Brett Stanton and Eva Rheimmer sat next to one another. The former’s eyes had grown more sunken and his hair thinner, possibly a result of Brett re-igniting his love-affair with alcohol.
As for Eva, her body had grown frail-looking from years of hard work on the farm and, no doubt, the stress of coordinating food distribution to a struggling-and now constricting-nation.
Omar sat in a quiet corner of the table with a full ashtray in front of his place. Gordon Knox occupied the foot of the long table in his powered wheelchair.
“Okay, then, let’s get this started,” Trevor pulled his eyes from the papers and did what he usually did: he looked each member of his audience directly in the eye-save for Nina. “Jon and Shep, break it down for us. The quick version. I think we all know the outlook.”
Jon Brewer stood to his full height of over six feet yet he appeared weak and unnerved in the presence of Trevor. He consulted a map mounted on a portable board.
“Preparations to defend the Mississippi are more than sixty percent complete with the anticipation that The Order will follow a similar vein of attack as they have since invading California.”
Trevor explained, “Simply put, they want to kill off our armies. No fancy stuff. They’ll go to where we are encamped.”
“Right,” Jon continued. “To be safe, we’re demolishing just about all river crossings and fortifying the major cities along the way including those to the west of the river like St. Louis. It seems Voggoth’s troops prefer to fight in the open. We made the decision to turn several key cities into hard points. We anticipate this will steer them into the open terrain. At that point we’ll be relying on artillery and defending the east banks of the river.”
Lori Brewer added, “The military has kept open several key arteries across the river to facilitate evacuations of the civilian population.”
“Those refugees could be a real problem,” Trevor said more callously than he intended. “We’re trying to get 1 ^ st Corp up to the front while these evacuees are clogging the roads.”
“Trevor,” Lori said, “you’ve already commandeered just about all the rail lines for the army. These people are using the only thing they have left to travel on; the roads.”
Brett Stanton, who served as Director of Industry and Manufacturing, eyed the map and said, “Doesn’t look like we’re making great time pulling back. No, now wait, I’m not trying to be critical, but it looks like The Order could be kicking our butts harder than they’ve been.”
“We might have an answer why,” Shep joined the conversation. His recently-acquired cowboy hat rested on the table in front of him. He told the others news that Trevor and Jon Brewer already knew. “I reckon we’ve got a few more players comin’ to the party. Two days ago our border outpost at Laredo, Texas reported a column of them Redcoats-I’m sorry, we call them Centurians these days, right? As I was sayin’, a nice big bunch of them came across the Rio Grande and are headin’ north on Interstate 35. So far we’ve seen a good dozen heavy artillery pieces and what we think is their version of armored vehicles carrying infantry. The column is about a mile long.”
Jon Brewer said, “Centurians from the south and someone else from the North. Yesterday we lost contact with our garrison at Winnipeg, so a small airborne relief force flew up there from Minneapolis. They ran into these.”
Jon produced a pair of photographs from his pile of stuff and threw the first one onto the center of the table. People leaned forward to see.
The first photograph showed a relatively tight shot of an airship floating through the heavens near the U.S.- Canadian border. More precisely, the airship featured one large zeppelin with two smaller dirigibles attached to either side, making a three-headed flying monster with a big propeller at the back.
The airship wore a rusty color with a sharp gray lightning icon surrounded by a circle on the main fuselage. A big, rectangular gondola with a bank of forward-facing windows served as the obvious bridge area but lines in that undercarriage suggested a modular nature.
Antennas and radio dishes and obvious gun emplacements-resembling miniature howitzers-stuck out from various places all across the ship. At the bow sat an assembly resembling a mix between a transmitter and cannon.
“It’s a Geryon battleship,” Trevor told them. “If you think it’s nothing but a big Hindenburg we can knock down easy, you’re in for a nasty surprise. It can protect itself well against anti-air fire and fighters. That main gun could level this mansion in a couple of seconds. Better yet, from the undercarriage it deploys the Steel Guard; robotic soldiers controlled via virtual reality from technicians onboard the ship.”
Jon threw the second photograph on top of the first. This one showed three of the Battleships.
“Our scouts counted the three and then ran for their lives.”
Trevor said, “From what our Intel says, it seems the Geryon Reich was well-established in Asia before we closed off the Gateways. I must admit, I’m kind of surprised they only sent three, though.”
Trevor glanced around the table again, looking each guest in the eye. When he came to Nina their eyes locked for several seconds until separated by Gordon Knox’s voice.
“There’s more,” Gordon offered a photograph of his own. “Since I decided to come all the way over, I thought I’d bring something special. You know how I love to be dramatic. Maybe someone can tell me what these are…”
Trevor stood and moved around the table to get closer to the photograph. He ended up peering over Nina’s shoulder at the picture. For a moment, his eyes stared at the photograph but his mind drifted somewhere else.
“They’re beautiful,” Lori Brewer said.
“They scare the hell outta me,” Shep admitted.
Trevor’s eyes focused on the photograph. He saw a trio of large, seagoing vessels pulling into a dilapidated port. The ships appeared a blend of clipper and ark with golden sales unfurled from vertical tubes rising from brown and red hulls.
Gordon said to Omar, “Your boys need to be congratulated. The work they did to get the SR-71 airworthy has paid off.”
Omar’s mood did not lighten. He sat silent.
“What are you sayin’, Gordon?” Shep asked.
“With the state of things we needed a new intelligence gathering tool. Some of you might not know it, but Omar’s group pulled a Blackbird out of mothballs and got her running again. I just received these shots this morning. They come from the Port of Oakland taken seventy-two hours ago.”
Trevor recognized the ships from his experiences on that other Earth.
“Chaktaw,” he said. “Chaktaw sailing vessels. Voggoth is certainly pulling out all the stops.”
Cross-talk erupted. Trevor, for his part, considered his words carefully as he returned to the head of the table.
“That’s why Voggoth isn’t hitting us hard right now.”
“Wow,” Jon Brewer said. “He’s just waiting for all his friends to get here. More reinforcements. Instead of the Battle of Five Armies, this time it’s going to be the Battle of Six Armies, that is if the Grenadiers can even help this time.”
A new voice entered the conversation, one that sounded timid and shy as if not meaning to be heard. “No big deal,” Nina mumbled in reference to the photographs.
Everyone stopped and gaped at her, even Trevor. Nina blushed.
“What did you say?” He asked.
Nina nearly shriveled into her seat. The thirty-four-year-old woman looked more a bashful teenager called on in class.
“Um, look, I’m just saying it just doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.”
“Not a big deal?” Eva Rheimmer did not suffer what she thought to be foolishness. “My dear, that’s three new armies to contend with. We’re already in a tough spot.”
“Let her speak,” Trevor said. “Go ahead, Captain. What’s on your mind?”
“Well, sir, unless there’s more to them than these pictures, then there’s, well, I’m just saying there’s not a whole lot of them. Not when you look at what The Order is throwing at us. Listen, if I were these Geryons and Redcoats and whatever, I’d think it’s kind of a waste of time for me to send a couple hundred troops and a few ships here and there all the way across the world to pile on.”
“Pile on?” Trevor asked not so much for clarification, but because it struck a chord with him. “What do you mean?”
