Armageddon tsw-1

by Stuart Slade

  The Sky-Chariots didn’t leave it there, they were closing on the column and Memnon saw them rake it with the same weapon he had experienced earlier, the same rapid series of explosions the same red streaks ending in smaller bursts on the ground. Only these ones were in the mass of living demons and he saw them flayed by the bursts, chopped down. Two of the sky-chariots flew parallel with the column, peppering it with the explosions, tearing at it. Some demons tried to escape by running sideways but the sky-chariots followed them and chased them down. Each attempted escape ended the same way, the demon vanishing in the dust of the blasts, to be seen torn and dead when it cleared. It didn’t take long for Memnon to understand that the sky-chariots were playing a game, competing between themselves to see who could kill the largest number of escapees.

  What sort of people were these humans? Memnon was bewildered by what he was seeing, the army was defeated. Anybody could see that. What was to be gained by this slaughter? In Hell battles were fought until one side had lost then stopped. Sometimes a battle would never start, one commander would see he was clearly outmatched and stand no chance of winning so he would concede the issue. He had never seen this before, this relentless pursuit and destruction of a beaten enemy. The sight made him shift with rage, boiling anger at human cowardice seething within him. Even destroying the retreating foe, they stood off and killed from a distance, they never closed and fought their enemy honorably. He controlled himself, he had no desire to be a target of the sky chariot’s games.

  Finally, when all on the blackstrip was still, the four sky chariots made a final pass over the scene of carnage and left. Memnon was about to leave his cover in the rocks that topped his hill when he saw dust on the horizon. He shrank back into his rocky shelter and watched. The cloud materialized and Memnon saw something that chilled his heart still further. A long column of Iron Chariots, some big, some smaller, with a sky-chariot flying on each side. He watched, appalled as they drove over the demon corpses stretched out on the blackstrip, grinding them into green and yellow smears on the black surface. Then, once clear of the remnants of the column Memnon had watched, they peeled off the blackstrip and spread out in a circle the long tubes pointing outwards.

  He was fascinated by the sight. As far as he knew, nobody had ever watched the humans in their iron chariots when they weren’t killing. He saw humans climb out of the iron chariots, oddly the smaller ones seemed to have more humans than the big ones. They walked around, he could see them unloading things from the chariot and pass them around. Then more chariots arrived, great ones that dwarfed even the bigger iron chariot. Some had tents on the back, others great cylinders.

  The tented ones started to unload boxes, the humans breaking them open and passing the contents to each other. Strange things, pointed cylinders that gleamed in the sun. They put the cylinders inside the iron chariots and seemed to be happy at the labor. Others were passing around other things from the boxes. But it was the great cylinders that confused Memnon. The chariots carrying them pulled alongside the iron chariots and somehow the humans connected the two with a long snake. Were the two chariots mating? Memnon shook his head in disbelief and continued to watch what happened beneath.

  Alpha-One-One, Somewhere In The Desert, Western Iraq, before dusk

  “That’s it Hooters, we’re out of gas. Or as near to it as makes no difference. Got a little in case we have to maneuver but we go no further.”

  “We don’t have to Biker. This is where we’re supposed to wait for the supply trucks. We clear of the stink?”

  That was a lesson the tankers had learned early. Dead baldricks rotted fast in the sun and the smell was dreadful. It was so bad back where the baldrick army had been broken under the hammer of artillery fire and the anvil of armor that there was serious question whether people would be able to live there again. The smell seemed to seep into the soil.

  “We’re fine Hooters.” Baldy had stuck his head out and sniffed. “The fly-boys in the Apaches did a good job on this lot.”

  “Hokay. Take five guys. Crab, Baldy, stay on overwatch while Biker and I stretch our legs.” She picked up the M4 carbine from its clips and heaved herself out of her commander’s hatch. It took a moment’s effort to scramble down the outside of her tank and then the sand felt good and solid under her feet.

  “This sounds crazy Ell-tee, but you know, I’m kinda getting to like the desert. It seems grow on us dunnit?”

  “It does Jim, it truly does. There’s a grandeur here, something elemental somehow.” They’d both noticed the crews of the other Abrams tanks and Bradley infantry combat vehicles also dismounting to stretch their legs and dropped the nicknames. “You ever seen a desert before?”

  “Nope. I’m from Vermont. Just a rubber who spent the week in the city and the weekend in the hills. Then my Guard unit got called up and here I am.”

  “Rubber?” Stevenson looked curiously at her driver. He didn’t look like a contraceptive.

  “Rich Urban Biker. Where you come from El-tee?”

  “New Jersey. Bayonne to be precise. Joined the Guard to work my way through college and found myself here in the sandpit instead. Then the Message came, your old Ell-tee laid down and died and I was the only spare officer available.”

  “Can’t say I’m surprised, he always was a sanctimonious old bastard. When we at camp and he visited a local knocking shop, he’d get on his knees and pray for forgiveness first. Cracked the girls up it did.”

  Stevenson whooped with laughter and hook her head. “Don’t it always go to show? Them that talks the talk don’t walk the walk. Right Jim, we better give the others a chance to stretch.

  She’d timed it just right. By the time her crew had got their break, the big Oshkosh ships of the desert had arrived and were driving into the laager. Critically, all the fuel trucks were there, their load of fuel was desperately needed. She watched carefully as the hoses were unreeled and the fuel trucks started gassing up the Abrams and Bradleys. Other trucks were unloading boxes of ammunition.

  “Hey Ell-tee. You need reloads?”

  “Sure do.” She looked at the barrel of her tank. They’d stopped using a single ring for each baldrick kill, now they had a one-inch band for 10 and a quarter inch band for singles. Plus their single white band as well.

  “Right, can give you ten Sabot, twenty HEAT, the rest canister.”

  “I’d like more canister if you’ve got it. Not much use for sabot.”

  “Sorry Ell-tee, we’re running low. We’re sharing out the HEAT and canister and making the numbers up with sabot. The brass tell us they’re flying 120 in direct from home and more’s coming from Europe but we’re still running low here where it counts.”

  “Hokay.” Slightly resigned but there it was. Nobody said war had to be easy. Stevenson and her crew started breaking open the crates and bombing up their tank.

  They were interrupted by the sound of a Blackhawk landing.

  “Captain Stevenson?”

  She turned around, slightly irritated. She assumed the mistaken rank was a comment on her dress, she was wearing a tank top and had left the top of her BDUs in the tank. The desert may be grand but it was still hot.

  “Its Lieutenant, Err Sorry Sir, I’ll get my blouse right now.” She did a double take. Colonel Sean MacFarland was standing in front of her.

  “Well, when you do, you can get to pin these on it.” He handed her a small box, containing double silver bars. “Congratulations. You’ve done a fine job out here.”

  “Sir, thank you Sir.” Stevenson looked at the bars in her hand.

  “You’ll take over this combat group. You done good Stevenson, especially for somebody thrown in the deep end the way you were. The whole group will be staying here tonight, the way the pocket is shrinking around what’s left of the baldricks, there’s too much danger of friendly fire if we don’t take things carefully.”

  “Big jump up Sir.” Stevenson was nervous, what amounted to a company command was a challenge to put it mildly.<
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  “Same for everybody Stevenson. Army’s growing fast, we’re taking cadre out of units to help train new outfits as fast as we can. You stay alive, you’ll have a battalion in a few months. Well done Captain.”

  MacFarland wandered off, apparently at random but to those under him, it always seemed that he would turn up an exactly the time needed to spot a problem developing. Around the laagered combat team, the dusk started to settle and the flashes of artillery fire grew more distinct.

  Somewhere In The Desert, Western Iraq, night

  Abigor huddled in the rocks, looking out across the desert. If his instincts were right, the hellmouth was very close. The last few days had been a horror, the human sky-chariots had hounded his force as it had disintegrated. They’d never let up, their curious rotating wings beating the air, the thumping of their weapons always so deadly. His Army had started retreating, what was left of it, then the retreat had become a rout. Still the humans hadn’t let up, they’d pursued him until the rout had become a panic stricken flight for the rear and the defeated army had become a helpless mob that had been slashed into ever-smaller pieces. Then, when he thought he had finally escaped, he’d seen more of the human iron chariots in front of them, blocking the retreat.

  That was when he had understood at last. The humans didn’t fight their battles to make a point, they fought them to destroy their enemies. He’d noted something else. In Hell, armies fought their battles bottom-up. The foot infantry would get killed but rarely any of higher rank. Commanders had better things to do that kill each other. Anyway, how could one negotiate a deal with somebody one had just killed? But the humans fought their battles top-down. They started by killing the enemy commanders and then slaughtered the decapitated mass that was left. There was a corollary to that, they fought that way because they didn’t intend to negotiate with the losers.

  How could they have understood humans so little?

  Abigor shook himself, and cautiously looked around. The humans could see in the dark, shots could come out of nowhere. Still, it looked safe enough and there wasn’t far to go. The hellmouth was so close now, just a few more hours away.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Central Belfast, Northern Ireland.

  Inspector Richard Doherty was a veteran police officer, having been in the Police Service of Northern Ireland, or Police Service of Northern Ireland (incorporating the Royal Ulster Constabulary, George Cross) to give it its full name, since 2001 and had served in the Royal Ulster Constabulary for twelve years before the change of name. He was one of the 20 percent of the service’s officers who were Catholic (well, ex-Catholic and it was about 15 percent since The Message), though as a veteran RUC man he thought of him as an eight percenter, 8.3 percent of the old force having been Catholic. The Message had hit Northern Ireland harder than the Mainland; around a quarter of the population had just lain down and died, or committed suicide, including many of the Province’s religious leaders and some of the political ones. Sadly for the police about ten percent of the service had been amongst those who had died.

  Like many of his co-religionists he represented the fact that Catholics had been promoted in numbers well out of proportion to the percentage of total officers. He still remembered the days when becoming a police officer, or soldier, was a very dangerous choice for a Catholic. Not only were you likely to be shot in the back, or blown up while carrying out your duties, but your family was also at great risk. Only now, times had changed.

  The appearance of the armies of Hell in the desert of Iraq and a baldrick attack in America had really stepped up the level anxiety for the public. To reassure the population, the PSNI had put a strong armed presence on the streets of the Province. Backing them up were a couple of regular army infantry battalions, who would soon be joined by the recently re-formed Home Service battalions of The Royal Irish Regiment. Men and women (known as ‘Greenfinches’) who had served in these battalions had flocked back to the colors when the decision to re-form them had been announced. Fortunately the army still had enough equipment and uniforms in storage in Northern Ireland to equip them.

  The Inspector was in charge of a Police Support Unit of twelve officers, mounted in a pair of armored Land Rovers, known as the Tangi. Once upon a time the Tangis of the RUC had been painted grey, now they were painted in the same orange and yellow checkered ‘Battenberg’ high visibility scheme worn by similar vehicles on the Mainland

  Doherty shook his head as he saw a man and a woman, both carrying Armalite rifles, walked past as they did their shopping. One of the first acts after the British Government had declared a State of Emergency was to repeal all existing gun control laws. Illegally held weapons were now appearing openly on the streets. It was quite amazing how many of them there were. But then, the various groups of Irish terrorists had been notorious for burying stashes of guns all over the countryside.

  “Few years ago we would have been arresting that pair, or worse, Sarge.” Doherty commented.

  “That’s right, to be sure.” Sergeant Chris Ryder replied. “I don’t think I’ll ever get use to seeing ex-Provos or Loyalists walking about with their guns openly.”

  “Yeh, I know what you mean, Sarge. If I had my way half of them would still be in the Maze; murderous bastards the lot of them. Those rifles won’t do them much good anyway; I hear that a full thirty round magazine of 5.56mm rounds only slows a baldrick down.”

  Doherty had every reason to be bitter about the terrorists. One of his friends had been shot in the back by an IRA gunman while administering First Aid to a woman injured in a road accident, while another had been crippled by a blast bomb thrown by a Loyalist mob.

  Suddenly a series of loud screams caught the attention of both officers. Doherty and Ryder turned towards the sound, just catching the sound of two ‘pops’, pistol shots. They were just in time to see one of the police support unit personnel, Glock 17 still in his hands, being eviscerated by a three meter high demonic apparition.

  “Jesus…I mean bloody hell!…. I mean, oh shit!” Doherty exclaimed as he watched the baldrick kill a civilian who was too slow in running. His mind seemed to be running in slow motion and he had time to reflect that The Message had eviscerated the English language’s stock of forceful expressions.

  “Get the rifles out of the Tangis!” He yelled to the remainder of the unit, then “RUN! RUN!” to the nearest civilians.

  Doherty and Ryder both drew their pistols and opened fire, even though they knew that the 9x19mm rounds would probably do little more than piss the baldrick off. The baldrick turned as he felt the new stinging impacts, he turned and saw two more of the humans dressed in green and wearing those funny hats pointing their outstretched arms at him, as if praying, or begging for mercy. He marveled at their apparent stupidity, praying had not saved the last green clad human.

  The two police officers retreated towards the Tangis, changing the magazines in their pistols. Several other members of the unit had also opened fire, but to Doherty’s horror he could see that although the baldrick was bleeding from multiple wounds it had not even been slowed down. All he could do was continue to fire until he ran out of ammunition, and hope for the best.

  At this point an armed civilian joined the battle, engaging the baldrick with an AK-47, the demon paused, ignoring the police officers for a moment to take hold of the civilian, tear out his heart and throw him through the air.

  Finally the two officers assigned to the task managed to get the six HK33 rifles that were held in lock boxes in each Land Rover and threw them out. Doherty dropped his Glock and grabbed the rifle from the police woman with a great deal of gratitude. He had no hesitation in selecting full auto, raised the rifle to his shoulder and opened fire. Now that the surviving officers were armed with rifles, even ones firing 5.56x45mm NATO rounds, the baldrick finally began to show that it was feeling the effects of the gunfire. It began to stagger back under the effect of the massed gunfire, especially now that several armed civilians had joined the fight.
Two of them had pump-action shotguns and the heavy slugs produced the first real impacts on the creature.

  They drove it back, the bullets pounding on its body. Finally it collapsed to the street, dead. Doherty and Ryder advanced on the body cautiously, changing the magazines on their rifles. To their relief it was very dead.

  “Score one for the good guys.” One of the armed civilians was loading his shotgun with more heavy slugs. He looked sadly at the street where a police officer and two civilians were down, in crumpled, lifeless heaps. “Cost us though.” Then he grinned at the police officers. “Still, its good to see true fighting Irishmen all on the same side at last.”

  Cabinet Office, White House, Washington D.C.

  “We must anticipate that there will be further attacks of this kind. In view of what that monster told us…” Secretary Warner was interrupted by a tangible shudder that ran around the room. Memories of the succubus’s presence at a meeting were all to fresh. “these attacks have been going on for a long time and we see no reason why they should stop now. In fact, with the destruction of the baldrick army in Iraq, they might well pick up in tempo. So, as a line of defense against such attacks, I propose the formation of a local defense force that will protect areas where there are large gatherings of people. Malls, sports meetings etc. The personnel will be drawn from all citizens between the ages of 18 and 50 who are not currently serving in the armed forces. Obviously, we’ll give priority to people whose industries are not needed for the war effort, they can serve one of their work days. We’ll arm them with the new. 458 rifles we’re putting into production. I propose the new force be called the Local Defense Volunteers.”