Chapter 23 : War of Armageddon
Note:
-Tachyon weapons doesn't work that way, Tachyon radiation acting like a fishing net, that is why it can block materials sent from other dimensions like titan or demon. Magic, however is energy, it like water or sand, it can bypass the tachyonic net easily. - Apostles possessed an extraordinarily powerful immune system, capable of immediately destroying nearly any foreign agent whether chemical, biological, or technological. This rendered them immune to nanobots.
-Yes, there are anti magic mineral: Antinite, it is an imperial military resource and not something a civilian can obtain. And since the production of antinite is so small, they are not a real threat. Antinite are also brittle so armor made from antinite would likely shatter at first contact with a weapon, and would not be suited to use as a traditional armor of any kind.
-Falmart has much more soldiers not more holy weapons than the earth( all holy ammunition used by UEADF are from the Holy Order) and their weapons are more primitive that mean their kill ratio is a lot worse. Against 600 million demon they will need 6000 division compared to 600 armored divisions of UEADF. Allowing 90 million imperial troops moved through UEADF controlled territory is stupid.
- Quark–gluon plasma weapons with the temperatures of 4 trillion degrees Celsius is too advanced for ULTRON, this is not Star Trek.
- Hadron Collider Weaponry!? you mean the General Electric Type J CPAW High Amperage Charged Particle Accelerator Weapon systems. I already have them in chapter 8 and 11. Again, this is not Star Trek.
-Why i need super-soldier serum!? Because they are cheaper than T-800 or powered armors.
- ULTRON doesn't have T-1000 yet, that is 2049 technology.
+T-3000 : Too advanced and all of the humans exposed to the phase matter were driven insane and died.
+T-5000 : Too advanced and have no information.
+T-8000 : Never heard of it.
+T-1000000: Basically a big spider, a waste of resources.
+Dire wolf: Basically a big dog, a waste of resources.
+T-infinity: this bullshit is a fucking magic not technology anymore. ULTRON is a machine not a wizard.
- "God particle" you mean the Higgs boson, the particle which gave all matter its mass. The phrases is obvious a click-bait.
- Perpetual Motion! is Fucking Magic not science, like I said ULTRON is a machine not a magician.
- Pure anti-matter weapon is too dangerous to use in combat, one small accident and you will be blasted to kingdom come.
Alnus Base, Lemuria, Falmart, 2030
Itami started waking up from the victory party last night. He had been drinking too much so he was a bit hangover now. The party was really wild, he still felt a bit euphoric. They had won the war, the demons were crushed and their commanders surrendered to the coalition.
"Oh God! Rory. Itami suddenly remembered what he did last night, he needed to make sure this didn't come out. Otherwise he'll be in big trouble with the press and possibly the UEASAAITF." (United Earth Alliance Sexual Assault Accountability and Investigation Task Force).
Despite the appearance of a 14-year-old girl, Rory Mercury had lived for more than 3000 years, she possessed an unbelievably supernatural beauty. Her voice was irresistibly sweet like a siren song. She looked absolutely beautiful, like a statue carved of perfect alabaster, crimson red eyes like ruby, lips red as a rose, hair black as ebony, and skin white as snow, there was not a single blemish on her skin and her body moved with a sublime grace that would have made all woman weep. Her petite breasts were really cute, they fit neatly in the palm of his hand. Rory had an extraordinarily flexible body, and her oral techniques with "rod" was downright out of this world, maybe this was the result of 3 thousand years of experience.
'Oh God! It starts to sound strange.' Itami shacked his head to get rip off his perverted thought.
He was a lucky bastard, he knew it but now was not the time for rumpy-pumpy, he need to focus on his mission.
Itami made his way through the winding hallways and up the stairs of the CP. Along the way he passed by offices and planning rooms, the sounds of strategies and discussions could be heard as UEADF planned for the coming campaign ahead. Finally making his way to his office he stepped inside and closed the door behind him
As Itami made his way through his office he connected his neuralink to a small stereo he had delivered to his office using Wifi 10, scrolling through his music he found a song that would calm his mood.
"Ryan Star - Start A Fire"
As the music began to start in earnest he made his way over to a large window behind his desk. Outside he could hear the sounds of progress, the sounds of a coming campaign and all the assets required to see it through to the end.
Itami stood behind his desk as he looked out the window to his office. He watched as more men, machines, and supplies continued to file into the base. Tracks and engines rumbled as armored vehicles were ground guided to various motor pools both UEADF and some Falmartian. Flatbed haulers and armored trucks screeched to a halt as men hurried to offload their precious cargo.
Behind them Itami could see new forms begin to take shape as air assets began to get trucked in piece by piece. Some had already made their way to the airfield and had long been assembled, flying overhead with both rotor and screeching jet engine.
Itami saw all this knowing things would eventually reach this point.
Escalation.
The initial battle against the chaos demons had revealed one very important thing, scope. Not just of the enemy, but of the Eye of Terror itself. Scientists on Earth continued to rack their brains over just how large this pocket dimension was.
The equivalent of 6 army groups or 600 divisions had been thrown against Hellish enemy and achieved stunning successes. But according to the intel, the enemy still had a lot of reserve ready to battle. They need to be ready for the final battle between good and evil.
His train of thought was interrupted as a loud knock came from outside his door. Setting the papers down and fixing his uniform Itami turned the music off before allowing the unknown visitor permission to enter. When the door finally opened Itami had been surprised to see it was General of the Army Hazama.
"Sir! Good to see you, come in make yourself comfortable."
Hazama simply made his way over to the window Itami had been looking out of, with a stoic face he watched as the UEADF presence began to truly take shape outside the building.
"It's really happening, isn't it?"
Itami let out a sigh and stood next to the Hazama. He knew what he had meant, he just hadn't been expecting that statement. Or the question that came next.
"You ever think we just bit off more than we can chew? Japan I mean."
Itami put his hands behind his back as he continued to watch the scene unfold outside after a few minutes of silence he finally went to respond to Hazama's statement. "Sir, our men have been doing well so far, this is their first taste of war after 85 years. Granted it's against technological inferior foes, they have shown discipline and tact where other more experienced armies wouldn't have. Why the doubt sir? Something bothering you?"
Hazama chuckled, but didn't remove his gaze from the scene outside. Both the men watched as pair of Tu-688 took off from the airfield and off into the distance.
Finally the general began to speak again. "No it's not so much that I doubt the men. I just doubt what's going to happen as a result of all of this. A whole new world? Titans? Demons? If you had told me my first chance to lead men into battle was going to be against fantasy and demonic armies? I would've called you crazy."
Itami chuckled as he took in the statement before responding. "Heh well Sir, fighting Kaiju is JSDF tradition. I am not sure what will happen in the future. But Rory once said "We are living in an interesting time full of dangers and opportunities. Fate has brought us together but destiny is on our own." In one way or another, after the Rumbling, this War is inevitable. All we can do is to end this war as soon as possible to reduce the suffering for both side."
Hazama laughed as he finally turned to face Itami. "If this War is truly our inevitable then we must fight with all of our strength to shorten this bloody chapter in human history. Let hope the leaders on both side can see the light and may god forgive us for what we will do."
Apartment in Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto, Japan
She carefully wrote out the name and address on the plain manila envelope with her black sharpie. It whispered across the surface as her elegant but simple strokes spelled out the name Taro Itami. She stopped for a moment, the quiet dulcet tones of the classical music in the background was swelling up now and she listened. She ignored the palsied shaking of her left hand. There was no time for fear.
Her eyes drifted down to the small pile of photos stacked up next to the open envelope. The top photo was a wide angled shot of an African village, thatched huts and low hanging solitary trees with scrub brush everywhere. It was almost cliched as if she had taken a photo of an African village set in the back lot of Paramount. She only wished that were true. In the wide angled shot there were plumes of black smoke rising up in several locations throughout the center of the village. Her thoughts, unbidden as always, drifted back to that moment in time. Her eyes lost their focus on the photo and she was no longer in her quiet home in a non-descript neighborhood of Higashiyama. She was stalking through the deep scrub brush of the African village.
The heat was oppressive and the sweat clung to her body unwilling to leave and unable to really cool her in this Subsaharan warmth. She had heard of the atrocities committed here in Darfur and like many of the First world journalists here she was losing hope that anyone cared about the Africans dying in the wastes of this forsaken place. As she walked into the village she was painfully aware of how alone she was here and how exposed should rebel or government forces decide to descend on this village and finish what they had obviously started. She could already hear the lamentation of the women. It was a mournful yet desperate dirge that refused any succor or solace.
It was the wailing of the women, the gnashing of the teeth of the men that must have attracted it here. The sounds of death in the old ways. The way people used to mourn before things got so civilized. But she was getting ahead of herself, wasn't she? She stepped between huts and abandoned carts, weaving through the debris and the occasional crater caused by some form of ordinance. Perhaps the government had sent another of it Russian made bombers up north to deal more death to these villagers. It had happened before.
She camera whirred and clicked in rapid fire sequence as he took his shots while moving through the village, a discarded doll, a shoe left in the dirt, blood smeared across a doorway. It was all a flowing narrative and she was capturing it as best she could in this miserable heat and squalor. The smell struck her as soon as she approached the town center and she immediately knew what the fires were. People were burning. She pulled her camera up before her like a weapon, fingers tense as she prepared to take her shots.
She stepped over a dead mule, the flies already swirling in angry buzzing clouds. Her eyes narrowed on the ruined town center. The market was on fire and there were people trapped within some of the flaming wrecks. A lot of people. The bombs struck at midday when many of the villagers were gathering what they could for dinner. The people who did this knew precisely what they were doing when they carried out the attack.
She began snapping photos, lens quietly clicking as it focused in on the flailing limbs of the trapped and burning, capturing the expressions of pain and anguish. The lost hope was stamped across the faces of relatives. She had to keep taking the pictures because if she stopped, even for a moment, she could actually begin to comprehend what she was actually seeing and she would lose all sense of composure and self control.
People were trapped in the rubble and being burned alive and there was nothing anyone could do about it. She captured, with numb resolve, the desperately futile attempts by relatives and good Samaritans to douse the flames with buckets of water or dirt. She continued snapping pictures as they worked furiously. Suddenly a young girl rushed up to her and began tugging at her arm and speaking to her in machine gun like delivery.
She was begging her, begging in the most heart wrenching manner for assistance. All she could do was drop her camera for a moment and shake her head sadly. Tears welled up in her eyes and she pulled now, almost as if trying to physically drag her to the scene. She continued to shake her head and then weakly responded in her stilted version of her dialect that she could do nothing.
She shook her head and wailed, slapping herself on the sides of her forehead and falling to her knees. She sunk down into the packed earth and sobbed into it as if it were her mother's breast. Her body shifting back and forth furiously as if trying to burrow into the ground to escape her grief and her cries were like knives in her heart. She stared down at the sight dumbly, unsure what to say or do. Her mind was unprepared for this level of grief.
"It is like music don't you think, Nanami?"
She froze. The voice was soft like silk sheets on skin. The person stood beside her, materializing out of the air like a shadow escaping the noon day sun.
"The anguish, the terror, the guilt. When death comes for mortal being. It is the most feared and awesome event in their too brief lives." Her eyes slowly turned to regard the person.
He stood taller than Nanami, black as obsidian in the sun and wearing simple white shirt opened at the chest with filthy khakis. His feet were clad in battered hiking boots. The boots were splattered with what she guessed were ancient blood stains.
"Imagine it, Nanami. You come into this world and breath for the first time you have simultaneously taken one more step towards death."
The newcomer turned his head slowly to face her and it was so achingly graceful that Nanami wanted to weep.
"The moment you are born you are dying. That is the paradox in which you live."
Nanami shook her head slowly. "Who are you?" she asked quietly. There was an awesome sense of power around him, like standing next to a live wire and she was dimly aware that the activity around them, the dying and the screams were all slowing down and muted as if the world were pausing out of respect for her conversation with the stranger.
The stranger smiled softly as if at a private joke."I am a traveler in your world, I come and go as I please and where I go death follows me."
"You're not human." Nanami replied without thinking and immediately had no idea why she just said that.
"I am more than anything you have ever known, Nanami, daughter of Reiko. I am the sword, the scythe of the Chaos Gods and in my passing entire nations have wept bitter tears. Armies tremble at my name."
Unspoken, Nanami heard a single name whispered with reverence in her head.
"Zarakynel ."
The black Adonis like being said nothing but pursed his lips as if contemplating his next words carefully. "Follow me."
"What?" Nanami stammered.
"Follow me, Nanami. I have many roads yet to travel and this continent pleases me. The people here still know how to grieve. They are still connected on a primal level to death and mortality. Your sterile world repels and abhors me. Death in your world is a clinical state with consequences tied up in paper work and inconvenience. Here. In this place." Zarakynel slowly raised his arms as if to embrace some unseen thing on the ether. "Death is still felt."
"This is insane."
"No, this is life and death happening now. There is something coming. A great message that might make even your great Empires in this world feel again. I wanted to bask in the cold glow of entropy one last time before I must leave this place."
"I'm talking to the angel of death…" Nanami whispered to himself in disbelief. "I finally lost it. I've seen too much."
Zarakynel suddenly reached out, at least Nanami guessed he reached out because he must have done it between the blinks of an eye, for the in the next instant Zarakynel 's hand grasped Nanami's chin tightly and forced her to look into his eyes. And in the death angel's eyes she saw pool of white within white and something else. Something dark and chittering like a mad insect.
"FOCUS child of Reiko."
Nanami's hair grayed at the temples and she felt a palsy come over her, hands shaking and her bowels released their contents without hesitation. She stood in abject terror, rooted in place and suddenly everything Zarakynel wanted and said was the sole thing in Nanami's universe.
"Follow me, you will know my wake for in it there is pestilence, war and famine. Follow me throughout this continent and see my great works. For when I am gone there will be none like me again in this universe. I am the She Who Thirst's scythe, where I go, all life dies. I am not just some quaint Angel of Death, I am entropy incarnate. I weep for your world for my touch is far more merciful than what is to come. The Despoiler has always been too…blunt an instrument for my taste."
Nanami said nothing but her tongue lolled in her mouth and her vision began to fade. She could hear her own heartbeat pounding in her ears and the roar of blood. Her heart was slowing, inexorably slowing to a dull thrumming and she could feel ice collecting where Zarakynel's fingers touched her flesh, her blood had instantly recoiled at the touch and remained away from the points of flesh on flesh contact.
"Within your bloodline is carried the ancient gift like the one borne by the Last God of Greek and all that ilk. You can see me for what I am. So follow me, Nanami, I choose you as my final witness in these dark days. A prophet for a new age."
Zarakynel released Nanami's chin and watched the young woman for a moment as blood rushed back into her face and graying cold clammy skin slowly regained its luster. Her hair remained grey and his cheeks had sunk in slightly. There was no doubt these were scars that would remain. One did not touch the god of death without scars remaining to mark its passage.
Zarakynel looked back over the crowd of screaming refugees, the world apparently was coming back up to speed and volume and nodded as if coming to a decision."Peace be with you and my peace I grant you." He whispered and suddenly every single living thing in the town square down to the angrily buzzing flies dropped to the earth in an instant. Zarakynel nodded in satisfaction turned in a slow beautiful motion and strode away. In the glaring noon day sun Nanami saw the hint of ebony wings jutting from his back. She numbly looked around and then realized what had happened and acted as only she could. She lifted her camera.
She snapped back to the here and now and saw that she had finished writing the address. She sighed softly and coughed. Blood speckled down on the white coffee table. Yes, one did not walk with the Angel of Death and remain untouched. She gently took the stack of photos and scanned them one last time before slipping them into the envelope. Each photo a place in Africa, each one a record of devastation and death and each one followed by a photo of a black man, black enough to have been carved from obsidian like a walking statute and beautiful, so beautiful that in many instances the photos of his face simply blurred as if man's technology simply could not capture the sheer grace of the being, and in many of these photos there were the onyx wings unfurled like a predatory hawk as it strode through the wreckage of its passing.
Every prophet needed his gospel. Every prophet needed to warn the people. Nanami Kuribayashi was no different. She had to warn the world that Chaos Demons were not the only thing that stalked them from beyond. She sealed the envelope.
Camp Echo, New Alabama Airfield, District 1, Lemuria
The truck convoy, a long line of the eight-by-eight HEMTTs, pulled up at the long line of huge hangars that were half-buried in the ground.
The great buried hangars were perfect as a detention area for captured demons. Some of the Chaos Demons sitting in the trucks looked at the razor wire that surrounded the hangars and shuddered. Many bore the scars of that infernal wire.
Abigor had a truck to himself, his size and weight made that essential, and the truth was that he had thoroughly enjoyed his ride. The great truck had moved faster than he had ever dreamed possible, carrying him away from the Hellgate and towards wherever it was that the humans would take him. The trip itself had been an eye-opener. The black strips the humans laid across the desert were crowded with chariots, nose-to-tail convoys of them, mostly heading west. He had, at last, seen the Iron Chariots,'tanks' they were called apparently, at close quarters. Many different types of them, some looking similar, others very different. Long lines of them moving west and he noted how everybody got out of their way. He'd seen the humans inside them and they'd waved at him, shouting things as they passed. Some had been abusive, Abigor recognized curses when he heard them, but most were almost friendly. Once or twice he'd waved back and that had caused the tank crews, even the hostile ones, to behave in a more friendly manner. It seemed that humans had a strange attitude towards their enemies.
He'd also looked at one of the homes of the Flying Chariots as the convoy had made its way East. Two of them had been taking off, the howl they made painful to the ears. 'Warthogs.' One of the truck drivers had shouted. 'Wait till you see them babies at work.' They were babies? What did the parents look like? A few minutes later, Abigor had his answer, a great chariot many times the size of the warthogs landed and started to disgorge tons of cargo. Another followed and by the time their convoy had moved on, two more. The movement at the flying chariot base was constant, if the chariots weren't taking off, they were landing.
"General Abigor? Follow me please." The human spoke politely but firmly. From the number of chariots around, disobeying him was unwise. Anyway, Abigor remembered the long streams of chariots heading west. Arguing wasn't an option. He followed the human into the hangar.
It was pleasantly gloomy inside, a pleasant change from the glaring desert sun. It was cooler too although Abigor hadn't been upset by the heat outside. The interior was divided up into cages, each holding a single demon prisoner. Large enough for him to get up, walk around and exercise. The cage walls were wire layers interspaced with razor-wire.
"General, these are the prisoners we have taken to date. We are doing the best we can to look after them properly, if there are any complaints, please tell us. You are senior officer here and responsible for them all."
Abigor didn't understand much of that but the last words made sense. The humans had given him a command, far less than a single legion that was true, but a command none the less. It was a start. He stared at the nearest prisoner, entangling its mind with his own.
"What have they done with you?"
"Nothing, they just keep us here. They feed us meat, give us water."
"How did they torture you?"
"They did not. They are soft and weak. Jahnibatwesvhik over there had a long splinter of enchanted iron in his chest. It was poisoning him so they took it out. Gave him a drug so that he slept while it was done. As if he couldn't have stood the pain like a true demon."
Abigor nodded and turned to the human with him. "You have looked after them well." His voice showed disbelief and confusion.
"It is our way, when we can. What do your people do for amusement? We have no idea what to give our prisoners. Do you have books you read or games you play?"
We torture mortal souls for our amusement. was the answer that ran through Abigor's mind but he guessed that saying so was not the smartest thing he could do at this point. "We will be happy for whatever you can provide."
"Good, we'll find something. General, there were civilians with your party. I must warn you, we do not look kindly on those who use civilians as cover for their actions."
"Abaddon sent them with me, they are my family. We were all sent to die together."
The human nodded. "We'll investigate that further. In the mean time, the women and children will be housed in another building like this one. We want you to point out which child belongs to which mother so we can house them together."
Abigor absorbed the information that was pouring in on him. It was impossible, surely, that these genial hosts could be the same merciless killers who had destroyed his Army. "Did you take part in the fighting?"
"Sure. My brigade held the town of Hiam against your infantry. We got pasted holding it, your guys fight well up close, but we held long enough for the gunships to get to work. General, are any of your women nurses?"
"What are nurses?"
"Those skilled with helping to treat the wounded. Most of your people have wounds."
"No." Abigor's confusion levels increased to near-breaking point. What was with these humans? In the demon armies, nobody treated the wounded.
They died or got better according to their luck. A popular demon might be looked after by his immediate comrades, an unpopular one might get killed so he wouldn't hold up the rest, but that was all. Then, Abigor thought of the sight of two demons carrying a legless third all the way back home. Contact with earth humans was having disturbing effects.
"That's a pity. We're short of medical staff here and we don't know our way around your bodies. If we operate, we could be doing more harm than good. Our medications could kill."
"Would dissecting a few living demons help? I can assign a few of these to you for that purpose if you wish?"
Colonel David Paschal looked at the Chaos Demon towering over him and shuddered at the thought. Then reminded himself that these were demons after all, they were not supposed to be nice people.
He also reminded himself that his job was to watch, learn and interact with these creatures while his shattered brigade was rebuilt. "No thank you General Abigor, that would be prohibited by our laws."
Abigor was looking at him curiously. "Sire, you seem to know much about us already?"
"You are not the first to rally to our cause. We have others as well. Some have proved most helpful, especially a succubus queen we captured." Paschal held his breath, would Abigor fall for the bait.
He did. His explosive snort rattled the cages. "A succubus! I hope you do not believe everything that single-sex freak told you. They are deceivers and seducers all."
"No, we adopted an old human principle 'trust but verify'. Your people here have been helpful in the 'verifying' part."
Abigor relaxed. "Then I will order them to continue doing so."
Paschal looked at the hangar around them. There was no sign of the modification but the roof had been coated with a new mithril foil foam laminate that was orders of magnitudes more effective at stopping the Chaos Demon mind-entanglement capability than normal mithril foil caps were. With luck, people in this hangar should be isolated from outside mind-links. "Please do that General."
Operation Trinity Headquarters, Alnus, Lemuria
"Major General Marina Fyodorovna Luchenko, First Guards Engineer Corp reporting Sir. My General has assigned me to you as liaison. He asks what would you like built where?"
Liam Nuttall looked at the Russian officer."Good to have you on board General. And your engineers, we need them badly. Our supply lines are very difficult, the road network is completely inadequate for the volume of traffic we are moving. It would help if somebody told the Saudi about obeying traffic signs. Our traffic accident rate is bad enough without their assistance."
Major General Luchenko snorted delicately. "So, Sir, what can we do to help?"
"We need 10 highways Major. Starting at Diddawan, then going around Ash Nalaa and then due south to the Hellgate. I'd like ten lanes going each way, each lane extra wide to handle our HEMTTs – and your trucks of course." Nuttall looked at the Russian woman and grinned broadly. "That's right General, I want you to build the ultimate highway to the gate of hell."
Swamps by the River Styx, Fifth Ring, The Eye of Terror
Okeraphluxos looked over the swamp from his castle. It was small, of course, just as he was a minor duke; he owed his fealty to Kinathroses, the major duke who controlled about half of the sixth ring, and that duke, in turn, owed fealty to Asmodeus, who held the segments of the fifth, sixth and fourth rings, and had just acquired a sixth of Abigor's former holdings, including good land outside the pit and a chunk of the third ring. It had been a long time since a Great Duke of such high status had vanished and the others were falling over themselves trying to seize the choicest of his properties.
His yearly report to Kinathroses was due in the next week, and he needed to find a way to conceal the strange things that had been happening. Oh, not just the usual fudging of the numbers; he'd been doing that for the last few centuries, since the number of humans arriving into The Eye of Terror had ballooned. But even more recently than that, his guards had become reluctant to venture into his swampland realm. He'd had to make an example out of the most recalcitrant, crucifying and then disemboweling him. That hadn't done much good, they were still reluctant to go out into the swamps alone and when they did, they were quick to return. Those that did return.
It wasn't just the mysterious disappearances of his guards and the equally mystifying destruction of the causeway through his territory. Okeraphluxos had other major problems on his hands. His best troops were being taken away to reinforce Asmodeus's Army, leaving him with only the least effective, the very old, the very young and the infirm. All untrained and looking like the soft civilians they really were. As he sat in his chamber pondering the issue, another dull, distant thud rumbled across the swamp. The damnable noises had been going on just a little longer than this mysterious disease of cowardice had been infecting his troops. The minor duke shook his head, cleared his thoughts, and returned to the business of figuring out how to continue deceiving his lord.
Outside the castle, Lt Kim Ngan regarded the building skeptically.
"That's a castle?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.
Rahaby nodded. "That is the home of the minor duke who commands this chunk of the fifth ring."
Kim Ngan looked at it critically. It was a large house rising out of a cluster of smaller houses, surrounded by a piled stone wall at least fifty feet high. From her vantage point on top of a mound of granite, Kim Ngan could see Chaos Demons coming and going through the gate; most were marching in short columns, but one, leading a row of animals that looked like rhinolobsters, but without the long, arching tails, was seated on the beast at the head of the column.
"Note that animal shipment down, Mac," said Kim Ngan. "Brass will want to know everything they can about the economy here." Beside her, Hao Nam was clicking away with the cameras, documenting as much of the outpost as possible.
Rahaby was looking at Kim Ngan with a mixture of distrust and curiosity."What are you planning to do?"
Kim Ngan smiled, rather viciously. "You'll see." Indeed you will, she thought. And it will blow your medieval-age mind.
Behind them, Madeuce loomed up, face impassive beneath its mask and goggles as always."Are you ready to start, ma'am?" he asked.
"You OK, Mac?"
"Yeah, my lungs feel like shit though. Gonna be glad to get out of here though." Madeuce bit his lip in self-reproach. Getting out wasn't an option for Kim Ngan and her crew. They were stuck here and he'd just rubbed that in.
Kim Ngan guessed what was running through his mind."You've earned an out and it's different for you. This place is ours now, earth is your place. Anyway, this is your last run, Tyuwaru will be contacting us soon and then, your on your way home. So, as your final hurrah, take it away, Lieutenant.
The big man nodded, a hint of a smile playing about his lips. He signaled to the other three men accompanying him, and they marched off. Kim Ngan detected a hint of motion closer to the wall; through the dim, noxious atmosphere, she could just make out Hùng planting the last few bottles of nexgenbinaslex mixed with holy water. The perpetual mists and fog of The Eye of Terror were annoying but it made the life of the guerilla much easier. As Madeuce disappeared behind another rock outcropping beside the causeway leading out of Okeraphluxos' stronghold, Hùng slowly made his way back from the base of the wall.
Okeraphluxos was still sitting in his chamber and thinking when he heard a series of loud pops from the window. The sounds were entirely unfamiliar; curious, he stood up and went over to the window as the cracks continued. The sight that greeted him was entirely unexpected: at the gate, his demons were milling about; some were yelling and screaming, and some were running back toward the barracks. With each pop, another demon yelled and dropped; once or twice, heads literally exploded. The foodbeasts below were panicking, and stampeding straight for the back of the compound. He saw several demons trampled beneath their hooves as the small herd ran in blank terror. Several more cracks, and the remaining demons were also heading back into the compound, abandoning their injured comrades.
Abruptly, the walls around his castle just disintegrated. An instant later, a deafening concussion physically knocked him backward, and a shower of stone fragments flew through the window, lacerating the duke's face. In shock, he felt his face, felt the blood oozing out, then crawled back to the window. The room was still spinning around him, and he fought the urge to retch on the windowsill.
Outside, his castle was a complete wreck. The retaining wall had entirely vanished, the causeway leading through the swamp toward the Dis-Dysprosium road had disappeared, and two of the barracks buildings had collapsed. At first, he thought there was nothing left of the demons who had so recently been busy about their business in the castle, but then, looking more closely, he saw, strewn about the jagged rubble coating the ground, lumps that were smoother and darker than the rock fragments. Then, he did vomit on the windowsill.
It was that move that saved his life. As he ducked to vomit, the stone just behind where his head had been exploded in a vicious arc of fragments as something hit it.
Okeraphluxos continued downwards, landing on the floor below the windowsill and crawled away. Just what was happening? Obviously his castle was under attack but he'd never seen a siege start like this before. Oh, sieges were known events, a property might be disputed or perhaps seized as a bargaining chip for some other issue but they ran to a set pattern. The besieging commander would pull his army up and display it in front of the target castle so that the besieged commander could see what he was up against and compare his own forces to them. Then besieger and besieged would meet and decide if the balance of forces made resistance practical. If it was, then the siege was on, if not then the defending garrison would surrender. This sort of sudden attack was unheard-of. And what had destroyed his outer walls?
Okeraphluxos decided to take a better look and was about to do so through the window he had just used when it occurred to him that doing so would be a terminally bad idea. He crawled out of the room, then went to another and used the window there. What he saw appalled him, the remainder of his troops were sprawled on the ground, dead or dying. Yet, across in the swamps, he saw a group of figures moving, six of them, humans by the look of them but colored so they were virtually invisible against the ground and mists of The Eye of Terror. The six figures ran forward to new positions, spread out in front of his massacred men then dropped to the ground. Okeraphluxos took his eyes off them because as they dropped flat, four more humans, colored the same way, emerged from hiding places and ran across the ground.
One surviving member of Okeraphluxos's garrison stood up to take a shot with his trident but before he could do so, there was a rapid series of small thuds and he fell down. They'd come from the area where the first group of six humans had gone to ground. He could hardly see them when he tried to make them out and by the time he spotted the first, the second group had taken cover as well. Then, the first group got to their feet and closed in on the large house that formed the keep of Okeraphluxos's castle.
They did something to the door and then retreated. Watching carefully, Okeraphluxos was bewildered, there was no precedent for what was happening. Sieges took a long time, even for a small castle like his. But this time his defenses were collapsing as if they didn't exist. It was barely a few minutes since the first explosions had taken down his outer wall and now his keep was under attack. The destruction of his keep gate seemed tame compared with the series of blasts that had destroyed his walls but Okeraphluxos new it was the death-knell for his defense.
Outside the keep, Kim Ngan couldn't help but feel smugly satisfied. The sudden, violent assault was doing its work, the Chaos Demons inside the defenses couldn't adapt to the speed at which the situation was changing. By the time they responded to one development, it was already history and the course of the battle had moved on so their attempted response just led to an even greater disaster. It was a classic blitzkrieg, something that the trackheads in their armor thought they monopolized. They didn't, infantry could do it as well.
If the Chaos Demons had kept their heads, if they'd been able to respond fast enough, they should have turned the remaining parts of the outer defenses into strongpoints, each of which would have had to be reduced individually. That would have broken the momentum of her attack and allowed the rest of the garrison to stage a counter-attack that would have destroyed her puny force. But, they'd never had the chance, by the time they'd overcome their initial reactions to the unprecedented violence and speed of the attack and started thinking, the opportunity was gone. The outer defenses had fallen and the keep was on its own – and now its gates were gone.
Kim Ngan looked hard through the mists. The Chaos Demons were starting to react logically and she would have to stop that. They'd piled timber, carts and furniture up inside the gates to form a secondary barricade and were waiting behind it. Not bad she thought, a viable countermove against the sort of attack they were used to.
Only, this wasn't one. Quite apart from their superior weaponry and military tactics built around those weapons, Kim Ngan and her men had the experience of two thousand years of warfare engrained within them. It wasn't conscious knowledge, none of them had ever trained to take down a castle defended by medieval or older weapons, but they'd seen it done in the movies, read about it in history books. There wasn't a move the Chaos Demons could make that they didn't know about and counter.
Countering the barricade was easy and Kim Ngan didn't even have to give the orders. From his over watch position, Madeuce had anticipated the barricade and was ready for it. He and his men each had an AT-5 anti-tank rocket launcher ready. The orange-white fire and streak of white smoke began with them and ended in rolling explosions that tore the barricade and its defenders apart. The explosions had barely subsided when Kim Ngan's team charged forward, spraying the remaining defenders with superheated plasma bolts from their M-25A2 phased plasma rifles.
Madeuce waved and his men joined the assault, slower because they were the support team, loaded with heavy equipment, but still fast enough to get through the gates before Kim Ngan and her people vanished inside the keep. There were sounds of intermittent burst of gunfire from the rooms inside and then silence.
Okeraphluxos had seen the destruction of the last of his garrison at the barricade and knew it was all over. The earthlings hadn't even bothered to ask him whether he wanted to surrender and it was pretty obvious that they weren't about to. There was a trident hanging on the wall, not the run-of-the-mill cast one, a Tartaruan trident that had been forged with care by Belial's best craftsmen. It could hold magic charge better than the normal ones and its prongs would stab deeper and break less. It would be a good weapon to die with. His grip as he took hold of it was careful, he concentrated his magic into charging it up, ready for the burst of power that would open the fight.
He never got the chance. Kim Ngan's men were already in the corridor when he stepped out of his room and the short, stubby M-25A1s were far better suited to fighting in confined areas that the unwieldy tripod. The last thing that Okeraphluxos ever heard was the thudding of the gunfire and the last thing he felt were the superheated plasma bolts that killed him. The sheer amount of energy released by the impact of superheated ionized holy water was enough to completely vaporise Okeraphluxos's torso.
Ten minutes later, Kim Ngan was settled down in a comfortable chair, waiting for the scheduled contact. It came, right on schedule. Ngan, this is Tyuwaru . Is it safe to open up?
Sure is Tyuwaru . Got a surprise for you too. We've just taken a Chaos Demon castle. Not an impressive one but still a castle
Oooh, well done. Opening now.
The familiar ellipse started to open."Madeuce, get ready to go through, its been good to have you with us." Kim Ngan reached into a pocket and fished out a piece of jewelry she'd found as she'd been searching the building. "Give this to Tyuwaru for me will you? It's the least we can do for her. And take the cameras with the pictures the brass wanted back as well."
Madeuce nodded and stepped through the ellipse followed by his special forces team. As soon as they were clear, the barrage of supplies and ammunition came the other way. Then the ellipse closed off.
Twenty minutes later, Kim Ngan and her team had evacuated the castle. They'd left the bodies of the dead Chaos Demons piled up in the courtyard, under a message that was much more detailed than the usual two words. It read: They oppressed the people. They faced the people's justice. Fear Us. The Holy Front for The Liberation of Netherworld. Netherworld. DEUS VULT
Rahaby ran the words over in her mind. They were succinct, merciless. One side of her was appalled by the destruction and violence, another was fearful of the consequences that would result from the destruction of even a minor duke and his fortress. But there was another emotion as well, one she had forgotten could exist. It was called hope and she had felt it as she had watched the almost-casual destruction of the castle. She needed to discuss what she had seen with a military expert and fortunately she knew one who could help her.
Private Quarters, Palace of Abaddon, Dis, The Eye of Terror
Abaddon contemplated the goblet of wine in front of him and sighed moodily. Then he grabbed the orc servitor that had brought him the cup and wrung him out over the still, red liquid. When the luckless orc was quit dead, he threw its mutilated corpse into a corner. Behind him the majordomo also sighed. Good staff was getting so hard to keep these days.
Abaddon didn't worry himself with such mundane concerns. He had much more important things on his mind than his domestic staff. He stirred the wine with a talon, watching the contents of the goblet dissolve the organs squeezed out of the luckless orc, and then drank it down. Especially domestic staff that didn't taste good.
Had The 13 Gods of Falmart planned this whole mess? Maybe this was that bitch Hardy's work. Abaddon wondered.
"Your Majesty, Asmodeus awaits." The Majordomo measured the distance to the nearest cover, a familiar precaution these days, one which his predecessor had inexplicably neglected.
"Send him in." Abaddon stared morosely as Asmodeus crawled in on his belly.
"Your Majesty, I abase myself before you."
"Not enough. And your cringing is inadequate also."
Asmodeus shriveled slightly on the floor." Your Majesty, I bring bad news."
"Let me guess, the rebellion you are tolerating in your domain is getting worse."
On the floor, Asmodeus shuddered."Majesty, one of my underlings has been killed, his castle stormed and its garrison wiped out. The attackers left this message. They oppressed the people. They faced the people's justice. Fear Us. The Holy Front for The Liberation of Netherworld. Netherworld. DEUS VULT.
To Asmodeus's amazement, Abaddon actually smiled. "The liberation of netherworld. I fought for that once against my father. And won. And now the mortals fight me for the same thing."
"Majesty, they.."
"And you let them." Abaddon's voice had its oily, deadly quality back.
"No Majesty. This stupid rebellion can be crushed, easily. All I need to do is take five legions down there and hunt the rebels down. We can be training the rest of the armies while I do that. This must be done Majesty."
"Then do it. And take ten legions, not five."
"One other thing Majesty." Asmodeus felt himself beginning to lose control of his bowels.
"Speak."
"Majesty, Abigor is not dead. Our watchers saw him surrender his forces to the humans. He has defected to them."
Abaddon's scream of rage could be heard across four rings of The Eye of Terror.
Celestial Mechanics laboratory, DIMO(N)
"Why don't we just nuke the wretched thing?" General Teed Michael Moseley glanced at the nondescript civilian sitting beside him. The man quietly reached out his hand, flat, palm down, and moved it slightly backwards and forwards in negation. Moseley's mouth twisted slightly, a targeteer had spoken and the answer given, 'not enough data'.
Dr Hange Zoë frowned, then gestured at the projection screen. Her assignment had been to find a way of closing the Hellgate in the Lemuria grassland down if that became necessary. The obvious answer, the one the Air Force loved, had been her first guess as well. A bad guess as it happened.
"It won't work General. Let me show you." The EM field graphs disappeared and were replaced by an intricate wireframe animation, sprinkled liberally with numeric labels and equations. It seeming to show two spheres stuffed into the ends of a short rubber hose, which was threaded through the centre of a spinning donut. Glowing pinpricks were appearing in the upper region, alighting on the top sphere and streaming along the surface of the tube to the lower sphere, where they dissipated. Meanwhile the surface of the donut rippled and shifted in almost hypnotic patterns.
"This is our current best guess at the actual structure of the portal. We've been given free access to the ULTRON supercomputing grid, which helps a lot. The coders are still catching up with the theory though and the theory itself still lacks experimental confirmation."
Dr Hange Zoë paused. The military types didn't seem to be nearly as concerned about the lack of rigour as the audience at a typical physics conference. She shrugged and continued.
"This is just a projection of course. The real thing is seven dimensional. The energy, or whatever is the equivalent of energy flows down from higher dimensions to lower ones. By the way, there's no sign of it stopping with us, so there could be as many dimensions 'below' us as there are 'above'. The key to the portals is this constriction in the flow; it's formed of some kind of exotic matter, brought into existence by specific patterns of microwaves. We still don't have an empirical model of how that works…"
The audience were frowning now. The doctor's tone became defensive.
"…after this branch of science is so new it hasn't even got a name yet. What we can do is model the behaviour of the portal once it's open. Once we could do that, your idea was one of the first things we tried."
The doctor touched a button on the remote and the lower sphere exploded into fragments. With nowhere to go, the glowing particles built up in the centre of the donut. Within seconds, they burst through into the lower area again, as if a temporary dam had been washed away. The particles sprayed wildly for a few more seconds before stabilizing into a new lower sphere.
"That was at x10 speed. Hitting this end of the portal can buy us only minutes at best." Dr Hange Zoë paused to cast her eyes over the impressive collection of military brass.
They weren't so different from freshmen, she thought, both spent most of their time playing video games these days. That had been a problem in itself. Politicians, civilians, had seen modern military command systems and noted their similarity to computer games. They'd somehow jumped to the conclusion that the similarity meant that wars could be made bloodless, a stupid concept now disproven by 600 million dead Chaos Demons in the Lemuriai grassland. She shook her head, refocusing on the task at hand.
"I know what you're thinking, what happens if we disrupt the far end? Well, watch this." She pressed the remote again and this time the top sphere shattered. Deprived of energy, the lower sphere faded away, but the glowing particles didn't stop coming. Instead more and more started to appear and this time they were drawn straight to the central torus instead of passing through to the lower region. The spinning donut started to twist and oscillate more and more wildly as it was bombarded with energy, then suddenly the screen went dark.
Hange Zoë swore. The simulation had been thrown together in a 36-hour coding session so bugs were to be expected, but it had worked fine in the dry run. Naturally. She reset and tried again. Again the torus was bombarded with energy, looking as if it would fly apart… but then it suddenly swelled to twice it's original diameter. The particles could now make it through, and both spheres reappeared, much larger than before.
As you can see, unlike the portal between earth and famart, the strange matter envelope in the demon version is self-stabilising. Simply pouring energy in will only result in it reforming around a higher harmonic." Some of the military types still weren't getting it. He sighed and rephrased it into baby-talk for them.
"So no General, you can't nuke it. We'll have to think of something else."
There was a long pause. The brass shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Dr Hange Zoë pre-empted their next question.
"We have come up with one possibility. The inner structure of the portal is in a complex dynamic balance. If we can hit that torus with a very powerful blast of directed electro-magnetic energy, on precisely the right frequencies, it's very likely that we can overwhelm that balance and disrupt the exotic matter. It will dissipate and remove the constriction in the flow, thus closing the gate, Permanently unless somebody opens a new gate in the same place. Unfortunately the only a few systems in the world that can generate that kind of pulse, and all of them are huge pieces of apparatus built into research institutions."
That was that. There was nothing to do but get back to work on the simulation. If they could understand the resonance better, perhaps a series of smaller pulses, spread out over time…
"Actually Dr Hange Zoë you may be in luck." The man speaking seemed to be a civilian, with a curiously flat voice. He reached inside a case and removed several copies of a file, which he passed out.
Dr Hange Zoë blinked. They were stamped 'TOP SECRET' and 'CANUKUS EYES ONLY'.
"When I received your initial report I did a little digging. I remembered hearing about a crazy idea that a group of Brits at Aldermaston came up with in the mid 80s. NATO was desperate for a way to stop a Soviet tank army steamrolling Germany without resorting to nukes. A lot of left-field ideas were studied and this was one of them."
He flipped the file open to a page showing a full-page schematic.
"As you can see, the device is conceptually simple. Two inner coils nested inside an outer one. Capacitors energise the inner coils and an explosive forces them apart. Tremendous current is generated in the outer coils and channeled into the Klystron array in the nose. Power output spikes in the hundred of terawatt range in the milliseconds before the device is destroyed. They called it Project Starglider. Don't ask me why."
General Schatten spoke up. "Don't we have something similar? They don't show me all the air force toys but I've heard the rumors about e-bombs used in early strikes on Iraq."
Nothing on the scale or precision of this device, General. It was designed to burn through EMP hardening and leave an entire division without communications or radar. It projects a precisely controlled spectrum in a relatively narrow burst. Only two problems; the working parts have to be kept filled with liquid helium and the damn thing weighs nearly 120 tons."
"Ah, so rather like the Tsar Bomba?" Dr Hange Zoë was used to theory, not hardware, and she was struggling for a frame of reference. "It explodes but is almost completely immobile?"
"It's a device, not a bomb, and it initiates, not explodes." The targeteer spoke idly. "But you're right, it was a clumsy device, even for a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy. We built five of them in early '64 designated the TX-16."
"I never knew that." Hange Zoë was amazed, he'd always assumed the Ivy Mike device was a useless technological dead end.
"So don't worry about size and bulk, if we need it we can move it. The Brits were planning to dump it out the back of a Tu-688, though that idea was marginal at best." The targeteer's voice was still idle and steeped with professional disinterest.
There was a long silence as the attendees paged through the file. Eventually General Moseley's impatience got the better of him. "So, did it work?"
"They built two quarter-scale prototypes. The first one was a non-superconducting test article. It was only fired at low power and according to the file, it's still in storage at the AWE. The second one was a full prototype. Results from the sole test were mixed. Power output was disappointing, but the amplitude profile did suggest that ten of the twelve emitter tubes shattered prematurely."
Dr Hange Zoë had been frantically scanning the project history. "Ah, of course, the fact that the… device… is destroyed when used would make finding out what happened rather difficult. Hmm. It looks like the engineers were convinced they could lick the problem, but the project was defunded in 1993… I presume because of the end of the Cold War?"
"That's not why it was cancelled Doctor." The idle voice was getting on Hange Zoë's nerves. "EMP is a grotesquely over-rated weapon. It's literary achievements far outweigh its practical applications. There are much simpler ways of taking down a command system."
There was another long silence, before General Warner decided that he had all the information he needed. The details were clearly best left to the specialists. It was time to ask the key question. "Can you make it work for us?"
All eyes turned to Dr Hange Zoë, who had gone back to devouring the file. For a moment, she was oblivious to the discussion surrounding her, but then she sensed the silence and looked up.
"Ah, well, it looks like..," This is insane, she thought, I'll need a whole new set of simulations to even start… "Was the result of the British tests omni-directional or uni-directional?"
The flat voice answered again. "It was designed to hit everything in a ninety degree frontal cone, but I'm sure the engineers and ULTRON can refine that."
"Well then sir, at first glance the theoretical work looks solid, we can replace the original coils with room-temperature superconductors to bring down the mass and size…" She grimaced briefly at the though of federal agents raiding half the superconductors physics lab in the world for the material. "If we can get it working at design power… couple the simulation to an evolutionary algorithm to find the optimal frequency spread… then yes sir, I think it will work."
Palace of Asmodeus, City of Dis. The Eye of Terror
"Explain yourself." Asmodeus's voice was unforgiving.
The subject of his displeasure was cringing on the floor, trying to think of some good reasons why the situation had ever got to this point. The problem was that, while Kinathroses could think of some very good reasons indeed, speaking any of them would get him killed. Instantly.
"Sire, I was betrayed by my subordinates…"
"That goes with the territory. This is The Eye of Terror you know."
Asmodeus spoke in an almost friendly manner, giving Kinathroses some vague hope that he might survive this session. "Your subordinates are supposed to try and betray you. It is your duty to detect their treachery and deal with it. If you are so stupid and incompetent that you cannot do that simple thing, then you are obviously unfitted to hold the position that you presently occupy. Perhaps the subordinate who betrayed you might better be suited to your present responsibilities."
Kinathroses's hopes of survival took an immediate downturn. Even if he survived the interview with Asmodeus, he would be demoted to the lower ranks and left to serve one of those who had once served him. And his new lord would promptly have him assassinated to avoid any attempts to reverse the situation. Better to try a different approach.
"Sire, it is the humans who are at the root of this trouble."
"Ahh. Human magery." Asmodeus was enjoying himself immensely.
"You claim human magic is so powerful that your armies could not stand against it. Abigor claimed that you know. It cost him everything."
May your talons rot thought Kinathroses. You have no idea what the earth humans are capable of. You come here, throwing your weight around without understanding anything of what has been happening. Well, you can learn the way we are learning.."Sire, human magery is much over-rated. Oh, they have some special tricks that it true but they are of little significance compared with other factors."
"What other factors?" Asmodeus was genuinely intrigued. This was a cut on the situation he hadn't expected.
"Sire, it is not what the humans have to fight with, it is how they fight. Or rather how they do not fight. They do not seek out our armies to face them in combat. They hide in the rocks, the mud and the caves. They wait until they have a demon alone, or perhaps a small group, then they strike from concealment, killing without warning.
Then they fade away again. With all the demons leaving to join the armies for the invasion of Lemuria, we have too few under arms down here to stop them. By the time the message gets back of the attack, the humans are long gone. Mostly. Sometimes, we send a rescue column out and the column itself is attacked. And again by the time we react, the humans have gone. We cannot get messages around quickly enough, there is too much space to cover.
"And then there are the mage-blasts. Nobody knows where or when the next one will be. Our demons can be on the walls, marching along a road, or resting in their outposts when a mage-blast wipes them out. No warning, no challenge to combat, just a mage blast from out of the mists and darkness. Those that survive are horribly wounded. That is the factor that we cannot fight Sire. How can we fight those who will not stand and fight."
"Trap them so they have no choice but to fight." Asmoedeus's mind turned to the problems he had just heard. He had ten full legions coming down, 99,999 trained veteran demons. That would swing the force level problem decisively his way. The communications problem was one he hadn't thought of, in his military experience, mostly limited to the formalized, choreographed skirmishes in The Eye of Terror, commanding units had been no problem.
The troops had always been in range of his voice or mind-masking power. It had never occurred to him that wouldn't be the case here. But he did have enough troops to overcome that problem.
The picture of the rebellion suppression campaign started to form in his mind. He would start with a single main operational base on the edge of the 5th circle segment where the rebellion was concentrated. Then, he would start to spread across the segment, establishing each outpost within sight of another. If one was attacked, support would be immediate because other outposts would see what was happening. And, even better, they could relay mind-masked messages from one to the next, allowing the great rear base to be informed quickly.
Asmodeus mulled the concept over, It seemed to work but he could see one flaw. If he pushed out from one point, he would force the rebels back. That's where The Eye of Terror's strange topography cut in. It was an odd fact about The Eye of Terror that if one set out in a straight line, in any direction, one ended up in the same place one had started. Left, right, forward, backwards, up, down, it made no difference. Keep going long enough and one ended up where one had started.
Unless one created a portal, there was no way out because there was nowhere to go out to. Thinking about that made Asmodeus's head hurt. Still, there was a solution, start from two bases, one at each end of the segment of the 5th circle and close in on the middle. That way the rebels would be trapped between them and eventually, they'd have to fight in the open.
Throne Room, Palace of Abaddon, Dis, The Eye of Terror
Count Belial watched Abaddon rage at his armies inability to immediately destroy the impertinent earth humans, his own mind boiling with thoughts of how he could exploit this unprecedented situation. It had been a scant five millennia since he had clawed his way back to a place at Abaddon's court, a singular feat among dukes who had fallen so far from their lord's favor.
His presence here was still something of a joke; as yet he commanded but a thousand legions and his domain could muster only a meager tribute of mortal essence. Most of The Eye of Terror's nobility thought of him as little more than the court jester, but a few understood the influence that the great mines and furnaces of Tartarus gave him.
Those were the dangerous ones. He had to go from beneath notice to beyond challenge in a single stroke, or he would inevitably lose his domain to one of the dukes.
This could be the perfect opportunity, but the timing had to be exquisite.
As Belial watched, Abaddon scooped up another unlucky minor demon and crushed it into paste, squeezing the creature's remains out of his clenched fist before whirling to seek another target.
Too early and he would only draw Abaddon's wrath as the unfortunate ogre had.
Too late and his proposal would be seen as a challenge to Abaddon's preferred course of action– dangerous even for once as favored as Abigor had been, probably fatal for one as lowly as him.
Belial waited for the instant that Abaddon's terrible eyes turned from rage to cold calculation, then spoke.
"Your Eminence…"
Every eye was on him. Abaddon's gaze bored into him and he dropped groveling to his knees in the expected manner.
"Your Eminence, my demons can strike back at the humans and falmartians immediately. At your command I will reward their insolence with fiery annihilation. Of course my lord recalls the fate of Atlantis and Mu.""
There was a murmur of suppressed laughter around the room.
The demons were always ready to appreciate new forms of suffering and Belial's creative use of magic had been quite spectacular, not to mention entertaining enough to gain his return to the palace.
However his suggestion that such tricks be considered a legitimate means of waging war was ridiculous. Surely their lord could not be seriously considering it?
In fact Abaddon was doing just that. It would take weeks, perhaps months, to prepare another attack on the scale of Abigor's, and much as he wanted to believe that this was simply due to the incompetence and treachery of his former favorite, he knew this was not the case.
He had Asmodeus away dealing with the rebellion down in the fifth circle and Zarakynel was in the wings. There was another possibility that was on his mind as well, if one attack had failed he had to consider the possibility that a second would also fail.
The humans had undoubtedly taken horrible losses, but Abigor was doubtless proclaiming that he would lead them to victory and instructing them how best to resist demonic powers.
Combined with their strange and seemingly powerful magic, Abaddon had to agree with Abigor about one thing; he had to know what forces the humans could muster, what it would really take to crush them.
That would take time, as would dealing with the chaos resulting from Abigor's fall.
Already Abaddon's informants reporting skirmishes between the forces of dukes trying to add chunks of Abigor's domain to their own.
That situation was confused, sometimes it was hard to tell whether the demons who had been found brutally murdered or had just disappeared without a trace were the victims of that internecine skirmishing or had been the victims of the human rebellion.
Abaddon was sure that the assassinations had been carried out on the direct orders of his dukes, testing each other's defenses, each preparing to take advantage of any opportunities the way Belial was. An interesting question, was the human rebellion actually the work of a Duke who had seen human magery as a new way of fighting a war?
It didn't really matter, with Asmodeus and his Army moving to crush the rebellion, the status quo would return soon enough, but in the mean time Abaddon had to be seen to take decisive action. Belial's suggestion was perfect; it was fast, if it worked it would kill enough humans to claim a major victory, and if it didn't Belial was completely expendable.
"You want to act like a human, cowering in your own realm, killing with magic instead of rending your enemies?" Abaddon spat contemptuously.
He's playing with me, Belial thought with some relief even as he continued to abase himself. Those words stated flatly would have spelled his doom. Phrased as a question, Abaddon was just forcing him to justify himself.
"Your Eminence, of course your glorious armies will grind the enemy into dust, Abigor's failure will be of no consequence in the long run.
But it will take time to muster fresh legions, the mortals may falsely believe that their resistance has won them a respite. Please sire, let me erase that hope, command me to make them burn and suffer even as they await their final damnation."
Belial Kornakat raised his head and a silent understanding passed between him and Abaddon Ezekyle. He would get a chance.
Success would mean elevation sufficient to ensure his survival in the court. Failure would result in a fate even worse than Abigor's.
"Very well. I see no reason to allow the mortal the luxury of hope. You will choose 20 of their holiest cities and destroy them utterly as you destroyed Atlantis, as you destroyed Mu."
Belial thrashed his tail and licked at Abaddon's talons, resembling for a moment a gigantic, monstrously disfigured dog.
All for show of course; mentally he was weighing the risk of asking for more resources and looking weak against the risk of the attacks failing. He had heard that the earth humans had multiplied greatly since the time of Zeus, and this had to be a most spectacular defeat.
"Thank you your Eminence, we will begin at once, the suffering will be glorious… but sire… the bigger the coven, the more humans we can burn. If I could have more naga for the effort, our blow will be that much more crushing for the humans."
A fresh murmur passed around the throne room. Abaddon merely snorted. Belial's admission of weakness was pathetic. There was truth in his words though. With the grand portal to Falmart already open, the naga would not be needed for the counter-strike on the Coalition, so the other dukes might complain but could definitely spare them. If his plan was successful, such reliance on others would prevent him gaining too much glory.
"Attend me. Each grand duke will send a party of portal-mages to Tartarus such that he deems fit to compensate for Belial's inadequacy."
Abaddon's gaze returned to Belial, who was writhing in fresh paroxysms of abasement.
"You are right to bask in my generosity, Belial. I will allow you twelve days to destroy 15 holiest mortal cities. Fail me and I will have you baked alive in one of your own furnaces. Now leave us."
"Of course your Eminence! I will begin the preparations immediately!" Belial scrabbled to his feet and fairly sprinted from the throne room; meeting Abaddon's schedule would take a minor miracle.
Section Twelve, DIMO(N), Fort Bragg, North Carolina
"Let's start with weapons. Jerry?"
"In Helljar-One, that's the one simulating the normal Hell-place environment, it's the older stuff that does best. Shouldn't surprise us really, tolerances are greater so they can take the sand and grit better. The pumice in the air is the real problem. It mixes with moisture and oil to form a cement that really blocks the weapons up.
Regular cleaning is essential and using Militec rather than lube oil is a good start.
Good news is that grenades and fused weapons like rockets and shells work just fine.
Bad news is that the M16 and M47 have very serious problems.
The gas tube and bolt carriers jam up so fast it isn't funny. We got the first of the new phased plasma rifles, the M-25A1 and M-25A2, they both work better. All weapons have to be carefully cleaned and often though.
"Helljar-Two, ironically, is a lot easier on weapons that One. The mud and filth is bad of course but its something the troops know how to deal with. We've had the reports back from Tango-Bravo, and the first A-Team we sent in to help them out, and we've correlated them with the results from Helljar-Two.
Very high degree of congruence I'm glad to say, that gives us a degree of confidence in our results. Based on our studies, we've pulled the M47As from Tango-Bravo and given them pre-production M-25A2s instead. They're happier now. The Special Forces group in with Tango-Bravo now also has M-25A2s."
"Excuse the interruption Jerry, but while we're on the subject of the Special Forces people we're sending in, any word on the medical side of this." General Schatten looked at the woman who was supervising the medical side of the studies.
Doctor Sangina thumbed quickly through her notes."The first group under Lieutenant Madeuce have suffered quite badly. They have pumice deposits in their lungs and those will have a severe impact on their future health unless we can find a way of treating them.
This isn't a new problem, its been known in the mining industry for centuries. It's usually called silicosis although the specific form here is known as Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
There are some treatments under evaluation for the condition, including whole-lung lavage but, unless we get a breakthrough, I'm afraid the first group of patients are going to have to accept some severe health consequences 15 – 20 years down the line.
The second group we sent in, and all after that, have breathing masks that filter out the dust. That should solve the problem."
"Apparently, people in the Hell-Place heal a lot faster than they do here, any word on that?"
"It is true, that's why the victims in The Eye of Terror survive the way they do. It's not a function of place though, it's a function of being a creature of that place. Souls who have transitioned to The Eye of Terror via death or creatures that are native to that demonic realm have much-enhanced healing power and wound resistance compared to us.
They retain those advantages when they come to our dimension. The catch is that mortal from the land of the death can't survive here for long, they leak, ohh, I don't know how to describe it, life energy I suppose.
Demons can survive here as long as we don't kill them using holy weapons, we think because they use their connection to the Immaterium to replace the leaking energy, to trickle-charge themselves so to speak.
Reborn Humans don't have that capability so they die in our dimension. Now, if we go to the demonic dimension, we don't get a boost in healing or damage resistance, we're just the same there as we are here."
"Thank you. Sorry, Jerry, I was very concerned about the people we're sending in. Can you continue please?"
"No problem. Helljar-Three is the one with the burning desert. That's the one we know least about, we've only got limited intelligence there. In some ways its much more hostile than Helljar Two, when the reports said burning desert and flaming rain, they weren't joking.
In other ways, its more benign. The air is much drier and the dust content is a lot, lot lower. As far as we can make out, our equipment functions much better there, its just that we don't.
"Thank you Jerry. Greg, vehicles?"
"Main problem is dust and the pumice cement. We have heavy-duty air filters that can cope with it and we're designing better ones. Like the weapons side of things, the secret is to clean and keep cleaning. A couple of things, diesels are less susceptible to choking on dust that gas turbines.
Wemight want to think about a diesel-powered Chamberlain for operations in The Eye of Terror itself. That always has been an option but the gas turbine's advantages have meant we haven't gone there before. Now, we might want to rethink that.
But, as long as we use the right filters and keep cleaning things, we can take our ground vehicles in right now.
Oh yes, current NBC protection systems for the crews of the Chamberlains and Sheridans are quite adequate for the conditions. Chariot IIs as well. The logistics vehicles may need an upgrade."
"Which brings us to aircraft. Bill?"
"Bad news all around I'm afraid Sir. Same problems Jerry and Greg have been talking about. Dust chokes the engines quickly and cakes the airframes. Being sucked through a jet engine causes hellish erosion problems, mostly on the blades but its pretty gruesome in the rest of the engine as well.
You can take a zero off the number of hours between overhauls at least, probably two. That's not the worst of it, the dust scours the aircraft itself, abrading the wing and fuselage surfaces. Faster aircraft go, the worse that gets. We need new coatings for the aircraft that'll help cut that down.
"We tried the prop-planes as well. Mixed news there, the erosion problem on the airframes isn't so bad since the aircraft are much slower but the damage to the propellers is wicked. You should see an old P-47 we stuck in a wind-tunnel and blasted with a simulated hellist atmosphere while we ran its engine.
After an hour, the prop was ground to nothing. Aircraft with liquid-cooled engines were a problem, the cooling system got jammed up so the engines over-heated and seized up.
Radial engines were bad as well at first but we've managed some work-arounds for them. Oil coolers are still a problem though.
"Sum of it all, we've got a lot of work to do before we can deploy air power into The Eye of Terror. Priority problem should be airframe erosion, once we can lick that, the others will follow."
Schatten looked around."Good work guys. I'll transmit the data through to the Army in Lemuria."