Armageddon??

by Stuart Slade

  Neither flinched.

  Free Hell, Swamps by the River Styx, Sixth Rings of Hell

  In the distance, the Russian artillery rumbled, sounding for all the world like far-off thunder. Jade Kim could only imagine what it was like in the firing zone, or the hell on the receiving end of the steel rain. Once, she’d been near a single large howitzer firing; the sound had knocked the breath out of her and deafened her even through the headphones. And knowing the Russians, they’d lined up their artillery wheel-to-wheel for fifty miles. She wouldn’t want to be in that big baldrick army assaulting the Russian positions right now.

  Kim brought her mind back to Free Hell. Initial estimates put the number of people imprisoned in Free Hell at a bit over one hundred thousand. The sheer number still surprised Kim on a gut level when she thought about it, so she constantly had to remind herself that there were ninety billion people in the Pit alone, and the surveying flights had shown that Free Hell controlled little more than a mere millionth of the surface area of the Pit. Spread out before her was a rudimentary map of Free Hell. She was in between appointments in her command tent, contemplating the area they controlled. Marked were the major rock outcroppings, particularly dry and wet places, the courses of streams and rivers, baldrick roads, and known human and baldrick positions. She had also penciled in the locations of canals-in-progress and the small, growing city that housed all of the freed humans.

  Nearly one-third of Free Hell’s border lay along the Styx. Along the other two-thirds, Tarrant had placed extensive minefields and regularly spaced small fortifications, generally taking advantage of particularly wet areas and clusters of boulders thrusting up through the mud. These had repulsed several weak baldrick assaults in the last few days; they’d taken no casualties, while the baldricks had gone down heavily.

  But there wasn’t enough information about the main baldrick forces. The noted baldrick strongholds were vague, and there were all too many question marks. She wasn’t sure how many reinforcements had arrived, or even just how many baldricks had been under Asmodeus’ command in the first place. This lack of knowledge was disturbing.

  Kim frowned. There were several token emplacements along the shore of the Styx, one monitoring the destroyed bridge and the others spaced evenly across the banks. The defenses there were too thin; Tarrant was relying too much on the Styx as a natural barrier. She made a note to speak to him about that later.

  McInery stuck his head in the tent. “Ell-tee?”

  “Yeah, Mac?”

  “Rahab is here with three men to see you.”

  Ah, yes. Rahab and Julius Caesar. “Who are they?”

  “One identifies himself as Julius Caesar and says the other two are his bodyguards.”

  “Please show them in.” She made sure that her pistol was loose in its holster, just in case, and she’d have Mac here as well if things went sour. She had no intention of that happening, however.

  The tent flap opened, and Rahab stepped through. She was followed by Caesar, a short man with thin, black hair and a wide mouth. After Caesar were two men. One was large and very muscular, with a forward-thrust head and short hair; the other was shorter, with curly blond hair and jutting eyebrows. Both were wearing scabbards, but no swords. Mac was on top of his game.

  Rahab spoke first. “May I introduce Gaius Julius Caesar. With him are Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus, his bodyguards.”

  Kim nodded. “Thank you, Rahab.” She rose and extended her hand. “I am Lieutenant (deceased) Jade Kim, commander of the People’s Front for the Liberation of Hell and administrator of Free Hell.” Caesar passed her hand and clasped her wrist. After an instant, she grabbed his wrist. His grip was firm, and he squeezed for an instant before releasing.

  “Please, take a seat.” Kim gestured to the chair in front of her desk and three others along the wall.

  Licking her lips, Rahab said, “If you don’t mind, I’ll be going.”

  “Suit yourself,” said Kim. Caesar, meanwhile, sat at the chair before her ‘desk’.

  Kim looked inquiringly at Pullo and Vorenus. Vorenus shook his head and spoke for both of them. “If you don’t mind, ma’am, we’ll be standing.” Kim nodded. In the back of the tent, Mac stood unobtrusively.

  “So, Mr Caesar, how can I help you?”

  Caesar smiled. “Please, call me Gaius. I’m here to offer you my help.”

  Kim raised an eyebrow. Caesar continued, “I know that you’re surprised at the possibility I can help you. I’ve taken your man Dawkins into my protection. In conversing with him, I’ve learned much about what has happened since I arrived here in Hell, especially in the last few centuries. You have weapons that are far beyond anything I, or any Roman, could have dreamed of.”

  Kim nodded her assent. “This is true.”

  Caesar leaned forward. “But,” he continued, “in establishing yourself here in Hell, you do lack one thing.”

  “And what is that, Gaius?”

  “Manpower.” Caesar smiled. “Every year, since I arrived, I have freed men. They have gone on to free men, who have gone on to free men. I have created a network to shuttle these people to safety in areas the demons do not regularly patrol. There are small groups hiding out in the interiors of each ring, ready to act at my command.”

  “And what good are they to me,” Kim asked, “if they don’t know how to use my weapons?”

  “They can be trained. So this is what I propose, Lieutenant Kim. If you equip and train my army, it will be ready to rise up against the demons all at once, throughout Hell, at your command.”

  “How many men do you have?”

  “At this point, my people number over two and a half millions.” Kim nodded, carefully concealing her surprise.

  “Thank you, Gaius. We will be in contact. Can I put you and your men up here for the night?”

  “We would be pleased to accept your offer, Lt. Kim.”

  “Mac, would you find a place for them to stay over the night?” asked Kim. McInery nodded. “Thank you.”

  As Caesar and his two bodyguards exited the tent, Kim turned back to the map, her mind churning. After a moment, it began to settle. First things first – now to talk to Tarrant about the Styx line of defenses.

  Bank of the River Styx, Fifth Ring of Hell

  Xisorixus had been a nobody. During the last few millennia, however, he’d risen to his own fiefdom at a breakneck pace. Through a combination of military prowess, conniving wit, and sheer raw courage mixed with an outrageous level of bluff, he now commanded a large, prime piece of territory in the Sixth ring. With the death of Asmodeus and so many lords under him, Xisorixus was the senior demon in the legions remaining near the human-infested territory.

  Although he was busy consolidating his control over the lands of those minor lords who had died – his holdings had tripled since Asmodeus had been killed – Xisorixus was also consolidating his command and beginning to lay plans for the feat that would cement his place in Hell’s hierarchy for all eternity. Xisorixus was going to utterly destroy the humans who had freed themselves.

  Through the past few days, he had been feinting at the humans, testing their defenses. They were thorough on the sides of the human-occupied territories facing away from the Styx; Xisorixus harbored few illusions about the ability of his forces to storm through the magical defenses and emerge in enough strength to wipe out the humans on the other side.

  But his eyes and ears had been busy gathering information. The overwhelming human defensive magic was indiscriminate, he’d learned; one of his spies had watched human mages preparing the spells, and one of the spells had accidentally exploded, leaving the human a bloody mess, screaming and writhing in pain on the ground. This had given rise to the beginnings of an idea: if he could somehow get across the Styx and gain the upper hand against the humans, he could drive them back and trap them against their own magic.

  To make the situation even better, Xisorixus had learned that only a few humans watched the Styx. His demons were no
w able to show themselves in full daylight without earning the slightest magery in retaliation, save in a few places. Once, he’d tried restarting construction on the demolished bridge, but the humans had unleashed their magic on him and he’d lost nearly two hundred good demons.

  He emerged from his tent into the bustle of Dis itself. This was the one place he could be assured that no humans would spy on him, so he’d asked permission to bring his legions here. Satan had absentmindedly agreed – rather, one of the lower bureaucrats in the government had agreed – so his five remaining augmented legions had requisitioned, and were occupying, these few blocks of city. He’d attached to each legion a fifth-legion of flies, from the sizeable air force he had accumulated in his rise to power.

  Today was the day he was going to test his plan. In the courtyard of his headquarters, by his tethered wyvern, were ten curious wooden bundles. Standing by them were three wyverns, to which the bundles would be attached for transmission. His air guard snapped to attention as he exited, and fell into escort around him. They would follow him through the air and to the testing grounds, at a wide, shallow part of the Styx between the human area and the waterfalls. There, a cohort of his troops awaited him. Xisorixus smiled. The floating bridges would almost certainly work, and from there it would only be a few days before he joined the battle.

  Chapter Sixty Two

  Incident Command Centre, Sheffield Airport, United Kingdom.

  “I think me may have a little bit of a problem, Sir.” Colonel Mace said as he stepped back into the command trailer. “I’ve just been speaking to the Chief Constable and it seems that two of his officers along with their vehicle have gone missing.”

  “The situation in the city is pretty confused, Colonel.” Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart replied. “I’ve been led to believe that the network that supports the emergency service’s radio network has been damaged, so it is hardly a surprise that officers may be out of contact.”

  “Ordinarily that fact would not worry me, or the Chief Constable, Sir, but witnesses some of our men rescued in the city a short time ago have reported that the officers ejected them from their vehicle and placed a baldrick inside. Now no baldrick prisoner has been reported as being taken so…”

  “Something was badly wrong.” Lethbridge-Stewart finished the sentence. “Intelligence does say that some baldricks may be able to exercise mind control by injecting their victims with some kind of poison. We’re overstretched as we are, but we better find this baldrick before it does any more damage. Put together a unit to go and hunt it down, I’ll ask Midlands Command if they can send us some Paras, or Marines to act as a hunter unit if necessary.”

  “I’ll command it myself if I have to, Sir.” Mace replied.

  The Brigadier turned slightly as Keavy McManus stepped into the Command Trailer.

  “Ah, Doctor, how can I help?”

  “It’s just Mrs McManus, Brigadier.” The vulcanologist corrected him.

  “My apologies, Mrs McManus, a habit from a previous posting.” Lethbridge-Stewart replied. “How is your survey team getting on?”

  “Apology accepted, Brigadier.

  “I just wanted to thank you for your assistance. I understand that you are very busy with rescue and recovery duties, not to mention Law and Order and providing a cordon, yet you have managed to spare manpower and vehicles to escort my team.” Keavy McManus told him.

  “Always nice to be appreciated by the best in their business, Mrs McManus.” The Brigadier told her. “Your work is extremely important; we need to learn how to deal with events like this. I Think you must have heard the news from Detroit, we can be sure that it won’t be the last attack of its kind.”

  Western Sheffield, United Kingdom. The convoy transporting the survey team halted as it prepared to take more readings of the lava that covered much of the city. The army had managed to provide a rather eclectic group of vehicles from those it had assembled at the airport. Leading the group was a Land Rover SNATCH 2, carrying some of the RMP escort, which was followed by two Saxon Patrol APCs, which carried the personnel and equipment of the survey team; various aerials and sensors now poked out from the roof hatches; and a Fuchs Reconnaissance Vehicle, its NBC sensors adapted to detect the various products the portal was spewing out, the rest of the RMP escort was carried in a Vector armored patrol vehicle. Bringing up the rear was a Trojan Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers, the engineer variant of the Challenger 2. It was there in case anything large and heavy needed to be moved out of the way, it also had a GPMG mounted in a Remote Weapons Station which might come in handy.

  Staff Sergeant John Mann, Royal Military Police, was not in a particularly good mood as he watched the survey team, who were all wearing protective suits, dismount from the two Saxons and start taking readings, assisted by some members of 1st Royal Tank Regiment, who manned the Fuchs, from the Land Rover. Mann was a senior member of a Special Investigation Branch (known in the RMP as the ‘Branch’, and in the wider army as ‘Shit In Bulk’) team based in Midlands Command and felt that he should not be here; his job was to catch criminals in uniform, not shepherd civilian scientists. However he had been available and many of his team had been dispatched to the city to reinforce members of a Territorial Army Provost Company. What Mann had seen today reminded him of something out of a disaster movie, or one of those nuclear war docudramas that had been popular during the Cold War. One image that had stayed with him was the sight of a Traffic Warden cradling an old SLR as he guarded a group of looters Were they really so short of manpower that somebody had decided to arm the Traffic Wardens?

  Mann put on his mask and stepped out of the Land Rover, intending to check on the troops under his command. He trusted his fellow SIB and RMP soldiers, but he was not sure about the men from the Military Provost Guard Service sent to bolster the escort. Although they were exclusively recruited from ex-servicemen they usually spent their days guarding base entrances and patrolling perimeters. He leaned back into the Land Rover and grabbed his L1A2 battle rifle; the TA and MPGS members of the escort still had L85A2s, L86A2s and Light Machine Guns, all 5.56mm weapons, but as regulars Mann and his team were entitled to the latest small arms.

  “Anything interesting happening, Sergeant?” Mann asked one of the senior NCOs manning the defensive perimeter.

  “Not a thing, Staff, apart from some poor moggy that must have been killed by something.” Sergeant Jo McDonagh, a fellow member of Mann’s investigation team, replied.

  “I reckon everyone must have self-evacuated out of here long ago; it was a pretty well to do area so I hope nobody has been stupid enough to… Hey you three! Yes you, halt!”

  Sergeant McDonagh flinched as Mann suddenly yelled at full volume. His was a voice feared throughout the whole of the SIB. She spotted that he was yelling at three youths who had emerged from a house just beyond the perimeter carrying some plastic bags, they looked over their shoulders, saw the soldiers and started to run.

  Mann and McDonagh brought up their rifles, as did the other Red Caps present.

  “Halt, or I fire!” Mann yelled.

  The Emergency Powers only required that a member of the Security Forces give one warning before opening fire, and in extreme circumstances they could fire without a warning. Mann technically obeyed the instructions, his shot coincided with the implied exclamation mark at the end of his shout. The .338 Lapua Magnum round inflicted terrible damage on the body of the looter. He was dead before he hit the ground. The other two stopped in their tracks, dropped what they were carrying and put their hands up. Mann strode up to them and delivered a swift smack in the small of their backs with his rifle butt, knocking them to the ground.

  “Do you two idiots know the penalty for looting then?” He snarled to the two terrified survivors. “Search and cuff them.” He ordered the other Redcaps. “Sergeant, search the house in case there are more of them in there.”

  “Yes, Staff.” McDonagh replied.

  Sergeant McDonagh led half a dozen Redcaps into
the semi-detached house. With the power cut it was eerily quiet, though there was the distant sound of dripping water.

  “Clear!” Each soldier shouted as he, or she cleared a room.

  “There’s a door here, Sarge.” A corporal said to McDonagh. “I reckon it leads to a basement.”

  “Right, Corporal, you go first. I’ll cover you.” McDonagh ordered, turning on the torch attached to her L1A2.

  The Corporal kicked in the door.

  “On the floor! Nobody move!” He yelled as he charged through the door, Sergeant McDonagh close behind him.

  He swung his L85A2 around the room until the torch tapped to it illuminated the body of a middle aged man. His head had been caved in.

  “Oh shit!” The Corporal breathed.

  “Maybe later, Corporal, but now I think we’d better tell the Staff about this.”

  “There were three bodies, Staff.” McDonagh said to Mann a few minutes later. “They’d been sheltering in their basement, who knows why. There was a middle aged man and woman, I presume husband and wife; they’d both had their heads caved in; and an old woman, looked like she was in her late seventies, or early eighties.”

  “Had they killed her too?” Mann asked, the disgust dripping from his voice.

  “There were no signs of violence, it looks like a heart attack.”

  Mann kicked the nearest of the two looters savagely, hard enough to break his ribs.

  “Is this your handiwork, you scum?”

  “No, they were already like that when we got here!” The looter with broken ribs said through clenched teeth.