“Hurry up can’t you?” kitten’s boyfriend almost snarled out the words. “Can’t you see how much you’re hurting her?”
Still not quite believing his eyes, Randi picked up the paper airplane he’d brought and threw it; it traveled through the portal and vanished. A split second later it came back out, stained and smelling of sulfur.
General Schatten didn’t hesitate. He grabbed a Barrett M107 rifle from the pile of military shiny toys, a bag of electronic equipment, then tossed a “Warhol, grab some more and follow me” over his shoulder before stepping into the shadowy circle and vanishing.
On the Shore of the Styx, Fifth Ring, Hell
Kim suddenly felt awake again, but the daydream wasn’t gone. In fact, it seemed to be superimposed on her vision. She passed a dirty hand over her eyes and squinted, trying to get it to go away; her mind was playing tricks on her, she got the sense that something was forcing its way through to her. Then, a black ellipse started to form, one that defied easy description. “Hold on still, guys. I think I’m still hallucinating.”
“You too?” asked Bubbles, who was blinking rapidly.
Kim spun around and looked at her surroundings. All normal, and she was feeling fine. Then she turned back again, and there was the tunnel. “You guys see it too?”
“Yes,” said the others at once. As they did so, a paper dart flew through the ellipse and hit Kim on the forehead before fluttering to the ground. Perplexed, she stooped and picked it up: a paper airplane? Then the anvil dropped and she threw it back through the ellipse. After a few seconds, a man stepped through, an M107 Barrett over one shoulder, a large bag in one hand. Kim and her companions snapped to attention.
“Lieutenant, you’re out of uniform.” General Schatten looked around, a foul, stinking swamp covered with a yellowish mist that stunk of sulfur and fouler things. He was standing on a rocky outcrop amid an atmosphere of desolation and misery that told him, more clearly than anything else could, that he was truly in hell.
“Sorry Sir, that joke was old the first time I heard it. Anyway, this is the uniform of the day around here. Skin and mud.”
“You need uniforms? We’ve got a lot to get through to you and we’re not sure how long we can hold the portal open for at any one time.” Another figure emerged. “This is Major Warhol, Special Forces. He’ll be liaising with you and providing technical and operational assistance.”
“Welcome to Hell Sirs. First thing, intelligence, we’ve counted five brigade-sized units moving out of the lower reaches of hell, heading upwards. There’s a lot more baldricks coming your way Sir. How’s thing going out there?”
“Dave Petraeus is doing a number on the invasion force. He’s literally shredding them with artillery and armor. The baldricks are losing in six-digit numbers.” Schatten paused for a brief second. “Their command structure is shot to hell, you and your team mates did a damned fine job.”
Randi Institute of Pneumatology, the Pentagon, Arlington, VA
Major Warhol was already on the other side of the portal, and the military personnel were forming a line and starting to hand off crates of ammunition and explosives, piling it through the portal as fast as discipline and urgency could make possible.
“All hands to the pumps. Get this stuff through as quickly. Maximum urgency.” Randi looked at where kitten was shivering on her couch, obviously in great distress. “Everybody, this isn’t just a military business. Throw stuff through if you can’t hand it.” He paused for a second. “Is it safe to throw Semtex?”
“Sure is. Thank’s for the help.” The stream of equipment being passed through picked up speed.
On the Shore of the Styx, Fifth Ring, Hell
“All of you, stand to, and help us unload these supplies,” Schatten snapped, then turned and passed his rifle to Kim. “It’s an M107, hot from the production line. We got you Semtex instead of C-4, its 30 percent more powerful. She, in turn, handed the rifle to McInery, who leaned it against a boulder. The stack of equipment grew until they had received six webbings to carry things in, two slightly modified 0.50 calibre assault rifles, 30 crates of ammunition, 180 kilograms of Semtex with all the requisite electronic fusing, two dozen M24 claymore mines, the same number of AT-4 anti-tank rockets, six pairs of night-vision goggles, and twelve outfits of dark combat fatigues.
Behind them, the portal started to shimmer, Schatten guessed that kitten was finally losing her grip. “Anything else you need Lieutenant?”
“Yes Sir. We need to change our allocations so our dependents get all of our salary. We don’t need money here.”
“But you’re dead.”
“With respect Sir, the contract with the Army says nothing about ‘til death us do part’ and obviously it hasn’t. Sir, this is hell, we are not short of lawyers down here.” Kim grinned broadly, perfectly well aware of the size of the demolition charge she’d just thrown into the Army bureaucracy.
Schatten returned her grin. “Lieutenant, you’ve enabled me to fulfill a life’s ambition. When I hand your – perfectly reasonable – instructions over to the proper authority, I can finally make those REMFs at Pay Corps suffer as much as the troops on the front line. Good luck Lieutenant and kick some ass down here.” Then he and Warhol stepped back through the portal and were gone.
Kim surveyed the equipment and smiled. “Okay, guys. We don’t have to eat. We don’t have to sleep. We heal ten times faster than ordinary humans. We’re the United States military.” Her smile widened into a full-toothed grin. “Let’s go blow up some baldricks.”
Randi Institute of Pneumatology, the Pentagon, Arlington, VA
“I’m losing it!” kitten’s wail cut across the room. The elliptical portal started to shiver as General Schatten and Major Warhol stepped out. A second or so later, it collapsed completely. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be my dear.” Schatten’s voice was comforting and quiet. “Look, we got all the stuff they needed through to them, they passed some intelligence that was very important back to us and, above all, we’ve made solid contact. You did better than we had any right to expect, so you go and have a rest. You deserve a medal for what you did today.”
“Sir, you should have let me go through first.” Warhol’s comment came as kitten and her boyfriend left the room.
“Major, sometimes a commander has to lead the way. Try it with noodles one day. Try to push a cooked noodle across a plate, then try and pull it across. See which one is easier. We’re going to be literally asking men to go into hell itself. Now, when we do ask, they’ll know that we went first.” Schatten brushed at his uniform, it was covered with foul-smelling mud and a disgusting greenish slime. “I’m going to wash and change. If this smells as bad as it looks.”
“It does.” Said Randi reassuringly.
“Then that’s an early order of priority. I guess the Lab boys will want to analyze this stuff as well.”
“I brought some samples Sir.” Warhol held up what looked suspiciously like a jam jar filled with the mud from hell.
“Well done. And that applies to everybody here. We’re in a position to strike back at last.”
Defense Perimeter Delta, Hit, Western Iraq.
“What the blazes is that?”
The first layer of buildings was acting as a sieve, forcing the Baldricks to break up into small groups as they forced their way through the alleys and narrow streets before breaking out into the open ground that marked the gap between the now-fallen Perimeter Charlie and the disputed Perimeter Delta. That open ground, traversed by a divided-lane highway, was the new killing ground and the carpet of black bodies was growing as the 10th Mountain Division’s armored cavalry units swept it with fire. The problem was the steadily-growing number of bodies in Army camouflage that were joining the baldrick dead. Now, there was something different happening, a white pick-up truck was tearing down the roadway, swerving around the bodies that littered it and heading straight for a large group of baldricks that had just emerged from the buildings.