Anthony DeCosmo - Fusion

Boom.

He traced the source of the explosion to the northern end of the plain. There he saw a ring of iron-tanks and armored personnel carriers-tightening like a noose around a band of Voggoth’s monsters. Motorcycle cavalry circled the force like vultures waiting to dive in for easy pickings while squads of infantry-mainly Russian-filled the gaps between taking pot shots with rifles and tossing the occasional grenade. Above it all circled the Eurocopter adding its firepower to the mix.

Trevor allowed himself a sigh of relief. The ark-riding soldiers had turned the tide. Jorgie had fulfilled the time loop first begun eleven years ago and now complete. But in the end, what had he accomplished? A battle won. But the war lost.

Trevor’s sigh of relief morphed into a heavy pang in his heart. He had made the journey across the ocean, fought all the way from France to the Ural Mountains, banished Voggoth from Earth, and forced a confrontation with the powers of Armageddon. All that he could possibly have hoped for. Yet victory eluded his grasp.

A swarm of motorcycles worked around the bodies and drove to Trevor with a Renault Sherpa amidst the formation, squishing and crunching over the dead as it approached. The group halted as their headlights fell upon Trevor Stone.

Alexander bound from the vehicle with a smile from ear to ear. Armand jumped from his Ducati with an equally pleased expression.

“You did it, Trevor!” Alexander celebrated. “We have won the battle.”

Armand joined in, “It was you or JB who sent the Russians, yes?”

Trevor nodded his head, slowly.

“I could not believe it,” Alexander admitted. “I was ready to pull our forces away. We were being defeated. They just kept coming. And then the soldiers came. It made all the difference, Trevor. We won the day.”

The two stood there, beaming, with their chests heaving in and out with both excitement and exhaustion. Trevor, however, did not return their enthusiasm. He stood still, his head bowed.

Their smiles faded.

Alexander: “Where is your son?”

“He is gone.”

“I am sorry, Trevor,” Alexander consoled.

Armand, meanwhile, sensed more awry.

“Trevor, tell us, what happened? What did you accomplish?”

He raised his head.

“I accomplished nothing,” he told them. “They wouldn’t listen.”

Hell came to Quincy, Illinois. The inferno raged around Jon Brewer’s tenuous hard point along the banks of the Mississippi River. It raged in a hurricane of metal, fire, explosions, screams, and battle cries all beneath a tumultuous front of evil black clouds.

Glowing, lethal balls poured into the hardened city, dozens more with each passing minute. No structure remained standing along the waterfront; everything reduced to wreckage. Both bridges lay in the water, denied to the attackers.

Humanity’s defenders took refuge among the blasted buildings and toppled vehicles. Many of the prepared machine gun nests and gun emplacements remained, but just as many had been rooted out and destroyed by the invader’s barrage.

Mankind returned fire with fire. Hundreds of guns-large and small; mounted and dismounted-targeted the incoming projectiles with growing accuracy. Artillery shells fired from behind the lines managed to hit Voggoth’s army as it lurked more than a mile from shore waiting for the pummeling to pave the way.

Jon used his glasses to gauge the enemy. The tree line on the western dike that had obstructed his view of the opposing force just hours before was long-gone, replaced by a smoldering pile of toppled timber and hundreds of stubborn trunks of various sizes all warped and melted by the crossfire.

“Bragg, do you copy? Jimmy, come in!”

The constant roar of explosions and flying ordnance forced Jon to scream into his radio.

A barely audible voice responded, “Copy that. Give me targets.”

An exploding ball hit the pavement of Front Street in an eruption of concrete and dirt. The resulting fallout caused Jon to duck his head for the briefest of moments; even his determination must succumb to reflex.

The spotter Eagle had long ago been swept from the air, therefore target acquisition came from more conventional means.

“On your map,” Jon consulted his own as he estimated the target area, “in the fields west of CR-346. I count three batteries. The damn things are killing us.”

Captain Jimmy Bragg was a veteran of Five Armies, having been the first to spot the approaching Roachbots before the battle and then later his Apache had been knocked down by the Chaktaw at the same time as Nina’s.

As he had during that battle eleven years ago and throughout his career in Trevor’s army, Jimmy Bragg answered Jon’s call with a military stoicism that bellied the suicide mission he undertook: “Roger that, General. We’re heading in.”

Another explosion, this time to Jon’s right. An already-overturned Humvee disintegrated into pieces of metal and rubber. He watched with detached fascination as one tire spun high into the air. Several more glowing spheres whizzed past the tire with indifference just as it reached maximum height. It seemed to pause there before deciding to accept the invitation of gravity.

At that moment a new roar rumbled across the battlefield: a trio of Apache helicopters flying ungodly low and roaring over his head like thunder incarnate. He saw the determined pilots-dead men already-grimly guiding their birds of prey out and over the river. They banked hard south, flying over a pair of capsized barges. The undercarriages of the helicopters nearly skimmed the water. Then, at the right moment, they swerved west again, rose above the riverbank, and launched Hellfire missiles. The contrails from the rockets gave the impression of warheads traveling on ropes of smoke. That smoke obscured Jon’s view of the gunships.

A moment later came a brilliant flash followed first by the sound of screeching metal rotors and then the heavy splash of a helicopter falling into the river.

Bragg’s voice ignored the casualty as he radioed, “Targets hit. All three batteries out of action. We’re pulling-“

The choppers emerged from the smoke heading east with their noses down. Flames raged from the rear of one of the helos, creeping forward to the cockpit like yellow fingers grasping prey.

An explosion to Jon’s left sent more shrapnel his direction. He ducked behind the protection of the concrete foundation out of instinct. A second later his eyes saw Bragg’s cockpit engulfed. The burning helicopter crashed into the east-side bank of the Mississippi.

Three more Spooks flew in from the west aiming for the last escaping Apache. A soldier in a forward fox hole launched a shoulder-fired Stinger. The warhead hit and destroyed one of the Spooks as it crossed the water. But the other two drones found their mark, one slamming the chopper portside and inducing a spin, the other hitting the canopy head-on. The collision sent a dead pilot’s body away from the airframe while the rest of the Apache crashed somewhere behind the front lines.

The battle did not afford Jon time for prayer. Voggoth answered with aerial thunder of his own. A flight of five of Hammerhead bombers swept down from the storm clouds and disintegrated overhead thanks to Patriot batteries. Hundreds of bomblets dropped along the waterfront.

The detonations traveled from north to south. One of the 14 ^ th Mechanized Infantry Brigades’ Bradley Fighting Vehicles suffered a direct hit, as did a trench full of soldiers stationed not-quite-under the raised highway that led to the remains of the Quincy Memorial Bridge. Jon saw body parts and rifles thrown out from there.

He crouched in a corner of the basement and spoke into his radio.