The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Eighty One Up

[Stuart]

Laager, 1/33 Battalion, Third Brigade, Third Armored Division, Ninth U.S. Corps. North of Dis.

"Hokay, so the brass needs something dangerous done and so the Third Herd gets the job." Colonel Keisha Stevenson leaned against her tank and looked around at her unit commanders. She still had the same combined arms battalion she had commanded when the Curbstomp War had ended over a year ago, two companies of M1A3 Abrams tanks, two of mechanized infantry in M2A7 Bradleys and a battery of M1314A1 anti-harpy vehicles. The end of that war had marked the arrest of her meteoric rise through the ranks. The explosive expansion of the Army had slowed as it began to reach its planned size and with it had stopped the frantic promotion of the existing officer cadre. Quality was again beginning to catch up with quantity as the new officer corps slowly got to grips with its unfamiliar environment.

"Did we have to blow away that angel?" Lieutenant Jim Shane, once her tank gunner "Biker" and now one of her two tank platoon commanders, sounded almost plaintive.

He was right there Stevenson reflected blowing up that angel had brought me up on General Petraeus's radar and I've become his go-to officer for anything strange or unusual he thinks up. "It was only a little angel Jim. And it got us our white ring." Her tank had the usual long series of black rings around the barrel denoting dead Baldricks but hers had the single, unusual, white ring for the angel they'd killed in Iraq. None of the other nine tanks in her group had one of them.

So much had changed since then. The sweeping movements and great battles of the Curbstomp War had been replaced by the grinding attrition of the deadlocked war with Heaven. That was no bad thing she thought it has only been for the last month or so that my vehicles have had full load-outs of ammunition and the artillery boys are still short. There were subtler changes in place though. The extemporized and emergency modifications that had taken place in the Curbstomp War had been replaced by properly-engineered solutions. Her tanks showed that effect. In the charge across the Phelan Plain and up here, her tanks had been equipped with tent-like air filters that had kept the engines clean but were clumsy, fragile and obstructed the turret's movement. Now, they had been replaced by a much smaller and neater solution. The same applied to her personal equipment. The combination of sand goggles to protect her eyes and bandannas across the nose and mouth to prevent dust inhalation had gone in favor of an integrated mask that covered her face with a loose-fitting filter that allowed her to see, breath and speak without getting her lungs filled with powdered pumice. The new equipment had been made possible by the analysts who had sat down with dust samples and determined the characteristics of the materials that were most effective against it. Slowly, very slowly, Hell was becoming a place where First-Life humans could live. For a limited period anyway. Rather like my home town of Bayonne, she thought.

She shifted her weight against her tank and looked over to where the technicians were setting up the equipment to open a portal back to Earth. It might have been quicker to have gone to one of the new permanent portals that linked Earth and Hell but that would have meant a long drive and her heavy armor wasn't known for its reliability in road marches. "So, you guys got the words. The egg-heads managed to get the signature of a portal to Heaven from Michael-Lan's visit to Myanmar. There's a group on Earth going to open up a portal to that location in a few minutes. We'll take our armor through this one, form up and prepare to penetrate that portal. Order of march will be Alpha platoon in the lead with my HQ section, Charlie, Delta and Echo platoons following with Bravo platoon forming up the rear. When we transit to Heaven, I'll lead Alpha in, the rest of you will follow as soon as I confirm our location and situation.

"Once through the portal into Heaven, it’s a straightforward Thunder-Run. Bravo, Echo and Delta platoons will remain at the portal site to garrison it. Jim, that's your job. You hold that portal regardless right? If you hit real trouble scream for help and we'll turn back to support you. Charlie Platoon will stick with me and Alpha to do the Thunder-Run itself. We'll do a twenty-mile swing. Route will be a triangle, out, across and back. Remember, people, Hell had got weird directionality and we'll have to assume that Heaven is the same. Watch the beacon at all times and keep a picture of where we are relative to it. Rules of engagement, if it moves, shoot at it."

"What about humans there?" Lieutenant Charles Wayne sounded concerned. He was a retread, a veteran NCO recalled to the ranks and made into an officer. He still had some of the reservations instilled during his earlier stint with the colors."

"We don’t know." Stevenson carefully hid the fact that the same question worried her. "When we charged into this place, we could assume the humans were on our side. They were all damned souls after all and we were pulling them out. Even the Baldricks weren't actually enemies, most of them were just as much victims of Satan as we were." And that's a concept that the Second-lifers we're pulling out of the pit just can't get their minds around. "But, will that be the same in Heaven? We just don’t know. Theoretically, all the humans up there are saved souls, the redeemed or whatever the religious called it. So we could expect them to be agin' us. Only, we're learning how different things are from what we expected. And that causes doubt about everything."

She shifted her position on the tank again. "Hokay, so we admit we don't know what to expect. That's one thing we have to find out. What'll humans do up there when they see us? Fight us? Fight for us? Take cover and hide? We don't know. We hope it'll be one of the first two, that way we learn something."

"Won't be Boss." One of the enlisted crewmen spoke up. Stevenson smiled under her mask. In the old days an enlisted man would never have dared interrupt a full Colonel in the middle of his or her flow. But, with the massive expansion of the Army had come different attitudes. The enlisted man glanced around and continued. "Heaven's been closed for centuries while Yahweh lied to us. Humans in it will be old-timers. To them, we're as alien as people come. They'll run and hide. And when we kick Angel ass, they'll take note of it."

Stevenson nodded. "Sounds right. Hokay then, we assume they take cover. If they don’t, watch what happens when we start to blast the Angels. If they join in our side, fine, if they do the opposite, mow'em down. Otherwise try not to hit them. If they get in the way, well, that's the way it goes. One last thing. Angels use sound weapons, DIMO(N) call it trumpeting. Everybody wear your active noise cancellation earphones all the time. We don't know if they'll counter trumpeting if we wear them but we do know they won’t if we don’t. And don't forget your tinfoil beanies. Mount up."

A laugh ran around her group. These days, no thinking person was seen without their metallic helmets. There was a reason why the H.E.A had gone back to World War Two style steel helmets. Yet another item that had been emptied from the world's museums before new production had caught up with demand. Her troops made a great play of adjusting their helmets before swinging into their vehicles. Once securely inside their vehicles, they were safe of course. Daemonic thought control couldn't penetrate a thin layer of aluminum, it stood no chance against inches-thick rolled steel armor. Ahead of her tank, the black ellipse of the portal to Earth opened up.

Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.

“We’re through.” General Schatten’s cry of triumph masked a slight sense of surprise that the portal to Heaven looked so like the ones to Hell. Just a plain, black ellipse, this one large enough to take a pair of tanks side-by-side. A few yards away from his control post, a battery of M109 155mm self-propelled guns had their tubes trained on the shimmering ellipse. There had been a fear that, when it opened, an attack group of angels would come pouring through. If that had happened, they would have been on the receiving end of a barrage of artillery fire. But, the ellipse was quiet.

A hundred yards away, another portal opened, this one driven through from Hellside. A battlegroup of 22 vehicles made its transit, moved to Shatten's position and formed up on the concrete. Five groups of four vehicles and a two-vehicle command groups. To his eyes, this one was slightly odd in that most battalion combat group commanders preferred to use Bradleys as their command tracks, but this group was headed by a pair of Abrams tanks. A very experienced pair given the number of kill rings circling their barrels.

"General Schatten, Sir." The battalion commander was a woman, a very well-endowed one. She'd already peeled off her breathing filter and goggles and was blinking in the bright sun.

Schatten returned her salute. "Colonel Stevenson, pleasure to meet you. I remember your account of blasting that angel. We believe his name was Appoloin-Lan-Gabriel by the way. You did good that day."

"Thank you sir. We ready to go?"

"All set, we've punched a portal through using the signal intercepted in Myanmar. Good luck Colonel and kick some ass over there. We've been putting up with enough down here for too long now."

Schatten retired to his command post and watched the tanks maneuver into position for the first push into Heaven. Stevenson was taking her two-tank HQ section and a platoon of tanks through first as the spearhead. Very wise he thought. To his critical eye, the way the tanks were being handled wasn't as precise and skilled as he would have wished. Too many new recruits, the old prewar divisions had been pruned over and over again to provide cadres for newly-forming units and the dilution of quality showed. Then, the six selected spearhead tanks accelerated and vanished through the ellipse.

The silence of the communication channel seemed to stretch time out as Schatten waited for the first report in. Eventually, there was a crackle of static. For some reason, radio interference was greater when transmitting through a portal and, of course, there had to be a line-of-sight from the transmitter through the portal to the receiver. That was why all the permanent portals were fitted with high-capacity fiber-optics communications links.

"Hokay, so we're here." Stevenson's voice on the radio had an amused note in it that confused Schatten slightly.

"Colonel, what do you see?" Schatten wasn't amused, he was annoyed at the obvious levity.

"Well, we've got a nice, red-gray sky and everything else seems red and dirty. Oh, there's a river not far away, that's red too."

A horrible presentiment passed through Schatten's mind. "What do you mean red? Heaven is supposed to have white light."

"For sure, Sir. And it may well have. But we ain't there, we're in Hell. We're off Loran coverage but I think we're about a thousand miles east of Dis. Far outside anywhere we've occupied to date. We're been snookered, Sir. Want us to hang around here or back out?"

Schatten thought for a second. "Anything else you can see?"

"Grass here is all chewed up and looks like there's a lot of dried blood around. Silver and red I think. That's all. Otherwise, pretty empty here Sir."

"Stevenson, might as well evacuate out of there. We'll debrief you on your return."

Schatten sat back down in his seat and shook his head. Michael hadn't gone directly from Earth to Heaven, he'd used Hell as a staging point, then gone back to some deserted location on Earth for the trip back to Heaven. Antactica perhaps? Or the wilds of the Amazonian rain forest? Who knew? By the look of it, he made all his people do the same, no matter how critical the situation was for them. Then, he shook his head again and sighed. "Damn, that guy's good."

Refugee Camp, Bath-Edie, Georgia, USA

"I am sorry about the conditions here, but this is the best we can do." President Obama looked at the emergency accommodation that had been provided for the family in front of him. It really was about as basic as it could be. He felt acute guilt that his administration couldn't do better for these people, but with Bermuda being left uninhabitable by the repeat impact of storms and most of the Carolina/Georgia coast in barely better condition, it was a question of what could be achieved, not what he would like to achieve.

The scale of the weather attacks on the east coast and the Carribean Islands hadn't been as bad as the weather experts had feared. For some reason, it had been a quiet hurricane season and, they believed, had it not been for Heavenly interference, probably not one hurricane would have made it ashore. Even with the tropical disturbances being artificially pumped up and steered, the disasters had been limited. Everybody had expected Florida to have been hammered as badly as Bermuda yet the state had escaped virtually unscathed. Yet, for all that, there were still more refugees needing help than resources available to aid them.

"We'll make out Mister President." The man's English accent sounded far out of place in this location. "We're better off than many thanks to you."

"And to everybody else Philip." The man's wife spoke reprovingly. "Think of everybody who is helping out."

That was true. Food packages and other aid were coming in from all over the world. This camp had just received a big shipment of Vietnamese rice and there were Vietnamese troops helping unload it while this tour went down. That thought made Obama smile. I wonder what the Vietnam vets here think of Vietnamese troops on American soil. "That's true ma'am. We're all pulling together now."

The woman nodded and then her face saddened. "We still haven't heard from my sister in Los Angeles. I hope she made it." Then she started to cry.

"I can do something about that." Obama put on his sincere voice and then gave an abrupt wave to an aide. "Take this lady's name and address here down and the details of her sister in Los Angeles. Then find out what happened to her and get them in contact." He turned to the woman again. "It surprised me to find out high people jump when the White House gets interested. We'll get you word soon."

The Presidential party moved down the row of shelters, the President shaking hands with the adults while Michelle Obama talked to the children. The camp's very nature told of the problem it addressed, while the directed weather attacks hadn't inflicted the appalling casualties experienced in Tel Aviv, Los Angeles or Naypyidaw, they were an ever-increasing burden on a over-strained, over-stretched world economy. And they never stopped. Now, massive tornados in Kansas or tropical storms hitting the Carolinas coast were too frequent to rate highly on the news. Yet, their economic damage mounted every day. Obama chided himself for thinking that. Over 153,000 Israelis had died when Tel Aviv had been hit. The Israeli Government had sacrificed them, along with itself, to keep the Human Alliance together. Worrying over economic damage from storms seemed petty and selfish in comparison with that sacrifice.

The tour of the camp was ending, now there would be a press conference before he flew over to Colorado to visit another camp for refugees from Tornado Alley. He fixed his friendly smile into place and stood up on the podium his aides had erected for him. It had the Great Seal on it, the new one with the Eagle looking firmly at the arrows clutched in its left talons. These were not the days for the olive branch clasped in its right. The questions from the journalists were the same. How many had died? How long would the war last? How much higher would taxes rise? There was a tiredness in the questions themselves, one that spoke of increasing war-weariness. Eventually, Obama saw the overweight shape of one of his more virulent political critics rising. Damn, I thought he was in a Florida hospital somewhere.

"Mister President, how is it that under President Bush's leadership we defeated and occupied Hell in eight months but now, after sixteen months of war against Heaven, we're no closer to victory than we were when we started."

"Well, Rush, an intelligent question deserves a simple two-word answer." Obama paused and let the tension build up slightly. "We were extremely fortunate that the Curbstomp War worked out the way it did. The enemy didn’t understand us or know our capabilities. They relied on their traditional tactics as a result and they fought on the ground they knew best from their previous incursions on Earth. That threw them against the best army we have under the best general we have. We were lucky in that our allies, notably the Russians, the British, the Indians, the Iranians, all came swiftly to our aid and we were able to subject our opponents to withering firepower. Then, when their army collapsed we were able to pursue them literally to the gates of Hell itself. Due to the actions of our special forces, and those of our allies of course, we were then able to mount operations that defeated the authorities in Hell, eliminate their control and free the humans they held in vile captivity. In contrast, our enemies in Heaven have isolated themselves from us. We have them under siege and we are pounding on their gates. This is a longer, more complex task against a much more capable and skilled opponent. But, mark my words, soon, very soon, we will break through those gates, crush our enemies within Heaven and establish a just and democratic regime there as well."

The commentator looked confused. "Mister President, that wasn't a two-word answer."

"That wasn't an intelligent question."

[JN1]

Lieutenant Captain Jim Shane

Lieutenant Captain?

Nice bit of work, Stu. It looks like the Thunder Run into Heaven is going to be a lot difficult than was initially expected.

"That wasn't an intelligent question."

Brilliant put down delivered to someone who deserves it.

[darthdavid]

That was an excellent zing...

[Vanzetti]

The Israeli Government had sacrificed them, along with itself, to keep the Human Alliance together. Worrying over economic damage from storms seemed petty and selfish in comparison with that sacrifice.

As far as I am aware of (and I should be, given that I live in Israel ), Israeli seat of government is located in Jerusalem. And if the government was evacuated because of the Beast`s attack, it was evacuated into a bunker.

[KrauserKrauser]

Overall a good chapter but you are giving me blue balls about a Thunder Run into Heaven, not fair sir, not fair.

No mention of the crew of the submarine, I guess that will merit more exposition in a future chapter.

[Stuart]

As far as I am aware of, the Israeli seat of government is located in Jerusalem. And if the government was evacuated because of the Beast`s attack, it was evacuated into a bunker.

A key group were evacuated, but they then sacrificed themselves. They refused to accept bunker protection after condemning so many of their own citizens to death, this showing great nobility of spirit. Also dodging the shitstorm of awkward questions that are likely to have to answer.

[Blayne]

As far as I am aware of, the Israeli seat of government is located in Jerusalem. And if the government was evacuated because of the Beast`s attack, it was evacuated into a bunker.

A key group were evacuated, but they then sacrificed themselves. They refused to accept bunker protection after condemning so many of their own citizens to death, this showing great nobility of spirit. Also dodging the shitstorm of awkward questions that are likely to have to answer.

Isn't it generally understood that the elected officials and senior military command and the general staff of a nation have the natural obligation and duty to hide in a bunker so that they can continue to provide needed leadership in a crisis and avoid the chaos of a leadership struggle in the middle of said crisis? Its not like its hiding in a dark room these are usually on par or similar to NORAD right in terms of telecommunications and command and control capabilities to receive intel and give orders as needed?

I think its like one of the few things even Congress would agree on for either a republican or democrat president to do in a crisis where there's a reasonable chance his life is in danger?

Or was the military command and the clear successors evacuated at least?

[Chris OFarrell]

So I guess its all up to Captain Wong and his F-18's 'thunder run' into Heaven, praying his EW gear or something picked up some data from the portal I guess...

Still, that smartvass Archangel is going to get his comeuppance, make my words!

[Simon_Jester]

So I guess its all up to Captain Wong and his F-18's 'thunder run' into Heaven, praying his EW gear or something picked up some data from the portal I guess...

Probably not. That was accidental, and we'd likely have heard something about it if he'd gotten any useful data. Remember that Madeuce's team had all sorts of specialized equipment to pick up a portal signature; Wong would have had no such thing.

Also, nitpick: "thunder run" refers specifically to a raid by armored vehicles intended to destroy military targets and demonstrate that you have enough superiority that the enemy cannot stop you. It's a very recent American-ism that started with a mechanized raid through downtown Baghdad in the second Iraq War.

[Hofner1962]

Isn't a "Thunder Run" basically what was a blitzkrieg before literally meaning "Lightning War"? Those normally had air support as well.

[Jamesfirecat]

Okay here we go, time for a non spam post to celebrate the first Salvation War Post of the New Year, yay! (Blows Party streamer thingy)



“One last thing. Angels use sound weapons, DIMO(N) call it trumpeting. Everybody wear your active noise cancellation earphones all the time. We don't know if they'll counter trumpeting if we wear them but we do know they won’t if we don’t. And don't forget your tinfoil beanies. Mount up." I somehow doubt they’ll help much. I think the Angel’s attack works as sort of a weaponized/funnelled sonic boom, so I wouldn’t think earphones would be any help against it...

“Eventually, Obama saw the overweight shape of one of his more virulent political critics rising. Damn, I thought he was in a Florida hospital somewhere.” You know who would make a great cameo in this story (even if it doesn't make it past the editing stage)? Glenn Beck. Dear god, could you imagine what kind of crazy conspiracy theories Glenn Beck would come up with in a situation like this? Of course the guy is pretty into “God” so he might have followed The Message, but still...

Also I agree with what some others have said since Mr. Wong’s fighter actually flew into heaven, going over its equipment with a fine tooth comb is probably our best hope for getting into Heaven. It isn’t much, but it’s something and since our other major lead just turned into a major dead end we’ll just have to work with what we have...

[Peptuck]

Dammit, Michael-lan, you bastard! Stop being so magnificent!

Don't make us dig up Patton and send him after your ass.

[The Vortex Empire]

Damn you Michael, for being smart enough not to lead us right to Heaven! Now how will we find a way in? Mike Wong's radar data is likely useless, since it's not built for portal information, and what other source do we have?

[Guardsman Bass]

That sneaky bastard. The Burmese data was probably the best chance they had, considering that they caught Michael-lan off-guard (or at least thought they did). I wonder what they'll do now?

Considering that Yahweh and his ilk are stirring the storms, perhaps they can gleam something from the connections between Heaven and Earth that must occur. It would be pretty difficult, though.

[Michael Garrity]

Greetings all:

In an earlier response, some mention was made of who was going to lead the Thunder Run. I guess we know who it is now. Before, I read this new installment, I would have guessed the leader to be Patton, Guderian or Zhukov...
Excellent work, I say.....

Mike Garrity

[phongn]

In an earlier response, some mention was made of who was going to lead the Thunder Run. I guess we know who it is now. Before, I read this new installment, I would have guessed the leader to be Patton, Guderian or Zhukov...

Uh, why would it be one of those persons?

[Darth Ruinus]

"Grass here is all chewed up and looks like there's a lot of dried blood around. Silver and red I think. That's all. Otherwise, pretty empty here Sir."

What's this all about? Was Micheal hurt by the blast (during the closing of the portal?) or are there other areas were angles are fighting humans? (Angel blood is silver isn't it?)

Also, good chapter.

[SCRawl]

"Grass here is all chewed up and looks like there's a lot of dried blood around. Silver and red I think. That's all. Otherwise, pretty empty here Sir."

What's this all about? Was Micheal hurt by the blast (during the closing of the portal?) or are there other areas were angles are fighting humans? (Angel blood is silver isn't it?

Maybe it's his standard escape point that he always uses when fleeing from Earth. Also recall that in the previous chapter, the whore of Babylon had been instructed to flee to a point that Michael had specified. Perhaps this is the point.

[Pelranius]

MIKEY!!!!!

Darn but he's a lot cleverer than I gave him credit for.

Speaking of the Israeli leadership, won't they still have to answer questions in Second Life?

I must admit that I'd forgotten about Stevenson's endowment.

[Blayne]

The bit about Michael and co using roundabout portals was also cleverly chekov'ed as well in earlier scenes with the beast.

[JBG]

Nice one Stuart. Here was me looking at the mechanics of the raid when you had something altogether different in mind. I must try to remember not to play poker with you.

Back to square 1 probably. Wong's F-18 just wasn't equipped to capture the needed data...or was it? There was an earlier reference to, in perhaps one case, stripping out or leaving out much EW and ECW etc equipment as it was not considered as necessary to warrant the weight and expense. For airborne sniffing something with a name starting with Rivet or somesuch would be a better natural fit.

In an earlier response, some mention was made of who was going to lead the Thunder Run. I guess we know who it is now. Before, I read this new installment, I would have guessed the leader to be Patton, Guderian or Zhukov...

Uh, why would it be one of those persons?

Indeed. Stuart has expressed some reluctance to drag up too many names. A good contemporary armoured or mech infantry/cavalry commander should be able to do the job.

Besides, if a name is needed for a raid, then how about Stirling?

[Sea Skimmer]

Hmm, sounds like humanity needs an emergency effort to orbit a satellite network equipped with the portal detection and recording gear, unless existing ELINT birds can be software modified for the job like cell phone towers were. Then remote islands or Antarctica couldn’t serve as staging points for angle incursions.

[JBG]

Hmm, sounds like humanity needs an emergency effort to orbit a satellite network equipped with the portal detection and recording gear, unless existing ELINT birds can be software modified for the job like cell phone towers were. Then remote islands or Antarctica couldn’t serve as staging points for angle incursions.

The technology is there to smother the globe with portal opening warning devices, whether mobile phone towers or satellites etc. The fine grain recording of the actual signals pertaining to portal physics is something else. Madeaus was very close and human portal devices are very close to the phenomena they are controlling/influencing/observing otherwise. Getting that specialist equipment on-site is the problem and will remain a problem until those devices are convenient and common. Or humans storm heaven, rape and pillage, so to speak and sort out the details at our comparitive leisure.

The Burma operation was a tricky thing. Getting further data that's relevant may be hard without some genius input or happenstance. Enhanced surveillance appears the best course to pursue, at present

[usagihunter101]

"We've been snookered, Sir."

MOTHERF&^%ER!

Just when I thought we'd finally get to see our glorious thunder run, that smug bastard outmaneuvers us again.

[Darth Yan]

153,000? Now I really hope Yitzach gets his desserts. congrats to mikey and obama. i like his response. that wasn't an intelligent question