They streaked from his wingtip mounts, heading straight for the inferno of heat that was the fire-breathing demon’s mouth. Both annunciators were screaming with the demand to be let loose and Wong obliged them both. Even better, the jet of fire was a perfect infra-red source for his AIM-9 Sidewinders. Compared with the problems posed by trying to dodge a multi-mach missile, the flame was easy to avoid. 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. 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. He opened his mouth and gave a blast of terrifying hellfire straight at them. Now, they would learn what the wrath of a demon meant. 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.
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. That had left one demon, untouched, unharmed by the sudden, vicious attack. Even as Wong watched, two of his F-18s were closing on it. Instead, one of its wings had been torn to tiny fragments and it was going down in a helpless spin. A third demon was staggering away, it had been the last to get hit and had escaped the eviscerating body hits. 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. It had meant that the demon had been quite literally torn apart by the storm of fragments and blast of the explosions. 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. His target had gone, its death marked by a black streak towards the sea far below. As he rolled over at the top of the climb, he could see the havoc his attack had wrought on the demon formation below. The last thing he had wanted to do was get too close to those things. Immediately on firing, Wong had firewalled his throttles, cut in reheat and taken his F/A-18 up into a steep climb. Shingroleth’s scream of demented agony was heard even in the sound insulated-cockpits of the F/A-18s. Others ripped into his legs and genitals, tearing open the great arteries, sending his fire-and acid blood spraying over his body, and mangling his reproductive organs beyond recognition. Some of those razor-sharp fragments slashed through Shingroleth’s tail, severing it at the root and sending it spinning off in a long arc. The 50 pound explosive warhead was wrapped with heavy-gauge pre-notched wire that disintegrated into an annular hail of pre-formed fragments when the missile’s proximity fuse set off the explosive charge. The first missile exploded between Shingroleth’s legs, just underneath his tail. No maneuvering, no electronic warfare, no interference, if the guidance had been capable of human thought it would have been vaguely offended at being asked to solve a task so undemanding. They were good missiles, well designed, well-tested, and they had a target that was proving co-operative to the point of suicide. Well, if that was the case, the powers ‘up there’ didn’t know the human race very well. Ever since then, The Message had been repeated at regular intervals, almost as if the concept of human defiance was so completely unexpected that the powers ‘up there’ couldn’t comprehend its existence. They’d been the first only by a matter of minutes as most of the other countries in the world has replied with similar messages. The British had enjoyed the joke, whatever it was, and collectively told Satan to perform some highly improbable obscenities on himself. His reply to The Message had been “Sod off, Baldrick,” followed by a reassuring message to the British people that he had a cunning plan to deal with the situation. The rest of the world’s population had followed the example set by Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Those whose religion had demanded blind submission to the ‘Will of God’ had accepted it without a struggle and more or less laid down and died.
That didn’t surprise Wong, human reaction to The Message had split neatly down religious lines.