Happy 4th of July all. I thought I'd post something to pass the time on the holiday weekend (and for my non-US readers, it's just one chapter, so a normal weekend should be enough to get to it!).
Portal Wars II: The Ten Thousand, the sequel to Gehenna Dawn will be out in early August, but here is a sneak peak - the first chapter. I'll publish the second chapter in about a week and probably the third at the end of the month.
For those of you how haven't read Gehenna Dawn, if you're interested, it has been on sale for 99 cents the last several days. It was supposed to end today, but I'm going to keep it reduced for an extra day for any of you guys interested in picking it up.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the
process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an
abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Part One
Anabasis
Chapter 1
From the Journal of Jake Taylor:
Trust. It is
the hardest thing to embrace, especially when you have seen what I have, been
through the hell to which I was consigned.
Yet it is also one of the greatest things man can experience, to rely
without doubt on others, to know they are there for you, that if your vigilance
fails they will step in and lend you their own strength.
It is something people don’t understand well. They place their trust carelessly,
recklessly, seeking to feel better, to convince themselves they can rely on
those who have not earned such confidence.
Organizations cannot be trusted, nor governments. By their very nature, they are changeable and
soulless, subject to the caprices of those in positions of power. It is a great fallacy that groups and
institutions are trustworthy, one that continually causes mankind to make poor
choices, to tread down dark roads that lead to slavery. Vigilance is the cost of maintaining freedom,
questioning everything and demanding proof of all you are told. Yet that is a heavy burden, one most people
cast aside for the drug of false trust.
My life has been one of sorrow and pain, inflicted
on me by an evil regime bent on maintaining its power at all costs. All I once believed in was a lie; those I
called my leaders were soulless monsters.
I was a fool, believing in things because I was told to, because it was
easier, because I did not think for myself.
I am as guilt-stained as anyone, for once I willingly followed the
powers I am now sword to destroy.
My men, and those we must now fight as well, are
all victims of this nightmare. Many
innocents, led by lies into an unjust cause, will die before the stain is
washed away. There is nothing I can do
to prevent this. I must do what I must,
regardless of the cost.
But there is good, even in the pit of hell, for it
was in the middle of my ordeal that I rediscovered trust. In my battles there were men in the lines
next to me, fellow-soldiers who fought with me, bled with me - who risked their
own lives to save mine. I have served 14
years with these men at my side, protecting my back through the horrors of
Gehenna. Through the years of deadly
warfare those men became closer than friends, closer than brothers. I trust each of them with my life - a trust
that has been forged through long years of bitter service together in hell. I know every one of them will do what I ask,
no matter what the cost. I can never
achieve the victory I pursue without the help of those close to me, my comrades
in arms.
But there is a weakness there too, for I know too
well the difficulty of the task ahead of us, and I fear my friends, many of
them at least, will die before it is over.
They will die because of where I send them, the orders I alone give
them. And I will see their cold, dead
faces staring back at me for as long as I live.
“Keep moving. I want
you in position and ready to fire in ten minutes.” Major Karl Young stood on the small rock
outcropping, waving his arms to urge his troops forward. It was almost time.
Young was a true veteran, a ten-year man. He’d survived more than a decade in the
burning hell of Erastus, and that was as true a mark of toughness as any
warrior could bear. He was as close to
fearless as a man could be, the survivor of a hundred bloody combats. But he was excitable too, prone to loud
outbursts and over-the-top enthusiasm - so much that his friends and comrades
called him Frantic.
The troops were moving forward. He had a full battalion, all enhanced
Supersoldiers. They were jogging faster
than a normal human could sprint, carrying their full load of exos as they
did. Young’s troops were moving to flank
the enemy, part of General Taylor’s plan to cut off and surround the advancing
UN forces. Young could feel the victory
within their grasp, and it showed in his shouts and gestures. He was earning his nickname with every yell
and wave of his arms.
His people were moving forward through a narrow defile, with
high rock walls on either side. They
were well in advance of Taylor and the main force. When the general launched his frontal attack,
Young’s battalion would emerge from their hidden position and take the enemy in
enfilade, just as Bear Samuels’ troops would hit the opposite flank. The Alantrian forces were marching through a
tight valley. They’d have a hard time
repositioning to face the threats coming in from all sides. Trapped between converging fields of fire,
they would be slaughtered. At least that
was the plan.
Young was aware that most of the soldiers they were facing
were involuntary conscripts, just like him and his men. He didn’t have any hostility toward the
Atlantrian troops – indeed, he sympathized with them. But the battle was almost underway and his
blood was up. Once the fighting started,
he knew it was either his people or the enemy.
There was no room for hesitation in combat. Sparing an adversary was likely to cost the
lives of one of his own – and that was unthinkable. There was an unbreakable bond connecting the
men who’d shared the hell of Erastus, even stronger than that between soldiers
elsewhere. Taylor had tried to show the
Alantrian troops the truth; he’d beseeched them to desert UNGov and join his
crusade. If they wouldn’t listen, Young
thought grimly, there was only one option.
They would die.
“We’re in position, sir.”
Lieutenant Hemmer’s voice came through Young’s implanted comlink. “The head of the column has reached the
designated deployment area.”
Young nodded, a pointless gesture since Hemmer was almost a
klick forward of his position and there was no visual link active on the
com. “Very well, Lieutenant.” Young tried to hold back the excitement he
always experienced in battle. His face
was flushed and he felt the heat around his neck and ears. He was a gifted officer and one of Taylor’s
most trusted compatriots, but he always had to struggle to keep himself
calm. Frantic had earned his handle more
than once. “You may begin deployment.”
Almost time, Young thought, feeling his hands shake as they
usually did before battle. Almost
time. He closed his eyes for a few
seconds and took a half a dozen deep breaths.
Just like always, he thought…the same as every battle you’ve fought
before. But he knew that wasn’t
true. This would be their first combat
off Erastus, and they were facing a group of troopers just like them, men who’d
been lied to and pressganged into fighting an unjust war. Before, when they’d killed, the soldiers from
Erastus had been facing the Machines – and then an army of UN career
enforcers. Now they were about to engage
soldiers very much like them, men who should be their allies, but weren’t.
He took one last breath and flipped on the unitwide
com. “OK, 5th Battalion…prepare for
battle.”
* * * * *
Jake Taylor stood inside the HQ tent, staring at the
monitor. The plan was complex, a series
of maneuvers so intricate he wouldn’t have even attempted them with any but his
own veteran officers and men. There were
no less than six columns on the move, and when they completed their respective
marches, all of UN Force Alantris would be enveloped – and subsequently destroyed
in detail.
“It looks like everything’s going according to plan,
Blackie.” There was a touch of sadness
in Taylor’s voice. He would do whatever
was necessary to destroy UNGov, but annihilating these soldiers, conscripts
ripped from their lives just as he and his own men had been, was something he
abhorred. He would do it if there was no
alternative, but the thought of it made him sick. For an instant he wanted to leave HQ and run
away – to hide in the wilderness and let someone else bear the burden. He inhaled deeply and clamped down on those
thoughts. They were all sworn to see
this through, and Taylor had promised to lead them if they would follow. He’d never break that pledge, not while he
still drew breath.
“We’re spot on, Jake.”
Tony Black was Taylor’s second-in-command, his most trusted friend and
confidante. “The men are maneuvering
like they’re on the parade ground.”
Black had been a little concerned about the complexity of Taylor’s plan,
but the troops were coordinating flawlessly, and the hapless enemy forces had
no idea what was about to hit them.
The UN forces on Alantris had been dispersed when Taylor and
his people arrived, conducting the types of search and destroy missions common
to the middle stages of a pacification campaign. The Machines had been forced onto the defensive
on Alantris, but they still held large areas of the planet. Had held, at least. As soon as Taylor’s people came through the
Portal the Machines broke off and withdrew from the planet, leaving the two
human forces to face each other alone.
The Alantrian army hesitated for a few days, uncertain what
was happening. Then word came through
the Portal from the high command on Earth.
The human invaders were rebels, murderers who had slaughtered their
comrades. The orders were
straightforward – attack and destroy them.
Taylor broadcast his entreaty for the Alantrian troops to
join him. He told them of UNGov’s
perfidy and the great fraud that caused the war. A few scouts and outposts deserted to join
his force, but his story was just too far-fetched for most to believe. The propagandists from Earth had gotten to
them first. They told them Taylor would
lie to them, tell them crazy stories to try and subvert them. The Alantrians were confused, but most of
them remained in the ranks and prepared to meet Taylor’s army.
On Erastus, Taylor had been well-known, one of the senior
officers, the first Supersoldier and a celebrated Ten Year Man. His words carried credibility, and the troops
there had flocked to his banner. But no
one on Alantris knew anything about Jake Taylor – except what UNGov was telling
them.
Taylor’s army was concentrated, drawn up in formation all
around their entry Portal, so the Alantrian forces formed up as well, and
marched on their positions. Jake let
them concentrate and advance, keeping his forces in place while they did. His apparent lack of aggressiveness lured his
adversary in, and the enemy’s confidence soared. There were over 22,000 combat troops on
Alantris, including a healthy core of veterans.
Taylor’s forces numbered less than 14,000, and that number included a
large contingent of support personnel.
The Alantrians expected to overwhelm and destroy the invaders, but they
didn’t know that 10,000 of Taylor’s troops were surgically-enhanced
Supersoldiers, and hardcore veterans of the most hellish world where men have
ever fought.
“Majors Young, Samuels, and Daniels all report their troops
are in position.” Black stared at
Taylor, realizing he wasn’t listening.
His friend had drifted into one of his periods of introspection.
Black couldn’t imagine the burdens Taylor was forced to
bear, and how difficult it was for his friend to order the attack on an army of
fellow-conscripts. Tony Black had grown
up on the streets of the Philadelphia Metrozone, one of the most dangerous urban
enclaves in the world. He known
brutality since he was a child, and he’d learned to fight, for a scrap of bread
or a dry place to sleep, at an early age.
Taylor, on the other hand, had grown up on a farm. He’d known hard work and poverty, but not the
constant violence and filth of the ghetto.
Black knew Taylor was a veteran now, one of the toughest who’d ever
lived. But he’d also known love and
family. Taylor acted like he’d forgotten
about all of that, but Black knew it was still there, the flickering
remembrance of a better time and place.
He wasn’t sure if it did his friend any good, but he knew it made it
that much more difficult to issue the orders.
“Jake?” Black raised
his voice a little.
Taylor shook out of his daydream. “Yeah, Blackie…understood.”
Black looked over at his friend, but Taylor didn’t say
anything else. “Jake…do you want to
commence the attack?”
Taylor hesitated for a few seconds. Then:
“No, Blackie. Not yet.” He stared back at his friend, and Black could
see an instant of weakness in his eyes.
“I want to address the enemy one more time first.”
Black let out a deep breath.
He understood. But he also knew
they had to win the battle. They were
about to hit the enemy with a surprise attack from all sides. Warning them didn’t make any sense, at least
not militarily. But he knew better than
to argue with Taylor. “OK, Jake, but try
to keep it short. Every minute we give
them to react is going to cost more of our men before the battle is over.”
“Maybe there won’t be a battle.” Taylor’s voice was soft, with an odd
tone. “Maybe they will understand.” He took a breath, knowing in his heart he was
fooling himself. “Maybe they will
understand…and we won’t have to kill them all.”
Black nodded slightly.
“Sure, Jake. Maybe.” But he didn’t believe it – and he knew Taylor
didn’t either.
* * * * *
“Attention all soldiers of UN Force Alantris.” Taylor stood next to the HQ tent, looking out
in the direction of his deployed army.
He couldn’t see the troops from where he stood, except for the reserve
formations lined up waiting for the orders to advance. But he knew where they were, every squad,
every man.
“This is General Jake Taylor, the commander of the Army of
Erastus. I am addressing you one final
time before battle is joined. My people
and I are just like you, soldiers conscripted into the ranks for life, sent to
a distant world to battle an alien enemy.”
He paused for a few seconds, his mind racing for what he could say to
convince them. To save them. “Like you, we once believed in that
cause. Whatever suffering we endured, we
knew we were protecting our homes, our families.” Another pause, shorter than the first. Taylor could feel Black’s tension as the
seconds ticked off. It was time to
launch the attack. “But that was a lie,
a foul deceit conjured by those who used it to seize power.”
He held the Tegeri amulet in his hand as he spoke. The device was allowing him to communicate
with every soldier in the opposing force, to slice through any jamming or other
attempts to block his signal. “Watch
your com units…witness what truly happened on the first colony worlds so many
years ago.” He turned a dial and pressed
a small button.
He remained silent for a few seconds. He knew the amulet was projecting the image
of the colonial massacres on every com unit in UN Force Alantris. He couldn’t imagine the power that
transmission required, the sophistication of the alien device he held in his
hand.
He hadn’t thought much about it at first but, as he began to
discover the capabilities of the amulet, he came to realize that Tegeri
technology was far in advance of Earth’s.
The Machines, he realized, should have been evidence enough of that fact. The manufactured biomechanical soldiers were
extremely sophisticated, and Earth science couldn’t begin to replicate whatever
process created them. But their weapons
and equipment were more or less the equivalents of those possessed by the Earth
armies and, in 45 years of constant war, the Tegeri never employed anything
more advanced. War on the Portal worlds
had been largely a contest between equals, at least in terms of armament.
Now Taylor realized the Tegeri could have utilized far more
powerful weapons. Indeed, he wondered if
they couldn’t have easily crushed the human armies, even destroyed Earth
itself. Almost certainly, he thought in
answer. The fact that they didn’t was
just more evidence to support the honesty of T’arza’s claims…and the basis for
Taylor’s crusade.
“What you have just seen is the truth. The images you have been shown before are
fabrications, lies designed to you to get you to fight. Earth’s government is the true evil, one that
must be destroyed so our friends and families – all those we left behind
forever – can at last know the taste of freedom.” There was strength in Taylor’s voice, and
conviction. But there was a hint of
desperation too. Not because he couldn’t
destroy those who ignored his entreaties.
Just the opposite. He knew he
could annihilate the soldiers of Alantris – and if they refused to yield he
would do just that. More innocent blood
on his hands.
“Now, soldiers of Alantris.
You have a choice. Drop your
weapons and join us. You will not be
harmed if you do. You have my
word.” He paused, and when he continued
his voice was dark and foreboding. “If
you remain in your lines…if you stand with the evil of UNGov, we will destroy
you utterly. For this fight is for the
future of mankind, and there is no place for mercy or weakness.”
He cut the transmission and turned slowly to face
Black. “OK, Blackie. Maybe that will reach a few.”
Black nodded. “I’m
sure it will, Jake. You are becoming
quite eloquent.”
Taylor suppressed a laugh.
Words like ‘eloquent’ never sounded quite right in the thick urban accent
Black had never been able to shake.
Black knew Taylor better than anyone. He understood his friend’s need to try again,
to do all he could to save some of those men.
But he knew just as well that Jake Taylor would never allow pity or
guilt to stand in the way of the crusade.
He would see every conscript on Alantris dead on the bloodsoaked field
if that is what victory required.
Taylor turned and walked back toward his tent. “Give them ten minutes, Blackie.” His voice was thick with sadness and fatigue. “Then launch the attack.”
* * * * *
The field in front of the line was covered with bodies, but
Samuels’ troops kept firing, raking the formations caught out on the flat, open
ground. “Pour it into ‘em, boys.” He knew what he was supposed to say. His voice on the comlink was calm, just what
his men expected from their commander.
But inside, he wanted to drop to his knees and wretch his guts up.
Bear Samuels had been a gentle giant from Alabama when he
first arrived on Erastus, and he’d somehow managed to retain a remnant of that good-natured
innocence, even after all the years of brutal combat. He’d became a good fighter and a strong
leader, at least in battle against the Machines. UNGov’s propaganda had turned the Tegeri’s
manufactured soldiers into a pure manifestation of evil, and for years Samuels
and his comrades had believed it all. It
was easy to slaughter an enemy you thought of as soulless murderers, but killing
other human beings didn’t sit well with him.
The men he’d fought in the last battle on Erastus were government thugs,
bullies and institutionalized murderers, at least. He imagined all the people they’d killed or dragged
away to the reeducation centers as he led his men into battle against them. It helped him get through the battle, at
least a little.
The soldiers his people were massacring now were
different. They were ordinary men, just
like he had been, like all his fellow soldiers on Erastus. The fighters out in that plain, dying in
bunches under the withering enfilade fire, were conscripts, ripped from their
homes and families just as he had been.
They’d been kids, barely adults, when they were taken from all they’d
known and sent far from home to fight a brutal war, never to return. Nothing he could tell himself made him feel
better about what he knew he had to do.
Nothing but his faith in Jake Taylor.
Taylor had taken him aside one night after the battle
against the UN forces on Erastus. The
two of them killed a bottle of Bourbon and talked all night. Samuels never knew where Taylor found the
whiskey, but the things his commander and friend told him that night would stay
with him as long as he lived.
He would draw his strength from that conversation, and he
would do whatever had to be done, no matter how upsetting he found it to
be. Because if he didn’t, what had
happened to him, to Taylor and all their comrades – even to the men his
troopers were slaughtering now – would never end. Unless UNGov was destroyed, generation after
generation of young conscripts would be fed into the machine. The war wasn’t about holding back a bloodthirsty
enemy; it wasn’t even about conquering the Tegeri. It existed for one purpose, as a source of
propaganda to preserve UNGov’s dominance over a humanity too frightened to
stand up for its own rights.
Taylor was right, Samuels thought as he watched the
murderous fire from his autocannons tear apart the hapless formations, now
little more than terrified mobs, as they tried to flee. There was no choice, no other way. He had to do this; his men had to do it. No matter how they felt about it.
No more than a third of the enemy had made it past the
flanking forces, and their formations were shattered. They were heading back the way they’d
advanced, a tumultuous, panicked mob, fleeing wildly.
Samuels watched them sadly.
Yes, he thought, head back toward your bases. Right into Hank Daniels’ waiting line. Daniels, Samuel knew, had no pity at all for
them.
* * * * *
“Get those guns set up and ready to fire.” Hank Daniels stood a few meters behind his
firing line, barking out orders to his sweating troops. “Now!”
His force had gone the farthest, and they were spread out in a long
formation along the enemy’s rear, completing Taylor’s envelopment.
The battle was already underway. Colonel Black had hit the enemy frontally,
driving into them with such ferocity they broke and ran – right past the two
flanking forces Taylor had positioned along their route. He tried to imagine the horrendous losses
Bear and Frantic were inflicting on the panicked soldiers as they fled past their
prepared flanking positions.
The Alantrian army was experienced from over a decade’s
continuous combat, but they’d never encountered anything like Taylor and his
veterans before. Supersoldiers, stone
cold killers forged in the furnace of Gehenna, no warriors who existed could
stand against them, not without staggering numerical superiority.
Daniels knew what was happening, even though he couldn’t see
it. The Alantrian lines, what was left
of them, were buckling. Their formations
were melting away under the sustained fire of Taylor’s perfectly placed
flanking forces. By the time they
reached his position, they would be a routing, panic-stricken mob seeking only
to escape. That’s were Daniels’ people
came in. His troops were stretched out
all along the enemy’s rear – now the direction in which they were fleeing –
waiting. Taylor’s orders were brutally
clear. Allow no one to escape. He was to accept any surrenders he could
without endangering his command, but not a single enemy soldier was to get off
the field. Not one.
Daniels treated Taylor’s orders like they were commandments
from heaven. Spider Daniels had served
under Jake Taylor for all the years he’d spent fighting on the brutal
battlefields of Erastus. His devotion to
his friend was total, verging on fanatical.
Daniels was a true believer, his mind and soul given without reservation
to Taylor’s crusade.
Daniels was the angriest and most resentful of Taylor’s top
officers, the one most determined to destroy UNGov. Taylor, even, had mixed feelings, his
convictions still tempered by doubts, despite the steel-hard image he portrayed
to those around him. He hated UNGov, and
he wanted to free mankind from a totalitarian nightmare. But he was uncomfortable with the cost his
men – and the people of Earth - might be called upon to pay.
Daniels was driven by pure rage. He wanted to tear down UNGov brick by brick,
to strangle the life out of every member of the Secretariat personally. He didn’t share Taylor’s sympathy for the
people of Earth, at least not completely.
He hated the government, but he blamed the people too, for their
gullibility, for their willingness to wear the shackles they’d forged for
themselves. Daniels blamed the
government for sending him and his comrades to Erastus, but he held the civilians
accountable as well, for it was they who allowed UNGov to control them.
“Enemy forces approaching, sir.” Captain Hollis was Daniel’s aide and the
battalion’s second-in-command. Hollis
was a desert rat from the old American southwest. West Texas, Daniels’ NIS reminded him. The neural intelligence units were enormously
useful devices, and they’d saved the lives of many of his comrades – but
Daniels missed being able to forget trivial facts.
“Battalion…” - Daniels’ voice was firm, commanding -
“…prepare to fire.” He looked out over
the open plain, a stretch of ground utterly devoid of cover that Taylor had
chosen carefully. There wasn’t a rock
outcropping or small dip in the ground to be seen. Just one long ridge in the distance, a rise
the enemy would crest before fleeing into the vast open space in front of
Daniels’ position. It was the most
perfect killing zone he’d ever seen. And
it was almost time.
He saw motion in the distance, along the top of the ridge –
then, a few seconds later, a mob of panicked, fleeing soldiers rushing up and
over the hilltop and onto the wide open grasslands. They were running right for his position,
fleeing directly into his carefully targeted fields of fire.
He stared at them for an instant, watched as they
approached, a wild disorganized mob.
With his enhanced eyes, he saw them in the open long before they would
spot his own dug in troopers. He felt a
moment of pity, but it was fleeting.
Taylor had offered them not one, but two chances to yield. Most of them had spurned both. Now they would pay the price. He spoke calmly, almost coldly into the com.
“Fire.”
* * * * *
Taylor stood next to a makeshift table, really just a piece
of scrap metal sitting on two saw horses.
He had been listening to the reports on the com, but he’d stopped
hearing them after a while. They were
all the same from every corner of the battlefield. A few of the enemy were able to surrender and
were taken prisoner. The rest were dead.
Taylor had planned the envelopment as a battle of
annihilation. He knew what he had to do
to win this war, the level of ruthlessness it would take to give his people
even a small chance of fighting their way to Earth and overthrowing UNGov. But knowing something and living with it are two
different things. Taylor the general –
the crusader - had planned the battle he needed to serve his purpose. But the man had to deal with the consequences
of what he’d done. UNGov had ripped
these men from their homes and families and sent them to Alantria – and Taylor
had killed them. He had killed them all.
He imagined the troops of the army he’d just destroyed, most
of whom lay dead across 10 square klicks of ravaged ground. There were veterans out there, soldiers like
himself who had adapted and learned by hard experience, surviving battle after
battle, just as he had. He also knew
there were recruits, the FNGs who’d stepped through the portal in the days and
weeks prior to the battle. They were
young kids, mostly, with no idea what was coming for them. They’d have been the first to die; they would
have stumbled cluelessly into his soldiers’ fields of fire or crowded together
in terrified masses, presenting unmissable targets to his gunners. The veterans would have held out longer, at
least a little. But it didn’t
matter. They were all helpless newbs
against Taylor’s hell-hardened cyborgs.
“How many?” He was
still looking out across the field, an odd expression on his face.
Black stood behind him.
He paused for a few seconds, considering playing dumb. But that would serve no one. He knew what Taylor wanted to know – and Jake
was well aware that he did. Game playing
would serve no purpose. “About 1,100
successfully surrendered, Jake.”
Taylor was silent for half a minute, still staring out at
the clouds of smoke drifting over the field.
“So we killed 17,000 men today.”
His voice was deadpan, without emotion.
Successfully surrendered – the words stuck in his mind. How many, he wondered, tried to give up
toward the end? How many did his
soldiers shoot down in the confusion as they were trying to give up? Perhaps, he thought, he was better off not
knowing. It served no purpose to dwell
on such things.
He stood motionless, watching the orange sun setting slowly
over the field. And this is just the
beginning, he thought…we have so far to go.
He sighed softly. So many more to
kill.
