Anthony DeCosmo - Empire

Two bolts of energy blasted from Johnny’s airborne cargo Eagle via a turret mounted below the nose cone. Like the airships themselves, those energy weapons had been captured from the ‘Redcoat’ aliens following the Battle for Wilkes-Barre.

One massive leg and the hoof at the end of it kicked, sending a broken dog flying and a pair of soldiers tumbling. A second kick smashed the side of a transport Eagle. The side door crumpled in and vehicle nearly toppled as it took to the air.

Another stream of energy from the cargo Eagle rippled across the beast’s snout, scorching its goat face and eliciting a roar that echoed through the wilderness. The very sound felt like an assault; Jon instinctively cowered for the briefest of moments. There was something about this entity that made it feel even more alien than the extraterrestrials that had invaded Earth: as if even among the invaders, this thing was an abomination.

A cloven hoof where a hand should be swung at a flying Eagle, glancing a landing pod and sending it into a flat spin. The engines screamed as the plane spiraled toward the treetops, grazing branches before regaining control.

The Goat-Walker turned again to the humans and dogs scurrying around its feet. With a grunt that sounded like an explosion of compressed air, it leaned over and struck with both arms, pounding one into the backbone of a refueling transport and crushing two men and a dog with the other.

Two contrails raced skyward and a pair of anti-tank missiles walloped the gargantuan in the neck. Pieces of what might have been either flesh or building materials poured down as well as a muddy red liquid.

The creature stood to full height and howled.

“Keep firing! Keep firing!” Jon ordered even as he cursed the waste of precious ordnance.

A hand grabbed his shoulder from behind; he nearly jumped out of his skin.

Casey Fink shouted in his ear, “They’re done refueling! We can bug out!”

“Do it!” Jon shouted as the creature swung and missed at the two soldiers who had launched the missiles. “Take off! Everyone get onboard and get the hell out of here!”

Troops hurried for the two remaining transports while the two tankers retracted hoses from the lake.

“Withdraw!” Brewer shouted, this time directing his order at the K9s. The dogs wasted no time in scampering onboard Eagle 2.

Into his radio Jon transmitted, “We need covering fire to take off. Blast the damn thing!”

A swarm of Eagles fired potshots at the beast from energy turrets.

Jon slung his rifle and raced onboard Eagle 3 where Casey Fink shouted orders of his own into his radio: “Tankers, get out of here!”

A voice answered, “Retracting pumps now, Sir.”

“Just friggin’ go. We’re out of time!”

Eagle 2 blasted away from the surface. The sound drew the attention of the snarling monster.

Jon, standing at Eagle 3’s open side door, saw two of his soldiers-one man helping a limping woman-emerge from cover at the edge of the forest and hurry toward his transport. He waved encouragement to them but the wounded woman could only move at half-speed.

The Goat-Walker apparently realized most of its prey had escaped and aimed for the three ships remaining on the ground: Jon’s ship number 3 and the two tankers.

“Come on!” Jon shouted at the limping soldiers. “Haul ass!”

One of the hideous legs of the massive creature thudded to the ground just ten yards from the transport’s side door, half as close as the fleeing soldiers.

Jon raised his hand to wave again, but the sliding door slammed shut in front of his face. He turned to see Casey Fink pressing the ‘lock’ switch. The pilot must have reacted to the ‘sealed’ indicator on his console and the Eagle took to the air with such acceleration that Jon and Casey fell to the floor.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jon shouted with the faces of the abandoned personnel etched in his mind.

“Saving our asses, General,” Fink answered.

The transport shuddered as if absorbing a glancing blow. The fifteen men buckled into seats groaned a collective gasp.

Jon scrambled to his feet, opened the cockpit bulkhead, and staggered into the nose cone where a solitary pilot wearing bulky navigation goggles struggled with the controls.

Through the windshield, Jon saw the red eyes of the Goat-Walker. He felt them look right at him; regard him.

“This was no accident,” he muttered but the pilot could not hear; he grunted and growled as he tried to control the rapidly ascending craft. “That thing was sent to stop us.”

Streaks of energy slammed into the monster’s head. It roared again.

“Hold on,” the pilot warned and he reversed thrust, pushing the ship out over the lake, away from the bank.

Jon sat-fell-into the navigator’s chair. Through the window, he saw the two tankers take off. The Goat-Walker saw them, too. It struck at one, missing as the ship shot out of reach. The second failed to escape; a hoof smashed into its mid-section, exploding the purification equipment and tossing the craft into the icy waters of Lake Edouard.

“Oh Christ,” Jon’s pilot muttered. “Oh Jesus Christ.”

The white nose of the tanker ship bobbed straight up and then slipped into the dark waters. As the transport moved off, darkness swallowed the banks of the lake where their camp had been moments before.

Reverend Johnny’s voice piped through the radio on the console. “All flights, report in. Is General Brewer on the line?”

Jon leaned forward and punched the transmit button.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“We made it, Jon. That was close.”

Jon thought of the soldiers left behind and the tanker ship drowning in the lake.

“Yeah, we made it.”

–

“Sir,” Casey Fink woke Jon from a light sleep. “We’re about ready to touch down in Hopedale.”

“What? Already?”

Jon stood and stretched. He walked along the row of seats then opened the sliding cockpit door. Daylight glared in through the windshield.

“We’re heading in for a landing, Sir,” the pilot informed and Jon felt the ship descend.

A frigid bay split Hopedale into two distinct parts. To the north, the city proper including its primary claim to fame, the historic Moravian Mission House.

The southern end of that bay was less developed and dominated by a primitive shipping dock comprised of wooden planks and buildings set upon a piled stone foundation.

With a harbor deep enough to accommodate heavy tankers, Hopedale served as an ideal place to rendezvous with the Newport News.

In any case, the Eagles descended on to a flat, open area between low rolling hills north of the dock. The landing gear sank into soft ground. After a few moments, the doors opened and the travel-weary troops disembarked.

A biting cold chased away their weariness. While still August, a wet, chilly breeze cut through the men’s BDUs. Several returned inside the transports to retrieve their arctic gear.

Jon left most of the men and Reverend Johnny with the Eagles and took Casey Fink and a small force to the docks.

Gentle mountains overlooked the bay while grassy bush and rocky beaches covered most of the coastline. Calm water sloshed and curious seabirds squawked beneath a canopy of white clouds. A salty, marshy smell blew around on the wind.

At the dock waited an intimidating beast from the deep. It stretched more than a football field in length from bow to stern and was certainly a predator.

The Newport News, a Los Angeles Class nuclear submarine, had been one of the best and most modern attack boats in the U.S. arsenal before something other than Soviet bombers or Chinese ICBMs destroyed the country.

Jon and his small team approached the dock as a group of sailors moved to meet them.