Anthony DeCosmo - Fusion

“NO!” Then calmer, “No. You will go to the front and tell him yourself, Omar. You will tell him what I have learned.”

She stared at him with hard eyes for a long moment, and then collapsed into sobs as the weight of her work, of her life in the dungeon, of the truth she had learned, came falling hard on her shoulders.

He whispered in her ear, “What has this place done to you?”

“I know, Omar,” she answered by telling him exactly what the horrors at Red Rock had finally taught her. “I know why the universe is empty.”

In the world before Armageddon, Wichita, Kansas earned the nickname “Air Capital of the World” due to the volume of aircraft manufactured in the vicinity as well as McConnell Air Force Base, one-time home to the 22 ^ nd Air Refueling Wing.

A small military contingent of Kansas National Guard and Air Force Combat Controllers kept McConnell operating during that first summer of the initial invasion. They flew re-supply sorties across the country, even topping the tank on Air Force One in late July. Eventually they lost contact with the President after his return to Cheyenne Mountain and the orders-as convoluted as they were-ceased.

Eventually those who survived faded into the countryside.

Then The Empire and Trevor Stone swept west, returning life to the Great Plains, reopening the old Union Pacific rail stations, and pumping new life into McConnell AFB.

The new normal, however, lasted only a few years.

As Trevor Stone exited Eagle One and walked the tarmac on the afternoon of Tuesday, May 19 ^ th, he knew Wichita was dying again. He could see it in the panicked expressions of the soldiers and civilian workers hustling from shuttle buses to commuter jets. He could hear it in the constant roar of outgoing aircraft filled with evacuating equipment and personnel.

This scene of panic at the air base repeated across Wichita. With rail transportation seized for military use, the civilian population became refugees. Horses and carts and the few cars that could find gasoline formed a snaking line out of the city.

Many of those civilians belonged to the ‘groupies’ who traveled with the military formations. These were the spouses and children, friends and relatives of the warriors. Now those loved ones were abandoned as the soldiers and airmen left via rail or plane and their families resorted to more perilous modes of escape. As a result, the desertion rate among the armed forces spiked.

Just as victory after victory during the early days birthed a seemingly insurmountable momentum, defeat after defeat accelerated the downward spiral.

Trevor led his entourage-two Rottweilers, four heavily-armed soldiers, and Rick Hauser his personal pilot-toward a cluster of buildings including a four-story structure that served as a temporary headquarters. This HQ was a part of a cluster of refurbished buildings that stood in contrast to a neighborhood of the base’s facilities that had been destroyed a decade before and not included in the remodeling plan for McConnell.

Another jet roared along the runway and took to the sky as the group approached a side entrance. Trevor thought he heard panic in the sound of those engines.

They moved from the simmering mid-May heat into the cool confines of the building and headed upstairs to the second floor observation lounge where a wide table, metal cabinets, and folding chairs had replaced soft furniture.

General Casey Fink stood at the table surrounded by his staff and representatives from smaller units. Trevor, dressed in grungy BDU pants, a black shirt, and a dirty black baseball cap over hair that had not seen shampoo in the better part of a week, grabbed everyone’s attention as he walked up to the table where the very fluid “Kansas” front was displayed on a large map.

“We have some serious problems. I just got back from Great Bend. Enemy scouts have been spotted in that area as recently as this morning. I’m thinking The Order is pushing hard on the north flank to try and cut off the tracks at Peabody.”

Everyone understood that Trevor’s point revolved around the evacuation of heavy equipment and army units via the railroads, some of which had already been bombed. The only remaining intact routes ran in a north and northeast direction out of Wichita.

General Fink scratched his head and then timidly-a rare thing for Casey Fink-told Trevor, “2 ^ nd Armor is fifty percent loaded. General Rothchild and her command staff have set up shop over at the rail yard. I dispatched a pair of anti-air units for added protection.”

Trevor ran a hand over the rather thick stubble on his cheeks before finding his nose and pinching. Before he could burst into an angry reminder about the need for speed General Fink added, “We’ve got a strong garrison at Newton. They’ll cover the lines as long as we need. I’m more worried about the Chrysaor.”

“She’s out of action for a couple of days,” he told Fink. “No dry-dock, but she’s pulled back for weapons repair. Seems the air fight over Amarillo did more damage than we thought.”

Trevor stared at the maps of Kansas, Missouri, and Wichita. Markers represented friendly units as well as enemy positions.

“We have time, sir,” Casey said in a cautious tone.

“I know. That’s what worries me.”

On the map he saw markers indicating The Order’s legions, but felt greater concern over what he could not see. This sense of paranoia had grown acute in the four days since Voggoth outwitted him at the battle near Wetmore.

Trevor removed his baseball cap. Dirty hair fell over his ears. Outside, the roar of jet engines announced another flight trying to escape.

“We haven’t been moving fast enough, but they haven’t caught us, either.”

“They’ve had to do some farming,” said Fink. “Recon spotted a half-dozen fields just across the Colorado border.”

“A half-dozen? That’s nothing, you know that. Voggoth has got something up his sleeve.”

“Maybe he knows where we’re going. Maybe he wants to wait and set up shop closer to where the real battle is going to happen. You know, the Mississippi.”

The thought had occurred to Trevor.

“Maybe, yeah. But why let us make it to the barricades? He could hurt us bad right now, but he’s holding off. We’re too busy running to fight, and he still has enough firepower to kick us harder in the ass than he’s been doing. But he hasn’t. Just nitpicks. Bombing runs and a few shock troops here and there. It’s as if he wants us to make it to the Mississippi. Like he’s…”

Casey followed, “Like he’s stalling for time before finishing us off.”

Trevor nodded but his eyes remained on the map.

“Yeah, that about sums it up.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know. That’s what scares me.”

One of Trevor’s K9 bodyguards sitting by the door growled and stood. Everyone at the table turned and eyed the dog.

Rick Hauser spoke aloud what everyone thought: “Oh shit.”

A sound other than engines and shouts filtered in through the glass windows of the observation lounge: the base’s air raid klaxon springing to life in a wail of warning.

Casey Fink’s dry sense of humor surfaced for the first time in days: “Sounds like another nitpick.”

Trevor pointed through the big windows and said, “Here they come.”

A plume of exhaust on the distant perimeter of the base announced the launching of a Patriot missile. More plumes joined the first and reached into the white clouds drifting overhead. Explosions rocked the heavens; the flashes created lightning in a peaceful sky.

Voggoth’s bombers dipped below the clouds and flew toward the heart of McConnell. Like all of The Order’s weapons of war, these things appeared one part machine, one part animal. In this case the bodies resembled hammerhead sharks but without eyes and several times the size. The gray bodies ended not in a fin but in a point. Openings like gills lined the rear quarter from which slipped streams of white air like a kind of jet engine. Atop the bodies stretched a mechanical frame supporting pinkish fixed wings made from a fleshy material.