The ground-and seemingly the air-shook as turbo shafts pounded like bass players in a heavy metal band. A line of five deadly birds-of-prey cut through the twilight speeding southwest. The collective downdrafts from the Apaches and Cobras nearly pushed the two men to their knees.
“I can’t believe it,” Shepherd said. “Never thought we’d ever get that many birds flying at once. Air support. Shit, we might just pull this off after all.”
Shepherd watched them fly toward the battlefield; the massive battlefield, stretching for miles east to west: the place once known as Raleigh, North Carolina. Now it masqueraded as something else, a part of the “Hivvan Republic.”
Through his field glasses, he saw the BB amp;T building rising 400 feet toward the sky as well as the 30-story Capitol Center. The rest of downtown hid from sight behind a two-hundred foot high wall erected along highways 440, 40 and 64. Those roads once formed a beltway around Raleigh. Now they outlined the barrier keeping enemies out and slaves in.
Even more imposing than the wall, three massive guns stood guard on top the northern side of the barricade: huge energy artillery pieces with barrels stretching one-hundred feet and swiveling on gigantic round bases.
Shepherd knew an army camped in the shadows of those guns. A modern army with advanced weaponry, a comprehensive battlefield doctrine, and the confidence of knowing they had conquered most of what had once been the American south. Indeed, an entire corps of the Grand Army of the Hivvan Republic awaited General Shepherd’s divisions.
He watched as the helicopters flew toward their targets; targets now backlit by fires burning from the bombardment.
The battle joined…
…The attack choppers moved in low toward pre-determined objectives.
Hellfire missiles sliced into an enemy mobile battalion north of the defensive walls on the open black top of Six Forks Road, a major route into and out of the city.
A salvo shredded several single-seat treaded vehicles slightly larger than a forklift with caged cockpits. Nicknamed “Firecats” by the human armies, the machines moved fast and counted missiles, flamethrowers, and repeater energy weapons in their arsenal, making them both the backbone of the Hivvan ground forces and the bane of humanity’s infantry.
Just off Six Forks Road, the choppers found and fired on another priority target, this one a massive, thirty-foot tall rectangular beast code-named a “Main Battlebarge”.
Explosions ripped through its belly, scoring kills among the command crew and troops sheltered therein. Before it died, the Battlebarge shot down a Cobra with a volley of anti-air shells. A bundle of disintegrating wreckage crashed to Earth.
The four remaining attackers banked to the west and headed toward secondary targets: short-range alien artillery hidden in the peaceful woodlands of North Hills Park…
… Most of the buildings and walls of the Crabtree Valley Mall had toppled inward five years ago during the first months of the invasion. The roof of the Sears building had, in fact, smashed and crumbled into large chunks. One of those chunks stretched skyward not unlike a steep mountain peak.
The Dark Wolves unit gathered there, gazing toward the walls and gargantuan artillery guns of the Hivvan stronghold that stood a half-mile to the southeast.
Nina Forest removed her balaclava. A blonde ponytail dropped between her shoulder blades and her icy blue eyes stared at the city while sunset played behind her. Odin-her loyal Norwegian Elkhound-hovered nearby.
She produced a detonator control.
Then she said something. A whisper. Just loud enough for her comrades to hear.
A wolf’s howclass="underline" “Aw-woooooo…” As if blowing a kiss.
Explosions flashed along the northern wall as well as the base of the circular turrets. Two seconds later, a stretch of the structure crumbled as its support fell out from beneath. A span of the wall collapsed as cleanly as if a professional demolition team had spent weeks preparing. An earthquake shook the landscape driven by the fall of thousands of tons of masonry and metal. A cloud of dust and debris formed in a sudden tempest.
Next, the guns disintegrated from the bottom up. The barrels sank into the debris cloud like the bows of ships slipping beneath the surface of a turbulent ocean.
The violent fury flickered in Nina’s eyes…
…The sound and dust from the destruction rumbled across the North Carolina landscape like thunder over the plains.
“Forward!” General Stonewall McAllister cried both aloud and into his radio as he spurred his horse. Not far from his side, a freckle-faced teen age boy played something that sounded similar to “charge” on his trumpet.
They swarmed from hiding places in the northern and northwestern suburbs of the city in an assortment of transports and tracked vehicles. One Brigade-led by General Stonewall and his steely blade-rode on horseback shouting a rebel yell as they charged toward the hole in the wall.
The humans came by the thousands, most armed with carbines, some armed with rifles and pistols, a handful armed with energy weapons stolen from aliens.
Yet their greatest armament was a fierce determination to take the battle to the enemy: to kick the invaders from their world.
The determination and brutality of mankind’s armies had become the stuff of legend among the alien legions, as had the human policy of taking no prisoners.
Humanity’s warriors bore only passing resemblance to the modern armies of the pre-Armageddon world. While many of the weapons remained, they fought more like a controlled mob and resembled one, too. Most wore casual clothing: jeans and cargo pants were as common in the ranks as military fatigues; Kevlar helmets more scarce than baseball caps, cowboy hats, and bandannas.
An eclectic collection of fighters born from the ashes of the alien invasion that had crushed man’s civilization, this new army came from the old world’s accountants and delivery drivers, restaurant managers, and salesmen. Surviving the invasion forged their mettle; a desire to avenge the death of billions drove them onward in a murdering mass.
With a gaping hole blasted through the Hivvan defenses and the best of the aliens’ mobile forces destroyed by the helicopters, the Hivvans… grudgingly… gave ground.
Stonewall lopped the reptilian head off one of the retreating bipedal extraterrestrials. Its short stubby tail twitched as the lifeless body fell to the pavement of Creedmoor Road.
The Hivvans wore light body armor but it provided little protection from bullets and even less from shrapnel. Yet the Hivvan retreat remained orderly…at first. The reptilian Hivvan soldiers used suppressing fire from energy weapons and deployed what Firecats remained to slow the attack.
Yet, still, the human army moved forward and the Hivvan forces moved back.
First, the defenders outside of the crumbling northern walls retreated. Then, as the two human mechanized divisions continued to advance, Hivvan units inside the city turned tail-literally-and ran.
The ferocity of the assault combined with the breech of their wall shocked the aliens into rout. Units disintegrated into rabble and officers lost control of their charges…
…Shepherd watched through his binoculars as the sun completely set and the battle became a night fight. Humanity liked fighting at night. It added to their mystique and they maintained a good supply of night vision equipment scavenged from the old world.
Explosions erupted across the wide front. Short-range artillery and mortars dueled. Helicopters hovered, found targets, and fired. The dust of the destroyed walls hung over it all in a haze illuminated by flashing flares and searching floodlights.
Bogart listened to a radio report and said, “Sir, the boss is coming. Eagle One touchdown in two minutes.”
Shepherd shook his head and offered a wry grin. “He sure likes to make an entrance, don’t he?”
Bogart nodded but his attention remained on the chorus of reports coming from the front and playing in his headphones…