offensive.
Ross growled and raised his radio to do the only thing he could.
“Send them in,” he transmitted.
Captain Carl Dunston’s radioed a reply, “Fast-movers inbound. ETA thirty seconds.”
Ross turned to one of his aids; a man whose wide, frightened eyes contrasted with his snappy green BDU’s that seemed the paragon of military professionalism.
Although Bear’s voice lacked its usual ground-shaking boom, he still commanded immediate action, “Get the command staff ‘cross the river to the fallback bunker. And tell General Rhodes to get his group up here or these things are going be over the Mississippi before dinner.”
The aid nodded and turned away sharply, motivated not only by his commander’s orders but also by a hardy embracement of evacuation. He shared the directions with other members of the staff and they immediately set to work disassembling equipment.
A pair of F-15s swept in flying low over the tangle of roads and rails to the south of the stadium that ran away from the river and across St. Louis. The planes actually flew beneath the shadows of downtown’s taller buildings, briefly filling the dug-in defenders there with false confidence.
The crazed, six-legged robots nicknamed ‘Roachbots’ comprised the Vanguard of Voggoth’s force. They scurried in front of the insanely-tall Leviathan to engage the forward positions of the troops sent in to fill the vacancy left by Benny Duda’s obliteration. Those forces, Ross knew, would last minutes-not hours-against the full might of The Order’s advance.
Anti-Air spooks rose to engage the fighters but the planes dropped their deadly cargo of napalm first. Flames burst to either side of the interstate, engulfing the baseball diamonds and tennis courts of a recreational park to the north as well as several commercial buildings to the south.
The heat melted the frames and singed the circuits of the mad mechanical monsters that bore the brunt of the bombing. Secondary explosions added to the inferno and streams of black smoke rose to mingle with the dark storm clouds overhead.
The F-15s banked away and skillfully weaved through downtown St. Louis, evading the anti-air creatures some of which collided with buildings and detonated.
For all the fiery destruction, the napalm offered the briefest of reprieves. In mere moments the next wave of Roachbots marched around their burning comrades and continued into the thick of downtown. Human infantry and vehicles responded with bullets and explosives. The battle for St. Louis reached its final stage.
Plumes of smoke from the fight outside of St. Louis drifted high on the eastern horizon. Nina watched from some five miles behind the action. Still, the Leviathan-so tall the storm clouds often hid its uppermost reaches-felt close. Too close.
Her ragtag band of guerrillas managed to wipe out a pair of supply vehicles and their escorts before settling into ambush positions to either side of Interstate 64.
Her force of 300 included displaced soldiers, government workers (mainly from food and agriculture) and civilians either liberated from The Order’s clutches or accidentally caught behind enemy lines.
Half that number served under the wounded corporal’s command to the north of the interstate in the buildings and on the grounds of St. John’s Mercy Medical Center. Before Armageddon the concrete, glass, and steel buildings hosted a variety of medical facilities including a well-respected children’s hospital. The campus had not re-opened since the first Armageddon, but the proximity of the structure to the highway gave it a prominent role in this second Armageddon.
In any case, the best shots among the corporal’s contingent occupied the upper levels of the tallest buildings where they could cover the interstate with sniper rifles. The less skilled positioned themselves in the parking lot and tree line along the highway with any weapons they could find.
Ironically, the southern side of the ambush utilized a nearly identical facility for cover: this one being the Missouri Baptist Medical Center, also unattended since Armageddon but its campus of modern buildings provided equally useful sniper positions. Together Nina’s two groups would form a gauntlet the Chaktaw pass as they crossed over a major highway cloverleaf on their way toward downtown.
“Hey, Nina!” Vince called from the western side of the top floor. “You need to see this.”
She gave Voggoth’s army one last glance. It might be the last time her eyes saw a Leviathan; one small consolation as she entered what, most likely, would be her final fight. She watched the walking tower take another step forward and while she could not directly see them, she knew thousands of robots and monsters marched in front of the gargantuan and into down town where her fellow soldiers fought desperately to stave the assault. She wished she could be with them, but fate dictated a different path.
“Nina!”
Vince’s voice suggested urgency but not panic. She doubted the Chaktaw had reached the ambush yet but history suggested these aliens to be a wily bunch so she prepared for any possibility.
She moved away from the east side window and traversed the dark, cold hallway with Odin, the elkhound at her side. The dust and erosion of time had long ago supplanted the hospital’s sterile environment. Broken equipment, overturned trays covered in the black and brown decay of decade-old food, and crusty file folders of now-useless paperwork lay scattered about. A stench of mold and mildew pervaded the air.
She came to a waiting room lobby on the northwestern corner. The big windows there afforded a great view of the highway. That highway should have basked in a late-afternoon sun. Instead, the heavy cloud cover made the entire scene feel more like the tail end of dusk.
Vince sat in a wheelchair with his finger pressed against the glass pointing at something on the road below.
Nina thought she had prepared or any possibility. She was wrong.
A solitary Chaktaw-its camouflage poncho colored gray-stood at the center of the road, apparently unarmed and holding its alien hands aloft.
Odin stood on his back legs, propped his front paws against the glass and growled.
The walkie-talkie on Vince Caesar’s lap came to life with a voice from a checkpoint along the highway.
“Captain Forest, do you copy? What do you want me to do?”
The sight of the Chaktaw told Nina that she had not hidden their movements as craftily as she thought.
She grabbed the radio.
“Shit. Yeah, okay, look, I don’t see any more of them so go on up and see what he wants.”
She watched two burly fellows in assault vests over jeans and t-shirts cautiously approach the alien emissary with their weapons drawn. As she witnessed the meeting, Nina recalled a story from the Battle of Five Armies and shared it with Vince Caesar.
“I get it. Those cocky son of a bitches,” and while she spat the words, she did feel a sense of admiration for their prowess and confidence.
“What?”
She relayed the story in first person because she had participated, yet her recollections came from the memories of others.
“At Five Armies when we were down to our last hill, the Chaktaw sent an ambassador to invite Trevor to a meeting. It seems they’ve got this tradition or something that if they know they have you beat they give you the chance to surrender.”
The human sentries reached the Chaktaw. The alien produced some kind of short microphone device. Nina suspected it to be a translator. A conversation ensued.
“Surrender?”
“Listen, not like you’re thinking. They offered to kill us quickly if we’d line up and let them do it. Something about it being a sign of respect for a worthy adversary, as if letting them slit your throat real quick is better than dying in battle.”
“So you’re saying they knew we were here, is that it?”
“Looks that way to me. Shit.”
The radio sprung to life. The men from the checkpoint relayed a message from the aliens: “They say their leader-a ‘Force Commander’-wants to meet with you. Something about a message for you. They guarantee safe passage.”
“Bullshit,” Vince shot.
