“They stopped coming about half an hour ago and pulled back. Their bridges are still up. They’ll be coming again soon. But we don’t have much left to face them, General. I reckon it’ll be over mighty quick.”
The quiet of the battlefield amazed Jon. He heard a few groans here, a couple of cries of pain, and random whispers. He also heard a buzzing noise. Something distant. He tried to look around but his head spun.
“Easy, big fella,” Shep consoled as Cassy dismounted nearby. “They showed up a few minutes ago. Moving into position now. I guess time’s up.”
“Who? What?”
Thump.
Jon’s vision cleared-enough. A wind gust blew away much of the remaining fog. He saw the spinning clouds overhead. He saw a mighty flash of lightning. And in that flash he saw the latest arrivals to the battlefield: a trio of Geryon battleships. Each one a big dirigible with two smaller blimps attached to either side with a slow moving propeller to stern, a nasty-looking main gun that resembled a cross between a satellite dish and a howitzer on the bow, as well as a modular gondola hanging underneath the main frame.
Cassy Simms reported in a monotone voice, “Stonewall’s brigade has held the northern flank, sir. But there are only ten of us left. Hoorah.”
Shepherd walked to Cassy and told her, “Garret would have been proud, Cassy. Damn fine job.”
Jon took a step forward and nearly stumbled over the remains of an Ogre. It appeared to be a leg or something. He steadied himself and-
Thump.
Jon faced west. The thumps did not come from his head. They came with each step the Leviathan took as it approached the riverbank: a walking skyscraper looming over the survivors of humanity’s last stand. The final weapon in the war of Armageddon.
They should have run. The natural flight instinct in the face of such a horrifying creature should have turned the men and women of humanity’s last battle into a hysterical mass.
But it was not courage that kept them from fleeing. It was exhaustion. Physical and mental. A sense of malaise overcame the soldiers as they watched the last act unfold.
Except for Jon. His emotions cut through the exhaustion; through the malaise.
“No.”
Not a plea, but an order. No. This will not be allowed.
Jon looked over his troops again. So many dead, but they still held. The odds had been stacked against them but they held. And now this?
No!
“Now, what are they up to?” Shep asked in a shaky voice that tried hard to sound calm but only partially succeeded.
Shep pointed Jon’s attention to a field across the river north of the battle. One of the Geryon battleships hovered there. A nice chunk of its gondola dropped away from the zeppelin on wires and fell to the ground.
“Steel Guard,” he told Shep. “Trevor told us about them, remember?”
“Oh, yeah, virtual reality robots or something. More of that Star Trek shit I can’t get a handle on.”
Cassy spoke the obvious with a sneer in her voice, “The Leviathan blows us over and they come marching through to take the credit.”
No!
The remaining two Geryon airships floated into formation with one to either side of the Leviathan as the cloud-touching monstrosity came to a standstill on the far side of the Mississippi.
Only a handful of soldiers on the human side took refuge. The rest remained in the grip of that malaise. Either the Geryon’s would fire first and cut them to pieces or the Leviathan would unleash its big wind. Either way, in a minute Quincy would be the final resting place of humanity.
Jon, however, refused to go quietly.
“No, not after all this,” and he pulled his side arm-an automatic pistol-and stepped away from the group toward the bank. The mighty Leviathan towered high above. He craned his neck as if speaking directly to the monster across the river. Bolts of lightning crackled in the turbulent sky. The winds whipped in a frenzy like demons dancing a long night’s last song.
“We survived!”
He raised his gun and fired a single shot that echoed up and down the river.
“Everything they threw at us and we survived!”
Bang. The second bullet, like the first, carried out over the Mississippi and fell somewhere in the water or on the opposite bank.
“We lost Johnny, and Stonewall and Casey! They were good people!”
The Leviathan sucked in air from above. A sound like an air raid siren competed with Jon’s voice but that voice still managed to reach the ears of his people, many of whom stepped forward with their own pistols and shotguns and rifles.
“You took my wife!”
BANG.
Shep and Cassy flanked Jon. They would face the end the same way they had survived the beginning: together.
The Geryon battleships shimmied as their main guns charged. They stayed to either side but slightly behind the Leviathan, clear of its blast cone.
“You stole our lives!”
A lightning bolt lit the sky like a miniature sun. The thunder boom that followed made the ground shake. Bubbles like sores rippled all along the giant creature’s skin as it filled with the air needed for its deadly weapon.
“WE’RE NOT RUNNING FROM YOU! GIVE US YOUR BEST YOU SON-OF-A-WHORE!”
A chorus of rifle and pistol fire rang out, all directed at the Leviathan. All futile. But they cheered nonetheless. One last act of defiance.
The Geryon’s reached full-firing power first.
Streams of laser-sharp energy shot out from the dish-like guns at the front of the airships. The dirigibles rocked from the power. The twin beams cut through the air and speared the Leviathan in a downward crisscross like golden swords skewering Voggoth’s pet. The lasers dragged up and down, cutting open the air sacs inside. Chunks of the impossibly-huge monster fell apart, a big one splashing into the Mississippi and showering the eastern bank; other pieces on the western bank where they landed in a serious of sharp impacts.
Jon held his breath but he heard others react with gasps; no one spoke.
Jon Brewer watched the Geryon’s carve the Leviathan into pieces and as he watched he saw something looming even larger over the scene than the dirigibles or the 1,000-foot-tall monster.
He saw- he felt — the hand of Trevor Stone.
He’s alive. He did it. Or Jorgie did. Whatever ‘it’ is.
The army of Voggoth hesitated, equally as dumbfounded as Jon’s forces. Still, they did react. A series of Spooks targeted the battleships but a halo of anti-air craft shells met the counter-attack. Only a handful of Spooks breached those defenses causing a flash here and a puff of smoke there but nothing fatal to the blimps.
“Sh-shep…”
Nothing.
Jon tried again to break through the trance cast over his people by the turn of events.
“Shep!”
“Huh? What? Oh, I-my god Jon, am I seein’ this?”
“Shep, get everyone together. Everyone who can walk and use a trigger finger,” and Jon swept his hands toward the bridges built by Voggoth’s mechanical frog-things. “Get them across. We’re attacking,” Jon turned and faced Cassy who watched with an expression of detachment; wonder.
“You too, Cassy. Everything we got left. And remember, the Geryons are friendly.”
From his position atop the Cargill grain elevator, Woody Ross watched the 12 ^ th Mechanized Infantry Brigade move along a convoluted series of roads and on-ramps that merged together just east of the Poplar Street Bridge. General Rhodes commanded this last combat-ready fighting force from a Humvee near the lead.
