Belial recognized her, it was Naphula. He recognized her griffin-like wings and the lion-like head. Once she had been a powerful Great Duke of Hell who had commanded thirty-six legions of demons. Belial had liked her, she had shared his taste for mechanical things and the unusual. Once he had even sought an alliance with her but his position as a virtual outcast, only just barely tolerated at court had precluded that. Her pride would not tolerate an alliance with as lowly a lord as he. Now, she was dead and her crushed body looked small and useless. “Take her body out to the causeway and place it up there. Do the same with the rest of the bodies you find. And dig faster. We may find our master awaiting our rescue at any moment.”
F-105D “Frankenwhoosh” 273rd Fighter Group, Over the Sixth Ring of Hell
The fact that any F-105s had survived at all wasn’t so unusual, but the sheer number of them had been remarkable indeed. The search through the museums had found no less than 103 F-105s of assorted marks, in conditions varying from the derelict to the pristine. Some had even had their engines and cannon still installed and three had been in immediately flyable condition. Over the last three months, 15 more had joined the 273rd making up one of its squadrons. They were all a blend of the most intact airframes with parts taken from the airframes too far gone to bring back into service, hence they all bore names starting with “Franken”. The single-engined aircraft were old and tired, all the museum salvaged aircraft were that, but they could still fly and haul bombs. They would do, they would fill the gap, until new aircraft came into service in enough numbers and the Thunderchiefs could return to their quiet life in the aircraft museums of America. Only this time, they would be sporting the red-and-gray camouflage scheme worn by the aircraft that fought in Hell.
Captain Casey “Loco” Jones angled his wings slightly and turned to follow the Styx as it meandered down below. The five other F-105s following him did the same. The aircraft were sluggish, the F-105 was stunningly fast low down but nobody had ever described it as agile. With six 750 pound bombs hanging under its belly, four more on each inner wing rack and one on each outer, a total of 12,000 pounds, the old aircraft were really hard to fly. It had been a wrench for him to be taken out of his Boeing 767 and put back into a Thud, but the old-timers who had flown the bird before were getting thin on the ground.
Down below, he could see a long black snake following the river. It was the column of baldricks he was hunting, apparently they were advancing on an area of Hell that had been liberated. Well, there were things he could do about that.
“All Frankenstein aircraft, target is below, roll out and follow me down.” Jones rolled his wings to vertical, feeling the aging spars and frames creaking in protest then pulled the stick back, hauling the nose of the Thunderchief around. Then, he leveled the wings, dropped the nose and rammed the throttle all the way forward. The F-105 responded gallantly, its engine surging with power, even through the filters built into its engine intakes.
Under his nose, the column was now stretched out before him, his flight path taking him along its length. Something that hadn’t been obvious before, there was a wall between them and the river, an old-fashioned, crenallated wall that marked the division between the fifth and sixth circles of Hell. That wouldn’t make much difference, it offered little cover and wouldn’t even get in the way of the bombing and strafing passes.
The target below was growing rapidly, this was a part of the attack that needed care. The Thud dived very fast and was too ponderous to pull out quickly. More than one F-105 pilot had been so interested in strafing his target that he’d left pulling out too late and flown right into the ground. A gentle pressure on the stick, pull the nose back and then release the bombs. Behind him, the dark green 750 pounders dropped clear, their tail fins spreading sideways as they opened up to slow the fall of the bombs. Those retarding fins and the long fuse extenders made sure that the bombs would explode above the ground, maximizing the radius covered by their fragments. The F-105s streaked over the column of baldricks, unleashing their total of nearly a hundred bombs onto the figures below, then used the energy they had built up in their dive to get clear. By the time the bombs exploded, they were already miles away and thousands of feet above the devastation their bombs had caused.
At the top of his climb, Jones rolled over again and started his second pass. The bombs had mostly hit around the head of the column so he thought it would be only fair to give the rear some attention. He put the pipper of his cannon sight on the last ranks and squeezed the trigger, haring the vicious rasp of the M-61 as it pumped its shells into the scattering mass of baldricks. Then, he lifted the nose, marching the tracers along the column, only ending when he was getting too low for comfort. Still, he had some ammunition left and a part of it was used on a harpy that staggered across is nose. Then he was away again, once more climbing for altitude.
“Frankenstein aircraft, formate on me, we’re going home to get some more goodies.” If there were any he thought quietly, the rate we’re using the stuff up, the day when we run out can’t be that far off.
The six Thunderchiefs formed up into a loose arrowhead and started back towards the Hellmouth and home. Up ahead of him, Jones saw something that he couldn’t quite identify so he angled his course to take a closer look. It was further away than he had thought, mainly because the objects were so much larger.
“Just what the blazes is that?” the voice on the radio wasn’t quite identifiable but Jones shared the sentiments. It was a huge, misshapen beast, flying in an ungainly pattern, not quite holding a true course or height. He looked harder, it had wings of course, and a tail that seemed to act as a rudder. Then he caught his breath – it had seven heads.
“It’s a hydra, a flying hydra. And its huge, those wings must be three, four hundred feet across. Uh-oh look out guys. There’s wyverns with it and we haven’t seen ones like this before.” The wyverns were far larger than any that had been reported to date and were a brilliant gold in color. Jones started to count them and as he got to twelve, they broke formation to attack his aircraft. Simultaneously, the hydra dived away and started to break for cover, it might be ungainly but it was fast.
Jones picked out one of the Wyverns, the old Thud was no dogfighter but this wasn’t the time to argue matters. Once again he firewalled the throttle and felt the surge of power from his engine. The formation of six aircraft split into three pairs, one heading up and right, one up and left, the center pair with Jones in the lead went straight up. He glanced at the speed tape-gauge, he was pulling almost 18,000 feet per minute in a climb that was close to being straight up. As his speed bled off, he timed his climb, then rolled the F-105 over and dropped the nose. The wyverns were beneath him and his chosen target was in the perfect position for a gun pass. The Thud accelerated downwards and he moved the pipper so that it was on the tail of the monster. Then his cannon rasped again and he saw the tracers thudding into its body.
It was a short burst, it had to be he’d used most of his ammunition up on the column of troops. He saw tracers flashing past his wing, his wingman was firing as well, using up what was left of his cannon ammunition on the stricken wyvern. The creature was flailing, dying, the ball that ended its tail whipping through the air. That ball was dangerous, it had already cost the humans aircraft and that had been from the much smaller wyverns seen over the Phlegethon. It didn’t matter though, the Thuds were clear and three of the wyverns were dying, shot to pieces by the 20mm gatling guns in the nose of the F-105s.
“Any sign of that hydra?”