Armageddon?? (107 page)

Across
the mess, the 24 crewmen assigned to the strike quietly got up and left,
collecting back-slaps and salutes as they went. Trafford followed them, out to
where Dragon Slayer was waiting. The mission was a complex one, already tankers
would be converging on the strike route, some to refuel the B-1s, others to
refuel the tankers. It took 14 tankers to get each of the B-1s to their target
and back and more than a few of those tankers would be flying two missions. It
was a 22,000 mile flight in total, making this the longest-range bombing
mission that had ever been attempted. It was one for the history books, and it
was one to avenge Detroit.

Trafford
started to climb in to his aircraft then stopped half way in, reaching out to
pat the airframe. “Well, honey-bunny, we’re on our way at last.”

Chapter
Seventy Four

USS
Turner Joy, On Trials Before Leaving For The AUTEC Transition Point

"Kind
friends and companions, come join me in rhyme...  ..Come lift up your voices in
chorus with mine.  Come drink and be merry, from grief we'll refrain..  For we
know not when we will all meet again.  So here's a health to our company and
one to my lass,  We'll drink and be merry all out of one glass,  We'll drink
and be merry, from grief we'll refrain,  For we know not when we'll all meet
again!"

"But
we WILL meet again!" Rochelle Emerson added with a dark laugh as the
chorus faded off, their voices hoarse from shouting over the noise of the
turbines and various gear. "Even if it be in the burning lakes of
Hell!"

"Does
the ship actually have alcohol on board?" Lieutenant Travis frowned for a
moment and then looked rather hopeful.

Chief
Robert 'Bob" Gaussington, who was effectively heading the revitalization
efforts that culminated today, seemed like he had just spat. "I hope they
find Josephus Daniels last, with respect, Lieutenant."

He'd
lost his right leg in a car accident in '96, and that was why he wasn't called
back to the colors himself, blast it all. Particularly since the car accident
had cost him his wife; as far as he was concerned, the war was an intensely
personal thing. His course in virtually delivering their proud ship to the Navy
single-handed had been the best he could contribute not merely to revenge but
liberation for the woman he had loved. He masked his dedication with an
incredible sense of humor which had carried through all the engineering
students he had recruited.

And
why not? It's better than never seeing someone ever again. Sophia Metaxas
thought to herself as she listened to the banter, in particular, the Chief's
ability as a civilian to explain to a lieutenant precisely why Josephus Daniels
deserved to burn in Hell longer than any other person so condemned. Also he
could hide the location of the liquor store which would just happen to all have
to be consumed before tomorrow. Then, if all went well, USS Turner Joy DD-951,
would gain her commissioning pennant once more and become one of the last
operational steam warships in the navy.

Decommissioned
on November 11th, 1982, she was handed over to a preservation society in
Bremerton, Washington, in the year 1990 after being struck from the reserves,
and the Turner Joy's new owners had found themselves with a luckily
well-preserved ship, and enough money to make her last. Almost two years of
extensive reconstruction and preservation efforts had followed, and the ship
that came out looked almost exactly as she did in 1982 when still in regular
service, and might have even been in better condition. And they'd kept her that
way: Her hull and her interior and engines bore no sign of rust, her 5in rifles
had never been demilitarized, nor her torpedo tubes, and her masts had not been
cut nor most of her electronics fully stripped.

Bob
Gaussington had been one of the half a dozen or so men who had committed
themselves to spending a great chunk of their retirement maintaining the ship.
When the general mobilization could not, of course, include him, he went back
to work at the shipyards from which he'd only recently retired. But then he'd
heard that the steam warships still preserved would not be considered for
restoration to active service. And it had irritated him, severely. He'd gotten
the rest of the volunteers together, mostly also workers at the shipyard, and
they'd spread the word at the 'yards.

Then
he'd talked to Dr. Brown, the head of the engineering department at Olympic
College, and obtained permission for his students--exempted from the draft due
to their needed profession--to abandon their free time with the promise that
"we can damn well make her sail again, Doctor." And so more and more
men had started pouring in from the shipyards, volunteering their time off to
the effort--and with a benevolent ‘official’ eye turned, borrowing equipment
not needed for anything else at the moment.

Several
weeks later the Navy had got wind of it, and been goaded into sending a survey
party. Two days later, everything had kicked into high gear; the poor USS Barry
at the Washington Navy Yard and the Forrest Sherman and Edson, both retained
for future donation as museums, were ripped apart at the docks where they lay
by navy teams for any spare parts that could possibly be redeemed for use, in
the same way the few surviving Charlie Adams' had been stripped to support the
Germans in recommissioning the Mölders. The work teams had been made official,
and additional weapons and electronics started arriving for the ship.

And
now under a short crew with most of her civilian workers onboard, monitoring
the ship's machinery and running final tests, she was making ten knots through
the shipping channel of Rich Passage out to Puget Sound for the speed trials
which would put her boilers to the test.

"Sophia!?"
Dr. Brown stepped down into the engine room, as unflappably calm about the
situation as might be expected, even when he had to shout to be heard.
"Can you check some the connections on the foremast!? We're having some
problems in CIC with the radar feed from the SPS-64!"

"And
I'm the only one who won't fall off the mast, right, because everyone else is a
fat nerd."

"Hey!
I resemble that remark!" Mark, it turned out, still had enough of his
hearing left that he could hear her from his position next to her.

"Yes!
Yes you do! Watch to pressure for me?"

"No
problem!"

She
left the engine room in some relief and climbed up to where the usual
Washington rain met her. That, and the other ship that the Engineering students
had been tapped into working with, to her surprise at delight--the ferry
Kalakala, miraculously restored from a rusting hulk--well, she was still a
rusting hulk, but one that worked, hauling a load of shipyard workers in from
Seattle on the cross-sound run, her direct drive diesel sounding like it would
destroy the army of Hell by sound alone. Along with the four Steel Electrics
and the Olympic, they filled out the ferry service while the Super's had been
pulled from the regular routes to do commuter service between Seattle and
Boeing Everett via Mukilteo, and Todd in Tacoma on the other side of things,
also replacing a large number of rationed cars. In some respects, it was a
return to the 1880s for the region--every single boat which could carry large
numbers of passengers was pressed into service as a new Mosquito fleet now gas
rationing was taking effect and they could supplement buses on land. Even the
rusted and battered old Kalakala would have to last just long enough for new
vessels to be built.

Just
like the Turner Joy would. Sophia reached the foretop with some pride in the
fast of even a light breeze, the Kalakala hammering her way to Bremerton in
their wake, Rich Passage churned with the speed of her effort, all concerns
over shore erosion gone, and the destroyer, for her part, was now at last
rounding Bainbridge island with the open waters of the Sound ready for their
speed run north through Admiralty Inlet to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the
national flag crisp in the wind, though for the moment there was no jack.
Sophia got to work with her diagnostic equipment--it turned out to be just
another artifact of the rush job, and five minutes of twisting and adjustment
solved the problem. The climb back down came just in time, too, as Commander Reynolds
brought them around to port and rang up revolutions for twenty-five knots. The
brave old lady dug in her heels and surged forward. Everything worked perfectly
as billows of oil smoke trailed behind her.

They
brought their course a bit to starboard to avoid the huge M/V Spokane as she
made the Bainbridge Island run, and then leveled off north by northwest while
Sophia stepped in to make her report to Doctor Brown--and then to Commander
Reynolds, who, effective tomorrow, would be kicking them all off and turning
the Turner Joy back into a warship. So life went in the age of gasoline
rationing and electronics doubling in price as the industry retooled for War,
of vehicles emptying from the dealerships back near home on Auto Center Way,
and not being replaced. Of a country, after more than sixty years, united in
will and purpose to fight a war for the liberation of their forefathers.

Sophia
stepped back out on deck to clamber below to return to the engine room.
Commander Reynolds ordered revolutions for thirty-two knots rung up. Now the
old lady bit her heels in as far as she could and surged north, under the black
trail only an oil-fired steam man'o'war could make, and aimed her bow for
Admiralty Inlet, the deep dark waters of the sound combing off and around her
and lashing Sophia with spray. She lingered for a moment, looking fore to aft:
Three 5in/54cal rapid-fire guns and three twin Type B 40mm DARDO mounts. The
Italians had come up trumps there. The OTO Melara facility in Turin was working
triple shifts to turn the mounts out and had donated the three mounts ‘for the
common good’. Two of the twin-forties replaced her long-gone 3in/50's, the
third was amidships. Elsewhere six single unstabilized 25mm mounts were
cramming the decks in every place they could be laid, triple torpedo tubes
again ready to be fired, and depth charge racks aft.

She
was ready to fight; but Sophia didn't want the ship fighting for her family, in
a perverse way she still felt guilty about. Her parents and grandparents had
died with The Message, religious to a fault and obedient to an end. They had
laid down and refused to move or indeed do anything at all, and within a couple
days, simply died where they had been, as they had been ordered to do, of
natural causes--while she cried and screamed and tore herself to pieces trying
to save them, even ripping the earrings out of her mother's ears in a last
desperate hope that pain might bring her back where love had failed, and where
the emergency services were far to overwhelmed by the scale of the task
involved in simply removing the bodies to offer any aide.

The
ship thrummed comfortingly below her, and Sophia climbed back inside and below
decks. She had helped bring the Turner Joy back to life, but she hoped the ship
wouldn't bring her parents back to live. The months of scar tissue, and the
searing memory of their brutal abandonment of her and her fourteen year old
sister, had turned into a bitter hate that left her to whisper, lost over the
engines, "I hope they find you last, right goddamned next to Josephus
Daniels." Back to work. They were making 32kts, after all, and engines
didn't do that without help.

Belial's
Palace, Tartarus, Hell

Euryale
had been in the wyvern caves when the lookouts spotted the Belial's meager
formation, and by the time she'd glided down to the courtyard he'd already gone
inside. The gorgon caught up with the count in the throne room, where he was
already issuing orders.

“...full
mobilization immediately, you will lead them down into to Asphodel Plains tomorrow.
Satan has granted me the whole province, but there may be some foolhardy barons
who... Euryale!”

As
she made eye contact with her lord, she saw something she'd never seen before.
Euryale had seen Belial frightened before, many times when he had pushed one of
the dukes too far and Tartarus had come close to being invaded, but there was
none of the bluster this time. His gaze was flat and hard, weary yet manically
determined. She couldn't put her talon on what this meant and that worried her,
though he did seem genuinely pleased to see her.

“I'll
need you too, await me in my study.” Belial jerked his head in the appropriate
direction and then turned back to his officers.

Euryale
arrived to find Baron Trajakrithoth already there. The huge brown demon was
wearing his greasy bronze armour as usual – Euryale couldn't remember ever
seeing him without it – and cradling the 'gun' he'd spent so much time working
on. From what she'd overhead in the throne room it seemed that Belial would
want to talk about occupying territory, so she made herself useful by
retrieving the largest map of hell from its bronze storage tube and spreading
it on the table. The ornate map was covered in tiny images of monstrous
creatures and blocky keeps.

The
Count arrived at last, accompanied by Castellean Zatheoplekkar, the most
trusted of his officers. He was the only one of Belial's original legion
commanders to stay with his lord through disgrace, exile and all the millenia
of obscurity and ridicule since. Perhaps now that loyalty would pay off, if the
Count had really been awarded the former holdings of Asmodeus. At a gesture
from his lord, Zatheoplekkar slammed and barred the heavy doors. Belial sat
down in his throne and stared off into space for a moment, before fixing each
of them with his gaze.