The aerial refueling arrangements were a thing of beauty. The tankers themselves, a mix of existing KC-10As and newly-modified KC-10Bs, had already refueled once on the way to the rendezvous and would have to refuel again on the way back. The arrangements for the next refueling of the B-1s, after they had completed their strike were even more complex, the KC-10s would have to refuel twice before making the rendezvous with each of their tankers themselves having to be refueled in mid-air on the way. Overall, more than 100 tankers were assigned to this mission and that didn’t change the fact that it only needed one of the B-1s to develop problems with its air-to-air refueling system and that aircraft would be inevitably lost. The only air base that could take them was 6,000 miles behind them and there were no alternatives or emergency landing fields.
On the other hand, this mission was the only way humans could strike at the source of the attacks that had destroyed Sheffield and Detroit. Not to mention the only way any further attacks of the kind could be prevented. There were special forces in the vicinity of Belial’s fortress, the radar beacon they were using for navigation proved that, but they lacked the strength and firepower to do much about the place. A long way south, two human aircraft carrier battle groups were due to enter the Hellish Sea and start pounding their way up north but even flat out it would be two weeks before they were on station – and supporting them this far away from a home base would be a real pain. No, for the moment, the bombers were it, the best and most plausible form of striking at the source of the sky-volcanos.
“Tankers ahead Curt.” The co-pilots voice was relieved. It hadn’t quite been decided what to do if the complex refueling arrangements hadn’t worked. The B-1s couldn’t make it to the target area without refueling so if the refueling went sour, the aircraft went down. Trafford assumed that the only course of action would be to walk out but 6,000 miles was a long way by B-1. On foot it was an impossibility even forgetting the hostile environment of Hell. So, seeing the glint of red as the light flashed off the silver wings of the tankers was a great relief.
“Got them. This is Foxhound Leader to all Foxhounds. Tankers in sight, prepare for refueling.” Trafford relaxed a little and shifted in his seat again. “3,750 miles out, none of us are going to walk right for a month after this.”
“There’s always the steam baths and massages.” His co-pilot’s voice was droll, the idea came from an old film starring Jimmy Stewart and its ideas on post-flight treatment were a long-standing bomber crew joke.
“Yeah, right. It look to you like the clag is a bit thinner up here? Sometimes I’d swear I can almost see the ground down below.”
“Just your imagination Curt. Take two reality pills and remember we’re bombing the crap out of Hell.”
Chapter Seventy Six
Walls of Dis, Hell
This wasn’t like normal sieges. The rules of a siege were well-established; the defenders mounted guard on the walls of the besieged fortress, the attackers started to build their own fortifications around that fortress. Their aim was to cut supplies to the besieged garrison and eventually bring about its surrender. If that didn’t seem likely, they would concentrate on the weakest point of the line and break through there. Or try to, a wise garrison commander kept a force in reserve for exactly that eventuality. The reserve force could be used another way, if food was running out, it could launch an attack on the weakest point of the fortifications and break out. If there was a reserve.
Nobody had ever besieged Dis before, not even during the Great Celestial War. It was too big, its walls too long. It would require more than the total armies of Hell, even before the humans had set about decimating them, to set up a proper siege. Garrisoning Dis was even more impossible. Dagon had 243 legions, of whom 24 were Krakens and 16 cavalry. That left him with 203 legions of foot soldiers, 1,350,000 in total. That meant he had one soldier for every 50 feet of wall. That wasn’t a garrison, it was a fig-leaf. Dagon snorted at the use of the old Earth religious reference. These humans weren’t the blind, foolish followers of superstition that the Demons had known. They were supremely logical, supremely practical, utterly ruthless killers. And nobody had told them that putting Dis under siege was impossible so they had gone ahead and done it.
At first, Dagon didn’t even believe that the city had been put under siege. There were no earthen walls being thrown up, no garrison surrounding the city. The humans had started to arrive and set up their camps, scattered around the city, wherever they felt the ground suited them. Isolated encampments, just their tanks and mickvees parked on the plains, surrounded by a wall of earth. And their artillery of course, Briefly Dagon wondered at how Belial had got to know all the names for the human weapons, was he in league with them? That was a question better not asked because Belial was now Satan’s favorite and to criticize him meant death. Anyway, the names were good, ‘aircraft’ made much more sense than ‘sky chariot’ and few now used the original demon names. That was good for the old names implied magic and there was no magic in the human’s arsenal. They used machines instead. Engineering had met magic and engineering’s victory had been absolute. Dagon knew Dis would fall, his paper-thin screen of soldiers couldn’t stop the human onslaught.
Dagon shook his head and returned to the problems of the siege. He had more soldiers, more by far than the humans. The human encampments hadn’t linked up, they were still separate entities. Last night, some demons outside had tried to get caravans of supplies through to the city, knowing that prices within the walls were already soaring. The great camps between the human positions had seemed an open invitation and that was just what they had been. An invitation to destruction. The caravans had set out and died under a hail of mage bolts – Dagon stopped himself and carefully used the right words. A hail of artillery fire. The caravans had been destroyed, when the light had returned, all that was left of them was charred wreckage. The siege was as tight as if the humans had surrounded Dis. How they’d done it, Dagon didn’t understand but they had and that was all that mattered.
“Keep down My Lord.” One of the foot soldiers near him whispered urgently. That was something else Dagon had noted. The soldiers up here crouched behind the stone crenellation and spoke in whispers. They were afraid, mortally afraid and once more Dagon knew that the fall of Dis was inevitable.
“You fear the humans?” Dagon’s voice was silky as he asked the question that was also a threat.
“Humans, no. Their magery yes. “ The new words hadn’t spread down to the rank and file yet. “My Lord, if they see you, you will die. They can see in the dark and strike without warning.”
The ranker measured distances and the route that Dagon had used to approach. “My Lord, they are watching now for you. They saw you come to us and now they wait for you. When you appear again, if you appear again, you will die. Watch this.”
The soldier placed a spare helmet, Dagon didn’t like to think of how the helmet had become a spare, on a trident and lifted it where Dagon’s head would be if he stood up. There was a dull thud and the helmet lurched and spun. When Dagon looked at it, there was a hole the size of his talon punched in the front but the back was a gaping void, its edges hot and singed.