Pantheocide

Chapter Twenty One

DIMO(n) Briefing Room, Pentagon, Arlington V.A.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Norman stammered, nervously. “I was trying to get all the data together since the attack on Fort Bragg.” The past twenty-four hours had been a blur for him. After the creature had been dead, before the body was even cool, DIMO(N) science teams had started going over the body and sending all the information they could back to the Pentagon. All of that information had been crunched and processed by Norman and his team, and fitted in to a briefing that the military brass was very interested in hearing. It hadn’t helped that the garrison of Fort Bragg were demanding that the corpse of the Leopard Beast be stuffed and mounted outside their front gate. It was rumored that at least two taxidermists had taken a horrified look at the size of the Beast and turned the job down. That was a pity, because it would, as the Base Commander had said, make a nice entrance arch.

General Schatten waved Norman on. “It’s quite alright, Baines. Just give us what you have.”

“Yes, well, ok.” Norman turned to the screen as his power point started up. “Prior to the attack on Fort Bragg, we had put together a lot of data about the various beasts, angels, captains, and armies discussed in John’s Revelation. The problem is, based on what we’ve learned from hell, some of it didn’t fit and we were hoping that the beasts were in fact Satan’s constructs, similar to his golden hydra.”

The screen displayed the hulking corpse of the thing that attacked Bragg. “This is the first beast. Notice the coloration, and spotting. We believe it to be the ‘Leopard-Beast’ mentioned in Revelations 13. The good news is, the creature was just as vulnerable to conventional weaponry as anything else, in sufficiently large doses. The bad news, is that this was the first of four beasts. The even worse news…” He paused as he clicked over to a fresh dispatch from Crystal City “… is that shortly before the creature died, the cell-phone tower detection system recorded a minor aberration that looked a lot like a portal formation, just underpowered.” He looked at the people in the room. “Allowing for the fact that that the portal did not form, but also noting that no ‘animal handler’ was found nearby, the implication is that these things are capable of opening their own portals, which is an ability we have not observed in any non-sentient infernal life-forms.”

“So you’re telling us there’s three more of these leopard-beasts in heaven waiting for the go-ahead to attack, and they can get in and out at will?” A general from the domestic defense forces was looking noticeably agitated. Film of the fighting at Fort Bragg had been broadcast on network television and the sheer volume of firepower that had been necessary to put the Leopard Beast down had made a marked impression.

“No sir, no.” Norman went back to his presentation. “The other beasts won’t look anything like the one at Bragg. We feel it is likely they will all be of similar size and raw power, but the appearance varies widely. Revelations 13 also mentions a great beast appearing like a lamb, with two horns. Now lamb can more likely be interpreted as ram, which means it’ll probably be big and have hooves. It doesn’t sound very scary, but there’s this little tidbit:” He brought up a text on the screen. Rev 13:13- And he performs great signs and wonders, such that he even calls down the fire of heaven in the presence of men.

“Now this beast is really odd, the texts say it looks like a lamb but speaks like a dragon. That implies its appearance is seriously deceptive. There’s a strange side to this, theologians have always assumed that the descriptions of the Beasts were allegorical, that they weren’t really Beasts at all but metaphors for social and political developments. Well, as the troops at Fort Bragg can tell us, that isn’t so. The Leopard Beast was just as described, the seven heads didn’t represent seven kings or empires. Or seven hills come to that. So, we can anticipate that the rest of the descriptions are also literally correct. The Lamb Beast was assumed to be representative of a government that spoke softly but was actually viciously repressive. We can now assume that isn’t the case. We’re going to get what the old texts described. How that applies to the Lamb-Beast is something we’ll undoubtedly find out in due course. That brings us to its prediction that it will call down fire from Heaven.”

“That could be nothing, lots of mythic beasts are associated with fire, but only two of the Armageddon beasts you’ve mentioned are.”

“The other one being?” Colonel Taylor was paying close attention.

“This fella.” Norman brought up a rather nightmarish image. “The Scarlet Beast. Similar in power and ability to the leopard and lamb, it should have multiple faces and horns, like the leopard. However,” on top of the creature in the picture appeared a small figure. “The Scarlet Beast has a keeper, guardian, assistant something along those lines. The texts call her the Whore of Babylon.” The picture zoomed in on her. “Dressed in a purple robe, she rides the head of the scarlet beast and carries a golden goblet full of ‘abominations of obscenity’. The allegorical explanation of the Whore was that she represented an Empire far advanced in decadence. The prime candidate was usually Rome but some suggested Jerusalem. Modern apocalyptic cults claimed the Whore was Hollywood. San Francisco got a look-in as well.

“Now, we see no reason why we shouldn’t take the texts literally. The Scarlet Beast has a rider. The Whore and the beast together are supposed to bring the kingdoms of men down, so she’s probably a very powerful angel and can bring all sorts of surprises. The Golden Goblet, if it exists, probably contains some more plague material similar to what has already been thrown at us.

“And for surprises, look no further than the Red Dragon. Not to be confused with the scarlet beast.” He cleared his throat. “Now, the fact that this last is named a dragon and not simply a ‘beast’ is very significant, and very distressing.” A list of biblical passages scrolled on the screen. “Dragons are mentioned over twenty times in the old testament, and the most relevant occasion is in Isaiah 27:

Isaiah 27:1. -In that day the lord will take his terrible, swift sword and punish Leviathan, the piercing serpent, the coiling, unending serpent. He will kill the dragon of the sea.

Norman paused while that sank in. “Now, I’m sure everyone remembers Leviathan, and what kind of a creature he was. In the Old Testament, whenever someone REALLY wanted to wish ill on a place, they’d call for it to become a den or dwelling place of dragons. The power of the red dragon will be a lot more than these others. In fact, according to texts the other three Armageddon beasts may draw strength or energy from the red dragon, which might explain why the seemingly impossible physiology of the leopard-beast still worked. I want to caution everyone that just because we killed the first attacking beast doesn’t mean we can kill others. The leopard beast was pretty-much the easiest, they will get worse from here.”

For a moment, there was silence in the room and it felt a bit colder than air conditioning alone could manage. Everyone had seen the footage of the large, cancer-like monster’s remains strewn across the northern plains of Hell, and they were imagining it creeping across their homes. “Thank you, Baines.” Colonel Taylor shifted in his seat uncomfortably as he eyed the image on the screen. “Now, ladies and gentleman, apparently we have to figure out the best way to slay a dragon.”

“We’ve got more problems than that.” FBI Director Robert Mueller was quietly astonished that nobody had picked up on what, to him, was glaringly obvious. “Has it occurred to anybody that this Leopard Beast picked one of the main field research bases of DIMO(N) and made a bee-line right for the most sensitive area?”

There was a slow nodding of heads around the room. A few people had noted it but they hadn’t wanted to think about the obvious implications. “We thought it might be coincidence.”

Mueller looked at the speaker with withering contempt. “There’s no such thing as coincidence. Not at this level. That thing, or whoever sent it, knew exactly where it was going and why. You, ladies and gentlemen, have a leak. Possibly here in Washington, more likely in Fort Bragg.”

443rd Infantry Battalion, Myanmar Army, Chong Sadao, Thailand

Battalion Commander Ye Twat was a puzzled and bewildered man. For the first two days of the war, he’d faced nothing but local militia, Thai Rangers who had fought bravely but who were woefully ill-equipped and under-armed for the task they had in hand. That had changed in the last twelve hours, now he was up against regular troops at last and they were making their presence felt. It wasn’t just the heavy weapons they had, although their rifles left wounds that were gruesome to behold. It was that they had their own style of fighting, a doctrine that was bewildering. For the last twelve hours, Ye Twat had the feeling he was trying to dig a pit in dry sand. As fast as he shoveled, the sand flowed around his spade and filled in the hole he had just made.

That was what was so hard to understand. His battalion was being nibbled to death in a series of small encounter battles that, individually, were of no significance. There would be an exchange of fire, his unit would deploy to make an assault but by the time he had launched the attack, the target had faded away and his assault would hit air. Worse, they would suddenly be raked by gunfire from a flank or even their rear and by the time they reacted, once again the enemy had faded away.

That wasn’t the worst of it. The Thai artillery had arrived and the 155mm guns were already firing in support of the small units that appeared to be all over him. That also was strange, the guns never seemed to fire in mass or concentrate fire on a critical target. Instead, one of the little encounter battles would open with a pair of guns firing a few rounds on to his positions. No warning, no preparation, just a small handful of artillery rounds arriving on target. In the first few seconds, while his men were caught in the open, they would take casualties but by the time they had got to cover, the artillery fire would have stopped and another unit would be getting the punishment.

The overall effect was that his unit was being ground down and he had absolutely nothing to show for it. He couldn’t point to a single action and say ‘this is it, this is where they are’. Instead, he was being nibbled to death by mice. Well, when infested with mice, one laid traps.

“Get the mortar platoon loaded up. We’ll make a push down A68, towards Tha Sao.” That was an important road junction where the dirt-track A68 turned into an all-weather blacktop road. “When the Labyut move to block us, we’ll pin them down with mortar fire. Then we’ll have them.”

“Very good Sir.” The radio operator got on the network to pass the orders through to the mortar battery. “Sir, battery commander says he’ll register fire on the area you want, but he needs more ammunition. He’s only got the remnants from the unit of fire that he had yesterday, no supplies have come through.”

“Why not?”

“Sir, the supply officer is on another channel.”

“Put him on.” There was a pause and then Ye Twat barked down the phone. “Why aren’t the supplies getting through?”

“It’s the Labyut Sir. They have infiltrated behind us, they ambushed some of the porters. Wiped out the ones they hit, the rest have dumped their loads and run away. Or, worse, they’ve joined up with the Labyut and handed the supplies they were carrying over.”

Ye Twat swore picturesquely. That was the trouble with dealing with the Labyut as the Myanmar Army referred to the Thai regulars. They started by bribing people to change sides and things usually got worse from there. The problem was that the Myanmar Army depended on impressed porters to manpack its supplies forward and their efforts to force Thai villagers into that role had been monumentally unsuccessful. Most of the villagers had slipped away and the few that had remained had vanished with their loads soon after. Ye Twat guessed with grim despair that the stolen supplies would end up in a Thai marketplace within a week. Probably marked as a ‘special offer’.

That was when he heard an eerie howl overhead. Hones by years of fighting the Shan States Army, his ears told him “inbound” and he realized he had been on the radio much too long. That was something he’d never had to worry about fighting the SSA, their radio interception capability was barely measurable. He had only just enough time to wonder how the Thais had done it when the shells crashed down on the area occupied by his headquarters.

What saved him was the long range. The Thai GHN-45s were operating at the limit of even their long range and their dispersion was enough to give the headquarters staff a fighting chance of survival. Five kilometers closer in and they would have been wiped out by the 155mm shells but in that fine margin lay the difference between a headquarters unit crippled and one wiped out. A dozen shells landed, then the Thai gunners shifted to a new target as their Atila fire control systems shifted priorities to the next target set reported by the platoon-sized battlegroups. Looking at the ruin of his headquarters, Ye Twat decided that the war was not going well.

Headquarters, Third Army, Kanchanaburi, Thailand.

“Get me through to General Petraeus, right now.” General Asanee snapped the order out to her communications officer.

“Yes Ma’am. On the way.”

She picked up the telephone and thumbed the button for Line One. “American Express? Good, Commander Third Army here. Our officers are using their cards to buy diesel fuel at commercial gas stations. I’d like you to make sure that all such charges are honored. The Army will, of course, guarantee payment…. Yes, that is most co-operative of you. Thank you. If there are any problems, inform me immediately.”

She put the phone down, waited a second and smiled as it rang almost immediately. Things were beginning to shake down into a reasonably efficient headquarters. “General Petraeus? Good to speak with you Sir.”

“And you General. What’s the situation out there?”

“We’ve blocked the southern Myanmarese advance, we’ve got them chasing their own tails. They’re also being free with their radios, that’s a bad habit to get into. We’re picking them up with ELINT aircraft and taking their headquarters down. Most of the locals are helping out, we’re getting a flood of cellphone messages in with information.”

“Be careful General. The Myanmarese could be feeding false info in.”

“Yes Sir, understood. Now, the next portal set, the one for Second Cavalry. I’d like to change plans. The information we have is that Three Pagodas Pass is clear. I want to move a sensitive in up there and deliver Second Cavalry right to the Pass. From there, it’s a straight run on good roads to Moulmein and, eventually, Yangon. That way we’ll bypass the whole of the Myanmar invasion force and trap it south of the Lake. The ground’s too rough to stop them getting out, but they won’t leave as organized units or ones capable of putting up a fight.”

“Just what sort of strength are you talking about here?”

“Myanmarese, so far we’ve got a force estimate of around thirty thousand. We’ve got good intel flowing in now, our patrols are in contact and holding that contact. Second Cavalry, two light armor regiments, one mechanized regiment. Around fifteen thousand sabers.”

At the other end of the line, Petraeus visualized the situation. He could see what Asanee had in mind, an end run that would cut the Myanmar forces off from their base. This would fit very well with his own plans for a counter-offensive if the brewing situation on the Korean Peninsula went hot. In effect, she was offering him a chance to test out the new doctrine in Myanmar before using it in Korea. The concept of moving troops by opening portals to and from Hell offered strategic options that were only now becoming apparent. “How will you supply the units?”

“Sir, every Thai village has a gas station and all of them have large supplies of diesel. Our unit commanders just buy the stuff whenever they need it. Your people never could adapt to that in Cobra Gold, that’s why your vehicles ran out of gas and ours didn’t. There’s enough fuel up at Three Pagodas to keep the division running for four days. By then, we can either open up a land route or portal fuel in from Hell. Ammunition likewise. Food’s no problem, all our troops can live off the jungle.”

“Or have pizza delivered. Yes, General, I’ve heard all about what your troops get up to during Cobra Gold. This isn’t an exercise.”

“No Sir. But, the lessons about living off the country still apply. Sir, take my word on this, we’re good at it. And we’re in amongst our own people, it’s a point of honor for them to help out. Sir, this way we can pull the sort of flanker that hasn’t been done since Inchon.”

“You admire MacArthur?” Petraeus was genuinely interested and it was a good means of stalling while he weighed up the situation..

“Not so much. Ridgeway, yes, very much so. Patton also. So, are our plans approved?”

Petraeus tapped his pad with a pencil, the sound clearly coming through over the phone link. “Yes. General, your orders are to move Second Cavalry to Three Pagodas Pass and then maneuver to seize the supply line of the Myanmar forces.”

General Asanee nodded, then remembered that she wasn’t on the ubiquitous video links that controlled the Human Expeditionary Army. “Very good sir. And thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet General. We’re doing something that has never been done before, maneuvering units like this. If this comes off, everything we learned about strategy will be outdated.”