than thought possible. Enough to sweep across the Mississippi in one afternoon.
Jon said, “An idea? Yeah, I have an idea,” Brewer said and that caught Shep’s attention. “I was chewing it over during my flight out here last night. I’m thinking it’s one of two things: either The Order’s production cycle out of their farms has been sped up by ninety percent or-or…”
“Or?”
“Or-well, we’ve been asking ourselves for a couple of years now what happened to Voggoth’s boys in cities like Cincinnati.”
“When they just disappeared before we hit those cities, is that what you’re talking about?”
“Yep.”
Shep followed along, “So you reckon he yanked them out of those places in the past and is bringing them back now. Sort of like all those people before the invasion disappearing and then showing up again years later. Like Ashley.”
“I’d be lying if I said I knew for sure, but I have got to believe that Voggoth pulled these reinforcements from somewhere without using the typical type of transport we would expect. And I think finding that same radiation signature in those cities is a big clue.”
“Why not just drop em’ in behind our lines then? Like paratroopers or whatnot?”
“Why bother?” Jon thought. “He brings them in as reinforcements with the rest of his group and they make one big kick-ass army. If he drops them behind us maybe we manage to isolate them, split them up. I would bet he’d go for the easy way. The sure way.”
“Wait a sec,” Shepherd pointed out, “those things in the cities that disappeared were more like Mutants and Deadheads and bad things like that; not his core army.”
Jon cocked his head as that particular wrench bounced around in the works of his idea.
“Well, I guess you have a point there. Sometimes I sort of throw all of those things in with The Order as a whole. I guess there is a difference. His army he sort of grows or builds or whatever when he needs it. The rest of them kind of came here on their own it seems, like the other aliens but aligned with Voggoth. Still, all these reinforcements came from somewhere. Maybe somewhere else in the world? But you know what; I think this is the type of thing that Trevor was talking about. Every time Voggoth works his magic he risks, well, getting himself into trouble with the rest of the head honchos. If we can force him to keep pulling stunts like this then maybe that’s a break in those rules Trevor was talking about.”
“And you think that might get old Voggoth in trouble? That’d be a shame.”
“Only if he gets caught red-handed, I figure. If the rest of his pals are even capable of catching him. Trevor would know better. Damn. I wish he were here.”
Silence.
Shep fought the urge to tell Jon again how sorry he felt about Lori. About how he wished he could have traveled back east to be at the funeral. About how much he would miss that little pistol of a lady.
Instead he said, “Either way, I guess your little plan had better work.”
“It’s going to cost us,” Jon admitted. “It’s going to cost us big time. This is a one-shot, Shep. No matter how well we play this we’re going to take heavy losses.”
“So let’s hope he can’t pull any more reinforcements out of his magic bag, right?”
Jon swept a hand across the map noting, “He doesn’t need to. Hell, so far he’s used his main forces to fight us but he’s got all those other buddies of his spread out across the Midwest. He’s got hundreds of Roachbots in Kansas, a whole mess of Wraiths stirring up trouble in Iowa; I even saw a report of like ten thousand of those Ghoul-things tearing up shit in Oklahoma. Not to mention the rest.”
Shepherd knew what ‘the rest’ meant. It meant the other alien races coming together to support Voggoth’s attack. It meant the Geryons moving in from the north, the Centurians marching up from the south, and the Chaktaw somewhere to the west no doubt hurrying to join the battle.
“They on the move?”
Brewer answered, “Yeah. Intel this morning spotted the Geryon air ships leaving their moorings in Des Moines and the Redcoats breaking camp at Little Rock.”
Shep removed his hat and ran an arm across his sweaty forehead.
“That’s as sure a sign that this thing is coming to a head soon as anything else. If Trevor’s right, that is. Guess those other folks want to make it to the party on time.”
“Sure,” Jon agreed. “But if we can hit Voggoth hard enough he’ll postpone his attack on the Mississippi. If he does that, I’m guessing those others will back off and wait. If Trevor is right and all.”
“Be nice if we could hit them Geryons or the Reds first. You know, break the whole thing into pieces. I reckon that would improve our odds.”
Brewer smiled-a little-and flattered Shep with, “I ‘ reckon you’d be right. But I don’t think we’ve got the mobility or the firepower to do it. Not with ground forces, at least.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Shepherd admitted. “Still, it’d be nice to play out Five Armies again, just like the old days. That worked out in our favor.”
“Never thought I’d see worse odds. Guess I didn’t know shit, right? But you’ve been running the show out here for a few weeks, Shep. Give me the lay of the land again.”
Shep leaned over the table and pointed to different segments of the map while he updated Jon on the defensive preparations made while Jon had mourned his dead wife.
“Duda’s got all of his 1 ^ st Mech boys around St. Louis: 4 ^ th Brigade is dug in the city in the worst kind of way, his 6 ^ th Mobile Artillery is positioned at the Lockhaven Country Club to the northeast of the city and can move to follow the enemy’s approach when the time comes.”
“What about his 5 ^ th Brigade?”
“They got sent all the way back to Springfield for re-supply and re-tool. Not much of those poor bastards left. I don’t think they’re going make it to the party.”
Jon mumbled, “Strip what you can.”
Shepherd went on, “Rheimmer’s 3 ^ rd Armored is backing up St. Louis. 10 ^ th and 12 ^ th Armored Brigades are exactly where you wanted them: over on this side of the river waiting around as a mobile reserve. By the way, Rheimmer rolled what was left of his 11 ^ th brigade in with the 12 ^ th, in case you’re wondering where they headed to.”
“Makes sense. What about Simms?”
Shep pointed to the town of Quincy to the north and answered, “Her cavalry and mobile artillery are holding up in this quiet spot. I’m thinking she can turn south when the fighting gets going but until then she’s holding a crossing up there.”
“She’ll want in. No way you’ll keep her out of this.”
Shep smiled and continued, “You know Rhodes’ Second Corp got chewed up real bad getting out of the Rockies. Only the 10 ^ th Mechanized Infantry Brigade is left in the 3 ^ rd Division. Captain Vervain has got them dug in down at Cape Girardeu. Not likely to see any action unless we call em’ up. As for 5 ^ th Mech, they were always under-strength to begin with. I’ve got one of their infantry brigades held up in Carbondale in reserve, the 1 ^ st Mountain guarding supply depots-“
“I thought there weren’t any of them left after what happened in the Sierra Nevadas.”
“Just enough to pull sentry duty. That’s about all those boys got left in them but they won’t catch a bad word from me about it.”
“Wow, yeah, I hear that,” Jon agreed and then prompted, “Go on.”
“Anyway, Rhodes’ Armored Car battalion is in Chester watching a crossing and the 1 ^ st Engineering Brigade is in the same neck of the woods mining in case Voggoth wants to try to cross that far south. But if he goes that way they will need help in a hurry.”
“Every bit helps. You did a hell of job getting Rhodes out of that pocket.”
“Wish I could take the credit. It was the Grenadiers who made that work.”
“And Third Corps?”
“Ross has got them moving good. That fella has a way of grabbing someone’s attention. He’s got Rothchild’s 10 ^ th Armored brigade in the Golden Eagle area northwest of St. Louis to protect the river bend. They can move out of there fast if need be. You know 11 ^ th Armored brigade was disbanded after the Rockies and I am very familiar with the 12 ^ th Engineering Brigade; those knuckleheads are sabotaging the approaches west of St. Louis.”
Jon laughed. He had heard the story of the mix up during Shep’s relief mission. If not for the Grenadiers there would be nothing left to laugh about.
“What remains of the 4 ^ th Mechanized infantry is positioned in East Alton. We’re talking about a fraction of an Infantry Brigade and some arty. Oh yeah, 14 ^ th Mech is east of Hannibal, they’re not in too bad a shape if push comes to shove. That’s about the whole of it.”
“Sounds good.”
“No it don’t but it’s all we’ve got.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Jon reached for his glass. “As Gordon Knox would say, we just got to tough it out.”
Jon saw the water in his glass ripple. The table came next, then windows rattled. Activity in the mall-turned-military-base slowed to a hush…
They came like bullets flying from east to west, little more 300 feet overhead. A rolling, ear-splitting roar came with them as they raced hard and fast but very low in the sky.
F-15s in the lead but F-16s not far behind along with Tomcats and even a pair of F-18 Hornets. Eight-ten-twelve in all leading the charge followed by a mixed bag of aircraft: Six F-111 Aardvarks; three F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighters; four A-10s all of which sported the scars of recent battles and five EA-6B Prowlers stripped of their electronic warfare gear in favor of weapons pods.
The mass of soldiers in the mall parking lot below stopped packing crates, woke from their naps, put aside their chow, and watched.
They knew what passed in the sky. The last of mankind’s once-mightiest air force. Now piloted by left over guardsmen and commercial pilots-turned-warriors, those high-tech machines were once capable of ruling the skies, even in the post-Armageddon world when the Hivvans and the Duass and the California Cooperative had tasted death from above courtesy The Empire’s gallant flyers.
Despite the mighty roar, every soldier below knew they watched the end of something.
Voggoth would sacrifice 100-200-1,000 of his half-machine/half-monster ‘Spooks’ to knock the planes from the sky only to re-grow those horrible weapons by the bushel while The Empire could no longer replace, repair, or re-build the jets.
The soldiers on the ground did not know why the air force flew, they could only watch and pray that the Generals expended this last resource for some benefit. So they watched the fighters fly away; they listened to the last echoes of the turbines; they watched-and hoped.
The tail fins of the lead F-15s sported an icon of a female arm holding a bolt of lightning. The veteran combat pilot in the lead radioed, “Dasher One to group, watch the wash back there boys.”
His wingman-young before Armageddon but now a veteran as well-pointed out, “Dash One, this is Two, we’re at about three cherubs and really booming here; how we going to keep this all together with the slow-movers back there?”
“Don’t work your thinkbox too hard, Billie. That’s just the way it has to be. This isn’t exactly the most sophisticated mission we’ve gone on so we’ll just have to make it work.”
“What are we doing, boss?” Billie spoke through his mask as the scenery-some 300 feet below-whizzed by in a blur and the slower-moving of the phalanx of aircraft drifted further to the rear.
“Weren’t you at the meeting with General Brewer?”
Billie heard the sarcastic tone but replied, “No,” before he could stop himself.
“Guess not,” Dasher One answered with the obvious connotation of you don’t need to know.
“Dash-One this is Viking One, aren’t we do for a course correction?”
“Roger that,” Dasher One radioed the Prowler’s pilot, “turning on my mark.”
The planes-the army of jet fighters-banked to the northwest as they flew low and fast over the western suburbs of St. Louis. Below them scattered units of infantry gave the fleet a quick look. While the foot soldiers had grown accustomed to wearing a mixture of uniforms and carrying a diversity of gear, they had never seen such an eclectic collection of air power before; certainly not flying in one flock.
As impressive the aerial profiles and as ear-splitting the sound, the earthbound men and women who saw the sight knew it to be a formation of desperation.
“Dasher One to all wings, listen up. Follow I-80 below until we hit our next waypoint for Alpha target. Flight leaders, you know our instructions. Follow them.”
“What instructions?” Dash Two let his familiarity with this superior officer overcome the need to remain quiet.
“Billie, you just do what I tell you and be ready to jink, copy that?”
“Um, copy that Dash One.”
The attackers followed the interstate westward across Missouri. They flew over the hamlet of Pilot Grove, startling a band of civilian stragglers hurriedly transferring canned goods from an overturned and abandoned Deuce-and-a-half into a wagon pulled by two aging horses. Two of the civvies-carrying burlap sacks-actually fell over onto their rumps from the vibration and wind gust caused by the fast-movers.
Shortly thereafter, the historic town of Sweet Springs drew the attention of the flyers as a stream of thinning black smoke rose from a reconnaissance Eagle crashed nose-first next to a sagging gazebo in Gusher Park. A trio of gigantic Rat-like creatures-one of the first and most persistent alien monsters to invade Earth-clambered over each other to stick their snouts in the cracked-open transport module.
Dasher Two-‘Billie’-tapped his thumb against the flight stick nervously. He had flown hundreds of sorties with Dash One, including knocking Screamers out of the sky in support of Stonewall McAllister’s push into South Carolina during the Hivvan war and later the aborted strike on the Witiko’s Stealth Field Generator as the opening salvo of the California campaign. In each case he knew the mission, knew the goal, and understood the stakes.
Things felt different this time. He could not remember a mission when Dash One kept the details so murky. He did not understand how so many diverse aircraft-including several now miles behind the formation-should be tightly formed and used together in such a fashion.
But he did know The Order’s main battle force waited outside Kansas City. He knew them well-guarded by anti-air Spooks that would outnumber the strike force exponentially. He knew that all of the F-15s not born with Vulcan cannon received said cannons in wing-mounted weapons pods because fighting spooks with missiles made for losing the economics of this war. Still, he wondered if he carried enough bullets on board for the hell that would great them at Excelsior Springs. Of course he also wondered why the Spooks-not potential ground targets-appeared the priority of this mission.
And that led to the tapping of his thumb against the stick. A nervous tapping filled with questions as to why they should run a kamikaze mission for no apparent gain.
“All wings, we’re coming up on Odessa. Bank north, grab some altitude, and proceed toward Alpha target. Take a moment to review Bravo target before things get hairy.”
Billie did as commanded. He turned his fast-moving F-15 to starboard and remained on his leader’s flank as a loyal wingman should. But the questions refused to yield.
In the distance he saw the line of puffy white clouds stretched across the horizon turn black; like smoke boiling in the heavens.
They crossed the Missouri River, whooshed over the waters of the crescent-shaped Cooley Lake, and bore in on the flattened, rotted land that had once been Excelsior Springs, Missouri. The sky turned dark and twisted.
Each pilot in the formation gasped or closed their eyes or felt a nauseous lurch in his or her belly. No matter how often they came upon The Order’s legions a human soul could not become accustomed to the sight, one akin to kicking over a rock and finding the slimy, squirming bottom-feeders hidden beneath.
Tendrils of white smoke newly-birthed from egg-shaped mounds tried to hide the army in a sheath of unnatural fog but the job had just begun. In fields to the south of Route 69 assembled row upon row of shell-covered hover tanks with gun barrels of various design. Dozens of slithering turtle-things serviced the vehicles with lines feeding ammunition and energy.
A little further to the west on the far side of an access road, the boxy industrial buildings of Excelsior Plastics had succumbed to Voggoth’s dominion. The walls of the factory drown beneath a cover of dark metallic roots. Sizzling steam escaped from tubes atop the roof and instead of manufacturing injected moldings the plant now housed legions of once-human monks and the mutation chambers that attached and re-supplied the bio-weapons affixed to the arms of these damned souls.
Several varieties of Spider Sentries in uncountable numbers massed along Route 69; a hundred armor-plated rolling tubes adorned with glowing missiles waited in the parking lot of a strip mall; thousands of gray-skinned Ogres filled the gaps between with carts full of glowing orbs standing at the ready; a hundred locomotive-like treaded transports carrying surface-to-surface missiles sat at station on the destroyed neighborhoods to the southeast of town; mechanical Commandos in a hundred lines of one-hundred each stood perfectly still in formation on the browned grounds of East Valley Park with all manner of portable weapons on display like a May Day parade in Hell. Dozens of walking turrets formed a protective ring around the mustered army.
Above it all-standing taller than the planes flew-loomed the Leviathans.
One straddled the center of town while hundreds of eel-ish things slithered up and down its form like an infestation of maggots cleaning and repairing the vile beast. Two more stood stationary to the northwest on the grounds of Rocky Hollow Park. A fourth knelt on its skyscraper legs four miles west on the cracked and broken tarmac of Clay County airport where car-sized flying mechanical insects inspected its workings in preparation for battle.
The protective mist crept over it all from the egg-shaped dispensers located at the corners of the encampment, hiding even more of the army that aimed to crush humanity at the Mississippi. In a few hours that veil would be complete, shading all but the Leviathans from The Empire’s sights until the time came to march.
“Dash One, this is Two, Jesus Christ what do we hit first? We need to slow down here. What approach should we take? I need some direction here!”
“Billie! Don’t do shit. Stay on course-full throttle-gain some altitude-keep heading at them.”
The Spooks came. They came from brick-shaped boxes lined with ivy-like pulsating red veins. Each of the two dozen launchers sported four spouts that spat the flying beasts into the air like cannon balls. Flapping wings-more like a cloak over a ball-unfolded after ejection and an unseen force propelled the creatures at tremendous velocity.
With each launch the boxes deflated a little but before they emptied those launchers filled the skies with the horrible weapons: 50-100-300 balls of destruction rising up and screaming toward the approaching fighters.
The air waves filled with panicked chatter. The clouds grew angrier. Lightning flashed. Thunder boomed loud enough the pilots could hear the rumble through their radios and above the roar of engines. Wind shear rocked wings.
“Blow through! Blow through!” Dasher One ordered and despite every natural instinct calling for retreat, the pilots followed his lead and rammed into the cloud of destroyers.
“They’re everywhere!”
A sidewinder air-to-air missile launched from under an F-16’s wing, hitting a Spook but making only a splash in the tidal wave crushing down on them.
“Use your goddamn guns!”
Vulcan cannons met the living missiles splattering bunches into bits and carving a tunnel through the mob. But not without sacrifice. An F-16 lost a tail and spiraled fast into the army below where its fireball incinerated a column of Ogres. An F-15 took a shot directly in the canopy, exploding its front nose and sending the balance of the craft flat-spinning toward Earth.
The vanguard of fighters broke through but the Spooks did not give up the hunt. Most changed direction like a grotesque flock of birds to give chase to the fastest fighters. The rest rained down on the slower planes at the rear of the attack group.
A Prowler suffered a direct hit. The pilot instinctively ejected. Fortunately another of the Spooks blasted him to pieces before he could parachute into the devils below. Two A-10s suffered impacts, one lost a wing and plunged toward the ground, the other absorbed the hit and continued on.
Their first pass complete, the Spooks turned about and gave chase.
“All wings! All wings!” Dasher one shouted through grit teeth. “Break off to Bravo target! Hit the burners and break off!”
Billie stared out his cockpit window. Ahead he saw the rolling black clouds give way to clear sky. Behind, Spooks giving chase. Below, undefended legions of Voggoth’s army. And on his wings a pair of heavy bombs waiting to drop. Perhaps barely enough to scratch the numbers assembled below, but at least some compensation for the losses already suffered.
“What are you talking about? We’ve got a clear shot!”
“Billie! Shut the hell up and follow your orders!”
For a second-a long time in a jet fighter moving hundreds of miles per hour-Billie considered releasing his bomb load. His eyes saw the Leviathans standing at Rocky Hollow Park and he thought about raising his nose and letting momentum and gravity send thousands of pounds of explosives into one of their sick bellies.
But his loyalty overcame his frustration. He banked southwest. The twin towers of monsters disappeared from his line of sight.
“All wings, full throttle and hit the deck. I repeat, full throttle and hit the deck. Make time, people. Make time!”
The attacking planes dropped altitude and gained speed. The swarm of angry spooks gave chase, overtaking and downing an F-117 as the human fighters flew over top the kneeling Leviathan at Clay County airport.
“Faster-faster…” Billie heard Dasher One mumble over the radio as if his words might will more speed from the engines.
Blue sky replaced churning clouds. Sunbeams of an early June day replaced flashes of lightning. But the death struggle continued. The Spooks gained ground as they bellowed a horrid cry as if killing provided relief from an existence of agony.
Eight miles away from Alpha target, two Spooks hit another Prowler. The broken plane crashed hard into the grounds of the Shoal Creek Golf Course north of Pleasant Valley.
At 12 miles one of the F-111 Aardvarks fell victim to the pursuit. The cockpit assembly drifted on parachutes down into a vacant housing development on the north side of Kansas City.
At 15 miles the first Spook ran out of energy. Its body grew crusty and tired; the flapping wings-perhaps more like the flaps of a kite-stiffened. It fell. At 17 miles more died and dropped one after another. The pursuit shrank from a swarm to a flock to a handful.
“Approaching bravo target,” Dasher One radioed. “Targets identified as farms along the coast of Wyandotte lake.”
“That’s it? That’s it?” Billie could no longer hide his frustration. They had lost several planes-good pilots-and passed on a chance to drop a few bombs on Voggoth’s main army. Not much, but something.
“Farms? We did all this to hit some goddamn farms? Whose dumb-ass idea was this? We had their friggin’ army under our wings. We could have done some damage.”
Dasher One first greeted Billie’s protests with a chuckle. And then an assurance.
“Relax Billie, we just kicked their ass, they just don’t know it yet…”
The black heavens above Voggoth’s army rolled and bucked like an inverted ocean tide. Licks of lightning bounced among the clouds but no rain came; only the energy of a storm that refused to break.
Something moved among the storm clouds.
Another bolt of lightning erupted through the heights. The flash illuminated three deadly beasts descending from the clouds with wingspans greater than 180 feet and bellies full of death. The thunderclap that followed sounded one part roar and one part laughter.
The monsters descended upon Voggoth’s legions to the droning roar of Pratt amp; Whitney turbofans making some 17,000 pounds of thrust. A hydraulic hum followed by a heavy clang announced the opening of bomb bay doors.
The B-52’s wore icons on their noses and came with names: “Memphis Belle IV,” “In Harm’s Way”, and “Lady Ashley”.
With the anti-air Spooks pulled en masse to the southwest and new ones yet to be birthed in the launchers, Voggoth’s army could only watch the mighty planes approach.
The B-52s had served little purpose in The Empire until that moment. Precision strikes and air-to-air capability held sway against the Hivvans and The Cooperative, while the sheer volume of Spook support kept the Stratofortresses away from Voggoth’s minions.
Now, with the Chrysaor still undergoing repairs and Imperial air forces dwindled to nearly nothing, the gigantic man-made monsters found one more mission in a history of missions stretching back to the 1950s.
The bombs fell. One after another after another after another. They fell like rain and hit the ground like earthquakes-180,000 pounds of ordnance pounded the tightly-packed ranks of The Order’s great army.
Shell tanks splintered into pieces. Armored missile launchers broke and scattered like smashed toys. Muscle-bound ogres disintegrated into chunks of gore. Mechanical commandos shattered to shards. Monks and Spider sentries vaporized by the hundreds.
The Leviathans proved too tall a target to place under the bombardier’s sights-except for the one at Clay Count airport. The one kneeling for repairs.
A trail of bombs walked across the tarmac destroying dozens of blister-like support buildings until reaching the gargantuan. The barrage fell onto the creature’s skin and into the top of its skyward-facing mouth. The slug-like body burst and oozed. Tendons supporting the main frame unraveled. The legs fell away from the whole. The entirety of the thing broke into gigantic pieces.
The storm grew to a frenzy both in the clouds and on the ground. The sound of the bombardment spread for miles, shaking the lonely landscape of Missouri and collapsing unstable structures as far away as Kansas City.
The Order’s army tasted Hell served by mankind. Different than Voggoth’s own brand. Less vicious. Colder, perhaps; more detached. But just as effective.
When the last bomb dropped, the B-52s banked away and flew east with impunity. The army of Voggoth lay cut in half.
The storm raged on.