Original Fiction The Salvation War - Armageddon.

[Francis Urquhart]

PART ELEVEN

(Note: Approval for the republication of this work on The Sietch has been granted by the author.)

Su-30MKI Tiger Group Leader over the Al Badiyah Al Janubiyah, Western Iraq

The world rotated around Wing Commander Gurka as his Su-30 hit the top of its climb and he rolled smoothly over. The survivors of the massacre were far below him, their bodies barely visible. His radar could see them though, he’d lost them as he’d climbed out but now he’d re-acquired. The devastating missile salvoes had destroyed hundreds of the harpies, their bodies dissolving in fire as the missiles ripped into them. Once there had been so many that they’d swamped the memory on the radars but now, the situation was clearly defined. There were barely two targets left for each of the allied fighters and Gurka had already killed one of his. He’d picked his target for the next pass already, one harpy flying west, its nerve broken, running for its life.

It didn’t stand a chance. Gurka pushed his throttles over and went after it in a long, smooth dive. His gun-sight carat showed the predicted impact point of his cannon burst, it was sliding towards the harpy, the diamond embracing its back. Then, it turned red and Gurka squeezed the trigger, blasting burst of 30mm armor-piercing incendiary ammunition into the harpy’s body. For a second or so, nothing happened although Gurka could swear that he saw lumps of black flesh flying off the body. Then it flared into orange fire, burning and spinning for the desert floor.

“Tiger Group, time to go home. Call your boys off Tiger Leader, the squids want to play.”

Gurka looked around. Already the American F-15s were heading south, their missile racks empty. “Acknowledged.”

“Head for Dingbat Tiger Group,” Gurka mentally translated that. Dezful. “Some Russian transports have landed with missile reloads for you. Good luck and don’t mix with any naughty ladies.”

“All Tiger aircraft, break off, head for dingbat.” Gurka looked hard to the west. There was a black cloud approaching. “Eagle Eye, contacts to the west.”

“We have the Tiger Group Leader. More harpies, covering the ground force main body. Sea Eagle Group will be handling them. Out.”

The out had a definitive note to it. The Su-30s were out of missiles and very low on cannon ammunition. Eagle Eye up there in his AWACS wasn’t interested in them any more. His attention was steering the group of F/A-18s from the three carriers offshore into the new harpy cloud.

Headquarters of Merafawlazes, Commander, Northern Flank, Abigor’s Army

“The cavalry have gone!”

“They’re through then. Order the flies to pursue the humans and cut them up on the way. The infantry will follow through. Advance on this place the humans call Kirkuk. Ravage it, Abigor will be pleased.”

“No, Noble master.” The messenger dropped to his knees and crawled across the floor to Merafawlazes hooves. “I must tell you, the cavalry have not broken the humans. The cavalry are dead. All of them. The humans killed them all with their magic.”

“What is this insanity? Humans do not have magic.” Merafawlazes’s voice dropped to a menacing growl. “This is not a good time to jest.”

It never was thought Falabrednowsa. Being a messenger was a very chancy and dangerous profession, especially where the recipient of the message was a Duke. They’d been known to eat messengers who brought bad news. “Sire, I fear to contradict you.”

“Good.” Merafawlazes interjected the comment with silky menace.

“But the humans do have magic. They have used it against the cavalry. They can call down thunder from the sky and drown their enemies in fire. They have destroyed our cavalry. It is a horrible sight, our cavalrymen dead on the ground torn to pieces by the fire, the surviving beasts on the ground screaming with pain as they die.” Merafawlazes attention was drawn by a thunder in the skies overhead, a roll of thunder followed by a deafening, hideous scream. “Sire, that is the war-cry of the humans in their sky chariots. A great battle is raging while we speak, the flies fight for their lives against the sky chariots. There is magic there too, the humans throw burning spears that never miss.”

“Our flies do well against them?”

The answer had better be yes was the reply running through Falabrednowsa’s mind. But he was a messenger and it was his duty to speak the truth. “No Sire, they die as the cavalry died. The human sky chariots are so much faster than they are. Our enemies cannot hear them come for the cowards give their battle cry only after they have launched an attack. They travel faster than the wind, they climb faster than any of us have ever seen before. They afraid to fight us in honorable combat so they kill by the hundred with their fire spears without ever coming close. Then, they sit above our fliers and dive on them like hawks. Our flies are worse than helpless against them.”

Merafawlazes grunted and turned his attention to the parchment map on the table before him. It wasn’t much help, it just showed the positions of the cities and his best guess at the locations of his troops. Why had the humans chosen to fight here? There was nothing important to fight for here, the nearest great cities were far away. All there was here were these rolling hills with the strange black strips the humans built across them. As he stared at the map, Merafawlazes got the feeling he was missing something very important.

Twenty minutes later, Merafawlazes strode out of his tent, towards the commanders of his remaining legions. Overhead, the sky was covered with strange, crisscrossing white clouds, although he didn’t know it, the contrails from the F-16C Vipers of the 332nd Air Expeditionary Group. The Lawn Dart pilots had, to put it mildly, been having a field day. Merafawlazes didn’t know and didn’t care, he had more important things to think about. “Get the Legions moving forward, all of them. Two waves, seven and seven. Tell all the infantry, the suffering of those who hang back will be legendary even for hell.” Merafawlazes picked a piece of Falabrednowsa’s flesh from his teeth. He’d finally worked out what he had been missing.

Breakfast.

The Royal Dragoon Guards, Al Badiyah Al Janubiyah, Western Iraq

“Isn’t this what they call a target-rich environment?” And that, Guardsman Bass thought, was the understatement of the century. The first wave of the enemy attack had been smashed, it had died on the mines and razor wire, the few survivors had been torn apart by the artillery. That had seemed like a victory until the whole horizon had turned black with enemy infantry. The enemy line was almost 10 kilometers long, the rising sun glittering gold off their bronze tridents. It was a terrifying sight, one that told Bass just as surely as if he could look into the mind of the enemy commander himself that the baldricks had never seen wire and minefields before.

‘Look into the mind of the commander’. Bass rolled the words over in his mind. It would come, it would come. The ability of the baldricks to enter people’s minds and create illusions had been a nasty surprise but it had been discovered. Once something was discovered, it could be investigated and measured. That meant it could be understood and one the scientists understood something they could duplicate it. Once the scientists had duplicated it, the engineers would take that work and turn it into practical tools. Once the engineers had created the practical tools, the armorers would turn those tools into weapons. And once the weapons were available, the soldiers would use them. That was the way it had always been, that was the way it would be now.

Bass lased the enemy line, waited a carefully measured ten seconds then lased it again. The computer in the tank thought for a microscopic second, then translated the two readings into a speed readout, one that made Bass raise his eyebrows a second. “Right lads, they’re advancing at 15 kay-pee-aitch. The brass better know about that.” Another guiding human principle, Bass had no doubt the same piece of data was being transmitted in by dozens of other tank commanders but it was better for an important piece of data to be transmitted a thousand times than never transmitted at all because everybody thought everybody else had done so. The fact that baldricks on foot could move three times faster than a human was very important.

Third Legion, Southern Flank, Abigor’s Army

Krykojanklawas jogged forward, most of his attention devoted to the enemy in front, the rest to the leader of his contubernium. Like most of his fellow demons in the ranks, he was holding his tripod underarm, the points angled upwards so he didn’t stab the demon in front. There might be time for that later. He and his fellows were lucky, the ground in front of them was clear, they wouldn’t have to pass through the hideous scene where the human magic had destroyed the cavalry legion. Word that the humans had magic had spread through the ranks like wildfire, the stories growing with each retelling. They could make the ground rise up and swallow their enemies, the stones come alive and crush their victims. They could conjure up snakes from the ground that would wrap themselves around their prey and slice them apart. That story was true, Krykojanklawas decided, he could see the great circular holes in the ground where the snakes had come from.

He could see something else, the ground ahead of him was littered with strange-looking bars, painted gray-yellow so they were hard to see against the sand and rock. There were a lot of them though. Curiously, Krykojanklawas glanced to one side, there were a lot fewer where the cavalry had ridden to its death. Even as he watched, a demon in the front rank stepped on one of the bars and the explosion threw him in the air, spraying yellow body fluid as his legs spiraled away from his body. The bars were human magic, Krykojanklawas realized the truth as additional explosions added their noise to the death toll that was already far higher than the Greater Demons had expected. He didn’t care much about the expectations of the Greater Demons though, what he did understand was that stepping on the bars was death. He’d heard about human explosives, how they could blast even a Lesser Demon apart so that all that remained was stains and rags of flesh. If they could do that to a Lesser Demon, what could they do to a Minor Demon like him? Krykojanklawas had just seen the answer and it didn’t please him.

So there were a lot fewer bars where the cavalry had died? Krykojanklawas did the obvious and started to edge sideways, being careful not to step on the bars, heading for where the ground was just littered with the scraps of flesh and mutilated bodies of beasts and their riders. All along the ranks of the legions, the other demons were starting to do the same.

The Royal Dragoon Guards, Al Badiyah Al Janubiyah, Western Iraq

“Here they go….” Bass watched with interest. There had been a ripple of explosions as the advancing horde reached the outer edge of the minefield and the first victims stepped on the bar mines. The mines had been intended for anti-tank work but their fuses had been adjusted so they’d be set off by much lesser pressures. That had worked, a handful of baldricks had died but the rest were starting to funnel in towards the area partially cleared by the cavalry charge. Bass lased them again, the advance had slowed right down as the baldricks tried to pick their way through the minefield. Poor sods. Bass thought, I could almost feel it in my heart to be sorry for them. Almost, but not quite.

Watching through the high-powered optics of his Challenger II, Bass could see the ranks of baldricks stretching, bucking and surging. He knew what would be happening in there, the NCOs and officers trying to prevent the lines drifting into the cleared zone, trying to force the baldricks to keep moving straight ahead, accepting the losses from the minefield. Idly, he wondered what the Iranian division was thinking, hidden far off to the left, but doubtless watching what was happening. He’d heard they’d cleared minefields by marching infantry through them. Looked like the baldricks were doing the same.

Overhead, Bass heard the scream of shells. “Outbound,” the sound easily distinguishable from the ominous “Inbound”. He wondered quickly how long it would be before the baldricks learned to tell the difference. He looked again through the optics, seeing the shells impact on the mass of baldricks hung up on the flanks of the cavalry graveyard. The artillery forward observers were doing their job, directing the artillery in on the flanks, trying to compress the advancing army into a huddled mass. That was happening already in the graveyard, the baldricks lucky enough to be facing that area were moving in but the ones to either side were sliding in also and the resulting congestion was slowing their movement to a crawl. The Spams called this “shaping the battlefield”, a typically melodramatic term in Bass’s opinion but descriptive enough.

Anti-Aircraft Battery, Brigadier Carlson’s Headquarters, Al Badiyah Al Janubiyah, Western Iraq

“There are satans approaching. Raid count 20.” The Iranian Lieutenant rapped the report out in Farsi, then translated to English for the benefit of Sergeant Major Harper. “Prepare to engage.”

“With respect, Lieutenant, might I suggest we wait for a short while and let the situation develop?”

The Iranian frowned slightly, more from curiosity than annoyance. “Sergeant, we have modernized Osa-M missiles here. We have more than 20 kilometers of range.”

Harper settled back slightly. He’d been expecting some of the harpies to leak through the fighter screen, no fighter cover in history had managed to eliminate the threat of just one or two survivors getting past. The sheer numbers of harpies had meant more than that would although this was a larger group that he’d expected. “Lieutenant,” Harper’s voice was very quiet so nobody else could overhear, “how long have you been in the Army.”

“Three years Sergeant.”

“I’ve been serving my Queen for twenty. Let me give you a little advice. We blast those harpies now, when they’re 20 kilometers away and the brass will think our job is easy and move us somewhere dangerous. Now, we wait until they’re five kilometers away and the brass is really sweating, then blast them, we get to be heroes, get a commendation and possibly even a three-day pass. And we get to keep this nice soft billet.

“Ahhh.” The Lieutenant was impressed and a felt a little honored at receiving such a free gift of valuable expertise. Truly there was much a young officer could learn from a veteran such as this. “We will hold fire until… five kilometers?””

Harper nodded fractionally so the officer gave the orders to his men, adding the explanation he’d been given as if it was his own idea. He could see his men nodding as the logic appealed to them.

At five kilometers, the four Osa-M missile launchers opened fire, pushing 24 missiles at the 20 harpies now closing in on the base. One harpy made it past the missiles only to be sawn apart in mid-air as the ZSU-23/4s caught it in a crossfire.

Back in the battery command vehicle, the telephone rang. Carlson’s voice was on the other end. “Well done Lieutenant, that was a getting us a little worried. I’ll send a commendation to General Zolfaghari.” He paused slightly. “You left it a bit late didn’t you?”

“Needed to get a proper tactical picture Sir. We’ve only six ready rounds on each launcher and I didn’t want to get caught reloading.” Out of the corner of his eye, the Lieutenant saw Harper giving him a discrete sign of approval.

“Very wise.” Carlson paused for a second. “We gave you Sergeant-Major Harper as liaison didn’t we? Please tell him I would like a few words with him later.”

Local 3751, ATK Medium Caliber Systems, Mesa, Arizona

“Look, it's like this see. The plant is going to triple shift work whether we like it or not. We’ve talked with the bosses and this is what we’ve come up with. Morning shift from 6am to 2pm. Afternoon shift from 2pm until 10pm. Graveyard shift from 10pm until 6am. Graveyard pays double time. Shifts switch around monthly so everybody gets a crack at the double time.”

“What about weekends?”

“Forget them. Everybody works four days on, one day off. That’ll be staggered so there’s a full shift working the plan all the time. 24/7.”

“Four days on, one day off? That’s not fair.”

“Shadap Al, the boys on the front line don’t get one in five off, why should we.” A mutter of agreement ran around the room.

“What happens if we don’t approve the deal?”

“Mexicans. Or the Army gets the sub-munitions from Israel. Or wherever. Anyway, I’ll put it to the vote. All those for accepting the management offer?” Hands went up all over the room. “And against?” A scattering of hands, mostly those the organizer recognized as those who voted against everything. “It’s carried. New arrangements start tomorrow. Management will tell you which shift you’re starting on and your day off.”

A few hundred yards away, another meeting was being held. One where the worker’s spouses were being gathered. Once it would have been an all-women gathering, these days a few men were there as well.

“So that’s the new arrangements. Look, the guys on the production lines are going to be working their asses off, they don’t need to be worried about problems at home. So if there is a problem, deal with it, don’t go whining. If you can’t deal with it, see us here at the Union. We can help. Above all that, help each other. You older women, you’ve been through this before. You know the problems the young mothers will face, be there for them. Even if it’s just baby-sitting so she can get out of the house and have some peace for an hour, do it. Watch out for the oldsters as well, nobody will be around as much as they were so we all have to look out for each other. We know nobody else will. Don’t think some guardian angel will be looking out because we know they’re the enemy as well now.”

Across America and the world the same meetings were being held, the same messages given. Under them all was another simple, deeper message. The whole world was at war.

 

[BF110C4]

Being a while, a long while since I had seen this particular story, and I am glad to see it again. Is there a link to the author's profile or to other stories apart from the Salvation War?

 

[Francis Urquhart]

Being a while, a long while since I had seen this particular story, and I am glad to see it again. Is there a link to the author's profile or to other stories apart from the Salvation War?

The Big One series, now a total of 11 novels and three collections of short stories, are available from Amazon in paperback and (mostly) Kindle versions. The most recent of those collections is HERE From there one can go to the rest of the TBO Verse stories. There are also a number of non-fiction books on various military subjects in there.

 

[Francis Urquhart]

PART TWELVE

(Note: Approval for the republication of this work on The Sietch has been granted by the author.)

Headquarters, Randi Institute of Pneumatology, The Pentagon, Arlington, VA

“I see you finally got your new offices.” Julie Adams looked totally different from her first visit here less three weeks ago. Her hair was washed and shining, she was wearing skillfully-applied make-up and was smartly, fashionably, dressed. As with all the latest fashionistas, she was wearing chic aluminum foil hat that covered her head and extended down the back of her neck. Producing elegant headwear out of aluminum foil had proved a challenge but the French and Italian designers had come through with flying colors. Julie’s aluminum hat had more to do with her change in appearance than her clothes or make-up. For the first time in many, many years her eyes were quiet and rested, she looked at the world with peaceful confidence not abject terror.

“They’re nice aren’t they.” The Amazing Randi was sitting behind his desk, sorting through the letters received by his unit, trying to pick out the genuine prospects from the fakes. It was a harrowing job. “Our General bullied the decorators until they did what we wanted. By the way, the walls are foil-lined, we’ve got monitoring equipment here and we can’t pick up any extra-dimensional signals. So it looks like we’re safe. I guess the next set of building codes will stipulate aluminum foil in all walls and ceilings.

“Anything.” Julie shuddered at the memories of what Domiklespharatu had done to her.

Randi smiled again, understanding her expression like any skilled cold-reader. “Julie, would you like to get your own back? Punish Domiklespharatu by hurting him the way he hurt you?”

“Sure. Of course. Can I?”

“Come to the laboratory.” The two went into the next room. There was a comfortable reclining chair with some electronics behind it and a swinging table with a microphone. “Don’t ask me how any of this works, I’m a conjuror, not a physicist.”

“It’s quite easy James.” One of the men in white coats was talking. “The baldrick mind control works by quantum entanglement, essentially they transmit their mind signal to a victim and force its mind pattern to match theirs. When we intercepted the baldrick signal, we identified both the baldrick’s pattern and that of Miss Adams. So we just reversed the procedure and we’re going to try and entangle its mind pattern. The catch is its much easier for hell to transmit to us than us to transmit to them. So, since we’re not short of raw electrical power, we’re going to boost it upwards until we can transmit to hell. If we’ve done this right, you can speak into this microphone and broadcast straight into Domiklespharatu’s mind.”

“Thank you gentlemen, I still don’t understand how it works but you’ve done wonders, that I know. If this goes well, what we plan to do is to open a new radio station transmitting to everybody in hell. And, Julie, you’ll be our first newsreader. Now settle down and start to try.”

Julie slipped into the chair and pushed her headset on. Earphones and a simple microphone. Behind her, the systems specialists started to ease the power up, seeking the threshold that would tell them they had breached the barrier between the dimensions. In her seat, all Julie could hear was the signals hum, slowly increasing in pitch and intensity. Then, suddenly it stopped, there was an eerie silence at the other end and Julie could sense the suspicious questioning as Domiklespharatu felt a new presence in his mind.

“Remember me Domiklespharatu? I’m Julie Adams, the woman you got your kicks from torturing. Well, I’m back only I’m in your mind now. I can get into your head but you can’t get into mine any more. So guess what, Domiklespharatu, its my turn to have some fun and yours to suffer. Let’s see, where shall we start? Oh yes, here’s a good one. We’re coming for you and all your kind. You had the impertinence to invade us and we’re slaughtering your kind here. You don’t stand a chance against us. We’re coming for you and we’re going to free all of our people you hold and hand those of you that survive over to them. We’re going to hand you over and watch all our people do to you what you have been doing to them. There’s a new order coming and we’re the ones on top. So, you’d better start running Domiklespharatu because we’re coming for you and we won’t stop. Not now not ever. You’ve pissed off the human race Domiklespharatu and, oh boy, what a price you’ll pay for doing that. Oh, and tell that freak you have in charge there, he’d better find a good lawyer. He’ll need one for the war crimes trial.”

The system powered down and Julie took her headset off. There was an enthusiastic round of applause. Randi laid an approving pat on the shoulder. “Impertinence. That was great. I guess you’ll be taking the job then Julie.”

On the Shore of the Styx River, Fifth Ring, Hell

The woman was crouched behind a rocky outcrop on the edge of the Styx in the fifth circle, watching the scene unfold in front of her. Luck was an amazing thing, wasn't it? For thousands of years, she'd been purposefully moving through hell, taking account of the humans who suffered here – some worthy of her attention, others, weaklings, worthy only of her contempt. Of course, given the billions of souls – there must be billions, now – she could only rely on her instinct to guide her. And now, this. Just as she was in the area, some new arrivals had escaped with apparent ease, had tackled the demonic overseer with impunity, stabbed and bludgeoned it to death with skill, and had just crucified it to the rocks in front of her. Such open defiance was unprecedented and dangerous.

In ten thousand years, she had learned many languages from the screams and gibbering cries of the tormented, so with only a little difficulty she recognized what they were saying. The woman was speaking to a man, something about resistance. She smiled to herself. If only they knew … As they turned to go, she stepped out from behind the rock.

"Hello!"

The two newcomers whirled, the bronze spikes they carried up and ready. The woman smiled and spread her arms, revealing herself unarmed. "I have seen what you have done. Excellent work."

The apparent leader of this group was a woman, short, already healing from the gang rape. She gestured to her companion and he lowered his weapons, though they still stood cautiously at the ready. All were in excellent physical shape, save for the quickly-healing wounds and scars. "Who are you?"

"A fellow resistance member." Suddenly, the woman felt a stab in her back above the kidneys. She almost fainted with terror, had a demon caught her for the spikes against her were certainly the bronze of a trident. She turned slowly, looking over her shoulder. There were more newcomers behind her, one armed with a cut down trident, the other with a club made from the section of haft that had been removed. The woman was shocked, she’d been so pleased at tracking this group, she hadn’t seen they’d spotted her and had set up an ambush.

Now, the leader of the group was speaking, her voice hard, cold, suspicious. "There's already a resistance?"

"Of course there is. There has been a resistance in Hell since it began."

"Well, take us to its leader."

The woman again spread her arms. "I will certainly do that. But first you must tell me your names."

"When we meet the leader."

"Okay. Then follow me; we're going to the rim between the fourth and fifth circles." And she turned and stepped into the waist-deep muck, wading past the still-bleeding corpse of Jarakeflaxis. The six newcomers followed her at a distance. The woman didn’t notice but two of them dropped out of sight, following from the flanks.

Over her shoulder, the woman said, "If I duck under the mud, you do the same. As long as the demons on patrol don't see us, we'll be fine."

The Tango flight members exchanged glances, that remark was more telling than the woman had realized. It should be the demons who lived in fear. First rule of establishing liberated area – those who stayed out of it were safe, those who entered it, died. Obviously what she meant by resistance wasn’t what they meant. Kim started to form a mental picture of what the resistance here really was, probably groups of escapees hiding out, spending their time avoiding capture. Kim had in mind something far more ambitious.

The Galaxy Turkish Bath and Massage Parlor, Bangkok, Thailand

The succubus slipped into the bar carefully, keeping in the dark as much as possible. Once it had been easy to fool the humans but no more. Now fewer and fewer of them seemed vulnerable to mind-masking. This group seemed to be though. All women, that was good, massacring them would cause great alarm and misery. There were a group of them by a long wooden table at the end of the room. The succubus kept her self-image clearly in her mind, a young Asian woman dressed as these were, short skirt, skimpy top, baseball cap perched on their heads. A couple of women were dancing around a pole on a small stage, under a sign that said “Coyote Dancing”. Well, they could wait until last.

The succubus went up to the group by the table, picked the one at the end and drew back her clawed hand ready to plunge it into her victim’s chest and tear out her heart. Then she paused, she’d never realized quite how big a half-inch could look when it was pointing straight at her face.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking, can you kill me before I pull the trigger? Well, seeing as this is a .50AE Desert Eagle, the most powerful semi-automatic hand gun ever made, you have to ask yourself one question. Do you feel lucky?” The human woman chuckled. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”

The succubus looked around carefully. She was the center of a ring of gun barrels, all aimed at her, all obeying the third law of gun-fighting – calibers measured in inches should begin with a “.4” or greater. It was pointless, over. She let her image drop and from the lack of shock on the faces of the women, she realized her illusion had been just as pointless. These women had recognized her as soon as she had entered and they’d trapped her.

“So kill me.” She’d failed, it was hopeless. Death was the consequence of failure.

“Perhaps not. Sit down. Don’t try anything stupid and we won’t shoot. Why did you do this?”

“It was my mission. Deumos sent me to seduce a leader and bend him to our will.”

“So Deumos is your pimp.” The woman with the Desert Eagle put a mountain of disgust into the word. “That doesn’t explain why you came here to try and kill us.”

“I failed, we were told that politicians here were easy to seduce but I couldn’t make mind-contact with them. I hoped killing you would buy enough favor to save my life. People here no longer are deceived by our mind mask.” The succubus thought for a second. “What is a pimp?”

“Somebody who lives off the money we earn.”

“I do not get paid.”

“Then you’re a sex-slave?” The women in the bar were genuinely shocked. They frequently told their tourist clients they were poor women, tricked into a life of sin by unscrupulous brothel-owners but that was just a line to get some sympathy-money. They were all Bangkok girls, born and bred in the city. Country girls couldn’t compete with them and didn’t try. Not one of the girls in the bar had ever actually met a real sex-slave.

“Aren’t you?"

“No!” Noi, the girl with the Desert Eagle, was horrified and insulted. “We are business-women. We are free professionals and paid as such. Why last week I made more money than an office lady makes in a year. Look…. What’s your name?”

“Lugasharmanaska.”

“Look Lugasharman… do you mind if we call you Luga? Nobody has the right to go around telling you who you can have sex with. Not unless they pay you for the trouble. It sounds to me like this Deumos person has been treating you pretty badly. You’d be better off staying with us that going back to him.”

“Her. Deumos is a female. A Greater Demon.”

There was another round of indignant snorts. “That’s disgusting. A woman treating you like this? A man, perhaps I can understand, they always want it for free but another woman? That’s sick. You should be free to make your own living. It’s your body.”

“I could make a living doing it here?” Lugasharmanaska’s voice was uneven, curious, confused.

The women in the bar laughed, although that didn’t affect the way they held their guns. “You bet. A real demon whore? There’d be men lining up out the door to do you. You could look like yourself, or like their favorite actress or whatever. You’d make a fortune. Why a couple of months and you’d own a bar like this. Less if an American warship pulled into Pattaya.” A chorus of happy sighs ran around the bar. To the women, an American warship full of Walking ATMs was their idea of the Great Cornucopia. Noi continued. “Look, Luga, last time one American carrier pulled in for a week, I made enough money to buy a new pickup truck. Cash down. Lin over there paid for a whole year’s college tuition for her younger sister and Dip bought a house for her parents. How do you think we all ended up with American guns? Tourists are profitable enough, we all make a good living off them. And this Deumos person makes you do it for nothing. It’s not just disgusting, its unprofessional.”

“Well what can I do?” Lugasharmanaska almost wailed out the question.

The girls did a quick conference. “Come with us, we’ll take you to the Army. They’ll look after you, they know if they don’t look after our friends, they’ll never get any in this city again. I’ll get my truck and we’ll go around to the Cavalry Depot in Thonburi.”

Five minutes later, one succubus and five ladies of the night were piling into Noi’s pickup truck, Lugasharmanaska having been strongly cautioned not to scratch the paint with her claws. A ten-minute drive took them to the depot gates where, for the second time in an evening, Lugasharmanaska was surrounded by guns.

“Hi boys.” Noi’s voice was bright and friendly.

“Sisters, you do know you got a baldrick in the back there?”

“Of course. Her name is Luga. She wants to surrender so we brought her here. We don’t trust the police.”

“I can understand that. I’ll have to call the Officer of the Guard.”

Another ten minutes and the group were telling their story to the Officer of the Guard, making it very clear that the succubus was under their protection and if she was hurt, nobody in the Second Cavalry Division would be welcome in a Bangkok bar again. Most of the troops had gulped at that threat and mentally promised to guard their prisoner with their lives. Within 30 minutes, the Thai MoD was on the telephone to Washington.

Headquarters, Randi Institute of Pneumatology, The Pentagon, Arlington, VA

“Well, it’s a step forward but it doesn’t really get us that far.”

“I thought Julie did well.”

“She did, and we told her she can use the equipment any time she likes to torment Domiklespharatu. But its one-to-one communication. It’s using a telephone and we want to use something like radio. We want to transmit to everybody and this system just can’t do that. It needs a mind-pattern to lock in to, like I said, it’s one-to-one.”

“But baldricks can deceive large numbers of people at once.”

“Sure, but we don’t know how. We’re a long way out from knowing that.”

The telephone on Randi’s desk rang and he picked it up, mouthing an apology as he did so. As he listened, his eyebrows lifted.

“Well, this might change things. That was the Ministry of Defense in Bangkok. We’ve got a defector.”

 

[Francis Urquhart]

PART THIRTEEN

(Note: Approval for the republication of this work on The Sietch has been granted by the author.)

The Royal Dragoon Guards, Al Badiyah Al Janubiyah, Western Iraq

“How shall a man die better than facing fearful odds?
For the ashes of his fathers and the future of his sons.
It’s showtime boys”.

Guardsman Bass put the tank intercom down. Like every good tank commander, he had anticipated the order, getting his Challenger II ready to move well before the word came down from Regimental HQ. It hadn’t taken that much anticipation in fact, just a modicum of skill and experience. Skill and experience was something that the long-term professionals that made up the British ranks had in abundance. The spams may have the shiny toys, the British tankers said, but the Brits knew how to play with them.

In the valley below, the baldrick army was slowly extricating itself from the tangle caused by the minefields and wire. What had started as a serried mass of infantry was being distorted and funneled into a confused mass, made all the worse by the pounding of the AS-90Ds. The 155mm guns were lobbing their shells into the mass of infantry still seething through the gap in the wire torn where the baldrick cavalry had died. They were concentrating on the mass targets but that meant the infantry was slowly penetrating the first line of defense, breaking through in a thin, steady stream. They were beginning to move across the valley floor, making their way towards where the Challengers were sitting in wait behind the rippling sand and gravel dunes.

Even with the snarled mess down by the wire holding up the bulk of the baldricks, Bass was appalled by the sheer number of them coming towards his position. Intellectually, he had heard the number that was expected, nearly 100,000, but he had never imagined what 100,000 infantry swarming towards him would look like. Now, he knew. It was a sight few had ever seen before even where human armies were concerned. The mass of baldrics were something that belonged out of human prehistory.

“Mark your targets as they come.” The voice over the radio was calm and collected, the boyish pitch already well-controlled and only barely a reminder of how young their officer was. It didn’t matter much, everybody knew a junior officer fresh out of Sandhurst was still being trained in his craft. This one was doing well, Bass thought. If he survived, he might go far. Even while he thought that, his hands were selecting a group of baldricks as his target.

“Lase them.”

A brief pause. “5,003 meters boss.”

Another brief pause and then Lieutenant McLeoud’s voice cut in again. “On my word boys. Hold Fast and ….. shoot!”

“On the way.”

Third Legion, Southern Flank, Abigor’s Army

He had survived the snakes, he had seen their silver bodies stretched out on the ground, tape-like creatures that were threatening even in death. Those who had stepped on their bodies had screamed in agony as the snake teeth cut their feet apart. Demon skin was strong but the silver snakes were stronger.

He had avoided the yellow bars as well, taught by the fearful fate of those who had been careless enough to step on them. He had threaded his way through the maze on the ground, catching only minor injuries from the fragments as more careless, or less fortunate, as Krykojanklawas was quickly beginning to realize, on a battlefield they were the same thing, had stepped on the bars and been blown apart. Krykojanklawas corrected himself, the lucky ones were blown apart, the unlucky ones just had their legs ripped off and lay screaming on the ground.

The bars weren’t the only magic in the ground here. Something else was hidden in the sand and gravel, something nobody saw until it was too late. Something that threw a mage-ball up into the air so that it could explode and throw out a slashing rain of fragments. The humans had a touch of true evil in their magic, the balls always exploded at about waist height and the ones caught by them were the unluckiest of all for they were rarely killed, just disemboweled and castrated by the blasts. Their screams were truly dreadful.

That was the worst thing of all, the overwhelming noise, the sensation that the bath of sound they were immersed in was itself a weapon hammering them flat with repeated waves of blasting. The explosions of the mines, the flat crack of the balls as they were thrown into the air and exploded, worst of all, the howl as the human mages created thunderbolts and hurled them into the mass of troops advancing on them. They mixed with the screams of the dying, and those who wished they were dying, in an all-embracing cacophony and the war-cry howls of the humans in their sky-chariots overhead, hunting down the surviving flies. Krykojanklawas had never heard anything like it before. If anything the sound was worse than the magic that was being thrown at him, its pressure on his head made it almost impossible to think straight.

He lifted his head slightly, the human mages were up to something new. A ripple of lightning flashed along the ridge crest ahead of him. His eyes focused on that ridge, there were strange boxes scattered along it and the lightning seemed to have come from them. Before that could really register, the bath of sound that enveloped him was punctuated by ear-splitting screams, more human battle cries Krykojanklawas presumed. How could such puny creatures give out such cries? Off to his left, a tight knot of demons had penetrated the wire, using the body of a dead Beast as a bridge. As Krykojanklawas watched, one of their leaders seemed to be hurled backwards, disintegrating into a fine spray of mist and parts as he did so. Most of those around him fell, spurting yellow body fluid from wounds torn by fragments from the magic bolt. Along the line, Krykojanklawas could see forty or fifty more such explosions as the magic bolts tore into the demonic ranks.

For the first time, he sensed that moving forward was impossible, that he could not do it and survive. All along the line, the same idea was beginning to filter into the minds of his fellows, the advance was faltering. Although he had never experienced anything like this before, the simple instinct of self-preservation cut in and Krykojanklawas took cover in a convenient dip in the ground. He was just in time, another salvo of the screaming bolts slammed into the ranks where the demons had clustered, spreading more death and destruction. At that point he noticed something, the human mages were hurling their bolts where the demons were most tightly packed, the area effect of their blasts ensured multiple kills for each bolt. Krykojanklawas began to wonder if his survival in this human-created hell, he used the phrase without any sense of irony, was due to the fact that he was in a thinly populated section where most of the demons were already down.

The human magic was being concentrated on a section of the line far away, even the terrible noise seemed to have slackened a bit. That gave Krykojanklawas an opportunity. He had already spotted another, better dip in the ground ahead of him, so he leapt up and sprinted across to it. On the way he discharged his psychic force into his trident and aimed a bolt at the ridgeline ahead. The blue bolt shot out, it would take time for him to recharge but at least he’d taken a shot at the mages. Then, he was in his new hiding place, trying to find another one that was both better and closer to the enemy.

The Royal Dragoon Guards, Al Badiyah Al Janubiyah, Western Iraq

“What the blazes was that?”

Bass shrugged. Something had hit his tank, it seemed like some sort of ball lightning or something. It had come from the mass of infantry they were pounding. “No idea. Any damage.”

“No boss, computers flickered for a second but that’s all. If I didn’t know better, I’d say we got hit by lightning. If we did, the system hardening worked as advertised.”

Bass looked across the line, it seemed like quite a few bolts were coming in from the direction of the enemy. “The old books said that demons could throw lightning bolts didn’t they? Looks like we just got hit by one.” Ahead, down in the valley, a group of baldricks had penetrated the wire in his sector. “Load HESH.”

“Up.”

“Shoot.”

“On the way.”

The tank lurched as another 120mm HESH round went down range and Bass saw it plow into the group he’d selected, blowing one baldrick into fragments while those around it went down wounded. The thought crossed Bass’s mind that he was currently firing the biggest and most expensive sniper’s rifle in history. It also crossed his mind that snipers couldn’t possibly stop a massed attack like this. He had to give the baldricks credit, the ground in the minefield and around the wire was carpeted with their dead yet they were still pushing forward. It took gutsy infantry to do that.

“Make that a definite on the ball lightning.” Bass had seen another Challenger getting hit by a ball of lightning and briefly lighting up the way a ship’s mast sometimes did in an electrical storm. St Elmo’s Fire it was called or something. He switched to the platoon net. “Lieutenant, Sir, we’re taking incoming fire here. Some sort of electrostatic bolt, like lightning or EMP. Doesn’t seem to be dangerous to us but worth reporting.”

“Roger that Bass. For your information, other tanks and the crunchies in their Warriors are also reporting the bolts. Hold Fast.”

Bass switched back to tank intercom and picked out another baldrick target. Once again, his 120mm gun crashed, sending the baldricks flying. Their casualty rate down there was appalling, the AS-90Ds were still pounding them with their 155s while the tanks added precision fire to the execution yet they were barely making a dent in the mass of baldricks still moving forward. Bass got an uneasy feeling that the battle was not going well.

First Brigade, First Armored Division, Tel Ash Sha’ir, Northern Iraq.

“They may not know what they’re doing but my word, do they have guts.” Colonel Sean MacFarland watched the slaughter on his display. The Global Hawk was relaying real-time video of the battle as it developed, sending back pictures of the baldrick horde as they floundered under the lash of artillery fire. The MLRS batteries were inflicting incredible losses on them, every time they fired, whole sections of the baldrick front just vanished under the Steel Rain. There were two problems with that, the batteries fired about once every eight or nine minutes and that just wasn’t often enough. The other was that they had already dumped more than a million DPICM bomblets into the target area. With a 2 percent failure rate, that meant there were already 20,000 dud rounds scattering the battlefield. That would make it a hazard for years to come.

Still, the gap between the MLRS salvoes was being filled by the Paladins. All 54 guns in the First Armored were now pouring fire into the enemy army. A human army would have broken by now, given up, known that getting through the artillery fire was impossible, and saved their lives by pulling back. The baldricks weren’t doing that. Not yet at any rate. MacFarland know they would, sooner or later. They were fighting the United States Army on its terms, on its ground, giving it exactly the target the Army was supremely good at destroying. The baldricks would either run or die. Even as he watched, a new element was added to the massacre, the Bradleys of his mechanized infantry were firing TOW anti-tank missiles into the enemy formation, picking out the groups the artillery missed and cutting them down. The tanks were silent, MacFarland intended to hold fire with them until the enemy were 2,000 meters away. The 120mm smoothbore didn’t have the accurate range of the British rifled 120mms so the Bradleys had to take over the long-range precision fire role.

MacFarland looked at the mass of infantry threshing in the kill zone and shook his head. They had to stop. Didn’t they?

Cavalry Legion, Left Flank of the Army of Abigor, Tel Ash Sha’ir, Northern Iraq.

They were hunched up, backs bent, heads down, looking for all the world as if they were trying to walk through some ferocious storm. Same grim determination to find shelter. And that wasn’t a bad comparison thought Zorankalirtagap, that’s what they were. Facing a storm that slaughtered everything in its path. Ever since his Beast had been killed, Zorankalirtagap had been advancing with the infantry against the hideous magic of the humans. He caught his breath, suddenly the sky behind the humans had turned white again, white shot with fire as their fire-lances sped towards the floundering demon advance. He watched the sight with fear in his heart, then sighed slightly as it descended on the flank of the line, far from his position. It happened again, the same rippling cloud of explosions that left no demons standing when it cleared. Anything was better than the fire lances, even the magic bolts that screamed and caused the ground to erupt under their feet.

There was something new, from a position in front of them, more human chariots had appeared, barely visible with just a small box over the ridgeline. For all their skills, the humans were cowards, Zorankalirtagap consoled himself with that thought, they didn’t stand proud and fight, they hid in hollows and dips in the ground to kill. And kill, and kill, and kill thought Zorankalirtagap grimly. Oh yes, they are very good at that.

The boxes fired fire-lances at a group of demons on Zorankalirtagap’s right. The targets scattered but it did them no good. They’d been lucky enough to escape the fire-lances and the bolts but these new weapons were different. As Zorankalirtagap watched appalled, the fire-lances changed course to follow their targets. Even those who forget their honor and took cover in dips like humans could not save themselves, the fire lances were following them into the cover they had sought. It was more than flesh and blood, even demonic flesh and blood could stand. The leading demons started to edge backwards, even as the ones behind continued to push forward. The advance ground to a halt in the chaos.

The Royal Dragoon Guards, Al Badiyah Al Janubiyah, Western Iraq

“Air Raid Warning Red! Red! Red!” The scream over the radio was just in time. A group of about 30 harpies had managed to assemble themselves from the massacre in the skies over the battlefield and attacked the tanks sitting on the ridgeline. Bass could feel his tank lurch as a group of them landed on it, heard their claws scrabbling at the armor. His radio went dead, at a guess, he thought the antenna had probably been ripped off by the harpies. Then he heard a ringing noise, the sound of machine gun fire bouncing of armor plate. The Warriors were machine-gunning the tanks in an effort to drive the harpies off them. Bass looked through his vision blocks, some were masked by clawed hands trying to rip them open but he could see Bravo-Three was also covered with harpies, the tracers from three Warriors converging on it as the infantry protected the tanks from the sudden assault. On a sudden thought, Bass looked up and made sure his hatch was firmly clamped shut. One harpy was driven off the tank by the fire, it exploded in the air as the Warrior fired a few rounds from its 30mm RARDEN gun into it. Others were dying as they were shot up by the Warrior’s coaxial chain guns. That was creating a new problem, Bass could see Bravo-Three was starting to smoke, the acid from the harpy’s blood probably. The paint on the Challengers would resist the acid but there were other things out there that could be vulnerable.

The tanks were backing up. Bass hadn’t received any orders but with his radio down, it was a fair guess they were out so he joined in the movement. Like the other tanks, he popped his smoke launchers, the choking white fumes driving off the remaining harpies. By the time the baldricks swarmed over the positions he had once held, the Challengers were back behind the next ridgeline.

Headquarters, British Brigade, Wadi Al Jaram, Western Iraq

Brigadier John Carlson looked at his map, his front line had been driven in, the tanks and armored infantry pushed back to the next defense positions. That left the baldricks spread out between the wire and the next defense line in a vast disorganized mass. He picked up his radio, it was already set to the right frequency. “Now, General Zolfaghari, now’s your time. Put every gun to them Sir, every gun.”

“Getting a bit Wellingtonian aren’t we?” The Iranian General’s voice was urbane and slightly amused. Then his division spoke for him. Outside the sky to Carlson’s left turned white as the massed batteries of Iranian BM-21 rocket launchers opened fire, pouring their rockets into the baldrick’s flank and rear. Under the white cloud was a black one as the T-72s gunned their engines and started their charge at the enemy.

Third Legion, Southern Flank, Abigor’s Army

The onslaught was totally unexpected, the enemy were in retreat, covered by the fog they had conjured up. Then, somehow, they had poured a new mass of fire into the right flank and rear of the demon forces. Krykojanklawas looked over to the left and saw the black cloud as something crossed the ridgeline. He focused his eyes and almost screamed in horror at what he saw. “The humans have Iron Chariots!”

He wasn’t the only one. Others saw the more than 300 T-72 tanks pouring over the ridgeline, moving terrifyingly fast through the sand. They saw them spit fire, the blaze rippling along their front line as the shots went on their way to tear into the demonic ranks. Every demon sensed the new chariots and knew the truth. they were made of iron. Not just any iron but some sort of super iron. The demons recoiled from their old enemy, it was just too much. After the pounding, the mines, the wire, their nerve broke.

Headquarters of Merafawlazes, Commander, Northern Flank, Abigor’s Army

Merafawlazes had learned much about war in the last few hours. He had learned that cavalry could no longer charge an enemy. He learned that artillery was the great killer no matter whether the targets were demons or humans. He had learned that his soldiers were helpless against tanks. He had learned that humans were the supreme masters of mass killing and were only too keen to practice their art. Now he learned that the moment an Army disintegrates and changes from a defeated force to a panicked mob can be measured with exquisite precision. The French Army at Waterloo disintegrated at precisely 8:15pm, the Union Army at First Bull Run at precisely 4:20pm. Merafawlazes saw his army disintegrate with exactly the same precision. As the great iron chariots of the humans emerged from their hiding places, his army dissolved into chaos, running for the rear. The Iron Chariots followed them and they could move much faster than even the panic-stricken demons. That was when he had his next lesson. An Army suffers heavier casualties when it breaks than it does when it stands.

M1A2 Abrams Charlie-Three, Tel Ash Sha’ir, Northern Iraq.

There was thirty dead an' wounded on the ground we wouldn't keep --
No, there wasn't more than twenty when the front begun to go;
But, along the line o' flight they cut us up like sheep,
An' that was all we gained by doin' so.

The M1 crested the ground smoothly, the great barrel of its gun held in place by the stabilization system. There was hardly any need to use it, the baldricks were running for the rear, the Abrams tanks spraying them with fire from their coaxial and turret-top machine guns. In the driver’s seat, SPC Brungardt saw a wounded baldrick fall to the ground in front of the racing tank. The 70 ton Abrams didn’t even lurch as it drove over the body. Brungardt thumbed his intercom button. “Hey guys guess what. Baldricks go crunch too.”

 

[Francis Urquhart]

PART FOURTEEN

(Note: Approval for the republication of this work on The Sietch has been granted by the author.)

Wadi Abu Tahir, Western Iraq, late afternoon

Memnon snorted in disgust as he watched the young human die, its cow-like eyes dimming and the hands feebly clawed at his infernal flesh. He could feel the soul within stirring now as the meat caging it finally ceased to function. He casually allowed the corpse the slide out of his grip and was quiet for a long moment, listening. The humans were about in large numbers and he was no fool. His wings would take time to regenerate and his flesh was still aching from his wounds. Their mage-bolts could wound even his great personage. This was not the way it was supposed to be. Go find them and challenge them, he was told. They will cower before you. He had found the humans, but their iron chariots were far too powerful for him. He had lost two wing mates already and he was in no condition to meet them again. Not yet, anyway.

Memnon smiled cruelly. When he did, there would be blood. Enough to drown a thousand human infants, and then the pain would come. Sweet melodic pain. Memnon’s eyes fluttered and the never born knew that it was time to rest. His prey had been bested and he had claimed a lair for himself. At least long enough to heal the wounds and allow his spirit flesh to sing to the domain he called home. This wretched place of cloying life and limited matter was not to his liking. He was his own being and he needed rest.

“Just for a little while.” Memnon growled and curled down onto the floor next to the corpse of the boy. He looked with contentment at the place that surrounded him for sprawled out across the couch was an older woman, head turned completely around and leering at him while a younger woman was impaled on a broken piece of furniture, scream frozen on her face. All were small offerings to the Morningstar and his Prince to watch over him in this moment of weakness. He would repay them with more flesh and blood when he was whole again.

Wadi Abu Tahir, Western Iraq, just before dawn

A single eye snapped open at the sound of the tea pot whistle and Memnon spoke. “For disturbing me in this moment of respite, you shall know such wonders of pain, I will make a cathedral of your bones and sinew and your agony will be my choir, pathetic human.” He snarled coldly at the young Arabic man who now shared the high-roofed barn that was now his den. A man dressed in plain khakis and a billowy white shirt opened at his chest who nodded politely to Memnon and knelt cross legged across from him as he delicately poured himself a cup of tea. The steam rose lazily from the ancient chipped porcelain. It had been brewing on the stove and the smell wafted over to the groggy demon.

“Peace and blessing be upon you, Fallen One. Your absence still saddens my master.”

Memnon paused. He stirred more now, unfurling like some obscene spider, long leathery limbs reaching out as he rose with eyes like cold embers pinning the young man with a predatory gaze. “Slave of the Nameless One.” Memnon inclined his head with bitter sarcastic politeness as he smelled the clean scent of the Angelic.

“Care for a cup?” the Angelic asked with a child like innocence as he sipped his own, for a brief moment he closed his eyes and seemed to savor the tea like one savored the sensation of forced coupling.

“You’re all whores to your senses, you know that, don’t you?” Memnon chuckled darkly, his cloven hooves clomping on the packed earth floor like a caged bull as he paced back and forth before the kneeling man.

“This world is delight and rapture. It is the fulfillment of all and the joy of bliss.” The young man sighed as he inhaled the aroma from the tea cup.

Memnon said nothing. They liked to talk, they liked to taste, they liked to savor, these slaves of the Nameless.

“What is the purpose of this world if not to delight in its wonders? You must remember, surely, how bright it is in our Ethereal Realm. How the chorus of praise and supplication a constant backdrop to the great one above us all as he basks in our light of selfless devotion.” He continued in a soft whisper like leaves on silk.

“What manner of slave are you, eh? Cherub, perhaps?” Memnon asked silkily. How frail he looked just sitting there, it stirred his predatory urges like a woman’s breast called to a male. Memnon clomped forward a bit, talons gleaming dangerously.

The Angelic inclined his head and closed his eyes and listened to intently for a moment, he looked absolutely beautiful, like a statue carved of perfect alabaster, there was not a blemish on his skin and his body moved with a sublime grace that would have made a human weep. Was it a wonder that these bastards had their way with the women of this wretched place while his kin had to forcibly take what they wanted? Was it any wonder they were always the ones the Nameless sent in his stead to speak for him.

Always put your best face forward they say. They were such supple and elegant heralds. How could the humans resist worshipping the Nameless One when these were the ones he sent in its name? If the humans could only see what they actually worshipped, now that would be worth the price of admission, no?

“It is so…quiet here.” The Angelic announced with tears welling in its eyes. “No maddening chorus always haunting your every thought, no cries of baseless devotion, no shrieks of joyous revelation. Just. Silence.” There was a sadness there, deep and abiding.

Memnon could stand it no longer, it maddened him to see this abject weakness paraded before him. “Slave!” he roared.

There was a rip and whirl of taloned hands and leathery limbs flashing forward and the angelic merely raised his head as if offering his throat to his attacker but it gestured with its hand and Memnon was catapulted off his feet and landed in a heap against the far wall of the shack, shaking the entire frame to its core.

The angelic was off his feet and had crossed the room in a single stride in between heart beats and he had a flawless alabaster hand wrapped around Memnon’s throat. Without a grunt of effort, the Angelic hoisted the still stunned Harpy off his feet and held him high above him. The eyes were no longer human but white within white and there was a low sound growing around him like a chorus of women slowly building up tempo.

“I am Appoloin-lan-Gabriel, Seraph of the Hosts of Michael-Lan, Devout Servant and Herald of He Above All Others. You will listen to my words and heed them.”

“I…listen.” Memnon managed to choke out.

“Are you certain?” Appoloin asked tightly and there was a cold smile on his face. Oh, yes they were beautiful, but they were also terrible in their wrath. These humans worshipped the Nameless with such zeal and spoke of his Perfect Love never really discussing that when the time came for punishment it was these beautiful angels that delivered death and destruction without hesitation or remorse. In the end, human morality was just as alien to this beautiful creature as it was to Memnon.

“Yes, Appoloin. I attend your words.” Memnon stammered.

“We are watching. Tell your prince that. The One Above All has spoken yet he sees vile repugnant defiance from humanity. The Great Chorus must not be disturbed. The Chanting must not cease. Your ilk were given this world and we see nothing but abhorrent failure. We do not want to take a more active role. Uriel awaits on the ether like a sword of Damocles.”

“Uriel?!” Memnon exclaimed.

“Last he moved upon man, the Land of Khemet wept bitter tears. Do not force our hand. Cow them. Stop the defiance. Should they find a way to disrupt the Chorus we will end this charade once and for all.” Gabriel jerked Memnon down to face him, tusk to nose.

“Clear, foul one?” Appoloin replied like ice and hurled the Never Born back through the wall of the shack. Corrugated tin and sheet rock gave way and Memnon found himself running before he even realized he was touching ground again.

“Peace be with you.” Appoloin whispered into the dawn wind and calmly sat back down to enjoy his tea.

He was disturbed in his tranquility by a roar and a clattering noise that shook dust from the ceiling of the hut and spoiled his tea. Dawn had still only half arrived but standing at the door, he could see a hulking brute made of square boxes sitting in the road. Two more of the same were behind it and three smaller brutes. Appoloin looked more carefully, there were twenty thin black rings painted around the long tube that stuck out of the upper box. The there was a squeaking noise and something opened from the top. At first Appoloin thought it was one of the foul ones but then he saw it was a human. With his eye for beauty, he saw her as comely, and buxom even by the standards of the daughters of Ham.

Lieutenant Keisha “Hooters” Stevenson didn’t feel comely. She was gray with exhaustion, her hair under her communications helmet was matted and her scalp stinging with sweat. She and the crew of Alpha-One-One had been on the move all night, at first chasing down the fleeing remnants of the northern army. Later, they’d split away and were now swinging west and south across the rear of the Baldrick army. If it had been a human force, there would have been supply columns to devastate and rear area units to destroy but here there was nothing. Until they’d come to this tiny village. Here, they had to wait until the great ships of the desert, the Oshkosh Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Trucks, could catch up with them and bring them new supplies of fuel for the greedy gas turbines and ammunition for their guns. Although Stevenson thought, they didn’t need ammunition for all their kills. The roadwheels and bellies of the Abrams and Bradleys were stained green and yellow with baldrick blood. It was a dirty little secret of armored warfare that tanks killed infantry with their tracks just as often as they did with their guns.

There were other dirty little secrets as well of course. One of them, she had found, was that her physique wasn’t perfectly suited to the inside of a cramped armored vehicle. Put quite bluntly her breasts got in the way. Back in her first unit, their impressive size had got her the nickname of ‘hooters’. Woman in the Army reacted to things like that one of two ways, they either got offended, kicked up a fuss and were eased out or they sucked it up, gave back as good as they got and were accepted. Stevenson had been one of the second group but that didn’t help her now. After being thrown around inside a fast-moving tank all night, she was sore, tired, bruised and battered. And she had seen so much killing over the last twenty hours that she was a veteran with a veterans lack of patience for stupidity.

Still the dawn chill felt good after being sealed down for so long. She looked around the village, saw people slowly coming out of the buildings to look at the great American tanks. She checked them over carefully, noting the glitter of silver from their covered heads. The word was spreading fast, cover your head with foil if you don’t want a baldrick stealing your mind. Even out here in the back of beyond. The breeze sure did feel good though, even though it gave her a shrewd idea of just how bad she must smell. She slipped the shoulder straps of her top off to get full benefit from the cool air. That caused a stir of disapproval from some of the men in the village, although she did note they kept staring at her to remind themselves how offended they felt.

In his doorway, Appoloin saw the gesture and felt perturbed. She might be comely but such brazen behavior was immodest. He stepped away from his doorway into the street, projecting an image of love and friendliness with all his might. “Cover yourself woman,” and his kindly voice echoed across the street.

“Screw you!” Stevenson’s voice was harsh for she was a veteran and didn’t suffer fools gladly. “And the horse you ….. SHIT! Baldrick 20 degrees left! Canister!” She dropped back into the turret of her tank, by long practice ending the fall in her commander’s position. The turret was already swinging to bear on her mark.

“Up.”

“Shoot.”

The gunner saw the cross-hairs merge with the figure standing silhouetted against the rising sun. “On the way.”

The blast of canister took Appoloin full in the chest, hurling him backwards and tearing at his body. Incredibly, it didn’t kill him although there was no way he would have survived wounds that terrible. It was the bursts from the 25mm Bushmaster chain guns on the Bradleys that finished him off. Confused by the sudden, vicious attack and in agony from the wounds, Appoloin died in a spreading pool of white blood.

A few minutes later, Stevenson and her crew were looking down at the body, now revealed in its true form, a white humanoid with wings. “Not the same as the ones we’ve killed so far ell-tee.” Stevenson’s crew were punctilious about addressing her correctly when others were around. Inside their tank she was ‘hooters’ just as the gunner was ‘baldy’, the loader ‘crab’ and the driver ‘biker’ but, for them, using her nickname where outsiders could hear would be disrespectful.

“Not the same at all. I guess this is one of them angels. Doesn’t matter, we declared war on them as well.” She raised her voice slightly. “Did anybody see where this one came from?”

One of the village women pointed at a barn-like building. Crab went over and looked inside, then came back, his face grim and as white as the body stretched out on the ground. “You’d better take a look at this ell-tee.”

Stevenson went into the hut and looked for what seemed a long, long time. When she came back, her eyes were blank. “Well, that puts paid to any idea about them being good guys doesn’t it? We need a camera crew up here to film that.” Suddenly, she shook with rage. “Damn him. He sat there drinking tea surrounded by that horror show. Slaughtered an entire family and then drank a cup of tea.”

“Don’t sweat it ell-tee. We done good here. Nobody believed they were on the side of righteousness any more. Not after The Message.” Baldy was speaking from the barrel of the 120mm gun where he had just finished painting a white ring to match all the black ones.

Far away, in the rocky wasteland, Memnon heard the crash of the gun and crackle of gunfire and decided he’d better vacate the area. Very quickly.

Headquarters, Randi Institute of Pneumatology, The Pentagon, Arlington, VA

“Next.”

James Randi sighed. It sounded so good using the enormous expertise his Educational Foundation had built up in detecting fraudulent psychics and mediums to try and find the real thing. It was hard to believe that the JREF was now the front line in humanity’s fight against its enemies. Neither consideration changed the fact that the day-to-day reality of the task was boring. He had another candidate for testing, a young woman who called herself kitten. No capital he noted, important thing that. It was essential to make the interviewees comfortable. He heard the door open and glanced up. Years of expertise in self control kept his face expressionless but he knew this day at least would not be considered boring.

Two people had entered the room, one a young man dressed all in black with a vaguely military style coat that reached down below his knees. A goth, although that wasn’t what had added interest to Randi’s otherwise routine day. With him was a young woman, another goth dressed in black with her hair down around her shoulders, her long dress low cut and held by thin shoulder straps. The young man was leading her around by a dog-leash attached to a collar around her neck.

“You must be kitten?” Randi’s voice was even. “Would you like to take a seat?”

The girl paused for a second until the man with her gave a quick nod, then she sat down. “I’m kitten, yes.”

“You too Sir, please sit down.” The young man did so. “kitten, why are you here today?”

“I read your advertisement asking for people who can contact the dead to call you. I can do that, sometimes. I can also see into hell.”

“I see, what’s hell like?”

“Some parts of it aren’t too bad. Imagine a really destroyed city, one where all the buildings are smashed, the streets ruined. Like those pictures of those World War Two German cities after the Allied bombing. Freezing cold, raining all the time, people gathered around burning garbage to keep warm, the only food available, rotting trash from skips. And no hope, everybody knowing that it’ll never be any different, never going to get any better. That’s where I’m going when I die. I’m lucky, some parts of hell are much, much worse.”

“How long have you known this kitten? Been able to see these things.”

“As long as I can remember. I’m not quite normal you see. In fact, I’m very far from normal.”

Randi’s secretary came in with a file and handed it over, being very careful to keep her face straight. Randi looked at the psychiatrist’s report. It described kitten as a paranoid schizophrenic with apocalyptic delusions but added that she was perfectly well compensated and, despite her condition, was able to function in society without medication. In fact, the shrink had concluded, functionally she was the most well-adjusted person he dealt with and that included his own staff. Randi allowed himself to smile at that. Then he flipped over to her birth certificate and he couldn’t stop the look of surprise.

“Um, your birth certificate has you listed as male?”

“I was born in the wrong body. I’m having it put right surgically. I’ve had these,” she waved at her chest,” done already. We’re saving up for the big operation now.”

“Well, if you do well here, my government will pay for that operation for you.” Behind them, General Asanee had entered the room, as silently as always. Randi found it perturbing how she could move with so little disturbance. “We have the best surgeons in the world for that type of operation and my Army will see you get the best of the best.”

“Quite. Obviously if your claims are proved, you will be very important to us.” Randi hesitated, not quite certain how to address kitten.

“Please use either ‘she’ or ‘it’ when referring to me. I don’t want to be called ‘he’ ever.” Kitten spoke firmly and decisively on that point. Randi nodded, he could respect somebody who stuck to their guns regardless of public opinion.

“That’s fine with us kitten. Now, did you sell your vision services to people, to contact their relatives, that sort of thing?”

Kitten shook her head. “How could I tell people what had happened to their friends, their family? It would be cruel. I’ve told close friends that I could see into hell but that’s all.”

“That’s very good. Right, kitten, we are going to carry out some tests on you. We think we’ve detected how people can communicate across the dimensional barrier and we can measure it. So we’re going to see what happens when you try and look into hell. Sir.” Randi switched to kitten’s friend. “We have a very comfortable waiting room or, if you like, one of the guides can give you the Pentagon tour.”

“Sir,” kitten spoke deferentially. “I do this much better if I’m comfortable and I’ll be much more at ease if Dani is with me and holding my leash. So can he come in please?”

“If that’s what you wish, of course.” Randi dug into another file. “We’re going to ask you to try and contact these people, they are the crews of some helicopters that were lost in Iraq almost a fortnight ago. If you’d like to study these pictures, perhaps you can get through to them.” He handed the pictures over. They were of Lieutenant Jade “Broomstick” Kim and the rest of the crews of Tango-One-Five.

 

[Francis Urquhart]

PART FIFTEEN

(Note: Approval for the republication of this work on The Sietch has been granted by the author.)

Headquarters, Multi-National Force Iraq, Green Zone, Baghdad.

Once again, General Petraeus was standing before the great screen in his command center, only this time it was linked directly to the Pentagon, the White House and an increasing number of capitals around the world. The screen showed President Bush, Defense Secretary Warner and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice but he knew that many, many more people were watching than that.

“Sir, we have the initial reports from the battles on the flanks in. We have successfully routed both flanking forces. In the North, the First Armored is already outflanking the baldrick main body and moving into positions to its west. In the South, the Iranian Shamshar Division under General Fereidoon Zolfaghari is also outflanking the enemy and we expect it will link up with the First Armored sometime tomorrow. At that point, the enemy main body will be completely encircled. Our casualties have been remarkably light. A Challenger main battle tank, a Bradley fighting vehicle, two HEMTT trucks and of all the soldiers involved in the fighting, only twenty five have lost their lives. As far as we can tell at this time, all our losses were victims of harpy attacks.”

“Enemy casualties?” Secretary Warner spoke urgently.

“We’re not into body counts Sir, not after Vietnam and the enemy dead are so smashed up it’s impossible to tell how many there are. Details of the pursuit through the night are also only just coming in and it appears the enemy believed that fighting would stop at dusk. We didn’t oblige them of course, we kept going and made it a twenty-four hour battle. During the process, we overran a lot of baldricks who had settled down for the night. So I cannot give you a figure I would be confident with.”

“An estimate, a guess, anything?”

“At a conservative estimate, I would say the enemy cannot have lost less than 60,000 dead, probably many more. What’s left of the flanking forces is falling back on their main body. That main body is still advancing on the center of our line, we expect them to launch their attacks in a few hours. We’ll be concentrating all of our airpower to sweep the sky clean of harpies. Once we’ve done that, the ground forces can repeat the punishment we handed out yesterday. If anything the balance of forces is more favorable to us in the center than it was on the flanks. Once the harpies are out of the way, we can start using our helicopters over the battlefield again.”

“How are your munitions supplies holding up?” Warner’s voice was concerned.

“Very well Sir, we are well-supplied here, we built up a good stockpile in case Iran invaded us and they built up an equal stockpile in case we invaded them. Some, not much but some, of the stocks are interchangeable and the Russians are flying in more. There’s a couple of Il-76s here now, unloading rockets for the Iranian artillery. Secretary Warner Sir, may I ask how the production ramp-up is proceeding? We’re OK for ground forces ammunition but we’re running through AIM-120s at a terrifying rate. After tomorrow we’re going to be real short.”

“Not well General. The problem is that so much of the need is inter-related. The AIM-120 is a good example, we’re accelerating production of the missile as fast as we can but we’re short of guidance systems. We’ve got AIM-120 airframes backing up out of the door waiting for the guidance modules. Raytheon have come up with a partial fix, they’ve designed a new weapon, the AIR-120. Essentially its an AIM-120 with a simple inertial stabilization system that keeps it flying straight and level. They’ve packed it with a warhead that’s three times more powerful than the AIM-120 and given it a fast-burn motor for high speed. It can be carried on a standard triple ejector rack in place of a single AIM-120. Raytheon will build as many AIM-120s as they can get guidance modules for and the rest will be AIR-120s.

“It’s the same across the board I fear. We’ll get it straightened out but we’re running off stocks until we do.”

On the screen, Petraeus nodded. It was more or less what he has suspected.”

White House Conference Room, Washington DC

“Thank you General Petraeus. Doctor Surlethe, what are the results from our investigations of the baldricks.”

“They’re going to start flooding in fast now Sir. We’ve had only limited samples to work with to date but now, with all this in Iraq, that’s going to change. And we’ve got the succubus that defected. We could lean a lot simply by dissecting her.”

“No way.” Director of National Intelligence Donald MacLean Kerr jumped straight on the idea. “She’s the first live baldrick we’ve got our hands on. We need to talk to her, she knows how hell is organized, what its chains of command are, what its social and political structures are like. We’re not dealing with a different country here, or even a different world. We’re dealing with an entirely different dimension. We need to know how that dimension works, what its economy is like, if indeed it has an economy. We need to know what sort of enemy we are fighting and what his resources are like. We can’t get any of that from her dissected corpse.”

“And suppose she won’t tell you?” Doctor Surlethe jumped straight back.

“We could always waterboard her?”

“How do you know she can’t breath water?” Secretary Rice’s voice was droll.

“Exactly my point.” Surlethe was getting impassioned. “Military and political data is all very well, economic information too, but first we need to know much more about the baldricks themselves. How do they work? Can we get some idea of what powers they take for granted but seem magical to us? I’m sorry Don, but investigation of the baldricks themselves must come first. Which is rather unfortunate for her of course.”

“Gentlemen.” The room quieted as President Bush spoke. “You are forgetting that this succubus came over to us on a promise that she would not be ill-treated. We did not make that promise but it was made to her on our behalf by our allies. We cannot go back on our word. We must not.”

“She didn’t defect voluntarily, she had a ring of guns pointed at her.”

“I know. If she’d fought, she’d still probably have killed some of those women. She chose not to.”

“Sir.” General Petraeus spoke from the screen. “There is a practical side to this as well. We have one defector who came over on a promise of good treatment. How we treat her may very well decide how many more baldricks decide to surrender or, even better, defect. If they get the idea that surrendering is a way out from certain death facing our tanks and artillery, it might end this war more quickly. It may very well mean fewer of our people get killed. Treating surrendered enemy personnel with extreme brutality has never worked to the favor of those committing such acts.”

“I agree.” Secretary Warner added his emphasis. “We’ve danced on a thin line during the War on Terror and shot ourselves in the foot doing it. We should not repeat that mistake.”

“General, Secretary Warner, your practical comments add weight to my instincts on this. Doctor Surlethe, you may investigate the succubus using non-invasive methods provided they do not inflict harm upon her. You may, with her consent, take blood samples etc. But there will be no dissection, is that clear?” Surlethe nodded. Unhappily but still a nod.

“Mister Randi, how is your end of this going?”

“Very well Sir, we made a breakthrough today. A young…..” Randi hesitated and then decided to keep going. “… woman came in, she can see in to hell. We have her trying to contact some of our deceased personnel now. Hunting through psychics and mediums was a false step, none of them turned out to be anything other than common mountebanks and tricksters, but we have found some interesting cases under psychiatric care. Also, our advertisements have brought in a few people with promise. We have another young lady who can get into the mind of a demon and she’s exploiting that right now. As soon as we can work out how to expand that from talking to one demon into talking to all of them at one, we’ll launch Radio Free Hell.”

Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, USA.

Lugasharmanaska was utterly bewildered. She’d been on earth not so long ago, a mere couple of centuries, but she’d had nothing like these experiences then. How had all these machines suddenly appeared? She’d flown for hours in a huge sky chariot, one loaded down with crates of more things called supplies. The crew had been nice to her of course, that was inevitable, they’d offered her food and drink and she’d accepted it even though it wouldn’t quench her appetite much. Her body craved raw meat, preferably torn from a still-living body and the thing she’d been given didn’t even come close. Just what was a ‘hot pocket’ anyway?

She could have adapted more easily to the sights around her if there weren’t so many of them. The city she had been assigned to was bad enough, all those tiny chariots racing around, but this great field was full of the huge Sky Chariots. Even as she watched, a different one was coming in to land. To her incredulous eyes, it changed even while it did so, its swept-back wings suddenly swinging forward to reach straight out. Then it touched down on the long black strip and started to slow. Immediately a band started playing, making her jump.

“Yeah, bands do that.” The Air Force policeman watching her was sympathetic. Of course. Her mind-mask didn’t work any more but the miasma was still doing its job of creating sympathy with the humans around her. “It’s the 32nd Tactical Fighter Wing standing up. That’s the first F-111 to rejoin the Air Force.”

None of that made much sense to Lugasharmanaska. She did note one thing though, the Sky Chariot that had brought her was painted light gray, the one that had just landed was a cloudy mix of gray and orange-red. It never occurred to her that its paint job was an exact match to the skies of hell.

A long black ground chariot had pulled up and she was escorted into the back seat. The driver looked at her with hate that quickly faded to mild affection. The door closed behind her and the chariot pulled away. Lugasharmanaska couldn’t see where the horses were hidden. Still, it didn’t matter. What did matter was that she was safe. She quickly recalled the split second of blind panic when she looked at the ring of guns pointed at her and knew death was but a split second away. Miasma had done its work, Lugasharmanaska didn’t know it but the panic had kicked her glands into working overtime and secreting human pheromones that created sympathy for her with everybody around. That had bought her just enough time. She’d worked her situation out with speed and hedged her bets by surrendering. If the demons won, she would have fulfilled her mission and penetrated the enemy leadership, gaining vital information. She would have done her duty and be rewarded. If the humans won, and looking around her Lugasharmanaska had an unpleasant feeling they might, she would be the first defector and would also be well-rewarded. No matter who won, she would be safe.

Sacramento, California

Norman Baines sighed and rubbed his eyes, and glanced at his watch. He'd been sitting in front of his computer for about ten hours, plowing through a weeks' worth of reports for his job. He didn't actually have to work forty hours, as long as it LOOKED like he did. "Time for breakfast." Victor, one of his cats and self-appointed overseer gave a 'rowr' of approval as he hopped down and padded after Baines towards the kitchen. Two other cats, Roger and Clarence, soon joined him as they all gathered around their communal bowl. Baines peeked through the kitchen blinds and gave the sky a glance. "No eternal darkness yet," He said with a wry grin. His 'boys' looked up at him, curiously, "looks like the betting pool is still open!" With that Victor, Clarence, and Roger bent down to their dry food. Fixing a bowl of nondescript bachelor chow, he wandered over to the couch and turned on the TV.

He sighed at the empty beer cans on the coffee table, they were his way of coping with the betrayal he'd felt after the Message came out. A man in his late twenties, Baines had been very active in his church, a faithful man but also fairly rational. And, as Dawkins had said, extraordinary claims required extraordinary evidence. He'd gone to services once, but it had seemed hollow. Now he spent his days processing reports for his job from his home computer, enjoying the relative safety of his home.

Picking up the remote, he flipped through the channels.

*CLICK*
"Hey kids, its Bill Nye the Science Guy here! Be sure to keep your foil hats on at all times, you can never be too safe. Let's see how science protects YOU from the baldr-"

*CLICK*
"The Top Ten Signs that annoying guy in your office might be a demon number ten: Instead of decaf he drinks brimsto-"

*CLICK*
"And if you act now we'll throw in a FIFTH digital camera for free so you can monitor your home for demons twenty-four-seven!"

*CLICK*
"Coming through the desert in West Iraq, if you come to East Compton I'm gonna bust a cap! Don't bring your demon shit up in my hood, the Crips are rollin' large and we up to no good!"

Baines sighed and looked at Clarence, now bathing himself on the recliner. "I don't know if its more disconcerting that he's rapping about demons, or that it's a good tune." There was a loud knock at the door. He walked over and picked up a digital camera. Opening the door, he turned it on and looked at the screen. Humans.

He looked up and his eyes widened. It was in fact two men in suits and two men in army uniforms carrying automatic weapons. "Norman L. Baines?" One of the suited men asked.

"Ye-yes, sir." Baines stammered It was a strange feeling to be unused to talking to someone else. He hadn't said five words to a human being since the Message. He stuck out a foot to prevent Victor from making an escape.

“My name is Robert O'Shea, I'm with the Pentagon. This is my colleague, Doctor Watts. May we have a few moments of your time?" He stood solidly, implying that his 'request' was anything but. Dr. Watts looked like someone who would rather be anywhere else.

"Ah, sure, come on in." Baines shook himself out of his momentary daze and ushered the men in, hurriedly moving dirty dishes and stacks of books and papers out of the way. One guard remained at the front door and the other simply nodded to O'Shea and began to move through the house. "Please, sit down.", Baines gestured to a dingy sofa. O’Shea sat down, but Doctor Watts remained standing, studying one of Baines's bookcases. "How can I help you guys?"

"We wanted to talk to you about your book, Mr. Baines." O’Shea opened his briefcase and pulled out a thick, collated document bound in plastic.

"I never… my…" Baines took the book and his eyes bulged as he read the cover, The Science of Hell, by N. L. Baines. "But this wasn't published! Where… how in the hell did you even GET....CHARLIE!" He looked at O’Shea. "Charlie gave it to you! That bastard!"

"That's right Mr. Baines, your brother gave this to us. Don't be hard on him though. The President recently signed an executive order requesting all knowledge of demonology and demon-history be surrendered to our department. Had Lt. Baines withheld this document, he could have been tried for treason." O’Shea leaned in closely, his eyes scrutinizing Baines inch by inch "Where do you get your information, Mr. Baines?"

Baines's mind swam. He'd had this same feeling in graduate school when he showed up for his final on archaeological methods after spending the night cramming for medieval literature. "What? Uh... I just kinda read-up on it. It's a hobby, you know?"

A snort from Dr. Watts drew Baines's attention to the bookshelf. "This is the Key of Solomon?" Baines shrugged. "In Latin? That's a bit more than a 'hobby', Mr. Baines.

Baines felt his hackles rise, "And what? I'm supposed to trust that dipwad, Mathers to translate it correctly for me?"

Watts wasn't listening as he pawed through more books, "O’Shea look at this nonsense: A Field Guide to Demons, A Dictionary of Angels, Dragon Magic, Secrets of the Vatican, Norse Runes and Magic..." He shook his head in disgust. "He's just a nut. We're wasting our time."

Baines was on his feet in an instant. O'Shea was startled that this mild-mannered scientist could look so enraged "Now you listen to me, you pompus, self-assured, g-man prick! I don't come into the Pentagon and tell you how to polish your desk and shuffle your papers, so don't tell me what I know in my own house!" He took the books out of Watt's hands, and pointed at the couch. "By the way, you're right. Most of what's in these books is ridiculous superstition and nonsense, collected by centuries of nut-jobs. However," his voice began to change into the voice of an excited professor and O'shea was briefly reminded of his History professor back at NYU.

Watts rolled his eyes. "For example?"

Baines sighed condescendingly, "qui habet aures audiendi audiat. Alright, Captain PHD, take a look at this!" Baines walked over to a wall and pulled down a large hanging rug with a flourish revealing a large chart. There were hand-written notes, string, and pictures all over it. Both men stared blankly, as though unsure if Baines might turn into a baldrick at any moment "THIS," He pointed to the chart. "Is just about every book ever written about Judeo-Christian demons and hell, set chronologically." He pointed to lines connecting them. "As you were so kind to point out, they're about eighty-five to ninety-five percent crap, but they have common threads, and those threads migrate over time." He traced the lines with his fingers. "You can see here's old-testament, pre-Christian stuff, and it trends onward, and then BAM." He stopped at a prominent 'zig' "Constantine and the Roman Empire. Changes opinions, but some things stay the same. We also have shifts during the Dark Ages, and a BIG shift with Dante. But, if you look hard enough you can sift through the crap and find out what makes sense."

"Makes sense? Robert, this man is a GEOLOGIST." Dr. Watts got up and walked toward the opposite wall. He scratched some paint from the wall, revealing silvery metal underneath. "And his entire house is wrapped in aluminum foil. I'd wonder if anything DOESN'T make sense to him."

"Wait a second," Baines raised a hand. "I did my house like this because I have an aluminum allergy. You got a better idea? And for your information Doctor," again he spat out the word, "I only WORK as a geologist. You have my book, you have my file. You know what I've studied, but it's obvious you're here because you want to know what I know." Baines spoke slowly and with purpose, as though he were waking up from a dream and finding the real-world was a much better place for once.

"It makes sense to me, Watts. And remember, he figured out how demons could fly before we knew they existed." O’Shea stood up and walked towards the chart. His fingers traced various threads, and as he looked at Baines, he felt he was seeing the man for the first time. "He may be a little crazy, but you should see the people Randi is getting." He pulled out a cellular phone and pressed a button. "He's a keeper." He closed the phone. "Norman, how'd you like to go to Washington?"

The front door opened and soldiers came in with boxes and hand-carts. Baines waved them off. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Back the truck up!" He glanced warily at O'Shea, "I've got a job here, and you still haven't told me who you're working with." The agent handed him a card.

DEPARTMENT OF INTELLIGENCE AND MILITARY OPERATIONS (NETHERWORLD)

"D.I.M.O.(N)? Kudos to your acronym department. You're kidding me, right?" His smirk faded as he looked at his living room. There were two government agents, two armed soldiers, and four more soldiers loading his entire library and home into boxes. "Have I been drafted?"

"Not exactly, Norman. It's kind of like eminent domain. You've been forcibly hired," O’Shea stuck out his hand and smiled for the first time. "Welcome to government work, Mister Baines. The pay sucks, but you get to kill things and nobody will call you crazy."

Baines felt weak at first, with everything moving so quickly around him, but he then gave O'Shea's hand a firm pump and said resolutely "I'll go get my lightsaber and then we can go." Then he thought for a second. “What about my cats?”

O’Shea sighed quietly. “You have carry-boxes? They might as well come as well. Nothing could be crazier than the way things are going right now.”

 

[BF110C4]

The AIM-120 is a good example, we’re accelerating production of the missile as fats as we can but we’re short of guidance systems.

I think you mean fast not fats.

 

[Francis Urquhart]

Good catch! Thank you.

 

[Francis Urquhart]

PART SIXTEEN

(Note: Approval for the republication of this work on The Sietch has been granted by the author.)

On the Shore of the Styx, Fifth Ring, Hell

The six newcomers followed the woman along the banks of the Styx. She moved swiftly and surely, as though she'd been along this way a thousand times before. As they waded through the mud, she spoke back over her shoulder: “You're lucky they put you here in this part of the Styx. This ring is ten miles across; you could have been walking for several days to get to Dis.”

“What’s Dis?” Jade Kim asked.

“Satan’s capital. His palace is there, all the administration is run out of there as well. It surrounds the whole of hell like a wall.”

“And you’re taking us there?” Kim’s voice was loaded with suspicion.

“Of course,” said the woman. “That's where the resistance is headquartered.”

“Tell us about the resistance.”

The woman smiled. “It’s hard to know where to start. You see, the resistance has a long history; it's been around almost as long as I have.”

“And how old are you? And, who are you?” Kim’s growing suspicion and dislike for this woman made getting an answer very urgent.”

“I've been dead for ten thousand years.” The woman laughed at the expression on their faces. “Why are you so surprised? Once you're dead, you're effectively immortal; aging is slowed by orders of magnitude, and you're healthy and robust so the torment doesn't put you under. As for who I am, you may have heard of me. My name is Rahab. That’s right, that Rahab” The woman’s voice was bitter. “I betrayed my country to help the Israelites and their god and he tossed me down here anyway.”

“So, if there’s been a resistance for all these years, why hasn't hell been overthrown?”

“It can’t be. This is it, there’s nothing more. We can’t overthrow the order here. All we can do is try to disappear, save ourselves from torment. That's not as hard as it sounds, Hell is a big place, and it takes a long time to move around in it or communicate. I've just finished a two-month walk from Dis down to Cocytus, up to the first ring, and back. The fact that there are constant patrols is a real problem, and though they don't really go out of their way to look, if they see anything untoward, they light on it immediately. And one demon is more than a match for four or five people.”

“Then how did we manage to take down that baldrick?”

“To be blunt, you got lucky. He came down for a spot of torture and fun, and you surprised him before he could react. If he'd seen you guys free before you were on him, he'd have called for some help and then zapped you with lightning from a distance.”

Once again, the members of Tango-one-five exchanged glances. The picture they were getting was that the so-called resistance wasn’t resisting at all. At best they were an escape group, an underground railway that tried to keep themselves away from the pits that made up the rings of hell. It seemed as if the people here had accepted the line that this was the ultimate end of things, that any effort to change it was doomed to futility.

Kim looked around. They were on the edge of the river, if it could be called that. It was more like a rippling strip of clear water through the mucky water surrounding it. Ahead of them, through the vile, thick mist, they saw a tall, stone tower looming. Rahab turned and put a finger to her lips, then sank lower into the mist, crouching into the mud. She moved forward slowly.

Kim followed suit, but kept looking around. The tower moved closer and closer, and she looked up. At the top, suddenly, an flare burst into existence with a foomp. The light from the signal fire lit everything around them in a dull orange glow, making the mist look a bit like tomato soup. Abruptly, their guide ducked under the muck. Kim caught a glimpse of a towering silhouette looming through the mist before she followed suit – except, she didn't duck all the way. Instead, she sank down as far as she could go while keeping her face above the surface of the mud. Simultaneously, she shrank back toward a clump of stringy, greasy grass.

The baldrick passed within five feet of her. It was mounted on what looked like an oversized rhinoceros with a scorpion-tail arched overhead – A rhinolobster, she recognized it an instant later from that last mission in Iraq, which was wading through the swamp. Looking neither left nor right, the baldrick reined his mount forward when it sniffed and started at something, and kept moving until the mist had swallowed it. The baldrick itself had been huge, twice the height and probably four or five times the weight of the one they'd killed back there.

Rahab surfaced from the mud as the rest of the Tango flight members came up for air. “If you'd attacked him, you'd have had no chance,” she said. Though that was all, the words had clearly been aimed at Kim who had her own thoughts on the matter.

It was very easy to think of ten thousand reasons why something could not be done, it took a different mindset to think of the way it could be achieved. Kim had her own ideas there, she’d thought of two ways of taking the mounted patrol down already, although much depended on what could be found locally. She’d seen the black outcrops that spoke of coal and coal meant powdered carbon. This whole area was volcanic, and that meant sulfur. Now, if there was only some saltpeter around, they had the start of an IED. “Keep a look out for yellow deposits.” She whispered to her people.

“Ahead of you ell-tee. Already been looking. There’s some in the rocks. We’re two for three so far. And there’s some pretty crystals that might be good for fragments.”

They moved on for a while before Rahab broke silence and asked, “So, what are things like back topside?”

McInery piped up. “We were all pilots in the 160th SpecOps in Iraq when the Message came. Lost a tenth of the regiment, then didn't do much of anything until the hellmouth opened in western Iraq and we got sent out to take a look at the baldrick advance. Took down the command structure of a regiment, then got outrun by harpies and taken down.”

The woman was smiling bemusedly. “You lost me at 'Message',”

Kim exchanged glances with McInery. “You don't know about the Message?”

“No, not about this Message. It wouldn’t have been the first you know.”

“Basically, God said that heaven was closed, and told everyone to lay down and die. So those people who really believed laid down and died, and the rest of us had no idea what to do. Then the Navy shot down some bald…. some demons and showed us they could be killed. So we started to fight. Doing pretty good too.”

There was a bridge coming up out of the thinning mist now, next to the road they'd been wading beside for some time. Rahab turned and said, “Stay low and follow me single-file.” She crouched and moved beside the road to the base of the bridge, then slipped underneath. The members of Tango flight followed suit. There, bolted to the base of the bridge, was a rope that stretched across the river beneath the arch of the roadway. The woman took hold of the rope and started pulling herself hand-over-hand across the river. Kim looked at McInery, shrugged, and followed.

On the far side, Rahab crouched and hissed, “Okay, this is the most dangerous part. The walls that separate the fourth and fifth circles of hell are right up on the other side of this embankment, and they are constantly manned. The guards are vigilant and they will see you if you poke your head up, so you stay low and follow me as fast as you can.”

Kim nodded. SERE – still in the “evade” part. Rahab turned and, crouching, ran to a rock outcropping sticking up several dozen meters away. She looked around, then beckoned. Single-file, the escaped soldiers followed, making sure to stay crouched. They followed her from formation to formation, putting distance between them and the bridge as quickly as possible. At one large boulder, they stopped, and Rahab pointed back. Just at the edge of vision, the bridge stretched back into the mist covering the far shore of the Styx; across it snaked a long, black column of baldricks. It was following the road up the embankment to the plain and across that to the city, whose high walls were visible even here. When they moved on after a short rest break, the column was still marching with no end in sight.

“They must have found that body you crucified. See how they react?” Rahab’s voice had a mixture of conceit and spite in it. Kim looked at her steadily, if she couldn’t see the baldrick column was marching out, not in……..

At length, the woman led them up the incline and onto the plain, one that was littered with what looked to be bonfires, although from the distance it was hard to tell. She moved purposefully forward, and as they followed her, Kim got a chance to more closely examine the bonfires. They weren't bonfires; they were what looked like burning coffins, of all things. On some, the lids were half-off; she could hear groans and cries of pain drifting out of them.

Rahab stopped at one coffin, which was glowing dully. “What sort of metal is it?” McInery idly asked.

“Bronze. Everything here is bronze.” said Rahab as she bent down and casually lifted the lid off. The hissing sound as the metal seared her flesh was audible.

Kim gasped. “What the hell ... ?”

The woman shrugged. “It'll heal in no time.” She gestured. “In you go.”

Kim looked down. The coffin had no bottom; instead, it was a stairwell. The top two stairs were afire, but the rest looked cool enough. Hesitantly, Kim stepped in, and gingerly hopped down to the third stair before crouching and continuing down. There was certainly pain in her feet, but it wasn't unbearable, and the cool stone on them felt good.

The rest of her team followed, wincing and grunting as they crossed the fire. Then the woman jumped into the coffin, grabbed the lid, and swung it back on. It fell on with a dull clank, and what little light there was vanished, save that cast by the flickering flames above. There was a flare, and more light: the woman was holding a torch, one she'd obviously picked up from the stash Kim could see on the fourth step.

She descended and brushed by them, then took the lead. They followed her for what seemed like miles -before the tunnel opened into a room. As they stepped into the cave, Kim realized that her feet didn't hurt anymore. The room was well-lit by torches ensconced in the wall, and there were some chairs and a sleeping pad in the corner. She sat down, and gestured to some chairs. “Please, sit.”

For the first time, Kim began to relax, and felt the adrenaline slowly draining out of her. She recognized the signs, end-of-patrol-itis, something that had killed more soldiers than most other mistakes. Assuming that the danger was over because they were about to re-enter their base, the getting ambushed when their guard was down. Kim kicked herself hard, mentally, danger was never over down here, she could never let her guard down. Especially with this woman.

“Anyway,” continued Rahab, “you need to tell me about this 'Message' and everything that's happened since.”

And they did. They told her about the Message, and the peoples' death, the declaration of war on Hell and Heaven – “Mmm, Yahweh's in on this, too?” wondered Rahab out loud – and the opening of the Hellgate in the wastes of western Iraq. When they were done, the woman sat for a long time in silence. Then she said, “If you will excuse me, I will be gone for a couple of days. I will be back to take you to our leader.” Then Rahab stood and exited the room.

“What do you think ell-tee?”

Kim looked around at the room. “We’re like rats in a trap here and I don’t like it. And I don’t trust that woman, her main priority appears to be keeping out of the way of the guards and not getting caught.”

“I can understand that ell-tee.”

“So can I, but Uncle Sugar doesn’t pay us to sit around. She must guess that and knows we are set on stirring things up around here. That could easily mean things get pretty precarious for people who just want to keep their heads down. I’d say it’s a fifty-fifty bet she’s arranging to turn us in right now. If she isn’t actually part of the security system.”

There were nods. A fake “resistance movement” that drew in likely recruits so they could be quietly killed was a tactic as old as the hills. The Company had been running similar things Iraq before The Message had come through. And Satan was known as being the Prince of Lies.

“Yeah, ell-tee, and she’s pretty bitter about Yahweh sending her down here. That could easily translate into her working with the other guy.”

“So let’s get the hell out of here.” McInery spoke decisively.

Kim agreed, it was against the grain to stay in one place under these circumstances. They made their way back up to the surface and out. Then, they moved as fast as they could to put as much ground between them and the hiding hole as possible. A few hours later, well concealed from any observers on the walls towering high above them, they came to a stop.

“What next ell-tee?”

“First priority, find a way of attacking and killing one of those big baldricks on a rhinolobster. An IED should do it. They’re supposed to be so invulnerable, taking one down will be a real blow.”

“That bridge. Now if we could blow it under a baldrick column.”

Kim laughed at that one. “We’ll need something more than gunpowder to do that. What did you think of that column by the way?”

“They were marching out ell-tee. Being pulled out of here, for something else. The only thing I can think of that would warrant that kind of movement is fighting us.”

“Agreed. A sign our boys are doing well back there?” Then her face froze. There was a voice playing in her head.

“Hello, is this Lieutenant Jade Kim? Hello, hello.”

“What’s the matter ell-tee?”

“Got voices in my head. Sound like us, human. Hold one.”

“This is Kim. Identify.

“I’m kitten. I’m in the Pentagon. I’ve been asked to try and find you.”

“Authenticate two-eight-six” Kim snapped the numbers out.

There was a long pause and Kim was about to give up when the voice came back. “Sorry, we took some time to find the security number from the night you were shot down. Authentication is two-oh-five.

Jade Kim tried to stop herself cheering. “Guys, we’re through. Somehow, the brass have found a way to get word through to us. I think we’re back in the Army.”

Headquarters, Randi Institute of Pneumatology, The Pentagon, Arlington, VA

There was no restraint in the laboratory, the cheering could be heard outside the doors and all down the corridor. Randi stuck his head around the corner, beaming at the sight of his staff dancing up and down.

“I take it something worked?”

“kitten got through to those helicopter pilots. They’re on the line now.”

“How solid is the contact?”

“Very Sir.” kitten spoke respectfully. “It’s comfortable to hold and there’s no fade.”

“Ask her where she is and what her situation is.”

kitten’s eyes defocused while she “spoke” with Kim. “She says she’s in the fifth circle of hell, she and her unit have escaped from captivity. They’ve started to set up a resistance, they’ve already killed a baldrick. The resistance is called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Hell. She says they need supplies if we can get them to her.”

“Is there a resistance already? Escaped prisoners and so on?”

Another long pause. “Yes, but Kim says she doesn’t trust them. Their main priority is keeping their heads down and avoiding recapture. Her plan is to keep them at arms length until she and her unit have stirred things up enough so that they don’t have any choice about joining the insurgency. She also says there are signs of major troop movements out of hell itself, suggesting more forces are being readied for the invasion of earth. She’s asking how well the Army is doing up here.”

“That’s my girl.” General Schatten had entered the room quietly. “Tell her we’re kicking ass and taking names, we’ve won the first two battles big-time. Then, kitten, find out what Kim’s supply priorities are please. Tell Kim we can’t promise we’ll get stuff through to her but if its possible, we will.”

One again, kitten’s eyes defocused. “First priority is webbing so they can carry stuff. Then, she wants C-4 explosives, or better if we can send it, M-24 claymores, AT-4 anti-tank rockets and radios. Detonators or as many types as possible. She says an M82A1 .50 sniper’s rifle would be nice as well.”

Schatten finished writing the list on a pad. “Can we get back through to her any time?”

“I think so, Sir. It should be easier to reopen the link than it was to find her.”

“Very well, tell her we’ll be back in touch. We don’t want to keep this link open all the time, it’s a security risk.”

“Very good Sir.” kitten’s eyes blanked out again, then returned to life. “She’s gone Sir. I wished her luck on your behalf.”

“Thank you kitten.” Schatten’s voice was kindly. “I just hope we can send her a bit more than good luck.”

 

[Francis Urquhart]

PART SEVENTEEN

(Note: Approval for the republication of this work on The Sietch has been granted by the author.)

Headquarters, Army of Abigor, Western Iraq.

It had been dusk when the flier had arrived. Abigor had been standing outside his tent, basking in the last rays of the setting sun when the flier had staggered in. A very badly wounded flier, its body dreadfully burned along one side, its damaged wing causing it to fly unevenly. As it approached, Abigor saw that it had lost an eye from the same burns that affected the rest of its body.

“Your Excellency, I bring word from General Merafawlazes.”

Abigor looked at the battered flier. Was this the best Merafawlazes could send to bring news of his victory? It was insult. Abigor paused for a second, a deliberate insult? Was this Merafawlazes’s attempt at deposing him? “What word?” His voice was curt and irritable.

“Sire, terrible news. The Army of the North has been defeated. It is in full retreat heading south. The enemy are pursuing it in their Iron Chariots. They move fast sire, faster than the swiftest Beast. As our infantry run, they are being crushed by the Chariots. It is a disaster, Merafawlazes says beware of the fire lances and the Iron Chariots for our forces are helpless against them.

“Defeated?” Abigor was stunned by the news. “How?”

“The humans have terrible magic sire. They cause the ground to erupt and swallow our infantry whole, their fire lances tear them apart. They can call up thunder at will and their breath leaves nothing but the dead where they breathed. In the sky, their fire lances seek us out no matter how much we twist and turn. One touch from them is death Sire. One passed close to me, did not even hit me and look what its fire did.”

Abigor listened in shocked disbelief. There was no way this story could be faked, no Duke would admit to so crushing a defeat. No demonic army had been defeated, not since That defeat, the one before time had properly begun. Abigor had been at that battle and known defeat then. He remembered its taste and suddenly, after countless eons, his mouth was filled with it again.

“Come to my tent, tell me all that you know.” He saw the flier hesitate. “You have nothing to fear.”

That’s what they all say the flier thought, before they kill the bringer of bad news

An hour later, Abigor was trying to absorb the flier’s description of the battle. He had his own battle plan market out on his map, in essentials it was simply a larger repeat of Merafawlazes’s attack. Cavalry first to break up the enemy line, then the infantry in a thick mass to swarm over the wreckage and finish the enemy off. He had his 28 infantry legions in a huge block, seven legions wide, four deep, the ranks massed tight and deep. By all that was traditional it should have been invincible. Merafawlazes had thought that, now Merafawlazes Army was dead or running.

“They hid behind the hill you say?” Abigor’s voice was thoughtful.

“Sire, they did. They were lined up behind the ridge where they could not be seen by our force. Only after our army had been almost destroyed by their magic and we fliers slaughtered by their Sky-Chariots did they venture over the crest and charge us. Even then they did not dare to fight in honorable hand-to-hand combat but let loose their fire-bolts at us from a distance. Only when our comrades lay wounded and helpless did they close on us and then they crushed the wounded under their chariots.” The wounded flier dropped back to his knees again, still not quite sure he could believe the fact he was alive and uneaten.

Abigor thought the information over. He had to change plans, his original was an open invitation to a massacre by the human mages. His mind mulled the information over. His original front was over a mile long with the ranks extending almost two miles backwards. If he lined his legions up in single row, they would form a front almost five miles long. His mind chewed away, the human magic slaughtered by area, why stop at lining up his legions side by side. There was no need for the legions to maintain their block, 81 ranks deep. Suppose each Legion formed three blocks 27 ranks deep? And those blocks were lines side by side? Why, that meant a front approaching 15 miles wide! Abigor stared at his map, with a front like that, he could extend beyond the range of the human mages and their magic, envelop their flanks and roll them up. It was brilliant. It was also, of course against every concept of demonic warfare. Battles were decided by massive blows aimed at the center of the enemy force, the two masses colliding and slugging it out. This idea of thinning his lines and enveloping the enemy was, wrong somehow. Yet the humans were wrong, they didn’t fight like warriors, they lacked the spirit to close in to hand-to-hand combat range. That hadn’t always been the case, there had been examples in the past when humans fought demons hand-to hand. They’d always lost of course.

He wrote the new orders down on parchment and then added another thought. The enemy mages had to be on that ridgeline. If they could be prevented from casting their spells, that would be a major part of the enemy’s defense gone. So he added another line, ordering all the infantry to keep firing their tridents as rapidly as they could recharge them. It didn’t matter if they hit anything, just to keep that ridge crest under continuous fire. Then, he turned his attention back to the flier still cowering in a corner.

“You, what is your name?”

“Tomovoninkranfat Sire.”

“I need you to take these messages to the legion commanders. It must be done tonight.” Abigor was about to issue the usual blood-curdling threats when he stopped himself. This one had flown in with the messages although terribly wounded. Hell ran on fear and terror but surely nothing could be worse than what this flier had already faced. “Tomovoninkranfat, you have already served me well and I thank you for everything you have already done. I see your wounds and know how much this must cost you but these messages must get through.”

To Abigor’s astonishment, Tomovoninkranfat drew himself up. “Your wish is my will Sire.” And he left clutching the parchments in his unburned hand.

Behind him, Abigor felt another wave of surprise. Could it be that it wasn’t necessary to terrorize everybody in sight in order to get things done? That praise and trust could sometimes work as well?

Headquarters, Multi-National Force Iraq, Green Zone, Baghdad.

“They’re moving.”

The great screen in General Petraeus’s command center was showing a sudden surge of activity in the baldrick Army that lay along the Wadi al Gudrhat. Formations were beginning to move shifting sideways, the deployment changing. Far over their heads, the Global Hawk was faithfully recording everything they did but what it could not do was tell General Petraeus why they were doing it. That, he had to work out for himself.

“A night attack Sir?” An aide spoke with unease. It was hard to make a guess based on intentions with so little to go on.

“Could be. They’re moving sideways though, not forward. Extending their line. I’d guess this move started when word of what happened on their flanks started to trickle in.”

“Perhaps they’re trying to replace the flank cover we destroyed yesterday?” Captain David Tall was jumping in with both feet as usual.

“Could be.” Petraeus repeated the same words absent-mindedly. “Any other suggestions?”

This was his “school for Captains”, the time when his aides were invited to give their opinions on what the situation on the display actually meant and what should be done about it.

“I think they’re scared.” Captain Ellen Yarborough flushed slightly as the General looked straight at her.

“Why do you say that Ellen?”

“Because they don’t know what hit them yesterday. They’re still trying to piece it all together. Look what hit us over the last 24 hours. Cavalry, phalanxes of infantry, I mean real phalanxes General, only those harpies were anything even remotely modern. Now look what hit them. Tanks, Mick-vees, artillery, MLRS. Its completely outside their terms of reference. So they don’t know what hit them.

“What they do know, Sir, is what we did to them. I bet the commander over there has reports coming in and he’s trying to make sense of them. He’s noted we kill wholesale, not retail. So, he’s thinning his troops out, trying to reduce his casualties by giving us less to shoot at. He’s also extending his front and might hope to outflank us but that’s a secondary thing.”

“Anybody any comments on that?” Petraeus looked around.

“It means he’s pretty smart. They didn’t fight smart yesterday.” Tall looked around at the group gathered around the screen.

“Oh yes they did.” Another officer, Captain Keith Renshaw cut in. “They fought very smart in their own terms. Can you imagine trying to stop that attack with spears and bows? They’d have stomped straight through us. And they kept going even while we slaughtered them. Can you imagine a human army taking a battering like that and keeping up the advance? I can’t.”

“Important point that Keith.” Petraeus spoke approvingly. “They showed a lot of guts. They didn’t change plans though, that tells us something about how fast their command structure can handle changes. Ellen, you make a good point as well. The commander over there is responding to what happened, doing so pretty fast.” He paused and looked at the display again, it had updated to show the baldrick positions moving further sideways. “Whether he’s simply reducing the richness of the target environment or has thoughts about outflanking us doesn’t matter. What he’s doing gives him the option and we have to allow for it. Any suggestions. Ellen?”

“The critical point is here, at Hit. If Hit falls, and its right on our front line our extreme right flank, he can cross the Euphrates and come down between the river and the Buhayrat ath Thatthar. Cut us off from our supply lines. We have two brigades from the Fourth Infantry Division in reserve, I suggest we order one of them to move to cover that area, position them east of Aqabah. With the divisional M270s in support. That way they can either block the baldrick advance or, if they don’t cross the river, swing and hit their left flank.”

“Comments?” Petraeus looked around.

“Sounds good to me.” There was a mutter of agreement.

“That’s because it is good. Gives us plenty of options. One change, the MLRS launchers stay where they are. They have the range to support the 4th from their present positions and we might need that firepower. 25th Mech and 10th Mountain can provide most of what we need but I want to keep one battalion of M270s on a ready-to-shoot basis in case of unexpected developments. Thank you.”

Petraeus turned back to his display. The baldrick line was definitely extending and thinning. Yarborough had been right, they were learning fast. Not fast enough though.

DIMO(N) Conference Room, The Pentagon, Arlington, VA

“Doughnuts and Coffee ladies and gentlemen and, errr, other lady.”

There was a quick stir as people descended on the refreshments trying not to be seen as too keen to grab the iced donuts. Lugasharmanaska looked at the plates with a distaste and a certain element of despair. It had been a week since she had eaten and her body was screaming for raw meat. These balls of fried plants were of no use to her.

“You don’t like donuts Luga?”

“I eat meat. Fresh meat. Not vegetables.”

“Donuts aren’t vegetables.” One of the women present, a dedicated vegan didn’t like the way this conversation was going.

“Donuts are made of flour yes? Flour is from plants. Plants are vegetables so donuts are vegetables.”

“I must try that on my doctor.” One of the men spoke quietly but the vegan lady still glared at him.

Robert O’Shea was speaking to the Pentagon kitchens on the telephone. They had some standing ribs down there and he asked for the largest to be sent up. “Beef all right Luga?”

“Human is better but any meat will be good.” She noted the expression on the faces of the rest of the people in the room. “You do not eat your dead?”

“No.” It was a short, clipped phrase.

“How strange. So you just waste them.” Lugasharmanaska shrugged and then her eyes lit up as the raw meat arrived. She grabbed the joint and ripped at it with her teeth, tearing off large lumps and swallowing them. The vegan lady nearly fainted. There was a general agreement that they’d learned a first important thing about the baldricks. Their table manners were appalling.

“If we might get started.” O’Shea looked at Lugasharmanaska who was still grunting, snorting and tearing at her meat. He couldn’t help thinking it was a charming sight to see somebody enjoying their food so much. “First item, communications. We can communicate back up to Hell on a one-to-one basis but that’s all. Luga, how do we open a portal.”

“You can talk to people back home? Then you can open a portal. Just add more power. Get more of your mages to add their power to the message. First you can get messages through then with more power the message opens a gate. It’s easy. As long as you use a Nephilim to contact.”

“What’s a Nephilim?” The vegan lady wanted to keep Lugasharmanaska talking in case she decided she wanted some more meat and created another display like the previous one. The stripped bones were still on the table to remind her of what that sight had been like. Idly, Lugasharmanaska picked one of the ribs up, cracked it open with her teeth and sucked out some marrow.

“Nephilim are humans with demon ancestry. Long time ago, when we were here before, we mated with humans. We succubi still do. Sometimes there are offspring from such matings that are both human and demon. Now, the demon ancestry in a Nephilim is mostly very small but enough remains. We can contact them even from our dimension.” Lugasharmanaska thought carefully, how could her information be valuable without giving away too much? “We can make you see what we want you to see but we must be able to see you for that. But with Nephilim we can contact make messages without seeing.”

“Is that how you come to Earth.”

“Yes. We contact a Nephilim and use our mind-mask to establish a message link. Then our leaders add more power and form a gate we can step through.”

Lugasharmanaska looked around and saw the growing affection in the eyes of the people around her. And gratitude for her assistance. She was doing well, and her stomach was full at last. Only one person present didn’t like her and that was the woman who had complained about eating meat. Lugasharmanaska eyed her and wondered, purely academically and without any intention of actually trying, what she would taste like.

Observation Room, DIMO(N), The Pentagon, Arlington, VA

“What do you think of her Robert?” James Randi looked at O’Shea, his eyes twinkling slightly.

“Well, she’s not the sort of girl I’d take home to meet my mother.” O’Shea thought for a second. “On the other hand, she eats humans so I might take her to meet my ex-wife. But in her way, I thought she was quite pleasant.”

Randi smiled and shook his head. This was why the JREF always filmed their tests and trials, it was amazing what one could see when a situation was played back. “Watch this Robert.”

It was a film of Lugasharmanaska eating, her teeth ripping at the meat, blood spraying around her, running down her chin. She was looking around, half suspicious that somebody might take her food but it was obvious that her eyes were also assessing the chance of eating one of the other members of the meeting.

“Quite pleasant Robert?”

O’Shea looked appalled. “I don’t remember it like that. Oh, I noted she was a bit gross when she was eating but nothing like that.”

“That’s why we record all of the tests we do. See things that get missed first time around. We’ve noticed how that succubus seems to get on everybody’s good side very quickly. Nobody had much bad to say about her. There’s something we need to look at here.”

“We all had our foil caps on.” O’Shea sounded defensive.

“I know, anyway it seems like we need to investigate this a bit more. Robert, something your people can look at, I need to get more power pumped into our links to hell.”

 

[BF110C4]

Says a lot about the demons that their commander not only redesigned his entire battleline after a single defeat (the WWI staff officers took a lot more to redesign tactics to face modern machine guns) but that he also took millenia to learn that a kind word gets better results that constant death threats.

 

[Francis Urquhart]

Says a lot about the demons that their commander not only redesigned his entire battleline after a single defeat (the WWI staff officers took a lot more to redesign tactics to face modern machine guns) but that he also took millenia to learn that a kind word gets better results that constant death threats.

From the demonic point of view, their tragedy was that they learned fast and well (a process that continues) but not quite fast enough to catch up with the humans. Looking at the military arts, its apparent that as late as the 18th century, warfare wasn't greatly advanced over the Macedonians. Blocks of pike were equivalent to the Macedonian phalanx, there was heavy cavalry doing shock charges and various catapults and trebuchets equating to the primitive artillery. Then suddenly, in the last four of our generations we've gone from that to our modern military machine. This gives rise to a horrible thought. We've gone from Napoleonic warfare to our modern style and technology in about a century and change. What is warfare going to look like in a century's time? That's actually the philosophical question that lies behind Armageddon.

Thank you for your kind words and support (and that from everybody else). They really are much appreciated.

 

[Francis Urquhart]

PART EIGHTEEN

(Note: Approval for the republication of this work on The Sietch has been granted by the author.)

Headquarters, Army of Abigor, Western Iraq.

The Great Beast saw Abigor approaching and clicked its claws in greeting. As befitted Abigor’s status, his Great Beast towered over the lesser Beasts ridden by the cavalry brigade and its black skin swirled with iridescent colors that caught the rising sun and sparkled into a shimmering halo. Abigor returned the salutation of his Great Beast and swung up on to the animal’s back. Over his head, he could see the viciously curved tail straighten and then fall back to its natural position. The Great Beast was ready to move, to attack the humans that dared to defy its master.

Ahead of him, Abigor saw his legions start to roll forward, the thinned ranks looking pitifully slender by the standards of demon warfare. The legion was designed to fight as a solid mass, its 81 ranks adding mass and weight to the charge that would strike the enemy with the force of a battering ram. Abigor had knowingly sacrificed that weight, given up the power of his charge in favor of hitting the humans along a much broader front. Ahead of him, he could see the humans had done it again, they had formed up behind the ridgeline where they were shielded from the trident bolts of the demon infantry. They had to be up there though for this was the day of the great battle.

Overhead, Abigor could see the strange white clouds the human Sky Chariots left behind them as they searched out the remaining fliers. He could hear the sound of their battle-cry, a strange roaring scream punctuated by thunder-like explosions as their fire lances tracked their targets and blew them apart. There were more Sky Chariots here that Abigor had ever seen before, they filled the sky above the battlefield, dipping down to slash at the fliers who floundered helplessly below them. Casualties up there must be terrible, Abigor thought. Even as he watched, three fliers fled westwards back to the hell gate. A Sky Chariot was in hot pursuit, closing the range on them with terrible speed. Oddly, this one was silent and if Abigor hadn’t been watching, he wouldn’t have known it was passing. Only after it had passed did Abigor hear the thundering crash and roar of its battle-cry. The Sky Chariot swerved after the fliers and it gave forth a rasping moan that filled the sky with bright lights. One flier exploded, there was a brief pause, then another rasp and a second flier died. The Sky Chariot zoomed skywards, rolled over and slashed down at the third. It too died as the lights engulfed it.

Still, it was the ground forces that were important. Fliers were important for terrorizing a fleeing enemy but in a real battle, it was the cavalry and infantry that counted. Abigor urged his Great Beast forward, keeping close to the infantry as they surged forward. He could sense the uneasiness in the ranks, the infantry felt exposed without the thick mass of the ranks that usually surrounded them. And the Cavalry were staying back, normally they led the charge, the shock of their weight and speed breaking through the enemy lines. Now they were being held to wait on events. If the army started to fall apart, it would be their job to stem the breach and hold the line. Abigor suddenly stopped himself, he was thinking about what would happen if he lost? Something had changed in him the previous night when he had listened to Tomovoninkranfat’s account of how Merafawlazes’s Army had died. Defeat had ceased to be unthinkable, now it was all too real a possibility.

The sky to the east was changing, suddenly, the rising sun was shining through the streaks of the human fire lances suddenly emerging from far behind their lines. Their mages had to be at work already. The front like of the advancing infantry lowered their tridents to the horizontal and let fly with a withering barrage of lightning bolts. The ridge crest was at extreme range and many of the bolts had dissipated before they made it there but enough hit the line to disrupt the concentration of the human mages. Abigor was sure of that. Yet it did not seem to affect the Fire Lances as they arched over and raced down into his infantry. The rippling sea of explosions engulfed a whole section of his front line, devouring it, shredding those unfortunate enough to be caught in its hot breath. That was how Abigor found himself thinking of it, it was the Humans breathing death over his infantry. They were faltering, looking around, seeing the wire ahead of them and realizing what was to happen. Abigor drove his Great Beast into the middle of their ranks, urging them forward, firing his tripod – and hearing the wailing screams as yet more human magic was added to the chaos.

Headquarters, Multi-National Force Iraq, Green Zone, Baghdad.

“Pumpkin-One reports receiving heavy inbound fire Sir. The baldricks are firing on the ridgeline as they come in. Fire is ineffective Sir.”

Petraeus nodded. The truth was, he wasn’t that interested at this point. His artillery was tearing huge gaps in the baldrick attack although the reduced density of targets meant the death toll was lower than it had been yesterday. Standing in front of his screen, he could see the baldricks surging forward, taking their losses from the deadly MLRS barrages and the minefields. They hadn’t reached the wire yet. Not that it mattered to him, the brigade commanders along the front knew what they had to do and Petraeus had left them to get on with it. They had enough on their plate without their commanding general peering over their shoulder and second-guessing them. Petraeus had enough to do as well, in addition to handling his corps artillery, he had to keep supplies of ammunition and fuel flowing towards the brigades. He had truck convoys scattered all the way between the front line and Baghdad, keeping them flowing forward was a job in itself. He had staff handling that as well, his part of the battle was to stand here in front of this screen and spot things going wrong.

“There’s a flight of C-17s coming in from CONUS. Carrying reloads. Make sure our fighters screen them from any harpies surviving out there. And have the fighters report when the harpies are cleared out of the way. The Apache crews will want to get their licks in.”

“Sir, Yes Sir.” That had to be one of the Marines Petraeus thought. Still it was better than the Rangers, that constant Oooh-Arrgh got on his nerves after a while. Getting the AH-64s into action was going to be critical for more reasons than one. The 25th Mechanized Infantry Division, known on the radio as “Pumpkin” was already tearing the baldricks apart, they had the firepower and mobility they needed. The baldricks in front of them were going to die, it was simply a question of how many of them would do so before the rest broke and ran. Not that there was anywhere for them to run to. In the west, the Shamshar Division and the First Armored were rapidly closing the gap that was the baldrick’s only escape route.

No, 25th Mech were going to be all right. The problem lay to their north, where the 10th Mountain Division, call sign Mango, held the line. They were a light infantry division, they didn’t have the armor that had dominated the battlefield so far. They did have four brigades rather than three and more artillery but their force structure was light. Petraeus had put them on his right for two reasons. One was that they covered a more inhabited and built-up sector of the front where the armor would be at a disadvantage. The other was a more ruthless one, Petraeus had to find out how human infantry would fight against the baldricks. All the reports so far said that the baldrick infantry were larger and stronger than humans and they took a lot of killing. Could human infantry stand up to them? It was a question that had to be answered sooner or later and sooner was better than later.

Hence the importance of getting the Apaches back over the battlefield. They were an important part of 10th Mountain’s firepower.

“Sir, Mango reports the baldricks are moving to attack them. Should we divert artillery support from Pumpkin?”

Petraeus thought for a second. “Negative. Keep battering the troops attacking Pumpkin. We can destroy that attack fastest, then we can thin out Pumpkin’s positions and shift forces to support Mango.” 10th Mountain had its artillery and that would have to do. The 25th Mech and 4th Infantry Division’s artillery was concentrating on the baldricks assaulting Petraeus’s left, over 100 Paladin self-propelled 155s and 60 MLRS launchers. The sheer volume of fire they were pouring into the advancing baldricks was enough to stop even an Army from hell. Or so Petraeus hoped.

“Gee Sir, will you look at that!”

The Marine’s voice had lost its dispassionate inflexion. In the middle of one surging mass of baldrick infantry, pinned up against the wire, was a single jet black figure that towered above the rest, mounted on a rhinolobster that dwarfed the others.

“I guess he must be important.” Petraeus raised his voice slightly and addressed the fire direction center. “Put an MLRS battery on to that location soonest.”

Front Line, Army of Abigor, Western Iraq.

Abigor saw his infantry surging against the river of silver threads that strung across the battlefield. Some of his demons had tried to grab the threads with their hands, only to scream in anguish as the razor edges bit through their flesh to the bones. Others had tried to force their way in through the coils, only to become entangled and slowly sliced apart. The momentum of the attack was broken and all the time the shrieking howls of the enemy magic drowned out any attempt at thought. The infantry had to get through the threads, there was no other choice.

He saw the answer over his shoulder, on their way through to the threads, they had crossed a field covered with bars that exploded when a demon stepped on them. Many of them had been killed and their mutilated corpses littered the ground. Others writhed in pain from the traumatic amputations the bars had caused. Yet, Abigor thought, even the dead and the half-dead could still serve him. “Get those bodies. Throw them on the threads and use them as a bridge.”

The noise was too great for his words to carry far but some heard and started to collect bodies and throw them on top of the coils of threads. Others saw what was happening, understood and copied them. Soon the wire was sagging under the weight and the first of the demon infantry was running across, clear of the wire and into the open ground beyond.

“Sire, there are problems on our left!” One of the lesser demons, a legion commander by the look of him, carried the message but could barely make himself heard.

The left, Abigor thought, ten minutes fast ride away. He had better get there and find out what was happening. “Take over here, keep driving them forward.” Then, he turned his Great Beast’s head and started the ride up to his left flank. This was a problem he hadn’t thought of, in the traditional formation he could see all of his forces, in this new style of attack, he could see only a small portion of the battle at any one time. He was spending all his time running from one crisis to the next, trying to solve each one before it became a major problem. Time he should have been spending in finding the enemy commander so Abigor could have the pleasure of killing him.

There was another shrieking howl and the terrifying ripple of explosions that were the trade-mark of the fire-lances. Abigor felt the blast and the sting as stray fragments at the end of their trajectory flicked at him. Behind him, the area where he had just been had vanished under a rolling cloud of dust and smoke. Abigor had already seen enough fire-lance breaths to know that nothing was left alive in the area he had been in just a few minutes before. Then it struck him, he might not have time to find the enemy commander, but the enemy commander had found him.

Headquarters, Multi-National Force Iraq, Green Zone, Baghdad.

“Missed him.” The Marine sounded disappointed.

“Don’t sweat it son, it was only a chance. He’s heading north, guess on his way to Hit. Sitrep?”

“Mango-Four is in Hit sir, they’ve dug in. They’re all west of the river and there’s only one bridge out.”

Petraeus knew what that meant. If Mango-Four tried to evacuate the city, there would be a massacre as they piled up before the bridge.

“Sir, Mango Four requests permission to blow the bridge. They say it won’t do them any good and taking it intact might help the Baldricks.”

“Tell them to do it. We can throw an assault bridge over easy enough. The baldricks don’t seem to have heard about combat engineering.”

“Sir, with the bridge gone, Mango Four won’t be able to…..”

“I know, so did they when they suggested it. Order Cherry-One up on Hit. Tell them to form up to the east of Al-Ramadi.”

Outskirts of Hit, Western Iraq.

“We’d just got this place quieted down as well.” Corporal Tucker McElroy looked out at the advancing baldricks with certain level of disgust. A year earlier, Hit had been torn to pieces by gangs of terrorists and insurgents whose attacks and murders spared no one. Then, the Marines had moved into the city as part of Task Force 17 and cleaned the city up. It had come back to life and its economy had been improving everyday, so much so that a week before The Message had changed everything, the City had been handed over to Iraqi security forces. Now the baldricks were coming.

Not as many as there had been, that was for sure. At first their long ranks had been a terrifying sight but Mango-Four’s artillery had got to work as the baldricks had stalled in the minefields and on the razor wire. By the time the baldricks had swarmed through the artillery over the wire, their neat ranks and serried formation had gone. In its place was a stream of baldricks in groups of varying size making their way towards the outskirts of the city. McElroy heard the 120mm mortars coughing as they lobbed their first rounds at the larger of the groups, the brigade 155s were still pounding the baldricks hung up on the wire. By now, the leading groups of demons had reached the great divided highway that swung around the outskirts of Hit. It was time to do some real soldiering.

A few yards away Charles Foss was scanning the nearest group of baldricks through the powerful scope on his M82A3 sniper’s rifle, well, it wasn’t actually a sniper’s rifle, officially it was an anti-material rifle. There was even an urban legend that it was illegal to use it against humans but that wasn’t true. Anyway, the targets this time weren’t human. Foss checked his ammunition, the tips of the .50 caliber bullets were green on white. That meant they were Raufoss SLAP rounds, multi-role armor-piercing explosive incendiaries. They’d been pouring in to Iraq for days now, the joke was that they had still been warm from the production line in Norway when they’d been stuffed into a transport and flown here. The infantry formations had been given priority for their issue, they needed the firepower.

Magazine in place, Foss squinted through the scope again. The baldricks cleared ground fast, at least twice as quickly as a human. One figure in the nearest group seemed to be the driving force, urging the others forward. Foss put the cross hairs on his forehead, just between the horns and gently squeezed the trigger, just the way he’d taught his six-year old son to shoot. Never pull the trigger, squeeze it. The heavy Barrett rifle kicked and the baldrick went down.

“Damn.” Foss swore to himself. The baldrick was down, his head mangled, but he was still moving. What did it take to kill these monsters?. A second shot was the answer, it fixed the leader for once and for all. Foss swung his scope to the second in the group and fired again. This one went down hard and finally with the first shot. The rest of the baldricks went to ground, confused by the inexplicable outbreak of sudden death that had struck them. That was a fatal mistake. The mortar teams saw the group stop moving and a pattern of 82mm mortar bombs blanketed their position. By that time, Foss and his fellow snipers were seeking fresh targets.

Inside the fortified house, McElroy looked over the sandbags that blocked the doors and windows to see the baldricks rapidly closing in on the forward defense line. They were over the inner ring road, less than 200 yards away, running into an area of ploughed sand where a new city block had been planned. Those plans had been abandoned and would probably never be revived now that half the city’s population had laid down and died as demanded by The Message and the rest were refugees being sheltered further east. But the blocks either side of the cleared area had been built and then they’d been fortified.

Human infantry would have seen the deadly danger of that open ground and avoided it. To the baldricks, it was an alley into the city and forty or more piled into it. They’d been the first group through the wire and minefields, the first to cross the open ground and get close to the city, the city that was defenseless. To their astonishment, they could see the buildings in front of them, the humans hadn’t built walls or moats to keep attackers out. Just the threads, the exploding bars and their horrible magic fire-lances.

McElroy gave a last check, the baldricks were in a three-cornered ambush with infantry squads on both flanks and another in front of them. Worse, from the enemy’s point of view, McElroy had dismounted the Browning .50 caliber from their Humvee and had it on its tripod, firing through a narrow slit, its green-and-white tipped bullets waiting to bite. Fine, the baldricks were in a trap, time to spring it.

“Open fire. Let them have it!”

 

[BF110C4]

firing his tripod

I think its a trident.

 

[Francis Urquhart]

Good catch! Well done and thank you. Fixed now.

 

[Francis Urquhart]

PART NINETEEN

(Note: Approval for the republication of this work on The Sietch has been granted by the author.)

Defense Perimeter Charlie, Hit, Western Iraq.

“Just how many of these bastards are there?” McElroy was distinctly aggrieved. Despite the fight they were putting up, he and the rest of his squad were being pushed steadily back by the sheer weight of numbers that were being thrown against them. They’d bled the attackers badly on Perimeter Alfa, the baldricks seemed to have no idea of fire and maneuver, they’d just walked straight into the machine gun fire. Only the waves behind the first group had simply climbed over their dead and kept on coming.

“I heard over a million.” Private Gerry Links repeated the rumor with grim relish. “And it looks like most of them are here.”

“If you mean right in front of us, right now, I’d say you’re just about right. There’s more of them than we’ve got bullets.” And that, McElroy thought, was the pure, unvarnished truth. Oh, the .50s were cutting the baldricks down all right and the snipers were having a field day but there weren’t enough of them and they were being swamped by the numbers coming through. More than just the numbers, the bastards were so damned difficult to kill. The truth was that the M16s just weren’t cutting it. McElroy had put a whole 30-round magazine into one baldrick and the damned thing had still torn Jim ‘Cookie’ Fields apart before it had gone down. Explosives were doing most of the work, grenades from the M19 automatic launchers and the M203s. That and the Claymores, human or baldrick, the spray of fragments from a Claymore shredded them nicely.

“Here they come.” There was a crescendo of firing from the block to their left, a mad minute as Baldwin’s squad poured fire into the baldrick assault teams before leaving via the back of their building. That would leave McElroy with an exposed flank and he’d have to fall back as well soon. To his front, he saw black figures suddenly detach from the building in front and run out across the street. He took a careful bead on the leader and fired as fast as he could squeeze the trigger, watching shot after shot slam into the baldrick’s chest. It was staggering but still coming forward, McElroy felt he would have better luck if he spat at it. Off to his left, the squad machine gun snarled out a burst and the baldrick McElroy had wounded went down. There was a crash that shook dust from the walls and wrecked ceiling of the block, the last of the unit’s claymores had gone off.

The front of the building caved in, the baldricks were a lot stronger than humans and the flimsy construction of Iraqi walls wasn’t even close to being strong enough to hold them out. McElroy had lost some of his people first when the walls the baldricks pushed down had trapped the men behind them but they’d learned that lesson. Now they were in hastily-prepared positions at the rear of the room, firing up and out at the baldricks as they loomed over the wrecked structure. Baldricks weren’t actually that much taller than humans, McElroy guessed that they averaged between seven and eight feet tall but they seemed to be much bigger – especially when they were coming straight at you all teeth and claws.

He had a fresh magazine in his rifle, that was the good news. The bad news was that it was his last one, he’d run through his basic ammunition load in just a few minutes. He saw the green spurts as the bullets tore into the chest of the leading baldrick but, as McElroy had expected, the damned thing just kept coming. “Everybody out!”

He heard the rest of his unit scramble out the hole they’d knocked in the back wall of their block. McElroy paused just for a second, tossing a hand grenade at one of the baldricks. The black monster caught it and looked curiously at the small metal egg. The sheer incongruity of the sight caused McElroy to delay for a second and that killed him. The baldrick he’d just shot slashed at him with his claws, ripping through his body armor and tearing his chest open. McElroy screamed as the baldricks fell on him, tearing him apart and stuffing meat from his body into their mouths. Then the grenade went off and he, along with the baldrick who had been holding it, died.

Gerry Links heard the screams and explosion and knew that he was now in charge of what was left of the squad. The building they had been defending backed on to another with a narrow alley down the side. That lead into the divided highway that ran through the center of Hit and, hopefully too the open ground the other side. He turned and hosed out fire from his M16 then he and his men dropped flat as an automatic grenade launcher thumped out a burst from the buildings opposite.

“Down the alley fast, the grenadier will keep them back.” They were being pushed back, certainly, but they were bleeding the baldricks at every step. The time to fight it out, room to room would come later. And that, Links thought, would be a bloody day. Links fired another quick burst and saw a baldrick flinch. The M16s might not be killing them but they could hurt. Off to his left, he heard screams, human screams, was it the grenadier who’d held on to give his squad cover? Links didn’t know and didn’t have time to think about it. He and his men emerged from the semi-shadow of the alley and saw the most welcome sight of their lives. A Bradley was sitting on the road, its turret trained on the alley they had just come from. They could guess what was coming and scattered to either side. There was a rasping burst from the chain gun and this time the screams were baldrick. M16s may be ineffective but 25mm APHE was not.

“In the back fast.” The Bradley commander snapped the order out. Links and his men piled into the back and the ramp closed behind them. They were safe at last, behind armor.

“Where we going?”

“Defense Perimeter Delta. The other side of the clearing. We’re holding there. No more falling back.”

“Just how the hell are we supposed to do that? These 16’s ain’t worth shit against a baldrick.”

“You’ll get sacks of grenades and AT-4s issued when we get back to your position. And M72s. Once we’re in Delta, we’ll do it Stalingrad style. Room to room.

Headquarters, Randi Institute of Pneumatology, The Pentagon, Arlington, VA

“Do you believe her?”

“If I’m in the same room as her, probably.”

Randi chuckled. There had been some discrete experiments going on. Put a subject in the same room as Lugasharmanaska, measure their initial reaction to the succubus and then watch as that changed. Their prejudice started to soften within five minutes and by 30 minutes at most, they were friendly. “What do you think? Mind control?”

“Can’t be. We know roughly why their mind control works, they have the ability to entangle pathways in our brains using a bio-generated electrical field as a carrier wave. Your work with Julie and kitten shows we can do the same only we can’t generate the bio-electric field as a carrier. We also know that electrically conductive headgear blocks out the signal. Humiliating that isn’t it. For years people who were being persecuted by demons tried to warn us and tell us how to block the signals and we laughed at them. Ridiculed them, then locked them up and doped them to the eyeballs. The tinfoil beanie became a symbol of cranks and nut-cases – and all along they were right. Anyway, we’ve all been scrupulous about wearing our tinfoil beanies yet Lugasharmanaska gets the same reactions every time. Must be something else. We’ll keep trying until we get there.”

“Nicely switched away from the subject Robert. Now, do you believe her?”

Robert O’Shea thought for a second. “No. That stuff about breeding with humans can’t be true. We’re different species and different species can’t breed together, that’s a basic definition. The question is why is she lying? And if she is, why don’t we just hand her over to Doctor Surlethe and let him get some real information from her.”

“She might not be lying Robert. Just because she isn’t telling us the truth doesn’t mean that she’s lying. She may honestly believe that what she is telling us is true. It may be true, its just that we don’t understand what she is saying.” Randi paused. “I’ve had that with people who honestly believed they had psychic abilities. They were so convinced they were telling the truth that they just couldn’t believe there were other explanations. Parents were the worst. They got the idea their child was ‘special’ in some way, and which parents don’t believe that, and couldn’t accept that there were rational reasons why the kids were getting the results they were. We had one little girl whose parents honestly believed she had X-ray vision, even when we filmed her moving her head as she read a book ‘blindfolded’. Once we had sealed off her normal vision, her ‘ability’ stopped dead. And don’t get me started on dowsers.

“Look, I’m a conjuror, not a scientist but I’ll say this. Luga’s given us something to work with. It may be true, it may not be, but its something we can test. We have a theory from her, we can test that theory against reality and come up with the disconnects. Then we can learn by explaining those disconnects. And the first disconnect is how everybody feels warm and fuzzy towards Lugasharmanaska when she is, quite literally, a demon from hell.”

Randi stopped and knocked on a door. There was a mumbled ‘Come-in’ from inside.

“Norman, how are you settling in? And how do your cats like the Pentagon?”

“They’re getting overfed already. And I didn’t know the Secretary of State likes cats.”

“That’s a well-kept Washington secret. Did all your stuff get here safely?”

“Sure did, I’m getting it set up now. Any chance of meeting Lugasharmanaska?”

“Not at the moment, you can watch her but we’re trying to keep a limit on who actually sees her. She seems to have an uncanny effect on people around her.”

“I don’t see why; I’ve seen her pictures. She looks like something out of a nightmare. But then given the habits of the Succubi, I suppose she should look gross.”

“What do you mean Norman?”

“Succubi are supposed to mate with humans to collect male sperm. Then mate with their male equivalents, the Incubi and transfer that sperm to them. Incubi then mate with human females and impregnate them with that sperm. I guess that’s about as close to a dictionary definition of yukkiness as we’re ever going to get.”

Randi turned to O’Shea who was standing in the door with his mouth hanging open. “Well, it is a different dimension from ours, Robert. But that might explain how the Nephilim Lugasharmanaska was talking about could arise. They’re not hybrid human-demons, they’re corrupted humans somehow. Score one for the Succubus.”

“I’d rather not. The thought of waking up next to that thing is just about the most horrible thought I can imagine.” O’Shea paused for a second. “Except waking up next to my ex-wife I guess. Thank’s Norman, those were mental pictures I could have done without. My next week’s sleep is likely to be permanently ruined.”

“I aim to please. Doctor Randi…”

“It’s James, Norman. And I’ve never been any sort of Doctor. You want to be formal, you could call me The Amazing Randi if you like, but James will do just fine.” Randi gave Baines a gentle grandfatherly smile.

“James, where are we going from here?”

“Lugasharmanaska gave us some clues on how to open a portal to hell. I’m going to get my people together and we’re going to try it. If it works, score two for the Succubus, if it doesn’t we’ll learn from finding out why. By the way, spread the word, Doctor Surlethe is on his way to Baghdad. The Army is collecting corpses of baldricks for him but the Air Force won’t fly them over here. Dead baldricks decompose pretty fast and the smell is dreadful. Even through a body bag so the Air Force boys won’t have their nice clean transports fouled up by them. So, if dead baldricks won’t come to Surlethe, Surlethe will have to go to the dead baldricks.”

Randi left and went down to the corridor. Outside the conference room his team was using as a laboratory, four armed Marines were on guard. That was new but when Randi went inside, he could see why. The room was stacked with packages wrapped in green plastic. Small packages, rectangular in shape, about two pounds each Randi guessed. He had a sudden premonition that had nothing whatsoever to do with pseudo-science that smoking in this room would be a very bad idea. There was other equipment around, boxes, odd shapes and two vicious looking rifles.

“Sir, General Schatten will be with us immediately Sir.” Randi nodded. In the background, he could hear music playing, Sheryl Crowe’s voice sounding incongruous amongst the electronics, weapons and piles of high explosive.

These, in the days when Heaven is failing.
The days when earths foundations fled
They follow their military calling
And now they fight to save our dead

And now they fight to save our dead.

Their shoulders hold the sky suspended
They stand and earth’s foundations hold
Whom God abandoned these defended
And they saved the sum of things today.

And they saved the sum of things today.

“I hope you don’t mind Sir.” kitten was stretched out on a couch, her boyfriend sitting beside her. “Some music helps me relax.

“No problem kitten. You know what’s going to happen here?” kitten shook her head.

“This room is shielded against electromagnetic radiation so anything we pick up is you linking to hell.” The scientist spoke carefully. When he’d got his PhD (a highly classified one as it happened, in electromagnetic propagation which was a euphemism for some of the more spectacular aspects of electronic warfare), he’d never envisaged working on anything like this. “We’re running those signals through a massive amplifier and blasting them out. According to our information, we push enough power into the transmission and the visions you can experience will be converted to a real portal that we can step though into hell itself. And step out of to get back here.”

He was interrupted by the military members of the group snapping to attention. General Schatten had entered with an Army Major in tow. He returned the salutes and looked around at the room with satisfaction. “I see the Czechs came through with the Semtex then. This is Major Warhol, he’ll be training the A-teams who’ll be organizing the insurgency in Hell. Major, this is the team trying to get through for your people.”

“Thank you general.” The expression on Warhol’s face was one of stunned disbelief. “If I may summarize my mission, I and my people are going to use an inter-dimensional rift created by a masochistic paranoid schizophrenic transsexual acting on information received from a turncoat succubus to invade Hell, start an insurgency with the aim of destabilizing the whole set-up there, subverting the rule of Satan and eventually organizing an internal coup to overthrow him.”

“That’s it in a nutshell Major.” Schatten’s voice was amused by the horrified expression on the Major’s countenance.

“When I selected Special Forces at the ‘Point, they told me there would be days like this.”

“What did they recommend Major?”

“Cyanide Sir.’ A laugh ran around the room.

“People, we’re ready to get started.” The scientist was trying desperately to get back into control. “Once the portal is open, we don’t know how long we can keep it open so we have to move fast. General?”

“Yeah, when it opens, everybody start throwing stuff through as fast as you can. Just throw it through, leave the people the other side to catch and store it. One question Bob, why can’t we keep the portal open? The baldricks don’t seem to have any trouble.”

“Imagine it like this General, a very fast flowing stream with a pair of old-fashioned saloon doors, the kind that swing both ways in it. The baldricks upstream, us downstream. They can push the doors open easily enough but to close them they have to pull the doors against the flow. To open them we have to push against the flow but that same flow will be constantly trying to push them shut again. kitten, I think there’s going to an incredible strain on you once the portal opens, even with electronic boost, you’re fighting forces we have no way of understanding. Don’t worry about how long you can hold on for, just do the best you can. If you can give any warning when you’re going to lose it, please try but if you can’t, don’t worry. Remember, you’re a unique resource at this time, you’re worth more than pretty much anything else we have.” kitten nodded. “Right people, let’s get going.”

 

[Francis Urquhart]

PART TWENTY

(Note: Approval for the republication of this work on The Sietch has been granted by the author.)

On the Shore of the Styx, Fifth Ring, Hell

The six members of Recon Team Tango-one-five crouched behind a large rock outcropping beside high walls that separated the Sixth Ring from the Fifth. On the other side of the rocks was the gate, no less than fifty feet high, and probably much higher. It was open, and a steady stream of Baldricks was pouring out of the Sixth Ring, and setting off across the Fifth to where a distant set of gates offered access to the Fourth Ring. . Kim looked over to McInery and hissed, “What’s your count, Mac?”

“I’m at five thousand two hundred twenty, ell-tee. Twenty-nine. Thirty-eight. …”

“Aye. Forty-seven now. How many command units?”

Gerald “Bubbles” Tarrant chimed in. “That’s a little more than seven battalion-sized units, and we’ve seen eight big guys on huge-ass rhinolobsters. I think they’re battalion commanders, ell-tee”

Kim nodded. That made sense. And they were still pouring out from the city in ranks of nine abreast, with no end in sight. It was like being caught at a crossing by a two hundred car train … her gaze softened as she started to think about the wide skies and waving grain of her Midwestern ho—

She slapped herself softly. No thoughts of home now; she was in hell, and she had a job to do. Fifty-seven sixty, fifty-seven sixty-nine – “Mac? How many?”

“Five thousand seven hundred seventy eight and counting, ell tee.”

“Bubbles?”

“Here comes the ninth big rhinolobster; this’ll be nine battalions of 81 nine-baldrick platoons.”

They kept counting for another couple of minutes, and then there were no more baldricks. As the tramping feet died off into the mists of the Styx, Kim looked over at McInery. “You have 6,666 baldricks, including the command groups?”

“Aye, ell-tee. Right in line with what Bubbles has got.”

“Damn. That’s a whole brigade.”

There was silence for a minute, then Bubbles asked, “So, ell-tee, what are we doing now?”

“Now, we move away from the city, stay in the region, and find a relatively safe place to get some rest and wait for more contact.”

“Aye, sir.” They darted one-by-one from boulder to boulder, heading away from the city across the coffin-dotted plain. Around them, the groans and cries of the damned rose into a haunting chorus as the unquenchable flames – What powers them? wondered Kim idly for a moment before pulling herself back to the present – balanced by the supernatural healing powers of their new bodies.

Nearly an hour later, they were again at the shore of the Styx. The soft mud oozing gently through their toes belied the roar of the waterfall ahead, and the thick pea-soup fog was getting heavier as it mingled with the mist thrown up by the falling water. There was a horrible stench in the air, and the mist tasted of sulfur.

Kim led Tango-one-five toward the cliff. The mud thinned at last and gave way to rock; the land rose into a jagged, twisted badland around the river basin as the river gained speed heading toward the gorge. They clambered over the slick rocks and around monolithic boulders, until Kim stopped.

They were standing on a low peak with a commanding view of the surrounding terrain, at least as far as the mist let them see. Ahead of them, the broken terrain dived down into dimness; to the right, the Styx plunged down the gorge; to the left, the cliff edge stretched off into the mist, with a subtle curve that just evaded the eye; and behind them, the badlands stretched for what must have been several miles. They were surrounded by a ring of low, jagged boulders.

Kim nodded. “Here is where we make the base of operations. We’re staying here until command contacts – ” Her eyes defocused, and she relaxed visibly.

McInery was next to her, and grabbed her muddy shoulder. “Ell-tee? Ell-tee??”

She tensed up again with a start. “That was the brass in Washington. They’re going to try to get us some equipment.”

Lieutenant Kim? It was kitten again.

Kim tried her best not to fade out and lose the contact. Yes? “Mac, I’m still talking to them. Hold on a second.”

General Schatten is wondering if where you are is a safe place right now?

Yes, we’re safe enough.

Okay, good. We’re going to try an experiment here. If it works, I’ll see you in a moment. Or something will be happening. Kim felt a giggle in kitten’s voice. Nobody is quite sure what.

Randi Institute of Pneumatology, the Pentagon, Arlington, VA

“I’m through Sirs.” kitten spoke with an unaccustomed level of authority in her voice. “Lieutenant Kim says they are in a safe place right now.”

The attending scientist nodded. “Are you ready?”

Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes tightly, kitten nodded.

“We have kitten’s signal recorded and digitalized?” The question was a rhetorical one only. Nevertheless, one of the electronic techs checked the files in the signals analysis computer.

“Confirmed, we have it. Like nothing we’ve ever seen before but we do have it.”

From his pocket, the scientist pulled what looked like a TV remote and hit a couple of buttons. Across the room, the digitalized version of kitten’s bio-electrical signal was being fed into an amplifying system that had been modified from a deception jammer. The result as the technologists started to increase the output power was immediate. kitten began to shake visibly, rattling the chair she was lounged on. The tendons in her neck were standing out in strain. Her boyfriend held her tightly, and was about to say something when everyone in the room jumped. A black ellipse was staring to form in the room. It was hard to say where it was, it seemed to be at once parallel with the floor and perpendicular to it. It was also hard to say what it was, it seemed black and almost infinitely absorptive yet it also glared and irritated the eyes. A shining shadow didn’t make sense yet that was what they had created.

“What is that?”

“Must be a projection of something our senses can’t cope with so they’re doing the best they can.”

“Hurry up can’t you?” kitten’s boyfriend almost snarled out the words. “Can’t you see how much you’re hurting her?”

Still not quite believing his eyes, Randi picked up the paper airplane he’d brought and threw it; it traveled through the portal and vanished. A split second later it came back out, stained and smelling of sulfur.

General Schatten didn’t hesitate. He grabbed a Barrett M107 rifle from the pile of military shiny toys, a bag of electronic equipment, then tossed a “Warhol, grab some more and follow me” over his shoulder before stepping into the shadowy circle and vanishing.

On the Shore of the Styx, Fifth Ring, Hell

Kim suddenly felt awake again, but the daydream wasn’t gone. In fact, it seemed to be superimposed on her vision. She passed a dirty hand over her eyes and squinted, trying to get it to go away; her mind was playing tricks on her, she got the sense that something was forcing its way through to her. Then, a black ellipse started to form, one that defied easy description. “Hold on still, guys. I think I’m still hallucinating.”

“You too?” asked Bubbles, who was blinking rapidly.

Kim spun around and looked at her surroundings. All normal, and she was feeling fine. Then she turned back again, and there was the tunnel. “You guys see it too?”

“Yes,” said the others at once. As they did so, a paper dart flew through the ellipse and hit Kim on the forehead before fluttering to the ground. Perplexed, she stooped and picked it up: a paper airplane? Then the anvil dropped and she threw it back through the ellipse. After a few seconds, a man stepped through, an M107 Barrett over one shoulder, a large bag in one hand. Kim and her companions snapped to attention.

“Lieutenant, you’re out of uniform.” General Schatten looked around, a foul, stinking swamp covered with a yellowish mist that stunk of sulfur and fouler things. He was standing on a rocky outcrop amid an atmosphere of desolation and misery that told him, more clearly than anything else could, that he was truly in hell.

“Sorry Sir, that joke was old the first time I heard it. Anyway, this is the uniform of the day around here. Skin and mud.”

“You need uniforms? We’ve got a lot to get through to you and we’re not sure how long we can hold the portal open for at any one time.” Another figure emerged. “This is Major Warhol, Special Forces. He’ll be liaising with you and providing technical and operational assistance.”

“Welcome to Hell Sirs. First thing, intelligence, we’ve counted five brigade–sized units moving out of the lower reaches of hell, heading upwards. There’s a lot more baldricks coming your way Sir. How’s thing going out there?”

“Dave Petraeus is doing a number on the invasion force. He’s literally shredding them with artillery and armor. The baldricks are losing in six-digit numbers.” Schatten paused for a brief second. “Their command structure is shot to hell, you and your team mates did a damned fine job.”

Randi Institute of Pneumatology, the Pentagon, Arlington, VA

Major Warhol was already on the other side of the portal, and the military personnel were forming a line and starting to hand off crates of ammunition and explosives, piling it through the portal as fast as discipline and urgency could make possible.

“All hands to the pumps. Get this stuff through as quickly. Maximum urgency.” Randi looked at where kitten was shivering on her couch, obviously in great distress. “Everybody, this isn’t just a military business. Throw stuff through if you can’t hand it.” He paused for a second. “Is it safe to throw Semtex?”

“Sure is. Thank’s for the help.” The stream of equipment being passed through picked up speed.

On the Shore of the Styx, Fifth Ring, Hell

“All of you, stand to, and help us unload these supplies,” Schatten snapped, then turned and passed his rifle to Kim. “It’s an M107, hot from the production line. We got you Semtex instead of C-4, its 30 percent more powerful. She, in turn, handed the rifle to McInery, who leaned it against a boulder. The stack of equipment grew until they had received six webbings to carry things in, two slightly modified 0.50 calibre assault rifles, 30 crates of ammunition, 180 kilograms of Semtex with all the requisite electronic fusing, two dozen M24 claymore mines, the same number of AT-4 anti-tank rockets, six pairs of night-vision goggles, and twelve outfits of dark combat fatigues.

Behind them, the portal started to shimmer, Schatten guessed that kitten was finally losing her grip. “Anything else you need Lieutenant?”

“Yes Sir. We need to change our allocations so our dependents get all of our salary. We don’t need money here.”

“But you’re dead.”

“With respect Sir, the contract with the Army says nothing about ‘til death us do part’ and obviously it hasn’t. Sir, this is hell, we are not short of lawyers down here.” Kim grinned broadly, perfectly well aware of the size of the demolition charge she’d just thrown into the Army bureaucracy.

Schatten returned her grin. “Lieutenant, you’ve enabled me to fulfill a life’s ambition. When I hand your – perfectly reasonable – instructions over to the proper authority, I can finally make those REMFs at Pay Corps suffer as much as the troops on the front line. Good luck Lieutenant and kick some ass down here.” Then he and Warhol stepped back through the portal and were gone.

Kim surveyed the equipment and smiled. “Okay, guys. We don’t have to eat. We don’t have to sleep. We heal ten times faster than ordinary humans. We’re the United States military.” Her smile widened into a full-toothed grin. “Let’s go blow up some baldricks.”

Randi Institute of Pneumatology, the Pentagon, Arlington, VA

“I’m losing it!” kitten’s wail cut across the room. The elliptical portal started to shiver as General Schatten and Major Warhol stepped out. A second or so later, it collapsed completely. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be my dear.” Schatten’s voice was comforting and quiet. “Look, we got all the stuff they needed through to them, they passed some intelligence that was very important back to us and, above all, we’ve made solid contact. You did better than we had any right to expect, so you go and have a rest. You deserve a medal for what you did today.”

“Sir, you should have let me go through first.” Warhol’s comment came as kitten and her boyfriend left the room.

“Major, sometimes a commander has to lead the way. Try it with noodles one day. Try to push a cooked noodle across a plate, then try and pull it across. See which one is easier. We’re going to be literally asking men to go into hell itself. Now, when we do ask, they’ll know that we went first.” Schatten brushed at his uniform, it was covered with foul-smelling mud and a disgusting greenish slime. “I’m going to wash and change. If this smells as bad as it looks.”

“It does.” Said Randi reassuringly.

“Then that’s an early order of priority. I guess the Lab boys will want to analyze this stuff as well.”

“I brought some samples Sir.” Warhol held up what looked suspiciously like a jam jar filled with the mud from hell.

“Well done. And that applies to everybody here. We’re in a position to strike back at last.”

Defense Perimeter Delta, Hit, Western Iraq.

“What the blazes is that?”

The first layer of buildings was acting as a sieve, forcing the Baldricks to break up into small groups as they forced their way through the alleys and narrow streets before breaking out into the open ground that marked the gap between the now-fallen Perimeter Charlie and the disputed Perimeter Delta. That open ground, traversed by a divided-lane highway, was the new killing ground and the carpet of black bodies was growing as the 10th Mountain Division’s armored cavalry units swept it with fire. The problem was the steadily-growing number of bodies in Army camouflage that were joining the baldrick dead. Now, there was something different happening, a white pick-up truck was tearing down the roadway, swerving around the bodies that littered it and heading straight for a large group of baldricks that had just emerged from the buildings.

The Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans of 10th Mountain guessed what was about to happen, they’d seen exactly the same tactic tried out on the Bradleys and Abrams tanks as they’d done their thunder runs through Baghdad. It had failed then but the baldricks didn’t have heavy armor supporting them. The suicide bombers them had died screaming “God is Great” but it was unlikely that they made the same call now. “Death to God” was more likely. It made little difference, the truck plowed into the group of baldricks and exploded, scattering fragments of steel and baldrick for dozens of yards around. Even here, in Delta, the blast was stunning.

“Come on, follow me.” Links screamed out, the last baldrick push had sized a building that was a Delta strongpoint and it was up to him to retake it. While everybody was stunned by the suicide bomber’s blast was as good a time as any. He was pressed up against the wall one side of the door, he swung past and kicked it open. Ina well-time drill, two of his men threw a pair of hand grenades each inside, then the other pair raked it with fire from their M16s. Links rolled through the door, two of the baldricks inside were dead or dying on the floor, two more were still standing although obviously torn up by grenade fragments and bullets. Links pushed up to his feet and slammed into the nearest baldrick, knocking the wounded monster off its feet. He and three of his men piled on top of it, pinning its arms down, slamming their K-bars into its eyes. The baldrick screamed and threshed, one of its clawed feet catching an infantryman in the stomach and disemboweling him.

Across the room, the remaining badlrick turned and ran, out of the door and into the open ground beyond. He made a few yards before smoke trains erupted around him and he vanished into the concussion of RPG-7 warheads exploding. The irregulars in Hit had joined in the fight and the RPG-7s they carried in place of rifles were lethal. Links looked up, the terrific noise of the firefight was joined by something else, a rhythmic throbbing that shook dust from the ceiling and caused the shelves on the wall to bounce. Over his head, the sky suddenly turned black and red as a hail of unguided rockets passed overhead to slam into the buildings opposite.

“It’s the Apaches!” Links’ voice was triumphant as the four helicopters swept low overhead, their 30mm chain guns hammering at the baldricks caught in the open. All along the line, the AH-64Ds of the aviation unit were sweeping the killing zone with gunfire and rockets while overhead, F-16s prowled, ready to take down any harpies that appeared.

Headquarters, Army of Abigor, Hit, Western Iraq.

Abigor watched the human sky chariots pouring fire into his troops. Some of them were simply saturating the area with fire lances, others were using a magic fire lance that would turn in the air to follow its prey. Seeker lances he thought, what else could they be?

“Sire, our demons are falling back.”

“What?” Abigor contained his urge to destroy the messenger. He had learned how futile that could be.

“They have lost eight in ten of their number Sire and the humans will not retreat from us. They cannot hold and now the sky chariots have arrived, the iron chariots will not be far behind. It is over.” The messenger bowed his head and waited for death.

Abigor looked across the roofs of Hit where the sky chariots were attacking the remnants of the legions deployed here. He had had such hopes of this outflanking move but in his heart he guessed the humans had been ahead of him all the time.

“Yes, it is over. Spread the word, order the legions to fall back and regroup.”

Regroup with what? the messenger was tempted to ask but he held his tongue. Surviving this message was good fortune enough for one day, no need to tempt fate.

Headquarters, Multi-National Force Iraq, Green Zone, Baghdad.

The baldrick attack was collapsing, General Petraeus could see the truth now, unfolding on the giant screen before him. He had raw video up. It showed the black line that had pressed up against his defenses melting away, beginning to stream to the rear as it collapsed. Up at Hit the issue had been close for some hours and the brigade holding the city had been battered but they had held and now the enemy was in retreat there as well. Petraeus switched over from raw to synthetic video, the pictures of the battle replaced by blue and red military symbols moving slowly as the baldricks retreated and the human formations started their advance.

Not that there was anywhere for the baldricks to retreat to. The armored spearheads had already linked up behind their lines and blocked the retreat to the hellmouth. The back door had slammed shut, there was nowhere for the baldricks to run to.

 

[Comrade Sophia]

@Francis Urquhart Can you fix my pronouns and titles in the story?

 

[Francis Urquhart]

***Confused*** I'm sorry?? I don't get what you want.