The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Forty One Up

[Simon_Jester]

I think Stuart has been leading us up to the 'flaming spitballs' outcome by making it clear that Michael is trying to get away on technicalities, and that he's more preoccupied with finding a way to make fire rain from above than he is with having it do useful damage.

I get the feeling that he'd rather just move on to the next plague, which involves darkness spreading across the land. I'm not sure how he plans to manage that either, but if he already has a plan to do so, that at least puts him in a better position than he is now.

The only obvious way I can think of for him to dry up the Euphrates would be to block it with portals, though... which would be a really bad idea. He might conceivably be able to divert a significant flow of the river underground, though... I don't know much about the details of Mesopotamian geology.

[Samuel]

I think Stuart has been leading us up to the 'flaming spitballs' outcome by making it clear that Michael is trying to get away on technicalities, and that he's more preoccupied with finding a way to make fire rain from above than he is with having it do useful damage.

I get the feeling that he'd rather just move on to the next plague, which involves darkness spreading across the land. I'm not sure how he plans to manage that either, but if he already has a plan to do so, that at least puts him in a better position than he is now.

The only obvious way I can think of for him to dry up the Euphrates would be to block it with portals, though... which would be a really bad idea. He might conceivably be able to divert a significant flow of the river underground, though... I don't know much about the details of Mesopotamian geology.

Obviously it involves putting huge sheets of cardboard between the Earth and the Sun. Of course there is the energy differential so the angels will have to shove really hard. Or he could fill the sky with particulate matter. Volcanoes would sure be nice, wouldn't they?

[dragon]

I've kept up with the story whilst I was at Ft Sill, so I'm still waiting for that hole to be filled, Stuart, he IS dead after all.

So how are you enjoying the crap that is the US Army jk well sort of kidding it had it ups and it has some down and some people that really needed to get deployed and shot.

Anyways he mentions the Airborne laser in the story and what happens they announce that the airborne laser is going head.

link

[JN1]

Woops, managed to miss a chapter! Like that line about the daemons shooting like the A-Team.

[tim31]

Given how stretched thing the ammo supply situation is, Michael would be smart to start firebombing Chinese industry.

Besides tinfoil hats, remind me what the counterintelligence situation is like for Earth forces.

[Ritterin Sophia]

So how are you enjoying the crap that is the US Army jk well sort of kidding it had it ups and it has some down and some people that really needed to get deployed and shot.

I was enjoying it until I got put out on a medical discharge from left femur/right tibia stress fractures, I didn't get to finish AIT (13B). I can go back in two years, so now I'm looking for a place where I can work with weapons for some more technical experience with weapons before I go to school to become a gunsmith (I had a year in so I get my GI Bill), then after I get the education I want I'll probably go back as a 91F since I may be able to go back as an E4 (I know the Army does this for truckers with [I think it's four years] of experience when they join as 88M) rather than what I left as, E3.

I also wasn't talking about Uriel, I was talking about McNamera. Also thanks for the welcome back, guys. I've moved you all to the bottom of my 'Time-on-target' list.

[Pelranius]

Given how stretched thing the ammo supply situation is, Michael would be smart to start firebombing Chinese industry.

Besides tinfoil hats, remind me what the counterintelligence situation is like for Earth forces.

They seem to rely a lot on law enforcement personnel spotting any troublemakers, and presumably conventional counter intelligence activities directed against North Korea and Myanmar.

[Simon_Jester]

Woops, managed to miss a chapter! Like that line about the daemons shooting like the A-Team.

I pity the fool who crosses the Spartan drill sargeant...

Besides tinfoil hats, remind me what the counterintelligence situation is like for Earth forces.

Probably not good. There's really not a lot you can do except wear your tinfoil and jump on any portal openings you find, I think.

The chief counterintel advantage the human forces have here is that their enemies don't really know what they're looking for. Even Michael doesn't seem to have much concept of how human militaries, industry, and science work except for "there's a lot of it and it's pretty alarming to deal with up close."

[Pelranius]

Woops, managed to miss a chapter! Like that line about the daemons shooting like the A-Team.

I pity the fool who crosses the Spartan drill sargeant...

Besides tinfoil hats, remind me what the counterintelligence situation is like for Earth forces.

Probably not good. There's really not a lot you can do except wear your tinfoil and jump on any portal openings you find, I think.

The chief counterintel advantage the human forces have here is that their enemies don't really know what they're looking for. Even Michael doesn't seem to have much concept of how human militaries, industry, and science work except for "there's a lot of it and it's pretty alarming to deal with up close."

A lot of counter intelligence would probably also center upon providing false targets and decoys to throw off anymore of those Bowls.

Is there any way to mask the "presence" of the sensitives?

[Serafina]

.

Is there any way to mask the "presence" of the sensitives?

Tinfoil should do the trick - after all, it prevents demonic possession - it should work equally well against related power.

The sensitives have not been specifically targeted - only by the bioweapon, which is not fooled by tinfoil.

[Buritot]

As always I keep on thinking,
which led me to doubt the viability of Euryales delivery business. As far as I know for demons to establish a portal they need to lock on someone. I assume this person doesn't have to be a sensitive nor have dormant abilities as such.
To establish a connection to a person said individual has to remove its EM protection a.k.a. tinfoil hat. That would open said person to any hostile EM attack.
Is there some workaround or solution I'm not aware of, or will that be addressed in future chapters (LoW)?
While we're at it... are there large scale DNA screening and sampling operations yet, to find more sensitives?

Also, good news for addicts in Heaven!
Suppose Angels have at least the same biological resistances and increased healing properties Demons have, getting them off their addictions might be easier than with their human counterparts. Furthermore, it might prove beneficial to their relapse ratio. With luck, they will only need to deal with the psychological residue of their addictions while their metabolism might fight off its physical fall-out.

[BR7]

Is there some workaround or solution I'm not aware of, or will that be addressed in future chapters (LoW)?

Presumably, sensitives are required, as humans and demons have been consistently shown to need them on the receiving end. It could work with a few demons in each major city that travel to each delivery location. Angels have not been explicitly shown to need sensitives in place, but that might be assumed, as readers should know it by now. Or maybe not, which could give humans clues as to how to artificially open portals to Heaven and other places without friendly sensitives.

[Buritot]

To bring up something completely unrelated:

Will the thread be deleted when the books will be available for purchase? I greatly appreciate reading the various comments on the chapters, the speculation and crave for the stuff. Will that be lost, or will the posted chapters simply replaced with a place holder like "Armageddon, Chapter 23" without removing the comments?

[Stuart]

Hills South of Barona, Southern California, USA

Uriel looked skywards and cursed. The aircraft were up there again, circling, methodically and patiently searching for him. It wasn't the fast ones that were the problem. He could hear them coming and ease his battered body into cover. It was the small, slow ones that were causing him grief. They flew down low, methodically checking out the valleys and ridgelines. Despite their bright colors, they were hard to see until it was too late. They would pop up over a ridgeline before he could respond and it had only been a matter of good fortune that he hadn't been seen by one of them.

The worst thing about the small aircraft wasn't that they were so hard to evade. It was that they meant the humans were close. If Uriel listened very carefully, he could hear sounds of their approach. The roar of their vehicle engines, sometimes the sound of shots as a suspicious object was raked with gunfire. It wasn't a good time to be something that might look like a wounded angel when this hunt was underway. If he listened really carefully, Uriel could hear the baying noise that chilled his blood. Humans had brought their dogs along to help with the hunt. He had little doubt that it was the dogs that were doing the tracking. Dogs to track, humans to kill, it was a deadly combination and one that was forcing Uriel to run for his life.

He listened very carefully, acutely aware that the humans had come close to blinding him with their missiles. One of his eyes still wasn't working, the other gave only blurred vision. It was clearing slowly but even with the ability of angels to recuperate from near mortal wounds, his injuries were crippling. Yes, he could hear the baying of the dogs echoing through the canyons. The enthusiasm evident in the sound was worse than the threat it conveyed. The dogs were thoroughly enjoying themselves. They were pleasing their human partners, that was some of it. But, wrapped up in the enjoyment and the pride in performing a task that the humans couldn't was pure, cold hate. The dogs hated him, to them, this was personal. Faint though the baying was, Uriel could sense the dogs' desire to get their teeth into him for just a few good bites before the humans finished him off.

It was time to move again. Once again, he looked upwards, peering through his fogged vision to try and detect the little aircraft. For once, the sky was empty, the latest of the aircraft had dropped behind a ridgeline, probably to scan the ground in another one of the canyons. Uriel sensed something else though, an aircraft high up, so high that even with his vision perfect he would not have been able to see it. It was moving fast, so fast that it seemed silent as it passed, the sound of its passage only arriving later in a dull boom. Surely an aircraft so high and so fast wasn't a threat? Even if it was, it didn’t matter. Uriel noted that the sound of the dogs and the humans was getting louder. Even if the so-high, so-fast aircraft was a threat, he had to move.

He heaved himself up and started to move along the canyon. As he did so, he looked down, checking where he put his feet. He'd made that mistake on the first day after the humans had wounded him. He had been so busy checking the sky and the ground for his pursuers, he'd ignored the warning rattle. The snake had bitten him and the pain in his leg from the bite still burned. Snakes always had been servants of the Eternal Enemy and even with Satan dead, they seemed still to carry on in their accustomed style.

The problem was that his options were narrowing quickly, narrowing in a very literal sense. The mountain range he was hiding in was shaped like a funnel and he was moving steadily towards the narrow end. North of his position was a human settlement, south was a rock-covered plain that offered him no cover at all. Behind him were the humans with their dogs and guns, in front of him, a narrow series of canyons that offered the only way out. Only, beyond those canyons was another human settlement. Uriel would have to swing east to avoid it and that pinned him against a river. He desperately tried to remember what the ground had looked like when he had flown over it before. The riven ran through a valley, one that was lush with green vegetation that would offer little or no cover to a creature his size. But, if he could cross the river, there was a maze of mountains and canyons for him to hide in. So, north then east.

The thought of the river made him remember his thirst. His mouth was dry, as parched as the hills around him. He was also hungry, desperate for food. The demands of his body as it tried to repair the damage that had been inflicted on it during the battle multiplied his need for food and water. Without them, his healing process was slowed still further. Uriel looked around, saw the yellow-gray hills under the blue sky and bright yellow sun and desperately wanted to be back in the clear white of Heaven. The thought made him try and form a portal for his escape but the black ellipse eluded him. That power too had been taken from him by the humans. Just how badly had they hurt him. The thought tormented Uriel, he could feel the burn of the steel and tungsten fragments in his body but their were other injuries as well, ones he couldn’t name or describe. He could feel them though, feel the sickness they caused.

Summoning his strength, trying to subdue his pain and exhaustion, Uriel started his trek north, his wounded leg dragging behind him. Could he fly? His wings were torn and burned, at least some of the smaller bones broken. More as an experiment than with any intention of flying, Uriel tried to inflate his flying sacs. He could feel a tiny trickle of gas into them, but that was all. It didn’t matter. Uriel knew that any attempt at flight would simply lift him up to where the humans could see him. And there, their missiles and aircraft were waiting.

443rd Battalion (California), United States Volunteers

"Any word from the Civil Air Patrol?" Captain(V) Artemis Gordon spoke to the radio operator with longing in his voice. He was hot, tired and dirty. The 443rd had been on the hunt for Uriel for four days without rest. Not that they wanted any, they needed it but they didn’t want it. In fact, had a messenger turned up with orders for their relief, the men would probably shoot him. They wanted Uriel, they wanted him dead and they wanted the 443rd to be the agent of his timely demise. Compared with that driving goal, heat, exhaustion and dirt were minor inconveniences.

"No pop. Sorry, Negative Sir." Bobby-Lynne Gordon kept forgetting her father was also her commanding officer. "The airdales are still hunting."

Artemis Gordon nodded. The Civil Air Patrol, everybody who owned a private aircraft and wanted to get some fuel for it, was carrying the burden of the search, their little Cessnas and Beechcraft threading through the canyons and arroyos that made up the tangled mess Uriel had taken cover in. They weren't alone, up high, circling the area was one of the fabled Auroras. They'd come out of their dark world of secrecy as the hunt for Uriel had gained momentum and they were using their futuristic array of sensors to probe the hills for the wounded angel. They existed, that much was known at last, but what they were, that was still a secret.

"Hold One." Bobby-Lynne patted herself on the back for getting the language right for once. "Report coming in on the special channel. Our Friend Upstairs reports he's picking up movement on his radar. Large object, too big for a human or local wildlife, heading north. About eight to ten miles in front of us, heading around 10 degrees true."

"All right!" Gordon slapped his daughter on the shoulder and climbed out of the Ford Excursion SUV that served as the battalion command vehicle. It just looked so much better with the 20mm cannon mounted on the roof. Around him, his men were pouring water into bowls for the thirsty tracking dogs. The officers of the 443rd worked on the old cavalry principle, animals first, then men, finally self. The humans were desperate for water but every one of them made sure that the dogs get their fill first. Not just the tracking dogs, there were attack dogs here as well. Their handlers were feeding and watering them ready for the meeting with Uriel.

"Listen up men. Our Friend Upstairs, thinks he's spotted Uriel north of us. Eight to ten miles. We need to get moving. Everybody into the trucks, we'll run up through Cabela Canyon, that'll take us to within a mile or so of the reported position. Harry, make sure those 106mm rifles of yours are ready, we'll need their hitting power."

"Sure thing Boss. We've got three rounds of HEAD per gun, then we're back to conventional HEAT."

"Whatever, as long as it hurts the bastard. Everybody else, make sure your heads are wrapped up in foil, we don’t want to lose anybody. You can bet word's going out to the squids and airdales. They'll be turning up with their goodies as soon as they can get here. That'll keep Uriel occupied but you can bet in the final battle, he'll use all that stop-living power he's got to try and beat us off. So, lets not give him any chances. Remember El Paso and all the other towns he's raped. Just remember he's been doing that for thousands of years against people who had no defense against him. People who had never done him any harm. So, everybody, kill Uriel. Don’t mess around, just kill him."

Gordon swung up into his Excursion and started to roll forward. All around him, people were packing up camp and mounting their vehicles. The dogs didn’t need orders, they jumped up on board. They had their own reasons for wanting to kill Uriel, reasons in which vengeance warred with the desire to please their humans. But, dogs are supremely logical creatures and they saw no point in walking when they could ride. Gordon looked at the 443rd starting to move and felt a strange contentment in his heart. There was something immensely satisfying about commanding good men – and women – on a dangerous but important mission. It certainly beat his day-time job of Liberal Arts professor at the local University.

The Montmartre Club, Heaven.

"Look, people, I'm going to need your help here. Artie, Glen, Duke, Louis, Benny, Shep, can you all get together please, select some music you can all agree on and do a rehearsal. Betty, Billy, Mahalia, Janis, Ethel, Mamie, when the boys have picked the music they want, could you make up a chorus and do the vocals. We'll put a hold on the stage show while we get this done, the girls can hold the fort out there."

"Don’t we have to sing praises or sumpin?" Billie Holiday was curious.

"Not unless you want to." Michael-Lan's voice was soothing. Actually, he found this cajoling of his human employees irritating. Why he had to persuade them when he could simply order angels around confused him slightly He had noted though that humans, especially the really talented ones did not respond well to being given terse orders. A degree of explanation and polite requests got better results faster. "It's not the words that are important, it’s the music and the singing. It gets everybody's mind together. On the same page. That makes our powers so much more efficient. Ladies, this is a chorus of equals not a diva with her back-up singers. You've got to work as a team."

Behind them, the band-leaders were hunched over a table pawing through the music. Artie Shaw looked up and caught Michael's eye. "How about Black Velvet?"

Michael-Lan looked at the singers and they nodded. "That'll do fine Artie. Use the area here for your rehearsals, when you're ready, let me know and we'll do the performance. I'm not sure how long it'll take me to get through and make contact so we may have to do several runs through the score."

"No problem, Michael." Glen Miller hesitated. "May I ask what this is all about?"

"I've had orders from Yahweh. Direct orders even I can't duck or evade. I'll be honest with you, Uriel-Lan tried an attack on a city down on Earth and got really badly shot up doing it. Yahweh wants him rescued so we can find out what happened. We've got to locate him and open a portal to him so I can go down and get him out."

The musicians started to exchange looks. Eventually Miller spoke up for them. "Michael, we all know who and what Uriel-Lan is. If the people down there shot him up, well, we don’t feel right about helping you get him out. From our point of view he's better off dead."

"From a lot of points of view, he's better off dead. I don’t like this mission any more than you do." Michael bit back the instinctive desire to yell orders at the humans and force their obedience. "But, Yahweh wants him back up here alive. If I don’t pull it off, he'll ask why. At the moment he's nicely bottled up in his palace and knows little or nothing of what’s really going on. But, if he starts asking questions, he'll learn. We don’t call him the all-knowing for nothing. He'll find out about this place and everything we've all worked for will get blown away. The humans down on earth have got the measure of Uriel's attacks, he's not doing much damage and they're hurting him worse every time." And why they haven't killed him yet is beyond me. " So, helping me won’t do any appreciable harm down below and will do us a lot of good up here. Not least of which, it'll stop Yahweh taking over the war and hitting Earth in a full-scale invasion.

"Like the one Hell launched?" Artie Shaw asked the question with a degree of relish.

"Just like the one Hell launched. And the carnage will be dreadful, for both humans and us. That's what I'm trying to avoid. When the humans get here, and they will, they'll tear this place apart. You have the humans up here to worry about, I have the angelic host to look after. Believe me, rescuing Uriel-Lan is the best of some very bad alternatives."

The musicians looked at each other again and nodded. "Very well Michael, we'll get rehearsing."

Michael-Lan heard the instruments tuning up behind him and the first tentative notes of "Black Velvet" echoing out of the improvised rehearsal chamber. He walked through the corridor down to the main body of the club and stopped for a second to check the buffet was up to standard. Then he glanced around the room and picked out the next people he wanted to see.

"Perpetiel-Lan-Paschar, glad you could make it here. How goes the special task I have assigned you?" Michael picked up one of the chairs, spun it around and sat on it.

"Very well, we made contact with the subject. He's calling himself Samandiriel-Lan-Michael by the way. We took him to an adoration session yesterday evening, three hours of chanting praises to Yah-Yah."

Michael winced, that was dedication to duty. "And he was happy?"

"Of course, he went away feeling very righteous. We're having him back for a six-hour session in a couple of days. Once we've got him on that, he'll be ready for movement to the next stage. We've gota plan to handle that."

"Good, you and your team deserve a round on the house for that. Remember, he's got to find out enough to keep him interested and if by chance, he should become a convert. . . . . "

"We'll talk to you about it before doing anything."

"Excellent." Michael-Lan stood up and left his nightclub. Things really were going splendidly.

417th Flight Test Squadron, Edwards Air Force Base, California

"And where do you think you're going Mikey?" Colonel Samuel Allansen stood behind his co-pilot who was stuffing possessions into a travel bag.

"Oh, hello Sammy. I got transfer orders, with the ABL program axed, I've been assigned to the 40th Bombardment Group for conversion to B-1Cs. Sorry, I thought you knew."

"I did, you didn't." Allansen was grinning all over his face at the confusion on Mickey Jennings' face.

"Sorry?"

"The ABL program is on again, funding was restored by executive order last night. Your transfer has been countermanded, you'll be staying with the 417th. In fact, we should be getting two new birds as soon as they can be assembled. One of them will be yours."

"Hey that's great." Jennings paused. "What is going on?"

"Uriel."

"I thought he was down somewhere in Southern California?"

"He is. And the Volunteers are closing in on him. But if he gets out or if Heaven turns out to have more like him, then it'll be the job of the 417th to hunt him, or them down, and kill him. The Big Brass think our laser will be just the job to slice and dice him."

"So the whole program will go splat again as soon as Uriel's dead or there aren't any more of him?" Unspoken was Jennings' thought that he'd prefer being in a bomber.

"Not from what I hear." Allansen looked around and dropped his voice. "From what the wind says, the really big brass at Yamantau have decided that these so-called gods are more trouble than they’re worth. After we've dealt with Yahweh, we're going hunting for the rest of them. If they want to live peacefully with us, fine. If they want to throw their weight around. . . . ." Allansen pointed at the laser in the nose of the YAL-1A.

"It'll be slice and dice time – again."

[Stuart]

To bring up something completely unrelated:

Will the thread be deleted when the books will be available for purchase? I greatly appreciate reading the various comments on the chapters, the speculation and crave for the stuff. Will that be lost, or will the posted chapters simply replaced with a place holder like "Armageddon, Chapter 23" without removing the comments?

The way we did it on HPCA was to delete the story segments but leave the discussion in. I'm assuming we'll do the same here.

[The Vortex Empire]

Well, Uriel's fucked unless Michael get's him out soon. I don't see how Michael could portal through the interference though, unless he's immensely powerful.

[Kodiak]

Well, Uriel's fucked unless Michael get's him out soon. I don't see how Michael could portal through the interference though, unless he's immensely powerful.

He's the number one guy, so if he can't do it then nobody can. I also imagine this would be a good time to bring Uriel into his little cabal, if he wants to.

[The Vortex Empire]

No, Michael won't take that risk. Uriel is far too loyal to Yahweh. Chances are he'll explain Uriel's failure to Yah-yah in some way that makes him kill Uriel himself.

[Baughn]

I could see this being a FUBAR moment for Michael.

He might make it to Earth - I don't see the interference being as much of a problem on that side - but if his timing is exactly wrong, the way it seems to be playing out, he might end up getting captured.

It would be a surprising end for the vizier who wants to be sultan instead of the sultan, being the humans' way into heaven, but in a way I can see it as a fitting end. Having his plans broken isn't the worst thing that could happen to him; being demoted to a pawn is.

[Pelranius]

Of course, if Michael succeeds and pulls out Uriel, it could be interesting if the second conspiracy decides to interfere and start doing digging of their own. The second conspiracy looks like something that Michael should pay more attention to.

[Buritot]

Hrm.
If Michael succeed in rescuing Uriel, latter will have question on the matter of his rescue, namely why humans had been involved. Fully groomed, very unslavory humans at that.

This makes me wonder what Angels eat. I would suspect Uriel would at least try out local foliage and flora (fauna?), but he ignores it instead. Or he doesn't even recognize its edibility.

As for the shrapnel in his body, it causes him pain directly and poisons his blood. This at least would explain his comment on feeling the sickness. The other injuries... it could it be denaturation of protein and enzymes due to the SPY-1. Seems at least feasible.

I wouldn't describe dogs as inherently logical to chose being driven instead of walking themselves. I'd rather say they're as lazy as their lords.

Funny thing with Lemuel is, he didn't even enter the conspiracy he intended but had been lured in a mock conspiracy instead.

The last bit about other deities doesn't change much. Except pluralizing the title of the current book.
Pantheocides, heh. The second word of pure awesome I never could expect to come to know. ( The other being sonoluminescence. )

[Bayonet]

I wouldn't describe dogs as inherently logical to chose being driven instead of walking themselves. I'd rather say they're as lazy as their lords.

They're a lot like people, that way. They can be lazy in the midst of heroically busting their arses. Both people and dogs require leadership to really excell. And a good team is awsome.

[Stuart]

The last bit about other deities doesn't change much. Except pluralizing the title of the current book.
Pantheocides, heh. The second word of pure awesome I never could expect to come to know.

Pantheocide is the plural - the pre-planned systematic extermination of gods. The singular is deicide, the pre-planned systematic extermination of a god.

[Darth Wong]

I wouldn't describe dogs as inherently logical to chose being driven instead of walking themselves. I'd rather say they're as lazy as their lords.

They're a lot like people, that way. They can be lazy in the midst of heroically busting their arses. Both people and dogs require leadership to really excell. And a good team is awsome.

It is a bit oversimplistic to describe people or animals as logical or illogical. Logic has to do with validity of inferences. It is quite possible to do something which is counterproductive and not actually be illogical provided you do not expect an unrealistically positive outcome to result from it.

In any case, dogs obey the most terrible kind of logic: the logic of natural selection. Their instincts have been honed over tens of thousands of years by an environment in which certain actions led to death and other actions led to survival. In that respect, they are most certainly logical creatures: arguably more so than humans, who often subscribe to nonsensical religious belief systems which teach that self-destructive actions will have long-term positive results ... in an imaginary spirit world, whose existence and nature is known solely from intensive study of the writings of long-dead Jews.

[Pelranius]

Hrm.

This makes me wonder what Angels eat. I would suspect Uriel would at least try out local foliage and flora (fauna?), but he ignores it instead. Or he doesn't even recognize its edibility.

He's probably not in any shape to catch any of the fauna, who probably could hear him bumbling around in the woods. And there's not very much edible foliage in that part of Southern California (unless Uriel can eat grass like Nechubenezzar, but even though, that probably wouldn't given him too much nutritional value).