Armageddon?? (51 page)

“Boss,
target up ahead.” Anything here that wasn’t a tank or a Mick-vee was hostile.
This didn’t need that distinction, a line of nine baldricks, tridents on
shoulders, marching across the plain. A guard patrol perhaps? Stevenson didn’t
know and didn’t care. Her laser gave a quick flash that was instantly
translated into range. “All Alpha-One vehicles, targets one-six-three degrees,
range 1,200 meters. Engage HEAT.”

The
baldricks realized what was about to hit them a split second before the tank
guns crashed. They turned, aiming their tridents at the oncoming tanks. Two
lightning flashes hit Alpha-one-one’s turret, causing the computer to blip and
reset. No damage and the shells exploded in the baldrick line, throwing parts
of them skywards. Those who weren’t dead were still writhing on the ground when
the four M1s drove over them. Stevenson could feel the tank shift slightly as
Biker used his tracks to grind them into the ground. Then they were gone, just
leaving a green stain on the ground.

A
TOW-2 missile shot overhead, turned in mid air and plowed into a small stone
building that had been half-concealed in a dip in the ground. Probably a
guardhouse, possibly for the patrol that had just been summarily blasted out of
existence. One of the Bradleys hadn’t wanted to be left out of the first
engagement of the first human Thunder Run through Hell.

“Target
should be up ahead.” Stevenson transmitted the message long after the mangled
remains of the patrol and the burning guardhouse had been left behind them.

“Not
here, Captain.” Baldy’s voice was regretful.

“It
has to be. Map shows it due south of the hellmouth. Unless it ain’t that
accurate. Hokay, we’ll do it the hard way. Bravo units form here. Keep radio
link open so we can get directional cuts on you. Charlie team, go east, twenty
minutes at 20mph then come back. Use Bravo’s links for direction. Alpha, we’ll
go west, same time, same speed, do the same.”

The
formation split into three, the Bradleys forming a defensive laager while the
two platoons of Abrams tanks set off in opposite directions. Stevenson’s luck
was still holding, ten minutes after the split, she spotted the encampment that
was her primary target. A small group of buildings surrounded by a stone wall.
“All Alpha elements, target located. Home in on my radio.” She waited until she
got the acknowledgements and then started to edge her tanks forward.

Fublaronishel’s
Encampment, Martial Plain of Dysprosium, Hell

It
wasn’t a great command but for an ambitious young demon, an independent command
like this was good. If he did well, his overlord would see and reward him. If
he did not, the command was small enough so that any errors would be easily
concealed. Fublaronishel had high hoped of this command, hopes that it would
lead to better things and perhaps the award of a mate. Then his eyes narrowed,
a cloud of dust? It couldn’t be the patrol he had sent out, they weren’t due
back for two days. Then he saw what was approaching and his heart went cold.

“Iron
Chariots! Iron Chariots are coming.” It was impossible, the Humans couldn’t
have brought their Iron Chariots here. They had been terribly hurt by the
nameless one whose disgrace was such that even thinking his previous name was
punishable by death. They couldn’t be coming. Fublaronishel knew that they
were, because he could see them. They still couldn’t be. “Turn out the guard.
Every demon to the walls.”

His
men were well-trained, they ran out of the barracks and scaled the walls,
facing the dreaded Iron Chariots. The humans had stopped, many spear-throws
from the walls, perhaps they were afraid to attack a fortification. Then the
desert erupted into smoke and dust as the fire lances screamed out from the
long tube that topped the Chariots. The walls shook with the impact, the stones
shattering, fragments thrown across the encampment ground. It dawned on the
stunned Fublaronishel that they had struck his wall before he had heard the
sound of their launch. He staggered, looking at the walls, still standing
although shaken to their core. Too many of his men were down, he was
understrength to start with, he had only six of his nine nine-demon sections
and one of those was out on patrol, a second was at an outpost less than a
couple of miles away. That had left him with 36 and already a quarter of them
were on the ground, dead or wounded it was hard to say. Then, another scream
and the explosions struck his wall, tumbling it down into a pile of pulverized
rubble. That was when he heard another sound, a whistling roar, something he
had never heard before.

It
was one of the great Iron Chariots, it reached the ruined wall and started to
cross it, something no chariot Fublaronishel had ever seen could do. The roar
increased and the Chariot pulled up over the rubble, its front pointing at the
sky, then its nose suddenly crashed down and the chariot accelerated down the
other side of the rubble pile. The strange box and tube seemed to rotate, the
tube swinging around to point at him but he didn’t see the great blast as it
launched a fire-lance. Instead, there was a dancing point of light and
Fublaronishel felt the impacts knock him off his feet. He was weak, unable to
rise, and helpless when the chariot crushed the life out of him with its
treads.

Combat
Team Alpha. Fublaronishel’s Encampment, Martial Plain of Dysprosium, Hell

“And
the walls came tumbling down.” Stevenson’s voice was smugly self-satisfied.
“Baldricks, meet depleted uranium.” Her platoon’s first salvo had been sabot,
bolts of depleted uranium alloy that had smashed into the wall, the shock waves
from the impacts leaving the stones riddled with stress fractures. The second
salvo had been HEAT rounds, their explosions blasting the riven wall down,
leaving it a gentle pile of rubble, the wall’s defenders mixed in with it.
“Biker, take us through.”

She
flipped her radio back to company net again. “All Alpha-Alpha vehicles, over
the wall, destroy the encampment. One and three take the buildings on the left,
two and four the right. One HEAT round into each.”

“Wait
for us, we’re three minutes out.” She recognized the voice, the commander of
Alpha-Bravo, pleading to be allowed to join the assault.

“Can’t
let them regroup. Its pedal to the metal time boys.” Her tank was accelerating
towards the ruins of the wall and the baldricks staggering round behind it, She
lost sight of them as the bow rose, the gas turbine screaming out power as it
pushed the tank over the rubble. Then the bows dropped again and she saw the
pitiful little encampment in front of her. A baldrick was trying to aim his
trident at her tank but Baldy cut him down with the co-axial machine gun before
he had the chance. Several more baldricks were over on the right, she ignored
them, they were Alpha-Alpha-Two’s responsibility. A charge well and truly kept
for even as her first HEAT round flattened the nearest left-hand hut, a
canister round from Two turned the baldricks in the group into chopped
fragments.

The
encampment was burning, the building set a fire from the copper plasma jets
formed by the HEAT rounds. Some of the baldricks had been taking cover inside,
their screams as they burned could be heard even inside the tanks as they
waddled down the single street between the buildings, their guns crashing as
they demolished what was left of the encampment. They were wreathed in the
smoke, only vaguely semi-visible, the screaming roar of their engines the only
thing that the baldricks could hear before they emerged from the cloud that hid
the monsters. It was the roar of the engines that broke the baldricks more than
the gunfire or the screams of the victims as the tanks cut them down or ground
them into slush with their tracks. The baldricks that were left ran from the
burning encampment into the open ground where they hoped to make their escape.
These baldricks knew nothing of how tanks fought infantry.

Behind
her, Stevenson could hear the crackle of 25mm gunfire as the Bradleys caught up
with her platoon and added their own quantum of destruction to the holocaust
that was engulfing the outpost. Her tank had reached the end of the street and
it crashed through the wooden gate that gave access to the highway in front of
her. A dozen, perhaps a dozen and a half baldricks were running away, trying to
escape across the open ground. It was pitiful, Stevenson felt slightly sorry
for them as her four tanks formed into their line and the canister shells
scythed them down. Baldricks could run faster than humans, a lot faster, but
that didn’t save them. The ones who survived the canister were cut down by the machine
guns and then crushed under the tracks. If any had survived, they would have
learned an important lesson that day. Mechanized warfare is a bitch.

Over
to her left, another black pyre of smoke was staining the red sky. “Charlie, is
that you?”

“Sure
is Captain. We cut the corner and hit the secondary. Its ashes, there were
eighteen, perhaps twenty Baldricks here, all dead. No casualties.”

“Bravo,
any casualties back there?”

“Not
a one Cap. We’re fine and we got some of the baldricks you missed on the way
through.”

“Hokay,
guys, form on me. We’re heading home.”

An
hour later, Stevenson was staring at her map again. “It’s got to be here. We
came back on an exact reciprocal of the way we came in. It’s got to be here.”

“Could
they have closed it Hooters?” Crab’s voice was worried.

“I’ll
tell you something else, we didn’t see that guard house we flattened on the way
in. We weren’t that long, we should have seen the wreckage at least.”

Stevenson
pressed her lips together. “Right.” Radio to company command channel. “All
right guys, same drill as before. We go two ways, Bravo stays here and keeps in
contact. We’ll find that hellmouth.”

This
time it was Charlie that lucked out, at the end of their cast. They spotted the
burned-out display stand and that gave Alpha Team the reference it needed.
Twenty minutes later her command reassembled and drove triumphantly out through
the Hellgate

As
they crossed the ridge, Colonel Macfarland was waiting for them, impatience
conflicting with congratulation on his face.

“Sir,
both targets wiped out, no casualties, more than 100 baldricks dead. And Sir,
something’s really screwy with directions in there.”

Chapter
Thirty Seven

Tartarus,
outer borders of Hell

Count
Belial had long since stopped watching the bleak landscape roll past below. He
had been flying for two days straight and even his inhuman endurance could not
prevent the ride becoming extremely uncomfortable. The wyverns flew faster than
any demon, while his own prized flock flew faster than anything the demons had
ever encountered, thanks to Euryale's breeding program. Unfortunately it was
also fast enough to transform the normally soft and welcoming clouds of ash
into a blast that stung Belial's eyes and scoured his skin. The remoteness of
his domain made the wyverns a necessity if he was to maintain any real presence
at Satan's court, but Belial had also found them useful as a mercenary force.
After millennia of facing virtually helpless lower-plane species, few demon
lords bothered to maintain the kind of aerial combat forces seen in the Great
Celestial War. They mostly depended on the harpies who, one on one, were no
match for a Wyvern and its rider. The timely arrival of a few of his superior
wyverns at a flier skirmish usually won him considerable favor with the
victorious duke.

Whatever
the merits of wyverns, right now Belial wanted nothing more than for this
flight to end. From the moment he had left Satan's throne room, his mind had
been churning on the details of the plan. The attack had to be spectacular, of
that there was no doubt, but this time spectacle was not enough. Destroying a
couple of human settlements would get him temporary adulation, but when the
main attack began the glory-hungry dukes would soon see fit to consign his
actions to historical trivia. They would say that his attacks merely kept the
court entertained while the real forces were mustered. To gain real status he
had to play a major and unquestionable role in the demon victory. His first
thought was to burn the human capitals, but it was no use - the humans seemed
to be divided into thousands of city states that had temporarily united into a
planet-wide crusade against the demons. Destroying a mere pair of them would
undoubtedly terrorize the local population but likely have little effect on the
forces the humans could field. In fact, if their political leadership was
anything like Satan, destroying it may actually give an advantage to the human
armies. Belial laughed grimly at the joke he would never dare make to anybody.

Half
a day into the flight, a revelation came to him, and with it the solution to
his dilemma. Belial had been trying to comprehend why the humans fought so well
now when they had never done so before. The reports of the few battered
survivors had stressed the killing power of the human magic, but when pressed
they had admitted that had never seen human mages conjuring the magic
unassisted. What they had seen were and endless array of strange metal items;
boxes that spat killing flame, spears that threw metal pebbles, sky chariots
that loosed the deadly fire arrows and of course the iron chariots of legend.
The humans had never shown any magical ability when the demons had visited
before.