Domiklespharatu looked down the bore, his mind seeing it grow by the second. “My father said it was all right. He gave you to me to play with. It was just a game. Please, I didn’t know you’d…”
“You didn’t know I’d come here. You didn’t know you would have to face what you did to me.”
That did it. Domiklespharatu lost whatever was left of his composure and burst into child-like crying. Julie stared at him, her gun still aimed, held steadily in the approved two-handed grip. ‘It was just a game’, the words running through her mind. As if that made it all right. Then she thought some more, about the people on earth who thought that adding ‘just kidding’ to the end of a phrase made everything all right, no matter how rude or offensive they’d been. Or the humans on the internet who thought that they could do what they liked to people’s lives because they’d never have to face the victims of their ‘games’. Were they actually that different from Domiklespharatu? If she killed this one, shouldn’t she kill them as well? She thought of one friend of hers whose life had nearly been wrecked by an internet user who’d tricked him into doing a highly illegal search on the FBI’s server. Wasn’t he just as bad as Domiklespharatu?
The Desert Eagle was still aimed at the sniveling wreck on the floor. Quietly, one of the DIMO(N) troopers stood behind Julie, watching her aiming the pistol at the baldrick. “Is that really worth a bullet ma’am. Bit of a waste if you ask me.”
“You didn’t have him in your mind for all those years Jack. You didn’t have him tearing at you, wrecking you. If it hadn’t been for James and all the others who sorted this thing out, I’d still be like that.” Then she sighed and the barrel of the Desert Eagle lowered. “But you’re right. He’s not worth it.”
Julie Adams walked over and spat on Domiklespharatu. “We won, you little shit. Just like I told you, we came for you and we never stopped and we won. And when we did, you weren’t worth the effort of killing. Just remember that. You weren’t worth the effort of twitching my finger and blowing your brains all over that wall.”
Julie turned and left the house, sliding into the front passenger seat of the Humvee. “You know Jack, that felt good.”
Chapter Eighty Three
Hills Around The Underground Fortress of Palelabor, Tartarus, Hell
“Team-One reporting in Sarge, there’s life down there.” Cassidy shifted her position on the rocks and steadied her binoculars on the gates concealed in the canyon walls. Whoever had built the approach had done a fine job of concealing it, the canyon itself had a narrow entrance that was lost in the folds of the rock. It was narrow, so much so that the baldricks had difficulty using it. Behind that restricted path, the canyon opened up but the rocks had a marked overhang and shadowed the gates that lay underneath them. Even then, those gates were masked by more variations in the rock walls. Somebody stumbling across the canyon would have to go almost to the farthest end before the gates became visible. McElroy’s team had steered reconnaissance aircraft in over the site and they hadn’t seen a thing. Even using the battery of image modification technologies available, the underground fortress was virtually invisible.
“What’s happening?” Tucker McElroy crawled up to the observation position. His team was split in two parts, one was watching the gates themselves, the other the path that led away from the canyon towards the daughter- volcanoes that marked the flanks of the great cone overhead.
“Can’t see anything yet. Team One reports that the gates have opened and that there appears to be some sort of procession emerging but.. hold one Sarge.” Cassidy listened to the radio again. “Make that a definite on the procession emerging. Baldricks on foot, rhinolobsters with a burden, looks like those snake things, Nagas intel called them. They’re going down the canyon now, we should be seeing them soon.”
“Good. DeVanzo, get the laser sight set up. Cassidy, stay on watch, let me know as soon as that procession appears. Walsch, radio. Patch me through to Saber.”
It took a couple of minutes to get through to Saber, the duty submarine on Communications watch. As far as McElroy knew, there were three submarines offshore who rotated radio watch between them. All used the Saber code-name as required and there was no indication which boat was actually answering.
“Saber. Sitrep?” Submarines didn’t like transmitting, it ran against their collective ethos and the messages were terse.
“We have activity, procession now leaving the underground fortress. From intel, it looks like another volcano attack being initiated. We are setting up the laser target designator now.”
“Confirmed. Wait.” The radio went silent for a couple of minutes. “Ready to launch. Twenty four cruise ready. Half and half. ETA 15 minutes from launch. Indicate when firing is needed.” The radio went dead again.
“Right guys. As soon as we give the word, there will be twenty four Tomahawks inbound. Cassidy, any sight of the target yet?” In just a few seconds, the procession had become a target.
“Emerging through the canyon now Sarge. Confirming, baldricks on foot with tridents, rhinolobsters with, confirmed Sarge, they have nagas coiled on their backs.”
“Saber, confirm target is volcano-initiating party. Fire when ready.”
“On the way.”
The seconds ticked by and turned into minutes. Ten minutes after the launch confirmation, DeVanzo turned his laser designator to active and trained the dot on the ground just in front of the column that was advancing across the plain towards the volcanoes about twelve miles away. McElroy was amused to note that they’d be passing the ruins of their previous home on the way. If they lived that long of course.
“Remember not to shine the laser on the baldricks until after the missiles start to arrive.” McElroy’s voice was urgent, the baldrick’s skin was sensitive to laser light and shining it on them might give them enough warning to get clear.
“I know that” DeVanzo spoke irritably, annoyed at the interruption disturbing his concentration. He was holding the designation dot just in front of the feet of the leading baldrick. He’d flip it back as soon as he heard the Tomahawks making their run.
He didn’t get that much warning, the first group of three missiles skimmed over the hill to their east and started the run down towards the column before he could register their presence. Originally, the Tomahawks had been GPS-guided but the Global Positioning System didn’t work in Hell and it was looking increasingly unlikely that it ever would. The older option, radar terrain mapping and matching required accurate maps of the target area and those would come eventually, but not now. So, for want of a better choice, the missiles had been modified to use laser designation.
The first salvo of three missiles had unitary warheads and the explosion of the 700 pound charges enveloped the head of the column in rolling orange-red fireballs. Through her binoculars, Cassidy saw the baldricks start running sideways trying to get away from the onslaught they knew had to come. Word from the survivors of Abigor’s and Beelzebub’s armies had spread fast, when the humans started shooting with their missiles, the only way to survive was to run far and fast. And so they did, or they tried to. Cassidy swung her binoculars back on to the great Rhinolobsters. They had been abandoned on the track and the magnification of her binoculars allowed her to see the great beasts swinging their heads around, looking for an enemy to gore, while the terrified nagas on their backs screamed and tried to struggle free.
That’s when the second wave of three Tomahawks hit. DeVanzo had switched his point of aim back along the column and the three missiles sensed the change of aiming point and lifted their nose just a little. In a straight line, about 100 yards between each missile, the three weapons soared straight over the shattering baldrick column and started to distribute their submunitions. The launching submarines hadn’t known what the warhead requirements would be so they’d loaded their eight tubes with four missiles with submunitions and four with unitary warheads. The skippers had alternated the loads as they’d emptied their tubes but the spotting team on the ground didn’t know that. Each type came as a nice surprise.
It wasn’t so nice for the demons on the receiving end. The first three explosions had blown the leading demons into unrecognizable chunks of flesh and bone, then the submunitions had scythed down the others as they ran. The only thing that saved some of them was that the missiles were too spaced out and the coverage too thin to blanket the area the way and MLRS salvo would have done. Cassidy smacked DeVanzo’s arm and pointed to the group of Rhinolobsters. He swung the laser designation spot on to them and held it there while the third wave of missiles slammed their unitary warheads into the great beasts. Even far away, on the hills, McElroy’s team heard the
