by Stuart Slade
By running for Heaven, he had so nearly missed his chance. He had taken himself out of the competition for leadership of the resistance to human rule of Hell, the resistance that he knew had to be building somewhere in the hinterland of Hell. This also was Euryale’s fault, if she hadn’t betrayed him so brutally, so finally, he would never have fled to this pale, insipid Heaven. Instead, he would have been the leader of the daemonic resistance and, once the humans had been driven out, the ruler of a new kingdom. For a moment he allowed himself to slip into a daydream, one in which he devised new and ever more excruciating torments to be inflicted on Euryale as soon as the opportunity arose.
“My Lord?” Ohiel-Lan-Epidan spoke carefully. More than one Angel had been transferred from guard on the outside to prisoner on the inside for offending Belial. “Your orders?”
Belial snapped himself out of his reverie, one in which Euryale had been begging him for her death. “All Angels will form up on the walls and fight off the humans. Go now and spread the word.”
He watched the angel head off to the walls, carrying the word that would start the fight against the humans. Then, he turned away and started the mental disciplines necessary to open a portal to Earth.
Spearhead Battalion, Third Armored Division, Heaven
“York crews, get ready to deal with any Airborne angel attacks.” The six M1314A1 anti-harpy guns were spread out in a long line to cover her tanks and MICVs. “Alpha and Bravo companies, concentrate fire on the gatehouse in front. Five rounds rapid, Alpha Company advance to the gully after three. Use up the sabot ammunition, keep the HEAD and beehive rounds for when we have to deal with the Angels. Charlie and Delta companies, use your chain guns to hose down the top of the wall. Bravo will advance with me as soon as Alpha is in position. On my mark… Fire.”
Thirty 120mm sabot rounds streaked across the gap separating the tanks from the walls of Belial’s concentration camp. The crystal-clear picture of the gatehouse vanished under roiling clouds of dust as the rods slammed into the stone, powdering it and sending fragments spinning into the sky. Looking at the scene, Stevenson realized that it had a distinct resemblance to the dust-laden atmosphere of Hell. So, we’ve brought Hell to Heaven. Angels, meet depleted uranium. And the more you fight, the worse it is going to get Her tank lurched again as her gunner slammed out a second. She could see the dust cloud covering the gate roil as the sabot bolts tore through it. The third salvo ripped out, then the fourteen tanks of Alpha Company accelerated out of their positions and started to move to a deep gully that would provide them with hull-down positions for further shots at the already-battered gatehouse. Her own tank lurched twice more as two additional shots were squeezed off, then her two command tanks led Bravo company in a leap-frogging movement to their next designated fire positions.
Half way through the move, she was checking on Alpha Company to make sure they were sustaining fire on the gate and wall around it. Back in the old days, she wouldn’t have had to do that but the massive expansion of the Army had meant quality had dropped. A lot. Still, the company were firing slowly and deliberately at the gatehouse structure. One of the towers was already down, the other looking decidedly battered from the sabot rounds that were splitting the marble apart. As she watched, a great sheet of shining white stone detached from the face of the tower and crashed to the ground. Then, there was a sound that reminded her of a bell chiming and her tank lurched.
“What the hell was that?” Her loader’s voice came over the intra-vehicle comms system.
Stevenson thought for a split second. “Trumpet blast. Our insulation took most of it and the active noise cancellation system a lot more so what we heard was what leaked through.” Enough to make a 70-ton tank rock she thought. Angels were a lot more dangerous than daemons.
She switched over to the battalion command frequency. “Charlie and Delta, we’re taking trumpet blasts here. Maintain fire on the wall. York, any angels trying to fly yet?”
York Battery’s commander was probably listening on the radio, waiting for the chance to blow something up. “No sign of any flight activity ma’am. All trying to stay under cover I guess.”
“Hokay, use the radar for surveillance and pick off any that do appear. In the meantime, switch your gun to electro-optical and hose down that wall.”
I guess his finger must have been on the fire button all the time. The brilliant red streaks from the 57mm tracer rounds were slashing at the wall-top before she had time to formulate the thought. By the time her attention had returned to the gatehouse, her tanks had opened fire and the different angles of impact had brought the second tower down. “Shift fire to the gate itself. One round HEAD.”
With the protecting bulk of the towers down and the gate supports severely compromised, the single barrage of HEAD rounds were enough to leave gates themselves a mass of burning splinters. “Bravo Company, follow me. Alpha, pick up behind. Everybody else, keep hammering the wall top either side of the gates.”
The temptation to open the tank up and watch what was happening through the open commander’s cupola was great but Stevenson crushed it down hard. The lesson of Hell was quite clear, humans were more or less safe inside their armored vehicles. It was when they left the protection of rolled homogenous armor that things went wrong. Her tank started to rise as it crossed the burning rubble of the gate, then its nose dipped and Setevson saw what lay inside the compound. For a brief moment sheer blind fury grabbed hold of her and she wanted to swing her coaxial machine gun across the camp guards who were already throwing down their swords. She managed to master the impulse, just, by the barest of margins. For a second the lights inside the tank flickered and the computers blipped, then there was a rattle that she recognized as machinegun fire hitting her tank.
“What happened?” Her voice was terse and strained.
“One of the guards, took a swing at your tank with what looks like an electrically charged sword. Bravo-three, four, five and six took him down with coax.”
“Roger that. Thank’s for the service guys. Tanks, spread out, keep the rest of the guards covered. For pity’s sake be careful how you maneuver, we don’t want to crush the poor bastards in the mud.” She took another look at the center of the compound where the prisoners held there were staring at the human tanks that had just blasted their way into their own private Hell. “Charlie and Delta, move on up. York, follow them. Which one of you has that TV crew on board?”
“That’s us Colonel. Charlie-Seven.”
“Hokay, get up here fast. The world has got to see this.”
Chapter Sixty Six
Sampson Household, Sapulpa, Oklahoma, USA
“The following news items contains images and stories that some viewers may find distressing. Viewer discretion is therefore advised. Nikole, are you there?” The news broadcast cut away from the studio into a scene that, from its clear white light, should have been Heaven. Only, the sight of the walled enclosure and the vile, filth-drenched mud of the ground seemed more like Hell than Heaven. The wailing from the crippled inhabitants of the camp made the situation even more confused. John Sampson had spent most of his life as a fairly observant Episcopalian but he was sure that he had never heard of anything like this in Heaven. In the background, a large group of humans were trying to lift an angel out of the mud and load the victim on to a tank transporter so it could be moved away from the scene. For a brief second, the sounds of the camp were drowned out by a Mi-26 helicopter flying overhead, carrying another angel as a slung load. Then the pitiful sounds of the camp returned, the contrast with the roar of the helicopter engines making them even more plaintive.
“Hello, Anita? Good to hear from you.” She turned slightly and faced the camera rather than the monitor off to her left. “This is Nikole Killion reporting from Heaven. Earlier today, the Spearhead Battalion of the Third Armored Division overran this concentration camp, here, in Heaven. Ladies and gentlemen, I spent six months in Hell as your assigned correspondent there. I saw many thin
gs in Hell, some too dreadful ever to put on television. I saw our tortured dead being retrieved from the Hellpit. I saw battlefields where the mangled corpses of the daemons who died trying to fight our tanks with bronze tridents covered mile after mile. I saw more than I ever wanted to of horror in Hell but I saw other things as well. I saw our humanity as we succored those in need, I saw the tenderness and compassion of our troops as they treated the crippled and wounded. And I saw the guilt of the daemons themselves as the evil influence of Satan faded and they realized the error of their ways. I saw their joy when the realized the weight of oppression was lifted from them. But never did I see in Hell anything like the scenes I have witnessed here today.”
Behind the camera Killion saw the producer made the traditional ‘you’re laying it on too thick’ sign. Before she could resume though, there was a dreadful scream from behind her. The angel had been lifted on to a cargo palette so that it could be moved more easily but one of its broken wings had caught the edge and been twisted around. Undoubtedly the bones had grated against each other to produce that scream of pain. Killion glanced again at the producer and got a ‘forget it, you were right’ sign.
“This concentration camp is something beyond our understanding. The Armenian Massacres, Auschwitz and the rest of the Holocaust, the Rwanda Massacres, the Hellpit, all of those were executed by one group oppressing another. That isn’t an excuse for them of course but it highlights the fact that this place is different. The only thing that separates the angels in this camp from the rest is that these ones didn’t quite agree with everything Yahweh said. For that one crime, they ended up here, their wings, and in many cases their legs, broken beyond repair. The doctors here have told me they will do what they can but these are the worst bone injuries they have ever seen. Colonel Keisha Stevenson, commander of the Spearhead Battalion, has spared a few minutes of her time to speak with us. Colonel, what is happening right now.”
“Hokay, Nikole. Our first priority is to get the victims in this place out. I’ll be honest with you, some of these angels are not going to make it. The least we can do is get them out of here so they can die in more comfortable circumstances. We’ve got a hospice area set up a mile or so away, we’re moving the beyond-hope ones there and doping them up with morphine so their final hours will be as pain-free and pleasant as possible. The rest, we’re trying to get to hospitals on Earth. It’s triage I’m afraid, separating those who can be saved from those who cannot. The worst duty of any doctor tasked with handling a major disaster has to face.”
Across the bottom of the television screen, a message bar started to roll. It was an appeal for assistance in handling the unfolding disaster. One of many such appeals that had been launched ever since the Salvation War had started. John Sampson looked at his wife, Ellen, and exchanged nods. They didn’t have much left but they’d send a little money to help.
“Colonel, have we any idea who was responsible for this horror?” Killion was having trouble keeping her voice level.
“We do. The orders came from Yahweh himself. We have them exactly. ‘ For defying My Eternal Will they should suffer the agonies of Hell for all eternity. I decree eternal damnation for them with all the suffering that their vile treachery deserves.’ And those orders were issued to the commandant of this camp, the daemon Grand Duke Belial.”
“Belial?” Killion could barely believe it and her voice rose uncontrolled. “Belial ran this camp? The one who was responsible for Sheffield and Detroit? What connection does he have with Yahweh?”
“Appears to work for him. And be Satan’s replacement. Of course, since he seems to have been appointed Satan’s replacement by Yahweh, well, it makes us think right? The guards here are nobodies, lowest rank angels. Hierarchy is pretty strong here in Heaven and the lowest ranks of angels are pretty much servants of the higher ranks. That’s what the lan in their names means. ‘Servant of’. From what we can see, the prisoners here are all middle rank angels so the guards took their millennia of servitude out on them.”
“What happened to Belial? Is he in custody?”
“No such luck Nikole. He portalled out as soon as we appeared. Probably went to Earth and then back to either here or somewhere in Hell. We’ll get him in the end.”
“So Yahweh is directly responsible for all of this.” Killion shook her head. “Where do we go from here?”
“Hokay, here, we need help, need it bad. A single combined arms battalion and a med unit aren’t nearly enough. We’re not trained for it, we’re not equipped for it. We need disaster relief specialists right away. For the Spearhead battalion? We gotta job to do over in the Eternal City. There’s folks that need rescuing over there.”
“Humans or angels?” Killion couldn’t help asking.
Stevenson looked around at the scene surrounding them. “Both, I guess.”
Welfare and Assistance Group, Phelan Plain, Hell.
The queue at the camp was endless, as quickly as those at the head could be processed, others arrived and joined the tail. Once people had been reborn as second lifers or rescued from the Hellpit they had been taken through the identification and induction formalities at the initial reception center. Some who came through the gate had already restructured their finances to allow themselves to continue with their existing assets in the second life. They could leave right away, either to the areas run by their own country or to one of the new mini-states that were proliferating across human-occupied Hell. Others had not had that chance and many, many more, especially the refugees from the hellpit had nothing to start with. And so they came here, reborn or recovered, to get some help easing into what was rapidly becoming the most aggressive free market economy in history. Making sure that they had a fair deal and the best start possible was the duty of the Welfare and Assistance Section.
For a peculiar complex of reasons, Australia had been uniquely placed to fill a gap. Its primary industries were now in overdrive to provide raw materials and refining for the growth of the world’s armies and that had caused its unemployment rate had dropped to levels unseen since World War Two. This slump in demand for welfare and assistance had combined with their existing agency’s experience in operating a large and complex welfare system to give them the experience they needed. Add in disaster and crisis response and the fact that Australia had not yet been and was not likely to be a target for a major attack had made them the ideal choice to lead the new multinational welfare organization.
The past year had been a hectic one for Donald Weems. He’d been heading up what he now knew to be a Yah-Yah enhanced cyclone response task force in Queensland, arranging emergency finance, fast-tracking new identification and legal documents for those who had lost them, managing emergency housing as well as dealing with all of the standard welfare agency issues that the affected population had when the call had come through. Five hours later he’d been a QANTAS 747-400 Longreach to Leeds with two hundred staff, spending most of the flight on a conference call with the British welfare agencies, lawmakers and a gaggle of IT groups trying to figure out how to integrate everyone. They’d barely gotten the mess of bureaucracy and technology sorted out when Detroit had been hit and that had been even more of a mess due to the strange idiosyncrasies of the US social security system.
Then the Plateau of Minos reception point had been taken by the H.E.A., where it quickly became clear that the military was not capable, nor motivated to run that service into the future. The announcement had been made that a new second life welfare agency was being created to supplement and eventually replace the military-run holding and recovery facilities. Funding was a nightmare, not least because of certain elements had started raging about “welfare succubae”. Eventually, it had become clear that there were significant savings being made from retirement and old age pensions funds. People were beginning to realize that there was no real point in suffering through a painfully terminal illness when a new life and body were waiting for them ‘the other side’. Earthside medical costs were alrea
dy falling as terminal care was made obsolete by the escalating suicide rate. Several countries were already discussing the legalization of euthanasia. The savings that would bring would allow the Welfare and Assistance Group to function in the interim from existing budgets. At least until a revenue stream from Hell could be established.
It had been eighteen months or more since he had taken over the operations at the camp, and progress was being made rapidly. The tent city that had been the symbol of the reception camps was being slowly replaced by Dongas, pre-fabricated dwellings designed for use at mining sites in the Australian desert, perfectly suited for use in hell. Schools, trade colleges and universities were opening to provide modern education and training. A massive hall had been constructed with the assistance of the New Roman Republic to act as a site for a career and job expo, where people could come and look at their options and be wooed by the ever increasing number of nations and corporations that required workers or citizens. Even sports and recreation facilities were now being built, the YMCA (the C now stood for Charitable) had twenty buildings either completed or nearing completion, the IOC had pitched in for the construction of an athletics ground and swimming facilities. Every attempt was being made to make the transition easier, lives better and help people become self sufficient in Hell.
For all the improvements and rose-tinted publicity though, the bread and butter of the job was still dealing with trauma, grief, shock and pain. For every former pensioner who had chosen to end their painful cancer-ridden life in favor of a healthy second life start or rich, dumb kid who’d wrapped their car around a tree and was now suing for early release of their trust fund as they’d never reach 21 years of age, he had a thousand who’s deaths from famine, disease and violence who required far more resources to support. The worst were the long-time Hell victims who needed constant support for weeks and even months on end from the team of psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors, nurses, social workers and counsellors just to bring them to a level where they could begin the most basic human processes once more. Recently, the armies had started to establish their own facilities to care for their veterans but that left all too many others without a solid foundation for what promised to be a very long life.