The second missile did really serious damage. Its proximity fuse initiated it right underneath Shingroleth’s belly. The holocaust of tungsten-steel fragments ripped open his stomach and tore his abdominal cavity to shreds. Even in a mind crazed by the ghastly pain from the first hit, Shingroleth noticed the sudden drop in weight as his intestines dropped out of his body. Then his fire-and-acid blood, spraying from more wounds than could reasonably be counted, set fire to his flesh. Shingroleth tumbled downwards, all hope of control had gone when he had lost his stabilizing tail. By the time his remains hit sea level, all that was left of him was a fine carbon dust.
Immediately on firing, Wong had firewalled his throttles, cut in reheat and taken his F/A-18 up into a steep climb. The last thing he had wanted to do was get too close to those things. As he rolled over at the top of the climb, he could see the havoc his attack had wrought on the demon formation below. His target had gone, its death marked by a black streak towards the sea far below. Another one of the formation had taken hits from four AIM-120s, for some reason two F/A-18s had fired on the same aircraft, well, that sort of thing happened. It had meant that the demon had been quite literally torn apart by the storm of fragments and blast of the explosions. More than 200 pounds of best explosive American dollars could buy had vented its wrath on the hideous creature and all that was left of it was a shower of burning fragments. A third demon was staggering away, it had been the last to get hit and had escaped the eviscerating body hits. Instead, one of its wings had been torn to tiny fragments and it was going down in a helpless spin. Even as Wong watched, two of his F-18s were closing on it.
Prigrathrath was desperately trying to control his descent. One of his wings had gone, it was just a mass of torn flesh and spurting blood. The only thing that was saving him was that his flight path was keeping the blood-and-acid away from his body, the fate of Shingroleth and Caranaskatos had shown him what would happen when demon blood and body parts mixed. Two of the gray-painted human machines were coming after him, he could see them, but with his crippled wings there was little he could do about it. It was odd, there was a strange twinkling light coming from the front of the two flying machines. Then Prigrathrath’s lights went out.
Squires had fired a much longer burst than was normal for the M61 cannon in the nose of his F/A-18. He and his wingman had aimed very carefully, using the plane’s on-board computer and continuously-computed impact point sights to place all 100 rounds of their bursts square into the demon’s face. The effect was more than either pilot could have hoped. The great, hideously malformed head had just disintegrated as the armor-piercing incendiary shells ripped through the skin and shattered the bones underneath. The demon’s eyes, in fact every feature of its face, had been destroyed in the hail of cannon shells tearing through its structure. Once again, fire-and-acid blood spraying from the ruptured veins and arteries finished the job of destruction that fragments, explosions and blast had started. The demon erupted into flames and dropped like a stone towards the sea below.
That had left one demon, untouched, unharmed by the sudden, vicious attack. Quellarastis simply couldn’t believe that the humans had dared to attack him and his colleagues, let alone that they had killed three of his flight-mates with such contemptuous ease. Filled with unrighteous wrath at the effrontery of the attack, he swerved to retaliate at the pair of human flying machines that were coming straight at him. Now, they would learn what the wrath of a demon meant. He opened his mouth and gave a blast of terrifying hellfire straight at them. In Eagle-One, Wong saw the fireball leave the demon’s mouth and flipped the ailerons over, pulling the stick back in a barrel role around the jet of flame. It wasn’t precisely a hard maneuver, the demon may have had powerful lungs but they could only drive a jet of flame so fast. Compared with the problems posed by trying to dodge a multi-mach missile, the flame was easy to avoid. Even better, the jet of fire was a perfect infra-red source for his AIM-9 Sidewinders. Both annunciators were screaming with the demand to be let loose and Wong obliged them both. They streaked from his wingtip mounts, heading straight for the inferno of heat that was the fire-breathing demon’s mouth.
Quellarastis did the worst thing he could possibly do under the circumstances. He gulped in shock as the two missiles hurtled into his mouth. Once again, proximity fuses worked to perfection, preformed fragments slashed out, ripping through the slate-black flesh of the demon. Some went up into his brain, bouncing around inside his skull until all that laid within was reduced to a finely-ground slush. Others sawed down through the demon’s chest, carving into his heart and lungs. More fragments, from the missile Quellarastis had accidentally swallowed tore the demons neck apart, severing his spinal column and paralyzing him. That was a mercy for Quellarastis, it meant that he did feel it when his blood set his flesh on fire and he vanished within a ball of fire.
“Buster, this is Eagle. All four demons engaged and destroyed. Inform all Buster elements, they blow up and burn if you hit them hard enough. We’re on our way back, we’re hitting bingo fuel out here.”
“Eagle Flight, this is buster. Come on home, the party is just starting down here.”
Wong relaxed in his seat. His Eagle-One had two confirmed kills, Eagle-Three and Eagle-Four had one each. Not ace status yet, but a good start.
National Command Post, Washington D.C.
“Mister President, a message from the Ronald Reagan battle group out in the Pacific. They’ve engaged four flying demons, killed all of them. No casualties on our side. Whatever these things are, they aren’t immortal or invulnerable. They burn and die, just like we do.”
President Bush looked dully at Secretary Gates. The betrayal that had been represented by The Message had hit him deep, torn apart the faith that had kept him going even in the darkest years of his presidency. Then, with his opinion poll figures trending up at last, this had to happen. He shook his head, tried to clear the clouds of despair from his mind and absorbed the information. As he did so, his eyes lit up for the first time in three days.
“Get word out to all our armed forces. Tell them to engage these, these things, at every opportunity. Shoot first, hit hard and keep hitting them. Let them know that we may go down but it won’t be without one hell of a fight.”
“Them Sir?”
“Them. Everybody. Our forces, the religious leaders who brought that message to us, those who the message came from. I don’t care who “they” are, either they attacked us or they betrayed us and I don’t see the difference between those who promise us an eternity of torture or those who would hand us over to that fate. They’re both our enemies now. And we’ll fight them. All of them.” Bush’s voice had gained strength and he made his commitment. “We may have believed in higher powers once, but they’ve forfeited any loyalty we may have owed them. Secretary Gates, get the word out. We fight.”