“Faster-faster…” Billie heard Dasher One mumble over the radio as if his words might will more speed from the engines.
Blue sky replaced churning clouds. Sunbeams of an early June day replaced flashes of lightning. But the death struggle continued. The Spooks gained ground as they bellowed a horrid cry as if killing provided relief from an existence of agony.
Eight miles away from Alpha target, two Spooks hit another Prowler. The broken plane crashed hard into the grounds of the Shoal Creek Golf Course north of Pleasant Valley.
At 12 miles one of the F-111 Aardvarks fell victim to the pursuit. The cockpit assembly drifted on parachutes down into a vacant housing development on the north side of Kansas City.
At 15 miles the first Spook ran out of energy. Its body grew crusty and tired; the flapping wings-perhaps more like the flaps of a kite-stiffened. It fell. At 17 miles more died and dropped one after another. The pursuit shrank from a swarm to a flock to a handful.
“Approaching bravo target,” Dasher One radioed. “Targets identified as farms along the coast of Wyandotte lake.”
“That’s it? That’s it?” Billie could no longer hide his frustration. They had lost several planes-good pilots-and passed on a chance to drop a few bombs on Voggoth’s main army. Not much, but something.
“Farms? We did all this to hit some goddamn farms? Whose dumb-ass idea was this? We had their friggin’ army under our wings. We could have done some damage.”
Dasher One first greeted Billie’s protests with a chuckle. And then an assurance.
“Relax Billie, we just kicked their ass, they just don’t know it yet…”
The black heavens above Voggoth’s army rolled and bucked like an inverted ocean tide. Licks of lightning bounced among the clouds but no rain came; only the energy of a storm that refused to break.
Something moved among the storm clouds.
Another bolt of lightning erupted through the heights. The flash illuminated three deadly beasts descending from the clouds with wingspans greater than 180 feet and bellies full of death. The thunderclap that followed sounded one part roar and one part laughter.
The monsters descended upon Voggoth’s legions to the droning roar of Pratt amp; Whitney turbofans making some 17,000 pounds of thrust. A hydraulic hum followed by a heavy clang announced the opening of bomb bay doors.
The B-52’s wore icons on their noses and came with names: “Memphis Belle IV,” “In Harm’s Way”, and “Lady Ashley”.
With the anti-air Spooks pulled en masse to the southwest and new ones yet to be birthed in the launchers, Voggoth’s army could only watch the mighty planes approach.
The B-52s had served little purpose in The Empire until that moment. Precision strikes and air-to-air capability held sway against the Hivvans and The Cooperative, while the sheer volume of Spook support kept the Stratofortresses away from Voggoth’s minions.
Now, with the Chrysaor still undergoing repairs and Imperial air forces dwindled to nearly nothing, the gigantic man-made monsters found one more mission in a history of missions stretching back to the 1950s.
The bombs fell. One after another after another after another. They fell like rain and hit the ground like earthquakes-180,000 pounds of ordnance pounded the tightly-packed ranks of The Order’s great army.
Shell tanks splintered into pieces. Armored missile launchers broke and scattered like smashed toys. Muscle-bound ogres disintegrated into chunks of gore. Mechanical commandos shattered to shards. Monks and Spider sentries vaporized by the hundreds.
The Leviathans proved too tall a target to place under the bombardier’s sights-except for the one at Clay Count airport. The one kneeling for repairs.
A trail of bombs walked across the tarmac destroying dozens of blister-like support buildings until reaching the gargantuan. The barrage fell onto the creature’s skin and into the top of its skyward-facing mouth. The slug-like body burst and oozed. Tendons supporting the main frame unraveled. The legs fell away from the whole. The entirety of the thing broke into gigantic pieces.
The storm grew to a frenzy both in the clouds and on the ground. The sound of the bombardment spread for miles, shaking the lonely landscape of Missouri and collapsing unstable structures as far away as Kansas City.
The Order’s army tasted Hell served by mankind. Different than Voggoth’s own brand. Less vicious. Colder, perhaps; more detached. But just as effective.
When the last bomb dropped, the B-52s banked away and flew east with impunity. The army of Voggoth lay cut in half.
The storm raged on.
17. Maze
The air felt damp and smelled of rot. Bindings on her wrists and ankles kept Nina secure to the hard surface; a table or the like. The black ceiling above appeared featureless save for red and green lines that could have been wiring-or veins.
She heard the voices again.
“The first implant is complete, your Excellency.”
“Did you take care to conceal it?”
“While dormant it appears as nothing more than a common skin blemish. Even when activated it will remain small.”
“Very well. And the second phase?”
“The processors are encoding the appropriate memories based on our scan of the subject female’s brain chemistry. The supplemental memory unit will be available for implant in a short time. Prior to implantation, we will suppress all recollections since her capture and route chemical paths to those memories through the supplemental unit.”
“We must accelerate the process! If we do not return her to the crash site soon they will cease their search and the opportunity will pass. We already failed to neutralize the surrogate’s female carrier on the first day of hostilities and her location is no longer known to us. In the same day our assassination attempt of the surrogate’s genetic predecessor failed and he has avoided our detection since that time. She represents our last hope at disrupting human resistance before it can coalesce.”
“I understand, your Excellency.”
Then it stood over Nina and glared at her through emerald eyes on a face covered in decaying skin.
“Do not fear, my child. Soon we will purge these unpleasant hours from your mind and return you to your human compatriots. You have a duty to perform for the blessed Voggoth.”
The Bishop glared at an underling as he moved away from the blob-like Chariot transport and walked-nearly glided-across the pavement of the parking lot. The young Missionary man who met him bowed and they spoke, but Nina could not hear the conversation as she watched the Bishop’s arrival through binoculars.
She felt her heart thump faster and a wave of anger build in her bones.
Next to her along the berm lay Carl Bly with his own pair of binoculars eyeing the new arrival. The two hid at the fringe of a ring of vacant cookie-cutter duplexes to the west.
“Man, I think that’s the first time I ever saw one of those Order guys looking pissed off. Whoever he is, he’s not happy. I guess a couple of B-52s can pretty much ruin anybody’s shit.”
Nina’s team received news of yesterday’s strike via radio, the same radio call wherein she had requested-again-for transports to be sent to Clinton, Missouri. Her team directed any survivors they came across to that small town.
Command’s answer? Vague. A sort of ‘we’ll see what we can do’. At the very least Nina hoped they could air drop supplies to the survivors but even that remained uncertain.
But thoughts of survivors, air strikes, and supplies held little importance at that moment. She remained focused on the creature dressed in clergy garb with emerald eyes and a robe underneath which things squirmed.
She recognized him.
Not a memory passed from Trevor’s consciousness to hers. Not a falsehood planted by Voggoth’s henchmen. A real memory. One originally suppressed during her captivity. This memory belonged to Nina, like those other memories from The Order’s prison where they had infected her with their implants.