Beyond Armageddon: Book 02 - Empire (60 page)

           
“Like an island?”

           
“Like an island.”

           
Lori Brewer reviewed her notes, glanced at a binder with more notes, then scribbled something else in the margin.

           
She said, “There aren’t enough people here to warrant keeping the city up and running, at least not until we’ve cleared all of the
Carolinas
. Then there might be people who want to migrate in from the rural areas. Until then, we’ll get the rail yards up and running, maybe the port, and set up check points.”

           
“What about the people?”

           
“I’m thinking relocation.”

           
“Relocation? Moving everyone out?”

           
Lori nodded and leaned forward; she sensed the officer’s interest in the topic.

           
“Yes. At least for the time being. Something on your mind? Do you think they won’t want to go?”

           
“No—I mean, yes. I think they’ll go,”
Forest
told the administrator. “I don’t think the people here, well, I think they’ve been isolated for a long time. I think they’re eager to feel safe and be a part of something.”

“Most are like that. There’s only ever a few who really want to stay exactly where they are and that’s usually in the larger settlements that we wouldn’t want to relocate, anyhow.”

           
“What about, well, never mind.”

           
“Never mind what?” Lori pushed.

The way she stared made Nina feel weird, as if Lori knew a secret.

           
Nina exhaled loudly and said, “Listen, there’s a group of kids. They’re orphans. They were all a part of a day care center at one point.”

           
“Jim Brock’s kids, right?”

           
It surprised Nina that Lori knew of Brock’s group; she did not think the administrator had had enough time to learn that much about the city and the survivors.

“Umm, are they going to get split up? You know, sent off to families?”

           
Lori nodded. “We’ll be looking for hosts for the kids. But you know we’re a little shy on your typical families. A lot of the orphans end up going to elderly groups or parents who are in the military. It’s tough to find perfect homes. In fact, we’ve given up on perfect.”

           
“I see,” Nina fumbled.

           
“You know, Mr. Brock came to see me when I first got here,” Lori said and Nina thought she saw a smile tug at on the edges of the woman’s lips.

           
“He did?”

           
“He told me that he really wants to find good parents for these kids. Some of them are young and will need full time moms and dads.”

           
“Full time…oh.”

           
“Yes,” Lori said. “He also mentioned your name. Something about warning me about you…”

…Nina walked on to the patio deck of the condo complex.

           
Jim Brock sat holding a newspaper with his back to the door and speaking to an elderly resident of
Wrightsville
Beach
.

           
“I mean, what the hell is this?” His hands waved as he read an article. “Who does this guy think he is? That’s a whole town of people, like us. I mean, Jesus, I thought this Empire was supposed to be the good guys. What if we say ‘no’ to this Trevor guy?”

Nina saw the masthead at the top of the paper:
The New American Press.
She could also read the headline:
TREVOR
SLAUGHTERS
VILLAGE
.

           
Inevitably, the news spread although the fact that it had already spread to an outpost such as
Wilmington
surprised her, particularly from a fringe publication like
The New American Press
. Whoever ran that rag had obviously been in a hurry to get the word out.

           
“What kind of people do this?” Jim ranted, unaware Nina walked onto the patio behind him. “I mean, just like the Nazis or something. These were people! It could’ve been us!”

           
Her shadow fell over his shoulder and he turned.

“Oh, um,” Jim put down the newspaper. “Hello. Nina.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you that mad,” she said as Jim stood.

           
“Oh, I, hey, um, Nina, like, I don’t think you’re like that. I don’t think you’re a Nazi. I know you wouldn’t have anything to do with anything like that.”

“You don’t know that, Jim. You don’t know me at all.”

           
“I’d like to,” he said. “But I get the feeling I’m not going to get that chance.”

           
“We spent a nice couple of days down here. For me, the picnic and the walking on the beach; it was a nice little escape. Like my shopping trip with Denise. A fantasy.”

           
“Fantasies aren’t real,” he pointed out.

           
She shook her head ‘no’ in agreement. “I can’t really afford any fantasies these days. I was born for this war. I have to be who I am. I don’t take strolls on beaches; I don’t sit under the moonlight and make wishes on stars. I don’t,” she paused, considered for a long hard moment, and then went on: “I don’t wear party dresses.”

           
“I see.”

           
“Maybe, when all this is over. If it ever is over. Until then, I have to be strong and I have to keep on fighting. I don’t need therapy. I don’t need a shoulder to cry on.”

“You need someone who understands you.”

           
“Could be,” she admitted. “Could be that I don’t need anyone at all.”

           
“Everyone needs someone, Nina. Even the strong.”

           
“Is that why you went to the Administrator’s office yesterday?”

           
He nodded and repeated, “Everyone needs someone.”

           
“Thank you for recommending that Denise lives with me. That was nice of you.”

           
“I did it for her,” Brock said. “Okay, so, yeah, I did it a little for you, too. Mostly I did it for Denise. She never had a mother, not really. I couldn’t be that for her. She learned about how to be a girl from old magazines and movies.”

           
Nina said, “Those old magazines and movies are about a world that’s gone.”

           
“I took care of the kids as best I could but you’re right, there are things Denise needs to learn that I can’t teach her. Partly because I don’t know, maybe partly because I’m not ready to see what the world is really like now. Not ready, to, I guess, except things as they are.”

           
“I’ll do my best.”

           
Brock glanced at the newspaper on the patio table and solemnly said, “I always thought…I always thought that the meek were supposed to inherit the Earth. Isn’t that what they told us in Sunday school?”

           
She shook her head because the man could not be more wrong. Nina had seen that first hand in New Winnabow. A reminder she had needed.

           
“The meek are dead. They were wiped out. This world belongs to the strong.”

           
He answered softly, “That isn’t right.”

           
“Right or wrong has nothing to do with it. It’s not about that. It’s about what has to be done. It’s about reality. You know that. You survived all these years.”

           
“I survived by hiding,” he confessed. “You survive by fighting. I guess we’re on the same planet, but living in different worlds.”

           
“Yes.”

           
He smiled, a little, in a conciliatory fashion.

           
“Teach that to Denise,” he told her. “Teach her to be strong.”

           
“She’s half way there already.”

“Oh and Nina, if you allow it, you might just learn something, too. You never know.”

           
Nina took a step forward, placed a hand on his neck, and then put her lips to his in a gentle kiss that took him by surprise.

           
“Goodbye, Jim. I hope you find your place in all this.”

           
I know I have.

           
Nina
Forest
walked away from Jim Brock.

           
He touched his lips and wondered. He wondered, could anyone get through that tough skin and find a way into that heart?

–

           
And what did it all mean?

           
What had it been for?

           
Trevor Stone needed that answer.

           
He could not find that answer—he
would not
find that answer—sitting behind his desk at the estate. He would not find that answer behind the veils of his Emperor’s title or gazing at a map.

           
He sought that answer in the thick of the fight.

           
When Shepherd’s second brigade stormed the Hivvan hard point at a strip mall outside of Rowan,
North Carolina
, Trevor Stone fired the first shots.

           
When infiltrators were needed to circumvent enemy picket lines around the juncture of Routes 87 and 701 south of
Bladen
Lakes
Forest
, Stone led the way.

           
When the largest group of Hivvan forces—more than 2,000—were caught on the move headed toward
Fayetteville
, Trevor jumped on a Bradley fighting vehicle and personally led the maneuver to hook around and hit that enemy on their northern flank.

For every Hivvan he cut down, Trevor saw a face from New Winnabow. He kept score.
   

           
A dozen lizards killed. Another alien tank destroyed. A hundred Hivvans fallen by Trevor’s own bullets, his own grenades, his own bayonet. How many would it take to even the ledger? How many must he kill to pay the bill?

           
After several days of fighting, of bombarding, and of sniping, the cut off Hivvan Corp was reduced to a headquarters unit outside of
Parkersburg
. The lizard men occupied a camping ground off Little Coharie creek.

           
Trevor Stone personally commanded the final assault, despite General Shepherd’s misgivings.

           
The Hivvans dug trenches and pill boxes.

Flamethrowers chased the defenders out.

           
The Hivvans responded with Firecats and shock troops.

           
Humvees mounted with TOW launchers and a well-coordinated flanking maneuver annihilated that counter-attack.

           
The Hivvans hid in campers and cottages.

           
Trevor burned them to the ground with the hissing aliens inside. The smoke was visible for miles.

           
The highest ranking Hivvan commander inside the pocket and his bodyguards tried to run. When their fate came calling, those aliens who had enslaved and killed humans turned and ran through the woods like deer from a wolf.

           
Trevor Stone personally shot the commander in the leg. The invader rolled down the bank of the creek amidst the green briar brush beneath a cluster of Atlantic White Cedars. The reptile’s booted feet splashed in the water.

           
He looked into the enemy’s yellow eyes with contempt then used his assault rifle like a club. He smashed the alien’s short shout and cracked its skull. The thing lay dead but Trevor kept swinging his weapon again, and again, and again.

           
He could nearly hear the Old Man laughing.

.

           
“T-A-C this is Dasher One, we’re heading downtown,” the veteran pilot radioed.

           
“Ah, roger that, Dasher One you are authorized to engage,” came the reply.

           
“Hey Billy, you ready?”

           
“Yep. I mean, yes, Sir,” the young wingman answered.

           
With air supremacy achieved, the two F-15’s carried 2,000 pound laser-guided bombs built to penetrate bunkers, silos, or even fortified Hivvan headquarters.