The first book is called Gehenna Dawn, and it will be out in early November. I'll be posting more about it, but I thought I'd started by previewing the first few chapters, starting today with chapter one.
I'm excited about the new series, and I hope you will all enjoy it as much as Crimson Worlds.
Chapter One
From the Journal of Jake Taylor:
There are two suns here, and no night. The brightness is constant; it wears you down
until you can feel the madness building inside you…a craving, a painful
longing, willing in vain for it to be dark.
Then the wave of frustration, of anger and bitterness when there is
nothing but the light, the unending light.
Even when you close your eyes you can still see the hazy orange glow,
constant, unceasing.
But it's not the light that's hardest to take; it’s
the heat. Erastus is a hot world, hotter
than the most sunbaked desert back home.
When you first get here you can't breathe, and when you do force air
into your lungs it feels like fire exploding in your chest. Your instincts conflict…first trying to stop
you from taking another searing, agonizing breath, then succumbing to the
irresistible need for air. You think you
are going to die then and there, to yield to natural forces you were never
supposed to survive. But you don't. A world like Erastus teaches you just how
adaptable man really is.
On Earth I loved the night, the quiet darkness, the
cool stillness, a field of twinkling stars the only light in an inky sky. Now I can hardly remember what it felt like,
sitting on the porch breathing the crisp air.
I always loved autumn, the first chill of the year that sent me to the
closet to fetch another blanket. Now all
I know is a hellish perversion of eternal summer. Cold?
A memory almost faded now. The
concept remains, a lingering vestige, but the recollection of how it felt? Gone.
The FNGs were dying…they were dying like flies. The 213th Strike Force was pinned down on Blackrock Ridge, and they were catching hell. The Machines were attacking from three sides, trying to cut off the only line of retreat. The strategy was predictable - most of their operations were - but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t work. If they closed the circle, no one from the 213th would make it back to base.
“Sergeant Taylor, get your section into that gap. Keep it open, whatever it takes. The ground’s too rugged here for evac.” Lieutenant Cadogan’s voice was raw. He was trying, without much success, to hide
his fatigue. Both suns were in the sky,
and the strike force had been fighting on the open ridge for over an hour. Half the troops were almost incoherent with
heat exhaustion, and the rest weren’t far behind. The Machines felt the heat too, as much as
they did anything, but they were less vulnerable to its effects. Which made fighting during midday a big
advantage for them.
“Yes, sir.” Jake
Taylor’s voice was gravelly, somber. He
hated to see the new guys getting themselves massacred. His people had been in reserve, so he
couldn’t see everything happening up on the forward line. But he bet himself over a dozen of the
rookies were down already, and probably more.
Taylor spent a lot of time lecturing the new recruits when
they first arrived, but not many of them listened…and that meant not many of
them survived. Not on Erastus. Not against an enemy like the Machines.
“Let’s go, 2nd Section.”
Taylor took a deep, searing breath.
He’d been on Erastus a long time, long enough for his body to adjust to
the harsh environment. His was muscular,
but lean and wiry, his physique adapted to the constant dehydration. It didn’t matter how long you stayed on
Erastus, how used to it you became…the air was still goddamned hot. “Follow me…into the gap. We’ve got to hold the door open.”
Taylor’s troops snapped into position, following him down
the jagged rocks of the ridgeline into the small gully behind. The narrow depression led back toward a small
plateau…flat ground where the evac ships could land. The strike force could withdraw that way
under cover…as long as the Machines didn’t break through and block the route.
Taylor’s troops were veterans mostly, though none had been on
Erastus as long as he had. Jake had been
onplanet five years, a tenure that made him part of an elite group. Men didn’t survive that long in the battle
lines. The Machines killed them…or
Erastus did. Or they went mad from the
heat, the thirst, the fear. Not many men
could survive that long on the front lines in hell.
He waved a sunbaked arm, worn assault rifle gripped firmly
in his hand. “I want two lines. First team left, second team right.” His voice was hoarse and scratchy…everyone
got that way on Erastus sooner or later.
Yelling felt like broken glass on his parched throat, but it was the
only way his people could hear him, even with the com implants. “I want 3rd and 4th teams in reserve, ready
to move to either flank.”
“Blackie, get your HHV set up between those two rock
outcroppings to your south. That should
give your guys good cover and a nice field of fire.” Taylor tended to micromanage his teams. He couldn’t help himself. His grasp of the field was extraordinary – as
it had been from the day he stepped out of the Portal into the blazing sunlight
of Erastus. He was a raw cherry with no
military training other than what he’d gotten in Basic…but there was something
in him, some hidden talent that suddenly emerged. His eye immediately focused on key positions,
and his mind rapidly assessed the strengths and weaknesses of the tactical
situation. There weren’t many things
more important in small unit tactics than a good feel for the ground, and
Taylor was one of the best. It was one
of the things - one of many things - that made him such a good natural
soldier…and leader.
“Got it, Sarge.” Tony
Black’s voice was deep, with a heavy urban accent. “Deploying now.” Black was the senior corporal in the section
and the longest-serving veteran after Taylor.
He was Jake’s best friend…and his go-to man for anything difficult or
vital.
“I’m counting on you, Blackie.” Taylor trusted Black…as much as he did
anyone. The corporal was a little shit,
maybe 170 centimeters in his boots, but he was tough as nails. Taylor had seen him cornered in a ravine by
three Machines and live to tell about it.
Black had grown up in the streets of the Philly Metrozone, just about
the worst of the urban freezones in the US sector, and his survival instincts
were well developed long before he ended up in UN Forces: Erastus.
“They’re going to come through right below that position. I can feel it. You should be able to wipe the field clean.” As long as there aren’t too many, he thought,
keeping that part to himself.
“I’m on it, Sarge.”
Black’s voice was confident, definitive.
He’d served with Jake a long time.
If “Mad Dog” Taylor said the enemy was coming through that ravine, it
was as good as a guarantee to him. “If
they come this way, we’ll put ‘em down.”
“Fuck, it’s hot,” Taylor muttered to himself, running his
hand along the back of his neck, wiping away the sweat. He grabbed his bottle, and put it to his
lips. He was disciplined, only allowing
himself a small sip…barely enough to wet his parched lips. Water was precious. In this desert, it was life itself.
He turned and trotted up over a small rise, crouching low as
he did. He wasn’t sure he was exposed to
the enemy’s line of sight, but there was no point sticking his head out and
taking chances. Carelessness got
soldiers killed; that was something he constantly reminded the cherries…and his
veterans too. It only took an instant of
distraction to end up on the KIA list, and he’d seen experienced soldiers, men
who should have known better, make the same mistakes as newbies straight out of
the Portal.
He scrambled down into the gully and up the other side,
coming out just behind the hulking figure of a man. “OK, Bear, get your boys over to the
east. Spread out and grab some cover.” Taylor paused for an instant before he added,
“My gut says they’re going to hit us from the west, over by Blackie’s
position. But keep your eyes open, just
in case they come in from both directions.”
The big man turned and looked back, nodding. The commander of Taylor’s 2nd team, Chuck
“Bear” Samuels was a giant of a man, well over 2 meters tall, with huge
shoulders and powerful, muscled arms.
Erastus usually finished off the big ones quickly…they just couldn’t
take the heat. But Samuels handled everything
the planet and the Machines threw at him and kept right on going. Another two-striper, he was the best natured
guy in the unit, cheerful and boisterous…when he wasn’t fighting the Machines,
that is.
“On the way, Boss.”
Taylor was never sure why Bear called him boss, but he always let it
go. He got a kick out of the way it
sounded in the gentle giant’s slow southern drawl. “We got some good cover over there. I’ll get the boys situated real good. Just in case.” Like Black, Samuels considered Taylor’s
instincts a sure thing. If the sergeant
said the enemy was going to hit the other flank, then that’s what they were
going to do. But he was a veteran too,
and he didn’t like taking chances any more than Taylor did. So he wouldn’t let his guard drop, not for an
instant. Not after all the times Jake
had pounded that into his head.
“Get to it, Be…”
Taylor’s head snapped around. It
was fire…HHV fire. The heavy hyper-velocity
weapon was a tripod-mounted, rapid fire, infantry support gun firing depleted
uranium projectiles at 3,200 mps. In a
good position, a skilled HHV crew could sweep whole sections of a battlefield
clean, tearing apart anything foolish enough to show itself. It was particularly effective against the
Machines. The alien soldiers were far
less sensitive to casualties, and they frequently attacked in the open, their
dense formations attempting to overrun the human forces with massive
waves. Against a few well-placed HHVs,
that strategy was the rough equivalent of suicide.
“Get to it, Bear.”
Taylor turned and jogged down the hillside without waiting for an
acknowledgement. He had his other two
teams and the support personnel stacked up in the ravine. He slid down the rocky slope and ran along
the bottom to where he’d posted the reserves.
“Longbow, grab yourself a vantage point off to the
west.” Tom Warner was standing closest
to Taylor, watching the sergeant scramble toward the position. He was the section’s sniper, the deadliest
shot Taylor had ever seen. Warner
constantly insisted he was even better with a bow than a rifle, and he had a
seemingly limitless collection of stories to back the claim. No one was sure what to believe or not, but
eventually the name stuck.
“Yes, Sarge.” Warner
strapped his weapon on his back and trotted off past Taylor. The MZ-750 computer-assisted sniper rifle was
a long weapon, and the muzzle extended more than half a meter over Warner’s
head. In the hands of a well-trained
shot, the MZ-750 could hit a man-sized target in partial cover at 4 klicks. Warner was an expert.
Jake stared at the rest of his reserve, 2 eight man teams plus
the other 4 section specialists. “The
rest of you stay down and wait. If they
come in heavy, we’ll probably have to extend the line so we don’t get flanked.” Taylor turned and took two steps before
stopping and looking back. “Check your
weapons and ammo. I want everybody ready
on a second’s notice.” His 3rd and 4th
teams were mostly new guys. Even most of
the NCOs had less than a year onplanet.
You couldn’t remind the FNGs enough, he thought. You could say it ten times, and some fool
will still end up in the line with an unloaded rifle.
He turned again and headed back toward Blackie’s
position. He wanted to scout things out
for himself over there, but he glanced back for one last check to make sure his
reserves were staying low. The walls of
the ravine provided cover against line of sight, but that didn’t mean the
Machines wouldn’t start dropping shells there.
Taylor nursemaided the newbs – it was the only way to try and keep them
alive. He hated seeing them gunned down
like sheep, and he hammered away at his rookies, trying to beat some sense into
their heads. It didn’t always work, but
Taylor had the lowest cherry casualty rate in the brigade. He intended to keep it that way.
He could hear the enemy fire coming in, getting thicker as
he came back up to Black’s position. The
HHV was in place and firing full.
“Blackie, how’s it look up here?”
He was still low in the gully, about 3 meters below the ledge where
Black’s team was deployed.
“It’s hot, Sarge.”
Black’s accent was thicker than usual; he really sounded like an inner
city tough. That told Taylor all he
needed to know. Black’s accent was the
best way to read his stress level…and it only took a quick listen to tell that the
veteran corporal was definitely tense.
“Alright, brother…hang on.
I’m gonna get some eyes up.”
Taylor didn’t want to commit reserves yet, not unless he was sure the
enemy was coming in hard. He put his
hand to his helmet, switching the com frequency. The speaker was in his head, an implant
inside the ear canal, but the primary controls were external…a small pad on the
side of his helmet. “Frantic, I need you
to get two birds up ASAP. West flank,
north and south trajectories.” He paused
then added, “Get me one to the east too.”
Might as well confirm if anything was heading Bear’s way. Taylor didn’t think so, but intuition was no
substitute for solid intel.
It was obvious to everyone how Corporal Karl Young had
gotten the name Frantic. The guy was
twitchy sitting back at base playing cards.
In a close in fight he was batshit crazy. Normally, Jake wouldn’t want a loose cannon
in his command, but Young was the best fighter he’d ever seen…and the crazy
bastard wasn’t scared of anything. Plus
he’d done one thing no one else on Erastus had.
He’d saved Jake Taylor’s life.
“On it, Sarge. I’ll
have ‘em up in half a minute.” Young
commanded Taylor’s 3rd team. He was the
only real veteran in either 3rd or 4th.
Jake climbed up the embankment and slid into place next to
Black. “I’ve got drones launching. Once they’re up we’ll have better targeting
intel.” Taylor and Black had the same
com implants, just like every soldier on Erastus, but Jake always preferred to
hear with his own ears whenever possible.
Black nodded.
“Good.” He was prone behind a large
rock outcropping, firing his assault rifle through a slit in the granite
slab. “’Cause I think we got another
phalanx of these motherfuckers just behind that crest.”
There was no way Black could have known what was hidden by
the elevation, not until the drones got up and over there, at least. But Taylor had learned to respect his number
two’s gut almost as much as his own. He
hadn’t believed in intuition or anything like it before he came to Erastus, but
he’d seen it work too many times not to pay attention. And Black’s was one of the best.
Taylor’s didn’t rely entirely on guts, though, his or anyone
else’s. He’d learned to survive, but
he’d done it with his head mostly, analyzing each situation and exercising
caution. Most screw-ups happened because
of poor planning or recklessness. Taylor
was methodical, maintaining his calm deliberation even in the middle of combat.
He pulled his own rifle off his shoulder and slid into
position a few meters south of Black. He
was extraneous now, at least until he had more intel…and one more rifle in the
line could make the difference. He could
see out 1,000, maybe 1,200 meters.
Beyond that, the ground sunk behind a small ridgeline, cutting line of
sight. Black thought there were heavy
enemy reserves back there, but they wouldn’t know for sure until one of the
drones was in place.
“Taylor, I’ve got evac inbound, but we’re looking at maybe
20 before they’re here.” It was the
lieutenant, sounding even worse than he had a few minutes earlier. “As soon as the birds are close, I’m gonna
pull the rest of the sections back, through the gully between your two
lines. Copy?”
“Copy, sir.
Understood.” Fuck, Taylor
thought, twenty minutes was a long time.
A long Goddamned time. If there
was another phalanx of Machines hidden behind that ridge, things were going to
get real hot in a lot less than 20 minutes.
He turned toward Black. “Twenty
minutes until evac. We must not be the
only disaster today.”
The UN forces on Erastus didn’t have a lot of air support,
and what was available was always needed in three places at once. It took enough energy to transport men and
supplies. Larger ordnance was sent sent
on an “urgent needs” basis only. And
antigrav transports and gunships were way too big to fit through a Portal. They had to be sent through in sections and
assembled onsite. The whole process was time-consuming
and prohibitively expensive. On UN
Central’s spreadsheet, it was a better deal to go through a few more men than
spend too much on logistical support.
“I don’t know, Dog.
If they’re stacked up behind that ridge out there, we’re gonna be fucked
up the ass in way less than 20 minutes.”
The use of handles was widespread in the UN forces, but rarely with a
superior. Taylor tended to be casual
with his non-coms in base, and Black sometimes reverted when it was just the
two of them talking in the field. Taylor
didn’t really care. He wouldn’t let it
spread and affect overall discipline, but Black was like his brother.
“No shit, Blackie.”
He let a tiny smile cross his lips.
He and Black were thinking the same thing. Not that it would do them much good. If they were right, they were going to be
neck deep in Machines in a few minutes.
He tapped the com pad on his helmet.
“Frantic, where the hell are those drones?”
“They’re up, Sarge.”
Young sounded half-crazed, as usual, but nothing out of the
ordinary. “There’s a lot of interdictive
fire. I’m trying to bring them around
the perimeter…avoid the heaviest spots.”
“Understood, Corporal, but I need some intel now.” Taylor sighed, but he didn’t push any harder. Getting the drones shot down wasn’t going to
help. Karl Young was one of the best
operators in the whole brigade. Taylor
knew he’d get the drones around as quickly as he could without getting them blown
away. “Do the best you can. I need to know what the enemy has behind that
ridge.”
“Yes, Sarge.” Young
was practically screaming. “I’ll get you
what you need.”
There was a long silence, maybe a minute and a half. The line was still open, and Taylor could
hear Young breathing hard on the other end.
Jake was looking out over the field, his eyes straining, panning across
the ridge. He thought he got a quick
glimpse of one of the drones, flying low across the field in front of the ridge
before it vanished from view. The small
aircraft was zigging and zagging wildly, avoiding the heaviest pockets of enemy
fire. He knew Young was good, but he
hadn’t seen much precision flying that could match what he was watching.
“Sarge, I got a drone over the ridge. Feeding you the scans.” He paused, sucking in a deep breath, trying
to control his edginess. “You better get
what you need fast, Sarge…cause this thing ain’t gonna last long.”
“Thanks, Frantic.
Great job.” Taylor was slamming
down his visor as he spoke, hitting the small button on his helmet that
activated the projection system. The
inside of his visor flickered with a soft blue light, and then the feed from
the drone’s camera started.
“Fuck…” Taylor stared
as the drone transmitted a panoramic view of the backside of the ridge. A few seconds later there was a flash, then
nothing.
“Sarge…did you get what you needed?” Young again, shouting into the com. “We lost the drone. I tried to keep it in a random pattern, but they
picked it off anyway.”
“Yeah, Frantic.”
Taylor’s voice was grim. “I got
what I needed.” Now, he thought…what the
fuck am I going to do with it?
He tapped his helmet controls, cutting the link with Young
and calling up the lieutenant.
“Sir…Taylor here.”
“Go ahead, Jake.”
Cadogan sounded exhausted. He was
up on the forward ridge with the other three sections. Taylor’s people were getting some partial
shade at least, but the rest of the strike force had been in direct sunlight
for almost 90 minutes. Taylor didn’t
know for sure, but he suspected they’d already had fatalities from heatstroke.
“We got a drone up over that western ridge. They’re massing back there. Looks like battalion strength, at
least.” The Machines didn’t use human
organizational structures, but UNFE forces tended to refer to enemy formations
by their own force equivalents.
The line was silent for a few seconds. “Alright, Jake. You know you need to keep the escape route
open. I’m gonna start sending the worst
hit sections back toward the target LZ.
You and your boys…hold firm.” It
was a pointless order, but it was all Cadogan had to give.
“Yes, sir.” Taylor
took a deep breath, wincing a little as a sharp pain lanced up his side. “Fuck,” he grunted. He’d cracked a couple ribs on patrol a few
days before, and they were bothering him more than he thought they would. Doc hadn’t wanted to clear him for duty, but
there was no way he was letting his people go out on a strikeforce level search
and destroy mission without him.
Especially this one…so far from base.
And right after he got six new cherries transferred in.
“Blackie…” He turned
to face his number two, shouting across the ten meters or so rather than using
the com. “I’m going slip Jackson’s team
in on your flank. The way we’re set now,
if these guys attack, they’ll just swing right around your boys.” He paused, thinking for a few seconds. The whole situation was bad news. He was sending his least experienced unit commander
to hold the exposed flank. But he was
only going to have one team left in reserve, and he needed a veteran in command
of it…and the only really seasoned guy back there was Young. Barret Jackson was a good soldier, but this
was his first mission commanding a team.
“I’m gonna go with Jackson’s team.” He started sliding his way down the
embankment as he spoke. “Frantic’s
people are in reserve. Be cool, Blackie…we
can’t burn through them too quickly. But
pull them up a pair at a time if you really need them to plug your holes.”
“Got it, Jake.” Black
was still firing through the split in the rock, turning his head back as he
shouted after Taylor. “You take care of
the south flank. I’ve got things handled
here.” It was bravado, but that was
Blackie’s style.
Taylor scrambled down into the gully and started moving
south. He tapped the com controls on his
helmet. “Jackson, get your boys up and
moving. I want you on the line south of
Black’s team.” He glanced back. He could hear the incoming fire on Black’s
position, and it was getting heavier.
“Immediately, Corporal.”
