“Confirmed.” Pete eased the cyclic forward and the aircraft began to pick up speed until it was holding 60 knots. ”I'll take it easy. No sense wasting fuel.”
He looked over at Sergeant Webster, who nodded. Other units were scouring the Peaks for baldrick invaders, they were tasked with rapid response should the demons slip through the net to populated area. That meant maximizing endurance, as they'd do no good if they were down for refueling when the baldricks went on a rampage.
“Sierra Yankee Nine Nine, make that multiple sightings, at least one baldrick over Pond's Forge, priority one, over.”
“Roger control, on our way.” Webster replied. Pete had already dipped the nose and the MD 902 leapt forward, speeding towards the city centre. He cut in on the RT “Have ATC got a blip this time? Over.”
There was a long silence. “Ah, negative Sierra Yankee. They've got some kind of interference though. Radar cover is compromised.”
Sergeant Webster had zoomed the IR camera and had a pulsating speck centered on his monitor. As the helicopter drew closer it took a form reminiscent of a giant long-legged bat. “Baldrick sighted! Single flyer at 600 feet AGL, heading west from cathedral, over.”
The reply was immediate and emphatic. “Say again Sierra Yankee, one baldrick flyer over central Sheffield? We've lost your telemetry.”
Pete had a visual on the baldrick and was maneuvering the helicopter into its rear quarter, staying well back. The Explorer was quieter than most helicopters, primarily due to its lack of a tail rotor, but he was still under no illusions that the baldrick couldn't hear them. He just didn't want to force a confrontation until they were ready.
“Affirmative, baldrick flyer proceeding west towards university at about 50 knots. It's a small one…” Webster's voice trailed off. He had switched back to visual and noticed that the demons wings were glowing with a ghostly blue-white light. Worse, the air beneath the creature was shimmering, as if by heat haze. What the devil was it up to?
“Ack… ledged… alert… intercept com… def..” The duty officer's voice distorted and dropped out. Sergeant Webster flipped channels but the error indicator on the radio panel wouldn't go out. It had to be whatever the demon was doing, if the radar was affected too. Time to make a judgment call.
“Peter, take us up over it for a shot.” He looked back over his shoulder. “Corporal, you're up. Take it down.”
The two riflemen were ready for the order and sprang immediately into action. Private Hughes slammed back the door, while Corporal Sinker heaved his AS50 anti-material rifle onto the pintle mount. The target was easy to make out despite the fog, with the bright glow emanating from its wings… but then the light suddenly went out and the bat-like shape veered off and dropped away. Sinker put his eye to the scope, hoping to line up a shot before the helo started changing position… and then recoiled from a sudden, overpowering rush of heat and light. An impossibly deep, deafeningly loud roar had a moment to pound his ears before the helicopter was sucked into the maelstrom.
The University of Sheffield, 11:26pm GMT
The Arts Tower was a Sheffield landmark, a striking twenty-one story monolith built in the early sixties and still the tallest university building in the British Isles. The midnight black disc of the portal swelled into existence almost directly above the tower, appearing for all the world like a flying saucer from a low-budget sci-fi movie. In the space of an eye-blink a glowing stream of magma had burst out from the disc’s lower surface and begun to plummet towards the building, while from the upper surface a fountain of liquid rock sprayed into the air. A full four seconds passed as the magma blossomed in mid-air; those few onlookers that survived would later report being transfixed by the deadly beauty of the scene. Then the crushing stream smashed into the tower’s west side, driving it into the ground and exploding the opposite side in a spray of fire and shrapnel.
The shockwave created by the magma hitting the ground smashed windows and ruptured eardrums out to over a kilometer. The gas entrained within the rock erupted from confinement, sending clouds of shoking vapor across the city. Half-powered by the gas, half powered by the sheer kinetic energy of the fall, liquid rock splashed out from the impact site, smashing into the lesser tower blocks surrounding the impact point, which immediately began to collapse. After another four seconds the canopy of glowing projectiles formed from the upper spray began to impact on the surrounding area with the force of thousand-pound bombs. The campus vanished into a huge cloud of dust, lit from within by the hellish light of the magma stream. Thousands of tonnes of rock continued to slam into the impact site every second, creating a roar that outclassed even a Saturn rocket launch. The relatively soft ground shook and slipped under the onslaught, leading to further collapses as buildings further out were hit by the deadly combination of tremors and projectiles.
MD 902 G-SYPS
Private Jamie Hughes was being battered by noise, light and g-forces beyond anything his worst nightmares had imagined. After the initial lurch the helicopter had spiralled out of control, shaking as shrapnel hit the fuselage. At first his only thought was to hang on and prepare for a likely fatal impact. Finally the aircraft began to stabilize and he could fight through the shock to assess on the situation in the cabin. Corporal Sinker was down, sprawled on the deck and unmoving. A massive pillar of fire and smoke filled the port windows. Jamie’s first thought was ‘nuclear bomb’, but surely they’d been too close to survive a nuke going off?
He was about to check his C.O.’s wounds when he spotted a flash of movement through the open door. As he struggled to focus the bronze glint resolved itself into the shape of the Baldrick flyer, flapping furiously to escape the destruction it had wrought. Oliver’s mind filled instantly with rage and a determination not to let that bastard get away. Leaning over the corporal’s body, he grabbed the AS50 and swung it up to firing position. The helo continued to shake and buck, making it almost impossible to keep the fleeing baldrick in the sights. Private Hughes knew he had only seconds to make the shot, so he let fly with five rounds rapid. The first one went wide, the second should’ve hit but had no visible effect, then the third one went wide again as the helo started to shudder. Somehow he managed to bring the rifle back on target and the last two rounds hit the creature, spraying blood visibly as he watched through the scope. That was all he saw before the floor dropped away from under him.
Meanwhile Peter Taranaski had been fighting hard to stabilize his bird, which had been thrown violently out of the flight envelope by the initial shockwave. The strong gusts and uneven thermals kept undoing his efforts – the controls didn’t seem quite right either, while all the time that pounding roar bored into his head. Glowing balls shot through the sky all around them and he flinched repeatedly at the near misses. Finally he managed to get the Explorer back into level flight, but they’d lost most of their altitude and airspeed.
“Sergeant? Sergeant!? Corporal!!?” There was no response over the intercom, so he tore his eyes away from the instruments and glanced over at the observer’s position. Sergeant Webster was slumped forward in his seat, seemingly unconscious, but what struck him cold was the sight through the window. Some kind of massive explosion had obliterated the university and fingers of glowing lava were streaming out from the base of the smoke column. They had to get out of here, now. Peter began to pull the bird up and away from the inferno, yanking the collective just as the helicopter entered a powerful updraft created by the lava flow. The swirling air quickly formed into a vortex ring, stalling the rotors as the helicopter literally lost its grip on the air. The Explorer rolled sideways and began to plummet towards the ground.