Pantheocide

Chapter Eleven

Briefing Room, White House Washington DC, April 2009

“So what did you think of Yamantau Mister President?” Secretary of the Interior Salazar had wanted to go on that visit but he hadn’t.

“It is a most remarkable installation. It comforts me to think that we have something similar here.”

“Actually Mister President, we don’t.” Secretary of Defense Warner spoke sadly. “We have proposed such an installation in the past but funding was always denied. The nearest we have to Yamantau is Cheyenne Mountain and that is in care-and-maintenance status. We have some shallower installations that offer nothing like the protection of Yamantau of course. But, given the threats we face now, Yamantau offers little in the way of protection. As far as we know.”

“You think there is more to Yamantau than the Russians have let us see?”

“Of course. But I was more thinking of the kinds of attack we are facing right now. And what may come next, remember we had no warning of the attacks on Sheffield and Detroit.”

A grim silence ran around the room. The destruction of Sheffield and Detroit still had the power to awe those who saw the fields of cooled lava that now overlay what had once been two thriving cities. Somehow, it was made all the more striking by the knowledge that the cities could not be rebuilt. Usually, no matter how bad the damage, the city inhabitants had picked themselves up and rebuilt. In Sheffield and Detroit, that was impossible and the devastated areas of the cities had been abandoned.

“You think there may be more sky-volcano attacks?” Obama sounded apprehensive as well he might. The winter had been a rough one worldwide and few people believed the storms had been natural.

“I’m saying, Mister President, we don’t know what’s coming.”

“That may not be true Secretary Warner.” General Schatten spoke carefully as befitted a military man in this epitome of civilian control. “Our resident experts in the field believe that there are likely to be seven attacks before Yahweh really begins to engage us. We’ve had two and we can expect the third very shortly. That will see the Algal Blooms spreading to our inland waterways. The fourth is expected to consist of fire and heat, that sounds like more sky-volcano attacks to us. Details on the fifth attack are very indefinite and simply refer to darkness and people gnawing their tongues with pain. The sixth simply says the Euphrates will dry up, well, that’s bad for Iraq but hardly a gruesome disaster while the last speaks of a massive earthquake and a rain of giant stones. That sounds like more portal work.”

“Where does this come from?”

“Book of Revelations, Mister President. Normally we would discount that as a source but the first two attacks do make it look like somebody is sticking to that playbook.”

“And just how long do we have to sit here taking it on the chin like this? We finished off Satan in less than six months once we got rolling, why can’t we do the same with Yahweh?”

“Because we can’t get at him.” Secretary Warner reinserted himself into the conversation deftly. “We have no idea where Heaven is, we can’t find it and we can’t open a portal to it. Our primary hope at the moment is to understand the structure of the space-time continuum in which Heaven exists and then find it by exploiting that understanding. However, I am advised that it is likely we will find that the space-time continuum in question will contain large numbers of habitable entities and even if we can locate them, finding the right one will be very difficult. At worst, we may end up visiting each in turn until we find the right one. President Abigor has said that is how Satan and Yahweh explored our dimension although they obviously had no understanding of the science involved. Somehow, they got through to planets more or less at random.”

“This just is not good enough. We must find a way of launching a counter-attack. So far this war with Heaven has cost us more people and more treasure than the war with Hell did.”

“That is hardly surprising Mister President. In retrospect, we were very lucky with the Curb Stomp War. The Baldricks just opened a portal and came straight at us. Not only that, they did so head-on into the biggest concentration of military power we could deploy and one that was well-stocked with munitions. They, quite literally, couldn’t have made it easier for us if they had tried. It’s fairly obvious that Yahweh watched that debacle and has decided to try a different approach. I must say, Mister President, that it is easy to over-estimate the damage that is being done to us by these attacks. The anthrax attack cost us a third of our sensitives and that’s limited our ability to construct new portals through to Hell. However, we have a contingency plan to deal with the shortage if it becomes critical.”

“And that is?”

“To use Baldricks, especially the naga, as substitutes for our sensitives. We don’t want to do that, the last thing we need is for the Baldricks to think they are actually useful to us rather than something midway between utterly irrelevant and a nuisance. But it is an option. Anyway, we’ve had a rough winter and the rest of the world hasn’t been much better. The problem is, distinguishing between natural bad weather and the enhanced bad weather that constitutes a Yahweh attack. Some of the attacks are quite clearly the latter, the Missouri tornados that destroyed Whiteman AFB for example. Others may simply be normal bad weather. Britain had a very wet winter with severe rain but looking at the weather data, we can’t see any sign of enhancement to that. One thing that is clear from the NOAA studies of the winter, Yahweh can’t create bad weather. He can modify it, intensify it and redirect it but he can’t create it. That’s very encouraging from our point of view.”

“What about this Red Tide? Tom?”

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack leaned forward in his seat. “I’ll echo what John said, Mister President. It’s a bad blow but we shouldn’t overestimate it. The Algal Bloom is confined to continental shelf areas and then only to isolated parts of that shelf. Those parts make up a substantial proportion of the total maritime area but by no means all of it. The bad news is, we’ve lost the fisheries in the continental shelf areas and that’s hit shellfish production, especially shrimp and lobster, and put the short-range fishing boats out of business. However, deep-sea fisheries and fish-farming are not affected so we’ve got a substantial proportion of our fish supply maintained. It’s the same around the world, shallow-water fishing is hammered but deep sea fishing and fish farming is all right. It’s a blow but its survivable.”

“How did this happen?”

General Schatten glanced at Secretary Vilsack who deferred to him. “At first we thought it was another case of seeding by angels but we’ve ruled that out. The Algal Bloom is a natural phenomena that is kicked off by excess nutrients in the water. Our current hypothesis is that an underwater gate was opened in various areas and a large volume of nutrient-rich sea water was injected into the areas affected. We think, and this is a guess Sir, that other attacks were made on deep-water areas but even with the extra nutrients the conditions there weren’t suitable and those parts of the attack failed. Another encouraging sign for us, Yahweh is nowhere near infallible.

“We know that no angels were responsible for this. We have a nation-wide portal detection network, we set that up as part of the response to the sky-volcano attacks. Now and then, it’s detected portals forming and fading away, we are more or less certain they’re the result of angels arriving and departing. Oddly there are concentrations of such formations around San Francisco, Las Vegas, El Paso and New Orleans. Why that is we do not know. One last thing Sir, the Uriel attacks, the mass die-offs? They’re moving north, towards us. One was reported in Honduras three days ago. Eight thousand dead.”

“Thank you.” Obama glanced around the room. “Now, the economy. Tim?”

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner laughed a little desperately. “What economy Sir? We don’t have one any more, we’ve got a train wreck instead. What most people don’t realize is that the economy was heading for a major crash before all this happened. People had borrowed too much money and couldn’t repay it, the banks had loaned money they had little or no hope of collecting and the whole house of cards was about to come down. As a matter of fact, it would have collapsed by now if it hadn’t been for the mobilization. We’ve been printing money like mad to pay for it, we’ve pumped trillions into the economy, nearly all of which has stayed here in the United States. The result, of course, is inflation which is only being stopped from reaching runaway proportions by price controls and rationing. The overall effect has been to devalue people’s debts. Also, because of triple-shift working at all the mobilized industries, the reopening of shuttered factories and so on, people have more money in their pockets. Rationing means there aren’t many things they can spend it on so they put it in the banks and that’s recapitalized them. After all, they can’t buy cars because no cars are being made for the civilian market, they can’t buy houses because the contractors are building defense installations instead. In economic terms, the mobilization is a massive stimulus program. The problem is, its all just building problems up for the future. When the controls come off, all economic hell will break loose.”

A grim silence ran around the conference room. At last Obama broke it. “Janet, internal security?”

“There, Barry, the situation is pretty good. Crime-rate is way, way down. Spree killings and so on have virtually stopped, it seems like the majority were the direct result of demonic possession. Street crime is way down as well, partly because everybody is working all hours of the day and are simply too tired and partly because the police, U.S. Volunteers and armed citizens are on the streets all the time. Street crime has just got too dangerous. We do have problems with what was called ‘the fifth column’ back in World War Two. Mostly, the remnants of the extreme religious groups who didn’t lie down and die with the rest. There have been some acts of obstructionism, trying to get in the way of military convoys and so on. A few cases of family members of serving military personnel being harassed. Most, all pretty short-lived, the perpetrators have no popular support and in a lot of cases, they’re lucky if the police get to them before the local citizens. You heard what happened to a guy called Phlops?”

The Cabinet shook its collective head.

“Well, he was the self-appointed leader of an extreme religious cult down south somewhere. Offshoot of the Baptist church although they disowned him a long time ago. Anyway, he and some members of his congregation started disrupting the funeral of some troops who got killed on active service. Yelling abuse at the family of the slain, saying the dead got what they deserved and so on. Anyway, the local population went berserk and lynched them. I mean really lynched. Phlops’s body was lashed behind a pick-up truck and dragged around city limits as a lesson to anybody else who might have the same idea in mind.”

“I sincerely hope the people responsible have been punished.”

“Of course, Phlop’s body started to come apart on the second circuit of the city limits. So the police pulled the truck in and charged the driver with dumping toxic waste. No other charges, nobody saw anything or could identify anybody. Oh yes, somebody tipped off a group of deceased troopers in Hell and they were waiting for Phlops when he turned up there. I understand the attitude adjustment was emphatic. But, Mister President, there are a whole load of issues that come out of this. What about capital punishment for example? Pretty much all the logical base behind many of our legal decisions has been swept away and we need to address that.”

The members of the Cabinet nodded thoughtfully. It wasn’t just criminal law that was being affected, the whole legal concept of death was being re-evaluated. Already the health services were beginning to ask how knowledge of Hell should affect the decisions they had to make. Did it really make sense to keep a dying person alive but in a vegetative state when all that was doing was delaying their transfer to a healthy life in an increasingly-comfortable Hell dimension? The philosophers were agonizing over these and many more related questions.

“Let us leave legal matters to the Supreme Court.” Obama spoke decisively. “Let them interpret existing law first before we start making new ones. That’s what they get paid for.”

Training Camp, 1st Mechanized Infantry Battalion (Demonic), Dis, Hell, May 2009

“Spread out, don’t bunch up. Stay grouped together like that and a single inbound artillery round will take you all out at once.”

The Baldricks forming the skirmish line stretched out on either side of their armored personnel carrier obediently shuffled further out, spreading their line as the gaps between them opened. For warriors who had spent millennia training to fight with their shoulders actually touching those on either side of them, it was an aching readjustment. The problems weren’t helped by the fact that all these Baldricks were veterans, some of the few survivors of Abigor’s and Beelzebub’s armies that were fit for military service.

Standing behind them, Sergeant Gray Anderson shook his head sadly. It was much easier training new recruits, they didn’t know anything. These Baldrick veterans were full of bad habits that they had to lose if they wanted to live on a modern battlefield. The shuffling stopped, Anderson sighed to himself, and repeated his instructions. “Spread out! Right out. At least twice as far as you are doing at the moment. Otherwise, you will all die.”

That was a grim comment, the whole psychology of the Baldricks had changed since they had come under the lash of human artillery fire. As far as anybody could tell, they were more or less immortal unless somebody (or something) killed them. As a result, they hadn’t really feared death before but now, after seeing nine of every ten men in their units dying, the fact and fear of death was ingrained in their minds.

“All right, now, look to your front. The targets are set up at the two hundred yard mark. Two hundred yards is as far as you’re likely to see the enemies you are shooting at. Beyond that range, we use area fire and suppressive fire. Load one round, take your time, aim at your target and fire.”

Taloned hands drew a. 940 inch nitro-express round from their ammunition pouches. A quick pressure on the lever under the Martini-Henry rifle and the breech block dropped down. A quick pressure and the round was slid into the chamber, then the lever was lifted to seal the breech. The Martini-Henry was an old design, dating from a hundred and fifty years earlier, but it was uniquely suited to this application. It was immensely strong and could take the very powerful. 940 cartridge that exploited the Baldrick’s strength and size. The designers had corrected all the problems with the old version and had produced a weapon that was powerful, reliable and accurate. It was also single-shot so the automatic weapons carried by the humans still had the edge. Anyway, the human troops had artillery.

Each Baldrick in the line had lifted his hand, indicating his weapon was ready. “All right, in your own time, aim and fire.”

Even through Anderson’s ear protectors, the crash of the rifles was painful. The Baldricks didn’t seem to notice and their big bodies absorbed the brutal recoil without problems. That was one of the things that had made Anderson uneasy, at six foot five, he was a big man and he wasn’t used to looking up at people who towered over him. He lifted his binoculars and looked carefully at the targets. Of the nine Baldricks in the unit, eight had put their shots inside the six-ring, one had even put his in the black. A big, really big, improvement. One shot seemed to have missed the target completely.

“Hunkhalaphinarexes! You closed your eyes again!” A groan went along the line of Baldricks, unit cohesion was building up and the failure of this one Baldrick was taken by them all as a reflection on their own ability. “Try again. Load up.” Anderson walked over to him and squatted on the ground. “You must keep your eyes open when you fire. Otherwise you’ll wander off-target. Now try again.”

The Baldricks watching were keenly aware that, in the old days, a recruit who fouled up this badly when firing his trident would have suffered a gruesome few days of imaginatively brutal torture. Hunkhalaphinarexes took a deep breath, forced himself to freeze his eyes open, and squeezed the trigger in the approved manner. The shot ripped a hole in the target, three o’clock in the eight-ring.

“Not bad at all Hunky, not bad. We’ll make a soldier of you yet. All right, fire ten round at your target, in your own time. Try and get a good, tight group. Remember, doing things right is what we want, doing it fast comes later.”

Anderson walked over to the unit’s carrier and climbed in the back. It was a highly modified version of the old M-113 with an extra roadwheel each side and new hull that had an open crew compartment in the back. Crew of nine, commander, driver and gunner with six dismount infantry. The gunner had a. 50 caliber machine gun mounted on the forward edge of the fighting compartment. The forward compartment had space for the driver and commander, the latter having a radio. Anderson picked the speaker up and patched through to his platoon command.

“One-Delta-Alpha Actual here. We’re finishing up on the range now. We’re coming back in about thirty minutes. The boys will need feeding.”

“Copy that Alpha-Actual, we’ll butcher a food-beast for them. How are they doing?”

“As well as can be expected. For recruits with so much to unlearn.” Anderson sighed gently, it was only a few months before he’d been in a nursing home, remembering his years of military service while marking time, waiting to die. Then, there had been the day he hadn’t woken up in his room but in the recovery ward on the Phelan Plain and the interview with the placement officers who had been waiting for him. One mention of the fact he’d spent thirty years training recruits for Her Majesty’s Army and he’d been found this job. The odd thing was, he was rather enjoying it and the memories of his life on Earth were becoming remote. Not fading, if he made the effort they were as clear as they had ever been, but he just didn’t think of them so much. His life was here now. “Hey Mitch, do me a favor, pick out a good-looking food-beast for my boys right, they’ve worked hard today.”