Worst of all, she heard the approach of the mightiest of Voggoth’s weapons. Or more specifically, she felt it. The mountain peak trembled, small rocks cascaded away.

The Leviathan stood a thousand feet tall on two appendages describable only as legs. The main body appeared slug-like but facing upwards and held in place by bands of thick tendons. Wisps of protective mist slipped away as it rose from and left behind the valley, carefully moving through the tight confines of the pass.

Simms stayed on her belly and slithered backward down the slope toward more protective cover. The Leviathan passed her position for the heart of the battle.

She wiped sweat from her forehead and radioed, “Hawkeye to Command, do you copy?”

“We copy, Hawkeye, what do you see?”

“They’re still coming, sir,”

General Fink listened to Simms’ report.

“It’s a-it’s a Leviathan. Battle group Center has deployed their Leviathan.”

Fink tried to calm the shake from Simms’ voice, “It’s okay, Cassy. That’s what we wanted, to draw it out. Good job.”

“Copy that, Command. Good luck. Hawkeye out.”

Fink returned the transmitter to the technician who sat at a folding table inside a timber-built barn that served as an ad hoc command center on the south side of Wetmore.

The General walked between shuffling soldiers and climbed to the loft on a creaking wooden ladder.

Trevor Stone stood up there dressed in simple green BDU pants, a black top, and a baseball cap jammed over shoulder-length hair. The Emperor had cast away the ornate trappings of his position much in the same way he had cast away the bulk of the bureaucracy after his return to power. Things had simplified on that day ten months ago. After much blood, that is.

Stone’s eyes fixed tight to the lenses of powerful field glasses as he stared out the hayloft door. From there he saw the flashes and blasts of battle raging two miles away.