Pantheocide

by Stuart Slade

  “Doctor, there is a fiend from Hell waiting to see you.”

  Zinder looked around sharply, Grace was standing in the doorway, smiling broadly. “Nurse, the word is daemon. We don’t want to be charged with racial discrimination or harassment. Anyway, ask him to wait five minutes then trot him in.”

  Zinder put the X-rays away and settled down at his desk. Grace returned, bringing the daemon in with her.

  “I am Doctor Zinder, how may I help you.” He reflected that was a bit curt but formality was still catching up with the rapid changes in relationships. ‘Half-believed mythological legend’ to ‘hideous reality’ to ‘mortal enemy’ to ‘defeated foe’ to ‘de-facto ally’ in two years took some getting used to.

  “My name is Memnon, I am currently Minister of Communications in the Government of President Abigor. I understand that you have large numbers of angels here to be treated?”

  “We do.” A horrible thought crossed Zinder’s mind. “You don’t want to eat them do you?”

  Memnon laughed, uneasily aware that not so long ago that was exactly what he would have wanted. “No, but I may have some information that may help you. Our information is that the wings on these angels have been broken, crippled. Is this true?”

  “It is, some have had their legs broken the same way. We’re doing our best but even with the best reconstructive surgery, we’re not doing so well.”

  “This does not surprise me. Breaking the wings of angels was a favorite sport of ours when we held them prisoner during The Great Celestial War. But, I should tell you something. During the invasion by Abigor’s Army, I was attacked by some of your fighters. My colleagues were killed and my wings were badly burned and mutilated by a missile. They grew back, malformed and distorted so that I could not fly. The doctors said that it was because metal fragments from the missile warheads were interfering with the nerves and blood vessels but I think it was because the fragments were iron and iron is poison to us.”

  Memnon paused and flared his wings outwards. Zinder was struck by how similar the basic structure was to the angelic wings. They were black and scaled like lizard skin of course, not white and feathered, but even without X-rays, Zinder could see the bone structure was the same. He could also see that Memnon’s wings were fully functional and un-mutilated. “So what happened Memnon?”

  “My wings were so bad that the Doctors decided the only thing to do was to amputate them. They did so, and my wings grew back again. With the iron fragments removed from my body, they grew back perfectly. They may also do so on Angels.”

  “Do all your limbs grow back if amputated?” Zinder was fascinated. He was also furious that a piece of vital information like this had been concealed or lost. He knew the reason of course; Memnon must have been treated in an Army hospital, this was a Navy facility. Inter-service cooperation would be a wonderful thing if it ever happened.

  “They do, although removing a crippled limb to allow a new one to grow in its place had never occurred to us before.”

  Kinder thought carefully. He could see several problems with this, not least of which was obvious from Memnon’s wings. Despite the similar structure, Angelic wings were bird-like, Daemonic wings were more akin to those of lizards. And many earth lizards could regrow lost limbs. That didn’t mean that humans could. “Memnon, why are you telling us this? Angels are your enemies, just as they are ours.”

  “Why do you treat them in your hospital?” Memnon paused. “For millennia, uncounted millennia, so far back that time itself became misty, we did things that were brutal and cruel beyond limits. We gloried in that cruelty and measured ourselves by it. Then you humans came and you slaughtered us. It was so easy for you that you defeated us and cast us down in a few weeks. By our standards we would have been your slaves and treated as cruelly as we treated our victims. But you didn’t. You healed our wounds, you repaired what had been destroyed. In doing so you showed us the deadliest of all your weapons, compassion. You changed us and gave us a different way of looking at the world. Now, those of us who saw the destruction you can wreak on those you fight, we want to be like you. By changing the environment in which we lived, you changed us. To help the crippled Angels is our first step back from the pit.”

  Zinder nodded slowly. It had long been argued whether a foul environment bred crime and cruelty or not, and if it did, whether improving that environment would reduce them. It looked as if he had a substantial part of the answer to that question sitting in front of him.

  “Thank you for coming here today, Memnon, we must investigate this carefully. There may be problems and we must be sure that, first of all, we do not harm.” He paused slightly. “Here on Earth, Doctors take an oath before we are allowed to treat patients. One part of that oath, in my opinion the most important, is ‘first of all, do no harm.’ But I think you give me hope for this case that I never had before.”

  Bivouac Area, Third Legion. Heaven

  Tucker McElroy looked at his command paraded before him. This wouldn’t take long. It had better not because there was a lot of digging to do before the enemy arrived. “Soldiers of the Third Legion. Our Commander, General of the Armies David Petraeus, has issued the following order of the day.

  “Our battle against Yahweh now reaches its climax. Never forget that we have turned him away by the force of our arms before. Dare we forget the valor of our ancestors? When the Heroes at Troy wounded the Gods and drove them from the field? When the mortal hand of Rama struck down the demon Ravana after invading Sri Lanka on his bridge of hurled stone? Remember that Yahweh himself quailed and fled before the Iron Chariots of Sisera. Satan might have been the Prince of Hell but it was Yahweh who put him there and it was Yahweh who controlled who was to be tortured and who wasn’t. Daemon and human alike, he oppressed us. Now, this is our moment to break free from the cycle-curse. If we can turn away the strength of Yahweh with Iron, then that is reason enough for us to make common cause and turn on the ruler of Heaven with full fury. The angels choose to make war on us. More fool them; we’ll kill them, and we’ll drive Yahweh from his throne at gunpoint. Then we will exhort the moral in spirit who reside in Heaven to rise against the injustice of a God turned against his own word.”

  McElroy looked up. “I’ve just got one more thing to say. First-life humans, they look on us second-lifers as helpless victims who had to be rescued and you daemons as little more than massed targets. It’s time to show them that we can fight as well as they can. So start digging, the spade is brother to the sword.”

  Chapter Sixty Eight

  Helicopter Base, Third Legion. Heaven

  “What you’re going to be doing is very dangerous isn’t it.” First Consul Gaius Julius Caesar looked along the line of MH-6T helicopters. Their pilots were mostly inside or around them, doing the final checks necessary before take-off but the pilot of Diana-One was sitting on a Hellfire missile, speaking to her husband. Second Consul Jade Kim was going to back to war, this time in a way she was trained to do. At the head of a helicopter attack squadron.

  “Very. Last time I tried this, I got killed. Things are different now, we have fighters up to cover us if we run into flying angels and the ground here is nearly perfect for what we will be doing. Lots of cover we can duck behind.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Don’t try and stop me doing this Gaius or we will have a falling–out.”

  “Stop you? I’m applauding you. A Consul leading from the front is in the best possible Roman tradition. I just wish I could come with you. Just waiting here doesn’t sit well with me.”

  “Both Consuls in the same helicopter is a bad idea Gaius. We’re getting our new state working properly at last, we don’t want it decapitated. In fact, you and I should never be on the same aircraft together. Can’t you oversee the ground troops or something?”

  “I’m not wanted there. Oh, nobody has said anything, but it’s obvious I’m just in the way. I can’t understand what they are doing or why. The strategic stuff, that I already have in hand but I’ve
given the orders and other people are executing them.”

  “Welcome to being a modern general Gaius.”

  “It doesn’t please me. What’s worse, on the ground, what’s happening makes no sense to me. So I have to sit here, out of the way, while I watch and learn.” He poked his breastplate ruefully. “They tell me my armor just makes me a better target.”

  “And they’re right. I can see that gold shining on my optronic display from miles away. I hope the angelic commanders have the same shiny breastplates, I’ve got four Hellfires loaded up ready for them.” She grinned very nastily. “So you can say bye-bye to at least thirty of their top commanders by the time we’ve finished. Then we’ll be back here to re-arm and refuel.”

  She stood up, hugged Caesar and rested her head quickly on his chest, her flight helmet making a dull thud as it hit his breastplate. “Now, wish me good hunting and a full bag of kills.”

  Caesar gave her a Roman salute which she gravely returned, then she slid away and climbed into her MH-6. Her hands moved over the engine controls, starting the ignition sequence. While the rotor was spooling up, she glanced quickly at her co-pilot. A newbie, a police pilot who’d crashed his helicopter trying to pick up survivors after a hurricane had devastated a South Carolina town. Before that, he’d flown UH-1s for the Army. She’d have preferred it if she could have had her original copilot on board but all her veterans were spread out across the other helicopters.

  “Ready for lift-off?” He grinned at her and gave a thumbs-up. “All Diana Birds, lift off.”

  Her hands moved on the controls again and the helicopter lifted, its nose dipping as she gained forward momentum. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the figure of Caesar shrinking and she watched him give another salute. Then, he was gone and she concentrated on the flight plan. The Global Hawk overhead was tracking a large formation approaching the hill held by Third Legion. The position was being relayed directly to her, showing up on her navigation screen. The same screen gave her details of the terrain between that position and her flight of nine helicopters. It was time to do something about that.

  “All Diana Birds. Separate into three-ship formations and spread out to attack positions. It’s time to party.”

  She led her element of three helicopters down into a valley, the young trees underneath bending and swaying as the MH-6s passed. The map showed it leading to a low ridge with the center of the Angelic column just over the other side. In other words, a perfect set-up for the kind of ambush the MH-6 was designed to execute. Overhead, Kim saw a flash of light, surprisingly yellowish in the brilliant white light of Heaven. Reflection from the cockpit of a fighter, probably a Lawn Dart she thought. The filthy atmosphere in Hell had been rough on single-engined aircraft. After the initial panic had subsided, they’d been pulled out and flying missions in Hell had been assigned to twin-engined birds. Here in Heaven it was different and the single-engined fighters had come back into their own. The yellow reflection was almost certainly from the gold-inlaid cockpit canopy of an F-16.

  Kim brought her helicopter into a hover behind the comforting screen of the ridge, then allowed it to rise slowly. As soon as the mast-mounted sight was exposed, she got a good view of the army that was advancing on the positions held by Third Legion. It didn’t actually look that much different from the last force she had ambushed this way and her skin crawled slightly when she remembered how that had turned out. The dominant color here was white, not black, but there were still the columns of troops marching on the ground while overhead flew their cover. This time they were angels, not harpies.

  Then her face broke out into a broad grin as black clouds of smoke erupted in the center of the flying groups. The Lawn Darts had launched a salvo of missiles at them and were now racing in to the attack. The Angelic ability to hit aircraft with trumpet blasts had been a nasty surprise but countermeasures were available. Primarily, to move fast. If the aircraft came in beyond the speed of sound, the angels would be most unlikely to see them before they were hit by rocket and cannon fire. Once the jets were past, by definition the trumpet blast couldn’t catch them. A dozen or more angels were already dying in the missile blasts as a quartet of F-16s streaked through them. Then, the fighters were up and away, climbing for altitude and distance, leaving chaos behind them.

  Kim let her helicopter rise until it was just over the ridge and rippled off her four Hellfire missiles. She’d already designated one angel whose size marked him out and the gleam of his armor made him vulnerable. He was still looking up, searching for the fighters that had slashed through his formation so quickly when the Hellfire struck him. He vanished in the rolling black and red cloud that marked a missile hit while Kim shifted her designator to another likely-looking angel. A few seconds later, her last missile had struck home and her MH-6 dropped below the ridge. She spun the Little Bird around and poured on the throttle. Bitter experience at work here, she would not hang around.

  “We got problems Boss.” Her copilot gave the warning she dreaded. Behind them, at least two dozen angels had crossed the ridge in pursuit. I’ve been here before. The thought running through her mind was treacherous because it made her hands shake.

  “Falcon Flight, Diana-One-actual. We need help down here.”

  “On our way Diana-One.”

  The voice on the radio was heavily-accented and she couldn’t place it. There was no doubt about the pilots skill though, they slashed down in a power dive, breaking up the angelic formation with a dozen AIM-120 missiles then hammering the survivors with AIM-9s and cannon fire. One of the F-16s was caught by a trumpet blast and lost a wing, the crippled bird nosing over before plowing into the ground. The group pursuing Kim’s formation broke up and fled under the impact. Angels don’t match daemons for sheer bloody-minded guts, she thought. “Well done Falcon Flight. We’re clear now.”

  “Compliments of the Polish Air Force Diana-One. We’ve got reserves up here if you need more cover.”

  “Thank you, we’re on our way back to reload now. New Roman Republic owes you one. Call me in New Rome sometime. Good hunting.”

  “No debts owed Diana-One, just had a message from Diana-Five. Our pilot punched out and one of your people picked him up as soon as his feet touched. So, all square. And good hunting for you also.”

  Her helicopters were skimming back through the valleys, returning to her forward base. Well, that went better than last time. Kim found herself humming cheerfully as she started to plan the next strike.

  Forward Edge of the Battle Area, Hill 117, Third Legion, Heaven.

  It wasn’t just the weapons humans had that made the difference, it was the fact that they thought about everything they did. The foxhole he was in proved that. Dripankeothorofenex had assumed that digging a hole and sitting in it was easy, a simple task fit only for a kidling. Not the way the humans did it. They had looked at his scrape in the ground and laughed at him. “Now that is one pathetic effort Drippy,” their human commander had said, mixing disapproval with dismay. Then, he had gathered all the daemons into a group and shown them how to dig a proper foxhole. An officer digging, that was something Dripankeothorofenex had never seen before. The hole had been deep and narrow to offer as much protection as possible from overhead blasts. Then the back wall had been hollowed out so the daemons inside could crouch under some cover when artillery was pounding them.

  The dirt had been piled in front of the pit so the two occupants could fire out to the sides on a diagonal but not directly forwards. “What do we do when the enemy is in front?” Dripankeothorofenex had asked. “Don’t sweat it Drippy, your buddies on either side will deal with them. You protect them, they protect you. The mound in front will protect you from incoming fire.”

  And there it was, a simple hole in the ground turned into a warrior’s work of art. Beside him, his buddy Maskelodoroarnathsan was watching his assigned zone. Neither tried to lift their heads over the mound to their front. As their officer had explained, the armored carriers were behind th
em and they would be hosing down the area in front of the infantry positions. That meant their streams of shells would be only a few inches above their heads. “Do you see anything?”

  Maskelodoroarnathsan shook his head. “Nothing yet. Wait, listen.”

  Dripankeothorofenex swivelled his ears forward and listened hard. Faintly, in the distance, he heard a chanting, one that had been all too familiar to his clan during The Great Celestial War. It was nearly drowned out by the rumble of diesel engines idling behind him but the words were clear, carried by the perfection of the tones. More clearly than anything else, it told him who the enemies were for neitheir daemons nor humans gave out war cries like this. Daemons were taught to believe that a silent enemy was more fearsome than a noisy one while humans never believed in telling their enemies anything about anything. But still, he heard the words echoing across the peaceful hills of Heaven.

  “Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Dies iræ, dies illa, Solvet sæclum in favilla.”

  Then peace was gone forever from those hills for overhead the sky itself started to scream. Dripankeothorofenex crouched down in his foxhole for he knew what that terrible screaming sound was. Across Third Legion there were other daemons who knew it as well, the survivors of Hit, of the Phlegethon River, of all the battles where human artillery had left the ground mounded high with the bodies of those who dared to challenge them. Beneath his feet, the ground shook as the first salvoes pounded into the Heavenly formation that was approaching. Dripankeothorofenex could see nothing of them for his unit was dug into position on a reverse slope and the Angelic Host was still advancing up their side of the ridge. The spotting for the artillery fire was being done by one of the small remote-controlled aircraft the humans liked so much. That gave him great comfort for how he had heard many tales of how the humans also liked to hide behind ridgelines when they brought their deadly arts to bear on their enemies. Now he too, a daemon, was armed with human weapons and was soon to be fighting like a human.