Anthony DeCosmo - Fusion

Nature’s attempt to protect its own.

Those words from Trevor’s attempt at an explanation forced their way into Shepherd’s thoughts, cutting through the wonder-and yes-the fear. He felt as if he stood in front of a tornado, or watched a volcano erupt, or felt the ground shake from an Earthquake.

Only nature can do something this big. Trevor had sent the K9s to enforce his will at New Winnabow, but now nature sent a hundred thousand canines to do its bidding.

The constant pounding of paws into the ground generated clouds of dust and created a roar that made it nearly impossible to speak, but Shep heard General Simms’ panicked cry, “What is going on! What is this?”

General Jerry Shepherd saw it clearly at that point. The K9s served as nature’s anti-bodies. Never in history had Earth’s ecosystem been invaded by an outside force. Indeed, not only an outside force but one led by Voggoth and his Order, the antithesis of life.

Nature moved to counter the threat; a threat to the entire body of the planet. Somehow these Grenadiers-these anti-bodies-connected to Trevor via the genetic chain on which he served as a link.

Throughout history, dogs demonstrated sensitivity to human feelings, as evident in breeds ranging from care dogs to seeing eye dogs to guard dogs. Armageddon had grown that sensitivity to the point that the dogs were born better trained than ever thought possible.

And what have the K9s sensed of late from their human masters?

Desperation. Fear. All of it focused on Voggoth’s advancing legions.

One last great mustering of power. The war would be humanity’s to win or lose, but the fantastic Grenadiers offered one final contribution. The only type of contribution they could make in a conflict that had grown into air power and armor and artillery: a deluge aimed at The Order’s lines surrounding General Rhodes’ trapped unit.

They continued to come, stretching from horizon in the east to horizon in the west. Easily a hundred thousand four-legged warriors.

“Cassy!”

General Simms kept her glazed eyes on the Grenadier army as its tail end passed.

“General Simms!”

“What? Huh?”

“Get to your cavalry. Saddle up. I’m going to call in air support and give Rhodes the heads up. We have to move. Now!”

“What are you talking about? What’s going on?”

For the first time in days, General Shepherd smiled in a cocky grin. He thought of their old departed friend Stonewall McAllister and answered in words that might have come from that gallant gentleman’s vocabulary. “We’ve got a battle to fight, General. And it’s going to be glorious.”

A line of twenty alien turrets stood alongside Highway 135 mirroring the telephone poles sharing that stretch of road. They reached as tall as a street light and resembled the upper half of the letter ‘S’ in design with steel-like ribs lining their frames. The outer surface mixed black metal and red flesh. Coils and tubes wrapped around each turret rising from a belt of white-glowing energy sacks. Mounds of dirt surrounded the base of each turret, a tribute to how recently they had burrowed into the ground.

Behind this line rose a trio of hastily-grown structures resembling dead trees with trunks and limbs several feet in diameter. Holes like honeycombs encircled their ‘trunks’, iron pipes created a sort of exoskeleton around the entire structure, and morbid seed-shaped growths hung from the branches.

Thus stood the eastern most mark of Voggoth’s advance and the outer ring of encirclement around the 13 ^ th Mechanized Division.

The Grenadiers-the ocean of K9s stretching back to the horizon-poured across the fields of Kansas toward that line. The ground shook; a rumble filled the air.

At 500 yards, a light at the top of one turret, then another, then all blinked on and a muffled, moaning alarm echoed along the perimeter.

The turrets went into action firing short, sharp bursts of energy like shiny daggers cutting overtop the plains and slicing into the attackers. The bolts cut dogs in two, tore off legs, and decapitated more. But the great mob kept coming.

The tree-like dispenser buildings activated. From the honeycombs rolled dozens of balls that stopped, sprouted legs, and grew into the Spider Sentries encountered wherever The Order lurked. The Daddy-long-legs-like creatures grew twin rows of tiny gun barrels on the round orbs that served as heads as well as a pointed ‘nose’ attached to a rope-like skewer for close-combat.

From the seed-like sacks on the ‘limbs’ of the dispensers drooped large green bulbs easily mistaken for discolored bees nests or the rotting remains of Gypsy Moth cocoons.

The bulbs hit the ground where they shimmied and curled open with a soft crackle. Vile liquid dripped in long, stringy strands as greenish spheres birthed from the sickly wombs.

From each of the spheres lying among the dead grass of the field sprouted a trio of sharp and boney protrusions. They hinged at an unseen joint and returned to the ground, stabbing into the brown land. At the center of each rose a glowing yellow orb alongside a fleshy cylinder sitting on a tendon-like shoulder.

The Heavy Duty Spider Sentries — as classified by The Empire-joined their base-model brethren and filled the gaps between the turrets. While the latter met the canine army with lethal rapid-fire pellet guns, the Heavy Duty versions launched more powerful shot from their shoulder-mounted weapons. The blasts could penetrate the skin of armored vehicles so when they hit K9 bodies those bodies vanished in splashes of gore.

Grenadiers fell, were cut to shreds, and disintegrated into blobs of fir and bone, but the attack did not waver; the line kept coming as more and more dogs stepped over and around wounded and dead comrades with no sense of fear, no falter in their pace.

Voggoth’s turrets glowed red; the Spider Sentries rocked back and forth on their spindly legs. The wave of dogs came to the highway and swept beyond.

One by one the turrets pulled free of the ground and walked on four short legs in retreat, firing as they staggered back. Dogs scrambled onto their bases chewing and gnawing at the tubes and coils until causing fatal malfunctions. One-two-ten fell over like toppling towers.

The Spiders-heavy duty and otherwise-stammered backwards. Dead dog bodies piled up in front of them like sandbags along a river but the Grenadiers kept coming! Relentless! Fearless!

They grabbed onto legs and bit. The nose cones of the Spider Sentries-like spears on a hose-darted out and impaled dogs one after another but they still came; they piled on and over one another searching for an opening to wound the vile monsters. Sentries toppled and disappeared beneath the mob.

Despite killing thousands of K9s, The Order’s line of defense splintered and was swallowed like a rotting beachside boardwalk in a tsunami…

On the northern flank of the Grenadier army, Cassy Simms and 100 of her best riders moved into the bedroom communities south of Newtown. They occupied the burned out duplexes, toppled colonials, and overgrown cul-de-sacs where they dismounted and dug in with machine guns and short-range mortars.

Voggoth’s version of airborne commandos-who had dropped into Newtown during The Order’s move to encircle Rhodes’ unit-marched south intending to hit the attacking K9s and slow their advance. They looked like skeletons of bronze with pulsating innards resembling a combination of clockworks and biological organs. Their solitary round eyes glowed red and they moved on two metallic legs with a combination foot and rubber wheel at the bottom.

The commandos fired from metal tubes mounted on their forearms. A few of their number sported small shoulder-mounted bazookas. During their assault on Newton they had glided to Earth via black bat wings but had since discarded them.