Armageddon?? (2 page)

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.”

“Sir,
I have to warn you, this may well be committing a war crime. We haven’t had
United Nations approval for any action and without a vote in the UN, we are
committing an act of aggressive war, which is a war crime. I therefore rule
that we must hold off any action until there had been a full meeting of the
Security Council. I will also issue orders for the pilots involved in this
incident to be arrested and brought up on war crimes charges.”

There
was a rumble of discontent around the war room. Bush heard it and that made up
his mind. He looked at the JAG officer with contempt. “Place this man under
arrest. Remove him, get rid of him. From now on, the United States will act in
its own best interests and defend itself as best it can. Any other nations who
want to join in this struggle are welcome to do so.”

“There
might be quite a few of those Mister President.” Secretary Rice was carrying a
mass of message flimsies. “We’re getting messages from other countries right
now. First one is from Mr. George Yong-Boon Yeo, Minister of Foreign Affairs in
Singapore. Apparently a demon landed there, carrying a demand for Singapore’s
submission.”

“What
did he do?”

“Nothing
Sir. The demon’s demand was wrapped up in some sort of parchment and he dropped
it on landing. Littering is a serious offense in Singapore Sir, and the
Singapore police riddled the demon with bullets and then beat it to death.
Anyway, Mr. Yeo says that Singapore’s going to fight and they’d appreciate our
help.”

“He’s
got it. Who else?”

“Another
one landed in Bangkok, Thailand. That one didn’t get very far either. It
wouldn’t bribe the police at a checkpoint to let it through and then got stuck
in the Bangkok traffic jams. The Army blew it away. With tanks. Apparently, local
street traders are selling bits of demon to the tourists. Anyway, same message
from the Thais, they’re going to fight and they’d appreciate any help we can
send, only they’re adding if we need any aid, we only have to ask.”

“Nice
of them. Well, people, it looks like the war has started. Let’s try to do a
better job this time round, right?”

Chapter
Two

HMS
Astute, On Sea Trials, North Atlantic

“Any
idea what it is?”

The
Sonar Operator shook his head. The Type 2076 sonar system was the most advanced
the Royal Navy had ever deployed, one Admiral had tried to describe its
capability by saying a submarine in Winchester could use that sonar to track a
bus going around Hyde Park Corner in London. That comparison wasn’t true, but
the real capability of 2076 was a closely-guarded secret. Tracking buses at
that range was child’s play compared with what it could really do.

The
waterfall display on the sonar panel was showing the target track, it was
diverging from norm slightly, first one way and then the other, as if the
unidentified contact was snaking in the water. It always came back to the same
course though, one that took it to London. Eventually. That was another problem,
the target track indicated a speed of around 12 knots. Not the sort of speed
that made much sense. Too fast for economy, too slow for a speed run.

“I’m
not getting any blade beat Sir. None at all. In fact I’m getting no machinery
noise at all. No pompholugopaphlasmasin.” The sonar operator got the odd word
out without missing a beat. He was referring to the odd selection of pops,
hisses, squeaks and rattles made by machinery as it went about its daily tasks,
an odd selection that was a clear signature to a passive sonar system. “I’m
getting broad-band flow noise and that’s about it.”

“Biological?”
Whales, clouds of shrimp, schools of fish, all got give strange sonar readings.
Pompholugopaphlasmasin was the sonar operator’s best tool to distinguish
man-made equipment from the natural sounds of the sea. And there wasn’t any.
That would normally point to a biological but the one thing these times were
not was normal. There was a body in the submarine’s freezer to prove that. The
Ship’s Chaplain had committed suicide when the full implication of The Message
had sunk home.

“Not
at 12 knots Sir. A biological will either drift or move slowly at random
directions. One holding 12 knots would be attacking something and this one
isn’t. Then, there’s it’s course. Straight for London, never changing. No Sir,
this isn’t a biological but that doesn’t change the fact that we can’t pick up
anything on our narrow-band demodulated noise tracker.”

“You
don’t suppose it could be….” Lieutenant-Commander Michael Murphy adopted an
exaggerated expression of terror. “….the Red October.” Across Astute’s control
room, the duty crew rolled their eyes in disgust, then shook their heads. That
wretched author had caused so much trouble….

“No
Sir. But respectfully Sir, we are on trials. FOSM may have slipped us a
weirdness just to find out what we would do with it.”

Murphy
nodded. Flag Officer, Submarines was known for doing things like that. “Right,
Atkins. We’ll treat this like a hostile.” His eyes flipped to the tactical
display where a long oval marked the position of the anomalous contact. Passive
sonar could give fine cuts on bearing but its range data was much less precise.
“We need to fine that up a bit. We’ll establish a baseline. Make course
one-eight zero, speed 34 knots, hold for 20 minutes. Anybody want to take a
head-break, now’s the time, we won’t be tracking anything at that speed.”

That
was true enough, Astute didn’t have the phenomenal underwater speed of the
American Seawolf class but then few other submarines did. Astute was still fast
enough for the flow noise over her hull to blank out her sonar. Murphy checked
the plot again and thumbed the intercom. “Captain to the bridge.”

Captain
Phillips materialized almost immediately. Captains tended to do that when
trouble was brewing. “Problems Number One?”

“Don’t
know sir, we have a highly anomalous contact. Behaves like a submarine but has
the signature of a biological. It’s maintaining 12 knots, course takes it to
London. I’m establishing a baseline for range now.”

“Very
good Number One.” Phillips studied the tactical plot with great care. When a
new submarine ran sea trials, it wasn’t only the ship that was being tested.
Her crew were under the microscope as well. “Very good Number One. I have the
con. You take over the attack team. If this is FOSM playing games, we’ll go
along with it.”

The
crew felt the vibration from the submarine’s machinery build up under their
feet. One advantage, one of many, held by the nuclear-powered boats was that
they never had to worry about fuel status or battery charge. The Royal Navy
nuke-drivers pitied their NATO allies who were stuck in diesel-electrics and
spent their lives with one eye glued to their battery charge meters. Astute was
barreling through the water, putting distance between herself and the scene of
her first set of track readings. Once she got a second set, the cross-bearings
would give her the range data she needed.

Twenty
minutes later, Astute dropped back down to her four knot observation speed. The
sonar team dropped their relaxed air and immediately got down to work, trying
to re-acquire the anomalous signature. That didn’t take much effort, they knew
where to look and the weird flow noise was distinctive enough.

“Got
it Sir. Range 18,000 meters.” On the tactical display, a second long oval
appeared. The computers eliminated the time delay that had taken place and then
superimposed the two sets of reading. What had once been long, thin ovals now
crossed and gave a single precise point. Then the screen blinked again as the
computers applied the range data they had just calculated to the bearing
figures already on file. A single green line now appeared on the tactical
display, one that gave both range and bearing. All that was, in fact, needed
for an attack.

Phillips
thought quickly. “Stream towed array, sonar team check on passive for any
emissions, anything at all. Every frequency band you can think of, whatever
we’re tracking doesn’t have to be using what we are.”

It
took a few more minutes but the result was worth waiting for. “Got him Sir.
Active emission, very high frequency, much higher than ours.” Atkins’ voice was
triumphant. “It’s like a biological, well more like a bat really, but it isn’t.
Power too high. I’d guess it’s a navigational or mine avoidance sonar but its
nothing like anything we have on the books. That’s why the computer didn’t call
it.”

“Very
good. Helm take us up to periscope deck, sensors prepare to extend radio mast.
We’d better call this in.” Phillips disappeared into the radio room for several
minutes. When he came back, his face was a mixture of grimness and elation.

“Word
direct from DOps.” A stir went around the control room, when Directorate of
Operations gave the orders, things were happening. “The situation is breaking
loose. The Spams shot down four Baldricks a few hours ago. Been a few other
similar incidents around the world. The old stories be damned, the Baldricks
are not invulnerable and we aren’t going down without a fight. There’s nothing
friendly out here so we can presume that any unidentifiable target we’re
tracking is hostile. Torpedo room, load two Spearfish, tubes one and two. Load
sub-Harpoon into three and four. Helm, take her down to two hundred feet, make
speed 34 knots, course one-six-three.”

Helm
punched the figure into the computers. The tactical display flickered again,
the green track turning to red and a blue line superimposed on it. That gave
the relative position of Astute and the target. Phillips looked at the
position. “Make that 35 knots and one-six-one.” A tiny refinement that would
put Astute into a perfect position for a torpedo attack.

Phillips
watched the display as the carat marking Astute’s position moved along the blue
projected course line. Mentally, he was calculating angles and ranges, the
computer could actually do that for him but he preferred to do his own check.
“Drop speed to four knots, say again, to four knots. Bring bows to oh-one-oh.
Open bow doors, tubes one and two. Sonar, hit that thing with a low-frequency
pulse to check range. One pulse.” Phillips took his authorization card from
around his neck and inserted it into a slot in the sonar control console. By
using active sonar, Astute was announcing her presence and position to the
world at large, That was why using active sonar required the Captain’s explicit
authorization. One the card was in place, the BA-WHOOM from the sonar array in
the submarine’s bows could be heard throughout the boat.