General Garrett "Stonewall" McAllister’s eyes wandered away from the conversation in favor of the scenic vista viewable from his position along the ridge.

In one direction-behind and below Yost and his men-stretched the massive bowl of Crater Lake filled with cold blue water. Not far from shore sprouted Wizard Island, a volcanic cinder cone covered in evergreen trees and scattered patches of stubborn snow belying the mid-March warm spell.

McAllister spied the sagging wooden huts and dirty canvas tents of Yost’s kingdom on that island. Flickers of light came from morning campfires as the people there marked another day under the thumb of a warlord.

Further off-away from the six-mile-wide caldera-stretched green wilderness as far as Garrett’s eyes could see, beneath a roof of gray, drizzling clouds from which waved spindly strands of misty vapor.

The isolated location, the rugged crater walls, and the natural moat surrounding the island created the perfect redoubt for the warlord and those unfortunate to fall into his grasp. Garret witnessed the same scenario dozens of times across the continental United States. The organized alien armies sought heavily populated areas, leaving much of the mountainous regions to the mercy of monsters, extraterrestrial and otherwise.

Stonewall returned his attention to the task at hand.

"Ah yes, where was I?"

As usual, he sat in the saddle wearing a Confederate uniform borrowed from a Civil War museum a decade before. Benny Duda hovered at Garrett’s side, also on horseback. Benny had grown from a boy to a man but still sported the freckled face of a kid. A kid, Garrett reminded himself, with a wife and children.