Anthony DeCosmo - Empire

Brewer referred to the map as he spoke. “As you know, the Hivvans used Raleigh as their primary base in North Carolina. General Shepherd has twelve of our seventeen operational military fixed-wing aircraft at his disposal and is using them to bombard, antagonize, and otherwise piss-off the retreating Hivvan Corp. Interstate 40 is the major route leading south out of Raleigh. Twenty-six miles or so south of that city I-40 intersects with I-95 that runs to the southwest. You can see here, that intersection makes sort of a point in a triangle. I-95 continues southwest across the middle of North Carolina then eventually into South Carolina, here.”

He stood back and used his finger to outline the roads he mentioned.

“For its part, I-40 continues southeast toward the coast and Wilmington, um, right here. You can see here that another major road-Route 17- heads out of Wilmington and follows along the coast into South Carolina. The gist of it is, you have two major routes leading from North Carolina into South Carolina, one not far from the coast below Wilmington, the other much further inland.”

Lori stared at her husband with angry eyes and barked, “But what’s the point?”

Jon continued, “We expected the Hivvans would follow 40 until hitting 95 then follow that road in a retreat toward South Carolina. Their next major base-in fact their last big one in the region-is in Columbia. But that’s not what they did. It seems they are more disorganized than we thought. During their retreat, and under constant harassment from the air, the Hivvan armies did not follow either of the major routes. Instead, dozens of smaller, splintered formations headed almost directly south along minor roads into the small towns, villages, and wilderness between those two major routes. They are fractured and vulnerable, although they still represent a significant fighting force, somewhere between seven and eight thousand.”

“Well that’s good, right?” Dante guessed.

“It’s great,” Trevor agreed. “They are putting themselves in a big trap. They are heading through hard ground, tough terrain. They’ve got the Bladen Lakes State Forest in their path not to mention an uncountable number of streams and lakes. There’s also the impassable Green Swamp to the southeast so they can’t get to the coast.”

“Okay, but, so what?” Lori Brewer asked.

“This is a huge force,” Trevor explained. “But it’s fragmented now. It will coalesce at some point, maybe in a few days, maybe a week or so. We know the Hivvans are too smart to stay fractured for long. Then they’ll need supplies, even if only to retreat. Those supplies come from Columbia but they have to go through one of two forward distribution points that Knox’s intelligence people identified. One is in Conway about thirty miles inside the South Carolina border and just off the coast north of Myrtle Beach. The second is inland at Dillon, also just inside the border of South Carolina. We take those two posts out and we eliminate all support for the retreating Hivvans. The lizards starve and their Firecats run out of gas.”

“Choke the bastards,” Gordon Knox jumped in. “Cut em’ off and choke em. Just like the Nazis at Stalingrad.”

Trevor nodded his head in agreement.

Brewer presented more specifics. “General Shepherd has proposed an ambitious plan to take out both of those depots while we encircle the retreating enemy. Encircled and without supplies we can then reduce them with artillery and whatever air power we can muster. Think of it, eight thousand Hivvans surrounded and cut off. We could wipe them out.”

“Oh, that is being wonderful,” Omar spoke. “But how can we possibly do such a thing? Our supplies are low as it is!”

Knox said, “Think. The Hivvans have about seven thousand more troops garrisoned in Columbia. If the forces retreating from Raleigh make it back to Columbia then we’ve got a real dogfight on our hands when we get down there. If we can cut them off and destroy them then taking Columbia becomes a lot easier. Take Columbia and you free more than ten thousand human slaves and you break the back of the Hivvans in the Carolinas. They would have to withdraw all the way to Atlanta.”

“It would shorten this phase of the war,” Trevor simplified. “Save human lives and free more slaves. In the long run, it would mean fewer supplies needed to get the job done.”

Brewer continued with the details. “Shep proposes to send Stonewall’s 2 ^ nd Mechanized Division along I-95 and into South Carolina. They will first occupy Dillon then head toward the coast to hook up with the second branch of the attack, which will be Shepherd’s own 1 ^ st Mech Division. He will lead them down I-40 to Wilmington then hang a right to follow Route 17 until he gets to Conway. At that point the trap would close; the Hivvan army would be cut off.”

Knox enlightened them, “Intelligence indicates no large, organized forces in Wilmington, just animals as well as some human groups who have carved out small sanctuaries in different neighborhoods. General Shepherd’s group could actually bypass the city proper. We could then send Hunter-Killer groups to take care of Wilmington and secure the force’s rear area and supply lines.”

“Sounds simple, Gordo,” Dante sneered.

“It is, Mr. Jones. It is. We just have to tough it out.”

Reverend Johnny boomed as he spoke directly at both Trevor and Jon Brewer. “Praise the Lord, your ambition burns hotter than Lucifer’s kitchen. Can such a feat be done? Perhaps your reach exceeds your grasp.”

“Perhaps,” Trevor answered. “Either divine intervention or luck has given us an opportunity to deal a fatal blow to our enemies. If we can move these two armies quickly, we can cut off our enemy and destroy him at a relatively small cost. But the effect, Reverend, would be catastrophic for our opponents.”

Brewer added, “You have to remember, the retreating Hivvans abandoned ammunition and supplies when they ran out of Raleigh, and now they are on bad ground. The roads are thin and in poor shape, the terrain around those roads is wet or dense or both. Their movement will be restricted. It will take them days just to reconstitute. After that they will rely on those supply convoys either to retreat or counter attack. No matter how you look at it, take out those depots, surround the Hivvans, and they will whither and die.”

“Looks like a race,” Brett pointed out. “Wait now. Yep, that’s what it is. It’s a race to get those two pincers into position before the Hivvans can get out of the trap. I’m guessing if we win that race, they die. But if they get out of the noose then we’ve gone and wasted a heck of a lot of materials. Gee, not only that, our boys would be in bad shape to fend off a counter attack.”

“What kind of time frame we looking at?” Lori Brewer asked

Her husband answered, “We think we can complete the encirclement in a week or so, depending on what type of smaller hostile forces we encounter.”

Anita Nehru offered her insight on that matter. “You’ve got a lot of swamps down there. Great hangouts for Deadheads, Snake-Beasts, and Giant Skip-Beetles. Even though the Hivvans are reptilian, we know they don’t like swamps or even the wilderness in general, not unlike us.”

Trevor said, “It’s going to take them time to get organized. They are under constant harassment and their lines of communication are sketchy right now. I think Stonewall and his unit did an even better job of whacking them than we first thought.”

“Right. I suspect you’re going to need a ton of fuel, a heap more in ammunition, and a couple of warehouses worth of food for all this,” Stanton said.

Trevor voiced what they all thought: “That means diverting more from civilian stocks. That means putting distribution people in Raleigh right away. It means more head aches and a lot more screaming from Eva Rheimmer.”