Sergeant Stevens led Captain Fleming and Staff Sergeant Garvie into a poorly lit cave. They could see that someone was sitting at the far end hunched over what looked like a table, though it was probably a large stone. Stevens saluted smartly and introduced the new comers.
“Sir, this is Captain Fleming and Staff Sergeant Garvie of 22 SAS.”
“Which squadron?” The Senior Officer asked.
“G Squadron, Sir, Air Troop.” Fleming replied, saying ‘sir’ because the voice sounded like someone senior in rank to him.
The figure, a veritable giant of a man at just less than two meters in height, stood up and stepped forward into the light, Fleming and Garvie recognised him at one. After all they had seen his photograph often enough.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Captain Fleming, Staff Sergeant Garvie.” Colonel Sir Archibald David Stirling, formerly of the Scots Guards, 8 Commando and Special Air Service, said stretching out his right hand. “I take it you have orders to extract groups like mine?”
Fleming and Garvie had never shaken hand with a corpse, or was he a soul, and it was a rather strange experience, yet Stirling seemed as alive as they did.
“Yes, Sir I have. Our orders are to gather intelligence and evacuate as many military personnel as possible.
“Can I ask how many of there are you?”
“Twenty three, some British, there are a few Aussies, Kiwis, Canadians, Indians, South Africans and what not. We’ve got a Zulu here who died at Rorke’s Drift and his stories are going to change the history books. I think I can speak for everyone but we are pretty keen to do what we can to liberate this place, just give us the tools. I for one have been waiting for eighteen years to give something back to the demons.”
“We’ll get evacuation laid on as soon as we can, Sir.” Fleming said. “Do you know of any other groups near- by?”
“There are small groups scattered all over now. Mostly, we’ve been keeping our heads down and trying not to get found but the war’s changed all that. You know there’s a liberated area up in the Fifth Circle?”
“Free Hell Sir. Run by the People’s Front For The Liberation of Hell. That’s mostly a Yank operation but we’re all involved in getting people out.”
“Well, Yanks or not, you better get word to them, they’re in trouble. Our OPs have spotted a big force of demons converging on the river bank opposite the area they’re holding. About 30,000 foot sloggers and 1,300 fliers. No cavalry that we can see.”
Fleming and Garvie exchanged glances. Even with the influx of deceased volunteers and the support of special forces units from Earth, a force over 30,000 baldricks was too much even for modern weaponry to cope with. If that attack got launched, it was going to overrun Free Hell. “Thank you Sir. We’ll get word straight through and see what can be done.”
DIMO(N) Transit Facility, Fort Bragg
“Colonel Aidan Dempsey, Sir, a pleasure to meet you.” The current commander of 22 SAS said once Stirling, who was the last man through, stepped into the transit facility.
“Likewise, Colonel.” Dempsey’s predecessor replied. “I can’t say I feel too clever though.”
“I’m afraid you can’t stay here too long, Sir. We haven’t solved the problem of bring people back from Hell to Earth yet, but we’ll transfer you and your men to an area of Hell we control. I understand you wish to offer us your services?”
“Of course, Colonel. Both myself and my men have been waiting for revenge for a long time, and I think we can help you locate more groups like us. Just give us the appropriate equipment and training and we’ll do the job.”
“It will be a pleasure to have you in this fight, Sir. If you’ll just follow me I’ll take you to Camp Brimstone.”
Chapter Sixty Three
Third Platoon, Second Company, Third Battalion, Fourth Regiment, 247th Motor Rifle Division, Phlegethon River Front, Hell
The BMP-2 was shut down, its hatches sealed and firmly dogged in place, overpressure system on to prevent harpy gas and flame leaking in from outside. Bullets were rattling off the armor plate as the three MICVs machine- gunned each other in an attempt to drive off the hordes of harpies that were swarming all over the vehicles, tearing at anything breakable. Last time Lieutenant Anatolii Ivanovich Pas'kov had looked through the turret optics, a dozen or more of the beasts were trying to bend the barrel of his 30mm cannon, he didn’t think they had succeeded but he was reluctant to fire the gun anyway. He hunched down, trying to ignore the acrid fumes from the gunfire that was creating havoc with the harpies outside. Only, some of the acrid stench wasn’t cordite residue, it was the smell of the harpies’ acidic blood attacking bare metal. Certainly the chemical weapons-resistant paint on the BMP was protecting most of the hull from corrosion but there were still parts that were vulnerable to acid.
His little command had done well at first. The Tungaska had fired its eight laser-guided missiles and turned more that a dozen harpies into spiraling explosions, then its 30mm cannon had started chopping more out of the sky. The BMPs had joined in, their turret cannon selecting the closest harpies and shooting them out of the sky. But there had been so many of them, more than 200,000 so the intelligence reports said, and the hundred or so that the 30mm guns had killed were hardly noticeable. The rest had descended on the vehicles and started their assault. Oh, Pas’kov knew that their claws and teeth would not get through the armor but the harpies had other weapons as well. They breathed fire and there was much on an armored vehicle that could burn. The Tungaska had already gone, its engine compartment had caught fire and its crew had been forced to abandon their vehicle into the flock of harpies. They’d tried to run for the BMPs but they were brought down, torn apart and eaten before they’d made more than a pace or two. Pas’kov had been glad of that in a way, he wouldn’t have opened his hatches to let them in anyway.
“Ammunition is running out.” The cry was from one of the two riflemen in the fighting compartment of the vehicle. They were hosing fire out of the fighting ports in the rear compartment, the steel floor covered with their expended cartridge cases. The BMP was carrying more that its allowed load of munitions but the rate of expenditure was such that even its enhanced stocks were getting short. Pas’kov swung the turret, feeling the power traverse fighting the harpies swarming outside, and let off a burst from his co-axial machine gun. The harpies trying to bend his 30mm cannon barrel were caught unawares and the heavy machine gun burst tore into them, spraying acid blood into the air and causing their flesh to char. The cordite smoke-laden air inside the BMP got more dense if that was possible, the heat rising further.
“Get us out of here, we must pull back.”
“We cannot, the transmission is jammed.” The driver’s words didn’t really make sense but Pas’kov guessed what had really happened, the suspension was being attacked by acid and the treads were jammed.
Instead, he got the radio, with just a little luck, it might be working. The whip antenna had long gone, torn off by the harpies, but the little blade antenna might still be intact.
“Company, this is Three. We’re running out of ammunition and are trapped. Our AA vehicle is gone. We need final protective fire now. Right on top of us.”
Pas’kov knew his company commander realized the same thing that Pas’kov himself had done. Calling fire directly on his position was suicide, the guns would tear the armored vehicles apart. But it was better to go that way than be shredded and eaten by the harpies screaming outside.
“Request approved. Being passed up. Hold on Three. Seal down tight. Full protocol.”
Guards Special Mortar Regiment, Northern Front, Phlegethon River.
The great 300mm rockets loaded into the Smerch multiple-launch rocket system were black, with glaring yellow bands painted around their nose. No other rocket had quite such vivid or elaborate markings and for a very good reason, nobody wanted these rockets to be confused with anything else. Even the Smerch crews were afraid of them and their cargo. They’d taken them out of their storage boxes with painstaking care, only too aware that one accident, one slip meant a ghastly death for all around them. Guards Captain Yurii Leonidovich Zabelin had personally supervised the loading process himself and inspected all the firing connections and status checks before reporting his battery ready to fire. Then, he had been told to wait for the current barrage was the work of the heavy guns. The Smerch launchers with their deadly black rockets would have their time, when the right moment
