Stuart Slade - Armageddon

“The alerts gone off to the fly-boys and the squids. We’ll have jets here soon enough. And we’ve got the friends with their toy on scene.”

On the screen the figures had continued to pour out of the portal, forming up into a huge square on the desert. The UAV operator dialed his cameras in again. “OK, that formation seems to be complete. I make it 81 ranks, each of 81 baldricks. They’re subdivided into 9 groups of 9 ranks with a command section between each. I guess that gives us 6,666 down there.”

“Appropriate number. About a brigade-sized formation then? And that would make the smaller sub-divisions battalions.” There were nods around the room, it seemed fair enough, 9 ranks of 81 meant 729 demons in a battalion. This was translating raw numbers into a structure that could easily be understood – and to the people in this room, what could be understood could be destroyed. Once structure, form and numbers were evaluated and put into context, destruction was a matter of planning. “Each line is a company with nine nine-baldrick platoons?” More nods of agreement

“If that’s it, this is something we can cope with.” Boothe spoke as if he was trying to convince himself. He needn’t have bothered, the situation was changing even while he spoke.

“More coming out Sirs.” On the television screen, a second square was forming beside the first, the stream of black figures emerging from the Hellmouth coalescing into a second square to the right of the first. Even as it was completed, a third square started forming to the left of the first. Still the figures poured out, new squares forming until the line had seven in all.

“Assuming the squares are all identical, there’s almost 47,000 of them down there. The baldricks aren’t playing games are they?”

Wilkens shook his head. Even as he did so, the line of seven squares started to move forward and another wave of black figures poured out, forming into squares exactly as their predecessors had done. The command center was utterly silent as the imagery poured in from the cameras on the Global Hawk. The second line of squares was finished, moved forward and a third row started, then a fourth. By the time the figures ceased to pour out, there were eight rows in all, 56 of the black squares spread out on the Iraqi sand.

“Rows are divisions, the whole thing’s a Corps.” More nods of agreement, faced with the huge numbers assembling on the screens in front of them, naming units seemed trivial yet it was utterly important if the enemy was to be understood. “Span of command is very large. Seems to run in nines.”

“Probably personal command, we’re going to be looking at a slowly-reacting army here. It’s very low-geared. Big but ponderous. Suits us just fine.” More nods around the room. The United States Army was built to fight large, ponderous opponents. It was beginning to look like it had finally found one.

“What are those?” More figures were pouring out, larger ones. The UAV operator played with his camera controls, zooming in on the new arrivals. They were baldricks still but sitting on a beast, one that looked vaguely like a rhinoceros with a great horn on its nose, but with a scorpion’s tail arched high over its back and claws like a lobster.

“I’d guess those are the cavalry. We don’t know how fast those things can move, mark them down as priority targets.”

“More coming.” The figures pouring out of the Hellmouth were flying, winged creatures, like the harpies show down by the squids a couple of weeks earlier but smaller. They landed and formed a last square. Seconds then minutes crept by but no more baldricks joined the awesome parade in front of the Hellmouth. The Global Hawk wasn’t equipped to pick up sound but nobody watching was in any doubt that the desert was alive with the sounds of drumming and the hammering of feet.

Hellmouth, East of Ar Rutbah, Iraqi Desert Unnoticed in the noise and confusion, a small winged structure danced in the dust and glare. It was an odd little thing by anybody’s standards, a lumpy fuselage with two longish wings, a tripod tail unit and a propeller was at the rear. Its name was an MQ-1B Predator.

The Predator didn’t have markings which was hardly surprising, it’s operators, far back at Task Force Iron’s command center weren’t from the U.S. armed forces, they were Central Intelligence Agency. For almost five years, the CIA had been operating a clandestine force of Predators, using them for covert assassinations of terrorist leaders and others considered undesirable. That role had abruptly ended with The Message, those who had taken the “submission to the will” bit seriously had died, the rest had thrown their lot in with the rest of humanity. Now, the U.S. Army and CIA had the strange but not unfamiliar experience of working with people who only a few days before had been their blood-enemies.

The change had meant the Predators had a new job, one which was of absolutely vital importance. It was essential to find out if human weapons, human technology could be sent into Hell and return. More importantly, were those weapons as destructive there as they were proving on Earth. If the answer was yes, then humanity had a means of striking back at its foe, if not, then they would forever be condemned to an ultimately futile defense. The Predators were the vanguard of this exploration, the information they gained within the next few minutes would mark the start of the investigation. It was, quite literally, reconnaissance by fire. It’s orders received, the MQ-1B obediently turned around and headed for the shadowy ellipse that marked the Hellmouth.

Headquarters, 1st Armored Division, Task Force Iron, Multi-National Force Iraq

Back in the command center, the CIA operative held his breath as the little drone approached the disk and became swallowed in it. Then, the whole section erupted into wild cheers for on the monitor screen, images had emerged. Pictures of a vast plain, bare rock under a swirling red-orange sky, dust clouds sweeping backwards and forwards over the desolate scene. The image brightened and sharpened as the computer-controlled adaptive optics compensated for the wildly unfamiliar light levels and spectra but the images were there.

The operator manipulated his controls, getting the vision head on the electro-optical pod to pivot around. The pictures swirled, grotesque and unfamiliar but still vaguely recognizable. The imagery was coming back, that had enormous consequences.

“Tell Washington, and everybody else, Phase One is complete. We got the bird in and we’re getting data out. There is something the other side of that gate and we can get at it.” The agent’s voice broke into a chuckle. “No huge letters of fire yet, now we’ll try and change all that.”

He played with the optical head again, looking for something important. He found it, at least it seemed important. Some sort of review stand at a far part of the field. The Predator was closing in on it, the trouble seemed to be that it was hard to judge ranges in the red-clouded murk. A quick flash with the laser rangefinder built into the Predator told him what he needed to know. The target was four thousand yards away, easily within range of the two Hellfire missiles hanging under the Predator’s wings. He locked their homing heads onto the stand and fired them both.

Martial Field of Dysprosium, Hell.

The parade was over, the Army of Abigor had departed into the lower dimension, and the guests who had watched it leave were making their way off the stand. It had been quite an unusual sight, never before had such a force been sent to a lower dimension to enforce the will of those above it. Defiance was unprecedented, such a display had never been required. Now, with the mighty force appearing before them, they would be regretting their failure to submit. The demons who had watched the army leave never saw the two missiles streaking through the red murk towards them, or, if they did, they never realized the significance of what they were seeing.