by Stuart Slade
Orange Crush Interchange, Los Angeles, California
The Salvation War was a truly multi-national enterprise. That was why sub-munitions made in South Africa were delivered to China for installation in 227mm rockets that were shipped in Greek freighters to Hell where they were issued to American MLRS batteries that gained their mobility from oil that had been drilled in Saudi Arabia and refined in Singapore before being carried by Norwegian tankers to Dutch-built storage facilities on the shores of Hell. Early in the war, at least three economists were reputed to have committed suicide after trying to work out how to pay for everything.
What had made the system possible was the revival of an old system called Lend-Lease. In effect, every nation in the Grand Coalition was supplying whatever it could and it had been agreed that the nations would settle up after the war was over. This was where the Principality of Monaco played its vital part in the war effort. Monaco didn’t have tanks or jet fighters although it did have a well-armed and remarkably courteous police force. What it did have were armies of accountants who were furiously engaged in tracking who was building what and who was supplying which arms to which country. They knew what the balances were and who would owe what to whom. They also acted as a clearing house who matched operational requirements to suppliers.
And that was how a Russian-built MZKT-79221 truck painted U.S.A.F. blue was making its way up Interstate 5. Air Force Sergeant Franzing had been watching the fighting over the city as he had neared Los Angeles, the sky covered with the red streaks of tracer fire and the exhaust trails of missiles. He’d also seen the massive explosion that had ended the battle and wasn’t surprised to find Los Angeles was studded with fires. There was one massive one over to his left and at least half a dozen medium-sized ones scattered over the city. The small fires were everywhere. Whatever had happened here had done a lot of damage. He was making his way towards the Orange Crush interchange when he was pulled over by the California Highway Patrol. They had the road blocked with police cruisers and emergency flares were marking out all the available lanes. That meant an imposing array of flares. State Police Officer Earl Scott was, nevertheless, impressed by the sheer mass of automobile engineering that was stopped in front of him.
“Just what is that thing?”
Air Force Sergeant Franzing looked down at the police officer below him. “It’s a very big truck.”
Once, that remark would have been an invitation to a prompt arrest on a charge of ‘contempt of cop’ but the police officers were too overwhelmed by the chaos in the city to take umbrage. Scott had sheltered from the Uriel attack in a Salvation Army hostel before returning to duty when the attack ceased. Now he was trying to keep traffic away from the disaster area north of the Santa Ana River. “Doesn’t matter how big it is, you’ll have to stop here.”
“Not possible Officer, I’ve got to get this baby back to AMARC right away. There’s aircraft needing to be rebuilt up there.”
“Just do as I tell you. There’s no way you’re getting through, no matter how big that thing is.” The gearhead side of Scott won out. “What is it anyway, 16 by 16?”
“Nah, the trailer wheels are powered as well. 24 by 24. This mother can go anywhere I want. So let us through, OK?”
“Not OK, no way. Look, Sergeant, we’ve got a 747 down on Angel Stadium that’s blocking the highway completely. There’s an F-15 down in Disneyland and believe me, the Sleeping Beauty castle ain’t never going to look the same again. There’s another Air Force bird down on Katella High School. Couple of other crashes and small scattered fires. The city transport system is shot. This area’s bad enough normally, now with everybody wanting home after the Uriel attack and the Man himself skewered on the Crystal Cathedral, it’s as bad as it has ever been. You’re stuck, live with it.”
“Whoa, Uriel’s down? I saw the air battle going on driving up here but we got him?”
“We sure did. Or the Air Force did. They had a couple of laser planes in at the end. Never seen anything like it, they sliced and diced the bastard in mid-air. Sergeant, I’d get you through if I could but there ain’t no way at all.”
Franzing sighed. The big trucks were used to carry aircraft from the AMARC facility to factories around the country where they could be refurbished for use or broken up for spares. It had been a pretty good detail all things considered. Still if I really am stuck here… .
“Officer, sorry I mouthed off at you. Look, can I go see Uriel’s body?”
Scott laughed. “You and a hundred thousand other people. Everybody not going home is converging on Chapman to view the body. Those that can, those downed planes have screwed traffic up beyond all reason. Get in the line Air Force, it’s gonna be a long wait before you get to spit on the corpse.”
Franzing looked back at the long length of empty trailer behind him. “You know, the brass are going to want that body moved sooner or later. Study it, cut it up, stuff it and mount it, whatever. It’ll fit on this baby just fine. What say you we load Uriel on the back and parade him around the town for a bit? I can’t take my baby off the main streets but we can have our own victory parade and when the brass decide what to do, well, you’ve already got him on a truck ready to move out right.
Scott burst out laughing. “Parade the sonofabitch around the town. That works for me. I’ll pass the idea back to my watch commander. I guess the high-ups will want the final word on this but if I had my way, we’d be on our way down there right now.”
Chapter Forty Two
War Room, White House, Washington D.C.
Chaos, pure unadulterated chaos. The entire war-room staff had gone collectively mad to the point that even Air Force and Navy commanders were exchanging high-fives and back-slaps. Four Secret Service men had rushed into the room, believing that the uproar meant the President was being attacked. Now, the one female member of that team had been grabbed by a grizzled Marine general and taken for an impromptu waltz on the war-room floor. Only the sight of two words on the great screen that dominated the room had stopped her throwing him across the floor. Those two words were very simple. Uriel Dead.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, please calm down.” President Obama noted how quickly the room returned to order once he had made the demand. “Celebrations are in order and we’ll have a proper one shortly. First order of business, we have to count the cost of our victory tonight. Is there any word from Los Angeles?”
“Sir, the local law enforcement, National Guard and U.S. Volunteers are recovering Uriel’s body while we speak. It’s impaled on a glass spire, part of the Crystal Cathedral. Problem is congestion in the area, everybody and their brothers are turning up to see the sight. Police are trying to get a big Air Force truck through to the scene but the roads are blocked to Hell and back.” General Van Allan couldn’t help reflect on the fact that the expression he had just used now had a literal and tangible meaning. Despite the numbers of permanent portals linking Earth and Hell, traffic congestion was a problem at all of them.
“Casualties, how many casualties?”
“Word is still coming in Sir. So far we know we lost more than a dozen aircraft including one of the YAL-1s. Some were shaken apart by trumpet blasts but most were own goals. It was a wild furball over the city Mister President, a completely uncontrolled dogfight. On the ground, Uriel was breaking through the screening when the B-1s flushed him. A few moments more and we would have had hundreds of thousands of deaths on our hands. It was that close. As it was, we think between ten and twenty thousand people died city-wide from the Uriel attack and many more from the lost aircraft crashing. More still from expended munitions and fragments hitting the ground. Sir, we may have won this one, but it’s been the bloodiest fight on American soil since Gettysburg.”
Obama nodded. “Find out what aid Los Angeles needs to get the situation under control and make sure it arrives there. FEMA is already committed helping the refugees from the East Coast and Tornado Alley, we’ll have to ask for outside assistance on this. The Canadian
s perhaps?”
Hillary Clinton spoke up. “They’re already funnelling food aid down to refugees from the tornados in Kansas and Nebraska. The Cubans are helping with Florida after the hurricanes down there. These weather attacks are battering us, Sir. Individually the damage isn’t that great although they get lucky once in a while, but it’s mounting up all the time. The East Coast is badly hit, we can see that from here.”
“Food production is down Sir.” Secretary Tom Vilsack cut in, earning himself an angry glance from the Secretary of State. “Productivity of farms in the mid-west is in free-fall.”
“We can deal with all that later. Our main concern is the battle tonight. What’s happening in Myanmar, General Petraeus?”
The General’s face appeared on the display screen. Behind him, the sky was red rather than blue, suggesting that he was back in his operational headquarters in Hell. “Mister President, I am afraid that our plan was only a partial success. The attempt to send a nuclear device into Heaven failed. Michael-Lan appears to have realized what was happening and pushed it back. Cost us the capital city and the Special Ops team we had in there. On the credit side, the old Myanmar government has been blown to Hell.”
Petraeus paused and cracked a grin at the phrase. He, too, realized that language was changing to match new realities. “Quite literally. And a new civilian administration is being set up. There’ll be elections there in 2011. Also, we got the data from the portal Michael opened, as soon as we have it programmed, we’ll do a jump from Earth to Heaven.”
“A Thunder Run General?”
“That’s right. Form a battalion-sized battle group and send it into Heaven with orders to shoot up whatever they see and then leave. I know just the officer to command it. Apart from that, there’s Jerusalem of course. We’re moving a Corps to the Jerusalem Valley as soon as the force is organized for the portal-shift. That’ll be by dawn.”
Obama took a deep breath. “Well done David. Please make sure I have the next of kin names for the special forces people we lost there. I’ll write to them myself. However, I have some very disturbing news that demands urgent consideration. The Israelies have lost contact with one of their nuclear missile-carrying submarines.”
On the screen, Petraeus raised his eyebrows and muttered something under his breath. “It could be they’ve just screwed up their operational plot Mister President, they’ve done that before and will do again no doubt. I would recommend we put our naval assets in the Mediterranean on alert though. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the Salvation War, it’s that we keep getting hit by things out of our normal terms of reference.”
Levin Reception Center, Phelan Plain, Hell
The last thing that Madeuce remembered clearly was diving for the emergency abort switch. Then everything went blank and he was drawn into a tunnel of light. He knew he had seen things then, heard them, felt them, but they were beyond his understanding and he couldn’t quite get the memories into his conscious mind. A line from his favorite television program swam into his brain “you know what it’s like when you have a word on the tip of your tongue? Well, its like that with every thought you never have.” His memories of the time between the dive for the switch and waking up in this bed were like that. They were almost there, but not quite near enough to be visible.
“Captain Madeuce?” A nurse was looking down at him, a brightly professional smile on her face. “Welcome to Hell. We’ll have you all sorted out soon, we’re much better-organized now than we were in the early days. Anyway, a friend is waiting to see you as soon as you are discharged. Now, if you can just fill out this form.”
She handed over a clipboard that had the traditional cheap pen attached to it by a piece of mangled string. Madeuce read the form and realized it was a pretty close copy of the one he filled in every time he saw a doctor. Did this mean that bureaucracy was taking over Hell? “Thank you ma’am. What happens next?”
“Normally, you would stay here until the clerks put your details into a computer and then you would be discharged. If you had nowhere to go, you would be given temporary quarters and a job suited to your talents. But, we’ve been waiting for you and you’re already set up.”
Madeuce scribbled away, putting in the required data. “Forms and clerks. I guess doing the filing for eternity really must be Hell.”
The nurse smiled sadly. “Remember, for some people, a job where they just move paper around for all eternity is Heaven, not Hell. You finished? Good. There’s some coveralls been sent over for you. Once you feel fit enough, you can go.”
The coveralls were dull red and Madeuce instantly recognized them as BDUs. The badge on the right breast was unusual though, a golden eagle on a purple background with the letters SPQR underneath. He slipped them on, revelling in the freedom to breathe that he had lost back on Earth. The boots were standard military issue and he slipped those on also. Then he was ready to leave. By the time he had reached the doors of the ward, his bed had already been taken by the next arrival.
“Tribune Madeuce?” The voice was instantly recognizable and he turned to meet her with delight. “Jade. Sorry, Second Consul Jade Kim, Thank you for coming.”
“I had to meet the person blown into Hell by a nuclear device.” Kim smiled. “And I’ve got to accumulate flight hours to get back into the swing of things. Anyway, Gaius wants to meet you ASAP. Made the trip here OK I see?”
“I think so. Still getting used to the idea of being dead though.”
“It grows on you. By the way, one thing you won’t have to miss out on. Fox cancelled Dollhouse a few minutes ago.”
“Damn them. I liked that show.”
“I preferred Firefly. A commercial television station is one thing Gaius is looking at right now. He wants our Senate televised. All the time.”
“That’s brave.”
“Not really, he believes that if the Senators behave like jackasses, everybody should see it and remember.”
She led the way across to the helicopter pad where a red MH-6T was standing. It had the same crest as on his uniform, a purple circle on its tail boom with a gold eagle and the SPQR lettering. Now his mind was working more clearly, Madeuce recognized the Eagle as the same one carried by the Roman legions of old. Just to confirm the detail he had to ask. “SPQR?”
“Senatus Populusque Romanus. For the Senate and the People of Rome. And the number 3 at the top is for Third Legion. That’s going to be yours by the way. As soon as we can train and equip it.”
“Humans or Baldri … daemons, Second Consul?”
“Both. And it’s Jade in private. Although the helicopter and armor units are human for the time being. We can’t get aircraft or tracks sized for daemons yet.” She climbed into the pilot’s seat and started running through the pre-flight checks on her MH-6.
“I’ve heard there’s problems integrating daemons and humans in military units.” Madeuce paused as the turbine spooled up and the rotor overhead started to turn.
“Hellish ones.” Jade gave a quick grin at the joke and tapped her microphone. “Phelan Air Traffic Control, this is Rome-Senate-Alpha requesting flight clearance through to New Rome.”
“Rome-Senate-Alpha, this is air traffic control, you have clearance, maintain altitude fiver-six-zero until you reach destination. And maintain visual watch for Harpies.”
“The Harpies are so used to flying around without anybody arguing about it, they can’t get used to having to clear flight paths above a hundred feet or so. The Canucks lost a CF-18 a few days ago, mid-air collision with a Harpy. Pilot turned up in the reception center three hours later and was back in his squadron three hours after that.” Kim moved her controls and the helicopter lifted off. She climbed to the specified altitude and then set course for New Rome.”
Madeuce looked down through the murk and dust to the land underneath. “There’s fields down there.”
“That there are. Remember for most of humanity’s existence we were farmers. A lot of us still are and most of
the people rescued from the pit are. All they want is to get a piece of land and start farming it, it’s a vocation I guess. And the land down there is incredibly fertile once somebody got a plow to it. Food’s not a problem in Hell.”
“I didn’t think it was anyway. We don’t have to eat do we?”
Kim made an indecisive, well-sort-of noise. “Not really, not physically, although you get to feel wrong of you don’t. Psychological. But, you do hard work that burns a lot of energy, you’ll feel hungry and you either have to eat or rest until the hunger pains go. Get hurt, you’ll be hungry until your body fixes itself. Don’t ask me why or how. The egg-heads are working on it, they’ve got theories coming out of the wazoo. All I can tell you is this. These bodies look human but they’re not. We’re here, we’re human, we are who we were but these bodies the ones we inhabit, are not human. We’re Second-Lifers, not First-Lifers. Never forget that.”
The cultivated areas of the Phelan Plain behind them, the ground beneath reverted to uncultivated grassland. “Who does all this land belong to?”
“Us, by right of conquest.” Madeuce looked sharply at Kim, but she wasn’t smiling. “I’m not joking, it’s the only thing that the daemons understand. We won so everything belongs to us. Anything they keep is what we are presumed to have given back to them and they’re grateful for it. Oh, there’s some that resent us waltzing in and taking over and there’s an incredible amount of trouble with rogue humans setting up as warlords. Another thing you shouldn’t forget. Hell is huge and we’ve only seen a small part, a tiny part, of it. You remember the Leviathan things that showed up? Well, its likely there’s a lot more nasty surprises out there waiting for us. That’s why I wanted you with us.”
Throne Room, The Ultimate Temple, Eternal City, Heaven
There was one immediate reaction to Michael-Lan’s arrival in the Throne Room. Tucked away in a corner, one of the Chayot Ha Kodesh was arguing over the price the Master Mason was charging for spaces in his bunker. As soon as he saw Michael-Lan arriving, he paid the asking price without question and squirmed behind the protective walls. That was a sight Michael-Lan found profoundly satisfying. Not because of its actual content but because it showed that now, even here in Yahweh’s throne room, it was he, Michael-Lan-Yahweh, who was determining the course of events. He paused for a second, contemplating the meaning of his name. It wasn’t true, not any more. Michael-Lan-Michael had a much better ring to it.