Canticum Tenebris (Wrath of the Old Gods Book 2)

by John Triptych

  “Twenty thousand? That’s past our service ceiling for this helicopter,” Seidel said.

  “Shut up! I know that,” Lange snapped at his designated gunner before keying his communications to ground control. “Tiger One to Base, what exactly are we looking at and how do you want us to proceed, over.”

  “Our meteorologist says it resembles a cumulonimbus cloud formation,” ground control said. “Characteristics are thundercloud and other atmospheric instability. Tiger One, can you use your radar on it?”

  “Affirmative, activating radar,” Lange said as he activated the Tiger’s Doppler radar system. The Tiger carried a microwave emitting system that bounced a signal off of a target to determine its velocity. Though normally used for ground attack, the radar also had meteorological uses.

  As the pilot started to use the helicopter’s sensors, the cloud seemed to have a life of its own as it started to turn darker grey. Seidel sensed something was wrong and he activated the helicopter’s Osiris sensor that was mounted on the Tiger’s mast, just above the quad rotors. The Osiris combined optical TV and thermal sensors along with a laser range finder.

  Both of them couldn’t believe the readings that came back on their cockpit displays.

  Lange could barely keep his hands from shaking. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

  Seidel blinked several times as he assumed he was dreaming at first. “My god, there is something in that cloud formation!”

  Back in the operations room, Colonel Wegener hard a hard time trying to piece together the flood of information that was being relayed from the Tiger gunship. He pointed to the staff meteorological officer. “What exactly does all this mean?”

  The staff officer kept fiddling with a hand calculator while nervously adjusting his thick glasses from time to time. “Colonel, this may sound unbelievable but based on those readings it looks like there is an object within that aerosol formation.”

  Captain Huff’s face turned white. “What do you mean? How big is it?”

  “From the radar signal, we can’t really be too sure since the system on the Tiger is designed for ground attack,” the staff officer said. “We may need a visual confirmation.”

  “Order Tiger One for a closer look,” Colonel Wegener said to the radio operator.

  “Affirmative,” Lange said as he banked the control stick to his left as the Tiger gunship flew slowly into the cloud cover. “Matthias, keep your eyes open, visibility is practically nothing in this cloud so let me know before we collide with whatever is in side of this.”

  Seidel chuckled. “You’ve finally called me by my first name! I guess we are making progress.”

  Lange said nothing as he used the radar indicator on the Osiris system to try and locate where the object was. As the helicopter climbed even higher, it entered what seemed to be a hollow pocket of clear air within the cloud itself. That was when they finally saw it.

  Both men gasped at the same time as the Tiger gunship flew underneath the object. It was a cigar-shaped craft made of rusted metal that seemed to float within the cloud itself. As the helicopter flew less than a hundred feet from its side, they could see what looked like riveted sheets of iron haphazardly stamped along its massive hull with dents as well as numerous patches all along the aircraft’s body.

  “T-Tiger One to Base,” Lange said nervously as he put the helicopter into a climb to see how high the object was. “We have contact with unknown object. It is some sort of aircraft made of metal. It’s quite massive, three times the length of an American aircraft carrier. Are you getting this, over?”

  Seidel kept blinking as if he was trying to wake up from a dream. “My god, it looks like an iron zeppelin!”

  The operations room was completely silent as everyone stared at the live video feed coming from the helicopter. The only noises came from the humming of the electronics systems and the intermittent squawking on the radios.

  Colonel Wegener broke the silence. “Can anyone tell me what that thing is?”

  “I-it looks like an all-metal version of the Hindenburg,” one of the radio operators said.

  “It’s much bigger than any airship ever put in the air,” Captain Huff said. “How can it stay up in the sky like that, it’s impossible!”

  As the helicopter’s camera panned around the unidentified aircraft, it focused on what looked like a painted symbol on the starboard side of its hull. The massive, black insignia resembled a sun wheel mosaic, with stylized, forked rays emanating from the innermost circle to the borders of the larger circle encompassing it.

  “Sir,” another radio operator said, “I’ve seen that symbol before!”

  Colonel Wegner stood over him. “Where?”

  The young man swallowed nervously before answering him. “I stayed at a youth hostel a few years ago before I joined the army, and I saw that very symbol in the castle where I stayed in. It’s called the sun wheel and it’s from Wewelsburg castle.”

  Colonel Wegener placed a hand on his chin. “Wewelsburg, why does that name seem familiar to me?”

  Deep in the bowels of the airship, its mystical engines were humming to life as the craft lurched forward, ever closer to the capital city of Berlin. Near the top central portion of the hull was the vessel’s bridge, it was composed of a number of platforms that were connected by metallic walkways and surrounded by swirling, mystical energy. In a number of the platforms were machinery with all sorts of levers, switches, and gauges with which to control the airship. Manning the bridge was a crew of impish-sized creatures, they resembled short humanoids but their skin color was that of polished obsidian and their hair and beards seemed silvery white. These strange, faerie-like beings wore goggles over their eyes and would continually adjust the levers and switches to make sure that the vessel was in working order.

  Helmut Krause glanced around nervously as a number of the creatures darted to and from the upper platform where he was standing at. He kept one hand underneath his robes, ready to whip out his pistol in case these Dokkalfar would dare to try and push him off the platform and into the mystical energies that surrounded them.

  Kurt Orlok was standing right beside his henchman as he looked at a gigantic glass ball that was seemingly suspended in front of them. “Stop fiddling with your gun, you fool.”

  Helmut nodded meekly as he took out his hands and clasped them in front of his body. “I-I’m sorry, Grand Magus. It’s just that these creatures make me nervous to be around them.”

  Orlok sneered at his servant’s cowardice. “They are operating this airship and that means that they are important to us so, you will either tolerate them or you will remove yourself from the bridge.”

  “Y-Yes, Grand Magus.”

  “Now be quiet. We shall begin the next phase,” Orlok said as he raised his palm towards the crystal globe. Almost immediately, the ball began to glow and it soon projected a three-dimensional image of the outside within the confines of its circle, like some sort of mystical video feed. As the images of the outside of the ship’s hull were being shown in real time, both men quickly noticed the small helicopter that was flying around the airship.

  Helmut pointed at the Tiger gunship that was observing them. “Magus, look!”

  “Yes, I see it,” Orlok said. “It is of no consequence.”

  Helmut giggled. He knew what was going to happen next.

  Orlok raised his arms. “Black elves, now is the time for vengeance! Prepare the lightning cannons for ground bombardment!”

  As the Tiger gunship slowly circled the giant airship, both men noticed that a number of towering metallic spikes began to protrude from the lower sides of the craft’s hull. The bottom portion of the ship now looked like a porcupine.

  “Tiger One to Base,” Lange said into his helmet microphone. “Something is happening! The unidentified airship has begun to deploy what we think are weapons!”

  The helicopter pilot had barely said those words when massive bolts of lightning began to emanate from the protrudin
g spiked towers and connected to the ground below. Whole sections of the city were soon bombarded by electrically charged, superheated plasma. Fires began to quickly rage as whole buildings collapsed from the onslaught. The country had not been bombarded like this since World War Two.

  The operations room was now in a panic. A representative from the chancellor’s staff had noticed what had been going on and immediately started to openly complain and condemn Colonel Wegener, accusing him of incompetence for not warning them about the unidentified aircraft. Captain Huff had to draw his pistol to force the man to leave the room.

  “Prepare orders for general evacuation of the city,” Colonel Wegener said to his radio operators before turning to look at Captain Huff. “What kind of air defenses do we have available?”

  “We have Stinger missiles which are man portable anti-aircraft weapons. But those things are designed to take out fighter aircraft, not a flying metal battleship like that thing up there,” Captain Huff said glumly.

  Colonel Wegener looked on helplessly as the live video feed from the helicopter showed that the craft was moving closer to the center of the city. “There must be a weapon we could use against that thing!”

  Captain Huff thought about it for a brief moment. “Colonel, we have an MLRS battery from the First Panzer Division nearby. Although they are used for ground artillery, we could just have them aim at the cloud. No guarantee we could hit anything with it though.”

  Colonel Wegener nodded. The M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System was a battery of rockets mounted on a vehicle. They were meant for ground support and there would be no guidance for the rockets at all. “Do what you can, and if we have any sort of anti-aircraft gun available, then have them shoot at that damned cloud too.” he said.

  The two men in the Tiger gunship watched helplessly as the airship continued its path of destruction as whole districts of the city disappeared in fire and explosions. The helicopter’s electronic systems were going haywire from the nearby discharges of superheated lightning bolts emanating from the enemy airship. Both men knew the rockets they had mounted on their pods would do little damage to the flying battleship floating in the air just to the side of them.

  Lange keyed in his microphone for cockpit voice only. “Matthias, what is our weapon load out?”

  Seidel smiled underneath his helmet. He knew what his pilot was going to do. “We have four Stinger missiles and about eight available PARS,” he said. The AIM-92 Stinger missiles were for air-to-air use while the PARS 3 LR were primarily for anti-tank ground use. None of the weapons they had in the helicopter were designed for use against the craft that they were facing at that moment. There was only one way that they could conceivably damage such a craft, but it would also be the end of them.

  “Do your magic, Matthias,” Lange said softly. “Then I will do the last bit.”

  Seidel made a loud whoop just before he started arming the weapons. “For Germany, and for all mankind!”

  Orlok and Helmut had their eyes glued to the giant crystal ball in front of them. They could see entire neighborhoods on fire. Smoke and ash had obscured many parts of the city. Half of Berlin was already gone.

  The Grand Magus of the Black Sun Temple had an aloof visage as he surveyed the damage. “How soon before we need to recharge the energy sphere?”

  Helmut looked at a dial attached to the side of the platform. “We have enough power for another dozen strikes before we have to return to base, Grand Magus.”

  “Very well, let us fire a single salvo at the city center and then we prepare a portal to-”

  But Orlok’s words were interrupted when both of them heard clanging noises coming from the far side of the hull. Both men quickly scanned the ship using the gigantic scrying ball. Within seconds, they both saw that the helicopter that had been circling around them had fired all of its rockets and hit the airship.

  Orlok scoffed. “Annoying little gnat.”

  Then the Tiger gunship did something unexpected after it had expended all of its missiles. It quickly banked right and accelerated before colliding nose first into one of the lower lightning gun batteries. There was a brief explosion as the whole bridge shuddered upon the impact.

  Orlok was enraged. “Damage control!”

  Helmut continued to read the gauges on the control panel. “It looks like two of the lightning gun batteries were slightly damaged.”

  Orlok rolled his eyes. “If that is the best that the German military can do, then this shall-”

  The whole ship shuddered once again as multiple grinding and banging noises were heard coming from the outer hull. As Orlok and Helmut looked on, a half-dozen rockets that were seemingly fired from the ground had impacted along the base of the ship’s fuselage. Based on the smoke contrails that had passed through the cloud cover surrounding the airship, dozens more had narrowly missed hitting the hull.

  “Looks like rocket artillery from the ground, firing blindly at us,” Helmut said. “It must have been by sheer luck that some of those things actually hit.”

  Orlok gripped the horizontal iron bars that ringed the main platform. The airship was so huge that even incidental attacks were able to score some hits on them. He needed to tell the builders to reinforce the hull against subsidiary hits when they returned to base. “How far are we from the center of Berlin?”

  “We’re just over Tempelhofer Park, coming up to Kreuzberg,” Helmut said. “Perhaps another ten minutes.”

  “I don’t want to wait any longer, order the remaining batteries to fire before we withdraw to recharge our guns and assess the damage they did to our ship,” Orlok said.

  “At once, Grand Magus.”

  Colonel Wegener had gotten out of the vehicle as soon as it stopped and began surveying the damaged street. Whole buildings had collapsed as their water pipes burst when the heat transformed the liquid into steam, Internal electrical cabling had caught fire and erupted in less than a second as well. The vast currents of electrified plasma had torn through the buildings and cracked their foundations, causing quite a number of them to collapse. The people that were inside of them fared worst of all. Although the statistics said that roughly ninety percent of human beings survived lightning strikes, these attacks were unique since the bodies that were lying in the rubble had apparently exploded from the inside out; the intense electrical surge heated their blood to the point that it had turned instantaneously into steam, shattering their bodies as their internal organs gave way.

  Captain Huff stood next to his commander as he listened to a walkie-talkie that he was holding. “Several of our technicians estimate the strength of those lightning bolts surpassed any known natural discharge to date. They believe that the electrical currents that struck the city to be over two billion volts each. And there must have been at least several thousand of these strikes.”

  “Any word on the chancellor?”

  “They were able to evacuate the Reichstag building just when the attack started. He is safe along with his staff. We recommended that they join the rest of the government in Hannover but he is insisting that he will not leave Berlin. We may not be so lucky next time.”

  Colonel Wegener merely nodded. The cloud had moved northwards towards the ice-covered Baltic Sea before dissipating and there was no sign of the airship that was hidden inside of it.

  17. Crucible

  Jericho Crossing

  The border was in complete chaos. Tens of thousands of people were fleeing after the battle of Amman, but the IDF refused to allow the refugees to bring their vehicles into the Israeli border. As a consequence, there were thousands of abandoned cars strewn all along the border crossing. The town of Jericho itself was firmly under Israeli control. A pair of IDF Cobra gunships, a type of helicopter that was hastily taken out of mothballs and pressed back into service, were patrolling the skies right at the crossing. Long lines of refugees stood just outside of the newly- built checkpoint as they waited their turn to be processed.

  David Zim cursed as the
Granite reconnaissance vehicle that he was driving could not find a clear lane as it maneuvered around the abandoned cars. He honked the car horn as he drove through a line of refugees, many of them hastily backing away with a dejected sense of desperation. Along with the three remaining men on his team, he still wore the Bedouin robe to hide their true professions as Mossad intelligence agents. The battle of Amman was a disaster since the King of Jordan had been killed while fighting with his remaining troops in the defense of the city. The surviving IDF expeditionary forces in Jordan had slowly been withdrawing back to their borders when it was deemed that the Golem Brigade was not yet ready to be redeployed. With the death of its king and the destruction of its capital, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan had virtually ceased to exist. Israel now stood alone as it prepared for the coming onslaught.

  The six-month old baby that the woman was carrying in the backseat started to cry. David briefly glanced back at the two before concentrating on getting the vehicle past the last pile of idle cars as the crossing was less than a mile away now. His radio operator was sitting in the front seat of the car while his two other men shared the backseat with the woman.

  David finally found a lane in which he could drive the vehicle through as an IDF truck pushed its way past a pileup of two cars and he quickly followed. “We’re almost at the border, Leyla,” he said to the woman at the backseat in perfect Arabic. “I’m sure we could find some formula for your daughter once we get into Jericho proper.”

  Leyla smiled at him. “Thank you for everything, David. My husband would be honored that you’re doing this,” she said softly. Her husband was Major Ahmed Natsheh and he had been friends with David for a number of years. David had first met her future husband when he was a Jordanian exchange student in Ben-Gurion University and they had been friends ever since. Major Natsheh’s final words to him were to ask if David could ensure that his wife and infant daughter would make it to safety if anything happened to him. David had promised him that he would. Major Natsheh’s words had come to fruition when he fought and died by the King’s side as the Babylonian forces broke through Amman’s inner defenses. David’s team had been serving as an observation unit, and they were one of the last Israeli units to pull out just as the demonic forces overran the city.