by Sating, Paul
She was an Air Force member with three stripes on her sleeves—such a weird place for someone's rank, and for the life of me I couldn't remember the Air Force ranks.
She looked at me as if I'd grown a third eye. "For your rotator." She didn't wait for a response, turning to hand Bilba his.
The next station was where I picked up a heavy helmet that might as well have weighed fifty pounds for as heavy as it felt. Maybe the long hours of resting had exhausted me.
Stepping down the line, I wondered how in the heaven was I supposed to carry all of this plus my bag—don't get me started on the lack of overhead storage on military aircraft. I waited until we processed through to see if anyone else knew. Anyone else, that was, besides Sergeant Rogers.
He intervened anyway. "Are you dull, boy? We're flying smack into the middle of Baghdad." He stretched his hand up in the sky and flared out his fingers repeatedly, as if attempting to flick something off the ends of them. "They're gonna try to shoot our asses down. You'll need that equipment to save your sorry life and getcha back to Nebraska or wherever the hell you came from in one piece."
Shooting what, I wondered. And why did he have to blaspheme whatever a Nebraska was or my home? What did the Iraqis—I noticed the humans always added a spruce of hostility when they used that word—have that could bring down an aircraft? And if they had a weapon that could, how would a heavy vest that made me wobble when I walked save my life? And how long did it take to fall back to the Overworld? Would we skip when we hit the surface or just splat into a gooey mess? Questions upon unspeakable questions bounced around my skull. Bilba and Ralrek looked more bored than bothered and I needed to remind them we were vulnerable to injury and death here. We hadn't even gotten into the war zone!
Sergeant Rogers walked away, but not before ordering us to don the protective gear. We were outside the passenger terminal, sitting as close as possible around the building because the walls provided at least a little shade, which was twenty degrees cooler than standing in the direct sunlight. Fatigues, whatever they were made of, didn't allow airflow and were suffocating. Having to wear a heavy Kevlar vest and helmet didn't help. After twenty minutes of waiting, too many humans were blotchy and drinking water like it was a hot dog eating contest. One of the larger guys passed out and had to have the medics called. I imagined a mix of humans and covert demons stripping down to their undies and standing in front of anything that generated a breeze. Somehow, I think the Army would frown on that and the funny image did nothing to satiate my growing unease.
I don't know how long we waited, melting in the heat. The roar of the props of the C-130 approaching the building brought reprieve, and a sense of relief for the shooters. And me, I have to admit. As sweaty and miserable as I was, I'd walk straight into Heaven's front door if it meant getting out of this miserable day. The ride into Baghdad, if you ignored the fighting and killing, was our salvation.
The roar of the engines grew louder as the plane crept closer, cutting off our aimless conversation. As it neared, so did another Air Force troop, this one with a clipboard in hand. He waved for us to follow him, choosing not to shout over the noise of the roaring aircraft.
We loaded our last bags on pallets and then boarded. The air inside the plane was stale but markedly cooler than outside, for which I was grateful. Like farm chimera, we were herded into an impossibly narrow rows of seats where legs touched legs and arms connected to arms from elbow to wrist. Packed like this, if we were shot down, we'd probably land in one, amalgamated piece of flesh and bones. As the plane taxied away from the terminal, beginning our journey into the mortal's fight, I put in my earplugs and tried to sleep, because waiting to be shot out of the air just did not sound like a fun way to pass the time.
The flight was a bitterly cold, bumpy ride into Iraq. At least we hadn't been shot out of the sky by the time sleep came, and that was the highlight of my time in the war to that point.
***
I was yanked out of sleep when the world tipped sideways.
Instinctively, I grabbed for my armrest and found the thighs of my two neighbors. Ralrek squinted as if he thought I'd lost my mind. Bilba was fast asleep and didn't notice.
My best friend also didn't notice how severely the aircraft tilted. At this angle, I pictured us slicing the air sideways. That didn't make for good viewing. With nothing to hold on to, I gripped the arm holes of my Kevlar vest. Around me, soldiers woke with gasps. Metal—Lucifer, I hoped that was not the frame of the aircraft, rattled. Something, up toward the cockpit, fell with a thump that turned two dozen heads. If I listened closely enough, I swear I could hear the engines protesting. We didn't break out of the turn for minutes. Around and around, we spiraled toward the surface. The forces pulling on me were so fierce, I would have rather taken my chances with the Iraqi's anti-aircraft guns.
Once my panic subsided enough to think, I realized this was the tornado landing we'd been warned about back at the terminal, the evasive pattern pilots took to minimize risk of being shot out of the sky. My breathing slowed, and I did not panic myself into a blackout. This was not much different from the time I rode a firehorse into the sky of Hell to break into Taurus's house. The only thing that made this worse was my lack of control; at least with the firehorse, I had that—don't fight me on that, it's what I choose to believe.
The prolonged downward spiral brought on a bout of vertigo. A blackout lingered on my personal horizon. But before it rolled over me, the plane tipped back to a horizontal position, leveled out, and dropped in an aggressive descent. I sucked in my breath and heard—because I didn't dare try to turn to look—Ralrek do the same. Even Bilba shot into a sitting position from his slumber. We fell toward the surface.
I knew it! This was how the story of Hell's reject was going to end.
Plane met planet with a jarring impact.
We bounced on the runway. I didn't mean to, but the landing forced me to grab for anything solid, and my friend's legs were in the way again. Bilba yelped for a second time, but Ralrek also did, swatting my hand away even as we bounced our way to safety. Always so cool under pressure, that one.
Once we weren't going to die from crashing into the ground, the planed taxied at a speed that was ridiculous for something of this size. Everything metal rattled, barely covering the thudding from somewhere deep in its bowels. The entire plane was falling apart.
We slammed to a halt and, seemingly within seconds, the aircraft door shot open. Two young male Air Force personnel rushed on-board and ushered us off the plane in a panic.
"Move!" the blond one shouted once we were on the concrete taxiway, rotating his arm over his head in a vertical circle like he was trying to crank a giant, invisible wind-up toy.
A piercing screech split the dark night sky. I turned, looking for the source, and saw nothing in the blackness above. Someone from behind pushed me forward.
"Keep moving, Sunstone," a shaking voice demanded.
I did not need the encouragement.
Everyone ahead was running, and without thinking, I copied them. Five hundred yards of open concrete separated us from a tall metallic building when the air was pierced again. I swore it vibrated against my face. The Air Force personnel helping us disembark the aircraft fell flat on the ground if they didn't have barriers to drop behind. That's all I needed to understand we had walked into the middle of a shit storm. Shit stunk, no matter how it was dropped.
Bending as low as possible, I scurried toward the closest building. Beside me, Bilba and Ralrek did the same. The last of the troops poured from our aircraft, dashing for safety as a third screech announced another attack.
The mortar hit concrete taxiway only thirty yards behind our plane. A six-wheeled cargo loader had been pulling up to the rear of the aircraft. The mortar exploded when it struck the vehicle, blasting the rear into shredded metal and rubber scraps and spraying a cloud of concrete and dust into the air. I couldn't see into the cab, but hoped the driver was jumping free before the next atta
ck came.
Vulnerable. We were vulnerable here.
The thought spurred me forward. I am fast, faster than anyone I know or have ever fought—some would argue I'm faster than Angelfire, though I'll reserve judgment on that for now—and I cannot recall I time I squat-ran more rapidly than now, passing soldier after soldier until I was at the front of the line, even outpacing our escort. He gave me a curious look of shock. Military mores didn't mean a thing when death fell from the sky. In front of his lead, I guessed the tall metallic building was our destination, and I accelerated toward it, not really caring if I was wrong. If I got inside, that was what mattered. Dead demons can't apologize.
Two armored personnel sheltering inside the doors jumped to open them when they saw us coming. They remained low; I did too. I made eye contact with the one to my left; she could not have been more than twenty human years, yet she put herself at risk so we could get inside. I would thank her after this was over, if I survived it.
Inside, personnel hid under desks or squeezed into doorways. Whatever we found was better than standing out in the open and tempting chance.
Shouts for us to take cover rang across the building, which looked to be a mess hall, just a very nice one—the Air Force troops apparently lived better than us Army grunts. I ran to the closest open spot along the wall and cowered in the corner. We sat like that for another hour before silence fell over the night.
When it was apparent the attack was over, the permanent personnel resumed their routines, moving about and starting our platoon's processing as if nothing happened, almost like a switch was flipped and playtime had ended.
Bilba exhaled deeply. "Well, that was something, wasn't it?" His voice shook, and when he tried to laugh it off, even that vibrated with nerves. He wasn't alone.
"Oh, I don't know. I expected it to be worse here."
He looked at me like I lost my mind.
I winked. "Just messing with you."
He shook his head but smiled. "Not cool, Zeke. Not cool at all."
I laughed. "I don't know about that."
Sergeant Rogers was suddenly in our midst. "Something funny, girls?"
Would the deployment help him see how obtuse he was? I could try to work with him—after all, the Army was a temporary blip in my immortal life. But it would be more effective, and far more hilarious, when one of his own troops lost her mind at his provocation and let loose a string of heated insults that would rock his world. Plus, he wouldn't listen to me.
"Nothing funny, sir," Bilba replied, standing erect.
His eyes traveled across the three of us pressed against the wall, having not moved since the mortar attack ended.
"Good, you better not be," he lifted his chin. "This isn't some schoolyard shit and you're no longer in boot camp, playing boot camp games. So don't be acting like you are."
Reminding me of boot camp, I wondered how Sergeant Kelem would respond to the insult of his profession that Sergeant Rogers was. I had gotten over Sergeant Kelem's snub—getting promoted in the human Army helped—but part of me still wanted to understand where I'd failed him.
"Yes, sir."
His smug expression deepened. "Good. Here, take these." He handed out a single sheet of paper to each of us, moving down the line, repeating the gesture.
"What's this, sir?" I asked.
He scowled. "Processing paperwork. Stop asking questions and just fill it out. We've got to bed down for the night after we get the pallets unloaded. No time for fucking around." He turned away.
We spent the rest of that first long night disassembling baggage pallets and finding our personal bags, which is far more difficult than it might sound to the uninitiated. Piles of identical olive green bags, differentiated only by our stenciled last names in three-inch blocks, made a simple task exhaustive. Ninety minutes later, I'd finally found mine.
At that point, my body revolted from the cold, hunger, and ceaseless exertion. Baghdad seemed warm enough to the mortals, many of whom had stripped off their utility uniform tops and worked in their t-shirts. But pockets in our platoon and in the larger company remained fully dressed, giving me a hint they might be one of my kind—telling mortals and immortals apart is all about the subtle clues.
"All right, let's get your sorry asses bedded down!" Sergeant Rogers stood to the side of the front door of the tent that would serve as our temporary home until the personnel we were here to replace freed up our permanent trailers.
Groaning, I retrieved my bags and dragged them toward the tent. In six thousand years, I don't think I've ever been this tired. My body protested against further work as it crashed from the sustained adrenaline rush of our Iraq arrival.
"You're kidding me?" Ralrek said in a flat voice as we waited.
We shared unspoken apprehension as we looked at the tent, a long, tan Alaska shelter shaped like a half tube.
"I can't wait to see how we all fit in that," I said, not meaning any of it.
Little did I know that chance, Lucifer, Yahweh, One—it really didn't matter—revealed the answer much more quickly than I'd anticipated. One second, we were slowly unloading the bus, and the next we were running for cover when the piercing screech rang through the night.
"Down! Down!" someone shouted.
I fell flat to the cold gravel, covering my head. Each edged rocked pressed against my uniformed body, making the terrifying wait annoying uncomfortable. Sometimes having super-sensitivity to the world around you really sucks.
The whistling of the mortar flying overhead stretched out beyond us. A miss. But close. How many more chances would we get? We stayed in cover until after the explosion. Then we were on our feet, scrambling to get bags and ourselves into the shelter. We did our best to get settled while always keeping an ear out for the next attack.
"Don't worry about your damn bunk assignments," Sergeant Rogers barked. "Get your sorry asses bedded down and we'll figure all of this out tomorrow. And, goddammit everybody, keep your situational awareness. This shit might go on the rest of the night. Their aim is lousy, but they might get lucky."
Everyone claimed the nearest bunk without argument or complaint. Before I found my latrine bag—my breath was nasty by this point—another whistling harbinger of doom cut through the quiet. I dove under the bunk across the aisle without thinking, sharing the space with two unwelcome partners—misfortune and Sergeant Rogers.
The mortar slammed into the world like a fist behind a kidney punch. The tent sides and roof flapped as destruction rippled across the camp.
I cowered lower, accidentally slamming my head into the floor and earning an instant headache. When I looked up, Sergeant Rogers looked at me, smiling.
"Having fun yet, Sunstone?"
Before I could even answer his rhetorical question, the distant whistle of yet another mortar approached. I covered my head, keeping my forehead pressed against the dirty tent floor.
"Not really, sir," I mumbled, trying not to breathe in the months' worth of accumulated dust and grime.
"Yeah, I didn't think so," he shouted before his voice was drowned out by the whistle of the death device. Everything stopped as we waited to see where it would strike.
It hit closer than the last one, rattling the bunk beds. Somewhere in the darkness, one platoon member cried for his mother.
Sergeant Rogers, the maniac, laughed. "Welcome to Hell, boys. Welcome to Hell."
I was too scared to tell him how wrong he was.
9 - Baghdad
I never thought it would be normal for mortals to lob bombs at each other, sometimes from miles away, to take over someone else's land and bend them to their will, putting so many at risk to control a dead slab of the planet. I don't get it, humans. So much space and plentiful resources, what's the point of fighting over any of it when you live as long as a mosquito in the Underworld?
I also didn't think it was normal to duck for cover in the middle of a meal or to watch the humans do so during a prayer to Yahweh—we'll talk about the utility
of that some other time; sorry, but us demons are sensitive about the fact that none of you seem interested in having a conversation with Lucifer. And I didn't think it was normal to think of angels trying so hard to kill fellow immortals in a human war. Though I should have known better if recent history in Hell was evidence of their nature. Sending a death squad to kill hundreds of demons to rescue one angel, Gemini, was a disproportionate response to what were, admittedly, grotesque actions by the Council. Call me naïve, but I hoped they would be better than that. More like Cassie.
Cassie. There was a name that hadn't come up in a while. Best to keep her out of my mind too, if my immediate future included possibly squaring off with her kind in a life-and-death series of battles.
Two weeks into our new journey, months into faking being a mortal—which I admit was much easier than I anticipated, and I was settling into a routine. We finally relieved our predecessors to return to their lives and families. We were now fully responsible for our mission; no more babysitting.
To be honest, it was exciting. I could handle only so much sitting around and exchanging debriefs on areas of responsibility. Now, we had more tasks to complete in a day than time to complete them, and it was nice to have something to do, even if it was inherently dangerous. It made the time pass, and each second that did was another second closer to getting back home. Even if simply passing the time was my only purpose, at least I had one now.
"I don't know about you guys, but I'm pumped to be going out," I said as I shoveled another spoonful of delectable oatmeal into my maw. We don't have oatmeal in the Underworld, and I wasn't sure how, but when I left the Overworld, I'd smuggle this delicacy in—though I said that about chickens too and I hadn't figured that one out either.
Bilba nodded over his bowl of cereal, wiping his mouth before agreeing. "Me too."
Ralrek grimaced. "Just because you're in the Army doesn't mean you can act like an ogre," he told Bilba, looking away when Bilba turned, a flake of cereal caught in the corner of his mouth. "You're gross."