by Stuart Slade
She was back in the wadi, heading away from the cloud of harpies, grimly aware they were closing in on her. “Control, engaged baldricks, command group badly hit. We are under attack by company-strength harpies, Charlie is already down. Two harpies down. Issue is in doubt. Tell others, don’t close in on harpies.”
Duty done, Broomstick spun her helicopter again and went straight at the formation of harpies pursuing her, her two miniguns blazing a long, long burst. It registered briefly that there were two piles of burning wreckage on the desert floor now and that she was alone. Bravo had gone. So had at least two more harpies, torn apart by the stream of bullets from her miniguns. Then, there was a clank and silence, she’d run out of ammunition. The harpies were on her, clinging to the airframe, tearing at it with their claws, kicking at the skin with their hooves. One was clinging to the cockpit canopy, smashing at it with its claws, trying to tear its way in. She could see the demented, screaming hate on its face, she could smell the stink of jet fuel as the harpies tore their way into the Little Bird’s structure. That was all she saw and smelt because that was when Tango-one-five-Alpha exploded.
My thanks to Surlethe for his work in writing the middle part of this section and his most appreciated inspiration and encouragement.
Chapter Seven
309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group, Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona
She was an old lady, put away in her retirement home like all too many aged family members who were just too much trouble to look after. Her age showed in so many ways, her wrinkled skin, shabby appearance, general neglect. Another few months, a year or so at most, and she would have been gone, forgotten. Only now times had changed and those who had written her off as a relic of the past now found they needed The Gray Lady again.
“What about this one?”
The AMRG clerk looked at the tail number and turned to the page in the ledger. “This one’s a good prospect Sir. She hasn’t been stripped or cannibalized yet and she was in good condition when she arrived. I’d mark this one down as a definite.”
“Do it, we’ll get a team down here to work on her. The draft notices are going out this morning.” For once in its life, the U.S. Government was beginning to move fast. The re-institution of the draft had been authorized late the previous night with the highest priority being to get the maintenance and technical support personnel who had left the services over the last few years back into uniform. In a strange way, it was almost like the job being done here, inspecting the veterans and getting them back into service. The B-52G in front of them looked like an early candidate for a return to the colors.
“How many does that make?” Colonel Degan was in charge of this particular effort, a few hundred yards away, another team was going through the short line of eleven B-1Bs parked in storage. That team wasn’t doing well at all, the Bones here were in a hell of a mess. It was very doubtful if any of them could be repaired. The B-52s, that was another matter. Still, there had been some pleasant surprises, tucked away in one corner of the airfield had been a B-52H along with four B-1Bs and one of the surviving B-1As, all in perfect condition. What the latter was doing there was something of a minor mystery but it had been rumored for years that more B-1As had been built than the official records showed.
“There are 43 B-52s in repairable status Sir. Of those, 20 require a medium level of remedial repairs, the remainder, well, they’re a real mess. Take months if not years to fix them up. Shortage of engines is the main problem, they’ve all been stripped of those. Mind you. We’re not short of spare parts.”
That was true enough, Degan thought. There were 45 more B-52s in the Boneyard but they’d been scrapped. The wreckage was still here though, the wings shorn from the fuselage, the tails chopped off. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of fixing the wrecks?”
“No Sir,” the technical officer was quite firm on that point. “The wing spar’s been chopped and the forge to make new ones was scrapped decades ago. Those birds are gone, at best they’re spare parts for the rest.” Degan grimaced. Those planes were badly needed. The technical officer saw the expression and sympathized. “Good news though Sir, the tactical boys have been through the line of F-111s, there’s 169 of them here and they reckon we can salvage enough to equip a group, fifty or sixty if we’re lucky. And the transport guys did even better, Lockheed-Martin are coming down to refurbish all twenty of the C-5s we have here.” In some cases that would mean almost a new aircraft, it was an old joke, ‘repairing” an aircraft meant lifting up its registration number and sliding a new aircraft underneath.
“Any word from the Rhino drivers?” There were literally hundreds of surplus F-4 Phantoms here and several teams were working their way through them, trying to find how many could be brought back into service. Not many, was one guess but times were desperate and at least F-4 components were still in production. That was the second batch of draft notices going out, by tomorrow a lot of airline pilots were going to be trying on their old Air Force and Navy uniforms again.
The technical officer shook his head. Those teams had a lot of work to do and it would be days before they finished. He scratched his head, the Arizona sun was beating down hard and the aluminum foil lining his baseball cap was getting uncomfortably hot. Still it was better than having some baldrick invading his mind and turning his thoughts to jelly. “OK Sir, I think we’re done with the bombers. You want to have a look at the KC-135s? See if any of those are fixable?”
“Lead on.” Degan looked back at the B-52 behind them. Already, people were starting to go over her in detail, listing all the fixes needed. There were 84 B-52s in USAF service and another 9 in the Air Force Reserve, if they could bring that up to 120 with the aircraft salvaged from here, it would be a decisive step forward.
Oval Office, The White House, Washington D.C.
“Did it pass Dick?”
“It did indeed. 99 in favor, one against, you can guess who that was. Effective as of 1800 Washington Time, the United States of America has formally declared war on Hell. Unconditional declaration, first time we’ve had one of those for decades. We’ve issued a conditional ultimatum to Heaven as well. Unless they open the gates and surrender those who closed them for trial within 72 hours, a state of war will exist there as well. Civilian mobilization bill is through, reserves mobilization bill is through, first issue of war bonds will be released tomorrow.
“Next stage is to mobilize industry, we’re making plans for that now. We’ve got the leaders of our major defense contractors up all night, working out what they need and how we can ramp up production. At the moment we’re concentrating on getting ammunition supplies increased, we’re expecting to use up our stocks of Hellfire and AMRAAM missiles pretty fast at the rate we’re going, as for aircraft we’re hoping Davis-Monthan will bridge the gap until upped production rates start to fill the gap. Ships can wait for the time being, tanks and armored vehicles will be more important, at least in the short term.
“Mister President?” Condoleezza Rice was punctilious about using the President’s formal title when other people were around.
“Condi.” President Bush turned around, taking quick note of the Secretary Rice’s headgear. “Nice hat.”
Rice smiled in appreciation, she’d been on the telephone to Donna Karan to have her aluminum foil hat designed professionally. After she’d been appointed Secretary of State, one of the satirists had said that her appointment marked the first time in its history when the United States had a Secretary of State who looked good naked. She thought that was a little over the top but at least she’d always taken pride in her wardrobe.
“Good news Sir. The Indian Ambassador has just told us that the Indian Air Force are sending a combat wing to Iraq. A squadron of Su-30MKIs interceptors, two of Jaguar ground attack aircraft. Even better, the new Iranian Government is opening up its airfields to us. That gives us some badly needed depth. General Petraeus was worried about how close our airfields in Iraq are to the invasion.
Word from the Israelis, they’re moving up from the east now, their F-15s will be available to give top cover when we need them.”
The President nodded, one of the problems in this situation was that the bulk of America’s F-15 fleet was grounded with structural problems. That left the country short of heavy fighters, privately he wondered if that was a coincidence or not. Just how long had the enemy been planning this assault?
Al Habariyah, Iraq
The clear yellow light was painful to the eyes of beings accustomed to the comforting red skies and dust clouds of Hell. Not that there wasn’t enough dust here but it was the choking clouds of silica, not the soft, warm touch of volcanic pumice. The accursed sand was getting into Hornaklishdarmar’s hooves, rubbing even his hardened skin raw. Glancing across at the eight demons in his contubernium, he could see they were having the same trouble. When they’d first entered this world, they’d held straight ranks, lined up in perfect parade order but that had been long abandoned. Now, the legion was straggling, spread out, its ranks tangled as the fitter or less feeling had moved ahead and the lesser spirits had lagged behind.
It wasn’t as if this area was actually worth the discomfort. On the long march from the portal, the legion had seen nothing of any value, just the empty desert and the accursed sand. At least now they were approaching some sort of civilization, a collection of huts, so poor that they didn’t even have doors, just some sort of blanket hung in the entrance. There were even one of the human’s weird four-wheeled chariots, a white thing with a boxy body at the side of the road, its front wheels crushed and broken. Obviously abandoned as the humans had run from the approaching legion.
“Lords! Have mercy on me! I beg you, forgive me for not submitting to you sooner. I was mislead by traitors who denied you. Forgive me and accept my obeisance.”
Up in front of him, Hornaklishdarmar could see the human run out from one of the buildings, an older human, portly and dressed in a flowing robe. He dropped to his knees in front of the legion. Hornaklishdarmar saw the commander of his Octurnia go towards the man, raising his trident to strike him down.
Hornaklishdarmar was on his knees, his head ringing from the terrible blast that had suddenly engulfed the human and the demon poised to kill him. The human had gone, only his head was left, rolling in the dust leaving a wet trail behind on the sand. The commander of the Octurnia had gone completely, just yellow smears on the ground behind where he had been. Several of his staff were down, screaming, ripped open by the blast. Hornaklishdarmar saw the other demons of the legion edging away from the scene and the hut from where the man had come. Suddenly, the sight alarmed the demon, there was something wrong.
Now, Hornaklishdarmar was on his back, and he could see the yellow fluids leaking from his body. His instinct had saved his life but he was still hurt. Where the truck had been was now just a crater, black, smoking, surrounded by the dead bodies of demons, tens of them, some smashed and pulped beyond recognition, others still demonic in form but dreadfully still. Yet others were worse that dreadful, writhing and threshing with the wounds ripped in them by shrapnel. He pressed his arm into the vicious rip in his skin, feeling the comfort the pressure caused, and looked at the scene again. It had been planned, he could see it now. The first man, the fat one, had caused the demons to crowd back against the truck, packed them around that second, huge explosion. It had all been planned, very skillfully planned.
Operation Iraqi Freedom Headquarters, Baghdad, Iraq
General Petraeus stood before the transmission screen and waited for it to light up with the link from Washington. His briefing would be going direct to the command center in the White House and to as many of the growing list of allies as could be provided with the equipment.
“Mister President Sir. My situation report.
“We have identified the enemy force as eight infantry divisions, three cavalry brigades and one airborne brigade. The enemy main body consists of four infantry divisions and is advancing towards Khan Al Baghdadi. It is preceded by one of the cavalry brigades supported by an airborne battalion. The cavalry brigade itself is split into three columns each containing three cavalry battalions supported by three airborne companies. At the moment, we are falling back in front of that force, we have no wish to engage it at this time.
“To the north is a flanking force consisting of two infantry divisions. They’re moving close to the Syrian border, again with a cavalry brigade in front supported by harpies. We’ve been harassing that screening force overnight, I’m sorry to report that the 160th Aviation Brigade took significant losses, at least a dozen AH-6 and MH-6 helicopters were lost to Harpies. We’ve learned from that, the Harpies make helicopter operations too dangerous, we’re going to have to eliminate them before we can send helicopter-based forces in again. However, their sacrifice was not in vain, we’re driving their reconnaissance elements in on the main body and we’ve severely hit their command and control structure. We believe we’ve eliminated a significant proportion of their battalion and brigade level command staff. A brigade of the First Armored Division is moving into position around Al Qaim. It’s a perfect kill zone, with their recon element driven in, their heading into it blind.
“To the south is another screening force, identical to the one in the North. We haven’t done much about that one yet but the British are moving up a mechanized battle group to handle it. We had word from al Qaeda a few minutes ago, they hit one of the infantry divisions with a combined suicide and truck bomb attack. They claim to have killed more than sixty baldricks including a part of the brigade command group. We can’t confirm the numbers but a Global Hawk has confirmed the attack.” Petraeus paused for a second. “Sir, I still can’t get used to feeling pleased about an IED incident.
“Overall, we’re about to start the main phase of our defense. We’re going to kick the northern and southern screening forces in and push them back on the main body. That will put them in a kill zone west of the Hawr Al Habbaniyah. As we compress them in that area, we’ll be hitting them with artillery and all the tactical air we can bring up. If we stop them, we can drive them back across the desert, all the way back to the Hellmouth. If we can’t stop them there, the only way forward is through two narrow necks of land, north of the Bahr al Milh and south of the Buhayrat Ath Tharfar. Those are also perfect killing grounds and give us a another chance at them.”
“They won’t get through?” President Bush sounded concerned. The heavily populated Tigris-Euphrates valley was in the direct path of the advancing baldricks.
“No Sir, we’ll stop them dead. After a while, all their added numbers means they’ll be piling more bodies into the kill zone. The days when an army could be swamped by sheer weight of numbers are gone. The way we’re mauling their command structure, once they’ve started advancing into the killing ground, they won’t be able to stop, the sheer pressure of the forces at the rear will drive them forward.”
“General.” Rice smiled an apology for the interruption. “Be advised, we’ve just heard from the Russians. They’re sending down forces from their southern military region. Armored divisions, battle experienced from Chechnya, they’re coming through Iran. They’ll be with you in a few days, you can count on them for reinforcements.”
“Thank you ma’am, that’s good to know. If you’re speaking to the Russians, could you ask them for their Smerch rocket launchers. We need all the salvo rocket artillery we can get here. Also, their Luna short-range ballistic missiles, we’ve got ATACMS here but we need something with a bit more reach.”
“I’ll do that. The Iranians are promising to send help as well. Any requests?”
“Fuel. That more than anything. We’re going to need all the fuel we can get. We can’t cope with these baldricks in a slugging match, we have to maneuver them to death. One thing my people here are asking. Why here? For the sort of enemy we’re fighting, this is perfect ground for us. No restrictions on maneuver, no civilians to get in the way, we can use every scrap of firepower we
’ve got. So why here? Why not straight into New York or Washington? Come to think of it, why aren’t we seeing more hellmouths opening up anyway?”
Vice President Cheney leaned forward. “We have a theory on that, we think that for some reason the Middle East is where is easiest for them to open the portal, it may be the only place they can open a portal we don’t know. But we think that its no coincidence that all the reports of monsters, hells, battles between good and evil etc start in this area. We don’t know but that’s our guess. Anyway, don’t knock it, its better we fight them out there than back here.”
Petraeus laughed. “I’ve heard that before. Another question, a policy one. We’re likely to start taking prisoners soon. What do you want us to do with them.”
Rice’s voice was decisive. “Ship them to Gitmo.”
“I thought we were closing that place?”
“We were, but plans changed. Its under international management now. It’s being organized by the Italians, Bangladesh is providing the funding, the Germans the guards, the Russians the political speeches, the Belgians the entertainment, the Japanese the music and the British are providing the food.”
Petraeus visibly winced at the thought. “Ma’am, that’s inhuman. Please, whoever thought that arrangement up, buy them a beer for me.”
“Why, thank you General. I’ll enjoy it.
Chapter Eight
Muncie, Indiana, United States of America
Muncie was a small town, typical of the American rust belt. Highly religious, conservative, with 65,000 people before the Message and 50,000 after, the city had been ailing even before a quarter of the population had laid down and died. The manufacturing industry had been slowly abandoning the city for decades, leaving it with rusting, overgrown factories, a 23 percent poverty rate, and a hospital and university as the largest employers. The Message had hit the town hard, too as it had most of the rural, conservative American Midwest, leaving the local economy in shambles and even further down the toilet.
