Armageddon?? (118 page)

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Battalion, Third Brigade, Third Armored Division, Ninth U.S. Corps. North of
Dis.

The
trouble with the situation was that the whole of Ninth Corps was bogging down
as it occupied more of the small farming villages on the outer fringes of Dis.
Stevenson’s own battalion was now split up between twelve such villages,
controlling each of them although, in truth, not that much control was actually
needed. Most of the communities had got the message from the runners she had
sent out sand simply laid down their arms, such as they were, when the tanks
had appeared. A few of the lords had put up a fight and they were now dead. The
rest had just accepted it was better to be alive and deposed than killed.

The
good news was that the armored cavalry had pushed further north and reported
that the villages had petered out and the rest of the territory was apparently
unoccupied. As far as could be seen so far, demon inhabitation of Hell was
concentrated within a relatively small radius of Dis. The rest of the single
great continent was split up as the ‘holdings’ of the various great dukes but
they’d done nothing with it. It was all very strange.

Stevenson
strolled through the village that had become her base, looking at the baldrick
farmers as they got on with their daily routine. They ignored the Abrams and
Bradleys that were parked around the buildings, intent on simply making sure
they had food enough to eat. A few baldrick kidlings were playing on a tank and
over in one corner, a couple of her soldiers had gathered some older kidlings
and were teaching them to play basketball. It occurred to her that since she now
had a dozen or so minor ‘lords’ reporting to her, that meant she was going up
the ranks of the aristocracy as fast as she was through the ranks of the Army.

It
was nice and quiet up here though. The aircraft were still pounding Dis last
time she had heard, and most of the actual fighting was concentrated down
there. With the airfields and logistics bases to the south of Dis, the areas to
the north of the city had an almost bucolic charm to them. That charm was
interrupted when a V-22 swung overhead, its slung load pivoting as the pilot
brought the tilt-rotor in. It was the extra rations she’d requisitioned for the
villagers. The V-22 shifted back to forward flight and set off over the
horizon. Peace and tranquil calm returned to the village. Stevenson noted that
the baldricks had paid little attention to the aircraft as it had made its
delivery. Humand and their equipment were already becoming part of the
environment.

“Colonel,
you better come. Brigade is on the line.”

She
walked over to the radio shack, actually her command track with a tented
enclosure at the back.

“Kilo-Alpha
Actual Here.”

“Kilo
prime. Stevenson, are you sitting down?”

“Sir?”

“Got
news for you. We whacked Satan just a few hours ago. No doubt about it, he’s
gone.”

The
news spread across the camp at a speed that comfortably exceeded the speed of
light. Stevenson heard the cheering and looked over her shoulder. The local
villagers were being just as enthusiastic as her troops.

“What
does that mean Sir?”

“We’ve
put our own guy in charge. Abigor, now President Abigor. You remember him, the
football player?”

“For
sure yes. So he’s made President.”

“More
like President on a string. Anyway, the second thing he did was sue for peace.
There’s a ceasefire in place as of about an hour ago. The following is the word
straight from General Petraeus. All offensive actions against the baldricks are
to cease as of 1300 Zulu. Defensive only actions will be undertaken. Any
hostile forces attacking your positions are to be killed in a friendly manner.

“So
its all over Sir.”

“No
way. Our guess is that at least some lords will repudiate Abigor’s lead and try
to carry on. Belial is the leading candidate, he must understand we want his
guts torn out. But, as far as organized resistance is concerned, that’s over.
Just try and make sure that none of your people are the last to die.”

“Willco
on that sir.” Stevenson thought for a moment. “And there’s always Heaven isn’t
there.”

“That’s
right Stevenson, there’s always Heaven.”

Chapter
Eighty Two

HMS
Astute, Northern Seas, Off Tartarus, Hell

“The
spams said the Seawolfs were fast, they never said they were that fast.”
Captain Phillips looked up from the chart plot with irritation in his voice.
“We’re falling further behind all the time. How long until we’re off the coast
of Tartarus?”

Lieutenant-Commander
Michael Murphy grimaced slightly. “We’re not doing so bad ourselves, the old S
and T boats couldn’t hold speed like this. Even so, our ETA off Tartarus is in
30 hours. Unless, of course, we have to take a detour. We’re in a deep water
channel now but I’ve no idea how long we’ll be able to use it.”

Captain
Phillips drummed the chart display with his fingers. “And I don’t like charging
around blind like this. We’ve got no idea what the topography is here, we could
charge straight into an underground mountain. Just like that spam boat did a
couple of years back. That was in an area that was pretty thoroughly charted.
We’ve got no clue what’s down here. We don’t even know if it’s like Earth or
not.”

“You
get the feeling we’re the guinea pigs for the big boys following behind?”

“That’s
exactly what I think. Florida and Georgia are thumping along behind us
somewhere and my bet is we’re doing the mapping for them. And all the subs are
trailblazing for the carriers and amphibs. One good thing, at least the spam
boats are already on station. So if there was anything really bad up there,
we’d be getting word by now.”

Murphy
nodded, in complete agreement with his Captain. The plan was for Seawolf and
Connecticut, their torpedo rooms stuffed full of Tomahawk missiles, to stay way
offshore while the Jimmy Carter went in and unloaded a group of special forces
personnel. They’d be doing beach surveys and preparing the way for the
amphibious forces coming up. If Belial was still alive, and if he was planning
to continue his lava attacks, the Tomahawks would be the first line of attack.
Not all the missiles had conventional warheads; the baldricks might believe
their fortresses were tough but they’d never seen what a nuclear ground burst
could do. The marines coming over the beach were the second act in the
elimination of the threat to Earth’s cities.

“Thirty
hours then. And let’s just hope we don’t hit anything.”

56th
Stryker Brigade Combat Team, City of Dis. Hell

The
gates of Dis creaked mightily as they opened, the great bronze hinges squealing
as the doors swung outwards. They pivoted slowly, opened by great winches
powered by straining teams of orcs whose labors were soon to be ended. What to
do with the orcs? That was a very good question, one that human politicians
hadn’t even begun to get their minds around yet. The orcs would be freed from
their millenia of slavery, that was certain, but how to go from there? Nobody
knew, it was just one more set of problems in a vast array that grew by the
hour.

It
had seemed so easy. Bust into Hell, trample on anybody who gets in the way and
free the humans held in torment. And still the list of problems still grew
longer by the hour. Still, that was something the soldiers in the field didn’t
have to worry about. Their job was to win the war and they’d done just that.
The gates swinging open in front of them were proof of the victory. They’d
taken humanity’s oldest, most fundamental enemy and crushed them. Now, the city
gates were swinging open in homage to the victors.

Colonel
Chisholm waved his arm in the traditional cavalry gesture and his command
Stryker eased forward. The information from Abigor, backed up by the product
from the photo-reconnaissance aircraft had been that the streets in Dis were
narrow and poorly surfaced. Too narrow for the Abrams and Bradleys to pass so
the job of being the first American unit into Hell had fallen to the 28th
Mechanized Infantry Division, Pennsylvania National Guard (Federalized). Along
with America’s other infantry divisions, the 28th had been reorganized with
three Stryker Brigades and a single armored brigade and was ideally suited to
the move into Dis.

Inside
Dis, Chisholm was reminded of films he’d seen set in the medieval era. Same
kind of buildings, cobbled streets, highly suspect sanitation. The strikers
were moving slowly, edging through the clutter than lined the roads and
alleyways, the crews keeping a sharp look-out. Dis might have surrendered, the
government here might have changed hands but that didn’t mean the war was over.
There were a lot of Iraq veterans in the 56th who knew full well that ‘end of
major combat operations’ was not the same as ‘peace’. Too many people had
forgotten that and not come back. If there was going to be a firefight, the
Strykers were going to be ready to give out as much punishment as necessary.

“Any
word from the Russians?”

“Some
Sir. They’re not hitting any opposition either.”

Chisholm
nodded. This was a delicate, dicey operation. The humans were coming in as
conquerors, they wanted to be perceived as liberators, as the people who would
make things better. Flattening half the city was not a good way to start. The
Israelies had been politely but firmly excluded from the initial occupation for
exactly that reason. Their instant response doctrine was just that bit too
vigorous for this particular situation. There were other situations where their
operational doctrine would be appropriate, but not here, not now.

Around
them, the baldricks were watching. Mostly females and kidlings, the latter
sometimes making shy, quick waves at the troops passing. That was a worry, a
wave could easily be mistaken for a throw, and that wave could easily turn into
a real attack. Despite the apparent calm, Chisholm could feel his stomach
knotting up. This was the real danger, nerves would tighten and tighten until
they suddenly snapped and somebody did something very stupid.

“Sir,
over there!” Chisholm heard the call and very nearly did something very stupid
with his Mark 19 grenade launcher. But, it hadn’t been an attack warning,
instead the private was pointing at a female with pink skin and blonde hair. A
human female. Chisholm held up his hand and the column stopped. Then he waved
the woman over. She came out of the shadows and knelt by the Stryker, looking
down at her feet.

“Who
are you? What are you doing here? And stand up, stop grovelling.”

“Balthechildis,
Noble Sire.” The woman rose to her feet, unsteadily, tentatively. Even when
standing she still looked down, avoiding the eyes of the men in the armored
vehicles.

“Why
are you here?” Chisholm tried to moderate his voice, who knew what this woman
had suffered during her stay here? “And I’m not a Noble Sire. I’m a Colonel.
Colonel James Chisholm.”

“I
am a servant No… Colonel. In the house of Anthrapixicatis. I was brought here
when I first came.”

“Are
there others like you? Servants of the baldricks… the demons?”

“Some,
Colonel, those who wanted human servants took them when we arrived.”

“And
how long ago was that? Where did you come from?”

“I
do not know how long Colonel, I was a wife in a Frankish settlement of the
Danemark. I died in childbed.”

“This
Anthrawhatyoucallededhim. Did he treat you well?”

“Yes
Colonel. I was not whipped too often.”

Chisholm
wanted to say something but he changed his mind. Too many problems could start
that way. “Very well, Balthechildis, you don’t belong to him any more. Go
outside the city, follow the vehicles along back to the gate. Outside are some
people who will help you. You’re free now.”

The
woman obediently started walking back the way Chisholm had indicated. Beside
him, the vehicle sergeant spoke very softly. “He treated her well, didn’t whip
her too often. What sort of place is this?”

“This
is Hell Sergeant, you know that. And I guess Stockholm syndrome works down here
as well. Think about hit from her point of view, being a servant up here must
be a prime choice compared with what goes on in the pit. Roll forward.” He
flipped on his radio for transmission to Division HQ. “Sun-Ray Alpha Actual
Here. Spread the word, there are humans in Dis, servants and others. Keep a
watch for them and send them out to the reception teams when we spot them.”

The
message went out and a few seconds later his radio came alive again. “Sun-Ray
Alpha Actual, this is Sun-Ray Prime. Be advised your earlier message is
confirmed. Russian, British and Czech units all report finding humans in
apparently menial positions.” The voice on the other end sounded as if it was
trying to stop laughing. “Lead elements of the French cavalry division report
they have found what appears to be a bordello staffed with humans.”

“Trust
the French to find a brothel.” One of the troopers in the command Stryker
looked around at the sordid streets of Dis reflectively. “That we should be so
lucky.”