Armand-a FAMAS rifle slung over his racing gear-spoke as he fiddled with a red helmet. Trevor noticed the helmet came equipped with a transmitter and receiver and realized he was not dealing with a bunch of Hell’s Angels wannabes but a sophisticated force. Cavalry like Stonewall’s, except on steel horses.
Armand said to Alexander, “Hammer and Anvil, yes?”
“Exactly. Anvil will be ten minutes behind you, just as we have trained.”
Armand added, “The other regiments will meet us along the way in Saint-Nectaire and Montaigut-le-Blanc. We will number two hundred by the time we get on the A75.”
One of the riders-a burly fellow with a scruffy beard-paused on his way from the armory to his bike in order to ruffle Jorgie’s hair, apparently amused in a fatherly way at the kid blocking his ears.
JB responded with a smile and dared to pull a hand from his ear long enough to give the soldier a thumbs up. The fellow returned the gesture just before fixing a black and white helmet on his head and straddling a Yamaha Raptor ATV that carried several bundles of supplies strapped to its frame.
Jorgie blocked his ears again but watched the man prepare his ATV for riding. Trevor spied a glaze of awe on his son’s face. He realized he and JB had spoken often of battles, but Jorgie had never been so close to the front lines. At least, that is, other than his mysterious work at The Order’s base last year. But an actual full-scale battle? Nothing like this.
Trevor returned his attention to the two men and shouted over the revving engines, “Sounds like you have a plan.”
Armand turned to him and explained, “We have always known how to take out the Duass roadblocks. The ducks are nothing. It is the other son of a bitches camped out in Clermont-Ferrand that are the problem.”
Alexander clarified, “That is where The Order is held up, in what used to be a major city. From it they can react to any breach of the Duass checkpoints in southern France.”
Armand pushed his helmet into Trevor’s chest just hard enough to grab his attention.
“I will get us past the ducks. Then you had better have a plan.”
“We are committed,” Alexander said loudly before Trevor could respond. “Plan or not, we have voted to fight.”
Armand smiled at them as he answered, “That is what I do best. I hate this sitting around shit. If nothing else than at least the America has given me something to do.”
One of the bike soldiers approached Armand. He was a man of a very black complexion and lanky.
“Armand, what do you want me to do?”
“Take your scouts to Clermont-Ferrand while we kill ducks. I need to know enemy strength there. Meet us at the Duass base after it is our base with whatever you can find.”
“Done.”
The man walked away. Alexander explained, “That was Gaston. One of our better scouts.”
“Gaston is what we call him,” Armand corrected. “No one knows his real name. He was Russian intelligence spying on the French navy when the invasion came. We no longer hold that against him. It is all the same anymore anyhow, right?”
“Armand, be careful,” Alexander cautioned as the entourage came to halt and Armand climbed into the saddle of a red Ducati 999 superbike.
“I can only promise that I will be lethal, not careful. It is a tradeoff, no?”
Trevor stepped forward and extended his hand.
“Good luck, soldier.”
Armand shook it while flashing a cocky smile beneath the tinted black visor of the helmet.
“Good luck or good aim, I will take either.”
He revved the bike, kicked away the stand, and the garage door opened to let in the sun of a bright day.
Armand’s motorcycle cavalry swerved around a bend on the wide pavement of Highway A75 and sped north in a mass of some 200 riders on a variety of crotch rockets, cruisers, dirt bikes, and ATVs.
Fields of tall grass, dirt, brush, and burned foliage flanked the cracked and neglected pavement. Ahead waited the Duass checkpoint. A solidified, blurry but mainly clear gel four-feet-high served the Duass as sandbags often served human infantry. The substance stretched in a long wall from a hundred yards to the west of the highway, across A75, and then another hundred yards to the east.
The strange, duck-billed aliens on three thick legs drew plasma rifles that resembled a cross between a musket and a mega-sized squirt gun. As they approached, Armand and his riders also spied jumbles of heavy weapons, some kind of scanner atop a twenty-foot metal tower, and square temporary buildings built from thin metals.
No doubt the Duass had picked that particular spot due to thick woodland that started just to the north of their wall and reached to the east and west as far as the eye could see. Most likely reinforcements, munitions, and additional threats lurked in those dark woods.
One thousand feet south of the checkpoint the Route de Saint-Sandoux crossed overtop the A75 on an overpass. Atop that overpass lurked several Duass snipers wearing something akin to an American football helmet with a dark visor, a cord from which extended to a long-barrel rifle; a targeting mechanism of advanced design. Most of the Duass soldiers also wore a type of body armor that resembled chain mail.
Armand dared to use his short range radio knowing that the Duass would not waste one of their radio- tracking rockets on smaller targets such as the bikes. They reserved those for bases and command centers.
“Heavies, take point and execute the first phase.”
The ‘heavy’ cavalry formed a tight line across the front of the swarming bikers. Their engines roared with renewed enthusiasm. The scenery to either side of the highway became a blur.
As they neared the overpass, the first rounds of sniper fire came. The reinforced glass at the front of the bikes deflected those shots, making for black scars and cracked windshields.
One shot hit the top of a rider’s helmet leaving a smoking hole in place of the upper half of his head. The body fell to the pavement and rolled under the wheels of his brethren. The rider-less bike swerved wildly off into a drainage ditch.
Further north from the main checkpoint more guns came to life, some of a rapid-fire design and a few of a heavier caliber.
Bolts of plasma fired away from the barricade, under the overpass, and into the approaching bikers. Most of the smaller shots either missed or deflected away. One of the larger blasts launched from a powerful cannon smashed into the pavement just in front of one of the heavy cavalrymen. The biker and rider went airborne flying dozens of feet front wheel over back and spinning into the overpass.
The attackers passed under the overpass below the Duass snipers and raced toward the main barricade. As they neared, Armand calmly ordered, “Prepare to split..”
Enemy fire intensified claiming more kills but the cavalry responded with more speed and more intensity.
Faster-engines roaring-sizzling blobs of energy flying overhead and around and into the lead riders-alien tongues shouted commands-throttles revved-enemy infantry at the gel-wall instinctively ducked for cover as the speeding mass bore down-and then brakes and squeals and the smell of burning rubber.
Half of the attacking cavalry turned east, the other half west both running parallel to the boundary. As they changed course several of the ‘heavy cavalry’ soldiers lobbed canisters in front of the barricade. An instant later clouds of protective smoke billowed across where A75 met the Duass wall.
The ducks responded with glowing spheres the size of Ping-Pong balls. These grenades detonated, tossing bikers from their rides and splintering motorcycles into piles of burning steel. A few of the cavalry fired pot shots from machine pistols and hand guns, but they refused to sacrifice speed for firepower. Speed was the essence. Speed meant life.
The veil of white smoke rose like a curtain at the center of the defensive line. The bikers raced in opposite directions creating a different kind of cloud: a cloud of dirt and dust and exhaust.
As the last riders turned away from the barricade, they dropped bundles of explosives that bounced into the wall of solidified jell and came to rest at the center point, hidden from enemy view by the smoke. There the devices waited…
Alexander led Trevor and JB to the shaded park off the terrace at the Hotel le Parc. There-and on the streets nearby-mustered a column of military vehicles. The knowledge imparted to Trevor from his DNA database found
