and found rubble where a church stood on Trevor's world. As they rounded the pile of debris and approached the road, Trevor stopped.
Two carcasses lay there. Big bodies, scavenged to the bone. He recognized the skeletons by one of the few parts remaining intact: circular rows of teeth that easily identified the cadavers as Jaw-Wolves.
'Dear Lord in Heaven,' Reverend Johnny gaped at the bones.
Trevor said to Johnny more so than anyone else, 'If Jaw-Wolves had attacked the estate on our Earth in the first few months, we would not have stood a chance, either.'
Johnny pointed at the holes in the road ahead and remarked, 'Jaw-Wolves don't make bomb craters so they must have had help.'
'This whole thing,' Trevor said, 'it stinks like The Order to me.'
He led them forward again, this time at an even faster clip. They walked along the wall protecting the estate until reaching a breach and entering the grounds where they found another Jaw-Wolf carcass.
Major Forest barked orders, 'First squad, form a security perimeter. Second squad, split into teams and enter the structure. We’ll wait-'
Trevor did not listen. He chambered a round on his bullpup assault rifle and marched to and through the arch-shaped front door. Nina could do nothing other than follow.
Things differed from his home a universe away. Rougher interior textures, slightly larger doorways with an arched look as opposed to straight rectangles, lighting fixtures shaped like hour glasses, and moist air due to half the building being inside the mountain. The furniture lacked flare-much more utilitarian-but made to fit a human form. The walls had been picked clean of any decorating and the remains of battle-bullet holes, burn scars-littered each room.
Nonetheless, the place felt the same in spirit. A home converted into a bunker; a place big enough to store the seeds to rebirth a world, isolated but still in close proximity to civilization.
Regardless of what had driven him from this place, Trevor's counterpart on this Earth started here. He felt it. He knew it. And that meant answers might remain.
Stone moved quickly through the first floor, his flashlight shining over damaged walls and smashed furniture, chasing away bugs and small mammals. Whatever ghosts lurked here, they guarded their secrets stubbornly.
Frustration turned to anger. He ordered, 'No one goes in the basement except me.'
'Okay, fair enough,' Major Forest said and then she ordered Corporal Brewer, 'Establish a command post on the first floor. Set up scanners and communications.'
Trevor ascended a set of wide, stone stairs to the second floor. The Reverend and Forest followed. With each step up he moved faster until he ran into what would have been his office.
An oval-shaped table made of some kind of plastic dominated the room surrounded by the remains of broken chairs. Against one wall stood a circular storage rack where only burnt pieces of unreadable paper remained. Piles of plaster blended with the warped and splintered wood planks of the floor giving each of Trevor's steps a crunch, crack, or snap.
The room felt like a microcosm of the entire planet; broken and failing, much like the people of Thebes who were drowning in Armageddon, waiting for the next wave-the last wave-to push them under.
And why?
Because I failed.
He kicked a broken chair sending it spiraling into a wall. He paced back and forth, pumping his fists as if trying to strike the phantoms that had overrun this Trevor's redoubt.
Johnny eyed Trevor, engrossed in the sight of a man facing an image of his own downfall. Nina, meanwhile, strolled through the destroyed room with a sense of awe in her expression, maybe fear; like a child in a dinosaur museum.
'How did this happen? I have to know how this happened!'
'Trevor…' Johnny spoke delicately. 'We've seen the evidence in the form of bones.'
'There’s a reason. I did something wrong. I made a mistake…'
Stone surged toward Nina, taking her by surprise. She retreated a step but he grabbed her by the shoulders.
'Tell me! He had to have told you something! Why was he chased from here?'
Johnny came to her rescue, 'Trevor Stone! Get a hold of yourself!'
The Reverend’s hand looked placid enough but he had more strength in that one arm than many men had in both. He smoothly but forcefully pulled Stone away from the woman.
'Calm yourself!'
'I have to have the answers! I have to know!'
'Maybe you’re not meant to know. Maybe this place is not for you!'
Stone threw Johnny’s hand from his shoulder and grunted. His chest heaved in and out in frustrated breaths. He pinched his nose and closed his eyes as the nightmares that must have befallen the mansion danced in his imagination.
Wind rattled against the cracked, arch-shaped glass doors of the balcony beyond which they heard that wind whistle through the trees surrounding the dead home.
The radio on Nina’s utility belt crackled to life with Corporal Jon Brewer's voice, 'Major, we have a radar contact. It's big and coming our way.'
'That's it,' she said to the men. 'We're going to have to evacuate.'
Trevor grumbled, 'Is it that Steel Guard you told me about? They're coming?'
Nina raised her communicator and asked, 'Have you identified the radar contact?'
'One battleship,' the Corporal's shaky voice replied. 'Approaching from the east.'
Trevor stepped to the balcony doors and peered out through the spider web crack in one glass panel. He produced a set of compact binoculars and aimed them east. He saw something…a speck in the blue sky.
He repeated what she had told him earlier, 'The Steel Guard of the Geryon Reich.'
'Who is that?' Johnny asked because he had missed that conversation.
Nina said, 'They control most of the east coast of this continent.'
'Based on what she's told me, Rev, we haven't seen these guys yet.'
Major Forest stepped toward the hallway and said, 'It doesn't matter. We have to go.'
Johnny stood in the middle of the room, looking first to Forest as she urged evacuation and then to Trevor who stared out the window toward the approaching threat.
'It does matter,' Trevor said without turning. 'Will they attack as you suggested?'
'Trevor, look, I know you're eager to get started, but we're not equipped for a full-scale battle. They've got a battleship that could blast apart this side of the lake in about thirty seconds.'
'But they won't use it,' he said. 'That's what you said.'
Nina grit her teeth and narrowed her eyes as she corrected, 'I said they preferred not to use it. Their main batteries drain a lot of energy. But we’re about thirty soldiers. Their ground forces won’t need the main guns to take us out. We have hardly any heavy weapons.'
Footsteps announced the arrival of Corporal Brewer in the upstairs room.
'Major, should I pull in the men and retreat to the Skippers?'
Trevor turned around and Reverend Johnny recognized the glare in his friend's eyes. He told the other two, 'I don't think retreat is on Mr. Stone's mind.'
'We have to pull out,' Nina said. 'There’s nothing here, you know?'
He did not appear to hear her. He said, 'They’re coming in from the east on the southern side. They’ll pass right over our parked Skippers before they get here.'
'Yeah, well, damn good reason to get moving. Their air-to-air defenses will knock the Skips right out of the sky. We’re running out of time.'
A message from the Major's radio interrupted their conversation. A message in human tongue but delivered by a monotone voice that could only come from a computer of some kind, probably a translation computer.
'THIS TERRITORY IS CLAIMED BY THE GERYON REICH. YOU ARE ORDERED TO WITHDRAW IMMEDIATELY OR BE DESTROYED.'
The speck in the sky grew larger as it approached the mountain rim, becoming a full-blown dot descending as it moved.
