via the railroads, some of which had already been bombed. The only remaining intact routes ran in a north and northeast direction out of Wichita.
General Fink scratched his head and then timidly-a rare thing for Casey Fink-told Trevor, “2 ^ nd Armor is fifty percent loaded. General Rothchild and her command staff have set up shop over at the rail yard. I dispatched a pair of anti-air units for added protection.”
Trevor ran a hand over the rather thick stubble on his cheeks before finding his nose and pinching. Before he could burst into an angry reminder about the need for speed General Fink added, “We’ve got a strong garrison at Newton. They’ll cover the lines as long as we need. I’m more worried about the Chrysaor.”
“She’s out of action for a couple of days,” he told Fink. “No dry-dock, but she’s pulled back for weapons repair. Seems the air fight over Amarillo did more damage than we thought.”
Trevor stared at the maps of Kansas, Missouri, and Wichita. Markers represented friendly units as well as enemy positions.
“We have time, sir,” Casey said in a cautious tone.
“I know. That’s what worries me.”
On the map he saw markers indicating The Order’s legions, but felt greater concern over what he could not see. This sense of paranoia had grown acute in the four days since Voggoth outwitted him at the battle near Wetmore.
Trevor removed his baseball cap. Dirty hair fell over his ears. Outside, the roar of jet engines announced another flight trying to escape.
“We haven’t been moving fast enough, but they haven’t caught us, either.”
“They’ve had to do some farming,” said Fink. “Recon spotted a half-dozen fields just across the Colorado border.”
“A half-dozen? That’s nothing, you know that. Voggoth has got something up his sleeve.”
“Maybe he knows where we’re going. Maybe he wants to wait and set up shop closer to where the real battle is going to happen. You know, the Mississippi.”
The thought had occurred to Trevor.
“Maybe, yeah. But why let us make it to the barricades? He could hurt us bad right now, but he’s holding off. We’re too busy running to fight, and he still has enough firepower to kick us harder in the ass than he’s been doing. But he hasn’t. Just nitpicks. Bombing runs and a few shock troops here and there. It’s as if he wants us to make it to the Mississippi. Like he’s…”
Casey followed, “Like he’s stalling for time before finishing us off.”
Trevor nodded but his eyes remained on the map.
“Yeah, that about sums it up.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know. That’s what scares me.”
One of Trevor’s K9 bodyguards sitting by the door growled and stood. Everyone at the table turned and eyed the dog.
Rick Hauser spoke aloud what everyone thought: “Oh shit.”
A sound other than engines and shouts filtered in through the glass windows of the observation lounge: the base’s air raid klaxon springing to life in a wail of warning.
Casey Fink’s dry sense of humor surfaced for the first time in days: “Sounds like another nitpick.”
Trevor pointed through the big windows and said, “Here they come.”
A plume of exhaust on the distant perimeter of the base announced the launching of a Patriot missile. More plumes joined the first and reached into the white clouds drifting overhead. Explosions rocked the heavens; the flashes created lightning in a peaceful sky.
Voggoth’s bombers dipped below the clouds and flew toward the heart of McConnell. Like all of The Order’s weapons of war, these things appeared one part machine, one part animal. In this case the bodies resembled hammerhead sharks but without eyes and several times the size. The gray bodies ended not in a fin but in a point. Openings like gills lined the rear quarter from which slipped streams of white air like a kind of jet engine. Atop the bodies stretched a mechanical frame supporting pinkish fixed wings made from a fleshy material.
The phalanx of 12 flying abominations made no sound as they swooped over the target at speeds approaching 300 miles per hour.
Casey said, “Christ, they’re going straight for the air strip.”
As the lead flyer reached a point above one of the main runways, its entire body bulged like a water balloon filled from a fire hose-and then the entire flying contraption popped into pieces. Flakes of the outer skin and the wings fluttered in the wind while a payload of spherical ordnance-hundreds of black balls-fell from the sky having been released from the innards of the disintegrating thing.
As they fell, the group of balls spread like shotgun shot. Each impacted and exploded in a blast of concussion. Trevor saw waves of energy ripple through the air. The windows in the lounge bent and wobbled.
Several hit the runway tearing up concrete and creating impassable holes. Another clipped the wing off a Learjet. Another hit a supply truck flipping it over and causing it to burst into flames.
More of Voggoth’s suicide bombers arrived. A Patriot missile exploded one before it reached its target, sending its body as well as its explosive cargo raining down on a tree line just outside the base.
“Where the is the goddamn CAP?”
Rick Hauser, leaning over a radio technician, answered with one ear still stuck in a headset, “They got hit by Spooks ten miles out. They’re still tangled up out there. That’s why these things got through.”
A series of large explosions came across the tarmac directly for their building. The first few ripped through a group of pallets holding freight destined for air transport. They erupted, crates went flying, and several personnel were thrown around.
The last bomb hit 50 paces away. The blast shattered all the windows in the room.
Everyone in the room dove for cover. The dogs whimpered as the blast and shattering windows overloaded their sensitive ears.
Rick Hauser grabbed his shoulder. “Sir, we need to get downstairs to better cover!”
Trevor took a knee before standing. More claps of detonating bombs echoed in through the smashed windows. The air raid siren continued to blare.
“We have to go,” Hauser repeated and before Trevor could react he felt a second hand on his other shoulder, this one belonging to Casey Fink. Between the two men they managed to ‘encourage’ Trevor into the stairwell. The building trembled again and again as they hurried for the basement shelter.
Thirty minutes later the last of The Order’s warped kamikaze bombers dropped its load over McConnell. The side door to the communications room burst open as the air raid siren faded. Trevor, Fink, Hauser and the rest emerged from the partially-scarred building to survey the damage.
Smoke rose across the air strip and from many of the perimeter buildings and hangers. Two large cargo jets lay in pieces across the runway. Several smaller aircraft-all in various states of loading and preparation-had suffered substantial damage. A pool of aviation fuel burned steadily around the remains of a busted tank.
“Ah, Christ, this is bad,” Fink shook his head.
Trevor blocked out the screams of the injured scattered around the tarmac and told Casey, “You need to get this air strip up and running again. Fast.”
As terrible as the damage appeared, the first question revolved around the runways. How badly had they been hit? Trevor spied about a dozen craters pot marking the base’s air strips.
The second question involved aircraft. Two major planes lost, several more would require significant repair. But most of the reinforced hangers appeared intact. They should be; they had been designed with the B1-B Lance Bomber in mind back in the early 80s. While the B1s had been transferred away long before the invasion, the facilities to protect those Cold War aircraft remained and had certainly protected several aircraft from this strike.
“Sir,” Fink struggled with a way to phrase what he wanted to say. “Sir, I, well I’ll get on this. But if we’re in bombing range now that means they could hit us with anything. I think, well, I think you need to get out of the hot zone.”
Trevor did not respond as something caught his eye. More specifically, a flash of white fur moving between some of the left over dead buildings a hundred yards away. There he saw a familiar sight, albeit one he had seen
