Stonewall-standing next to Jon-said, 'I was not aware that Mister Stone had experience with such machines.'
Jon muttered, 'Wow.'
Trevor's revelation that he could fly the Apache shocked Jon even more so than Nina. He knew what Trevor would tell him: the same thing he told him when he asked where Trev had learned how to shoot and clean an assault rifle; where did he learned tactical hand signals; where had he learned how to fix generators.
I just picked it up.
Jon shook away his disbelief and gathered the ground convoy together including the new, fully loaded fuel truck. The time had come to return home.
– Nina glared through the cockpit window at the other helicopter, her gaze nearly violent enough to knock Trevor’s Apache from the air.
As for Trevor, he sat in the pilot’s seat, amazed. Everything on the control panel appeared familiar to him. He knew the purpose of each button.
Yes, there, counter-measures. Okay and those are the fire suppression systems. Oh yeah, that button activates the targeting controls linked directly to the helmet.
Radar? Clear. Orientation? Slightly banked but hey, no one is perfect.
But the lighter-than-air feeling…
He snickered.
Lighter than air in such a heavy machine? Silly sounding, but true. The beast, as massive as it felt, glided through the sky above the highway as if hanging from an invisible rope.
He glanced down at the world. The homes and the buildings all looked small and fake, conjuring memories of the train table in his grandpa’s basement; the one with the Lionel engines and blinking RR crossing signs.
Trevor suddenly felt lightheaded. The orange and red trees of autumn, the houses, the highway…they faded…
…desert, flat and featureless stretching as far as he could see. Plumes of thick black smoke rising from the horizon and filling the sky ahead, blocking the sun in an oily veil.
Below him, a burning hulk in the desert. He knew that hulk had been a T-72M1 tank. He knew it had been a part of the Medina Republican Guard Division. He also knew it burned from the Hellfire missile he had put into its hull.
The radio crackled with the conversation of others.
'C2 this is ‘Venerable’, ah, we need some support over here.'
'Ah, Roger that, two Ghostriders en route to your location now…going red in two minutes…'
Trevor’s dizziness dissolved. The desert disappeared and he saw the towns, forests, and roads of northeast Pennsylvania again.
Nina’s voice spoke from his radio headset, 'Are you going to tell me where you learned to fly helicopters?'
He smiled to himself.
'I just picked it up.'
– The two Apaches swooped in low over the lake and banked hard as they arrowed for the estate. The mechanical whirl of the turbojets and the heavy pounding of the rotors echoed across the water basin.
'Well this changes things,' Trevor radioed Nina.
He could still feel her eyes-sharper than the laser targeting mechanism-on his chopper.
She grumbled, 'The convoy should be back here in twenty minutes or so.'
Trevor beamed. What a glorious day for humanity’s comeback!
'I’ll land on the helipad next to the mansion; you go to the fields to the west. Wait until every…one… sees…'
Trevor’s voice drifted and he shivered in his flight suit.
Bodies lay strewn in front of the mansion porch and around the driveway.
'Oh shit.'
'What?' But Nina saw.
He commanded, 'Put down at the crossroads by the church, I’m landing on the pad. Rally at the main entrance.'
'Roger that.'
The choppers split.
Stone landed his ride with a quick, heavy thud. He opened the canopy and retrieved his M4 then jogged along the driveway with his head on a swivel. He desperately wanted to start searching but first he had to meet Nina.
On the way to the main gate, he spied a dead German Shepherd and two killed Rottweilers. Primitive arrows had pierced one of the dead dogs. The other two showed massive stabbing traumas from knives or spears.
The K9s were not the only dead things on the lawn.
Trevor found the corpses of humanoid hostiles with bodies similar to man. They wore clothing made of animal hides and woven plants. The tribesmen had pale skin, elongated fingers and not one trace of body hair. Near the dead aliens lay bows and arrows, knives made of wood, and heavy clubs.
Trevor did not stop until he reached the main gate. Nina, her Apache parked near the church, joined him.
Facing the unknown together forced the two to act in unison, with no wasted words and no stray thoughts. Trevor ordered that they secure the ‘barn’ behind the mansion first. She followed his orders without question.
There, at the nest egg of the K9s, they found two dead Dobermans but twice that number in chewed attackers. The K9s had held the barn, keeping safe the pups and mothers-to-be.
Stone dispatched two Greyhounds to the farms with hand-written warnings tucked in their collars. The warnings commanded: ESTATE ATTACKED. HUNKER DOWN UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
Trevor and Nina next entered the mansion through the back door. In the main hallway, they found the remains of battle. Bullets had ripped away plaster chunks from walls. Blood from one K9 and three dead tribesmen mixed in pools on the floor. The space there felt warm and musty and a fine dust floated about.
Lori Brewer sat on the floor propped against a wall loosely holding a. 357 magnum revolver. The Doberman named Ajax hovered next to Lori, panting.
Stone knelt next to her. She struggled with her breath to make words: 'Oh…shit…they just kept coming…I could hear them outside.'
Trevor gave her a quick examination while Nina stood guard. He saw no wounds other than the exhaustion and fear that had caused her collapse.
'I heard shots. I couldn’t get out there 'cause the god damn dogs wouldn’t let me go.'
Trevor smiled, a little, and placed a hand on her shoulder.
'They were doing their job.'
Trevor turned his attention to Ajax. That dog had no information other than that the house remained secure.
'Stay here. You’ll be safe here. I’ll be back. Jon will be back soon, too.'
Lori nodded. Nina and Trevor went outside, leaving Ajax to keep the mansion safe.
The two checked the apartments above the garage and found Evan Godfrey hiding in his closet. After telling Godfrey to stay put, Trevor led Nina off the estate grounds with the aim of searching the church. Their plans changed when they heard a groan from the dock. There they found two people.
Trevor recognized the first person as hailing from Stonewall’s mortar teams: a chubby fellow with a 'Maryland Terrapins' sweatshirt. Blood from a massive gash on the fellow’s neck drenched that sweatshirt. His dead hand held an empty AR-15 rifle. Shell casings from the weapon surrounded the nearby corpses of two primitive attackers.
However, the groan had come from the second person: Sal Corso. He lived, for the moment, despite four arrows driven deep into his body.
Nina helped Sal into a sitting position against the boathouse. His lungs drew his last breaths but Corso’s hand still gripped an empty pistol in the vain hope of continuing the fight.
