“Peace be with you.” Appoloin whispered into the dawn wind and calmly sat back down to enjoy his tea.
He was disturbed in his tranquility by a roar and a clattering noise that shook dust from the ceiling of the hut and spoiled his tea. Dawn had still only half arrived but standing at the door, he could see a hulking brute made of square boxes sitting in the road. Two more of the same were behind it and three smaller brutes. Appoloin looked more carefully, there were twenty thin black rings painted around the long tube that stuck out of the upper box. The there was a squeaking noise and something opened from the top. At first Appoloin thought it was one of the foul ones but then he saw it was a human. With his eye for beauty, he saw her as comely, and buxom even by the standards of the daughters of Ham.
Lieutenant Keisha “Hooters” Stevenson didn’t feel comely. She was gray with exhaustion, her hair under her communications helmet was matted and her scalp stinging with sweat. She and the crew of Alpha-One-One had been on the move all night, at first chasing down the fleeing remnants of the northern army. Later, they’d split away and were now swinging west and south across the rear of the Baldrick army. If it had been a human force, there would have been supply columns to devastate and rear area units to destroy but here there was nothing. Until they’d come to this tiny village. Here, they had to wait until the great ships of the desert, the Oshkosh Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Trucks, could catch up with them and bring them new supplies of fuel for the greedy gas turbines and ammunition for their guns. Although Stevenson thought, they didn’t need ammunition for all their kills. The roadwheels and bellies of the Abrams and Bradleys were stained green and yellow with baldrick blood. It was a dirty little secret of armored warfare that tanks killed infantry with their tracks just as often as they did with their guns.
There were other dirty little secrets as well of course. One of them, she had found, was that her physique wasn’t perfectly suited to the inside of a cramped armored vehicle. Put quite bluntly her breasts got in the way. Back in her first unit, their impressive size had got her the nickname of ‘hooters’. Woman in the Army reacted to things like that one of two ways, they either got offended, kicked up a fuss and were eased out or they sucked it up, gave back as good as they got and were accepted. Stevenson had been one of the second group but that didn’t help her now. After being thrown around inside a fast-moving tank all night, she was sore, tired, bruised and battered. And she had seen so much killing over the last twenty hours that she was a veteran with a veterans lack of patience for stupidity.
Still the dawn chill felt good after being sealed down for so long. She looked around the village, saw people slowly coming out of the buildings to look at the great American tanks. She checked them over carefully, noting the glitter of silver from their covered heads. The word was spreading fast, cover your head with foil if you don’t want a baldrick stealing your mind. Even out here in the back of beyond. The breeze sure did feel good though, even though it gave her a shrewd idea of just how bad she must smell. She slipped the shoulder straps of her top off to get full benefit from the cool air. That caused a stir of disapproval from some of the men in the village, although she did note they kept staring at her to remind themselves how offended they felt.
In his doorway, Appoloin saw the gesture and felt perturbed. She might be comely but such brazen behavior was immodest. He stepped away from his doorway into the street, projecting an image of love and friendliness with all his might. “Cover yourself woman,” and his kindly voice echoed across the street.
“Screw you!” Stevenson’s voice was harsh for she was a veteran and didn’t suffer fools gladly. “And the horse you…. SHIT! Baldrick 20 degrees left! Canister!” She dropped back into the turret of her tank, by long practice ending the fall in her commander’s position. The turret was already swinging to bear on her mark.
“Up.”
“Shoot.”
The gunner saw the cross-hairs merge with the figure standing silhouetted against the rising sun. “On the way.” The blast of canister took Appoloin full in the chest, hurling him backwards and tearing at his body. Incredibly, it didn’t kill him although there was no way he would have survived wounds that terrible. It was the bursts from the 25mm Bushmaster chain guns on the Bradleys that finished him off. Confused by the sudden, vicious attack and in agony from the wounds, Appoloin died in a spreading pool of white blood.
A few minutes later, Stevenson and her crew were looking down at the body, now revealed in its true form, a white humanoid with wings. “Not the same as the ones we’ve killed so far ell-tee.” Stevenson’s crew were punctilious about addressing her correctly when others were around. Inside their tank she was ‘hooters’ just as the gunner was ‘baldy’, the loader ‘crab’ and the driver ‘biker’ but, for them, using her nickname where outsiders could hear would be disrespectful.
“Not the same at all. I guess this is one of them angels. Doesn’t matter, we declared war on them as well.” She raised her voice slightly. “Did anybody see where this one came from?”
One of the village women pointed at a barn-like building. Crab went over and looked inside, then came back, his face grim and as white as the body stretched out on the ground. “You’d better take a look at this ell-tee.”
Stevenson went into the hut and looked for what seemed a long, long time. When she came back, her eyes were blank. “Well, that puts paid to any idea about them being good guys doesn’t it? We need a camera crew up here to film that.” Suddenly, she shook with rage. “Damn him. He sat there drinking tea surrounded by that horror show. Slaughtered an entire family and then drank a cup of tea.”
“Don’t sweat it ell-tee. We done good here. Nobody believed they were on the side of righteousness any more. Not after The Message.” Baldy was speaking from the barrel of the 120mm gun where he had just finished painting a white ring to match all the black ones.
Far away, in the rocky wasteland, Memnon heard the crash of the gun and crackle of gunfire and decided he’d better vacate the area. Very quickly.
Headquarters, Randi Institute of Pneumatology, The Pentagon, Arlington, VA
“Next.”
James Randi sighed. It sounded so good using the enormous expertise his Educational Foundation had built up in detecting fraudulent psychics and mediums to try and find the real thing. It was hard to believe that the JREF was now the front line in humanity’s fight against its enemies. Neither consideration changed the fact that the day-to-day reality of the task was boring. He had another candidate for testing, a young woman who called herself kitten. No capital he noted, important thing that. It was essential to make the interviewees comfortable. He heard the door open and glanced up. Years of expertise in self control kept his face expressionless but he knew this day at least would not be considered boring.
Two people had entered the room, one a young man dressed all in black with a vaguely military style coat that reached down below his knees. A goth, although that wasn’t what had added interest to Randi’s otherwise routine day. With him was a young woman, another goth dressed in black with her hair down around her shoulders, her long dress low cut and held by thin shoulder straps. The young man was leading her around by a dog-leash attached to a collar around her neck.
“You must be kitten?” Randi’s voice was even. “Would you like to take a seat?”
The girl paused for a second until the man with her gave a quick nod, then she sat down. “I’m kitten, yes.”
“You too Sir, please sit down.” The young man did so. “kitten, why are you here today?”
“I read your advertisement asking for people who can contact the dead to call you. I can do that, sometimes. I can also see into hell.”