by Rod Rees
But all this did was win them a respite. The Shades simply paused for a moment to lick their wounds and then came at them again. This time, though, they had changed tactics.
Now it was the turn of the Shade HimPis to try to clear the breach, and the slaughter that ensued sickened Giscala. He had positioned his precious pair of Gatling guns so that their fire enfiladed the busted part of the Wall, and the result was that the first wave of Shade fighters was mown down like grass before a scythe. The problem for Giscala was that there were just so many of them and that they were as brave and resolute in attack as he and his fighters were in defence. For every Shade they killed it seemed that two rose up to take his place. The fighting was unrelenting and as the barrels of the Gatling guns got hotter and hotter so the inevitable happened: the guns jammed. And immediately the fire from the machine guns faltered so there were shouts from the Shade attackers and thousands of them stormed the breach.
The minefield Giscala had sown immediately in front of the opening slowed their advance, but despite the mines and how desperately his fighters loaded and fired their rifles, they were simply swamped.
‘We’ve ’ad it, Captain!’ he heard his sergeant screaming in his ear. ‘We’ve got to pull back.’
‘No, no! We must stand; the Shades must only advance over our dead bodies.’
These were the last words ever spoken by Giscala, and as he uttered them he realised that, miraculously, his stammer seemed to have disappeared. Then a Shade bullet took him in the head. His was one of the dead bodies the Shades advanced over.
*
The red flare arching through the night sky told General von Sternberg that the breach was secure and that the minefield beyond had been cleared. He levered himself to his feet, brushed the dust off the arse of his trousers and nodded to his major to get the two hundred SS commandos under his command ready to roll.
In truth a very small command, too small in his opinion to warrant the leadership of a man of his talent and seniority, but the Great Leader had insisted that he see to Norma Williams’ assassination personally, and when the Great Leader insisted, it was better to accede.
Von Sternberg’s detachment moved towards the breach and through it into the JAD, pushing and shoving the carts carrying their heavier equipment and spare ammunition in front of them and dragging the two six-pounders behind. Difficult work: not only did they have to be careful to avoid nuJu patrols, but the artillery bombardment had really chewed up the streets, great craters pockmarking the roads and rubble from destroyed buildings making them nigh on impassable. Finally, though, they got to their objective, von Sternberg ordering his command post be set up in a bombed-out house at the end of the street, fifty metres away from the warehouse Heydrich called ‘the Portal’.
Something, though, told von Sternberg to be careful. The intelligence he had been given was that he was opposed by only sixteen terrorists – enemies of the ForthRight, each and every one of them – but the Portal looked formidable, with steel shutters covering its doors and windows. A cautious von Sternberg watched the place for almost an hour but in that time no one left or entered the building. It looked deserted.
In the end he offered his spyglass to his second-in-command and asked Major Jacob Smith for his opinion. ‘Don’t look much of a redoubt, General,’ was the major’s assessment after he’d spent a few minutes studying the building. ‘Way I reckon it, my boys’ll be inside in two shakes of a nanny goat’s tail.’
‘I trust that you are correct, Major, but we must not underestimate the duplicitous nature of these terrorists. It is possible that they have fortified the place in a manner that isn’t evident to casual examination.’
‘Could be, General, but then it could be empty. Maybe the bastards we’re hunting got totalled by the artillery, place looks beaten up enough. And we ain’t seen so much as a drape twitching: I’m thinking our birds have flown.’
‘We will see, Major, we will see. I suggest you come at the Portal front and rear.’
‘And what do you want us to do when we get inside?’
‘I want no prisoners, Major. I want you to kill everyone you find inside the house.’
‘Men and women?’
‘Especially the women. My intelligence is that the most venal of all the terrorists is a woman called Norma Williams. She, above all others, must be assassinated.’
1:25
The JAD
The Demi-Monde: 17th Day of Fall, 1005
As punishment for Lilith causing the Fall of Man, ABBA decreed that henceforward woeMen would be required to conduct themselves according to the precepts of subMISSiveness, that is, they must be at all times Mute, Invisible, Subservient and Sexually Modest. Only in this way could woeMen earn the forgiveness of ABBA. ABBA commands Men to be strict and resolute in their disciplining of woeMen who transgress subMISSiveness. As His Grace Mohammed Ahmed al-Mahdi says: ‘For WoeMen are like the timbers of a house: those that are diseased by rot or woodworm must be ripped out and burned, otherwise the house may fall, crushing those within.’
A Fool’s Guide to HimPerialism: Selim the Grim, Bust Your Conk Publications
NeoFight Private Billy Harrison stabbed a finger in the direction of the Flexi-Plexi. ‘Whoo-hee, we’ve got mail! I think the vultures are gathering, Sergeant. Like my girlfriend used to say, I’m getting a lot of movement down in the shrubbery.’
From where Norma was standing at the back of the Portal’s command centre it was difficult to see what Harrison was getting so excited about, but by rising up on tiptoes she managed to see over the boy’s shoulder and get a peek at the Flexi-Plexi. The screen showed the ghostly forms of the night-vision images being transmitted by the eyeSpy surveillanceBots guarding the perimeter of the Portal. Harrison was right: there was a lot of movement outside. As best Norma could make out, a hundred fighters were trying to creep up to the Portal. Very scary.
‘EyeSpies reckon five-five badniks to the front and five-zero to the rear,’ chortled Harrison, confirming Norma’s guess. ‘Scans show they’re only carrying small arms, though olfactory detectors register blasting gelatin, which indicates they’re IED-equipped. Preliminary scans identify them as SS StormTroopers. Looks like the UnFunnies are gonna come knocking big time.’
‘Sound general quarters, Harrison,’ Edelstein ordered, ‘and make sure the blast shutters are secure.’ Edelstein turned to Moynahan. ‘Whaddya think, Dean?’
‘I wouldn’t want the bastards getting too close. The Portal might be strong but it might be better not to find out how strong.’
‘Want me to make with the discouragement, Sergeant?’ asked Harrison.
Edelstein gave a nod. ‘Yeah, give ’em a blast.’
Norma found herself aghast at how casually Edelstein condemned these young men to death. It seemed to her that in war it was too easy to forget that the men they were fighting were not just soldiers but sons, lovers, brothers and fathers. They might be Dupes but they still had people who loved them. War seemed to make men stop thinking. Maybe Shelley was right … maybe the only way to wean men away from violence was by compulsion.
A grinning Harrison worked the joystick that controlled the miniguns covering the approaches to the building, the computer-sighted guns locking on the fighters sneaking through the darkness. A beep indicated that the computer had acquired a target and Harrison pressed the ‘Fire’ button. There was a chattering sound from outside the Portal and for a moment the Flexi-Plexi was bleached white by the flash of gunfire.
Whoever was making the assault, they were, in Norma’s opinion, very brave. Even while they were being decimated by the miniguns they still carried through their attack, racing up to the Portal’s doors, placing their charges and then retreating back into the night.
‘Prepare for explosion,’ Moynahan screamed as he dove to the floor, dragging Norma with him.
There was a loud whooomph. The walls shook and a dusting of plaster drifted down from the ceiling. ‘Report!’ Edelstein yelled to Harrison, w
ho was still sitting doggedly in front of his beloved Polly.
‘EyeSpies just checking the status of the doors. They seem okay …’ Harrison used a second joystick to manoeuvre the eye-Spies. ‘Some damage. Front surveillance is FUBAR – the IED totalled eyeSpies four through seven – but looks like the blast screens are uncompromised. Back wall took a beating: if the badniks get to do that again we’re gonna have a garden view a mite bigger than the one we’re currently enjoying.’ By way of emphasis Harrison had an eyeSpy hover around the wall checking the long cracks that radiated out from the doorway. It had been a big bomb. ‘Yeah, Sergeant, the back wall needs a lot of TLC.’
‘Trouble is, it’s gonna be getting more TNT than TLC,’ mused Edelstein. He switched on his chin mike. ‘Okay, ladies and gentlemen,’ he announced, ‘that was the bad guys’ opening offer, and it’s one their management will be keen on repeating. We’ve gotta keep them from setting off any more of their IEDs. Moynahan, round up the guys. It’s time to lock, load and exterminate.’
*
Comrade Major Jacob Smith stood paralysed by shock. He had just violated one of the tenets of good military leadership: he had underestimated the enemy and the consequence of that arrogance was that his StormTroopers had been cut to ribbons. It had been a fuck-up that would make von Sternberg a very unhappy general, and in Smith’s experience, the only way to make an unhappy general happy was to unfuck a fuck-up asap.
But he was perplexed about how to do that. The amount of blasting gelatin used in the bombs should have been more than enough to blow out the doors of the warehouse and to have stunned whoever was hiding inside in the process. Instead the doors remained standing – scorched and scarred, to be sure, but still standing – though the walls around them seemed to have bowed inwards and cracked. But if the resilience of the doors had come as a surprise, then the firepower these gangsters commanded had come as a profound shock. He had never heard of Gatling guns capable of such an intense rate of fire as those that had raked through the ranks of his StormTroopers, and even more worrying had been the accuracy with which these guns had been employed. The attack had taken place in the dark and in his experience, at night it was impossible for anyone to fire with such unerring precision.
This latter consideration convinced him that General von Sternberg’s intelligence that this was a terrorist stronghold was somewhat flawed. It wasn’t just a pack of power-crazed gangsters they were up against but something infinitely more formidable. Not that he would say as much to the general. Criticism of their superiors by subordinates was not encouraged in the SS. In fact, it was actively discouraged, generally by use of a firing squad.
Major Smith turned to his long-suffering lieutenant, a thin, nervous young man named Benedict Arnold. ‘Status of the Krupp six-pounders?’
‘Both are ready for deployment, Comrade Major.’
‘Excellent. I want them positioned ready to fire at the target in fifteen minutes.’
Arnold swallowed. ‘With all respect, Comrade Major, there ain’t no way we can get a clean line of sight either front or rear. Everything’s packed too tight around the warehouse. And if we get too close, them bastards inside are gonna burn us down with those Gatling guns of theirs.’
A good point. The warehouse where the terrorists were holed up was bounded on both sides by terraced houses, which made it difficult to manoeuvre a field gun without the bad guys seeing what was happening. Then Smith had a brainwave. ‘We’ll fire from inside one of the neighbouring houses, Lieutenant. That way we’ll be able to get real close and still be protected from counter-fire.’
*
Holder was enjoying himself. Watching the Hamites – and despite what Harrison said he was sure they were Hamites, God would never have sent white guys to kill them – being slaughtered had given him a hard-on like he always got when he thought about slaying God’s enemies. He just wished he could be allowed to use his M-29 to blast these pagans back to hell, but as his marksmanship was the worst in the platoon Massie had told him to stand down. So all he could do was loiter at the back of the Control Room and give thanks to Jesus every time he saw one of the Hamites fall. His prayers were cut short by a shout from Harrison.
‘Looks like the bad guys are getting busy, Sergeant,’ he yelled. ‘Best I can judge, they’re bringing up a coupla pieces of artillery and putting them in the front room of the house across the street. Polly identifies them as Krupp six-pounders. Kinda useful piece of kit. Coupla hits from those babies and we ain’t gonna have much use for air conditioning. This place is gonna have more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese.’
‘Okay, we’re just gonna have to get our retaliation in first.’ Edelstein looked around and his gaze settled on Massie. ‘Massie, get one of your guys and bring up a Serpent.’
Seeing everyone else was busy, Massie signalled to Holder, who followed his corporal down the stairs to the basement, where the Portal’s arsenal was housed.
‘What’s a serpent, Massie?’ asked a nervous Holder. He didn’t like the thought of being close to a serpent: the name smacked of the form Satan had taken when he had seduced Eve in the Garden of Eden.
‘It’s a shoulder-mounted multipurpose assault weapon. We’ll use it to send a rocket with a thermobaric warhead into the house the badniks are using. It’ll turn everything inside to cinders.’
‘With fire and with his sword the Lord will execute all men, and many will be those slain by the Lord.’
‘What’s that, Holder?’
‘Isaiah sixty-six, verse sixteen. It’s about how terrible is the wrath of God.’
‘No kidding. Well, I guess war ain’t for the faint-hearted.’ Massie brought them to a halt in front of a steel door. ‘You ever been down here before, Holder?’
‘No, I ain’t, Corporal, the arsenal’s off-limits to neoFights who ain’t completed Preliminary Training.’
‘I think with the badniks trying to blow us to hell and back we can bust a few rules.’ Massie drew a set of keys from his belt, used them to work the lock and then spun the wheel sticking out of the centre of the door. With a heave, he pulled the heavy door open.
The room Holder stepped into was huge and every square inch of wall space was taken up by metal racks loaded with munitions. There were boxes upon boxes of M-29 ammunition, grenades and rockets.
‘This is why Edelstein ain’t overly worried ’bout the badniks,’ explained Massie. ‘We got enough munitions down here to blast them from now until Armageddon.’ He nodded to a long metal box on one of the lower shelves. ‘You catch the end of that and help me lug it upstairs.’
Holder was amazed by how heavy the box was. It took the pair of them five minutes to haul it up the stairs and to position it beside the window that faced out on the house the Shades were occupying. What Massie pulled out of the metal box looked to Holder nothing more fancy than a long steel tube.
‘This, Holder, is a real motherfucker. We’re really gonna be frying tonight.’
Holder couldn’t stop himself. ‘Could I fire it, Massie? Please, Massie …’
Massie thought for a moment and then gave a shrug. ‘Yeah. Why not? Shit, even you couldn’t miss with a Serpent. Okay, Holder, I’m gonna teach you how to barbeque badniks. Get down on your knees and put this baby up on your shoulder.’
An eager Holder did as he was told and Massie helped him heft the Serpent into position, with the rest on his shoulder and his face pressed against the night sight. Satisfied, Massie slammed a rocket into the back of the tube. ‘Outstanding, Holder, you’re hot to trot. Just don’t touch that trigger until I give you the word.’ He switched on his neck mike. ‘Folks, we’re just going to light up the night so you don’t wanna be either in front or behind this little honey when she’s dealing her magic. Let’s keep the doors and your sphincters closed.’ Warning given, Massie settled down on his knees beside the blast screen that covered the front window of the house. ‘I’m gonna count to three, Holder, then open the screen. Once you got the house opposite in yo
ur cross hairs, pull the trigger. One … two … three!’
The ball of fire emitted from the rear of the weapon was fearsome, stripping the walls of the room back to the raw concrete. At a range of just fifty yards Holder couldn’t miss. The rocket smashed its way through the wall of the facing house, there was a muffled wooomph and then the house collapsed in a blistering ball of fire.
‘Five more bad guys have announced that they will be vacating their pension plan,’ chortled Harrison over the loudspeaker.
Holder smiled. God had shown him the way.
*
Von Sternberg sat, stupefied, staring at the warehouse his men had been attacking for the last eight hours. During that time his army of two hundred men had been decimated and he had lost his major and both of his field guns. What he had gained, he suspected, was a death sentence. The Great Leader had been very insistent that this girl, Norma Williams, be dealt with firmly and expeditiously, and the Great Leader was a believer in his instructions being carried out. That von Sternberg hadn’t been adequately apprised of the weaponry these terrorists had at their disposal would cut precious little ice. The Great Leader wasn’t known for his generosity of spirit.
In pondering a solution to this problem von Sternberg had toyed with lying, telling the Leader that the mission had been successfully carried out and the girl killed, but he dismissed this ruse out of hand. It seemed that the Leader had an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the terrorists’ hideout – how, von Sternberg had no idea – so there was a distinct probability that Heydrich would know he was lying. No, the only option was to come clean and to ask for reinforcements.