Essentially, he was tasked with saving The Empire, if it could even be called that anymore. The word did not roll as smoothly off the tongue when retreating.
Still, as he rode north in a Humvee as part of a snake-like band of infantry and light armor weaving between the crumbling rock walls hiding Highway 165, General Philip Rhodes believed his mission would be successful. The plan-Trevor’s plan-made perfect sense.
Voggoth marched his forces with a simple but effective strategy: engage and destroy humanity’s armies. He left his lesser minions-the Mutants and Wraiths and Roachbots-to infest cities and eradicate stragglers. But his main forces-his Leviathans and Spider Sentries and Chariots-sought to engage mankind’s organized forces.
And that is why The Order rigidly followed Highway 96 through the mountains and into battle against the main human army encamped at Wetmore. As such, Voggoth had ignored Highway 165 that sprouted away from 96 in the middle of the Wet Mountains. Highway 165 had become difficult to pass, anyhow, due to years of neglect. Landslides had turned it from a modern road into little more than a rocky path.
While heavy armor would have difficulty negotiating the downed boulders and debris cluttering the tight roadway, Humvees and infantry could push through. Rhodes’ strike from 96 would cut the alien force in two once the Leviathan fell. At that point, armored reserves hiding near Wetmore would attack the head of Voggoth’s column. Between the two attacks they would slice up and liquidate the enemy.
Of course, Rhodes knew his fight to be one of three that day. He knew that the Phillipan and the Chrysaor moved to intercept the other two prongs of The Order’s push east. And therein lay Voggoth’s mistake. With his heaviest weapons-three Leviathans-split between three different battle groups, The Empire could deal a decisive blow to the center and roll back the entire front. If they could draw out and knock down that walking battering ram.
The order to advance meant that part one of the plan had succeeded. While a tough fight remained, victory now appeared plausible with the Leviathan toppled.
A gamble, true, but all their victories since the invaders came had been the results of gambles and it seemed to General Rhodes that Trevor Stone rarely rolled snake eyes.
“Boppers charged to eighty percent,” Hoth echoed the display on his Weapons Status monitor for the benefit of the XO and crew. “Target in range. Preparing to fire.”
Beyond the windows and far out past the tip of the flight deck, loomed the incredibly large biomechanical monster known as a Leviathan. Near the top of its skyscraper-sized form hovered a patch of gray and black thunderheads, seemingly the remains of a storm long gone. Far below swirled a thick white mist pumped by The Order’s machines to hide the other components of Battle group North that threatened Denver.
Hoth knew the first Leviathan had fallen at Wetmore. He knew Rhodes launched a surprise attack. He knew it meant he had to keep his end of the deal. Those who knew Hoth understood that the General always kept his end of the deal. Ever since his days playing football for Army, the career-officer lived by the military code.
Indeed, on that fateful day last summer when Trevor Stone returned from the dead, the General had been prepared to blast the Excalibur from the sky because those had been his orders from the recognized chain of authority. That chain had changed that day, to the relief of all, but perhaps no more so than to William Hoth.
Indeed, while Hoth would never let his feelings show, he had found a great deal of satisfaction in watching the returned Emperor’s purge of the Senate, governors, and Internal Security. Not so much the public executions-they felt a tad gruesome-more so the eradication of the bureaucracy. In an instant, a library’s worth of post-Armageddon laws, regulations, and procedures vanished.
The remaining politicos served more as administrators implementing Trevor’s will, and no one complained because the results of Godfrey’s folly were on full display as Voggoth marched east. Voggoth’s invasion served a scary reminder and the people ran for Trevor’s protection yet again, as if he might be a messiah who could work his magic twice.
In fact, that magic appeared ready to work again. Success at Wetmore seemed the most unlikely of the chips that needed to fall and fall they had. Now Hoth had to do his job.
The Phillipan drifted into position. The mighty Leviathan did not move or react in any way, to the point that Hoth wondered if the beast had been activated. No matter, he felt no shame in shooting a big fish in a proverbial barrel.
“Firing main batteries.”
Two blobs of energy soared from the forward guns of the Phillipan. The energy bursts crackled and bubbled as they cut through the sky beneath the gray, churning clouds and above the ocean-like veil of mist. The entire dreadnought shimmied and bucked.
The energy blasts hit the ungodly war machine dead center. In an instant the creature shattered and crumbled into a shower of flakes and shards.
Silence fell across the bridge crew when there should be cheers.
The XO stood nearby and said with more hope than proclamation, “We did it, sir.”
Hoth mumbled aloud, “Is there anything down there? Anything at all?” He then announced to the bridge crew, “We’re turning about and setting course for Wetmore. Brace for maximum speed.”
“Sir, what is it?”
Hoth answered his XO, “A decoy.”
The line of soldiers stretched ahead of Rhodes’ lightly-armored Humvee. With all the rock slides and debris to either side, he felt more as if they marched through a big trench than a road.
He took note of his troops. They looked dusty and grimy and tired, their graying uniforms nearly matched the complexion of the stony, shadowed passage they traveled. Yet he knew his boys were in their best spirits since he had taken command. For the first time since the California War, Third Mechanized attacked instead of retreated.
Most of his troops were citizen soldiers molded from necessity, not recruitment drives. Their ages ranged from under 16 to over 60. Their equipment-even the graying uniforms-appeared only the least bit standardized. Most carried M16s or similar models such as M4s or AR15s, a few sported AK-47s while fewer still dealt with semi-automatic hunting rifles. All wore Kevlar helmets and some form of body armor in conditions ranging from pristine to threadbare.
Most important, each of those soldiers realized the stakes. Each was prepared to fight because they believed in Trevor Stone, the man who had saved them when the world seemed over, the man who had traveled across dimensions, the man who had returned from the dead.
They marched forward under the command of General Rhodes, but they marched for Trevor. He would lead them to victory again.
As he considered all this, Rhodes felt his morale rise. Then the screams started.
The driver instinctively stopped when a commotion rolled through the ranks. Heads turned skyward. Rhodes opened the passenger door and followed their gaze.
Up into the sky-toward the swirling storm clouds-rose black dots, one after another sent flying among the forward ranks.
No, not black dots. People. Arms flailing, a few letting loose horrified screams, but most already dead.
Another one went, this time only a few dozen yards ahead of Rhodes’ position. He heard a blast of vapor and saw the soldier go flying into the sky, dozens of feet, hundreds of feet, a thousand feet-lifeless arms and limbs shaking and waving. Then gravity took hold and the body plummeted to earth where it landed in a crowd of panicking infantry.
“Bouncers! Fucking bouncers!”
The column halted. Everyone stepped back, almost in unison.
“Sonofabitch,” Rhodes growled at his driver and anyone who would hear. “Bouncer mines. Why didn’t the dogs sniff em’ out? Christ this is going to slow things down.”
Fflloooooopp!