by Stuart Slade
Al-Sohl saw strange things, weird shapes, strange colors, indescribable things that he forgot as soon as he saw them. Things that no human mind could ever recall because they were swamped out by the great white glow as the tiny dot in his vision swelled up and filled his vision. It changed, dimmed slightly then resolved into white and gray shadows. He blinked, his eyes slowly recovering and the shadows started to make sense. The white glow was lighting, the shadow was a woman bending over him. A nurse.
“Mr al-Sohl? Husni al-Sohl?”
He tried to croak out an answer but all he could do was to nod his head.
“That’s wonderful. We’ve been keeping an eye open for you as the dead came through. The Israeli Army asked us to.”
“Did I kill the Beast?” The voice was still a croak.
The nurse hesitated. “No, but you hurt him badly enough that he broke off the attack to recover. That bought enough time to evacuate more civilians from the area. Your sacrifice saved a lot of lives, tens of thousands of them. You’re quite the hero you know. We’ve even got some virgins who’ve volunteered to come over and give you a proper welcome.”
Presidential Palace, Naypyidaw, Myanmar
“You let us down!” Than Shwe’s voice was accusing and peevish.
Michael-Lan stared down at the ridiculous figure with something close to disbelief. “Pardon?”
“You promised us you’d help us with the war against the Siamese. Now we will have to run, spend the rest of our lives in exile because you failed us.”
“If you think I promised you anything, little humans, you are sadly mistaken. I merely pointed out that the opportunities that were there for you. If you can’t turn them into reality, then that’s your fault.”
“You owe us! We have been together for years, we closed our country off from the world so you could come here in peace.”
“You were well paid for your services. Do you think I do not know how high were the prices you charged for your goods? And how low were the values you gave me for the jewels and gold you got in return.” You are really, really pathetic, thought Michael, as if I, an archangel owe you anything or should treat you as anything more than humble menials. It is you who are duty-bound to us, not the other way around. We owe you nothing. Michael-Lan reflected that he rather liked humans but their constant demands to be treated as equals were wearing.
Still, despite these people’s whining, they had done him proud on this trip. The power-assisted cart that he was using had been piled high with highly-refined number four heroin and huge numbers of methamphetamine tablets. They’d said they were cleaning out all their stocks and that appeared to be just what they had done. Even with his own literally superhuman strength augmented by the electric motors on the cart, he had difficulty overcoming the inertia of the huge cargo. It really was very, very heavy.
“Here, despite your rudeness, I have a final payment for you.” Michael-Lan fished inside his robes and tossed Than Shwe a large bag, one stuffed with precious stones Michael had ‘liberated’ from Yahweh’s palace. “They are a generous payment.”
Than Shwe counted the stones, running them through his fingers. “Generous indeed. And they will have to be now our country is collapsing before the Siamese Army. Our exile will be a long one.”
Michael-Lan raised his eyebrows at the whining voice, then jerked hard on the cart to get it around the corner that led out of the storeroom into the corridor that led to the outside of the palace building. At least, when the palace had been built, they’d had his bulk and size in mind so the corridors were high and wide. That made maneuvering the cart much easier. Michael reflected that the cart really was remarkably heavy.
Israeli Navy Submarine “Tekuma”. Eastern Mediterranean
“The news is still bad?” Captain Alex Ben-Shoshan was almost hoping nobody would hear the question so he wouldn’t get an answer.
“Very bad. The Scarlet Beast has broken into Jerusalem. It is laying waste the city and destroying all that is sacred there. The Whore of Babylon spreads her contamination across the city and none survive its poison. The Whore protects the Beast while the Beast destroys and together they kill everything. The dead already number in their hundreds of thousands. ” The Executive Officer on the submarine took a deep breath and stabilized his voice. The news from Tel Aviv had been shocking, the city had fallen, surviving humans were streaming away from it in great columns. For the first time in the Salvation War, a human city had fallen to the netherworlders and its population reduced to panicking refugees.
“What about our allies? Is there no help coming for us?”
“General Petraeus is sending aid, at least a corps of his army. But he must assemble them first, they are spread all over Hell, trying to stabilize the situation there. Then he must open a portal, move them through and get them ready to fight. By that time, there will be little left of us to save.”
Ben-Shoshan sighed. The eternal strategic curse of Israel, the country was simply too small. All its vital areas were packed closely together and an attack on one could hardly avoid damaging the rest. If the Scarlet Beast and the Whore finished destroying Jerusalem and then moved to the country’s heartland, it would all be over.
“Is there any word from Tel Aviv? Do they have orders for us.”
“Yes, Captain. For us, for Dolphin and for Leviathan. We are to prepare for Operation Masada immediately. We are designated as the prime shooter with the other two backing us up. We must destroy the Beast before it moves out of Jerusalem. Authorization to fire can be expected very soon. Tel Aviv says we are to be ready.”
“Then we shall. Order the munitions experts to prepare the packages and get our missiles ready to shoot.” Ben-Shoshan laughed sadly. “When I joined the submarine arm and learned of our missiles, I had many ideas about the day we would finally use them. But never once did I think of a situation like this.”
Chapter Forty
B-1C “Spirit of Sheffield”, Over Los Angeles
“We’ve joked about doing this you know. Never thought we actually would.” Group Captain Martin Winters was keying the GPS coordinates for the 96 GBU-39 bombs nestling in the Spirit of Sheffield’s bomb bay. Behind him, he knew that the weapons systems operator on the second B-1C, Spirit of Detroit was doing the same.
“What, bomb a U.S. City? We had plans for that was well, and we weren’t joking. But then SAC had plans for everything.” Colonel Fitzhubert was an old SAC hand, recalled to the colors along with every other veteran with a pulse and a body temperature greater than ambient. Or so it seemed. “Double and triple-check those coordinates, we’re threading a needle with these things.”
That was an understatement, Winters thought. The bombs had to go down along a thin strip of rough country between the built up areas on Hacienda Heights and the crowded city of Whittier down in the valley. They were lucky they had small-diameter bombs. He could imagine the chaos that two thousand pound bombs could cause down there. “Everybody keeping out of our way?”
“You bet. The fighters are hanging back, waiting for us to flush the game. As soon as Uriel bales out of his cover, we’re out of here and they’re in. Guns and missiles blazing. And the two Scalpels of course.”
“How does that look?” The display showed the bright areas of built-up Los Angeles with a red spot indicating the predicted impact point of the bombs. They formed a dense mass, completely blanketing the Turnbull Canyon area. Spirit of Detroit was making her run at almost a 90 degree angle, pounding the area between Hacienda Heights and La Habre. They had the bad job, there were a small number of scattered homes in that area and the chance of people in them surviving was slight.
“Good job. Let’s hope it all works.” Fitzhubert swung the B-1 around and set the bomb-navigation system to make the optimum delivery run. Bombing people had come a long, long way in a just a little less than a century. “And how do you like the B-1C?”
“She’s beautiful. Can’t wait until we get our hands on ours.” Winters paused and t
hen spoke awkwardly. “I’d like to thank you guys for her name. On behalf of those who didn’t get out of the city.”
“It seemed right somehow. You know two of the Russian Blackjacks are named For Sheffield and For Detroit?”
Winter nodded . “The cities need to be remembered, it’ll be hard enough rebuilding them in our lifetimes. Ah, here we go.”
Underneath the B-1, the bomb bay doors had opened and the GBU-39s were spilling out in a steady stream.
West of Hacienda Heights, Los Angeles, California.
Uriel sat cross-legged on the ground, his wings folded behind him, every nerve concentrating on transmitting his will to the humans gathered beneath him. They were resisting him, fighting him even more strongly than the humans at Eucalyptus Hills and El Paso had fought him. It was as if the very fact that others had proved fighting was possible that inspired these humans to try and outdo the earlier efforts. With almost grim despair, Uriel realized that was precisely what was happening and its significance was not lost on him. Every city, every target he attacked from now on would fight harder than the last. His brain tiring from the effort just added pathos to Uriel’s sudden realization that Heaven was going to lose this war.
Whether paying attention to his surroundings would have made any difference to Uriel was dubious to put it mildly. The B-1s were flying so high that their sound barely reached the ground anyway and it was lost in the blizzard of noise from the circling fighters and the howling of the sirens in the city below. Uriel was lost in his effort to bring his peace to the humans below and even if he had heard the sound of the B-1s high overhead, there was little he could do about it. The bombs were already on the way down.
It was the first ripple of explosions that warned him of the mortal danger he was in. They snapped him out of his trance and broke the concentration of effort he needed to maintain his drive to peace. The bombs exploded several hundred yards to the north of him, their orange flowers looking curiously beautiful in the darkness. As the tide of fire grew nearer to him, Uriel saw something strange and terrible forming, a hideously beautiful silver-blue wall that seemed to devour everything in its path. The sight filled Uriel with terror for as an archangel more deeply associated with death than any other, he knew that silver-blue wall meant death and it was coming for him. For a brief, terrible second he thought of the oblivion he had sent so many millions into and he feared it. Worse, he feared that those others might be waiting for him there.
It was that thought, that he would have to answer for what he had done to the humans in the name of his peace, that broke the spell. Uriel hurled himself into the air, clawing desperately for altitude, his efforts to bring his peace to the humans forgotten. All he knew was that he had to get away with that deadly silver wall and make a portal through which he would escape. In his heart, Uriel knew that he would never again bring his benison of peace to another human community. Even if he survived this night, the humans had broken his spirit. They’d won.
Harvelles Blues Club, 4th Street, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, California
The earthquake shook the club, rattling glasses behind the bar and sending them shimmying off the tables. For a brief moment, it looked as if the crowd were going to panic but the club host was on top of the situation. In any case, he had been listening to a police scanner and knew what the shaking really meant.
“Ladies, gentlemen and other species.” Once again the joke got an appreciative roar from the crowd. “There is no need to panic. The Air Force had found Uriel and the noise is their aircraft bombing his position on the ground. There are more fighters than we can count overhead and they’ll get him. Oh my, will they get him.”
The host paused, he’d suddenly realized something critically important. He wasn’t having to force himself to breath, the pressure forcing him to die was gone. “And, everybody, the Uriel attack is over. The bombing must have forced him to stop. We’ve won. Everybody, we’ve won. And to celebrate, everybody join the band.” He spoke quickly and the band nodded gleefully. Then the thumping rhythm started and the entire audience slammed their hands down in time and echoed the chorus.
“You got mud on yo’ face.
Yo’ a big disgrace.
We’re kickin yo ass all over the place.
We will we will rock you.
We will we will rock you.”
F-18H Over Los Angeles, California
“There he is! Damn, he’s a big bastard.” Wong pulled his F-18 around in a tight racking curve to bring its nose to bear on the great shape that was leaping into the sky. The monster was at least twice the size of the Greater Harpy Heralds he had killed on the first day of the Salvation War, it’s massive bulk starkly outlined by the orange-red explosions that swamped the area where it had been hidden just a few seconds before. Wong saw it trying to claw skywards, trying to get away from the jets that were already converging on its position. Uriel tried to face one of the jets and trumpet but the sound blast was weak and feeble. Probably winded by the blast of the bombs that were still exploding underneath him Wong thought. Then, Uriel seemed to stagger in mid air as two AIR-120 rockets from an F-15 plowed into him.
That was when Wong saw the one thing that none of the human pilots wanted to. A great black ellipse was forming in the sky ahead of Uriel. The monster was running for it, running to escape the pent-up vengeance that was waiting for him at the hands of the humans. The F-18 suddenly bounded forward as its throttles were firewalled and the afterburners turned raw fuel into thrust. Uriel was lurching in the air, Wong realized that he was already hurt, his flying ability degraded by cumulative injuries. He saw Uriel lose stability in the air as the supersonic shock wave from the F-18s passing hit him and the beast tumbled down before trying to regain a path to the ellipse and safety.
The F-18 was doing almost 900 knots when it went through the ellipse. Wong saw the dark of an Earth night replaced by the clear white light of Heaven, saw the green fields and crystal clear sky surrounding him, saw the ellipse behind. He had little time, he skidded his fighter around in a tight curve whose shock waves flattened the crops underneath and sent the humans laboring in the fields flat on their faces. Well, Wong thought at least they’ve learned about supersonic bangs today. Ahead of him, staring at the racing fighter was an angel, a white figure, taller than a human, with great wings folded behind him. Wong couldn’t resist the temptation, the Angel was on a direct line between his aircraft and the portal. It was the work of a split second to dip the nose slightly, thumb the cannon button, then watch the angel fall and disappear in a cloud of dust and explosions as the strafing pass bit home.
Then, white light and green fields were replaced by the darkness of Earth night, a night lit up by the city lights below and the streams of gunfire and the exhaust trails of missiles in the skies above. Wong saw almost instantly that the only reason why Uriel was surviving lay in the sheer numbers of human aircraft that were fighting him. He was alone, he had no allies, no friends, everything that surrounded him was hostile. The human pilots were having to watch each other, avoid each other’s maneuvers and make sure they didn’t shoot each other down. It was an old story, then had been many such tales in the past, of heroic fights by one against many. They always had the same basic problem at their heart, the way a single fighter alone could use the numbers of enemies surrounding them to survive. But they all ended the same way, one day, the single fighter would run out of luck and die.
Uriel had been heading for the ellipse again when Wong’s F-18 streaked out of it. It was a perfect AIR-120 shot, the angel and the fighter were on a direct collision course, there was no need for deflection, no need for leading the target. Another quick thumb stroke on the firing button and four AIR-120s hurtled from their racks and closed the target. The last one missed, to avoid a collision Wong had had to swerve at the last second and that had thrown his aim off, but the other three scored direct hits, one up high near Uriel’s chest, the other two low-down in his groin. Wong passed Uriels head so close that he cou
ld see every detail of his face. For the rest of his life, he would swear that Uriel’s eyes were crossed as a result of the pain and shock from the two AIR-120 hits in his groin.
He had worse problems than just trying to avoid colliding with Uriel though. Brilliant orange-red streaks passing his cockpit. Tracers, an F-16 was behind him, snapping out short bursts of cannon fire.
“Can it, you damned fool!” Wong almost screamed in rage.
“Sorry Squid. Saw you come out of the portal and I thought you were one of them.”
“Bloody Air Farce.” Wong simmered down slightly and swerved his fighter around to line up for another pass. Uriel was still airborne but he was staggering, trying to trumpet, to create a new portal and to emit his killing waves all at once. Shock and injuries were overcoming him and in his anguish he was trying to do everything at the same time and, as a result, he was achieving nothing. He was writhing and flailing in the middle of the mass of fighters that tormented him. Wong felt not the slightest shred of pity for him, and he lined his F-18 up for another pass at the dying archangel.
Presidential Palace, Naypyidaw, Myanmar
Captain Madeuce coughed, the spasms racking his body. The cloth he used to cover his mouth came away stained with dark green mucus, a darker, red-gray dirt that was even more ominous than the infection-laden slime and a spattering of bright red blood. None of it surprised him. The scientific name for what was killing him was Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, the common name was acute silicosis. To Madeuce it was ‘rocks in the chest’ and he knew he didn’t have much longer to go. Every time had had seen the doctors, the prognosis had been worse. Their forecast had dropped from decades to years, and now was but a more few months. And those months would not be good ones.
It was his visit to the Hell-Pit that had killed him. He’d breathed the dense clouds of volcanic dust for over a week without any form or protection and the fine pumice had infiltrated every portion of his lungs. It was too heavy for the normal actions of breathing to expel so it had settled there, irritating the tissues around the particles. The lungs had dealt with the problem their traditional way, by producing mucus. Only, that had been absorbed into the pores of the pumice and what had started as a fine dust had quickly set into solid cement. In its simplest, most accurate version, Madeuce was suffocating as his lungs filled with rocks. Just to make matters worse, the pumice agglomerates had sharp edges and were tearing at the delicate tissues around them. The doctors had tried everything they could think of but it was no use. The damage was too great and it all went to show that First Life human beings had no real place in Hell and even less in the Hell-Pit.
