Anthony DeCosmo - Fusion

Two hundred of the warped commandos marched into the ruins unaware of the cavalry until they were caught in a well-orchestrated cross fire. Carbine rounds and well-placed pistol shots felled the metallic fighters; mortar shells and fragmentation grenades destroyed more.

The alien beings communicated in voices coming from unseen mouths in a language of static and screeches. Moving fast and agile thanks to the wheels incorporated into their metal feet, the commandos moved between cover, lobbed explosive charges, and returned small arms fire with the same.

Cassy’s fighters eliminated nearly one-third of the unsuspecting enemy in the initial exchange, but the rest found refuge among the ruins and settled into a static battle line. Cassy knew hundreds more enemy reinforcements would come from Newton; she only hoped to buy time…

A rail line ran southwest away from Newtown and, eight miles later, reached the small town of Sedgwick, Kansas. This line-about two miles behind Highway 135-served as the second perimeter of defense and the inner-most ring of containment trapping General Rhodes. The Order situated units all along the line and had established their version of a Forward Operating Base around the Hillside Cemetery on the eastern fringes of town.

Originally, Shep planned to form all his forces into one sharp instrument to punch a hole through the enemy lines that stretched between Newtown and Sedgwick. Things had changed with the Grenadiers’ arrival.

For his first move he had sent Cassy Simms north to the outskirts of Newton to hold off the rather effective enemy commandos and their support units stationed there. He knew she could not delay them forever, but if she could bog them down for a short time the new plan should work, especially considering the size of the hole the K9s aimed to punch in the pocket.

Shepherd led his column south and then west toward Sedgwick on Route 588. Like Cassy Simms to the north, he aimed to draw off a threat to the Grenadiers’ flank and buy time for Rhodes-trapped at Halstead seven miles west of the rail line-to fight his way east to the dogs.

This revised plan paid immediate dividends. Shep’s armor caught The Order in the middle of organizing a counter-attack toward the Grenadiers. Abrams tanks directed by William Rheimmer smashed into a column of the van-sized, six-legged robots known as Roachbots.

Powered by harvested human brains and well-armed for mobile combat, the Roachbots exhibited one trait that made them both more dangerous and less predictable: insanity.

The creatures wore tubular metal frames, a pair of red eyes that mimicked LED displays, and a mouth-like speaker on a front face plate to either side of which rested Gatling guns mounted on swiveling round bases providing a wide firing arc.

In addition to the standard drones, the Roachbot column included Mortarbots. These silver walking mechanical artillery pieces resembled 18 ^ th century cannon wobbling along on a pair of metal legs with their barrels pointing skyward. A face plate similar to those found on a drone was affixed to the bottom of the automatons.

In any case, a column of fifty of the things moved north on Hoover road from the tightly packed bubble-like structures The Order had grown on the grounds of Hillside Cemetery. The robots were just passing through the flattened remains of a housing development when the human tanks locked on and fired from a nearby field.

Shepherd directed his Humvees and infantry-a few with Javelin anti-tank weapons-to a tree line east and northeast of the cemetery and kept Rheimmer’s armor in the open blasting away.

Roachbots-Shep knew-could do serious damage to the K9 advance. They were too tough to bite and could kill from range.

The drones on the road turned east and advanced on the Abrams getting close enough for Shepherd to hear their trademark call in a synthesized growl: A-hehehehe. Meanwhile, the Mortarbots stood off and lobbed explosive shells into the attacking armor.

Shepherd-onboard an APC-used his binoculars to spy both the elevated cemetery and the town of Sedgwick beyond. While the forces there accounted for only a small fraction of Voggoth’s advancing army, The Order had certainly planned its encirclement of Rhodes well.

A giant mushroom-shaped guardian rose from the grounds of the cemetery. One ugly eye drooped from the cap of the creature and surveyed the puny beings daring to attack its base.

The dome on the guardian shook, vibrated, and then spewed a volley of hundreds of sharp disc-shaped projectiles like circular saw blades thrown as Frisbees. Some of those blades flew into the trees aiming for the infantry but the branches provided significant cover. Other blades hit the tanks in the field where some stuck into armor but did no serious damage.

A moment later the top of the mushroom-the cap-exploded with two fireballs as an A-10 Warthog swooped from the heavens and struck. What the missiles failed to finish the A-10’s guns did: the plane strafed the Guardian with thousands of rounds ripping its hide to pieces and sending it toppling.

Shepherd smiled but, at the same time, he saw more Roachbots, a variety of Spider Sentries, and the gray-skinned muscle-bound Ogres forming up on Rt. 588 in Sedgwick…

General Rhodes’ men mustered on the Halstead High School athletic field that happened to be ringed by a strangely blue-colored track. For more than three days, now, the high school and that field served as their base of operations after they had fortified Halstead from threats on all sides.

However, word came that it was time to make their escape. The sounds of battle to the northeast at Newton, to the southeast at Sedgwick, and directly to the east provided motivation to get moving, as did any glance to the west of town. General Rhodes saw black storm clouds gathering there. A sure sign that The Order’s main force-Leviathan and all-approached.

His forces packed up and drove east in an assortment of vehicles ranging from military Humvees and armored cars to an old school bus as well as deuce-and-a-half trucks. While he abandoned much of his heavy equipment, Rhodes did manage to evacuate all of his wounded.

The ragtag column headed east along CR-576, leaving behind nearly 200 freshly dug graves on the high school’s west lawn…

The army of Grenadiers hit the enemy defenses along the rail line like a wave crashing into rocks. Turrets and spider sentries, the assimilated humans known as monks, as well as a pair of towering mushroom-shaped Guardians met the assault. Air support in the form of Screamers launched from points west and the floating blobs known as Chariots provided additional support for the enemy position.

Hastily deployed bouncer mines east of the tracks broke up the initial surge but the K9s kept coming. They died at the rate of 100 every minute, but refused to yield…

In the suburbs of Newton, the half-robot/half animal commandos were reinforced by a trio of eight-foot-tall creatures wearing hooded cloaks and blasting liquid fire from arms that sported round baffles.

Simms recognized the creatures from the report filed by Nina Forest and Gordon Knox after their adventure in Mexico last year. The robotic creatures received the official designation of Erasers. They moved slow and fired even slower but their heavy blasters could eradicate all but the most hardened bunkers.

The Erasers tore apart her front lines with a series of energy streams. However, an AC-130 circled the battlefield in the burned-out suburbs for ten minutes and managed to destroy two of the three hooded robots before the plane suffered enough damage to chase it away.

By midafternoon the cavalry’s hard points were broken and casualties hit 30 %. Cassy had to order a retreat for the legendary Stonewall’s brigades, but she knew they had accomplished their task.