Authors: Stuart Slade
“Very
good. Hold positions, do not open fire. This is going right up the chain.”
Stevenson
relaxed in her seat, watching the baldricks. There were some real soldiers
across there, they were watchful, their tridents at the ready. But the rest? No
way were they soldiers. Women and children was Stevenson’s guess. Hokay, I guess
now is when we find out what sort of people we really are she thought to
herself. The minutes ticked by until almost an hour had passed.
“Alpha-Actual.
This is Command-One.”
Whoa,
that meant General Petraeus himself. “Alpha Actual Sir.”
“Get
ready, there’s artillery fire coming in. IP between you and the baldricks. Safe
distance from both but its tight. FYI, we’re going to try and get this lot to
surrender. As soon as the shells have landed, expose your vehicles but do not,
I repeat do not, open fire. One shot from you without orders, Captain, and
you’ll be burning shit for the rest of your career.”
“Understood
Sir. Expose but do not fire.”
Overhead
there was a howl of descending 155mm shells from a Paladin battery. The salvo
was beautifully placed, one shot to each side of the baldrick group, two in
front of it, two behind. A perfect hexagon that was just, only just, far enough
out to be safe. “All Alpha Vehicles, move up onto the ridge crest. Do not under
any circumstances fire. Repeat, do not under any circumstances open fire.
Require verbal repeat and acknowledgement of that order from each vehicle.” She
listened as the acknowledgements came in. Then, her Abrams lurched as she moved
up to the crest of the ridge.
On
The Ridgeline, Hellmouth, Western Iraq
Abigor’s
skin crawled as he expected the lash of mage-fire and iron fragments but the
desert erupted in a neat hexagon around his unit, the bursts harmless. Oh, they
buffeted and shook the ground but there were no screaming, disembowelled demons
on the ground to show they had landed. Then, all around him, Iron Chariots
appeared. In front, to either side, behind him. The humans really did love
surrounding their enemies so that none could escape when the killing started.
But the Chariots remained silent. No fire lances, no seeker lances, the
chariots just sat there and watched him. The silence was eerie after the crash
of the mage-bursts. The kidlings had stopped their games, the mates their
weeping, everybody was just waiting. It dawned on Abigor they were waiting for
him. Everybody, demon and human were waiting for him.
If
they were waiting for him to start fighting, what happened if he did not? Why
had the humans given him a chance denied to him by Satan? What would happen if
he took that chance? It couldn’t be any worse than what would happen if he
didn’t. Abigor made his decision and stood up, throwing his trident away. Then,
he raised his hands to show he was unarmed. “All of you, throw down your arms.
Stand up and raise your hands like mine. So that the humans can see we are
unarmed.”
Across
the desert, the Iron Chariots kicked up a cloud of dust and started to move in.
Combat
Team Alpha. By the Hellmouth, Western Iraq
“Sir,
they’re surrendering. They’ve thrown down their arms and are standing up.
They’ve raised their hands, all of them.”
“Captain
Stevenson, move in, carefully. This may be a trick but if it isn’t we have a
priceless opportunity here. Do not fire, even if fired upon.”
That
means I’m the sacrificial goat. Stevenson thought. She gave the order and her
command started rolling closer to the group on the hill crest. They were
motionless as her tanks and armored infantry vehicles closed in. When they were
less than fifty meters away, the big one, the one Stevenson thought of as the
football player, dropped to the ground and sprawled out on the sand. She
checked her intercom, making sure it was set so only her crew could hear her.
“Reminds me of one of my ex-boyfriends guys. I wonder if he wants me to trample
him too?”
There
was a suppressed series of snorts from her crew. She stopped the vehicle and
got out, climbing down the outside of the turret and on to the ground.
“I
am Captain Keisha Stevenson, United States Army. I am authorized to accept your
surrender.”
“I
am Great Duke Abigor. I am, or was, commander of sixty legions. I offer you my
surrender and fealty.”
White
House Communications Center, Washington DC.
“Vladimir,
this is Dubya. I have urgent news. General Abigor has just surrendered and
defected.”
“That
filthy Vlasovite bastard.”
“Sorry,
Vladimir, you misunderstand, he’s a baldrick, he’s defecting to us.”
Without
missing a beat, Putin carried on, “What I meant to say of course was that he is
a heroic champion of freedom and liberty who has overcome his corrupt
upbringing so that he can rally to the side of truth honor and justice.”
“That’s
right Vladimir, he’s a filthy Vlasovite bastard, but he’s our filthy Vlasovite
bastard.”
Chapter
Thirty Two
Headquarters,
Multi-National Force, Baghdad, Iraq
“Well,
they’re human.”
“You
have got to be kidding us. There’s no way those things are human.”
Dr
Surlethe settled back in the conference room chair with every sign of comfort.
That was one thing the higher ranks of the Army had down to a fine art, their
conference rooms were well-furnished, air conditioned and had all the luxuries
one might wish combined with hi-tech presentation equipment. It would be years
before civilian releases caught up with the Army version of Microsoft
Powerpoint. The Marines, now they were different, their “conference room” was
usually a tent somewhere with a bare wood trestle table and a few camp chairs.
One Marine General had remarked on the Army’s “excessive facility” only to be
rather coldly told that ‘any damned fool can be uncomfortable’.
“Nevertheless,
they are human. Sort of.” There was a stir of relaxation at the qualification.
“What
do you mean Doctor?” General Petraeus needed to know a lot about these
creatures, not least because he had almost a thousand of them in a Prisoner of
War camp.
“General,
we’ve looked at the DNA of the baldricks and its human.” Surlethe thought for a
second. “Look at it this way, the difference in DNA between a chimpanzee and a
human is around two percent. The difference between baldrick and human DNA is
about one half of one percent. So baldricks are much more closely related to us
than we are to chimpanzees.”
“They
don’t look it.”
“No,
they don’t General.” Again Surlethe thought for a moment. “Actually they do. If
we ignore the way-out bits, the strange contortions and so on, they do look
like us. We started off by thinking that they were a next-level up version of
us that simply evolved differently but when the DNA comparisons came through we
had to abandon that. There’s no doubt about it in our minds, we and the
baldricks had a common ancestor somewhere way back when. The really big
question is did that common ancestor evolve here on earth, on the hell-place or
somewhere else?”
“I
still find it hard to believe that something that’s so different from us could
be related to us. DNA shifts and mutation rates can’t explain that level of
difference.”
Protect
us from intelligent, well-read generals Surlethe sighed quietly to himself,
life had been much easier in the old days when Generals knew how to destroy
armies and nothing else. Then, they just accepted everything a scientist said.
Put on a long white coat and they were as good as gold. This one had an
annoying habit of arguing with scientists and, even more annoying, was very
often right. He quickly realized that it was about to get worse.
“I’ve
been reading up on the Human Genome Project. According to their findings, the
useless repetitive sequences, the junk DNA make up at least 50% of the human
genome. According to the people working on that program, the junk DNA doesn’t
have a direct function, but they reshape the genome by rearranging it, thereby
creating entirely new genes or modifying and reshuffling existing genes. It
also appears that something quite drastic happened around 50 million years ago
that caused all our junk DNA.”
“That’s
correct General. Our working hypothesis is that somehow we and the baldricks
split away from each other way back then. We went our way, they went theirs.
Perhaps we all came from somewhere else and the ‘something quite drastic’ was
that we stayed here and they went to the hell-place. We each used different
parts of our junk DNA and activated different strings. The difference may be
only one half of one percent but it’s a very important one half of one percent.
There’s more to it than that of course; it looks to us like the baldrick DNA
itself has been corrupted, either by selective breeding, prion infection, both
or something else.”
“So,
how can you help me look after the prisoners we’ve acquired.”
“Well,
we know from other sources that they are exclusive carnivores. Its probable
that they’ll eat any sort of meat, they’ll eat in large quantities but at
irregular intervals. Without need for major physical exercise, they’ll probably
eat only once a week or so. Won’t be a pretty sight when they do though.”
Surlethe thought back to the sight of the succubus eating and shuddered.
“Medication might work on them, we’ll have to be careful and take it by stages.
Oh, and General, their metabolic pathways are almost identical to ours.
Chemical weapons should work on them just fine.”
The
Ultimate Temple, Heaven
The
archangel Michael strode forward into the Temple. All about him, the people
sang; he could feel the ecstasy of the choirs of angels, of those few,
fortunate saved humans. As he entered the Holiest of Holies, the thick marble
of the temple walls drowned out the beautiful music outside; reduced to a dim
glow, he focused his attention on the sight before him.
It
awed him every time without fail: the great white throne, with its flashing
lightning and pealing thunder surrounding the giant figure who sat on it, the
One Above All Others. Before the throne were the seven great, gold lamps, burning
their ceaseless incense so that the clouds of scented smoke hung thick and
hazy, the smell clinging to everything. On one Michael loved it, the pomp and
circumstance, the splendour all appealed on a very basic level, as they were
supposed to. On another level, Michael-lan found them disturbing and slightly
repulsive. There was something very unhealthy about the whole set-up and the
mentality behind it. It betrayed a fundamental lack of balance.
At
the four corners of the room stood the four living creatures, chanting their
ceaseless cry: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and
is to come;” and the twenty-four members of the Private Choir. They were
ancient even by the angels' standards, and were constantly on their faces before
the throne, murmuring, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and
honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created
and have their being." Time was, their voices had outstripped even the
living creatures in volume, but even here they were not free from time's
ravages. An astute observer might look closely into their eyes and see the
misery and despair there. Singing the same praises for untold millennia was not
as heavenly as it sounded.
Michael
stopped in the middle of the lamps and knelt down on both knees, prostrating
himself and pressing his flawless lips to the cold, dark jade floor. As though
sensing intentions, the four living creatures quieted, and the twenty-four
elders' murmurs died to whispers. From the white throne, the voice of Yahweh
thundered: “Michael, my good general, what news do you bring me?”
"Oh
nameless one, Lord and God of all, I prostrate myself to your presence. The
messengers of Gabriel have returned, save one – Appoloin – who was killed in
your service." As he related the information, he couldn't help the quiver
of surprise that crept into his voice; the idea that humans, of all things,
could destroy demons or angels, let alone the merciless slaughter to which they
had apparently subjected the demonic army, still confused him. If he were
capable of admitting it to himself, he might even have said that the prospect
scared him. But had he not seen for himself, on his visits to Earth just how
far humans had advanced? So to be surprised at their lethal killing powers
didn't make much sense at all.
"My
Lord, the army the Morningstar sent forth has been utterly destroyed. The human
magic has proved far beyond the capability of the fallen ones."
Yahweh
was silent for a moment, then spoke. "Interesting. And what of the rest of
Satan's hordes?”
"My
Lord, the delegation you sent to Dis has not returned; it is several choirs
overdue. It is not known if the messengers we sent have been received."
"Is
Uriel prepared to go out into the world?"
"He
is, my Lord.”
"Summon
him to me, Michael." At the decree, Michael's fist clenched and lightning
sparked around it as he bit down on his excitement. The chance he had been
waiting for was finally arriving.