“Well, it doesn’t look like they’re carrying nukes this time, but eighteen B-2 bombers just took off from Whiteman. They are fully loaded; radio chatter is suggesting eighty bombs apiece.”
“Are we hitting destroy-the-city-to-save-it territory here?” David asked. “That’s…a lot of firepower.”
“Targets have not been announced over the air and the Air Force’s cybersecurity is actually half-decent,” Charles told them. “Scythe has definitely picked up a few locations being used to marshal forces for deployment.”
The initial disorganized swarms had been effective enough, but after thirty hours, the demons were now acting like a real army. The fog they’d covered Portland with made it hard to be sure, but the shadow demons were all shuffling into formations led by mid-court demons now.
Shock companies of toad demons and other bruisers had been spotted as well. The absence of the flying demons that had shredded the first air attack was a warning sign, though. There were enemies out there that the high-altitude AWACS and low-altitude F-22 flybys hadn’t seen.
“B-2s are going in at high altitude,” Charles reported. “Hold on a moment…I think I’ve got…yes!”
A new voice crackled over the speakers.
“This is 509 Actual,” the bomber commander declared. “We are on approach to Portland at subsonic speed and fifty-five thousand feet.” Pause. “Command, how certain are we on this targeting data?”
“Target coordinates are locked. Confirmed by AWACS and Scythe flybys. Is there a problem with your orders?”
509-Actual exhaled.
“Apologies, Command. I’m just hesitant to drop sixteen hundred bombs on an American city.”
“Your orders are cosigned by the President and the Joints Chiefs, son.” Pause. “It’s too late to relieve you; the strike must go ahead on schedule.”
“I understand. I make our time to target seventeen minutes.”
“Clear skies, 509.”
The radio went silent. Icons appeared on the big screen in Black Echelon headquarters as the team leaders turned their attention to it. Estimated time to the bombers’ arrival flashed up.
“We’re guessing their targets are here, here, here and here,” Charles reeled off, highlighting five different locations on the map. “Both the portal and Fitzpatrick Stadium have heavy concentrations of demons. Doesn’t matter what they’re dropping, the portal will be fine and so will the Herald, but enough fire is going to break up their organization.”
“At fifty-five thousand feet, does the Herald even have anything that can intercept them?” Riley asked.
“It depends on whether or not they see them coming,” the dragon admitted. “My kin could intercept them. I’m not sure about those bat demons.”
“So, the definite threat is the Herald’s dragon,” Riley concluded. “I don’t suppose the bombers are a threat to her?”
“My research suggests they could be armed with nuke-tipped cruise missiles,” Charles replied. “If they are, they can ruin her day. If they’re not…nothing else in their arsenal will even scratch her.”
“I was happier with your species being invulnerable flying gods when the only one I knew was on my side,” David muttered.
“They’re staying high,” O’Brien noted, watching the bombers. “Someone’s being damn careful.”
David nodded, feeling Kate sneak her hand into his and squeeze his fingers reassuringly as they continued to watch. He had a sick certainty how this was going to end, and he hated being a Seer right now.
“We are in the zone,” the bomber commander suddenly declared. “I repeat, 509 is in the zone; we are closing on Target One. Target One ETA forty seconds; clearing the bomb bays for first attack run.”
“Target One is Fitzpatrick Stadium,” David told the others as he watched the screens and knew what was going to happen. “It’s going to be all they hit.”
“David?” O’Brien demanded. “What do you… Oh.”
The bomber icons flashed.
“Bombs away, Pickles inbound.” A pause. “All planes confirm first load deployed.”
“AWACS reports explosions on the ground; we have confirmed impact,” the Air Force ground commander said a few moments later. “Assessing target damage…but Fitzpatrick Stadium appears to be gone. Target is destroyed.”
“Any…any confirmation on enemy casualties?” the bomber commander asked.
“Negative. We don’t have anyone low enough, and the demons barely show up on infrared. Recon will follow up, continue to Target Two.”
“May God forgive us,” the 509th’s commander whispered.
“There,” David whispered, pointing at a new icon on the screen before anyone else noticed it. A single red icon rising out of the ruins of Fitzpatrick Stadium. Moments later, dozens of other icons rose from other locations across the city.
“509, you have incoming,” the Air Force commander barked. “Dragon is rising from Target One. Multiple enemy airborne rising from secondary bases across the city.”
“Please tell me I can kill them,” the 509th’s commander said.
“You may fire at will, 509. Sickle Force is inbound to intercept.”
That was not actually the question the bomber commander had asked, David noted. The thought was overtaken in his mind, however, once Sickle Force made it onto the map.
Apparently, everything the Air Force had done today, from high-altitude recon flights, to aerial sweeps, to massive heavy bomber strikes, had been bait.
Sickle Force covered an entire edge of the map screen. Over two hundred air superiority jet fighters came screaming in from over the ocean at well over the speed of sound, sweeping in on targets barely a tenth of their size picked out for them by the AWACS planes orbiting above Portland.
It was an awe-inspiring demonstration of both the might and the tactical acumen of the US Air Force. They recognized that they couldn’t locate ground bases, and kept pushing buttons until they found something that would bring their enemy into the air.
And then they’d thrown two hundred of the most advanced planes and best pilots in the world at an enemy from outside it. It was smart, savvy, and it should have worked.
David already knew how it was going to end and closed his eyes, even as his fellow leaders held their breath.
First, the dragon slammed into the bombers. They managed to hit her on the way up with a dozen or more five-hundred-pound bombs.
She didn’t even notice. Claws and fire tore through the billion-dollar planes like they were made of tissue paper. Hyper-advanced stealth was useless against senses their designers had never even heard of. It took the dragon less than eighty seconds to reduce the 509th Operations Group to debris and bodies.
David’s Sight gave him a front-row seat.
Even while Serena was destroying the bomber force, the bat demons were meeting Sickle Force. A hundred of them had launched to take on the bombers—hundreds more rose as the air superiority fighters closed in.
Missiles flashed across the air, carefully reprogrammed by the best the Air Force had to target enemies both smaller and less metallic than they’d ever expected to shoot at. The bat demons ignored the first salvo…only to discover that not only had the Air Force techs reprogrammed the missiles to be able to hit the demons, they’d also cleaned several jewelry and industrial supply warehouses out of silver chain and wire.
Soldering every piece of silver they could find to the warheads was a crude stopgap—but it was a crude stopgap that worked.
The entire first wave of bat demons died as silver shrapnel tore through them, disintegrating bodies forged of ichor and power instead of flesh, bodies that would have laughed off mere explosives or steel fragments.
“Tally-ho!” someone bellowed. “Tell Tiffany’s they get to be the heroes of this war!”
David was watching, his viewpoint hanging just above the jet fighters as they charged toward the remaining bat demons. They’d killed hundreds…but hundreds more were coming, and these ones
now knew the planes were an actual threat.
The second salvo of missiles only killed a handful of demons, and then the planes were in amongst the bat creatures. Machine guns blazed. Claws flashed. Fireballs flickered in the dusk.
And then the broken remnants of Sickle Force broke free of the demonic swarm. Three quarters of them had died, but almost fifty planes remained. They were running now, not trying to catch anything.
The dragon was waiting for them.
The conference room was silent as David opened his eyes. The sterile screen showing the red icons of the bat demons—fading now as the accuracy of the data grew less reliable—was a stark contrast to the fire and violence his Sight had shown him.
“509 is gone,” Charles reported. “None of them escaped her attack. It’s hard to say with Sickle Force. Somewhere between six and thirteen planes made it out.”
Over two hundred pilots and crew had just died. The cream of the US Air Force had just been blown out of the air, including the only heavy stealth bombers in existence.
“They did everything right,” David said quietly. “They had silver on the missiles. They had everything programmed to be able to hit small targets. They baited the demons into the air, and then they went after them with weapons that could kill them.”
“They underestimated how many of the bastards there were,” Reginald noted. “It’s easy for a competent force to win when you have an overwhelming technological advantage against an enemy you have solid information on.
“But they don’t know this enemy. They can only do so much.”
“We thought we knew this enemy,” Riley said grimly. “But even I didn’t expect to see that many bat demons. They…”
“They knew what we’d throw at them,” David finished after the Elfin Lord trailed off. “There’s enough like John Buckley who survived the Church of the Black Sun or similar deals and have thrown their lot in with the Masters Beyond. They know how the US military ticks, how it’ll move. They even know ONSET and Omicron.”
“Then the Seraphim are going to be an ugly shock for them,” O’Brien said. “If they only know about what someone like Buckley knew about before the Incident…or, hell, even at the moment they created the portal, Sigma Force was being very low-key still.”
“They probably know Task Force White exists and are assuming it’s the equivalent of several ONSET teams,” Kate pointed out. “White has been at the center of a lot of news coverage; people are pretty aware of its existence and that it’s made up of supernaturals.”
“So, they most likely don’t know about the Seraphim,” Riley agreed. “And perhaps most importantly, they definitely don’t know about us.”
“We need to do something,” O’Brien hissed. “I am done sitting here, watching other people die.”
“There’s nothing we can do,” the Elfin Lord told him. “If we took all of Black Echelon in right now, we’d collide head on with an army and we’d die. For nothing.”
“We can’t launch an assault,” Reginald agreed. “But O’Brien is right. We have to do something—for the morale of our people if nothing else.
“Demons can see in the dark. They’re dangerous at night—but there’s a reason they’re settling in place in the dark, too. They need to rest. They’re not nocturnal creatures, either.
“My people are more dangerous in the night than they are,” the vampire patriarch noted. “We need eyes on the ground, a sense of their real dispositions. And we need to strike, to make them nervous, to make sure everything doesn’t go their way.”
Reginald looked at Gabriel, then turned his gaze on the rest of the team leaders.
“Let me take Echelon Two in. We can find where the dragon and the Herald are basing themselves. We can slit some throats in the night.” He smiled grimly. “If we can find this Buckley, or the Mage the dragon dealt with, that throat-slitting might even be useful for more than self-gratification.”
Riley looked at David.
“White?” he finally asked.
“What?” David replied.
“Do you See anything if they go?” the Elfin Lord asked.
Right. Seer.
David focused on the possibility, trying to stretch out, to see what would happen—perhaps most importantly, if they would come back.
“I…don’t think it’ll change anything,” he finally said. “For the good or the bad.”
“Then go,” Riley decided. “It may not help, but I agree—we need to do something.”
37
Dawn rose over the impromptu vehicle park, sending rays of light glittering over the neat rows of tanks and APCs. Past the vehicles filling the office building’s parking lots and street, rows of tents lined the park across the street. Behind where Arthur Purcell stood, he could hear the chaos and bustle as an Army Combat Support Hospital unit took over the first floor of the evacuated building next to the one he’d taken as his command center.
Most of the vehicles were full and most of the tents were empty, but a steady stream of soldiers was still passing through the logistics depot set up in the nearby intersection. New ammunition, grenades and rockets were being passed out to every soldier, while the tank crews were busily emptying and reloading their vehicles’ magazines with silver-laced rounds.
From where the Special Forces General stood, he could easily see several thousand men and women getting to work, preparing for the assault—and this was just one Armored Brigade Combat Team. The promised four divisions had arrived the previous day, totalling seventeen brigades, including five ABCTs.
The last two mechanized infantry brigades were less reliably reequipped than the rest. Pierce had fifteen brigades fully equipped to go to war with a supernatural enemy. They’d managed to scrape up enough silver ammunition that the last two brigades at least had some bullets, but they didn’t have heavy-weapon rounds at all.
They’d been ordered to dig in around the massive artillery parks assembled at the edge of the Portland metro area. The guns could range over the entire city from there but, so far, had only deployed conventional munitions.
ONSET’s stockpiles had provided those artillery guns with a lot of options for taking down supernaturals, but the bombardments so far had been preliminary. Distractions and covering fire, more than anything else.
They had enough firepower in place now to level Portland…but the Herald effectively had the entire population of the city hostage. Artillery-fire missions were being carefully plotted out and double-checked by AWACS planes before being launched. Collateral damage was unavoidable, but Arthur was content that Pierce was doing everything in his power to avoid it.
“Major General.”
Speak of the Devil, of course.
Arthur turned to find General Pierce behind him, clad in urban combat fatigues and with a tanker’s helmet under his arm.
“General Pierce,” he greeted the Army man carefully. “Dressed up for a party?”
Pierce chuckled.
“I should have brought my spurs and whip,” he said. “No, I’m going in with the armor. I need to be on the ground, have a feel for the engagement.”
“Is that…wise?” Arthur asked carefully.
“If it gives me the edge I need to save Portland, yes,” Pierce said bluntly. “My reserve brigades. Their commanders will look to you if anything goes wrong. Plus your Special Forces people. You are my fallback position.
“We’ve preset fire missions with the artillery for if we have to fall back,” he continued. “But I’m going to be in the thick of things—it’s the best place to run a battle, since I’ll have full information systems, but artillery is better run by a man a step back from things.”
“I’m no artillery commander,” Arthur pointed out.
“No, but you know this enemy better than most. I don’t expect to have to fall back—not with fifteen brigades of the United States Army and National Guard—but I refuse to go into battle without planning for the possibility.”
“Nobody knows this enemy w
ell enough to be certain of what’s going to happen,” the SOCOM General replied.
“I know.” Pierce shook his head. “Fifteen brigades, General. Hundreds of tanks, APCs, Bradleys, close air support planes, helicopters… There’s no enemy on Earth that could stop the force under my command.”
“And we can’t be certain.”
“And we can’t be certain,” the Army General confirmed. “That’s not what I tell the men. We’ll stick it home as hard as we can; there’s over seventy thousand Americans at stake. But, General Purcell…”
“Sir?”
“If this all goes to pieces, get my men out.”
Arthur Purcell didn’t like Pierce very much, and he suspected the feeling was mutual. That order, however, he couldn’t deny.
“I will.”
Watching an entire armored brigade get into motion was an awe-inspiring sight. Platoon after platoon of tanks and armored vehicles fired up their engines and moved out in a carefully organized sequence. Infantry squads rode inside or on top of the bigger vehicles, keeping the mark one eyeball peeled for hostiles even as more esoteric sensors swept for the enemy.
The roads weren’t going to survive this process. The streets south of the impromptu vehicle park were already ruined, the untracked vehicles carefully maneuvering around the lines of crushed pavement left by the tanks.
Artillery thundered in the near distance, and Arthur checked the reports as he reentered the command center. An assault force of the big toad-like demons, several hundred strong, was moving on the largest remaining Marine and National Guard position in the ruined metro area.
There were probably five thousand men and women dug into what had been a midsized suburban mall. The mall’s doors had been barricaded and its concrete walls had already seen off an attack by the smaller demons.
From the overhead, a larger force of the shadowy things was following the toads. Once the demons had crushed this particular force, they would control the entirety of the Portland metropolitan area, an urban conglomeration that had been home to half a million people.
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