by Stuart Slade
“How soon can you have a crisis response group ready to go?” The voice at the other end of the line was urgent and spoke with the tone that he’d learnt was unique to Colonel’s and above who needed to be heard *right now*.
“That’s a very open question. What kind of crisis? How many affected? First or second lifers? Where is it and … . . sorry, who is this?”
“This is Colonel Paschal, Director of Operations for DIMO(N). We’re looking at way over fifteen thousand victims in a concentration camp environment. Hand your work over to your deputy, thin out your staff to the minimum needed and get the rest assembled for a quick move. We have a major disaster on hand and it’s a complicated scenario.”
“Complicated how?” Weems didn’t like being ordered around so abruptly but he’d learned that, here in Hell, the military forces had the upper hand and their brusque, terse approach to problems actually worked.
“Most of the victims are angels.”
Angelic Treatment Ward, Bethesda Naval Hospital, Bethesda, MD
“What is happening? Are we on Earth?” Maion spoke weakly. She was confused and bewildered by everything that had happened. The last thing she could clearly remember was the pain and filth of the prison she had been sent to. Then, the rest was a mixture of half-remembered scenes, flashing lights and humans everywhere. Humans who seemed to be in charge.
“We are. You are in a thing called a hospital, it’s where humans treat their sick and wounded. They call such people ‘patients’ and have people called ‘doctors’ and ‘nurses’ who look after them.” Lemuel paused and look rueful. “Don’t argue with them Maion, just do as they say. They get very angry if others try and interfere with them looking after their patients.”
Maion very carefully lifted her head and looked around. The movement attracted the attention of a human woman dressed in white with a name-tag reading “Grace” on it. She took a clipboard from somewhere and started writing down numbers from the equipment that surrounded Maion’s bed. “Well, Maion, how are we feeling today?”
“I can’t feel much at all.” Maion was slightly confused and also resentful. Humans were menial servants, that was how it had been all her life. The idea that one could address her, not just as an equal but as her superior, drove through the strange fog that filled Maion’s mind.
“I’m not surprised. We had to pump you full of morphine so you could recover. When did you become an addict by the way?”
“What?” Lemuel was shocked by the casual question.
“Don’t interrupt.” Grace snapped the response at him. “Maion, we ran an analysis panel on your blood, once you had enough to analyze that is, and that told us you were a heroin addict. A couple of cops we have helping out here told us where to look and we found the injection marks between your toes. That’s not a good idea by the way, you can get gangrene and lose your feet doing that.”
Maion was bewildered, she couldn’t understand a lot of what the nurse was saying and the fact that the humans had discovered her secret so easily shocked her.
“About two years, two and a half. At first it was just a bit of fun, it made parties so much better. Then, I found how bad it was if I didn’t get it. In the end, I had to work at the club to earn enough.” Maion cudgelled her brain, trying to remember what it was that she could say and what she had to keep secret. “Michael-Lan’s nightclub that is. I had to dance there and do other things, just to get my stuff. I’m sorry Lemuel, I wanted to tell you but I was ashamed.”
Lemuel moved closer to her and took her hand. Grace caught the action and smiled to herself, at least these two would help each other out. She’d seen enough addiction treatments to know that recovering from addiction was much easier if it was a joint affair. “Don’t be hard on her Lemuel, you’re an addict too.”
“What?” Lemuel was genuinely stunned by the offhand comment.
“We ran a panel on you too. You’ve been using opiates in small quantities for quite some time. You’re not hooked the way Maion is, but you’re an addict just the same. Kiddies, don’t mess with this stuff, it will really screw you up.”
“What?” Lemuel simply didn’t understand what was happening around him. He was out of his depth, flailing around in an effort to get his mind around the things he was learning.
“Say that once more and I’ll have you assigned to washing out bedpans.” Grace smiled to take the sting out of her words. “Look, we can handle this. It’s no big thing really. Anyway, Maion, don’t worry about this great lummox, we’ll take care of him as well. When we get time that is, we’re getting overworked with all the concentration camp victims coming back from Heaven. You’re not alone here any more, there are more than a dozen patients just like you here. Some of them worse. If it’s any consolation to you, everything we learned treating you is helping us look after them better.”
Maion lifted her head again and looked carefully around, feeling the strain on her neck and shoulders as she did so. There were three other angels in her ward, all surrounded by the same equipment as hers, all with human staff looking after them. She also saw her own wings stretched out within a wooden frame.
Grace caught her glance. “The surgeons operated on your wings. They managed to repair the damage to the bones between the joints. You’ve got titanium screws in there to hold the bones together. The joints? Well, they’ve done the best they can but the damage was very severe. We had experts come in from Ireland, that’s a place thousands of miles away, to help fix the damage but whether they did any good, we just don’t know.”
“Will I fly again?” Maion was almost desperate, trying to imagine a world when she couldn’t fly any time she wanted.
Grace hesitated. There were times to lie and times to tell the truth and it was hard to know which applied here. In the end she settled for the truth. “I don’t know, but the doctors think the chances are not good. We’re not quite sure how you fly, but the surgeons think those wing joints will be very stiff and hard to move, even when they’re healed. If they heal. That’s all for the future though, we can cross that bridge when we come to it.” She switched her attention to Lemuel. “As for you, you look pretty sick too. Lack of sleep, no food and withdrawal symptoms. Get some rest. That’s an order.”
There was a racking groan from the other end of the ward. One of the other angels was coming around. Grace reinserted the clipboard into its holder at the end of the bed and took off in the direction of the sound. Overhead, the roof of the tent shook as Bethesda’s Mi-26 brought another angel in for treatment.
Chapter Sixty Seven
Headquarters, Incomparable Legion Of Light, Heaven.
“Oh man, can’t we all just get along?”
Raphael-Lan covertly raised his eyebrows in despair. “I really wish we could, especially after all the work you put in with the humans a couple of millennia ago. Michael-Lan really admires that, you know. The sheer patience and concentration needed to control that carpenter for so many years, well, it was an achievement he really respects. A pity it all turned out so badly. Anyway, we, or rather you, have a job to do. He Who Must Not Be Named wants you to lead the Incomparable Legion and its human levies against the army invading Hell.”
“Oh crap. Why don’t we just sit down and talk this out with them? Anyway, which one, man? There are human armies all over the place.”
“The nearest one will do.” Which, just by great good fortune happens to be the one best fitted to kill you and wipe out Yahweh’s personal bodyguard. “In any case, The One Above Us All has a personal interest in them. The prison used to hold those who betrayed His Holy Will has been overrun by humans and it must be recaptured. Immediately. Such are the unquestionable commands of The Most High.”
Raphael-Lan watched the figure the other side of the table shake his head. “He really needs to mellow out and smell the roses. My Unspeakable Father has palaces all over Heaven, what’s one more or less to Him?”
“I think it’s the angels within His Omnipotence is worried about.
They defied His Holy Will after all.”
“Ominpotence? That’s a joke. What things I could tell you. Still, if the Old Man wants it, I guess it must be done. Keep Him chilled out. Where?” There was something subtly different about the last word, one that made Raphael-Lan look sharply across the table.
“Here. I suggest you take the entire Legion and hit this point just opposite the camp. There’s only a thin skin of human forces there, most of the rest are spreading out to secure their base area. When the Incomparable Legion breaks through here, you can spread out inside and collapse the whole area. You will earn yourself much glory in the eyes of He Who Is Above Us All.”
The snort of laughter surprised Rafael-Lan. “Like sure, man. Like My Eternal Father is going to be cool with anything I do. Thank you, Rafael-Lan, for your wisdom and insight. Pass word to He Who Must Be Obeyed that his Dutiful Son will lead the Incomparable Legion to victory.”
Raphael-Lan made his obeisance and left the tent to fly back to the Eternal City. That was getting more dangerous now there were human aircraft in the skies over Heaven. Their fastest and most powerful could sweep down and take out their target before there was any sign of their presence. Things in Heaven were already changing fast. Less than a week since Lemuel and Maion had opened the doors and already Angelic control of Heaven was slipping.
Back in the headquarters, Enatenael-Lan-Elhmas was staring at the map spread out on the table. “Eternal Lord, do we do as Raphael suggests?”
“Like hell man. Raphael and Michael are good people but they just don’t know humans the way I do. We throw in an assault at the point he suggested sure, but it’ll be a feint. The humans will have to respond to it, they have hordes of human civilians helping out at the hell-hole My Auspicious Father created. They’ll want to protect them, so they’ll pull in units from all around to stop us. Enatenael-Lan, take one cohort of the Incomparable Legion and its human levies. That’ll give you 10,000 angels and five times that number of levies. Keep pushing at the forces the humans throw at you. Once they’ve stripped the rest of their perimeter to stop you, I’ll lead the other nine Cohorts and their levies in. They’ll punch right through the thinned-out human lines. It’ll be rough on you and your Cohort but it’ll cost us less overall.”
“Very good Eternal Lord.” Enatenael-Lan crossed his wings in front of his face and swept out to gather his forces.
Far, far overhead, beyond the ability of Angelic eyes to see or ears to hear, the RQ-4 Global Hawk turned at the end of its reconnaissance run and relayed its pictures of the ground below back to the surveillance center.
Headquarters, Human Expeditionary Army, Heaven.
As a command center, Heaven beat Hell any day. It was, well, heavenly just to be able to open a window and let fresh air enter the building. After almost two years spending most of his time in Hell, General of the Armies David Petraeus appreciated the simple virtues of being able to breath fresh air, unprocessed by filters and electrostatic precipitators.
“Well, they’re on the move at last.” It surprised Petraeus that it had taken the Angelic Host so long to react to his invasion. He didn’t regret it, the most crucial hours of any invasion were those as the first units started to arrive. At first they had been too few and too spread-out to offer a solid defense but the delay in Angelic response had made them miss the opportunity. He had an entire Army in Heaven now with additional portals opening up daily. The Russians and Chinese were pouring in as well, doing the same as he was, establishing a perimeter and making sure it was secure. Back in Hell, Fourth Army Group was ready to move as soon as any news of an Angelic incursion on to Earth was reported. The possibility that the Angelic Host might try an end-run and suck him out of Heaven by threatening Earth had occurred to Petraeus and he had made preparations to allow for it. With Fourth Army Group ready to portal to any point on Earth and human leg infantry and militia there already, Earth was as secure as he could make it.
“Splitting their force too.” General Sir Michael Jackson looked at the displays that dominated the wall of the command center.
“That’s a feint.” Major-General Asanee tapped the smaller of the two forces. “It’s heading for Belial’s concentration camp. I guess the enemy commander knows us well enough to realize we have to protect the civilians there.”
“And he thinks we’ll strip the forces we have on the rest of the perimeter to do so. He doesn’t know us as well as he thinks.” Petraeus thought for a second. “We do need to move up some reserves there though. Michael, where are our First Demonic and Caesar’s Third Legion?”
Jackson flicked through the sheets on his clipboard. “Well-placed David. We can have them up there quickly enough to set up a good defense.” He hesitated briefly, “are you sure you want them to take this on. Neither unit is seasoned and we don’t know if either can actually fight.”
“Then we had better find out hadn’t we?” Asanee was staring at the map, her mind working out distances and times. “This is a golden opportunity to do so. It is a feint so if they crumple, we won’t lose too much and we can restore the situation using my corps and Third US Armored. I wonder if the guy on the other side knows Third has moved south?”
“Probably.” Petraeus was also calculating time and distance. “My guess is that the humans here are funnelling information to him. They’re pretty loyal to their angels. So, we can assume that the opposition have a lot of tactical intelligence on us but very little strategic level stuff. They’re not fighting completely blind the way Satan and his commanders did. We can expect a lot more skill tactically but they still haven’t grasped how fast we can move or how much firepower we can switch around. I must admit, I find the loyalty of the humans here disappointing.”
“I don’t find that at all surprising.” Jackson was interrupted by a snort from Asanee. “Remember we haven’t found any humans here from later than the latter part of the dark ages. We might regard the status of humans here as seriously dire but compared with what they are used to, this place really is paradise. We might even hypothesize that the Gates of Heaven were closed once our expectations exceeded the reality of this place.”
“I’m sure the historians will love discussing that.” As a scholar himself, Pestraeus could understand the fascination of solving such puzzles. But, that was for later. “So, we let the two integrated demon and second life human units take the brunt of this feint.” Petraeus thumbed a button on the intercom system and rapped out a string of orders. The aide on the other end would be taking them down and turning his General’s wishes into military movement orders. “We’ll give them a helping hand of course, there’s a reason why we’ve given priority to moving artillery units into the bridgeheads. Now, that brings us to the main force. Any ideas?”
“Assuming it moves on a direct path to its target, that means it will hit around here.” Jackson tapped the display with a wooden pointer. “The Global Hawk is telling us this push is a really big one, some 90,000 angels and more than 450,000 humans.”
“About the same size as Abigor’s push in Iraq. I wonder how well those humans will fight. If they’re so downtrodden as to think this place is Paradise, do they have the spirit to fight at all?” Asanee was thoughtful. She produced a laser pointer from a pocket and shone the red spot on the display. “They’ll be hitting all along this area. They’re lagging behind the feint though; I’d guess the idea is to draw us off.”
“That’ll play against them. We won’t just be learning how well our own demon units fight, we’ll be learning how the Angelic Host fights. That’s going to be important, according to DIMO(N) the combat strength of the Angelic Host is in excess of 60 million angels and up to 300 million humans.” Petraeus noted the sharp intakes of breath from Jackson and Asanee. “Food for thought isn’t it.”
“Mostly, how come the daemons fought them to a standstill in the Great Celestial War.” Asanee was trying to envisage commanding an Army that big. “They’ve got a weakness, a bad one somewhere.”
“D
IMO(N) has an answer for that as well. According to their research, daemons are pretty fertile and their birth-rate replaced their casualties. Angels, not so much. Their fertility and birth rate are low so they are short in replacements. That probably translates into a very casualty-adverse mindset. I think if we study that Great Celestial War we will find that it was mostly skirmishing with the Angels refusing to get too heavily committed for fear of the casualties they’d take while the demons tried to avoid major battles because they knew they’d be heavily outnumbered.”
“So, we hit this army hard. Give them a butcher’s bill that’ll make their eyes water.”
“Exactly right, and when we hit that main force, we have just the tools we need to do it.” Petraeus sighed. “Here we go again. I suppose I’m going to have to write another inspiring order-of-the-day.”
“You are lucky David, you can email it out. If Caesar was sitting there, he would have to give it personally. With the size of our Army, that could take years.”
Angelic Treatment Ward, Bethesda Naval Hospital, Bethesda, MD
The results looked as if they were just about as bad as he had feared. Doctor Daniel Zinder held the x-rays up to the light and peered at the reforming bones. It turned out angels did have the same remarkable healing powers as daemons but in this case it wasn’t helping his patients at all. Maion was the most advanced of them and the bones in her wing joints were indeed recovering. The only problem was, they were fusing into an immobile mass of bone. Flying was out of the question, it would be a miracle of she could fold her wings at all.
