War of the Sun

by Maloney, Mack;

  The Alpha pilots quickly adjusted their approach to come in with the wind. Then they dropped back down low and went their separate ways.

  Within a half minute, Alpha One had a visual make on its target: one hundred and fifty fuel storage tanks that prestrike intelligence said contained more than ten million gallons of gasoline, diesel fuel, oil, and kerosene. In other words, enough petroleum products to keep the industrial base of the Asian Mercenary Cult running for six months.

  The Alpha came in over the fuel depot on a slow, lazy loop, a scattering of puny AA fire the only resistance rising up from the woefully defended target. He passed over the first two rows of tanks, waiting until he was over the third array to begin dropping the cluster bombs. They came off his racks quickly. In just ten seconds, he had dumped all six of his CBUs in a straight line across the middle of the 300-acre fuel storage site.

  The resulting explosions ruptured eight tanks at dead center, their skins perforated by the thousands of small bomblets. Suddenly fuel was cascading out of the tanks, overflowing their safety moats and creating one torrent of volatile liquid so voluminous, it actually snuffed the few small fires started by the explosions. Within seconds, this river, consisting of thousands of gallons of a mixture of gasoline, fuel oil, diesel fuel, and kerosene, was raging through the complex, washing over every loading pipe and valve, and all pumping equipment, and in turn, puncturing other tanks.

  Completely empty of ordnance, and, ironically, low on fuel himself, the pilot of Alpha One swept over the target one last time. The tidal wave of fuel he caused had already broken out of the tank farm’s perimeter and was now flooding into the main sewer system whose branches reached throughout the entire city of Tokyo.

  The pilot took a deep gulp of oxygen in celebration—dumping what were normally antipersonnel weapons in the middle of the storage tank facility had proved to be a good gamble—so far. He put his stubby little plane on a course due east and booted it, hoping the Fitz was where it should be.

  His job was done.

  At about the same time, Alpha Two was approaching its target: the natural gas refinery five and a half miles to the west of the fuel storage farm.

  Dodging light AA fire, the pilot was able to bring the trainer right in and drop his payload of BLU-27 napalm bombs directly on the largest storage tank.

  Within a millisecond, there was a white-hot flash of ignition that made the entire facility burst into one tremendous fireball.

  Suddenly, it was like the sun had crashed into the earth.

  The pilot of Alpha Two was astonished by the size of the explosion he’d just created—fueled by the oxygen and natural gas that it sucked into itself, the fireball rose higher and higher into the sky, almost too fast for him to get out of its way. He had to act quickly. He immediately went into a steep vertical climb, barely keeping ahead of the blossoming explosion.

  At 15,000 feet, the tip of the fireball briefly engulfed the tiny jet, scorching the entire plane from tail to nose, and burning off nearly every square inch of paint.

  With all the skill he could muster, the pilot of Alpha Two finally was able to exit this holocaust, only to find that almost every electrical connection inside his cockpit had shorted out. None of his panel indicators were working, his radio was blown, and every needle on every gauge had dropped to zero.

  Kicking in his thankfully-spared emergency systems, he turned east and began the long limp home.

  Beside destroying the natural gas facility, the huge conflagration also served to ignite the millions of gallons of fuel coursing through the city’s sewer system. Suddenly there were geysers of flame spewing up out of maintenance ducts, drainage pipes, and manhole covers.

  The sudden injection of heat served to whip up the early morning breeze. The flames began feeding on themselves and on the heavily polluted air above the city. These were all the conditions needed to create a classic and frightening fire storm. Within minutes, more than a third of the buildings in the center of the city had burst into flames.

  And descending directly into this manmade Hell was Hunter’s jumpjet.

  Hunter had to do two things and do them fast.

  The first was to locate “The Castle of Three Turrets,” occupied by the infamous Hashi Pushi.

  To this end, he flew directly to the center of burning Tokyo, to the Chiydoda-Ku, the part of the city that had once housed the Imperial Palace. Once again, Jones’s prestrike intelligence had been right. In the middle of the forested park rose the three turrets of the fortress that contained his quarry.

  Surrounded by a wide moat fed from an underground aqueduct, the place looked impregnable. But Hunter would have to worry about getting inside later. For now he had to accomplish his second task: finding a safe place to put down in the Harrier.

  Almost half the city below him was in flames, and the updraft of the heat currents was making it increasingly difficult to control the jumpjet. But time was of the essence, for the longer it took him, the harder it would be to land. Suddenly he saw the perfect spot—a patch of icy white in the middle of the towering flames about a klick from the palace. He checked his moving map display. The potential landing spot turned out to be smack-dab in the middle of the former Asashi City Zoo.

  Hunter guided the Harrier directly over the patch of cool white blue—it was the climate-controlled area that housed the polar bears—and brought the airplane right on top of the manmade iceberg that sat in the middle of the swim tank. It would be perfect protection from the fire that was spreading throughout the entire area.

  He quickly smeared fire-retardant grease over his exposed hands and face. Then, looping a double bandolier of ammo over his shoulder, he slapped a clip of 5.56mm tracer rounds into his laser-sighted M-16, popped open the canopy, and climbed out.

  Trouble hit as soon as his feet hit the ice. Hunter turned and found himself face to face with an enormous polar bear. He froze absolutely still.

  Hunter had no time to waste. He didn’t want to shoot the beast, so he did the next best thing. He pointed his rifle in the air and fired off three rounds. The bear beat a hasty retreat.

  Hunter quickly waded through the surrounding water, climbed the wrought-iron fence, and got out of the tank. Before him was yet another scene from a nightmare. The fire had already destroyed half the sprawling zoo, and now the surviving animals were running loose. Hunter found himself dodging lions, antelope, and sabre-tooth boars. Many of the animals were tearing each other apart, panicked into madness by the approaching wall of flame. Others were wildly smashing into walls, buildings, and even plate glass windows, more often than not killing themselves in the process.

  Hunter grimly made his way through the carnage and headed toward the center of the city.

  The heat was unbearable. The temperature of the air had long since passed 150 degrees, and now every building he saw that was made of wood was beginning to combust into flames. Some people were literally exploding, too. He saw several groups of terrified soldiers apparently bivouacked on the zoo grounds, running from the flames only to have their uniforms ignite, and in some cases, even their skin. It made for a horrible sight, but as the city had long ago been emptied of civilians, Hunter knew all casualties from the firestorm would be suffered exclusively by the Cult military.

  Hunter had to be careful and stay off the main roads that led directly to the castle, knowing they’d be heavily used by the military. To this end, he ducked down the first side street that he came across after leaving the zoo.

  It was almost totally ablaze. He had to run down the middle of the cluttered alley, dodging dozens of burning timbers that were crashing down all around him. Still more soldiers had died horrible deaths here, some of them the victims of their own exploding ammunition. Leaping over several dangerously sparking electrical wires, he finally made it to the end of the street, turned right, and dived into the doorway of the first building that was not yet on fire.

  He had to catch his breath, but it was difficult. The fire, growing
in intensity with each passing second, was sucking up all the oxygen. Hunter knew he had to keep going.

  Three steps back out into the street, he was suddenly blown flat on his face by a tremendous explosion. The building that he had just left burst into a million pieces, accompanied by a tremendous roar which sounded like thousands of gunshots going off all at once.

  Hunter rolled to the curb and was behind a red-hot steel telephone pole, M-16 at the ready. When he looked over his sights, he saw what was making the noises: firecrackers. He had temporarily taken shelter in the doorway of a fireworks factory. But he had no time to admire the irony of the moment. Taking a series of short, quick breaths, he started out again, racing at breakneck speed down the street.

  Turning another corner, he literally ran into a patrol of Cult military police. They were wildly drunk on sake, and were carrying armfuls of stolen items. Hunter couldn’t believe it. How greedy could these people be? Even as the city was burning down around them, they were on a wild looting spree.

  One soldier, who only had one hand full, spotted Hunter, raised his AK-47, and squeezed the trigger.

  But nothing happened. His gun had jammed, possibly due to the hellish temperature. Or maybe it had not been cleaned properly. A full burst of his tracer rounds stitched across the looter’s chest and an instant later he fell to the ground, his dying hands still groping not for his gun, but for the stuff he’d stolen. He also began crying for help. But instead of aiding him, his comrades tore the stolen goods from his hands and then resumed running full-speed down the street.

  Hunter sprinted down another side street. As he reached the far corner, he felt a rumble under his feet and began to run even faster. As he reached the end of the block, he dived head first into a shallow ditch just as the entire cobblestoned street lifted off the ground from the detonation of an underground gas main. Hundreds of blocks of concrete began to rain down around him. Yet he was off again, dodging and twisting, and barely escaping being crushed by the rain of these deadly projectiles.

  The heat was becoming stifling now as he tried to stay a block or two ahead of the firestorm. But even the flame-reflective weaving in his flight suit could not handle the extreme temperature. The air was filled with the popping sounds of automobile tires bursting. Off in the distance he heard more controlled explosions, indicating desperate attempts by the Cult engineers to create firebreaks. But he knew that the situation was pathetically beyond their control by this time.

  He moved over to a wider, shorter street, a place where, judging from the X-rated murals on the sides of buildings, an open sex market had apparently once flourished. Everywhere he looked, the paint on these garish portraits was beginning to smolder and peel. Trees were bursting into flames. Even the steel street signs were starting to melt. Even worse, the road itself was buckling from the heat.

  He saw a small stream nearby suddenly disappear, instantly turning to scalding-hot steam. He saw more wild animals. He saw more soldiers simply explode into flames. He could hear a symphony of human screams. Huge explosions. Gunfire. The ear-splitting crackling of the approaching fire. Above it all the haunting wails of hundreds of sirens rose up into the sky, which was now black with smoke and completely blocked out the bright early-morning sun. It was as if the entire city had been shoveled into Hell itself.

  Hunter just kept on running; he was almost to his destination. But making his way past the roaring fires that blazed on either side of him, he began to slowly sink into the softened blacktop. Each step became more difficult than the last, and finally he became completely stuck in the hot, gooey tar, the flames beginning to close in on him.

  Now what? he asked himself.

  Suddenly, the ground below him collapsed, and he felt himself falling into the darkness, right into a giant water conduit. Clutching his M-16 to his chest, he was sucked feet first and carried through this pipe of surging hot water for what seemed to be forever. He thought his lungs were about to burst when he shot up into the air from the force of the raging water.

  He couldn’t believe his good fortune: he’d splashed back down into the moat that surrounded the castle of Hashi Pushi.

  Yet he quickly realized he’d been thrown into another nightmare. Hundreds of soldiers had abandoned their posts and fled the burning castle for the safety of the water in the moat. But all these cowards had either drowned from the crush of the panic or from the machine guns that fired down on them from the parapets above. Now the moat was choked with their bloated dead bodies.

  Hunter slowly floated to the base of the castle wall, where he climbed out and scrambled up to a small oak door that looked like it hadn’t been opened in a hundred years. He expertly cracked the lock with his K-bar knife, and with the barrel of his M-16, slowly pushed the door open.

  “I wonder if anyone’s home?” he whispered to himself.

  Fourteen

  HASHI PUSHI FELT HIS right temple and found it was ice-cold. Things seemed to be getting dark. He checked his pulse and found it had slowed considerably.

  “Soon,” he whispered glumly to himself. “Very soon now.”

  Before him stood the seven top officers of his Home Island Air Defense Command. They were babbling something, but he wasn’t really paying much attention.

  “May I repeat, sir,” the top air defense officer was saying. “We are under attack from the air. More reports are flooding in every minute. The situation is getting desperate. Can’t you hear the commotion outside? That’s the enemy burning down the city. They might even be using nuclear warheads on us!”

  Hashi Pushi looked down from his throne at the seven gaudily-uniformed officers, tears forming in his eyes once again.

  “The Blood Pool never lies,” he said, more to himself than to any of them. “It is not lying now.”

  The seven Cult officers had a right to be concerned—and confused. It was clear that some kind of an attack was on. But just exactly what was happening, they didn’t know. All the Cult’s major airbases were still intact, as well as their weapons factories and ammo dumps—yet all of the country’s major communications centers had been destroyed by the enemy aircraft. And a good portion of Tokyo was in flames.

  Now the officers in charge of his airborne defense were before the deranged leader, begging for his orders to take off and catch the attacking aircraft.

  They told him that no fewer than twelve squadrons of their air defense fighters were available to be scrambled to counter the enemy aerial attack. They were equipped with what constituted the Cult’s most formidable air force, more than 100 super-modified Dassault Etendard fighters. They promised their Supreme Commander that every enemy pilot would be shot down and his body eaten—alive, if necessary—by scores of Hashi Pushi’s most rabid civilian followers.

  “Why was I made a turtle?” Hashi Pushi was asking himself, grim and rhetorical, staring at his unwashed, bumpy fingernails. “Why not a tiger? Or a polar bear?”

  Totally mystified, and now on the verge of panic, the second-highest-ranking officer present stepped forward to plead the case.

  “Sir, surely you can hear the explosions. You can see the flames. We must launch our airplanes now to stop this.”

  But Hashi Pushi did not give the order for them to take off. Instead, he summoned the woman in charge of his harem and, to the bafflement of his air defense officers, told her, “Bring me the woman with Cherry Blossom hair.”

  It was the second violinist of the Hi-Si Orchestra who saw him first.

  The musician was halfway through the 391st rendition of “The Firebird.” He and his colleagues had been playing in front of Hashi Pushi for so long, their fingers were bleeding. They had listened in on the bizarre conversation between Hashi Pushi and his air defense officers, since departed. They’d also heard another group of officers beg the Cult leader to order something called “the Fire Bats” into action—but Pushi had ignored them as well. Now they could hear the explosions outside getting closer by the minute. They could smell the smoke from the fire
s. They knew that some kind of disaster was approaching the palace—and fast.

  Yet they continued to play on.

  The violinist had just finished a doreesimo when he looked up and saw a tall man in a dirty black suit and a black helmet standing in the concealed doorway not twenty feet from Hashi Pushi’s throne. On the floor directly behind this man lay three very still bodies; the musician recognized them as members of Hashi Pushi’s personal guard.

  The violinist looked back toward Hashi Pushi. Sitting on the overweight leader’s bulging lap was the young girl brought to him about ten minutes before. Even from this distance and through bleary, tired eyes the violinist saw that the young girl was hauntingly beautiful, of delicate skin and lithe body, and possessing the most enchanting long red hair.

  Hashi Pushi had already removed her kimono and his dirty robe and was now apparently attempting to have sex with her. The musician couldn’t imagine a more embarrassing scene: the clumsy, intoxicated behemoth trying to enter the tentative, terrified, apparently-drugged young girl. Yet, after much squirming and grunting, it appeared that Hashi Pushi had successfully penetrated her, if only momentarily.

  That’s when the man in the black suit and helmet coolly walked into the hall. The conductor of the Hi-Si saw him now too, yet he continued to direct his musicians through the worn-out piece of music, providing a bizarre soundtrack for what was about to happen.

  Two guards immediately appeared off to his right, but the man in the helmet dispatched them with a lightning-quick burst from his machine-gun. Two more guards appeared on the balcony right above him, but the man in the helmet quickly spun around, riddled them with the strange phosphorous bullets, and turned back again, all in the blink of an eye.

  Hashi Pushi had finally taken notice by now. He unceremoniously dropped the unclothed young girl from his lap. Her skin was soaked in sweat, a small amount of blood, and other bodily fluids. She immediately crawled away, over the bodies of two guards and out a side door. The immense Cult leader seemed completely paralyzed now; suddenly his world was crashing down upon his gold-encrusted throne. The cream of his personal guard lay dead or dying all around him. He was unable to summon more help. The tremendous roar of explosions and panic was pouring in from outside.