Anthony DeCosmo - Empire

“Trust me,” Jon huffed. “I am worried about it.”

“I wish I could tell you what you’re going to run into, I just don’t know. I told you everything I can.”

Jon repeated all of what Trevor had shared. “I’m looking for a structure northeast of Qaanaaq, Greenland. I’ve got the exact coordinates and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the Globestar GPS satellite is still functional.”

Trevor assured him, “Knox’s crew at the Pentagon checked the data at Space Command. They believe you’ll get a good GPS signal to follow.”

“Anyway, I get there and find these rune-things. Two pillars, about six feet high. Then I…then I…are you sure?”

Trevor nodded.

Jon shrugged for what had to have been the hundredth time since he received his instructions. “There’s a round ball of some sort on top of each pillar. I touch each one, one with each hand.”

“That’s right,” Trevor said.

“What is that supposed to do again?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I have a theory. I’m thinking it sort of reboots whatever force is controlling the gateways.”

“Reboots?”

“Somehow or another these gateways were opened to our world from other worlds. My guess is that once you come in contact with the runes you sort of establish that this world belongs to you, a human. Then the runes won’t allow any more non-humans to come through. Got it?”

“Shit no, I don’t got it.”

Trevor warned, “If some alien touches those things, then…”

“Then they get to start pouring in here as if they own the place. I guess I never realized that this invasion thing could actually get worse.”

“Think of it this way,” Trevor said. “There are rules governing all this, and some of those rules are controlled by these runes. Whoever gets there first gets to change some of the rules.”

“Looks like we’re all ready to go,” Jon said as the last soldier disappeared into the passenger compartment. “We’ll rendezvous with the other transports north of here.”

Trevor took a deep breath and then said, “Hey, Jon, we’ve been doing this for five years now, you know.”

“Wow. Man, where’d the time go?”

“I’m just saying that I don’t think I ever really stopped and told you how much I appreciate what you do around here. You do a lot of the heavy lifting, and I get most of the credit, but I know we wouldn’t have come half this far without you. You’ve been a tough and loyal soldier, and I don’t think I ever said ‘thanks’.”

“That’s because you don’t have to. You’re the boss, see? That’s the way things are. Don’t matter if I accept that or not. It’s the way. Just a fact, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well, thanks anyway.”

“Thank me when I bring these stupid-ass runes back for you. Then I want a week off. Maybe somewhere in the Outer Banks. Make sure Shep clears them out soon. I got a feeling I’m going to be real friggin’ cold for a while. Need somewhere warm to melt.”

Trevor smiled, “You got it.”

“Mister Brewer!” Reverend Johnny shouted from the Eagle’s open passenger door. “Hurry up with your goodbye kiss!”

Brewer shot the Revered a stiff middle finger and then turned back to Trevor who extended his hand and said, “Good luck.”

Jon shook it. “Don’t worry, I’m coming back. At least you’d better hope so,” Brewer moved away. “Otherwise my wife will kick the shit out of you.”

Trevor watched his General climb the ramp and board the transport. The outer door slid shut and the ramp retracted. A moment later the Eagle lifted off the pad slowly and easily, turned, and flew over the mountains to the north.

Two miles east of Fayetteville, North Carolina, Interstate 95 passes under Route 24 in crisscrossing strips of concrete and long sweeping traffic ramps. NCDOT last tended to the intersection five years ago, leaving neglected landscaping separating the parallel north and south strips of I-95 while overgrown brush and trees died along the shoulders and banks.

Nearly twenty cars in various states of crash, burn, and otherwise shredded metal cluttered the highways, a memento from the panicked last days of the United States.

A dreary gray sky delivered a warm drizzle across the entire scene, but the sound of chaos drown the pitter-patter of rain: explosions, rifle fire, and an electric buzz of energy weapons punctuated by human screams and reptilian hisses.

The prim-and-proper Kristy Kaufman led an infantry column southward on I-95. Sixty yards to her right on the far side of I-95, Dustin McBride did the same.

“Two Firecats at nine o’clock!” yelled his voice from her hand-held walkie-talkie. “They’re coming right atchya, Princess!”

Kristy cringed at the nickname, but pushed aside her anger for a moment to wave her Aussie-style cowboy hat in the air as encouragement to her troops. While the hat did not match her Tiger stripe camouflage particularly well, it fit with her personality perfectly.

Despite her urging, energy bolts from alien infantrymen attempting to capture the high ground of the Route 24 overpass kept Kaufman’s soldiers pinned. As per Dustin’s warning, two Firecats came over an earthen bank into the midst of Kaufman’s unit. Their caterpillar treads tore into the ground whipping up clumps of mud.

She ordered “Into the trees!” referring to the tight cluster of summit ash trees filling the circle-shaped ground in the center of I-95 North’s onramp to Route 24.

A golden stream of liquid flame poured from a nozzle on the lead Firecat, filling the air with a noxious petroleum smell and engulfing an older man as he struggled to his feet from a prone position. His skin melted away instantaneously leaving behind a pile of smoldering dungarees and a warped shotgun.

Another of her charges ran for the woods but slowed to empty a clip from his AK-47 into the second alien tank. The rounds struck the netting of the cockpit and ripped away at the protective sheath.

Before his bullets could puncture that protection, however, the Firecat responded from a double-barreled swiveling turret lobbing volleys of green plasma. The bolts sliced through the man turning his body into chunks of red gore that splattered on the pavement.

Nonetheless, his foolhardy attack bought time for the remainder of Kaufman’s squad to find cover amidst the trees.

The Firecats could not enter the tightly packed woods in pursuit, so they assaulted the patch of trees and the hiding humans with napalm and energy weapons, circling the perimeter as they fired.

“Keep your heads down!” Kaufman yelled as plasma severed a branch overhead.

She decided to ignore her own advice. After slinging her hunting rifle, Kristy pulled a heavy Desert Eagle. 50 caliber from a thigh rig and approached the edge of the woods. Holding the gun in both hands, she poked out from cover and fired.

Blam! Blam!

The gun sounded more a cannon while the recoil threatened to break her wrist. Like the Tiger camo and the Aussie cowboy hat, the powerful silver-plated weapon served her image as much as function, but in this case the added firepower offered more than mere style points.

She heard her radio crackle with Dustin McBride’s incredulous voice, “Princess! What are you doing? Get into cover you idiot!”

I’m remembering what my Hostiles Database told me, you dork, she thought as she realized that the hour she spent reading the field manual last week might actually pay off.

Hopefully.

Her shots aimed for a hose-like conduit affixed to the energy weapon turret. According to the manual, that hose ran the length of the machine and attached to the powerful rear-mounted engine providing energy for those main guns.

Volatile energy.