The A-10s targeted the centerpiece-the platform of tubes that launched the rolling artillery balls-and let fly a stream of Maverick air-to-surface missiles complemented by a healthy dose of rounds from their Avenger Gatling Guns…

General Cassy Simms sat among the brush atop one of the mountain crests overlooking 96 from the north. Despite the open ground around her and an easy avenue of retreat behind, Simms felt penned in. That feeling came from the storm clouds above crackling with electricity and seemingly ready to burst.

Humanity had come to know that when the forces of Voggoth gathered in number the atmosphere boiled. Were the storms the result of some kind of bio-electric discharge from Voggoth’s largest war machines? Did the force of The Order’s anti-life machinations clash with the world of the living in a manner similar to anti-matter and matter colliding? Did God anger at the sight of such abominations on His Earth? Or perhaps the thunderheads served Voggoth’s purpose by disrupting the air space overhead.

Not even The Empire’s smartest minds or most spiritual philosophers understood why the storms came. They only knew that they came when Voggoth’s legions mustered. They did not bring rain, they did not usher in a new weather front. They merely gathered and roared as mightily as the battles that raged whenever The Order’s warriors marched.

Simms refused to allow the storms to unnerve her. She was, after all, a professional soldier, at least in terms of the post-Armageddon world. Still, unlike the Duass, the Hivvans, or the Redcoats, the soldiers of The Order seemed different, as if death at The Order’s hands would be far worse than falling to one of the other invading forces.

Simms shrugged those thoughts away and watched the A-10s strike. Spider Sentries disintegrated and missiles destroyed the coral-red platform. The jet engines then whined as the attackers banked away from the wall of mountain.