Beyond Armageddon V: Fusion Read Free Page A

and Woody “Bear” Ross’ fleet of MLRS vehicles.
    “Hawkeye to Thor, do you copy?”
    Ross’ deep voice answered, “Copy, Hawkeye.”
    “Target is in position. Repeat, target is in position.”
    Fink hurried to Trevor’s side to watch the plan unfold. A veil of debris clouded their view of the battlefield, but the monstrous towering beast could be easily discerned as it stepped across the threshold of mountain pass to open terrain.
    Artillery flashed around its feet blasting apart formations of Voggoth’s Ogres and Monks and Spider Sentries. More crystal rolling cruise missiles launched from another of those coral-red hovercraft platforms. More of Trevor’s forces suffered but they gave as good as they got.
    Yet Fink knew it did not matter. Any moment the Leviathan would suck in more air then aim another deadly blast at one side of the line or the other. Then repeat until the path lay bare.
    “Get your reserve units ready to roll forward,” Trevor told Fink in reference to the twin columns of tanks and mobile infantry waiting on the far side of Wetmore. “And Rhodes, too.”
    Fink reminded, “General Rhodes has been ready for hours. Just waiting for the go-word.”
    Another noise trumped the chorus of destruction playing at the gateway to the Rockies. This time that noise did not come from Voggoth’s massive war-beast but from one of the many war-beasts at mankind’s disposal.
    They came like a rainstorm of smoke and metal, line upon line of rockets fired a dozen miles away by Woody “Bear” Ross’s formation of mobile M270 MLRS vehicles, expending the last stores of their available munitions.
    Fink shivered at the sight of nearly 100 rockets streaking toward the pre-designated target area on Highway 96 just outside the mountain pass where the Leviathan now stood, having walked right onto the planned bulls eye.
    “C’mon…” Stone mumbled an urge that, to Fink’s ears, sounded one-part prayer.
    The Leviathan did not lack defenses. As the bombardment closed, pores along the upper torso of the machine-creature ejected small cubes that detonated around the beast causing ripples of concussion. Some of the rockets shattered and burst prematurely, others were sent tumbling off-course. But for every rocket destroyed or deflected, three punched through.
    Blasts of orange, yellow, and black smoke tore across the Leviathan’s mid-section. One after another they hit until the monstrous creature burned. Trevor’s grin grew wider with each impact. But would it be enough?
    Between the debris cloud still floating after the wind storm, the plumes of rocket fuel, and the puffs of smoke coming from exploding rockets, the view of the battlefield from the command post became even more obstructed. But even through the smoke Trevor and Fink spied vile liquids spraying out from wounds, they saw the tendons wrapping the beast’s torso spring undone like the cables of a suspension bridge pushed beyond cohesion.
    It fell in two pieces as the mid-section could no longer support the weight. Two massive pieces of war machine tumbled to Earth crushing hundreds of Voggoth’s foot soldiers. An earthquake shuddered across the landscape.
    Trevor shouted, “Get Rhodes going! Get him going, now!”
    Phillip Rhodes had come to Trevor’s post-Apocalypse lakeside estate 11 years ago with the group of U.S. soldiers who survived Armageddon on the run with Thomas Prescott.
    During that first year Rhodes participated in the attack on the extraterrestrial Gateway outside of Binghamton, New York only to break his collar bone on the return trip when his Humvee rolled in a snow storm. Four years later it had been Rhodes’ unit that stumbled upon the strange cave outside of Blacksburg, Virginia where Trevor Stone’s half-brother dwelt.
    For a brief time last summer Philip Rhodes commanded the vaunted 2 nd Mechanized Unit of Virginia, known as “Stonewall’s Brigades”. When Thomas Prescott died during Voggoth’s invasion at Long Beach,