Pantheocide

by Stuart Slade

“Could be better, could be worse.” Winters replied. “We’ve been lucky in that Rolls Royce still makes the Olympus engine for maritime and industrial uses. It wasn’t too difficult getting part of the production line switched over to engines for the Vulcan. Other components were more of a problem, though you’d be surprised how many Vulcan and Victor spare parts were sitting forgotten in RAF stores. At current sortie rates we’ve probably got enough to last six to eight months, by which time I hope new components will be in production.”

  “The Rolls-Royce Conway engines of the Victor were more of a problem, they’re not in production any more and spares are in short supply, but so long as Airbus get their fingers out it shouldn’t be a great problem.”

  “I’ll pass that along, Sir, thank you.”

  Winters heard a click and knew that the connection had been severed. He replaced the receiver of his own phone and sat back in his chair wondering how he was going to draw up a training program for heavy bomber air and ground crew using six aircraft that had been designed in the 1950s; well challenges were what life in the Services was all about. Winters looked up at two pictures on his wall, one was a print of a new painting depicting XH558 flying through the skies of Hell, the other, of somewhat less artistic merit, was a photo-shopped picture of a B-1B Lancer in the markings of 617 Squadron. The latter had been hung up when there had been an early expectation of delivery of the Lancer B.1 (as the RAF were planning to call the B-1C), now it just served to mock Winters.

  He stood up and removed the picture from his wall and placed it in a drawer and locked it away.

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

  “What a phalanx they would have made.” Aeneas looked sadly at the daemons who were sitting around cleaning their rifles. “Keep them shoulder-to-shoulder in a phalanx and they would have made chopped turds of everybody.”

  “Even the Spartans?” Anderson enjoyed goading Aeneas.

  “Even us.” One of the delights of teasing the Spartan was that he took everything so seriously.

  “Well, they did, didn’t they.” Ori was less easy to needle. “They took us apart over and over again. That’s where all the legends of humans fighting against armies of monstrous beasts come from. Sergeant Anderson says that even a few years ago, humans would have had bad problems with them. Still, that’s all gone now. Just as our way of war is a thing of the past.”

  “Could you samurai have taken them?” Aeneas was genuinely interested in the concept.

  Ori shook his head. “A small number perhaps. But our arrows would have taken many, many shots to bring them down and to fight a daemon with a sword is a desperate thing. Rifles are better and with them, each of us stands on equal terms with one of them.”

  “Which brings us back to tactics. Or lack of them.”

  “Having problems gentlemen?” Sergeant Gray Anderson pulled over a chair and joined his two drill instructors.

  “The daemons. You were wrong about them. They can fight as units perfectly.”

  “That’s the problem.” Aeneas finished off Ori’s comment. “As long as they’re in one large unit, they’re fine. They move as a unit, fight as a unit, keep their ranks perfectly. It’s not on an individual level that you have your problem, it’s the next level up. Split that big unit into two small ones and try to get them to cooperate, that’s where it all comes apart. Each unit tries to outdo the other, each one wants to ‘get the glory’ and leave the other behind. They just can’t get that idea out of their minds and we’re not the people you need to change things.”

  “If anything, we see their point.” Ori added the coda to Aeneas’s lecture. He couldn’t help thinking that the weeks lecturing human historians on the realities of life in ancient Greece had done wonders for the previously-reticent Spartan.

  “I was rather afraid you’d say that.” Anderson sighed. Trying to turn daemons into modern soldiers was proving much harder than anybody had thought possible. The human way of war was a product of how modern humans thought at a very basic level. Daemons seemed incapable of duplicating it.

  “Give you an example of this.” Aeneas was on a flow now. “Fire and manoeuver. One squad lays down covering fire while the other maneuvers to a better position. Then that squad takes over the firing work from its new position while the first squad moves to its new and improved position. One squad takes a risk to cover the other knowing the other will do the same for it. But the daemons just don’t understand that. Try it and one squad doesn’t see why it should take a chance to help its rivals, the other knows that so it doesn’t take chances either. So nothing happens.”

  “So how does Caesar manage it?” Ori was interested. “He has mixed daemon and human units?”

  “As far as we can make out, he’s keeping humans and daemons in separate low-level units and spacing them out down the line. The humans lay down suppressive fire and provide the support, the daemons do the actual assaults.” Anderson thought carefully, “perhaps we could try that. It can’t work any worse than the things we are trying now. Anyway, how’s your musketry lessons going?”

  Ori frowned. “Musketry?”

  “Sorry, riflemanship. Musketry is an old term for the skills needed to handle a rifle properly. Making progress?”

  “Yes indeed. It is good to get everything working together and make the rifle do what I wish.” Ori had adapted to firing rifles quickly and his aim was improving daily. “But there is a part of my mind that hates what they stand for. What honor is there in warfare if a few weeks training can turn out a rifleman who will cut down his enemy at a distance? A sword, a bow, these take great training to use but a rifle? With a little training a peasant can shoot down a valiant warrior.”

  “That was the whole point.” Anderson spoke dryly. After his retirement from the Army, he’d lived alone for a few years before advancing age made that impossible. Then his children had put him in an ‘assisted living facility’ that, to him, had been a warehouse for people waiting to die. During that time he’d read a lot. “It was guns and citizen-soldiers who ended the reign of absolute kings. Once the king no longer had a monopoly for firepower, their day was done.”

  “But you still had dictators.” Aeneas had listened to his audience as well as speaking to them.

  “We did, but they were different. They held power by force, not by an absolute right. Be that as it may, Aeneas, how are you getting on with the M-115?”

  “It is a hard weapon. So much to think about. The phalanx was so much easier.”

  “Isn’t that rather the problem the daemons are having?” Anderson leaned back in his seat and waved to the bartender for three beers. “Let’s drink to rifles boys. And in beer, not fungus ale.”

  MoD Main Building, Whitehall, London.

  “Well, the septics blew it. They had Uriel cornered but they let him get away. Again.” Field Marshal Dannatt sounded gloomily pleased.

  “It’s not all a complete loss, according to DIMO(N) we gained a lot of information on portals to Heaven that might crack the place open. We all know this siege is getting on people’s nerves.”

  “Siege, Admiral?”

  “What else do we call it? Heaven has us locked out and we’re trying to find a way in so we can storm the place. Heaven’s locked in and they’re making sallies out to try and disrupt our efforts. If that isn’t a definition of a siege, I don’t know what is. As for the septics, well, that was quite a spectacular rescue Michael-Lan-Yahweh pulled.”

  “Did you see the film of him stopping to wave to us as he pulled out? That took big brass ones.”

  “Courage has never been in short supply with the daemons, nor with the angels I suspect. Although Uriel’s chosen mode of attack doesn’t necessarily agree with that. But, if Uriel keeps hitting the septics, they’ll get him eventually. It’s the information from Myanmar that I found much more interesting.”

  “The way the Thais pulled off their counter-attack. Very innovative.” Dannatt was genuinely impressed.
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  “That wasn’t the Thais, that was the Human Expeditionary Army showing how Petraeus plans to fight future wars. The Thai Corps was just the maneuver element. But no, it was the drugs thing that interests me.”

  “Michael buying industrial quantities of hard drugs? Yes, that was rather curious. One wonders what he’s up to. I understand the septics are watching what is left of Myanmar very closely.”

  “They are. But I rather think they have missed the point.” Admiral West looked thoughtfully out of the window. It’s been my experience that vices don’t come singly. Might it be a good time to ask, given Michael buys large quantities of drugs, what else he is buying?”

  “I suppose he’s going to South America for cocaine, but … . .”

  “Not drugs, drink. Doesn’t it seem likely to you that if Michael has this immense need for drugs, he also needs drink for the same reasons?”

  “Whisky.” Light was dawning in Dannatt’s head.

  “Exactly. Whisky. And brandy, vodka, schnapps, gin, whatever else that’s drinkable. Has it struck you that one or two of the Scottish distilleries are doing very well despite the effects of the war? We should put a watch on all the distilleries, at the very least try to catch him buying the stuff. And we should tip the French, Germans, Russians off as well.”

  “And the Americans, they distill whisky.”

  Admiral West looked severely at the soldier. “The Americans do not make whisky. They make a light brown, whisky-like fluid. A description that could also include horse’s urine to which it bears a strong resemblance. Be that as it may, remember what I said about a siege. Well, think on this. Buying this stuff from Earth is a risky activity for Michael-Lan-Yahweh. Yet it’s important enough for him to do and for him to do personally. Surely if it is that important to him, it’s equally worthwhile for us to disrupt that supply. At the very least it will annoy him. At best, it’ll disrupt his plans enough to force him to something desperate and that’ll give us a chance to get him. When people are desperate they make mistakes, bad ones.”

  “Yahweh hasn’t put a foot wrong yet. Although the scholars are telling us Michael is actually the great general of Heaven. So, I suppose we should say that Michael hasn’t put a foot wrong yet.”

  “I might not agree with that.” From one corner of the room, Sir John Sawers, head of the SIS, spoke for the first time. “We don’t know of Michael making any critical mistakes but we know nothing of what is happening in Heaven. He might have made that critical mistake already and we just haven’t seen it yet. If anything that adds importance to your suggestion Admiral. Any way we can keep pressure on Michael-Lan and Yahweh the better.”

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Home of Lemuel-Lan-Michael, Eternal City, Heaven

  Onniel-Lan-Lemuel, mate of Lemuel-Lan-Michael, still resented the reprimands she had received from the guardians of the local temple. They’d noted the growing unhappiness in the Lemuel household and made their own quiet investigations. That had led them to summon her to the temple for advice and counsel. That was what they had called it anyway. Onniel remembered it as being her kneeling in front of the altar for five hours while the Temple Elders lectured her on her failings as a mate and her negligence as a householder. It had been all the worse for the fact that the session had been held in the nave of the temple, open to the view of all. Onniel had no doubt that word of her reprimands would be spreading around the community. She knew without any shadow of doubt, that when she next went to the market, fingers would be pointed at her behind her back and caustic comments made about her failures.

  It was made worse by the fact that she knew the comments were justified. She had treated her mate badly, resenting the way his position in the League of the Holy Court was taking up his time. Heaven was facing an existential crisis, that much was whispered in the markets and meeting places. Nobody admitted it but all knew the war with the humans on Earth was not going well. The sheer speed with which they had overrun Hell and killed Satan had been bad enough. The Angels who were old enough to remember the Great Celestial War had spoken of the long, drawn-out deadlock, the inability of either side to gain an advantage over the other. The pointless fighting that had gone on for millennia after millennia was still a sore memory that had led to Satan being called “the Eternal Enemy”. Yet the human armies had not just withstood his assault, they had counter-attacked and defeated him within a few short weeks. It was whispered, very quietly, with great caution, if humans could score such a rapid victory against Hell, why could they not do the same against Heaven? And why wasn’t Heaven crushing them?

  Onniel knew the answers whispered in the street. The humans gained their power from the fact there were traitors in Heaven. There were those in high places who sided with them, obstructing the plans long-developed by the All-Knowing and protecting the humans who defied His will. It was only as she had knelt before the altar with the constant chanting of condemnation and criticism pouring over her that she had finally realized the League of Holy Court was the primary line of defense against such treason. Lemuel was its leading investigator and in devoting himself to its work, he was directly shielding The One Above All from the treachery that threatened all of Heaven. Her petty grievances were of no importance at all compared with the vital work he was engaged in. That had been made clear in the remorseless censure that had been her lot. Lemuel and his work were important, she was not and if she couldn’t adapt to it, there were plenty of others who would be pleased to take her place. By placing her own petty needs ahead of those that affected all of Heaven, she was succumbing to the deadly sin of pride.

  That ultimatum was the turning point, the prospect that had made her decide to change her attitude. The fact was, she liked being the mate of such an important person. It gave her power and influence, it meant that others stopped and gave way to her. If she was displaced and it became known that this had been so because the sin of pride had caused her to fail in her duties, her descent would be far and fast. She could not bear to contemplate that so she had laid her grievances aside to labor on behalf of Lemuel. She had spent the rest of the day watching the servants clean the house until not a speck of dust remained anywhere. The stones that inlaid the walls had been polished until they glowed and the refractions of light from their hearts filled their rooms. Finally, she had sent other servants out to procure Lemuel’s favorite foods and she had prepared their evening meal for them herself. It had been a long time since she had done that. Now, the table was laid and everything was ready. She took one last look to ensure the room and meal was perfect, then went to greet her mate.

  She reached the entrance hall as Lemuel closed the doors behind him. There, she dropped to her knees and swept her wings in front of her face. Lemuel barely nodded at her, still swept up in his attempts to understand the arrays of conspiracy that existed in Heaven. Onniel bit back a sarcastic comment and, instead gave the traditional greeting to her returning mate. “Most Noble One, your home is tranquil and a haven of rest. Food and wine have been prepared for your pleasure.”

  She saw Lemuel look at her and frown slightly. Had she got the formal greeting wrong? She hadn’t used it for a long time but she was sure that she remembered it properly. It wasn’t as if it was a long or complex chant.

  “There will be no time for that. I must go out again, to worship The One Above All and continue my dedication to his service. I will be out very late again so do not wait up for me.”

  Onniel blinked and looked up at him. “But I have prepared our meal myself and remembered all your favorites. Surely this evening’s worship can wait for such a short period?”

  She saw Lemuel shake his head. “This is work of such great importance that it goes to the highest of the high. I must leave right away. If there is too much food prepared, throw the rest away, there is no need for us to be concerned about such things.” Then Lemuel turned and left.

  Almost blind with rage, Onniel forgot her new resolutions and ran back to where the meal table had been arrange
d. She grabbed the food-loaded central plate and hurled it at the closed doors, watching it explode against them with spiteful satisfaction.

  Temple of Ceaseless Compliance, Eternal City, Heaven

  Once more, Lemuel-Lan-Michael was sprawled on his face in front of the altar chanting his choruses of praise while his companions followed his lead. It was nice to find somewhere he was treated with the respect due to his rank and position. That thought made him slightly guilty, not just because of the deception he was practicing on these people but because he was only going through the motions of prayer. His mind was focussed on his home and the neglect that Onniel seemed to regard as adequate performance of her duties. He had heard the crash behind the doors of his home and seen them shake as the things she had thrown struck them. There just was no way to understand what made women act as they did. He resolved to have another word with the local priests, obviously they hadn’t spoken to Onniel forcefully enough.

  The Chorus completed, Lemuel straightened up and eased the kink out of his back. His eyes were itching again and he felt his chest filled with the urge to cough. Behind him, Perpetiel-Lan-Paschar smirked slightly, it was amazing what the addition of a little Mace to the bowls of burning incense could achieve. The humans really were so very clever, packaging such a useful chemical in those easy-to-use spray cans. Two of his co-conspirators had upped the effect of the Mace-doped incense by giving Lemuel a couple of discrete puffs of the undiluted product at suitable points in the chorus. As a result, Lemuel was in a slightly improved state of distress. Well, it was time to “cure” him.

  “Some Gatorade, Most Noble One? To ease your throat and add extra harmony to the praises we sing to the One Above All. We have the green one this evening.”

  “That would be most acceptable.” Lemuel liked the green Gatorade. He accepted the glass gratefully and drank the contents down, hot noticing the small quantity of hash oil that had been mixed in with it. He felt the warm glow though, and the world began to pick up a rosier hue. Then, to his embarrassment, his stomach rumbled slightly.