Armageddon?? (54 page)

“Eyam!”

“Woolwich!”

“Slough!”

“Donzy!”

“Essen!”

“Hobbiton!”

“Carthage!”

“The
Emerald City!”

Lakheenahuknaasi
tried to focus, to see which ones seemed sincere but it was impossible. The
humans were grabbing at each other, punching, kicking. Even as she watched, the
guards were allowing the situation to get out of control, an unthinkable,
unprecedented situation. They were bellowing and lashing at nearby humans with
their whips but they were barely making a dent in the din that was
reverberating off the cavern walls. One torch was knocked over, then another,
as the assembled ranks of workers dissolved into chaos.

The
gorgon's question had set Publius's mind racing. He had always thought of the
demons as mere servants of the cosmic order. Yes they were malicious, but that
was their lot in life, they could no more go against their nature than a wolf could
avoid chasing a hare. Other prisoners had told him of their notions of two
celestial realms opposed, of demons as evil beings that had rebelled against a
benevolent creator, but he had placed no stock in it. What omnipotent god could
would permit the existence of opposition, and what benevolent god would give
them humans to torture? Yet here was undeniable proof that the demons were not
simply cosmic jail-keepers. The only reason they would want to know about human
weapons was if they were fighting humans. That meant the demons invading his
home, laying siege to Rome no doubt - or just possibly, he barely dared hope...
the legions coming to liberate him? The demons were desperate to know of human
weapons, could it be that they weren’t just fighting humans, they were fighting
and loosing? Could it be that the demons were not part of the cosmic order at
all, simply common slavers?

Publius
was snapped out of his reverie by a stray elbow catching him in the ribs. He
dropped into a crouch and realized that he was in the middle of a riot. For a
split second he considered rushing the demons, but it was impossible, they were
armed and organized and any case even if they could be overcome the humans
would still be trapped and at the mercy of the hordes of demons on the surface.
For now the important thing was to prevent the demons from getting the answers
they were so desperate for. Publius had seen the men shouting names, some were
obviously faking but a few had a defeatist desire to collaborate. One of the
later group was stumbling around right in front of him, weakly shouting
"No, no, do what they say, you'll get us all eaten alive". He knew
what he had to do. Lifting a dagger-sized rock flake from the nearest crate,
Publius yelled "Death to the traitor!"

Lakheenahuknaasi
found herself backed up against a wall. The humans were pressing close and she
reflexively loosed a spray of paralyzing darts at them. Eight poisonous spikes
shot out from a pair of her head-tendrils and embedded themselves in the chests
of three humans, who staggered and fell twitching. Meanwhile her escorts were
firing blasts of lightning into the crowd, electrocuting humans when they hit,
blasting clouds of rock dust into the air when they missed. The humans fell
back, hiding behind rock crates or cowering on the floor. Slowly the noise
abated and the dust began to settle.

Lakheenahuknaasi
climbed back onto the dais and surveyed the chamber. The floor was splattered
with blood strewn with human bodies, from which a distinct smell of cooked flesh
emanated. They would be up again soon enough, the humans in hell recovered from
a single lightning bolt within minutes. She searched for the humans that had
been calling out names earlier, in particular one from whom she had picked up a
feeling of honesty and compliance. Her eyes stopped on a human that seemed more
badly injured than the rest; it was lying in a spreading pool of blood, its
neck at a strange angle... in fact looking closer she could see that its skull
had been crushed in multiple places. Lakheenahuknaasi blinked. It was the human
who had been trying to answer her question. She glanced around, all the ones
from whom she had picked up a tendency to co-operate were dead. Killed by their
fellow workers. And from the rest were other feelings, fear certainly,
bordering on pathological terror but something else, something she’d never
thought to associate with humans. They were triumphant.

Brown’s
Lane, Coventry.  For three long years the spiritual home of Jaguar Cars had
lain idle, the last car had rolled off the production line here in 2005 and the
firm had moved its operations elsewhere, fifty-four years after production had
started. It seemed that the Jaguar’s parent company at the time, Ford, cared
little for tradition. Now the idle car factories of Coventry, Birmingham and
Dagenham had found a new role; while the Land Rover factory at Solihull would
essentially be doing the same thing, just swapping civilian production for
purely military models, the other car factories would be supporting the war
effort rather differently. There was help arriving for that, the company’s new
Indian owners were sending over plans for a light armored car that would fit
the existing production line well.

The
roads around the Brown’s Lane factory were jammed with low-loaders carrying
various versions of the FV430 tracked armored personnel carrier and wheeled
Saxon carriers. They’d all been brought from the nearest rail freight yard,
itself hastily restored to operation and now filled with military vehicles on
flat-bed trucks. The FV430s were vehicles that had either been in storage, or
in various museums up and down the country. What they all had in common was
that they had not gone through the ‘Bulldog’ upgrade. While BAE Land Systems
was fully occupied building newer vehicles like the Challenger 2, Warrior and
AS90, car factories like Brown’s Lane would take up much of the slack involved
in upgrading existing vehicles. Eventually once the tooling from India was in
place they would also begin to manufacture military vehicles.

Until
then, each FV430 which arrived at Brown’s Lane would be stripped down, worn
components replaced. The old Rolls Royce K60 engine would be removed and
replaced by a modern Cummins B series engine with new sand and dust filters.
Once that was done, Israeli designed appliqué armor and a Remote Weapons
Station would be added, though not the weapon itself; the army was still
debating as to whether the tried and trusted Browning Heavy Machine Gun, or a
new FN designed weapon, the BRG-15, firing a 15.5 x 115 mm cartridge should arm
the FV432s. The later was more powerful and likely to do more damage to a
baldrick, but the Browning had the advantage of already being in service in
some numbers. The last thing the British Army needed right now was another
cartridge on top of the 9mm, 5.56mm, 7.62mm, 8.59mm and 12.7mm rounds it
already employed. The armorers had enough of a headache as it was.

The
Saxons, some of which were the Saxon Patrol variant that had replaced the last
of the Humber ‘Pigs’ in Northern Ireland, were coming in for a slightly
different upgrade. At the moment they were somewhat lacking in offensive
capability, a single 7.62mm GPMG was considered inadequate against baldrick
attacks. Like the FV430s they would be fitted with an RWS, though for the
moment they would be issued to units assigned to the Home Guard rather then
being sent out to Iraq. The Saxons, as it turned out, were far easier to work
on and even better, once finished, they could be driven to where they were
needed, rather than taking up valuable rail cars and transporter trucks.

Just
to make life even easier, the workers who had been made redundant by the
collapse of MG Rover and the contraction of the car industry in general in the
West Midlands had flocked to get jobs in the new defense related concerns that
had grown up. To its immense relief and surprise the government had not needed
to use its new powers to direct labor to where it was needed. To protect these
vital factories from potential baldrick attack a company of the Home Guard had
been formed from the workforce. It was now a common sight to see workers who
were not on shift drilling in the car park of Brown’s Lane and the other former
car factories in the area. At the moment all they had were L85A3s, a semi-automatic
version of the standard SA80 intended for use by cadet forces, though the
Brown’s Lane Company had somehow managed to get hold of a Carl Gustav and a few
rounds of HEAT and HE. How, was probably a question better not asked.

“Well,
we’re certainly back in business.” The Works Manager looked at the sight below
with satisfaction. Behind him, the representative from Tata Motors nodded with
satisfaction. The purchase of the company by the Indian Tata group had caused
extreme concern over whether the plant would just be taken off to India and the
workers thrown out but the Tata management had gone out of their way to prove
otherwise. Then, The Message had come and national identity had become very
unimportant. Oh, there were a few countries still who were predictably refusing
to join the rest of the world’s fight, North Korea being prominent amongst
them, but India had thrown all its resources into the human struggle against
their enemies. One small part of that effort was this plant here.

“I
think it’s time for lunch, don’t you?” The Tata representative had a twinkle in
his eye when he asked. The British had always had a love-affair with what they
called Indian Curry and Tata had brought in staff who knew how to make it
properly. As a result, it was quietly acknowledged that the Jaguar works
canteen was the best Indian Restaurant in the Midlands. And with food rationing
back, a good mid-day meal was something to be treasured. As long as it didn’t
delay the work on the factory floor of course.

(Thank's
to Starglider and Jan who provided the second and third parts respectively.)

Chapter
Thirty Nine

Outer
Ring, 7th Circle of Hell

The
voice was urgent, omnipresent. Corporal Tucker McElroy! Do you hear me?

I
hear you! McElroy screamed back in his mind. It wasn't because he realized that
he was being contacted via some sort of telepathy; writhing in the river of
lava for last month or so had burned his lungs so badly that he couldn't speak,
so this was his only option.

You
were killed at Hit, correct?

Affirmative!
McElroy bellowed back. I'm burning up here, so please, whoever you are, get me
out of here. McElroy remembered his manners at the last moment. Pardon my
bluntness!

Not
at all. My name is kitten. I work for the government. We have been trying to contact
all U.S. military personnel killed in action during the first battle with the
baldricks. So are you in a fire? Is there a way out?

It’s
some sort of river, of lava. I’ve tried to get out but I never make it very
far. There are baldrick guards on the banks, sooner or later, one of them comes
along and pushes me back in. Are you taking a survey or something?

Please
climb out now. We're sending in some cover for you, but you need to be on
survivable terrain.

That
galvanized McElroy. He would have double-blinked, if his seared eyelids were
still functional. He half-leaped, half swam and broke the surface of the lava
stream. It wasn't quite liquid, wasn’t quite solid and it was certainly more
substantial than flames, so with great effort, he could make his way through
it. He didn't know how big the river of flaming lava was, but he couldn't see
the far shore, in fact he couldn’t see anything, his eyeballs were also boiled
into uselessness. In any case, he’d never ventured out far enough to try. Most
people, including him, spent their burning time marshaling enough strength to
crawl out onto the shores of the river for a brief respite. Then, a baldrick
would come along, stab the unfortunate soul with a trident, or perhaps its
claws, and hurl the screaming creature back into the lake.

McElroy
lost count of how many times that had happened to him.

On
my way! McElroy shouted. I'll let you know when I'm out.

It
didn't take long. Panic-driven instinct combined with this glimmer of hope, and
he scrambled out of the flames and onto the rocky shores of the lake. Unmindful
of the sizzling hunks of flesh and fat that he left on the ground behind him,
he crawled ten meters before he collapsed.

Clear!

He
just wanted to close his eyes, but of course, he couldn't. He wanted to breathe
again, but he couldn't. The agony slowly dimming and to his amazement, his
sight was already beginning to return. Dim and shadowy certainly, but
returning. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing, he noted with detached
amusement that a demon had already spotted him and was closing quickly,
bellowing some pointless taunt or curse. Tucker couldn't tell, because his ears
were long gone.

Had
he dreamed the whole thing? Hallucinating on top of burning in Hell? He
would've smiled at the thought, but he already brandished a skeleton's grin.
Maybe when his lips grew back, he'd smile again. Now, though, the demon was
nearly upon him.

Oh
well, back to the lake for him.

Then,
the demon did a very strange thing. He was perhaps three meters away when he
stopped. McElroy felt a distinct throbbing, a rapid whump-whump-whump of
displaced air passing over him. He turned his head the other way.