The badly wounded Leviathan wobbled like a drunken buffoon. A flight of missiles launched from the airship’s underside raced on plumes of smoky fire across the sky and into the bleeding belly of the foe. Explosions that otherwise could not harm the thick hide of the Leviathan aggravated the grievous tear across its body.
Another deluge of ‘Spooks’ hurried to the rescue, smashing into the tower section of the dreadnought with one hitting the closed blast screens of the bridge’s observation windows. The impact sent a wave of heat through the brain of the ship.
The ‘belly boppers’ remained fully operational and from them came the knockout punch. The blasts hammered the Leviathan one last time.
It stumbled then fell as it died the death of an imploding skyscraper. Hundreds of lesser minions died beneath the collapsing weight. An earthquake rattled Colorado and the beast came to rest not far from the fallen body of the first mighty Leviathan.
The third giant came to a halt in the mountain pass, hesitant to face the floating city blocking the path. Around its monstrous feet raced forward thousands more of Voggoth’s legions. More spider sentries. More Chariot aircraft. More hovering gun platforms. More ogres and monks and other things born from nightmares.
The Phillipan held.
When the mission had first begun, General Rhodes felt the tight confines of the mountain road seemed a hidden passage toward the enemy’s exposed underbelly. Now those high rocky walls that kept most of the afternoon daylight away felt more a trap.
The majority of his force stretched behind him in rows of infantry and light vehicles, a half-mile snake of humanity. At the head of that snake chaos ruled. Infantry darted between fallen boulders as well as the ditches and depressions to either side of the highway. Those soldiers dodged rapid-fire pellets coming from a handful of advancing Spider Sentries.
A trio of Humvees moved to support the human soldiers, one launching a TOW missile that obliterated an enemy into a gob of goo.
Several K9s moved around the battlefield accompanied by military handlers. The dogs sniffed and barked as they searched for bouncer mines. Voggoth had draped the hidden presents in a new scent, but once the dogs managed to get a whiff of some of the expended mines they could lock on to the ones that remained hidden. And there were plenty. Every few minutes groups of sappers rushed forward amidst the crossfire to spray the hidden cushions of compressed air with a type of acid that melted away the casing and released the tightly-held contents with an ear-splitting pop.
Rhodes peeked from behind a cluster of boulders and used his binoculars to spy the front line. He watched two of his men fall, one dying instantly the other begging for the mercy of a medic. He saw another Spider Sentry succumb to 50-caliber rounds. It appeared his men might just break through.
“Sir, look at this!”
Rhodes’ driver-who now had nothing to drive-pointed to an approaching K9. The dog dropped a small, dead creature on the side of the road in view of the General.
The K9’s handler-a thin man with tired eyes-told the General in an emotionless tone, “We’re finding bunches of these things.”
Rhodes eyed the creature while the sounds of explosions and ricocheting rounds roared around the canyon road. It resembled a two-legged green pineapple. Two protrusions similar to insect antenna rose from the top of a featureless head.
“Christ, I’ll bet a week’s pay that’s what’s jamming us. Can you get through, corporal?”
The radio man tested his set again. Static.
“No, sir. Must be more of them.”
As if he had not already had enough such signs, Rhodes saw this as yet another indicator that The Order expected his line of attack from Rye. Yet still, despite the obstacles in their way, the jammed communications, and the bouncer mines, his forward units made progress albeit with a casualty rate approaching 30 %.
General Rhodes hoisted himself atop one of the boulders and used his binoculars to survey the front. He saw another Spider Sentry go down and his Humvees roll forward flanked by infantry. The path appeared clear.
Before he could complete that thought another line of Spider Sentries complemented by a bunch of those muscle-bound Ogre things appeared in the distance. The former fired more of their pellet-rounds and the latter launched explosive balls with big slings, resembling some kind of mutant Olympic athletes competing for the gold.
One such explosive hit a Humvee. It relieved Rhodes to see the crew get clear before the vehicle burst. Nonetheless, their advance slowed again as small arms fire and grenades exchanged with the enemy’s weird weapons.
“Jesus Christ, these things keep coming at us piecemeal.”
A stretcher hurried by carrying a heavily-medicated middle aged woman missing an arm.
Rhodes jumped from the boulder.
“Corporal, we need to get a message to command. I got this feeling there is more going on out there than we know. If we can’t radio them, we’re going to have to send a runner.”
“Incoming!”
The small gathering of the general and his staff swiveled around and saw the amber glow of another burning comet-thing come roaring over the highway. The flames from its burning mane fell upon the front lines sending soldiers racing for cover.
Two energy blasts met the rampaging thing in mid-flight, exploding it like a sun gone rogue. A cheer rose from the ranks. General Rhodes backtracked the path of those well-timed blasts. Behind him-moving up from the south-came an Eagle transport.
The approaching ship fired another round of energy weapons from the turret under its nose cone. The weapon smashed into the spider sentries at the front line and gave the soldiers fighting there a moment’s reprieve. Then the ship descended to the road where it came to a rest slightly tilted on rocks obstructing its starboard landing gears.
“Seems someone else had the same idea,” Rhodes mused as he hurried to the craft.
The side door open and there stood Trevor Stone who looked more like a post-Apocalyptic survivalist than an Emperor.
“General Rhodes, pull your men back. Fast.”
“Sir, we’re making some progress. Slow stuff, but progress all the same.”
“No you’re not. Voggoth is sucking you in. They burned us, General. They burned me. The only reason you’re making any progress is because they want you to keep at it until they can bring the rest of their forces to bear. We’ve already wiped out two Leviathans but they’ve got a third one out there still.”
That last sentence-the idea of three Leviathans assembled in one battle group-ended any discussion. Rhodes’ eyes grew vacant with a type of visceral fear known only to those who have seen a Leviathan in action.
“Corporal, send word to all commands. Pull back, full speed. Do it.”
The corporal moved off to summon runners.
“You can ride with me if you like, General.”
“No sir, thanks all the same. I need to make sure we get out of this.”
“I understand,” Stone said. “Fall back to Rye and then start east. We’re all headed for the Mississippi now, but it’s a mess. The Phillipan is holding them off but we’re not going to get much separation. I don’t know how long the rail lines will hold. Don’t get cut off, General.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
General William Hoth stood inside the ‘brain’ of the Phillipan. With the blast doors closed, artificial light flickered across the crescent-shaped bridge. With no view, the room felt isolated and alone. A bunker mentality, perhaps.
A round black scorch mark on the bulkhead protecting the bridge windows served as one reminder that much more existed-and threatened-from beyond that room. A second indicator came in the form of banks of flashing lights on the various duty stations around the bridge.
The technicians fielded incoming communications from weapons ports, engineering, medics, and damage control teams.
Hoth knew it all from his position, but even the advanced interfaces, displays, and intuitive controls could not
