Trevor slowly surveyed the room, making eye contact with each of the knights and when he came to Armand he offered the answer that that man craved as surely as Nina Forest craved it.
“I expect you to fight.”
14. Scorched Earth
The southern half of the National Beef processing plant existed only as ruins: a few standing exterior walls resembling cheap sets on a stage play, jumbles of felled steel beams, collapsed walkways, and melted machinery. Like Air Force bases and bivouacked armies, The Order saw food production facilities as targets for their bombers and artillery. And while the processing plant had never reached its pre-Armageddon levels of output, it had distributed thousands of tons of meat products for The Empire’s population prior to its most recent evacuation.
In contrast to the southern half, the northern half of the plant remained fairly intact albeit open to the elements. From the shadows there came Nina Forest running through the beams of dawn’s first light between debris piles and darting behind an overturned, rusted conveyor belt just as a large explosion sent shrapnel and dirt flying all into the air.
She did not stop, however, and neither did Vince Caesar who paralleled her charge a dozen yards to her left as they advanced toward Route 400 on the southeastern edge of Dodge City, Kansas.
Working in unison, the two sprinted from what would have been the outer wall of the meat plant and across what had once been the employee parking lot.
Two more explosions tried to halt their progress. One sent the remains of a Volkswagen spinning over Nina’s head, another caused an ancient light poll to bend then topple.
Nina leapt over a heap of metal and rubber that might have once been a Chevy S-10 pickup and raced toward a jackknifed 18-wheeler so fast that her momentum only stopped when she slammed shoulder-first into the toppled truck’s roof. Another explosion-just six feet in front of her-let fly a lethal halo of metal and rock.
She huffed several deep breaths, nearly gagging in the process: the stench of spoiled meat loitered over the entire complex making her stomach churn.
Her black BDU’s showed the signs of four days’ worth of guerrilla fighting behind enemy lines; mud and blood stains and a frayed utility belt. The glimmer of the sword strapped to her thigh seemed dulled through overuse.
She fit her black beret a tighter on her head and then looked over to Vince. He huffed, too, while kneeling in the cover of a rusting dumpster.
Next she glanced around the front grille of the dead truck and took stock of the opposition. The enemy supply convoy stood still on Route 400-also known as East Trail Street-exactly as the ambush plan anticipated. The explosives had turned the lead vehicle into a jumble of wires, veins, muscles, and wheels while digging a deep trench across the pavement.
The second vehicle had done as anticipated, too, in swerving into the field to the south in order to circumvent the disabled leader. The landmines there blasted four of the eight wheels off the boat-like truck and left it sideways with its contents of various sized spheres spilling out.
Three vehicles remained, two of which were more of the greenish canoe-like transports with eight wood- looking (but not) wheels.
The third-the one in the middle-presented the greatest challenge. This escort car wore shell-like armor and rode on a cushion of air very close to the ground. On top rested a circular turret with a small barrel that fired high- velocity rounds capable of ripping open the best ballistic armor. To the rear of the tank-sized craft swiveled a tube that delivered explosive shells at the attackers.
Six of the robed monks with their swords and forearm-mounted pellet guns took cover to either side of the escort tank while one of the gray-skinned Ogre fellows stood blazingly in the open, prepared to take on all who dared.
The turret saw Nina peaking and opened fire. She pulled her head back just as a series of shots ricocheted off the MACK grille.
She closed her eyes and drew a tactical map in her mind from memory. She saw the lot of broken cars between her and the road. She knew they needed to keep the enemy’s attention for Carl Bly’s sake; any moment he would reveal his position in the tree line to the convoy’s southeast and would be easy prey for the turret should his Javelin miss.
Nina heard the sound of Oliver Maddock’s high-powered sniper rifle firing from somewhere among the ruins. She knew if he pulled the trigger he most certainly found a kill. But she also knew those high-powered rounds would not pierce the belly of the Ogre from distance, so he must have killed a monk.
Any thoughts of pity or hesitation in killing The Order’s monks had faded years before. By the time assimilated humans were equipped with the arm-mounted pellet guns they had passed the point of salvation. The long-departed Reverend Johnny-an expert of Voggoth’s machinations-had taught as much.
Reverend Johnny-he pulled the implant from me…
Nina felt a little light headed. Perhaps due to the stench of rotting beef.
She shook away the cobwebs and turned toward Vince. He waited for instructions. She needed him to circle further to the east: a couple of cargo trailers over there could provide cover.
Nina used hand signals. She pointed toward Vince and then used her fingers to make a walking motion…
Nina pointed to Trevor, then at her own eyes with both fingers, then made a walking motion with her fingers, then motioned toward the building.
In essence, she told Trevor to peek in one of the windows to ascertain the situation.
Trevor made an okay sign then surprised her by waving a flat hand over his head.
Nina bit her lower lip.
Stone had signaled that he understood and then told her to cover this area…
Vince gaped at Nina. She held her hand in the air halfway through a series of hand signals but distracted by- by what? A memory? A memory of something that happened a long time ago. Something during that first year.
Nina closed her eyes and tried to remember but the ghosts vanished as quickly as they came. The act of giving Vince hand signals had served as a prompt to summon those recollections from the recesses of her mind, but whether those memories belonged to her or had escaped to her mind during its connection to Trevor, she did not know.
The sound of another high-powered rifle shot brought her into focus again. She finished relaying orders to Vince and he moved off to his left, working through the remains of abandoned cars. Nina acted to draw the enemy’s attention.
She loaded a round in to her M203 launcher mounted under the M4’s barrel, stepped around the grill of the overturned truck, and delivered a grenade at the enemy convoy. It hit between the Ogre and the tank. The gray- skinned creature flinched and wobbled as the shrapnel dug into its back, but it did not fall.
The tank’s turret locked on and fired at Nina. The pellets tore into the engine compartment of the truck. She fired one more shot that missed high and then retreated to cover again.
Then came the really big explosion and the turret stopped firing.
But the sniper rifle fired-and fired-and fired.
Nina came around the truck with her weapon raised. The shell-covered tank burned blue and green smoke into the partly cloudy sky, the result of a well-placed Javelin shot from Carl Bly’s anti-tank weapon fired from his ambush position on the far side of the convoy.
Nina could have sworn she heard a cry of agony escape from the burning vehicle, but she could not be sure. Regardless, the monks scattered from the blaze, two already on fire and done for. Caesar-advancing parallel to Nina-dropped two more as they ran blindly in his direction. Maddock’s sniper rifle finished off the remaining monks from distance.
The Ogre stood alone with only its sheer strength as a weapon.
Nina and Vince Caesar approached it from opposite sides. The monster alternated attention between the two.
A sniper rifle round hit the thing’s chest. It staggered and a piece of gray about the size of a dollar bill fell
