Anthony DeCosmo - Fusion

The F-15s banked away and skillfully weaved through downtown St. Louis, evading the anti-air creatures some of which collided with buildings and detonated.

For all the fiery destruction, the napalm offered the briefest of reprieves. In mere moments the next wave of Roachbots marched around their burning comrades and continued into the thick of downtown. Human infantry and vehicles responded with bullets and explosives. The battle for St. Louis reached its final stage.

Plumes of smoke from the fight outside of St. Louis drifted high on the eastern horizon. Nina watched from some five miles behind the action. Still, the Leviathan-so tall the storm clouds often hid its uppermost reaches-felt close. Too close.

Her ragtag band of guerrillas managed to wipe out a pair of supply vehicles and their escorts before settling into ambush positions to either side of Interstate 64.

Her force of 300 included displaced soldiers, government workers (mainly from food and agriculture) and civilians either liberated from The Order’s clutches or accidentally caught behind enemy lines.

Half that number served under the wounded corporal’s command to the north of the interstate in the buildings and on the grounds of St. John’s Mercy Medical Center. Before Armageddon the concrete, glass, and steel buildings hosted a variety of medical facilities including a well-respected children’s hospital. The campus had not re-opened since the first Armageddon, but the proximity of the structure to the highway gave it a prominent role in this second Armageddon.

In any case, the best shots among the corporal’s contingent occupied the upper levels of the tallest buildings where they could cover the interstate with sniper rifles. The less skilled positioned themselves in the parking lot and tree line along the highway with any weapons they could find.

Ironically, the southern side of the ambush utilized a nearly identical facility for cover: this one being the Missouri Baptist Medical Center, also unattended since Armageddon but its campus of modern buildings provided equally useful sniper positions. Together Nina’s two groups would form a gauntlet the Chaktaw pass as they crossed over a major highway cloverleaf on their way toward downtown.

“Hey, Nina!” Vince called from the western side of the top floor. “You need to see this.”

She gave Voggoth’s army one last glance. It might be the last time her eyes saw a Leviathan; one small consolation as she entered what, most likely, would be her final fight. She watched the walking tower take another step forward and while she could not directly see them, she knew thousands of robots and monsters marched in front of the gargantuan and into down town where her fellow soldiers fought desperately to stave the assault. She wished she could be with them, but fate dictated a different path.

“Nina!”

Vince’s voice suggested urgency but not panic. She doubted the Chaktaw had reached the ambush yet but history suggested these aliens to be a wily bunch so she prepared for any possibility.

She moved away from the east side window and traversed the dark, cold hallway with Odin, the elkhound at her side. The dust and erosion of time had long ago supplanted the hospital’s sterile environment. Broken equipment, overturned trays covered in the black and brown decay of decade-old food, and crusty file folders of now-useless paperwork lay scattered about. A stench of mold and mildew pervaded the air.

She came to a waiting room lobby on the northwestern corner. The big windows there afforded a great view of the highway. That highway should have basked in a late-afternoon sun. Instead, the heavy cloud cover made the entire scene feel more like the tail end of dusk.

Vince sat in a wheelchair with his finger pressed against the glass pointing at something on the road below.

Nina thought she had prepared or any possibility. She was wrong.

A solitary Chaktaw-its camouflage poncho colored gray-stood at the center of the road, apparently unarmed and holding its alien hands aloft.

Odin stood on his back legs, propped his front paws against the glass and growled.

The walkie-talkie on Vince Caesar’s lap came to life with a voice from a checkpoint along the highway.

“Captain Forest, do you copy? What do you want me to do?”

The sight of the Chaktaw told Nina that she had not hidden their movements as craftily as she thought.

She grabbed the radio.

“Shit. Yeah, okay, look, I don’t see any more of them so go on up and see what he wants.”

She watched two burly fellows in assault vests over jeans and t-shirts cautiously approach the alien emissary with their weapons drawn. As she witnessed the meeting, Nina recalled a story from the Battle of Five Armies and shared it with Vince Caesar.

“I get it. Those cocky son of a bitches,” and while she spat the words, she did feel a sense of admiration for their prowess and confidence.

“What?”

She relayed the story in first person because she had participated, yet her recollections came from the memories of others.

“At Five Armies when we were down to our last hill, the Chaktaw sent an ambassador to invite Trevor to a meeting. It seems they’ve got this tradition or something that if they know they have you beat they give you the chance to surrender.”

The human sentries reached the Chaktaw. The alien produced some kind of short microphone device. Nina suspected it to be a translator. A conversation ensued.

“Surrender?”

“Listen, not like you’re thinking. They offered to kill us quickly if we’d line up and let them do it. Something about it being a sign of respect for a worthy adversary, as if letting them slit your throat real quick is better than dying in battle.”

“So you’re saying they knew we were here, is that it?”

“Looks that way to me. Shit.”

The radio sprung to life. The men from the checkpoint relayed a message from the aliens: “They say their leader-a ‘Force Commander’-wants to meet with you. Something about a message for you. They guarantee safe passage.”

“Bullshit,” Vince shot.

“No, it’s okay. They gave Trevor safe passage back then.”

“He met with them?”

“Yep. Met with their commander who laid out their great ‘deal’ to him. He basically told them to stuff it. But look, they let him go back to our lines. Big mistake for them, I guess.”

“Captain?” the voice on the radio asked. “What do you want me to tell them?”

Nina’s brow furled. She slammed a hand into her thigh. She hated being bested. With surprise no longer on their side, she doubted they could do much more than delay the Chaktaw; not hurt them.

Then an idea percolated inside her devious mind.

“Yep. I mean, yes. Look, I’ll go and meet their leader.”

Odin dropped from his propped position against the window as if hearing her words and reacting with surprise to them.

Vince did as much as he gasped, “You can’t be serious. No way I’m lining up to be off’d. If I’m going down, I’m going down fighting.”

“You still have your KA-BAR?”

He did. She held out her hand and took the military knife from him. At the same time she removed her other weapons and handed them to Vince one at a time. Odin eyed her suspiciously, as did Vince.

“What are you planning, Nina?”

“Listen, we’re dead meat if we stick to the original ambush. I’ll get close enough to their leader, listen to his dumb-ass proposal, and then slit his throat.”

“Isn’t that against the rules of safe passage? What’s the point anyway? They’ll just kill you.”

She thought about what Trevor had said at the last council meeting; about the ‘rules’ to the invasion and what Trevor planned to do in regards to those rules.