Anthony DeCosmo - Parallels

It moved lazily, more like a helicopter than a plane. Its turbines rotated down putting the craft into a hover. Then the plane descended vertically toward the surface of the clearing aided by a soldier with bright blue directional cones.

A portable drilling well dangled from the hoist and lowered toward the mountaintop not far from the destroyed giant demon. The engines roared as they struggled to ease the payload to the mark. The drill touched the ground and the hoist cables unhooked in a series of metallic clanks. Workers shouted orders over the roar of the huge cargo vessel that retreated to the sky after delivering its package.

"We’re going to need a couple of days worth of oil from the well just to make up for the fuel used by the Heavy-42 to get it here," Gronard approached Trevor and said.

"You’ll get it, General. You’re going to get everything you need."

– Three days after establishing several drilling sites they found black gold. Dozens then hundreds of barrels began arriving at Thebes via ground convoy.

Trevor assigned General Goss the job of finding and blasting the predatory hostiles who disrupted the convoys, mainly a pack of Jaw-Wolves. However, the drill sites and convoys shut down for a couple of days anyway as a nasty early March snow storm ravaged the area dumping nearly a foot of grainy white stuff.

Trevor turned the annoyance of bad weather into one gigantic party. He arranged sled racing and snow-fort building contests in the name of "Winter’s Last Hooray."

Surprised at this sudden soft side, Nina wondered why he became so magnanimous. Trevor admitted that the partying served a practical reason. He wanted socializing; he wanted mating. If they were truly the last batch of humans on Earth, then the only way to save the race was to start repopulating the planet. That meant babies. That took social interaction.

As was often the case with late snow, it did not stay around for long. A blast of warm air sent the temperature into the fifties and melted everything away.

The time came to get back to work.

– Reconnaissance reported large numbers of Chaktaw soldiers and equipment, including artillery, occupying an outpost north of Thebes. Like so many of the structures on this Earth, the 'outpost' was comprised of mountainside buildings that came across as one part cave and one part building. In this case, those buildings were lined up at the base of a steep red rock hill in a manner suggesting an old commercial district, maybe even this world's version of a strip mall.

As he led the assault from onboard a Skipper, Trevor found the situation had changed.

Below, a column of infantry transports and armored attack vehicles moved north on a series of dirt and concrete roads cutting through forest-covered hills. Ahead, columns of smoke marked the Chaktaw outpost despite the fact that no human weapons had yet fired.

"Say again, recon?" Trevor responded to a message from a forward ground team.

Corporal Brewer repeated, "Severe damage to enemy position. Perimeter barricades breached at multiple points, I have eyes-on destroyed heavy weapons and looks like a lot of Chaktaw casualties."

Trevor turned to Nina. "One of the other legions playing games?"

"No," she said with surety. "Not a chance. The Generals know you don't like games."

She steered the craft in close but instead of making the originally planned attack run, Major Forest flew slow for a good view of the outpost.

As the scouts reported, the flat stone lot in front of the mountainside showed signs of battle; blast craters, a rock wall smashed in several places, and the destroyed carcasses of Chaktaw vehicles and artillery pieces, some of which still smoldered. Around everything, poncho-clad bodies sprawled on the ground.

The buildings of the compound sprouted from the mountain and had been constructed of some kind of rock, making Trevor think of the cliff dwellings of the ancestral pueblo tribes from the southwestern United States back home, very much like what he had seen at the lake when he went searching for Trevor's estate. What had been a rather isolated, regional architecture on his Earth had apparently gained wider acceptance on this one.

Of course, style did not matter to Trevor. Who had beaten them to the outpost did.

Brewer's scouting party reported, "Got some live ones hiding out on the western side of the compound. We took small arms fire."

Trevor ordered Nina to, "Set us down by the west side."

She complied, easing the Skipper to the ground between the ruined remains of two catapult-like artillery pieces.

Trevor radioed, "Skipper flight one, fly a recon mission around the enemy base. Skipper flight two, stay on station overhead to provide cover for ground forces."

Three of the flying machines banked off to survey the surrounding mountains and forests, another three buzzed about in the sky above with their missiles and guns ready to fire.

Once landed, Trevor led Major Forest and a squad of soldiers toward the buildings on the western edge of the outpost. As he moved, he noticed signs hanging from or fallen in front of the various structures built against the mountainside. While time and damage had eroded the images and letters, he did not need to be able to read them to recognize retail signs.

Yes, this place had once been a shopping center or something of the kind; most recently it served the purposes of the Chaktaw and their quest to eradicate humanity from the planet.

He came upon Corporal Brewer and his three-man reconnaissance team huddled behind debris from the broken perimeter wall.

"Small arms from inside, sir," he reported and pointed toward one of the 'store' fronts that suffered from burn and explosive damage. "Not sure how many."

"Okay, let's check it out. Corporal, keep your team here to cover us, the rest of you follow me, we're going to get close enough for a look."

With his assault rifle held ready and its bayonet gleaming in the sharp afternoon sunlight, Trevor weaved the squad around destroyed vehicles and dead bodies, approaching the occupied building. When they neared the gaping hole where a front door once stood, Chaktaw rounds zipped by his nose and forced the unit flush against the front fascia.

When the shooting slowed, the new Emperor peered in through what might have once been a window. He saw movement back there in the shadows but had to pull back when enemy fire ricocheted off a stone support pillar a few feet in front of his face.

Trevor turned to Nina, his hand held open, and said, "Throw Cam."

Nina produced a softball-sized device from her utility belt and gave it to him. Tiny lenses covered the gray and black sphere.

Trevor took a deep breath, concentrated, and then leaned in again. He hurled the round object into the destroyed building and retreated just as Chaktaw rifles tried to kill him again.

Major Forest held a monitor about the size of a portable video game. She cycled through the available camera angles until she found the picture offering the best tactical analysis.

"There. In the northwest corner. Four of them."

To Trevor's surprise, the Chaktaw hiding in the building did not wear their usual camouflage ponchos. However, he recognized them all the same from his meeting prior to the Battle of Five Armies when the alien commander offered a merciful death to honor the human army's courage.

Just as he remembered, their heads differed from men in that they had big puffy cheeks with wiry hair, almost whiskers. Their scalps lacked any hair in the center. Instead, strands of fibrous thatch circled the edges of their skulls.

The group of four hid in a corner behind overturned furniture and a stack of food stuffs, armed with rifles that fired bullet-like pellets from a magnetic rail gun.

"What do you think?" Nina asked.