Free Beyond Armageddon: Book 03 - Parallels by Anthony Decosmo

horizon.
                Internal Security officer Ray Roos stood on the mansion grounds and, with a curious eye, watched the Emperor fly away.
     

 
5. Slaughterhouse
     
                General William Hoth stood in the cupola of an Abrams main battle tank. In front stretched Route 28 heading straight for Blanchester, Ohio. To his left and right, open fields of frozen soil broken only by sagging or even snapped telephone poles. Behind, six more Abrams tanks, a couple of Bradley fighting vehicles, several Humvees, and all manner of civilian vehicles 'up-armored' with metal plates and bars moving single-file on the pot-hole-marred roadway.
                Overhead, a quilt of gray clouds pressed down on the battlefield as if trying to smother the scene. Gusts from icy winds caused a black banner depicting a hand holding a hammer to flutter at the rear of his tank.
                BOOM! BOOM!
                A pair of explosions in the field sent chunks of tundra and black smoke curling into the air. A moment later pebbles and ice tinged off his armored ride.
                Hoth wore a headset through which came a communiqué from three quarters of a mile to his right—northern—flank. A female voice reported, "Hostiles engaged at Dudley Road."
                He radioed, "Punch straight through, Captain Rothchild. Do not break formation."
                The response came in the form of a ground-rattling blast; the unmistakable sound of a main gun firing.
    Through field glasses, Hoth spied his companion column as it drove along Second Creek Road, parallel to his own route. Like his, Gwen Rothschild's 'armor' started with impressive Abrams tanks but the further east it stretched the more it became a smorgasbord of car lot leftovers until ending with rusting fuel trucks and covered cargo carriers.
    Facing that column, six-legged van-sized robots with tubular metal frames, eyes resembling LED displays, and a mouth-like speaker on a front face plate. On either side of that "face" fired lethal Gatling guns swiveling on round bases giving them a wide firing arc.
                Roachbot drones, the same type defeated by Jon Brewer during the Battle of Five Armies.
                BOOM! BOOM!...BOOM! BOOM!
                Enemy artillery exploded to either side of Hoth's column, forcing him to refocus on his end of the pincer movement. He swung his binoculars forward and saw a sight identical, no doubt, to what Captain Rothchild saw in front of her: a line of Roachbot drones followed by several 'Mortarbots'.
                The 'Mortarbots' resembled walking cannon. More specifically, they could have been silver-painted guns lifted from an 18 th Century Man-O-War.
                They moved on two mechanical legs affixed to an upward-pointing big gun that included a faceplate at the bottom of the barrel. The things wobbled in a clumsy manner but would stop, squat, and spit an artillery shell to the sound of a synthesized voice, "bwamp-bwamp."
                Hoth instructed his gunner, "fire at will," but reminded the driver, "run through."
                The General clamped his hands on his headset but the mind-numbing blast from the main gun still managed to make his ears ring. However, the result—a Roachbot drone obliterated into clumps of metal—made the pain easy to bear.
                A blast of heat from behind caught his attention. He swiveled around in time to watch two halves of a burning Humvee roll off the road.
    When he faced forward again, he saw sparks as Roachbot rounds sprayed his tank. Above the squeal of tank treads he heard the insane ramblings of the drones: A-hehehehe. A-hehehehe.
    BOOM!
                Hoth's ears rang again but, also again, a Roachbot fell to pieces.
    Before he could fully appreciate the direct hit, the General instinctively ducked as his tank