“Hold on,” the pilot warned and he reversed thrust, pushing the ship out over the lake, away from the bank.
Jon sat-fell-into the navigator’s chair. Through the window, he saw the two tankers take off. The Goat-Walker saw them, too. It struck at one, missing as the ship shot out of reach. The second failed to escape; a hoof smashed into its mid-section, exploding the purification equipment and tossing the craft into the icy waters of Lake Edouard.
“Oh Christ,” Jon’s pilot muttered. “Oh Jesus Christ.”
The white nose of the tanker ship bobbed straight up and then slipped into the dark waters. As the transport moved off, darkness swallowed the banks of the lake where their camp had been moments before.
Reverend Johnny’s voice piped through the radio on the console. “All flights, report in. Is General Brewer on the line?”
Jon leaned forward and punched the transmit button.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“We made it, Jon. That was close.”
Jon thought of the soldiers left behind and the tanker ship drowning in the lake.
“Yeah, we made it.”
–
“Sir,” Casey Fink woke Jon from a light sleep. “We’re about ready to touch down in Hopedale.”
“What? Already?”
Jon stood and stretched. He walked along the row of seats then opened the sliding cockpit door. Daylight glared in through the windshield.
“We’re heading in for a landing, Sir,” the pilot informed and Jon felt the ship descend.
A frigid bay split Hopedale into two distinct parts. To the north, the city proper including its primary claim to fame, the historic Moravian Mission House.
The southern end of that bay was less developed and dominated by a primitive shipping dock comprised of wooden planks and buildings set upon a piled stone foundation.
With a harbor deep enough to accommodate heavy tankers, Hopedale served as an ideal place to rendezvous with the Newport News.
In any case, the Eagles descended on to a flat, open area between low rolling hills north of the dock. The landing gear sank into soft ground. After a few moments, the doors opened and the travel-weary troops disembarked.
A biting cold chased away their weariness. While still August, a wet, chilly breeze cut through the men’s BDUs. Several returned inside the transports to retrieve their arctic gear.
Jon left most of the men and Reverend Johnny with the Eagles and took Casey Fink and a small force to the docks.
Gentle mountains overlooked the bay while grassy bush and rocky beaches covered most of the coastline. Calm water sloshed and curious seabirds squawked beneath a canopy of white clouds. A salty, marshy smell blew around on the wind.
At the dock waited an intimidating beast from the deep. It stretched more than a football field in length from bow to stern and was certainly a predator.
The Newport News, a Los Angeles Class nuclear submarine, had been one of the best and most modern attack boats in the U.S. arsenal before something other than Soviet bombers or Chinese ICBMs destroyed the country.
Jon and his small team approached the dock as a group of sailors moved to meet them.
The lead man wore a Navy Captain’s uniform and a leather military jacket. He sported thin streaks of gray in otherwise brown hair, but most of that remained tucked under his cap.
The two groups converged and eyed each other cautiously.
“Captain Farway?”
The man with the brown hair and cap nodded. “General Jon Brewer, I presume?”
This time Jon nodded.
They knew each other only through a few radio transmissions and written dispatches. Jon had little time to worry about boats when focused on fighting a land war.
Most of the naval forces, including the two nuke subs in their arsenal, worked with Gordon Knox for use in intelligence gathering. Unlike the bulk of “The Empire’s” military forces, original crews manned most of the ships. Arguably, the Navy survived the Apocalypse better than the other services.
The Captain extended a hand and smiled.
“I’ve heard a hell of a lot about you, General. I hear you know how to get things done these days.”
Jon accepted the shake. “We give it our best.”
“I think it’s fair to say that so far your best has been much better than anyone else’s. Still, I guess you’re needing a ride?”
Jon replied, “I want to go see Santa Claus. Get my list in early, you know?”
The Captain and his sailors chuckled.
“Then what are we waiting for?” Farway asked.
Jon turned to Casey Fink and ordered, “Go round up the men and start moving supplies down here.”
Fink took a step but paused as Farway said, “Oh, one other thing. I hope your guys aren’t claustrophobic. You see, General, we’re spending most of this trip under the surf. You’re going into a big metal coffin. It’s tight in there. Real tight. And you hear things, too. Sometimes it’s just the currents, maybe a whale. But these days, well, these days there are things you hear down there that just aren’t right. Being on a sub for days on end, why that was always enough to put a little shake in a man’s hand. These days it’s enough to drive a man to crazy thoughts. So the question is, can you handle it?”
Jon looked at Captain Farway, shrugged, and told him, “I have a four year old daughter.”
“Oh,” Farway considered. “Then this should be a walk in the park.”
8. Lair
General Tom Prescott gazed at the ruins of the destroyed compound with a dozen soldiers standing on his flanks and his mobile command post-a modified version of an M113 armored personnel carrier-parked in the driveway.
At one point, the compound had consisted of several smaller buildings surrounding a large one protected by a chain link fence. The area covered several hundred square yards in a lightly wooded area off an access road in the shadows of the Appalachian Mountains.
Whatever purpose the compound served went up in ashes and smoke a long time ago, several years at least. Smashed and burned piles of rubble stood in place of wood and stone buildings, the chain link fence torn and flattened.
To the General, it resembled a thousand other country homes and estates he had seen along the Appalachians as they secured the expanding Empire’s western flank.
He noticed human bones scattered in the debris. Again, a sight he saw on a daily basis. Certainly not worthy of pulling him away from his tour of the captured Radford Army Ammunition plant, one of his force’s most important objectives as they cleared the area around Blacksburg, Virginia.
“Captain Rhodes,” he asked in a tone that did not hide his annoyance. “Pardon my French, but why the heck am I out here staring at rubble?”
“This is just the introduction. You might want to follow me, Sir.”
Rhodes directed General Prescott around the piles of debris to a wooded and rocky slope that ascended into the mountains.
The posse of soldiers led by the two officers walked along an overgrown path into the woods, pushing their way through low-hanging leaves belonging to short white and dark green Striped Maple trees. Prescott stumbled over something.
“Holy shit,” the General shot when he saw the obstruction.
“That’s just the first of them,” Rhodes referred to the old, dried mess the General tripped over.
“Is that…is that what I think it is?”
“Yes, Sir. You might want to take a look around you.”
The General did as his Captain suggested and surveyed the forest surrounding them. Among the rotting leaves left over from last autumn and wildflowers competing for what little sunlight sneaked between branches, he saw mounds of something familiar. Years old, so old that they blended in with the forest floor, hidden by time and wind and falling leaves and rain.
“Sweet Jesus.”
“Dozens of them, Sir.”
The General scratched his head. “We need to call the boss. He needs to see this.”