Simms stayed on her belly and slithered backward down the slope toward more protective cover. The Leviathan passed her position for the heart of the battle.
She wiped sweat from her forehead and radioed, “Hawkeye to Command, do you copy?”
“We copy, Hawkeye, what do you see?”
“They’re still coming, sir,”
General Fink listened to Simms’ report.
“It’s a-it’s a Leviathan. Battle group Center has deployed their Leviathan.”
Fink tried to calm the shake from Simms’ voice, “It’s okay, Cassy. That’s what we wanted, to draw it out. Good job.”
“Copy that, Command. Good luck. Hawkeye out.”
Fink returned the transmitter to the technician who sat at a folding table inside a timber-built barn that served as an ad hoc command center on the south side of Wetmore.
The General walked between shuffling soldiers and climbed to the loft on a creaking wooden ladder.
Trevor Stone stood up there dressed in simple green BDU pants, a black top, and a baseball cap jammed over shoulder-length hair. The Emperor had cast away the ornate trappings of his position much in the same way he had cast away the bulk of the bureaucracy after his return to power. Things had simplified on that day ten months ago. After much blood, that is.
Stone’s eyes fixed tight to the lenses of powerful field glasses as he stared out the hayloft door. From there he saw the flashes and blasts of battle raging two miles away.
“Simms just eyeballed their Leviathan,” Fink relayed with none of the jokes, Looney Tunes references, or Mel Blanc inspired voices that served as his calling card. Times had changed. Trevor Stone had changed.
“Our guns ready?”
“Yes.”
He considered reminding Trevor that Woody “Bear” Ross commanded those guns, but that would serve only to re-emphasize the point that Ross now commanded a mobile artillery unit instead of serving as the Excalibur’s first officer. That, in turn, would conjure unpleasant images of The Empire’s flagship full of holes, burning, and limping away from the battlefield last year, barely reaching the Pittsburgh shipyards where she remained out of action.
Fink strolled closer to a portable table on which rested several maps and papers. Those maps and papers showed the positions and plans of Trevor Stone’s last chance at defending the Rocky Mountain passes. If Voggoth broke through this time, then it would become a race to the Mississippi, the next and essentially last great barrier between the advancing hordes and the population centers of the East.
Trevor had spoken confidently about this plan, all while dispatching General Jon Brewer east to build a defensive line along the Mississippi.
Stone interrupted Fink’s thoughts, “Any news from Kaufman?”
Casey Fink answered, “She’s engaged a small advanced force outside of Cimarron. So far her boppers and the infantry there are holding the line.”
Stone let the glasses drop, pinched his nose, and joined Fink at the folding table.
As he had done ever since his return, Trevor spoke in a tone that lacked any real emotion but felt heavy with concentration: “You did a hell of a job helping Rhodes transfer 3 ^ rd Mech down to Rye last night.”
“Thank you, sir,” Fink acknowledged as he thought about the troops of both his Third Corp and General Rhodes’ 2 ^ nd Corp who squared off against one of a trio of forces punching through the Rockies that day.
General Rhodes’ 3 ^ rd Mechanized Division had been pulled from the main lines during the night and moved south into a new position, hopefully without The Order’s spies catching wind. That new position could be used to slice into the heart of Voggoth’s main force if the primary stages of the plan failed to turn the tide.
Fink touched the map at Cimarron, New Mexico, one of the other two places where Voggoth tried to push through the Rockies. If all went according to plan, Kristy Kaufman’s Chrysaor and a handful of troops would hold the line in New Mexico against The Order’s Battle group South while Trevor dealt a crushing defeat to Voggoth’s Battle group Center.
But little had gone according to plan since Voggoth’s invasion from the Pacific Ocean, starting with the loss of California last summer, The Order’s breakout into Nevada and Arizona during the Fall, and fighting through the Rockies between blizzards all winter long.
Trevor added his finger to the map as well, this time touching the evacuated city of Denver far to the north where the northernmost flank of the fight prepared to play out.
“Hoth should be in position by now,” Trevor said.
The Phillipan resembled a massive flying rectangle with a flat-top flight deck in front of a tower-like structure covering the rear third of the gigantic ship. Anti-gravity generators kept the steel beast afloat while thrust came from a series of engine baffles to aft.
With Denver off his port side, General William Hoth’s Dreadnought drifted over and between the Rocky Mountains. His target-the battering ram of Voggoth’s Battle group North-stood as tall as a skyscraper stretching up from the protective mist shrouding The Order’s mustering forces, like a dorsal fin exposing a shark. A few scattered gray clouds-surprisingly few for a force estimated so large-swirled overhead, spoiling an otherwise blue sky.
Hoth occupied the command module onboard the crescent-shaped bridge of his battleship. From there he accessed computer screens, monitors, and communications to gather information and control every ship function. Whoever stood in that module became the “Brain” of an Imperial Dreadnought.
The heavy-set General with the stoic voice relayed his work to the crew, “Proceeding to firing range. Charging the belly boppers to eighty percent.”
Ahead waited the Leviathan, unfazed by the approaching war machine.
Hoth delegated one duty to his XO. “Contact Command, tell them we’ve spotted Battle group North’s Leviathan. We will engage the target in less than two minutes”
“Good,” Trevor said in reaction to the message from the Phillipan. “They’ve shown most of their cards so far.”
“Kaufman has yet to engage Battle group South’s Leviathan.”
“She will,” Stone answered. “Voggoth is getting greedy, trying to punch through three spots at once. Trying to spread us too thin so we can’t stop him.” Trevor returned to the view of the battlefield from the hayloft. Even from a few miles away he could see the lumbering giant coming through the mountain pass. “But if we can beat him decisively here, we can roll him back on the other two fronts.”
While Stone spoke confidently, Fink knew that the opposite of that scenario also held true. If Voggoth broke through at Wetmore, then the sparse number of ground troops in Denver to the north and Cimarron, New Mexico to the South would make the line untenable.
Stone grew transfixed by the far away cloud of battle and the gargantuan beast, its lower half invisible behind a horizon of rooftops and foothills. It appeared to Fink that the sight mesmerized Stone. As if maybe he saw more there than what met the eye.
Trevor spoke in a steady, quiet voice, “I used to think mankind was so good at making war that it was scary. Then I see Voggoth’s beasts, and I realize we don’t know shit.”
Fink offered a meek, “Yes, sir,” although he did not think Trevor heard because the Leviathan’s battle cry began; a sound that whined and built like an air raid siren. Fink gasped, “Oh shit, it’s gonna fire. Shit, shit, and it’s not in position yet. It’s not out of the pass all the way.”
Trevor spoke again, still hypnotized by the battle and the insane walking skyscraper.
“You know the difference between us and Voggoth?”
Fink stepped to Stone’s shoulder. The sound of the Leviathan grew louder still as the gigantic creature sucked in air. Fink knew the barn lay beyond the immediate blast zone but not completely out of danger.