Ashley knew that after failing Trevor so badly following the assassination, Jon Brewer would gladly fall on a sword or die in battle against the traitors. But such a fight-regardless of victor-could only serve Voggoth's end.
Ashley Trump had been many things to Richard and Trevor Stone over the years, and since Armageddon there were many things she could not be for him. But at this moment she understood the role she needed to play, if even for the last time. She would speak on behalf of mankind and be the voice he needed to hear.
"Trevor, I know you never wanted to be an Emperor. Maybe that's why it had to be you. I know about the other world, where you saw another version of you to be a brutal dictator. I know you're worried that maybe there is some of that in you. Ever since you came back three years ago, you've been afraid of yourself. Afraid of what you might do."
He did not respond but she felt confident he heard.
"You've kept that dark part locked away, bringing it out only when you fought the most desperate battles; only when you had to make the most difficult decisions. And every time you unleashed that part of you, you regretted it. I think it killed you, a little, each time. But you did it, because you have always stayed focused on the mission…because you know that when the survival of our species is at stake, then maybe the ends might justify the means."
He raised his eyes and stared out the stern observation windows. Far away the first light of Wednesday, July 16 ^ th crept toward the horizon. Soon a new day would dawn. Soon Nina Forest would board an Eagle transport and fly to Annapolis to see her daughter again. Ashley remembered she owed that woman a debt; a debt that would be paid before the day ended.
More important, she knew Trevor had a debt to pay on behalf of humanity. And while it might kill another piece of him, it was his fate-or curse-to bear the burden.
"Trevor, you have to find that darkness again, for just a little while. It is there for a purpose. It is there to allow you to do what you have to do today."
His expression remained stoic even as tears pooled in his eyes.
"Trevor, you have to go. You have to go and take back your Empire."
– The villages that once lived east of the Volga no longer existed, their buildings ground to dust and their populaces devoured by the worst of Armageddon's nightmares; the same nightmares that had turned the steppes into charred wasteland. No animal, no human, no plant lived for thousands of square miles under a perpetually dark sky filled with angry clouds, lightening, and a chorus of rolling thunder, as if nature protested the presence of such vileness.
Above the forlorn landscape traveled a machine that could not possibly fly, but did. A floating blob that seemed to breath as it glided over the dead plains.
Its destination; a sickening hall of green and red infecting the land. Its massive size was dwarfed by the imposing peaks of the Ural Mountains behind it in a great wall of rock.
Rib-like supports held the rounded dome of Voggoth's temple, five-hundred foot spires like sour vines reached to the sky at each corner, and smaller satellite buildings resembling blisters basked in the shadow of their Master's shrine. Wisps of steam pumped from hidden vents, ghoulish beings marched in formation, and an oval landing pad flashed a creamy light to guide the vessel to its last stop.
From the impossible flying machine emerged the Missionary, stumbling forward cradling the stump of one arm. On the side of his face flexed a patch of faded skin while chopped tentacles sprouting from his neck writhed like wounded snakes.
A short flight of wide steps made from a substance like marble stretched before the grand entrance that was guarded by a pair of humanoid sentries standing eight feet tall with gray flesh, granite-like jaws, and tiny eyes beneath hairless scalps. Their legs and arms sported unnaturally large muscles that threatened to rip through the skin while metal cuffs and a matching collar symbolized their servitude.
As the Missionary approached, the fibrous front door retracted like a paper fan. He walked into darkness.
The inside of the temple was a great empty space with a ceiling stretching impossibly high and the far wall so distant it could not be seen. Humid air carried a smell of decay.
The Missionary walked alone, hobbling forward. Far overhead from the hidden rafters hung two massive, clear orbs each hundreds of feet in diameter and each filled with a pulsating black fog that beat against the glass like an imprisoned animal. From those orbs crackled energy of a kind not known to Earth until ten years ago.
Unseen voices from a universe away called to the Missionary through the energy of those orbs:
… you should not have touched the boy…
… this represents a rules infraction…
… an investigation is warranted…
… violation…
… the surrogates were not to be targeted…
The Missionary cringed and stopped. The pain had become too great.
"Master! Help me!"
A tremor announced His coming. It rolled from the blackness, filling the place from wall to wall and ceiling to floor like a mega tsunami, the details of its form hidden by the dark.
Just as it threatened to crash down upon the Missionary, the entity collapsed from gigantic to small, taking the form of a man: a man whose body had, years ago, become a vessel to facilitate the Master's travel to the world of life; to the physical. "My Lord, Voggoth! Help me! I am infected!" The Missionary groaned in pain at the infection the boy had jammed into his mind. "You failed. Now the plan must be accelerated before this opportunity is lost." The Missionary protested, "But his mind is shattered!" Voggoth replied, "No. He will survive. He will fight again." "But how can you know this, Master?"
From the form of the man came a pair of barbed tendrils. They drilled into the Missionary and tore the occupied body to pieces. It would be the Missionary's last pilgrimage.
The body of the man that now belonged to Voggoth stepped into the light cast by the crackling energy from the orbs so far overhead. He gazed upon the dying Missionary and found great pleasure in his cries.
"Because I know him," said Voggoth, speaking from the body that had once belonged to Danny Washburn.
30. Maelstrom
General William Hoth sat alone in the conference room aboard the Philipan with a cup of warm coffee in one hand and stacks of papers-readiness reports, maintenance updates, weather forecasts, more-spread before him at the head of an empty table.
The ship's XO interrupted his thinking via a rude buzzing from the phone and a report: "Sir, our scout ships confirm two or possibly three bogies launched from the Excalibur. Speed and radar profile suggest they are Eagle transports. Should I launch the alert fighters?"
Hoth answered with as few words as possible, "No."
"Sir?"
"What's the status of the Excalibur?"
"Holding position over the ocean, sir. No sign of movement."
"Continue to monitor the Excalibur."
"Sir, with all due respect, the transports, sir?"
Hoth did not like explaining himself. In fact, he absolutely hated it, something his Executive Officer knew. But these were strange times, even for a world invaded by aliens.
"Our orders are to engage the Excalibur, not transports."
The General promptly hung up, but before he returned his eyes to the stacks of paper strewn across the table, he considered the situation. He did not like the idea of firing upon an officer whom he respected or upon a ship built to fight on his side. However, Hoth had also not liked firing on humans in California.
What he liked or did not like mattered little; he followed orders. And until he heard different, those orders came from the Secretary of Defense, Dante Jones, a man whom Hoth did not think very highly of. Nonetheless, had Hoth disregarded orders from civilian overseers he felt were incompetent all his career that career never would have made it out of the 1970s.