The canines and gear rode in the back, the Dark Wolves crammed into the crew cab up front, and they traveled north all afternoon with the occasional stop to take cover.
Early that evening one of the blob-like Chariots spotted the Dodge and opened fire with The Order’s equivalent of a machine gun. The team attempted to evade the airship on the streets of the tiny hamlet of Lewis, Kansas. The Chariot gave up the chase when Vince Caesar-behind the wheel-worked his way among the silos and cargo trailers of a cattle feed storage and distribution center.
After abandoning their car for lack of fuel the Dark Wolves proceeded north on foot. That night the team camped at the edge of Coon Creek outside of Garfield. Vince built a small fire and they boiled jerky in tin cups to try and moisten the meat. It did not work. They ate it anyway.
As dinner finished Nina sat against a tree and stared out at the field and the sparkling heavens above. She had never taken much interest in astronomy but could knew how to find the big dipper, the North Star, and a few others not because she held an interest in the universe, but because such points could serve as navigation aids.
On that night, however, she tried to see something more up there. She scanned the lights scattered on that black tapestry. She tried to comprehend that many of the armies who invaded her planet eleven years ago came from some of those stars. She wondered why the idea of alien invaders had not knocked her off balance during those first days when even the most veteran soldiers struggled with the idea of fighting monsters and extraterrestrials.
A cool breeze billowed across the field causing the rows of knee-high grass to bend and sway. Behind her the men sat around a dim fire and talked about the mission, what might be happening on the front lines, and sentiments for back home.
She heard Bly make a joke about how he should have been an accountant instead of a soldier. Caesar replied that he could not imagine being anything else. Maddock said he had a dream one night about being born a circus clown to which Bly offered a series of remarks that led to good-natured insults and a laughter.
Nina wondered about her dreams. She rarely had them. Or, at least, rarely remembered them. Often times she woke with emotions fresh in her mind but no idea about the substance of her sleeping fantasies.
She closed her eyes. The breeze draped over her. Her mind drifted…
“And where would we have lived?” Trevor asked.
“Hmmm,” she smiled. “Well, Philly of course.”
“Because that’s where you worked?”
“Well, I mean, I was a cop, you were-“
“A car salesman. I know, I know.”
“Philly is a great place. Lots of things to do. We could go to the zoo. Catch a Phillies game. Stroll through the museum.”
“Now that’s a funny image,” he laughed. “You and I, strolling through the zoo. After all we’ve seen I think a couple of giraffes would be kind of anti-climactic.”
“This is a different world,” Nina whispered. “A world where I’m not a soldier, and you’re not a leader. It’s a dream world. We’re we could just be together. No responsibilities.”
He put his hand on her cheek.
“That’s a lovely world. A wonderful dream.”
She wrung her hands.
“And after tomorrow, you get to dream it. I won’t remember enough to want to dream.”
“Memories make us who we are. Take them away, and you change the person…”
Nina’s eyes snapped open. A feeling of warmth mixed in her heart with frustration; frustration that something important was stripped from her.
Her words-spoken seemingly by another woman-replayed, “This is a different world. A world where I’m not a soldier, and you’re not a leader. It’s a dream world. We’re we could just be together.”
Nina checked herself and considered. Could it be true? As far back as she could remember she had only wished to be a fighter. It encompassed all she was. Her reflexes, her eye for battle, her instincts-all smaller parts of the greater sum of a soldier. And she had never considered any other possibility. Sure, she had faked her way through school and kept her true self hidden, but never had she denied the fabric of her person.
Now she wondered-is there more?
Nina shook her head.
Now is not the time to think of these things.
For a soldier, confusion could prove deadly and she found more confusion in her heart than ever before.
She pushed hard. She pushed hard to kick any doubts-no, not doubts. Hope. Hope for being more. For having more in her life the way Denise had given her more. Having a daughter had not made her any less of a soldier. In fact, she accomplished more in the years with Denise than in all the time before. Denise gave her a reason to fight other than instinct. A real purpose.
“Hey, Captain,” Carl Bly’s voice pulled Nina from her thoughts. She appreciated the interruption.
“Yes, Carl,” she answered sarcastically, “You made a hell of a shot with that Javelin the other day. Now shut up about it.”
Oliver Maddock found that very funny.
Nina knew Carl had not been bragging again, but it felt like the right moment for a joke. She had one or two such moments a month.
She stood, walked to the dying fire, and sat next to them.
“Shit, Cap, I was just wondering where we’re headed.”
They knew she had received a list of possible targets during a radio transmission earlier. Their choice of missions remained entirely at her discretion with the occasional intel reports from command serving only as suggestions.
“We’re heading further north. Seems Voggoth has got an implant camp out at Fort Larned. I want to hit them.”
“Whew,” Carl reacted. “Implants? Won’t that have some heavy stuff guarding it?”
“No,” Nina shook her head. “Nothing to it. They grab a bunch of unarmed folks and march them up there to get a slug slipped in. Probably light infantry. Easy target if we do it right and along the way, well, I’m just saying we can save a lot of people who would otherwise be monks.”
“Love it,” Caesar grinned.
They grew silent as the soldiers contemplated the next mission.
A thought popped in to Nina’s mind. A question, actually. She could not be sure from where it came, but it slipped out of her lips and around the fire before she could stop.
“What do you guys miss from before all this?”
They stared, confused at the question.
Vince asked, “What, well, what do you mean?”
“You know,” Nina felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment but she suspected the dim light hid her blushing, “what do you miss from before the invasion and stuff. You know- all this.”
The other Dark Wolves knew the expression ‘all this’, but never once had their Captain shown any interest in life before Armageddon.
The way the men gaped at her-well it made Nina wish for a Stumphide to come charging from the forest and cause a firefight to break out.
“That was a long time ago,” Bly said. “Not sure I can even remember what that was like.”
“The mountains back home,” Oliver Maddock answered in a different tone; softer. In the orange flicker of the fire, Nina saw his eyes glaze over. “We rock-climbed Snowdown-that’s the biggest bloody mountain in all of Wales-a couple o’ times before I joined up.”
“Who was ‘we’?” Nina asked.
Maddock shrugged. “Just a girl-well, she was a little younger than me but we grew up together outside of Cardiff. Gentle creature; foxy one she was; far too good for the likes of me.”
Bly joked, “Now how come you never went talking about no girl before. Afraid I’d swim over there and steal her away?”
Maddock smiled through a fog of lost memories as he answered, “Never anythin’ serious, you hear? I ‘spose I always hoped it would be. She had this way ‘bout her. She could look at you and it was like she was lookin’ right through ya’. You know what I’m sayin’? Last time I saw Cai we spent the day down along Three Cliffs Bay before I shipped ‘cross the pound to hang out with you trogs.”