my cousin and I get on very well. But, Sir, I must insist we have our five divisions back.”
“You have a nice, well-balanced corps there. One heavy armored division, two light armored divisions and two mechanized infantry divisions. You believe this is adequate to repel this invasion?”
“I do sir. Obviously, the command staff at Kanchanaburi will need replacing.”
“Of course.” Petraeus zoomed the map in. “Kanchanaburi is the key, it’s a major road and rail junction and gives direct, well-built roads right into the heart of the country.”
“I agree Sir, it’s a standard teaching problem at Chulachomklao. Kanchanaburi is the key to the defense of the Myanmar frontier. We’ve got to hold it. The problem is, all we have there is light infantry, we need the armor and even now it’s a question of whether we can get it there fast enough. We have to assemble the units, get them out of the Hellgate and then ship them back. It’ll take a week, ten days more likely. The Myanmar Army is on foot and our people will be fighting all the way but the timing is still off. We may end up having to counter-attack to retake Kanchanaburi before we can do anything else. That will be bloody.”
“General, why should it take that long? We’re in Hell, remember? We can punch a portal through from here to anywhere we want. All we need is a sensitive on the other end. That’s why we’ve got the Human Expeditionary Army here in Hell, we’ve got interior lines to any point on Earth. When this army is complete, we can open a gate to wherever Yahweh, or whoever else we end up fighting, wants to take us and hit him with every mechanized unit most of the world can put together. When this Army is finished, we’ll have 625 divisions, living humans, deceased humans, daemons ready to defend Earth and Hell against anything that can be thrown at us.
“So, your divisions can be wherever you want them, as soon as you want them there. You have sensitives still in Thailand, even after the First Bowl. Get them where you need the troops. At this end, you’ve got lucky, kitten’s here and she’s the best sensitive around. She’s visiting some friends of hers in the deceased special forces so we can get her here within an hour or two.” Petraeus winced slightly, personally he liked kitten but military customs and formalities hadn’t caught up with one of his key staff members being led around on a leash by her boyfriend. It caused protocol problems.
General Asanee was staring at the map. “You knew this was going to happen didn’t you?”
“This particular attack? Not quite, no. But it was obvious that something of the sort would happen all too soon. The Curb Stomp War proved that nothing in Hell, well, almost nothing, can stand against us in a head-on fight. Since Heaven and Hell were deadlocked in their Great Celestial War, the heavenly military arts can’t be much better than anything down here. So they must know they can’t fight us head on. Everything they’ve done points to them having taken that fact on board. So, it made sense they would try and find a surrogate-ally on Earth so they can pitch human against human.
“I can only think of three candidates who are outcasts, who are not part of the Human Alliance and who have access to substantial military power. Kim Jong-Il in North Korea, Chavez in Venezuela and Than Shwe in Myanmar. Our satellite recon tells us Kim Jong-Il is moving his units around and we expect trouble there soon. We didn’t pick up this Myanmar move, infantry movements in heavy jungle are hard to spot but it was a fair bet Than Shwe would be looking this way, the only other option would be to strike at India and even he isn’t that mad. So, when I said, the Human Expeditionary Army stood with you, I wasn’t being melodramatic, although judicious use of melodrama is no bad thing in a General. You must know that. This invasion is part of the war with Yahweh, defeat it and we defeat his purpose.”
“I’ll tell my Prime Minister we’ll have all five divisions assembled at Kanchanaburi within 24 hours. That will please him greatly. We can seal this incursion off and drive it back.” General Asanee thought for a second. “Then what? The Myanmar regime is a pretty nasty one and they just let their people starve after Cyclone Nargis. That was a Yahweh hit and they are still siding with him. This invasion is a betrayal of us humans, they should be punished for that.”
“And it’s a chance to pay off a few old scores right?”
General Asanee kicked herself, she forgotten this General was a military history scholar of notable repute. “Of course, but even so, it’s still the right thing to do. And it’ll give Kim Jong-Il something to think about as well.”
“I agree, in many ways we’re using this fight as a test-bed. To see how commanding Hell affects strategy here on Earth.”
“So we invade then.” The satisfaction in the General’s voice was obvious.
“Why? We don’t have to invade, not any more. We can open a portal and just position troops close to Naypyidaw and by close to I mean on top of the place. We don’t have to fight our way up to a capital any more, we just arrive there. That makes Hell the most commanding piece of territory there has ever been. But, before any of that, you need to get your command problems in Kanchanaburi straightened out. An entire mechanized corps arriving in one place needs a lot of good staff-work.”
“I’ll be on it Sir.” General Asanee thought for a second. “You’ve been thinking a lot about the use of portals in warfare haven’t you?”
“General, since taking this job, I’ve thought about very little else.”
Chapter Sixteen
Michael-Lan’s Private Estate, Heaven.
“You got chopped up a bit didn’t you?” The level of concern in Michael-Lan’s voice was inversely proportional to the concern he actually felt for Uriel.
“I am lucky to be alive at all Michael-Lan. The humans fought back over El Paso and attacked me with their aircraft and missiles. I managed to duck through a portal in time to dodge their missiles but the portal was small and my wing caught one edge. It is badly broken and is slow to heal. Then there were fragments from the human missiles. A few got through the portal just as it closed and their wounds also are slow to heal.”
I could offer you a stiff drink to take your mind off your wounds but I doubt if you’d understand the gesture. “Uriel-Lan, I have to tell you, the All-Seeing Father is not well-pleased with the attack on El Paso. Only a tiny proportion of the humans who live there died. This was far from the erasure of the whole city that he wished.”
“I did what I could, the humans have changed Michael-Lan. Once my touch dropped them by the hundreds and the hundreds of hundreds but now it is hard to touch them at all and even when they feel it, they resist me. It takes time to bring my peace to them and their missiles and aircraft do not give me enough. I must take those I can and be satisfied.”
Oh boy, that’s going to sound good when I repeat it to Yah-yah. Michael-Lan thought with great satisfaction. ‘Uriel-Lan says he’ll do what he wants and you will have to be satisfied with it.’ That should get him going nicely.
“We are at war, Uriel-Lan, The One Above All understands that.” Michael-Lan managed to get the words out without choking on them. Yahweh had as little idea of what war against the humans meant as Satan had, less in fact despite the fact that Heaven had kept up to date with human progress and Hell hadn’t. It was an old problem, one that went back uncounted millennia, there were people who just refused to hear anything that didn’t suit their pre-existing beliefs. Yahweh still had a mental picture of humans as trusting, thoughtless sheep and he allowed nothing to interfere with it. The idea that the sheep had turned into ruthless killers simply did not register with him. Michael-Lan took the train of thought further. Even if Yahweh woke up and smelled the coffee, it wouldn’t help him. It was one thing to read about what human weapons could do, quite another to see the reality and the meaning it imposed. The way humans filled a battlefield with fire and steel had no equivalent in Angelic memory.
“Michael-Lan, you know humans. Where should I strike next?” Uriel asked the advice, half-hoping he would be told to drop the whole idea.
Michael-Lan thought it over carefully. Texas? Where people were trigger-happy and armed to the teeth? Uriel wouldn’t fall for that again. He thought briefly about sending Uriel within striking distance of Nellis Air Force Base and the Tonopah test range where the humans had killing machines advanced even beyond their standards. The problem there was that the only viable target in Nevada was his beloved Las Vegas and no way was he going to let Uriel loose on that city. California? Now there was a thought. Suddenly inspiration hit him. A city full of Marines, surrounded by fighter bases and missile batteries and home to a large proportion of the U.S. Navy. Perfect.
“Uriel-Lan, rest here for a while. When you are fit again, I recommend you strike at San Diego.”
Michael-Lan took a courteous leave of his convalescent guest, inflated his flying sacs and took off, heading for
