Despite a sheepskin jacket, Evan Godfrey shivered as he followed the driveway toward the main gate on his way to the church for breakfast. Puffy flurries drifted from the sky.
Danny Washburn stood at the gate serving the last minutes of overnight guard duty.
A heavy thump-thump grabbed the attention of both men. Washburn pointed to an Apache helicopter racing inbound over the lake and said, "Damn, she’s coming in hot."
Godfrey stood next to the former ATF agent. "Is it Trevor?"
"Nina Forest. She went out on a recon flight at dawn."
The air vibrated with a deep chopping from the rotors as the intimidating fighter neared.
Godfrey said, "Um, isn't it crazy to let her fly around with that much fire power? Wasn’t she playing for the other team last week?"
"Hey, sport, that girl saved your ass. If Trevor is cool with it, then I’m cool with it."
"Well… sport, I know a lot of people around here who are keeping an extra eye on her."
"I guess you’d be the one to know about that. You're always off in a corner whispering about something."
The downdraft from the Apache scattered snowflakes as it descended to the landing pad. Washburn saw a black burn mark-a wound-on the side of the helicopter.
Nina Forest-in a green flight suit-exited the craft. She walked fast into the mansion, through the first floor, up the stairs, and into to the Command Center where Trevor sat.
"Listen, we’ve got a problem. A big friggin’ problem."
– "Well, looky here," Shepherd handed his binoculars to Stonewall. "This ain’t good."
Those two-along with three others-huddled on the roof of the old Lion Brewery building-circa 1905-just off the Cross Valley expressway. Their position afforded a clear view of the elevated, northeastern section of Wilkes-Barre: the section with rows of retail outlets looming above the expressway not far from the junction with Interstate 81.
Nina said, "Listen, that’s just the first of them. The rest are marching down from the top of the mountain, up there by-what’s the name of that place again?"
"Bear Creek." Trevor answered in frosted breath. Despite brilliant sunshine, the day remained cold with snow flurries floating about.
"Coming in from the east," Jon Brewer said.
A half-mile from Trevor's group past the lanes of Wilkes-Barre Boulevard, across railroad tracks, and up a grassy slope assembled an army: a high-tech well-organized military force securing a large parking lot once shared by two big box stores (one electronics, the other household merchandise). That lot occupied a prominent position on a ridge overlooking the heart of the valley.
"Okay, let’s break this down," Trevor focused. "What do we got here?"
Nina said, "I counted four formations supported by ground vehicles. My radar picked up air borne targets, too, but I didn’t get a visual on those."
"That’s not much help," Jon’s voice carried an edge. Perhaps the fading bruise on her chin served as a scarlet letter. "How many troops in those formations? What are we looking at?"
"I’m just saying, they were traveling in four groups. Say, four regiments. Two of those groups are there now."
Stonewall said, "While I cannot be sure without closer examination, I would estimate two hundred mustering there as we speak."
Trevor took mental notes for another page in the Hostiles Database: Bipedal humanoids wearing red uniforms with white trim and full-head helmets looking one part Buck Rogers and one part medieval knight. They stood larger than the typical human: maybe six and a half feet on average with wider hips. Not chubby, just bigger.
"Jon," Trevor said, "I want you to put everything out of your mind for a moment."
"What?"
"I want you to forget about how you don’t trust Nina. Don't worry about how we’re going to fight these guys. Just look and tell me what you see."
Jon hesitated until his mind caught pace with Trevor’s words. He sighed and put the binoculars to his eyes.
Trevor had learned much about Jon Brewer. The man had expertly prepared the assault on The Order’s base and-with Stonewall and Shepherd-outfought or outmaneuvered an untold number of hostiles on his way to and from Allentown with minimal casualties.
During his stint in the military, Jon learned strategy and tactics but those strategies and tactics aimed to fight the armies of man’s old world. Now Jon developed a feel for the ebb and flow of this changed reality and applied those old approaches in new ways: exactly what would be needed for the battles to come. Jon was the first in a new generation of Generals.
"Okay. They’re very organized. Look how they fall in formation, get their orders, then go right to work on putting things together and such."
The aliens assembled temporary shelters constructed from a tan, flexible material. It appeared one of the shelters would serve as a command post.
"You can see their officers."
Gold emblems decorated the collars of about one in every ten of the aliens and two others wore flashy white capes.
"They’re strong. If Nina is right, these guys have marched for miles already this morning and I haven’t seen them take a rest. They’re putting together their base camp without a break."
Stonewall said, "If I may, these foot soldiers appear to be armed with a rifle of some sort. Yet I would expect a force of this size to be supported by heavier guns."
Nina answered, "Listen, I saw some vehicles with the rest of the army. They looked like they could be artillery or APCs. They hit my chopper with heavy ground fire, not small arms. If I hadn’t dodged I wouldn’t be around to be a pain in Jon’s ass."
Jon glanced at her, expecting to see a crinkled brow. Instead, he saw the hint of a smile.
"So there’s more coming," Trevor guessed. "With support weapons."
Shepherd said, "We need to figure out where they’re heading. Maybe they’ll pass us by."
"Wait a sec," Jon placed the binoculars over his eyes again. "Check this out."
A mob of ghouls-maybe twenty-five-lumbered toward the encampment. One of the alien sentries raised the alarm.
The soldiers did not panic: they followed the orders of their officers in a calm, professional manner. Two squads of ten formed to face the threat in rows. They stood perfectly rigid despite the horrid roars and snarls of the charging monsters.
An officer barked a command. After a short pause, the first line of soldiers fired their alien rifles. A volley of energy bolts sent a storm of destruction into the mass of ghouls. The blasts shattered the monsters into sandy grains, instantly cutting the attacking number in half.
Such firepower would have dissuaded intelligent beings, but not mindless Ghouls. What remained of the horde surged forward.
The alien officer signaled again and, after another brief pause, the second of the two rows of red-clad soldiers fired. The remaining ghouls fell into dusty shards.
Stonewall gasped, "I say, very… efficient."
Jon noted, "Seems their weapons have some kind of charge-up…hmmm…"
Shepherd said, "Them fellas didn’t even flinch. These things are pros."
"Like Redcoats," Jon thought aloud.
"I’m sorry, my hearing failed me," Stonewall tilted his head. "Could you repeat that?"
"The way they fight, the way they’re dressed," Brewer explained. "Reminds me of the British Redcoats in colonial days. Disciplined, calm, and maximum firepower."
"Interesting," Trevor said. "We’ll have to remember that."
"Yeah, that’s wonderful and all but maybe we should get off this roof top." Nina accentuated her warning with a point to the sky.
A pair of specks floated in from the horizon, flying toward the Redcoats’ assembly area.
Trevor and company hid inside the brewery and watched through broken windows.
At first glance, they resembled flying bricks hovering in the air without wings or rotors or aerodynamics at all. Closer observation revealed a triangular nose cone with rounded edges and a thin, wide window pointing forward. Next came a rectangular body that probably served as a passenger or payload compartment. At each corner sat a pod sporting flat, round landing gear. A pair of baffles sprouted from the rear, but they did not emit any smoke or exhaust.
The crafts wore red color with small white pin stripes.
One of the things descended vertically into the alien camp.
"How does something like that fly? No wings, nothin’," Shep wondered.
The second ship headed west emitting a steady hum as it flew.
It mesmerized Trevor. The design defied the rules of flight yet it moved effortlessly: as graceful as an eagle to Trevor's eye.
The ship passed over the Cross Valley Expressway, banked, then stopped in mid air where it held steady for a minute before descending, vertically, out of sight.
Trevor said, "It’s landing by the river. Let's go."
– Eschewing their hover bikes and Humvees, the group proceeded to the river on foot and found a hiding spot along the bank among dead bushes and a cluster of trees.
The flying machine parked on the riverbank amidst mud and scattered snowflakes. Two Redcoats stood watch while two more removed their helmets and worked near one of the ship's landing pods.
Trevor, through binoculars, examined the aliens: big round black eyes, thin noses, and small mouths, ironically resembling the extraterrestrials found in tabloids in the days when aliens had yet to make the cover of The New York Times.
One alien extended a large hose from the ship toward the river and waited while the second operated a hand held device in a manner that suggested testing the water.
Trevor pondered the sight. "Now this is interesting."
"What do you want me to do?" Nina craved orders.
Trevor realized how close she stood. He could see tiny puffs of white from the cold of her breath…from between her lips.
"Nothing, yet. For now, we watch."
Apparently unsatisfied, the alien doing the testing directed the other to retract the hose. Moments later, they flew away.
– It took Trevor more than half an hour to return to the estate via hoverbike due to a diving Devilbat trying to snag him as a snack. Moments after arriving home, K9s raised the alarm: one of the alien ships appeared over the eastern edge of the lake. It landed in the parking lot of a marina filled with decaying boats.
Trevor led three K9s, Danny Washburn, and Omar Nehru to a good spying point on a hillside overlooking the marina.
Yet again, the aliens extended a hose from a landing pod but this time actually sucked water from the lake. After a half-hour of siphoning, the craft lifted off, doing so without any visible rockets and flew away in the direction from whence it came.
Omar Nehru had no doubts about what they had witnessed. "Oh, my goodness gracious, excited this is making me."
Washburn joked, "I think Hajji here has a hard-on over this."
"Thank you so kindly for sharing your wits, but it would be fair to say that I am excited, yes. I believe we just watched a hydrogen-powered vehicle."
"Hydrogen powered?" Trevor repeated.
Omar beamed. "I would be imagining that water vapor is the only byproduct. That is why they went to the river as you were telling me and then flew all the way here."
Trevor-suddenly agitated-pressed, "You can’t be sure of that."
"No, I am not sure but it is what I am thinking."
Washburn jumped in, "What? Slow down. What are you guys talking about?"
Omar answered, "Perhaps Mr. Washburn is one who is familiar with the term ‘H2O’? That is being water and the ‘h’ is for hydrogen."
"So what does that mean to us?"
Trevor sighed. "It means we’re sitting on one big fuel dump."
– Trevor stood in the Command Center with Jon, Stonewall, and Nina discussing what to do next as evening descended over what had turned into a worrisome day. Shepherd remained on the outskirts of Wilkes-Barre with a surveillance team, watching the Redcoats.
Jon dropped a pile of digital photographs on the desktop. "So far we count five of those ships at the assembly area. I get the feeling they may be low on fuel or something."
Nina asked, "Why do you say that?"
"Because I’d have them in the air all the time. Anyway, two more formations arrived this afternoon. We put their number now at about four hundred. They’ve set up check points on all approaches to their position."
Stonewall said, "These gentlemen like to do things en mass. We have not observed any skirmish parties or pickets. They simply have chosen their hard points and set up camp."
"Why shouldn’t they?" Nina thought out loud. "I’m just saying, these guys pack a punch with their rifles."
"Then there are the big guns," Jon led.
Trevor rummaged through the photos. The ‘big guns’ included four large, self-propelled concave objects resembling upside-down silver bowls with indents on top. Artillery, no doubt.
Two "big guns" of a different design rode on a hovering, flat vehicle. The weapons sported long, slim barrels surrounded by smaller ports and gears with a seat at one end.
Jon pointed to a photo of one of these and explained, "This is their version of an anti-aircraft gun. Probably what hit Nina and let me tell you," he glanced at the blond, "you’re lucky your chopper wasn’t vaporized. Trev, remember that big dragonfly thing that scooped up the Troll in Plymouth? It showed up along the riverbank a good three-quarters mile away from the Redcoats’ base. Well one of these guns sent out like a volley of energy balls or something. Broke that thing into a zillion pieces. Just…wow."
Nina said what they all realized: "So much for using choppers."
Stonewall added, "Pity. Those marvelous machines haven’t contributed much as of yet."
Jon flashed a photo of a large hovering cylinder vehicle. "I'm thinking these are fuel tankers of some kind. Probably carrying water for the air ships and the soldiers."
Stonewall said, "One must wonder, what plans they are brewing."
Jon tried to answer that question: "If we're right that they’re coming to the lake, then I think they’ll hunker down overnight then at first light tomorrow march straight here."
Nina added, "Their ships have been scouting the expressway."
"So we need to fight them," Trevor felt a headache coming fast and hard.
Stonewall injected some reality: "I enjoy a romantic struggle against insurmountable odds as much as the next poet. Nevertheless, the idea of outright suicide is quite distasteful. We are facing an armada of several hundred well-armed professional soldiers supported by aircraft and artillery. If we arm every living soul in this camp how many would we muster?"
Trevor sighed and went through a mental calculation: "Throw out kids, injured and sick…strip everyone from the farms…throw in the new arrivals…we would probably have about forty to fifty good fighters."
"Ahhh," Stonewall made his point. "Ten to one odds? My, the poets would run out of adjectives! How many words are there in the thesaurus next to ‘futile?’"
Jon said, "That’s not helping."
"Do not mistake my candor for reluctance. I shall lead another Pickett’s charge if so ordered. Yet I believe we must earnestly discuss the truth of the matter."
Stonewall and Jon began to ‘discuss’ the matter in sharp words.
Trevor ignored them and studied the pictures of the infantry formations, the artillery, the air ships, and the alien General wearing a gold cape and fancy emblems.
Nina watched Trevor’s intense stare at the photographs. She saw an idea forming in his mind. She walked to him and whispered, "What is it?"
Her soft voice distracted him; sent a shiver through him.
When he re-focused, he smiled. A big, big smile.
"Gentlemen," he stopped Jon and Stonewall's argument. "I suppose we’re just going to have to enlist a few more fighters to our side."
"Oh?" Stonewall responded. "Do tell, where shall we begin recruiting?"
"In Wilkes-Barre. Downtown, most likely."
Jon coughed as if choking on Trevor’s announcement.
"Um…you want the things downtown to attack the Redcoats?"
"Not exactly," Trevor referred to the photographs. "Look at their brilliant red uniforms and the sparkling gold on their lapels. Look at how they march and fight. Oh, what an arrogant bunch they are! Why, they see themselves as invincible."
Jon countered, "They’ve got firepower."
"So did the English during the Revolution. So did America in Vietnam. The problem in both cases is that the other guy didn’t fight by the same rules."
Stonewall grinned. "I believe you’re formulating something dangerous and exciting."
Trevor spent several minutes sharing the first part of his plan.
"Oh, wonderful!" Stonewall reacted. "Then it is to be mass suicide after all! Pure genius!"
"Once their main forces are engaged, Jon’s strike team takes out their command and control. You’ll need to take Omar with you to figure out those guns."
Nina asked the obvious question: "How is anyone going to get that close?"
Trevor brushed aside the photos and unfurled a map of Wilkes-Barre.
"Jon, tell me about their checkpoints."
Brewer pointed to the map. "They’ve got the major and secondary roads blocked. Here…here…and here."
Honest regret sounded in Stonewall’s voice: "I hate to be the pessimist but I can not fathom an approach they have not covered."
"That’s because you didn't grow up in northeastern Pennsylvania. Did he, Jon?"
Brewer-the only other native of the area in the room-did not understand.
Trevor helped Jon’s mind develop a picture. "When you were sixteen and your cousin bought you beer, where did you and your friends go to drink it? When you were twelve and were heading to the park to play a game of pick up football did you know a short cut? What about dirt bike riding or walking with the pack after curfew on Friday night?"
Jon's eyes widened and he grinned as understanding blossomed. He returned to the map and traced his finger over it.
Trevor said, "They spider web all over this area. Years ago, when they were still mining anthracite ‘round here, every neighborhood had them. That’s why they’re perfect, because those neighborhoods didn’t like them so they put them between tree lines or through areas of heavy brush or squeezed them between buildings and out of sight. They’re tough to spot from the air."
Trevor spent several more minutes explaining the second phase of his plan.
Nina nodded in approval as she predicted, "They’ll never see you coming."
"Hmmm," Stonewall tipped his hat at Trevor then Jon. "I do concede, you gentlemen offer thinking that is-what would be the word? — ah yes, three-dimensional. As long as our Redcoat friends remain one-dimensional, the Lord may bless us with a prayer. But you will still have several hundred of their soldiers to contend with, even if they become leaderless."
Trevor explained the last part of the plan and ended by telling Nina, "That leaves it to you and me to polish things off. We’ll only use one. I’d rather have one running fast and efficient with both gunner and pilot."
"Um…Trev," Jon tried to be subtle but failed.
"You don’t trust Nina, I know. Your rational mind tells you that it wasn’t her fault, but you can’t bring yourself to trust her despite that. I understand. It’s human."
Stone faced her.
"But it’s also human to have faith in someone. I have faith in her. We- I — need her. Just as I need Stonewall to do his part and I need you, Jon, on the front line."
"I hate to break up the mutual admiration society," Stonewall broke in. "I’m still not exactly sure how I’m supposed to accomplish my rather lofty objective."
Trevor placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Why General, you’re going to charm them right out of their fancy red coats."
– The night air felt cold and dry. A blanket of clouds obscured the moon and stars. The streetlights had stopped functioning months ago, leaving the Redcoat checkpoint at the lower end of Kidder Street across from a vacant Taco Bell to depend on a pair of glowing orbs for light.
Behind a hastily constructed barricade of abandoned human vehicles, a squad of ten soldiers manned that important checkpoint: important because it guarded the most direct route from the city to the army’s assembly area.
The aliens huddled together around the glowing orbs in search of warmth but remained vigilant with their helmets on and weapons at the ready.
A heavy, chopping noise cut through the air: thump-thump-thump.
The aliens heard that noise in previous battles. They knew the creature on the other end of that thump-thump could spit furious fire. They had lost more than a few comrades to its teeth.
That creature appeared above the rooftops of the neighborhood ahead of the checkpoint: An Apache attack helicopter.
The alien soldiers used box-like communicators to call for help. Their powerful anti-aircraft guns sat at the camp on top of the hill behind them. However, they knew those guns were useless in this case: the area around the checkpoint lay beneath the firing arc of the weapons.
To their surprise, the ship did not attack. It hovered a hundred feet away.
Below the chopper, moving up the street, came a strange-looking man. A human male with an odd uniform riding on an animal and approaching the checkpoint.
The squad leader at the alien post produced a paddle-shaped translating device from his accessories sack. When the strange human spoke, the aliens listened to the translation.
"Do not make any sudden moves or your position will be destroyed in its entirety. I bring you a warning: this city and all its populace belongs to me, General Stonewall Garrett McAllister. Leave this area and we will not destroy you. Approach this city and you will be crushed under the heel of our boots."
The squad leader responded with a snort: his race’s version of a chuckle.
The human spoke again: "Move off and you and your army will be spared."
The man on the four-legged animal galloped away. The helicopter provided cover for a moment, then it too turned and disappeared above the rooftops.
The squad leader barely contained his fury. How dare these barbarians speak to a superior race in such a manner!
When the army commander hears of this insult there can be no other course of action. We will take this human’s city and smash it to pieces!