by Stuart Slade
“It were ‘im!” The other looter protested, indicating the dead man.
“Get these two pricks out of here before I do something they regret.” Mann snarled at the other Redcaps, before storming back to his wagon.
“You heard the Staff, get them moving.” McDonagh ordered. “And don’t forget to bring the evidence.”
One of the MPGS soldiers searched through the plastic carriers. Rather surprisingly one of them was filled with food rather than valuables.
“There’s a packet of crisps in here.” He said to his ‘oppo’, holding up the bag.
“What flavour?”
“Prawn cocktail.”
“They would be, I hate prawn cocktail.
“We’d better get a shift on before Mr Nasty notices we’re dawdling.”
“Did you get their names?” Mann asked McDonagh a few minutes later. “The stiffs, I mean?”
The sergeant reached into the pocket of her DPM jacket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.
“I found a gas bill by the door, it seems that they were a Mr and Mrs Beckett.”
“Well hopefully that should help us to locate next of kin; as for the bodies, we’ll just have to let command deal with that.”
Sixth ring of Hell. Corporal Louis Hoffman paused as he spotted some movement ahead, dropping to the ground and signalling the rest of the patrol to halt and take cover. In this part of Hell is was probably a baldrick patrol and while the patrol from Air Troop, G Squadron, 22 SAS, had enough strength and firepower to deal with any isolated group of baldricks they did not want to draw attention to themselves, at least not yet anyway. Hoffman carefully swung his L1A2 battle rifle from left to right, scanning the ground ahead. Neither his eyes, nor the Combined Weapon Sight fitted to the rifle revealed anything.
“What is it, Louie?” The voice of Captain Patrick Fleming, the patrol commander, said in his headset.
“Thought I saw some movement ahead, Boss.” Hoffman replied. “I’m not sure now.”
“Seeing things now are we, Louie?” The voice of Staff Sergeant Henry ‘Don’t call me Henno’ Garvie remarked. “Better safe than sorry, though.
“Dave, go forward and support Louis. See if you can spot what’s up there.”
Now that the forces of Satan were on the back-foot, Hell was crawling with human Special Forces, and Britain was one of the major providers. Patrols from both the Special Air Service and Special Boat Service were roaming the areas of Hell assigned to the UK, gathering intelligence and rescuing inmates where ever possible. The Special Reconnaissance Regiment had established a number of Observation Posts from where they could watch the comings and goings of Hell’s military forces, and direct attacks when necessary, while the Paras, Marines and RAF Regiment Gunners of the UK Special Forces Support Group were on stand-by to support any patrol that got into difficulty, or add extra muscle to any attack.
The various UK Special Forces patrols had already managed to rescue quite a few former military personnel, who had been marked down as a priority for recovery. These deceased personnel had then been transferred via portal to a safe area near the Hellmouth for rehabilitation. Encouragingly many, mainly amongst the more recently arrived, had volunteered their services.
The Staff & Personnel Support Branch of the Adjutant General’s Corps now had the headache of working out the back-pay and allowances of these deceased soldiers. There had also been suggestions that it might be possible to use some of these troops as battle casualty replacements for units deployed in Hell, or to form new units. That didn’t solve the legal problems of course, after all, how does one pay the dead for their services and what were the limits on service terms? Technically, those who were being found in Hell hadn’t yet fulfilled the terms of their enlistments and that raised even more legal questions. It was reputed that several members of the Pay Corps and Legal branch had already gone mad trying to think out the implications.
Corporal David ‘Dave’ Woolston carefully made his way forward. He was a large, powerfully built man of Afro-Caribbean extraction, and thus was one of the two members of the patrol carrying a GPMG, in this case the new L7A3 variant, which was chambered for the same 8.58mm round as the L1A2.
“Spread out, but be careful, we don’t know what we are dealing with.” Captain Fleming ordered.
“Wait, I see something.” The patrol’s sniper, Corporal Finn Younger reported.
Corporal Younger normally carried an L115A1 Long Range Rifle, though for the deployment to Hell he had decided to draw an AW50F from the armory at Credenhill. It gave him an extra reach and the 12.7x99 Raufoss Mk.211 rounds it fired were extremely powerful.
Younger lined his weapon up on the target, preparing to fire if necessary. However to his surprise the figure in the sight resolved itself into a human shape rather than a baldrick. Even more surprisingly the figure seemed to be moving tactically rather than in the way a civilian might cross a piece of terrain.
“I think we have possible friendly forces ahead, Boss.” Younger reported.
“Right everybody, carefully stand-up, its time to reveal ourselves.” Fleming ordered. “Staff, Fin, Dave, Pete, you stay down for now to give us covering fire.”
The rest of the patrol slowly got to their feet to discover that they were being observed by two figures that were definitely human.
“Who are you?” Captain Fleming called out.
“Sergeant Tony Stevens, 2nd Royal Irish Rangers! Who are you?”
“Captain Patrick Fleming, Special…I mean 1st Scots Guards.”
“You’re one of THEM, eh, Sir.” The filthy bedraggled figure replied. “Don’t worry I have heard of you, I died back in 1978, an IRA sniper.
“This is Corporal James Beveridge of the Royal Engineers.”
The other figure nodded.
“If you want any tunnelling done, I’m your man.” The engineer said. “Still that’s what did for me in the end, bloody Bosche heard us coming and blew up ma tunnel.”
“How many of there are you?” Fleming asked.
“About twenty in this group, Sir.” Sergeant Stevens asked. “I think you’d better come and meet our Senior Officer.”
Sergeant Stevens led Captain Fleming and Staff Sergeant Garvie into a poorly lit cave. They could see that someone was sitting at the far end hunched over what looked like a table, though it was probably a large stone. Stevens saluted smartly and introduced the new comers.
“Sir, this is Captain Fleming and Staff Sergeant Garvie of 22 SAS.”
“Which squadron?” The Senior Officer asked.
“G Squadron, Sir, Air Troop.” Fleming replied, saying ‘sir’ because the voice sounded like someone senior in rank to him.
The figure, a veritable giant of a man at just less than two meters in height, stood up and stepped forward into the light, Fleming and Garvie recognised him at one. After all they had seen his photograph often enough.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Captain Fleming, Staff Sergeant Garvie.” Colonel Sir Archibald David Stirling, formerly of the Scots Guards, 8 Commando and Special Air Service, said stretching out his right hand. “I take it you have orders to extract groups like mine?”
Fleming and Garvie had never shaken hand with a corpse, or was he a soul, and it was a rather strange experience, yet Stirling seemed as alive as they did.
“Yes, Sir I have. Our orders are to gather intelligence and evacuate as many military personnel as possible.
“Can I ask how many of there are you?”
“Twenty three, some British, there are a few Aussies, Kiwis, Canadians, Indians, South Africans and what not. We’ve got a Zulu here who died at Rorke’s Drift and his stories are going to change the history books. I think I can speak for everyone but we are pretty keen to do what we can to liberate this place, just give us the tools. I for one have been waiting for eighteen years to give something back to the demons.”
“We’ll get evacuation laid on as soon as we can, Sir.” Fleming said. “Do you know of
any other groups near-by?”
“There are small groups scattered all over now. Mostly, we’ve been keeping our heads down and trying not to get found but the war’s changed all that. You know there’s a liberated area up in the Fifth Circle?”
“Free Hell Sir. Run by the People’s Front For The Liberation of Hell. That’s mostly a Yank operation but we’re all involved in getting people out.”
“Well, Yanks or not, you better get word to them, they’re in trouble. Our OPs have spotted a big force of demons converging on the river bank opposite the area they’re holding. About 30,000 foot sloggers and 1,300 fliers. No cavalry that we can see.”
Fleming and Garvie exchanged glances. Even with the influx of deceased volunteers and the support of special forces units from Earth, a force over 30,000 baldricks was too much even for modern weaponry to cope with. If that attack got launched, it was going to overrun Free Hell. “Thank you Sir. We’ll get word straight through and see what can be done.”
DIMO(N) Transit Facility, Fort Bragg
“Colonel Aidan Dempsey, Sir, a pleasure to meet you.” The current commander of 22 SAS said once Stirling, who was the last man through, stepped into the transit facility.
“Likewise, Colonel.” Dempsey’s predecessor replied. “I can’t say I feel too clever though.”
“I’m afraid you can’t stay here too long, Sir. We haven’t solved the problem of bring people back from Hell to Earth yet, but we’ll transfer you and your men to an area of Hell we control. I understand you wish to offer us your services?”
“Of course, Colonel. Both myself and my men have been waiting for revenge for a long time, and I think we can help you locate more groups like us. Just give us the appropriate equipment and training and we’ll do the job.”
“It will be a pleasure to have you in this fight, Sir. If you’ll just follow me I’ll take you to Camp Brimstone.”
Chapter Sixty Three
Third Platoon, Second Company, Third Battalion, Fourth Regiment, 247th Motor Rifle Division, Phlegethon River Front, Hell
The BMP-2 was shut down, its hatches sealed and firmly dogged in place, overpressure system on to prevent harpy gas and flame leaking in from outside. Bullets were rattling off the armor plate as the three MICVs machine-gunned each other in an attempt to drive off the hordes of harpies that were swarming all over the vehicles, tearing at anything breakable. Last time Lieutenant Anatolii Ivanovich Pas’kov had looked through the turret optics, a dozen or more of the beasts were trying to bend the barrel of his 30mm cannon, he didn’t think they had succeeded but he was reluctant to fire the gun anyway. He hunched down, trying to ignore the acrid fumes from the gunfire that was creating havoc with the harpies outside. Only, some of the acrid stench wasn’t cordite residue, it was the smell of the harpies’ acidic blood attacking bare metal. Certainly the chemical weapons-resistant paint on the BMP was protecting most of the hull from corrosion but there were still parts that were vulnerable to acid.
His little command had done well at first. The Tungaska had fired its eight laser-guided missiles and turned more that a dozen harpies into spiraling explosions, then its 30mm cannon had started chopping more out of the sky. The BMPs had joined in, their turret cannon selecting the closest harpies and shooting them out of the sky. But there had been so many of them, more than 200,000 so the intelligence reports said, and the hundred or so that the 30mm guns had killed were hardly noticeable. The rest had descended on the vehicles and started their assault. Oh, Pas’kov knew that their claws and teeth would not get through the armor but the harpies had other weapons as well. They breathed fire and there was much on an armored vehicle that could burn. The Tungaska had already gone, its engine compartment had caught fire and its crew had been forced to abandon their vehicle into the flock of harpies. They’d tried to run for the BMPs but they were brought down, torn apart and eaten before they’d made more than a pace or two. Pas’kov had been glad of that in a way, he wouldn’t have opened his hatches to let them in anyway.
“Ammunition is running out.” The cry was from one of the two riflemen in the fighting compartment of the vehicle. They were hosing fire out of the fighting ports in the rear compartment, the steel floor covered with their expended cartridge cases. The BMP was carrying more that its allowed load of munitions but the rate of expenditure was such that even its enhanced stocks were getting short. Pas’kov swung the turret, feeling the power traverse fighting the harpies swarming outside, and let off a burst from his coaxial machine gun. The harpies trying to bend his 30mm cannon barrel were caught unawares and the heavy machine gun burst tore into them, spraying acid blood into the air and causing their flesh to char. The cordite smoke-laden air inside the BMP got more dense if that was possible, the heat rising further.
“Get us out of here, we must pull back.”
“We cannot, the transmission is jammed.” The driver’s words didn’t really make sense but Pas’kov guessed what had really happened, the suspension was being attacked by acid and the treads were jammed.
Instead, he got the radio, with just a little luck, it might be working. The whip antenna had long gone, torn off by the harpies, but the little blade antenna might still be intact.
“Company, this is Three. We’re running out of ammunition and are trapped. Our AA vehicle is gone. We need final protective fire now. Right on top of us.”
Pas’kov knew his company commander realized the same thing that Pas’kov himself had done. Calling fire directly on his position was suicide, the guns would tear the armored vehicles apart. But it was better to go that way than be shredded and eaten by the harpies screaming outside.
“Request approved. Being passed up. Hold on Three. Seal down tight. Full protocol.”
Guards Special Mortar Regiment, Northern Front, Phlegethon River.
The great 300mm rockets loaded into the Smerch multiple-launch rocket system were black, with glaring yellow bands painted around their nose. No other rocket had quite such vivid or elaborate markings and for a very good reason, nobody wanted these rockets to be confused with anything else. Even the Smerch crews were afraid of them and their cargo. They’d taken them out of their storage boxes with painstaking care, only too aware that one accident, one slip meant a ghastly death for all around them. Guards Captain Yurii Leonidovich Zabelin had personally supervised the loading process himself and inspected all the firing connections and status checks before reporting his battery ready to fire. Then, he had been told to wait for the current barrage was the work of the heavy guns. The Smerch launchers with their deadly black rockets would have their time, when the right moment came.
The radio in the command vehicle suddenly jumped to life. The right moment had come.
B-52H “Emma Peel” 28,000 feet over the Phlegethon River.
“That makes life a bit better.” The red-and-gray camouflaged B-52s had burst out of the murk at 28,000 feet and Colonel Haymen had pulled back on the lever that operated the engine filters. They’d rotated though 90 degrees, so they were now parallel to the air flow through the engines and the pick-up in power was immediate. The Gray Lady was back to performing the way she should and the old adage held true again. Never underestimate the Gray Lady.
“Hammer Control, this is Storm flight, we’ve broken out of the clag at 28,000 feet. Air is clean up here. Light still red, but visibility good. Tell the Bones to get up here if they want a long, fast cruise.”
“We’ll do that Hammer Flight. Be advised, a pair of B-29s did test drops for you. Computed ballistic corrections hold true, no need to correct programming for bomb drops.”
“Thanks Control. And thank the guys in the Superforts for us too.” Haymen sighed slightly in relief. That was one of the problems of fighting in non-Euclidean hell, there had been no guarantee that the bombs stuffed into Emma’s belly and hanging under her wings would drop true. The only way that anybody could find out was to try and that was what the B-29s had been doing. Drop bombs, compare impact points with those projected
and calculate corrections. It had been a long, arduous job, constantly dropping and recalculating, it was lucky the old Superforts had been available to do it. Otherwise more valuable aircraft would have had to be taken out of the line.
“Take everybody up to 32,000. We can expect the drop order soon.”
“Hey, wait for me.” The plaintive voice came from Major Hennessy at the back of the formation. His “Vengeance Is Mine” was the only B-52D in the group of 72 B-52s that were lining up ready for their strike. A museum recovery, it just didn’t have the engine power of the Gs and Hs.”
“Come, on, hurry up old-timer. We haven’t got all day.”
“Hurry up? Hurry up!! I’ll have you know that at least our wings are level back here.”
Haymen snorted. The B-52s had all been through a very hurried “Big Belly” modification that had seen provision for 750 pound bombs increased from 51 to 80. The problem was that the G and H models had a lighter wing structure than earlier marks and now those wings were bent in a graceful curve from tip to root. Only the solitary D-model had wings that were still uncurved. It still carried more bombs as well, 88 instead of 80.
“OK, OK. All Storm birds. The Superforts have confirmed the corrections, we can use the programmed bomb drop. Waiting for word now.”
Command HQ, Camp Hell-Alpha, Hell
“How goes the day Tovarish General?” General David Petraeus stood in front of his view screen, looking at the Russian commander at the other end
General Ivan Semenovich Dorokhov was a harassed-looking man, already tired from the volume of fighting that was going on. “It is a bloody day Bratishka. We are holding them in the North at great cost but the force in the south has bitten deep into the defenses. The North too will start to collapse soon, we are already getting requests from the front line to bring down fire on our own positions. The harpies in the north are pinning our men down, our artillery is hammering the follow-on forces but soon they will have crossed the river and then our positions will fall fast. Still, we have some tricks to play yet and your bombers are ready I think.”