Prometheus and the Dragon (Atlas and the Winds Book 2) (46 page)

“That was a smart trick,” Shapiro said.

“Can we blow out their candles?” Dave suggested.

“We can deflect their next toss,” Mica said. “If we bounce them back to the perimeter I would assume they will no longer advance.”

“Do it,” Tom said. “Dave, have your guys push them out of the blind spots if they can. I want to avoid escalating as long as possible. Do not engage except as necessary to maintain the perimeter.”

“Gotcha,” Dave said, giving orders to his troops.

***

Outside Stormhaven, The Western Front:

Nicholas Veidermeier was not a young man, but he was still in shape, at least partially because of the healing powers of the Most High Reverend. He’d been a faithful follower of his ministry for more than ten years, and he’d been saved, even before his resurrection.

Crouching beside a Humvee, he watched the ring of fires advance on the stronghold. They couldn’t see the buildings of Stormhaven, hidden from view by a slight rise, but they were well ahead of the fires on this side. Close enough to be able to launch their missiles. They carried two truckloads of weapons, things that Nicholas had learned to use in the Second Iraqi War; antitank missiles, mortars, short-range surface-to-air missiles. Even a couple larger rockets that he’d never seen before.

“Veidermeier, check out the ridge,” one of the Humvee drivers said, pointing up the small hill.

He didn’t like taking orders from someone so much younger than he, but he knew the Reverend had faith in the man, so he went without question. About halfway up the rise he felt a strange aching sensation in his joints and he realized instantly what was coming. He’d been killed by this death-ray before, and it was coming again. He rolled over onto his back and looked up into the sky. Above him he saw a dark angel silhouetted against the bright Milky Way. It looked like a man, but hideously twisted, a large lump protruding from his back and long talons extending from the ends of his arms.

“A demon!” he shouted, trying to move his hands to point at the sky. Looking down toward the Humvee, he saw his compatriots falling in crumpled heaps. Another demon hung over them, with faintly glowing blue flames leaping from his hands.

Pulling his pistol from its holster, he struggled to lift it toward the man-thing. It spun to face him, red eyes glowing in a head many times too large to be human. The blue glow filled his vision and he died. Again.

***

Stormhaven:

“We can put them nighty-night, but we don’t have the thrust in the suit packs to lift the vehicles out of the pocket,” Dave reported. “We’ll need to do that with the minies.”

“Up scaling our forces is going to precipitate a response from them,” Tom said.

“We can leave them sit I suppose,” he shrugged, “but I don’t want someone waking up and popping off a lucky shot.”

“Fine,” Tom agreed.

Dave gave another set of orders, and six more screens lit up on their tactical display.

“They’re on their way,” he said. “Where do you want to put them?”

***

Location Unknown:

Flashes of memory, lights, sounds, skin burning like acid had been poured over him, then cold wind blasting at his body. Biting, deep, frigid, cold. Something wet against his face, moving. Rancid hot breath. More sounds. Snuffling, close by, and groaning in the distance.

Veidermeier’s eyes popped open. He was alive again. But this time he knew instantly he was in Hell. He recognized the stench of the demon’s hot breath in his face. It was still dark and he could only see its shadow, but it hung over him, smacking its lips and grinding its teeth. His back was wet, frozen, but his face was on fire. He tried to move, though his body felt like it was stuck in molasses.

He heard a voice nearby. “What happened?”

Another groaning man said, “I think we’re dead.”

“It didn’t feel like this last time,” Nicholas said, feeling his hands start to respond.

“Where are we?” a voice on the other side asked.

“I think we’re in Hell,” he said, wishing the demon would move so he could get up.

A sound, like hooves on rocks, and the face above him disappeared. He sat up, his eyes adjusting to the dark. Shadows all around him. Huge massive things. Demons.

And then one of them mooed.

***

Army of the Holy Right Encampment:

Erik Michaels sat on a pink plastic lawn chair, alone near the pit that hid the satellite truck. His army was still mostly standing, but someone had reported seeing one of their trucks flying away as if by magic.

He knew better than that. Stormhaven was using tools to defend themselves, not demonic superpowers. They might be evil, and do evil things, but they were mortals. Technology always had its weak spots.

“Sir?” a voice intruded on his thoughts. He looked up into the face of a woman. One of his lieutenants. “We’ve got reports of Dark Angels fighting for the Evil Ones.”

“Really?” he said, unable to mask his sarcasm.

“Yes sir, I swear it,” she said. “I’ve seen one with my own eyes.” Her face solemn in spite of the ridiculous words coming out of her mouth.

“What do you think these Dark Angels are?” he asked, trying not to grin.

“I don’t know,” she said, “but they’re scaring our soldiers. Perhaps you should ask the Reverend to exorcise them or something. Surely the Lord would come to our aid.”

“Are our people staying dead?” he asked.

“No sir. Thankfully,” she said.

“Then ignore them.” He smiled, waving his hand in dismissal. As she walked away, he thought about what he’d already seen, and a rush of superstitious fear slapped his soul. The dead coming back to life was enough to make anyone start believing in strange stuff.

He grabbed the radio out of his pocket and gave orders to his machine guns to engage the Dark Angels.

***

Above Stormhaven:

Yanna Lee swung back and forth, maintaining coverage over the pocket and taking random pokes at the mob below. She had orders not to provoke an attack, but she’d decided it was prudent to hit anything that looked like it might be moving toward her blind zone.

The minies had cleared away the vehicles and the few foot troops that accompanied them, but they were determined as ants after a tasty morsel. She’d just completed another sweep and had turned back toward Stormhaven when she felt a violent tug at her leg. In the same instant there was a bright flash in front of her that coalesced into a line of sparks trailing forward in a rising arc. She jinked upward and watched as the line of sparks rose quickly after her.

Tracers.

She dodged the beam-like line and dropped toward the ground. Her mind becoming foggy. The bullets tracked relentlessly, chasing her downward.

“Shit! I’m taking fire,” she yelled, jabbing forward on her control stick. Her leg had begun to ache and she looked down at her feet. She couldn’t see her left leg. Her brain refused to grasp what had happened. She hesitated an instant before she twisted the control, trying to get altitude but a single fifty-caliber bullet hit her right drive unit, and instead she cartwheeled sideways, spraying blood from her missing leg like red sparks from a pinwheel. As she tumbled out of control toward the ground she caught sight of a half-dozen other lines etched in fire across the sky. “We’re in trouble,” she whispered, just before she slammed into the Earth at close to three hundred miles an hour.

***

Stormhaven:

“Mica, can you cover them?” Dave barked, realizing what was happening a split-second before everyone else.

As they watched, a second camera blanked out and through the window they watched the tracer rounds rising toward another target. Suddenly the line stopped, like it had hit a wall hanging in the air, the tracers themselves piling up into a glowing ball.

“I am only able to protect four positions,” Mica reported. “The Flight Infantry needs to withdraw from the field.”

Dave gave the orders and watched as two machine guns chased his troops back toward the community. One of the lines of fire danced across the window of the Com Center, shattering the outer plasglass and thundering against the transparent mono-carbon inner plating.

Everyone in the room dove for cover except Tom, who somehow, in spite of everything, stood staring out lost in thought. “Get the minies into the fighting and recall the Flight Infantry,” he said, after several seconds. “It’s time to push them back under their rock.”

Of the twelve Infantry that had gone out, only six returned, chased through the doors by several sets of machine gun trails. The
Draco
, squeezed just inside the doors, took several rounds to its bulletproof nose while its bulk shielded the rest of the troops that stood along the catwalks waiting to join the battle.

“We’re inside,” Lucas said, his camera image shutting down. “Unless you can drop those gunners, we’re out of the fight.”

“Roger that,” Dave said.

Tom still stared out the window, but he’d moved to where he could see toward their base camp. “Let’s see if we can get the minies to take out the machine guns,” he said.

“They’re still about two minutes away,” Sophie said. “They just dropped the last of the trucks.”

“We’ve got to stop with the light-handing,” Shapiro said. “They’re killing us, so it’s time to return the favor.”

Tom nodded, and Sophie passed the order to her pilots.

The minies that had been refitted with the big gravity lasers packed a lot more wallop than the small antipersonnel guns that the Flight Infantry carried, but it still took a lot of time to drive the machine guns into submission. Every time they crushed one position, another would open up.

So, just before sunrise, when Antu rose again in the east, having crossed sunward of Earth during the night, they’d made little progress in pushing them back. Bodies and crushed hardware had begun to pile up around the guns, but there was a never-ending stream of replacements who took over. No sooner had they cleared a nest and moved to the next, than the first was brought back online.

Mica’d managed to hold off the rest of the horde with the turrets, but still they remained in deadlock. The Army of the Holy Right wasn’t sending everyone in a single massive rush like they had the first time; instead they eroded their defenses, fighting to win by attrition.

“This isn’t working so well,” Dave said. His feet were up on the table and he held a cup of coffee in his hands. He looked casual in every way except his expression.

“Got any suggestions?” Tom asked, leaning on the tabletop with both hands. His voice sounded old, tired.

“More firepower?” he said.

“Other than the carriers, we’ve just about reached our limit.” Tom sighed. “There isn’t much else we can do.”

“We are about to encounter another problem,” Mica interrupted. “The southeast gravity laser is approaching its thermal limit. At its current rate of use, I anticipate having to shut it down in four minutes.”

“How are we going to cover that quadrant?” Shapiro asked.

“We’re going to have to put the Archangels into the battle,” Dave said, standing up. “Come on Sophie, it’s time we showed them what we can do with some real ships.”

***

Chapter Thirty:

Pulling out the Big Guns

Army of the Holy Right Encampment:

“We’ve lost most of our com systems,” Erik said. The Reverend was standing in front of him, hands on his hips, asking some very pointed questions as to why he’d not been able to advance to heavy weapons range.

“I’m disappointed. I’d wanted on this, the Day of Judgment, to be able to announce to the world that the Evil Ones had fallen. I expected you to do this for me,” the Reverend said, his tone heavy. He turned his back on the former producer and stared at the screens in the satellite truck’s small control room. There wasn’t much to see.

“It’s hard to coordinate an attack when we can’t communicate. They’ve destroyed almost all our radios.” He stepped up beside Sommerset and pointed at the communications panel. Most of the lights were red.

“How?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Erik said, shrugging. “Every time one of their ships flies over our position, the radios just quit working.”

“Are they being jammed?” he asked, turning to glance at his Commander.

“No, they’re burning out. It’s like a byproduct of the ships themselves,” he said. “I don’t know enough about the science to know what causes it. It might be just an overload of some sort.”

“Could we use that to our advantage?” the Reverend offered.

“Possibly. Let me work on it,” Erik said.