sat ready to launch Spider Sentries at the first alarm.
None of those defenses mattered to Captain Forest because she saw the opportunity to truly hurt The Order. In a few days this farm would hatch Ogres and maybe artillery platform components, and perhaps worse.
Nina dropped her binoculars, glanced down to her left at Vince Caesar and pointed forward. Vince knelt behind a small camera-like device mounted on short tripod legs. He put his eye to the lens and followed his Captain’s direction. Coded pulses of laser light shot out from the targeting device and bounced off the big ball at the center of the farm.
Nina spoke into a transmitter, “Angel Eyes, this is Wolf. We have painted the target…”
Five miles back and high in the sky an F-15 barrel-rolled as it descended through a layer of misty-white clouds. The bombs beneath its wings glinted in the sun for a moment before the craft leveled and steadied course.
The female pilot waited for a target lock indication from the onboard LANTIRN system. When she heard that tone, she released a set of PAVEWAY II precision-guided bombs from weapons pods beneath the wings. The smart bombs glided away with their guidance systems locked on to the laser signal…
Nina dropped to the ground for cover as she saw the bombs fall at their target, which they hit perfectly. The center of The Order’s farm disintegrated in an explosion that began in golden flames and morphed into a cloud of brown and black. The thunderclap of the strike reverberated across the country club grounds and to the surrounding Kansas plains. The impact tremor caused a gray, dead tree not far from Nina’s position to crash over.
As the remaining pieces of the main structure collapsed into a pile, the buds on the tendrils bulged and rocked as if something trapped within tried to escape the embryos. Muffled cries-some animal-like, others closer to mechanical whirs-called from the field of dead.
Nina brought the binoculars to her eyes and delighted in the death throes of Voggoth’s children.
A shower of soil and biomass fell over the wasteland as the explosion faded. As Nina watched, she spied something amazing. There-surrounded by the brown earth and sickly tendrils of the dying farm-a bachelor’s button with its blue, starburst-like flower stubbornly refusing to yield its piece of land despite the encroachment of The Order’s sinister vines to either side.
A kernel of life surviving in the midst of death incarnate.
The roar of the F-15 swooping low to survey its handiwork drew Nina’s eyes to the sky. The plane’s wings rocked quick in a secret salute to its spotters and then banked hard and climbed. Nina saw missiles under its wings-the cockpit-the pilot steering her aircraft…
“You guys need a little help down there?”
Nina radioed Jon Brewer who responded, “Damn straight, Ghost Rider. Tear em’ up!”
Trevor sat in the forward seat controlling the gunship’s armaments. Gunner and pilot both wore night vision goggles.
Nina swerved the ship around searching for targets.
“Hold.”
She responded to Trevor’s order and held the craft steady.
The rapid-fire cannon whirled and bullets flew. Two enemy soldiers and the parked car they hid behind shredded to pieces.
“Starboard! Starboard!”
Trevor turned the gun sights to his right at Nina’s warning. A trio of Redcoats stood inside the windows of the electronics outlet, apparently thinking the darkness provided cover.
The ‘copter’s gun fired again. Glass smashed, parts of the store’s ceiling fell, and the aliens broke apart…
The F-15 fired its afterburners and sped east hurrying to return to friendly skies.
“Nina! Captain!”
“What? Huh?”
Nina shook away her trance and saw Vince packing up his targeting gear.
“I said, Voggoth’s boys are getting agitated over there. We should bug out before they figure the bomber must’ve had a spotter.”
“Yeah. Okay, um, yeah,” she regained her composure. “Move out to the south then hook east. Move it!”
Nina and her team withdrew from the Kinsley Country Club without incident, moving a mile south before following Country Road 30 east for about five miles. There they stumbled upon a dented but still working Dodge Ram with a cab on the back. Two badly-picked at corpses lay on the road alongside the truck, including one with a hunting rifle in his or her hand.
The canines and gear rode in the back, the Dark Wolves crammed into the crew cab up front, and they traveled north all afternoon with the occasional stop to take cover.
Early that evening one of the blob-like Chariots spotted the Dodge and opened fire with The Order’s equivalent of a machine gun. The team attempted to evade the airship on the streets of the tiny hamlet of Lewis, Kansas. The Chariot gave up the chase when Vince Caesar-behind the wheel-worked his way among the silos and cargo trailers of a cattle feed storage and distribution center.
After abandoning their car for lack of fuel the Dark Wolves proceeded north on foot. That night the team camped at the edge of Coon Creek outside of Garfield. Vince built a small fire and they boiled jerky in tin cups to try and moisten the meat. It did not work. They ate it anyway.
As dinner finished Nina sat against a tree and stared out at the field and the sparkling heavens above. She had never taken much interest in astronomy but could knew how to find the big dipper, the North Star, and a few others not because she held an interest in the universe, but because such points could serve as navigation aids.
On that night, however, she tried to see something more up there. She scanned the lights scattered on that black tapestry. She tried to comprehend that many of the armies who invaded her planet eleven years ago came from some of those stars. She wondered why the idea of alien invaders had not knocked her off balance during those first days when even the most veteran soldiers struggled with the idea of fighting monsters and extraterrestrials.
A cool breeze billowed across the field causing the rows of knee-high grass to bend and sway. Behind her the men sat around a dim fire and talked about the mission, what might be happening on the front lines, and sentiments for back home.
She heard Bly make a joke about how he should have been an accountant instead of a soldier. Caesar replied that he could not imagine being anything else. Maddock said he had a dream one night about being born a circus clown to which Bly offered a series of remarks that led to good-natured insults and a laughter.
Nina wondered about her dreams. She rarely had them. Or, at least, rarely remembered them. Often times she woke with emotions fresh in her mind but no idea about the substance of her sleeping fantasies.
She closed her eyes. The breeze draped over her. Her mind drifted…
“And where would we have lived?” Trevor asked.
“Hmmm,” she smiled. “Well, Philly of course.”
“Because that’s where you worked?”
“Well, I mean, I was a cop, you were-“
“A car salesman. I know, I know.”
“Philly is a great place. Lots of things to do. We could go to the zoo. Catch a Phillies game. Stroll through the museum.”
“Now that’s a funny image,” he laughed. “You and I, strolling through the zoo. After all we’ve seen I think a couple of giraffes would be kind of anti-climactic.”
“This is a different world,” Nina whispered. “A world where I’m not a soldier, and you’re not a leader. It’s a dream world. We’re we could just be together. No responsibilities.”
He put his hand on her cheek.
“That’s a lovely world. A wonderful dream.”
She wrung her hands.
“And after tomorrow, you get to dream it. I won’t remember enough to want to dream.”
“Memories make us who we are. Take them away, and you change the person…”
Nina’s eyes snapped open. A feeling of warmth mixed in her heart with frustration; frustration that something
