The Weapon - Exodus - part 14
By Diana the Valkyrie
Poison gas


"What's in those garden sprayers?" asked Wendy.

I'd been hoping that she wouldn't notice, or at least that she wouldn't ask
about the contents. But I wasn't about to start lying to her. "Mustard Gas," I
told her. She turned and faced me, frowning. Then she grabbed me and we
rocketed a mile into the air to where we couldn't be overheard. "What the hell
do you think you're playing at?" she yelled, "do you have any idea how
dangerous that stuff is?" You do not want to be facing Wendy when she's angry,
take my word for it. "That's the whole idea, Wendy, we aren't playing
hop-scotch here. It's lethal, as lethal as a bullet." "It's illegal." "You
mean gas warfare isn't allowed according to the Geneva Conventions?" "Or any
other rules of warfare." "But this isn't war. If those guys get through, it's
genocide." "Mustard is illegal." "Whose laws? I didn't agree to them, neither
did Lan Ho. You want to explain to Kippy's mother why we aren't protecting her
baby, on account of some guys in Switzerland signed some agreement?" She was
silent. "Anyway, we're not trying to kill them, not yet. The main effect of
the Mustard Gas will be to raise blisters on their skin, it's more
incapacitating than killing. Less damage than a bullet in the head, for sure.
And when they get past the barrier made by the Mustard, it will be bullets
flying for sure, and that's certainly going to mean a lot of casualties." She
was still silent. "Wendy, I'm not asking you to kill anyone. But you have to
let the villagers fight as best they can, it's the hawk and the sparrow again.
And you remember what you told me? You decide who your friends are, and then
you help them against their enemies. You've wimped out on helping, but at
least don't obstruct our friends."

I looked up at her face; she was crying. "I'm not wimping out, I've been
flying my wings off for you for the last week." "You don't have wings." "You
know what I mean. I've been doing the best I can for you, and now you go
behind my back and you do this!" "It wasn't behind your back" "It bloody well
was, you didn't tell me about this, you knew how I'd feel." "How would I know
you'd take it like this?" "Yes you bloody well did, that's why you didn't tell
me about it. You lied to me!" "I didn't lie!" "You fucking did! The essence of
the lie is the intent to deceive, and you meant for me not to know about this,
you should have told me, the lie was that you didn't."

I didn't really have an answer to this. She was right, I'd lied to her. "And
those drums of stuff that I carried here in the truck, that was what you made
it from, am I right?" "Yes," I whispered. I didn't think she'd take the
defence that only a few of the drums were that. "Some of it was the chemicals
to make Mustard, some of it is gasoline, to use as firebombs, Molotov
Cocktails" I admitted, "oh Wendy, I'm sorry, you're right, I should have told
you what you were carrying, I thought that if you didn't know it would, oh, I
don't know. But I'm really desperate here, there's a thousand men with machine
guns marching as fast as they can go towards our people, and it'll be a
massacre." I could hear the sound of gunfire from below; I looked down and I
could see that a firefight had started between our fortifications and the
attackers. "Wendy, our guys won't be able to hold out for long, All we've got
is those Molotovs and a few guns without much ammo." "And the Mustard Gas,"
she said, accusingly. "Oh, Wendy. Please? Wendy, I'm sorry I didn't tell you,
I should have. Forgive me? Please?"

She stared at me for several very long seconds, then she hugged me, and kissed
me, and said "George, don't worry, everything is going to be fine." For a
moment I believed her, and then I realised that she meant that I was going to
be OK. "Wendy, I know you're going to protect me, it's the other folks I'm
worried about, they're all going to die today." "No," she said, "today is not
a good day to die. You're right. I can't refuse to take sides, because that is
actually taking sides. I know who my friends are; it's time to help them. And
it isn't jusy Kippy, it's all of them, they don't deserve this." I looked up
at her. She had a determined expression. "Kick ass, Wendy!"

We swooped down to our defence lines. "Back to the airfield," yelled Wendy,
and without looking to see if her order was being obeyed, she zoomed to the
airfield, and landed. She went to the kerosene storage tank, and broke it
open, so that the flammable liquid started to pour into the trench around the
airfield. Then she set fire to it, I don't know how. There was a "Whoof" as
the flame surrounded the airfield, and we were surrounded by a wall of flame.
Fine, I thought, that'll buy us a few minutes, but what happens when the
kerosene burns out?

Then she spread her cape on the ground. She spread it out, and out, and out
... and it changed texture and colour. To start with, it was just her cape,
silky and plain white, and then it grew and changed until it looked like a
Persian carpet, except it was longer and wider than any carpet I've ever seen.
It spread further and further, and then when it was about a thousand yards
square, it stopped spreading, and Wendy yelled "Everyone, get on the Magic
Carpet!", and then something in their language, and people started getting on
to the carpet; slowly and carefully at first, but when they saw it was just a
carpet, they took heart and pretty soon everyone was on. "Now everyone sit
down," shouted Wendy. And they did, but then nothing happened - I looked at
Wendy, but she didn't seem to be doing anything, just waiting. Then I saw our
militia running towards the flame-filled trench, and Wendy took a deep breath
in, then blew ... and blew ... and blew. The blast of cold nitrogen from her
exhalation quenched the fire over several yards, giving a channel across the
river of fire, a path across the red sea of flame, and the militia hurried
through, the bandits only a hundred yards behind. As soon as our militia were
on our side of the trench, she stopped blowing, and the flame filled the
trench again, leaving the hostiles on the wrong side. And then she started to
move forward.

The Magic Carpet moved behind her. She tilted it up so that her forward
acceleration wouldn't lead to people sliding off the back, and then she grew
the edges upwards, making a wall around the people. She was still holding me
in her arms as we rose into the sky, trailed by the biggest magic carpet in
the world. We cleared the river of fire at an altitude of a couple of hundred
feet; any bullets fired upwards by the hostiles just bounced off the underside
of the carpet.

"Next stop, Melbourne," she said.