She grabbed the phone from David's hand as he stumbled away and searched through the memory for the number she needed. "Whitworth? This is Matron Burdett at Royal Hallamshire. We've got a huge… explosion in Sheffield, we have to evacuate. I'm sending our intensive care patients to you… yes I know you don't have the capacity… you'll have to turn them out… no, listen, this is a gold-level disaster. No, I don't know who… look, I'm sure they'll contact you shortly. Meanwhile people are dying here. You are going to send every ambulance you have to Sheffield and you are going to do it now, understand? Good."
MD 902 G-SYPS
"Control this is Sierra Yankee Nine Nine do you copy? Over."
Sergeant Webster was still trying to get the radio working. Meanwhile Private Hughes struggled to find a position in which he could get a shot at the rear support strut. He could see the target clearly enough, it was buried in a tangle of metal half a meter beneath the door sill, but with his broken leg there was just no way to aim the heavy rifle at it from inside the cabin. He considered shooting through the airframe, the AS50 undoubtedly had the power to punch through, but he'd be firing blind and in any case he was pretty sure the main fuel tank was under the cabin. Bad idea.
"Control this is Sierra Yankee Nine Nine do you copy? Over."
"Oliver! I copy. What the blazes is going on? First we thought we'd lost you, then we got a report you’d landed at Sheffield City Heliport. Everything has dropped in the pot here, nobody knows what is happening. Just what is your status, over?" The communications channels were clearing and the response from the command centre at Atlas Court included the alarms and a commotion of voices in the background.
"We were knocked down by the blast, my bird is seriously damaged. Can you see what's happening out here? Over."
"Confirmed, we're seeing it over CCTV, hell we can see it out the windows. We're preparing to evacuate, at this rate the lava will be here in less than half an hour. Are you airworthy over?"
"Negative control, we're stuck in a roof, the lava is about to surround the building. Need a pick-up urgently, Over."
There was a slight pause before the duty officer responded. "Sierra Yankee, army choppers are inbound but the closest is still ten minutes out. Over."
"Acknowledged control." Sergeant Webster hadn't expected anything else. Every commander would be in triage mode now and plucking a helicopter crew off the top of a doomed building wasn't a high priority. "Situation understood. Sierra Yankee Nine Nine out."
Private Hughes had been listening to the exchange and cut in over the intercom. "Sir, I think I can free the helo but I'll have to climb out onto the roof."
Webster gave it only a moment's consideration; there was no viable alternative. "Roger Private, we'll hover until you're back on board."
Jamie unplugged his headset and clambered out onto the twisted girders, gritting his teeth at the pain that flared in his leg. The metal was hot to the touch and the blistering heat and swirling smoke was making it increasingly hard to see or breathe. Once he'd steadied himself he grabbed the heavy rifle from the helicopter and began to work himself into a braced position. The pilot was watching him through the cockpit side window; Jamie give him the thumbs up and the engine noise intensified, as the helicopter once more struggled to lift off.
There it was, the near-side support strut clearly visible now that the helicopter's belly was clear of the corrugated iron roofing. He pulled the scope off the rail and lined up the AS50 with the iron sights, bracing it against a girder. Two sharp cracks and the job was done, the. 50 caliber rounds shredding the aluminum alloy tube. The helicopter lurched upward again and shuddered, straining against the last remaining strut. Jamie struggled to maintain his balance as the roof started to collapse, chunks of metal tumbling down into the building below. A fresh wave of heat hit him and with horror he realized that the lava was already pouring into the building. Jamie swung the heavy rifle around and unloaded his last three rounds into the tangle of metal around the back of the remaining skid.
The recoil was the final straw for the critically weakened factory roof. With a shrieking groan the entire section collapsed into the burning interior. With both skids now sheered off the Explorer leapt upwards into the sky, climbing away from the collapsing ruin. The last thing Private Hughes saw was the underside of the helicopter vanishing into the sky.
South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue HQ, Central Sheffield
The screens in the control centre normally showed simple dots representing the incident sites. Only for the worst industrial fires did the staff have to draw rings around the affected area. Now the entire centre of the city was marked in red, and that stain was growing rapidly.
"…and a second line of firebreaks here, here and here. That should save most of Hillsborough and Stannington. The lower Rivelin valley is a write off, the best we can hope for is that it floods fast enough to save a few buildings. We'll worry about Fullwood if we get time, industrial areas take priority. Now get to it."
The sheer spectacle of the aerial volcano had convinced Chief Fire Officer Spurrier to dispense with the usual levels of escalation and go straight to damage limitation mode.
He turned to Assistant CFO Lloyd, who was co-ordinating with the other responders, category one and otherwise.
"Get anything out of Highways yet?"
"No sir, they just say they'll call me back. We'll probably have to send our own people out to the depots to get the moving."
"Do it. I'll have the authority sorted out by the time they arrive. Keep reminding the police that we need those construction sites stripped too. We'll need every earthmover we can get if we're going to box in that lava flow."
A young firefighter burst into the room, still in full heat-resistant gear. "Sirs, we can't hold it, there's just too much, we solidify one stream and it comes at us from another direction. We've got to pull back."
CFO Spurrier sighed. All that effort rebuilding the city centre into a something actually pleasant to look at, and now it was all going to be buried in basalt. Ah well. At least the EU had footed most of the bill. For brief second he pitied the baldrick who would have to explain to the bureaucrats in Brussels what had happened to their investment. Then his momentary glee faded; having to abandon his new state of the art command centre was too a hard a blow.
"Okay. Tell Scott to redeploy along the Moor and Arundel Gate. You've got to keep the southern ring road and the station open as long as you can."
"Stephen, divert everything to Mansfield Road for now, then shut down. We'll be going straight to the forward command post at the airport."
MD 902 G-SYPS
Pete began to swing the helicopter around for a pass on the factory. Private Hughes had risked everything to save them and Pete wasn't going to just leave him.
Sergeant Webster's voice came over the intercom, barely audible over the screaming engines and still omnipresent roar. "Peter, what are you doing?."
"Going back for him of course."
"Peter, he's gone. The entire building collapsed. I was watching as we took off, there was nothing we could do."
There was no response from the pilot, so Webster took the opportunity to contact control.
"Control, Sierra Yankee Nine Nine, do you copy?"
"Sierra Yankee! I copy, what's your status?"
"Airborne again, but we've taken a beating. Are you still receiving telemetry?" The camera pod on the helicopter's nose had jammed in place, but it could still transmit a picture. “We’ve got some more stuff for you.”
"Ah… roger. Sierra Yankee. Bloody hell."
The Explorer was circling slowly over central Sheffield, a position which afforded a fine view of the magma fountain, blurry but visible within the base of the rapidly forming mushroom cloud, as well as the rivers of lava consuming the town centre. Every few seconds another building would collapse, adding further haze to the scene below. "Oliver, we have to evacuate. The fires are getting close and the lava isn't far behind. Pogo one seven seven, stay up as long as you can then abort to the airport, acknowledge."