Chapter Sixty Four
Free Hell, Swamps by the River Styx, Fifth Ring of Hell
Human laughter was not a common commodity in hell. Demonic laughter was, but human mirth was rare in the extreme. So, the sound of three humans laughing uproariously struck Lieutenant (deceased) Jade Kim as worth investigating. Even as she made that decision, it struck her that she too had not laughed for a very long time.
“Whoever these people are, they certainly got you right eh Titus?” Caesar was wiping his eyes clear of the tears that helpless laughter had caused. The three men were gathered around a small portable DVD player, one whose eight-inch screen was showing the end credits from an episode of the HBO series ‘Rome”.
“Yeah, but Atia? She was to busy praying and trying to be sanctimonious to get up to any of that stuff. Now, if they’d said she was Fulvia…”
“Enjoying the show gentlemen?” Kim’s voice cut through the end music.
“Very much thank you. I was quite flattered by my depiction.” Caesar leaned back and started to sort through the disks for the next episode.
“I wasn’t. Bit harsh I thought.” Pullo’s expression belied his words, Kim got the impression he also was impressed by the television show. “And it got my army life really wrong.”
“That’s true Titus, you didn’t need to get drunk to do some really stupid things. You nearly got us both killed over and over again without the aid of bad wine.” Lucius Vorenus wasn’t laughing, his voice was quiet and melancholy.
“Yeah, but if we hadn’t kept going, the gods wouldn’t have taken a fancy to us and we wouldn’t have gained their protection here would we.” Pullo’s chin jutted out, then his voice softened. “They got Niobe right didn’t they.”
Vorenus nodded. “She didn’t have to do it. If I hadn’t lost my temper, she’d would have lived.”
“And so would I, Lucius.” Caesar’s voice was shot with mock severity. “Getting killed wasn’t in my plans for the day you know.”
“She’s down here somewhere Lucius.” Kim tried to sound comforting. “She would have ended up here anyway as far as I can tell. We’ll find her and then you two can make your peace. If you want to.”
That was a good point and everybody around knew it. Sooner or later it was going to have to be addressed, what would happen when couples who had been married were reunited. Would they want to be? Kim quickly considered the problems Henry VIII was likely to face and shuddered. Then she was aware of Caesar sitting close to her in an uncomfortably familiar way. That fitted what she knew of him from the histories, ‘every woman’s husband and every husband’s wife’ had been one of the ancient barbs thrown in his general direction.
“What happened to Servilia? Did she really die like that?”
“Nah, she outlived the lot of them.” Kim paused. “Gaius, you know what happens to women when they arrive down here?” Caesar nodded, guessing where this was going. “Well, I got all torn up inside.”
“We all heal fast down here Jade. We’re not the same bodies we had on Earth, look the same but we’re not. Your wounds have healed.”
“Not the ones up here.” She tapped her head. “I still feel all torn up. So, Gaius, no. Thank you, but, just, no.” Then she smiled quickly. “But I do have one thing to ask of you, personal favor?”
“Anything for the beautiful woman who has brought hope to hell.”
“I got my copies of ‘The Gallic War’ and ‘The Civil War’ brought through when I heard you were coming. Could you sign them for me?”
Caesar chuckled. “Of course. I…” Then he was interrupted by McInery entering the cave, very fast.
“Ell-tee, got a radio message came in, top urgency.” He handed over a slip with the message printed on it. Kim read it and went white.
“Gaius, we got a problem. One of the Spec Ops teams down in the Sixth Circle has sent in a sighting report. There’s a major force of Baldricks, some 30,000 strong with about 1,500 harpies, moving along the Sixth Circle boundary towards us. They’re the other side of the wall at the moment but they can pass through the gates any point they want to. They’ll be here in two days, perhaps three.”
The amiable smile fell from Caesar’s face and suddenly he was the military commander known to history. “They’re coming here?”
“Pretty sure of it, nowhere else they could be going with a force like that. If they link up with the forces we have on either side of us, we got real problems.”
“Why would they want to do that? You’ve already stalled the demons there. They’ll hit the river flank. How many men do you have?”
“I’ve got about a hundred soldiers trained to handle modern weapons. That’s it.”
Caesar smiled at the emphasis on ‘soldiers’ rather than ‘men’ but let it pass. “So you can’t fortify the river boundary properly. I can get some people here, a thousand or more in a day or so and five thousand in two or three, but they won’t help much.”
“They won’t help at all, we haven’t a chance to train them to use rifles and we haven’t got the equipment for them even if we could. Humans don’t stand much of a chance against baldricks without them. Still, the river’s still on our side.”
The comment made Caesar’s mouth twist in despair. He kept forgetting that this woman was a Lieutenant only, she was a junior officer and had the training to match. In other words, not very much. “Jade, in Gaul I threw a bridge over the Rhine in a couple of days. The Rhine is bigger and faster flowing that the Styx. This river barrier you’re putting so much hope on counts for very little in the scheme of things. You need all your…. soldiers… to hold the two end flanks. You can’t defend that river as well. If the enemy has 30,000 troops coming in, you’re done. Time to get out of here.”
“Can’t do it. We’ve got civilians here now, we have to get them out, and the dead we’ve rescued, we can’t hand them over”
“Ell-tee, the British want a word with you, they ran the special ops team that got this warning to us. They say they have some suggestions.”
British Expeditionary Force HQ, Camp Hell-Alpha, Hell
“Are you sure this is a good idea Sir?”
“Can you think of a better one?”
“Honestly Sir, yes. We’ve got the lift, evacuate the place.”
“Not good enough. Look, Colonel, Free Hell and the PFLH is about the only successful insurgency we’ve got running in Hell. Oh, the other groups are operating there, but they’ve all got tied down rescuing the prisoners and so on. Very estimable and good work but it isn’t actually fighting Hell. Only the PFLH have done that and they’re entirely an American operation. So, while the Spams run around making decisions, we do something to help the people on the sharp end. That way we get to muscle in on their operation, even take it over if everything goes right. The PFLH is run by a Lieutenant, so we send in 2 Para and its got a Colonel, you, in charge. That makes you the ranking officer on scene and puts you in command. And, once we’re in we stay in – with you in command. We’re doing them a big favor inside, that Lieutenant has done well but she’s way out of her depth. They need military expertise in there if they are going to survive.
“We’ve got Chinooks and Merlins to lift your battalion in. You’ll have Typhoon and Tornados for escort, more Tornados and Jags to give air support one everything drops in the pot.”
“Very good Sir.”
“Move out as soon as you can. And remember, you are the ranking officer down there.”
B-1B “Dragon Slayer” 128th Bomb Squadron, Georgia Air National Guard, Approaching Dis
“Everything dialed in?” Major Curtis Trafford looked at his WSO and got a thumbs up by way of response. The four B-1Bs were in a loose, finger-four formation, cruising at 29,000 feet. The discovery that the air was clear up here had been a major advantage but it also meant that their target was lost in the rolling clouds of red dust underneath. The mapping radar was doing a good job of penetrating it though, the city of Dis was ahead of them and the long spur that stuck out into the great caldera of Hell showed up clearly. Their target was where that spur ended in a rounded promontory, for in the center of that feature was Satan’s palace.