That was why she was up here on the roof. She’d accepted that mind-masking didn’t work on humans any more and that they were aware of her miasma and on their guard against its effects. Her ability to communicate with home had also gone. But she had to try, she had to warn her liege-lord Deumos of the danger she faced. For Lugasharmanaska understood humans and how they regarded their enemies. As long as the enemy fought, the humans would kill without mercy. If Deumos was to survive the oncoming destruction, she would have to find a way of not being an enemy of the humans without being slaughtered by Satan as a traitor. Somehow, Lugasharmanaska had to get a warning through. So she lay on the plastic chair, apparently relaxed and resting but in reality, screwing every ounce of mage-power she could muster in an attempt to contact Deumos. In the middle of the fierce concentration, she found herself wondering what her mage-power really was.
(Note – compliments to Starglider who did the middle section)
Chapter Thirty Six
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 M4 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 rifles, the M114 and M115, 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 M4A5s from Tango-Bravo and given them pre-production M114s instead. They’re happier now. The Special Forces group in with Tango-Bravo now also has M114s.”
“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 Hell 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 hell via death or creatures that are native to hell 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 humans from hell can’t survive here for long, they leak, ohh, I don’t know how to describe it, life energy I suppose. Baldricks can survive here as long as we don’t kill them, we think because they use their bio-electrical generating capability 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 Hell 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. We might want to think about a diesel-powered M1 for operations in Hell 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 Abrams and Bradleys are quite adequate for the conditions. Strykers 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 hell 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 Hell. 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 Iraq.”
Combat Team Alpha. By the Hellmouth, Western Iraq
“Hokay, lot of men told me to go to hell in the past. The Big Cheese is the first one who really meant it.”
“We really going into Hell, Hooters?”
“Sure are Biker. It’s a thunder-run. Hold one.” Stevenson flipped her radio system so she was addressing all 14 vehicles in her command. “Right, this is what’s happening. We’re going in through the hellmouth, according to our source, the area inside is called the Martial Plain of Dysprosium. It’s a prairie-like area the baldricks use for parades and so on. We can swing in, cross it and hit two encampments that are about twenty miles inside. We’ll take them down and shoot up any resistance. Anybody who shoots at us gets greased. Try not to hit non-combatants but if they’re being used as shields or getting in the way, that’s too bad. Word from the top is, we don’t deliberately target any non-coms but they’d better learn to keep out of our way. No vehicles to be left behind, there’s an engineer unit out here, if one of us gets immobilized, we send for them and they tow us out. All clear? Good. Formation, my four tanks lead, line abreast, Bradleys behind, four more M1s at the rear. Right hand tanks watch right, left hand watch left, forward center pair ahead, aft center pair behind. Bradleys, watch the sky, the Harpies are our worst threat. See one, kill it. I’ll command from Alpha-One-One.”