“It’s gone Loco.”
Jones swore quietly, a modern aircraft would have an air-to-air radar that could have found the beast in the dust laden air but the F-105 was old and obsolete. Still, she’d done her best at an age when any aircraft should have expected genteel retirement. The hydra had got away but the troops on the ground hadn’t. Nor had three wyverns.
Sixth Circle of Hell.
Xisorixus pulled himself out of the ditch that he had managed to find when the human sky chariots had found him. It had been so sudden he hadn’t had time to think about what to do, the chariots had screamed out of the sky and dropped their mage-bolts all over his column. Then they’d come back and repeated the performance, spraying fireflies into his foot soldiers. A few seconds that was all it had taken. They’d gone and left this shambles behind them.
The road was torn up, the stones shattered and cast around by the mage bolts that had left craters where they had landed. Around them were torn fragments of black flesh that was all anybody would ever find of those unlucky enough to be hit. Further out from the mage-bolt craters the wounded were sprawled on the ground, wailing with pain from the injuries inflicted by the iron splinters in their bodies.
“Get up, get moving. His Infernal Majesty did you the honor of inspecting you in person. Now show yourselves worthy of that privilege.” Then Xisorixus looked up at the city of Dis towering overhead and saw the great cloud of dust that masked where Satan’s palace had once stood. Others were looking at it as well.
“He might do the inspecting but he’s not around to do the fighting is he?” The voice from his troops was unidentifiable but the murmur of agreement that swept through the ranks showed that the speaker had a lot of agreement. Xisorixus was about to challenge the speaker, whoever he was, but then he decided to let it slide.
“How many have we lost?” Instead it was time to take stock of his losses.
“About eight hundred.” The reply was from the senior ‘Baron’ who Xisorixus had appointed to lead his first Legion. A ‘Baron’ who had led nothing larger than an octurbinium before and whose aristocratic rank was unrecognized by anybody outside Xisorixus’s hastily-assembled Army.
Eight hundred out of thirty thousand. A sharp loss for an attack that had been over in seconds but one that his army could swallow. The whispered words about the fighting on Earth and now along the Phlegethon were that a human attack usually created far more havoc than this.
“Resume our march. We will overrun the rebelling humans and gain great glory. And much favor in the eyes of His Majesty. We will have succeeded where Abigor and Beelzebub have failed!”
A ragged cheer went up and Xisorixus’s Army started to move again, leaving its dead beside the road. As they did, not a few were wondering when the Sky-Chariots would return and what form of death they would bring next time.
Chapter Sixty Nine
RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus. Wing Commander Martin Winters eased Vulcan B. 2 XH558 down onto the air station’s long runway after taking her up for an air test. RAF Akrotiri was being used by the RAF as a staging post for aircraft bound for Iraq and onwards for operations in Hell.
The station was crowded with military aircraft and was busier than it had been at any point in its history, since the old days of the Near East Air Force anyway. In fact apart from more modern aircraft like Typhoons and Tornados it even looked like something out of the old NEAF days. Other than XH558 there were three other operational Vulcans and two Victor K. 2s, a line-up of twelve Buccaneer S. 2s, some of which had come all the way from South Africa, now wearing the markings of a reformed 208 Squadron, while four Phantom FGR. 2s sat at the end of the row of Buccaneers, their paintwork looking a little faded, but were every bit operational. On the opposite side of the runway parked among ultra-modern Typhoons were a pair of Canberra PR. 9s and a T. 4. Winters expected to see the Battle of Britain flight with its Spitfires, Hurricane and other Word War Two veterans turning up an any moment. Then he reminded himself that those aircraft had been assigned to the Home Guard and were patrolling over cities in case of any more lava attacks. Of course, there was always the Shuttleworth Trust…
Ground Traffic Control was bleating as usual, they just weren’t used to having this many aircraft on the ground at once nor were they accustomed to the big bombers being around. Wing Commander Winters taxied the big bomber to the end of the row where the rest of the V-Bomber Flight was parked and shut down the four Rolls Royce Olympus 201 engines. Within seconds with the air conditioning turned off the cockpit began to get unbearably hot.
“Come on, lads, let’s get out of here before we all fry.” Winters said jocularly to his crew.
Like many of the aircrew in the flight Winters was a recalled pilot who had last flown the Vulcan in the early 1980s. The flight had the highest average age of aircrew of any unit in the Royal Air Force, and the highest average seniority, there were far more Wing Commanders and Squadron Leaders in such a relatively small unit than there normally would be. The air force was now attempting to rectify this situation by transferring some aircrew from the Nimrod and Tornado force to the V bombers. Since the RAF was hoping to buy some of the B-1Cs that the Americans were planning to put back in production the experience of flying large bomber aircraft would be valuable. Just as was happening all over the world, the museum-pieces were filling the gap until new production could replace them and allow them to return to retirement.
Winters climbed down the crew ladder, making sure he remained in the shadow of the big bat-winged bomber while he waited for the four other men to climb down. While he was doing so he heard the sound of another pair of aircraft making their approach. He did not recognise the engine sound and decided to go take a look, perhaps it was a visiting aircraft from another NATO unit.
“Bloody hell!” He remarked in astonishment as he saw the first of the pair of new aircraft flare out and release its braking parachute.
The large white aircraft’s nose wheel touched down and it began to decelerate, demonstrating the short-field capability that had been designed in from the start. As it passed XH558 Winters took in its pale, bleached national roundels and its serial number – XR220.
The Vulcan’s co-pilot, Squadron Leader David Maxwell, noticed that Winters was standing as if he was in a daze. He had not yet noticed either of the two arrivals.
“What is it, Boss…?” He said just in time to see the second aircraft, XR222, taxi past. “No…that couldn’t be! Tell me the Sun has finally gotten to me and that was a Tornado, not what I just thought it was.”
“I’m afraid that’s what you thought it was, it’s the second one in fact.” Winters replied.
“Well they kept that pretty quiet, Boss. I never heard so much as a peep that anybody was working on them.”
“Considering that they’ve got no hours on the airframe and have been cosseted for the last forty odd years it must have been fairly easy to get them flying again. Depends how extensive the internal damage was I guess, I’d heard Healey had ordered them cut up inside. Either the staff fixed them up while they were on show or the orders sort of got lost. I suppose they looted the Concorde program for engines and spares. I always heard Maggie Thatcher wanted the aircraft put back in production so some work must have been done back then as well.”
“Way I heard it, it was just the electrical wiring that was hacked up, they even cut the cabling rather than disconnecting it. But they’ve been in temperature-controlled and air-conditioned environments so the wiring may have been the only thing that needed replacing. Winters turned to the great bomber above and behind him. “Sorry, Old Girl, I’m afraid you’re no longer the star of the show.”
Winters could swear that he heard the bomber ‘harrumph’, evidently she disapproved of such show-offs as the ‘Grey Ghost’. On the other hand it could just be the airframe expanding and contracting as some bits of it heated up in the Sun and others cooled down.