Gates of Hell

by Daniel Gibbs

  “Got anything better to do than find out?” Ruth asked, a smile visible through her helmet.

  “Can’t say I do, LT.”

  “Okay then, we’ll proceed. I’ll take point, you cover the rear.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Not wasting any time, Ruth aimed her rifle down the corridor, ambling toward the far end of the building, each step quiet and muffled. She held up her hand in a fist and peeked around the first corner they came to. Three Leaguers lay beyond, all carrying rifles of their own. She held up three fingers and marked the targets in her HUD so that Meissner would have their position as well.

  Ruth pulled a concussion grenade off her belt and held it up; Meissner nodded his approval, and she pulled the pin. A second later, the little gray cylinder bounded down the hallway before coming to a rest and exploding in a violent flash of white. She turned the corner, rifle up. The Leaguers were holding their hands to their ears in a daze. A long burst from her battle rifle put two of them down, while he finished off the third with two shots to the target’s center mass.

  “Three tangos down,” Ruth announced on her commlink. “Proceeding toward HVT offices.”

  “Pretty sure they know we’re here now, LT,” Meissner commented.

  “Yeah. Doesn’t change our objective,” Ruth replied. Her single focus was putting an end to the League’s command structure.

  “Lima Charlie, LT.”

  The two power-armored soldiers continued to advance down the hallways of the League building; no one was present, or if they were, they were adept at hiding. Ruth marveled at the lack of resistance. Coming up to another junction in the maze of corridors, she held up her hand once more in a fist. Using a microdrone in her suit, she flew it around the corner. The image beamed back into her HUD by the tiny device showed a group of six Leaguers standing guard outside of a door labeled “Garrison Command.”

  “That’s a lot of enemies,” Ruth whispered into her commlink.

  “Two of us on six of them? Cakewalk, LT,” Meissner replied, his boyish grin evident through his helmet. “The same strategy should work twice. Toss a couple of concussion grenades down there, then we send them on to their maker.”

  “It’s not our job to judge the Leaguers,” Ruth began.

  “That’s God’s job,” Meissner finished. “Our job is to arrange a face-to-face meeting, as soon as possible.”

  Ruth cracked a smile, despite the stress of everything around them. “You guys are experts at somehow keeping perspective and staying upbeat as you do this job. How?”

  “Lots of experience, LT. You ready?”

  “Charlie mike,” Ruth replied, having picked up some of their lingo.

  Meissner pulled a concussion grenade out of a holder on his armor, as did Ruth. They removed the pins together, then threw them a split second apart around the corner of the junction. After an explosion that sounded like a thunderclap and the telltale blinding white flash of light, she charged around the corner, firing her battle rifle as she did. Methodically sighting down on each Leaguer and squeezing the trigger, she cut down four of them in short order.

  Meissner stood right behind her, adding to the fusillade.

  Without warning, several bullets impacted Ruth’s rear power armor, sending her stumbling forward. Her battle rifle clicked dry, and she dropped it, quickly reaching for the sidearm on her thigh. A glance to her left confirmed that Meissner had been hit as well; he’d turned to face the new threat. She brought her pistol up in her right hand and quickly dispatched the Leaguer directly to her front with two shots to the head. The last enemy in her line of sight stepped forward and carried out a round-house kick that knocked the sidearm from her hands.

  Momentarily stunned, Ruth dropped back and reached for her last weapon—a CBAR combat knife—and drew it from its sheath. She adopted a fighter’s stance and lunged at her opponent, nicking his arm with the sharp blade. They traded a series of blows before he brought the empty rifle up and swung it at the knife, attempting to dislodge it from her grip. Parrying the blow with her armored gauntlet, she used his momentary lack of balance to charge the Leaguer and jam her knife repeatedly into his chest. As he collapsed, she looked back to Meissner to see him locked in hand-to-hand combat with another Leaguer; a series of bodies lay just beyond that she surmised had attacked them from behind.

  Instinct more than anything propelled Ruth forward, her strides long and sure. As the two men continued to grapple with each other, she stepped behind the Leaguer, brought her hands around his neck, and used the power-assist mode in her armor to snap his neck like a twig. The lifeless body hit the floor, followed by Meissner.

  “You okay?” Ruth asked, thinking him exhausted by the fight.

  “Don’t think so, LT,” Meissner replied, coughing.

  She immediately noted that it contained blood.

  “Let’s get that helmet off,” Ruth said, kneeling next to him and helping to unlock the headpiece. She linked her suit into his and checked his vitals; blood pressure was dropping, and his heartbeat was irregular and racing. “Hey, stay with me,” she continued. “This is Goldberg, on the third deck. I need medical help. Meissner’s been hit.”

  “Don’t divert them, LT,” Meissner began between coughs of blood. “They’ve got a task. I looked at my vitals before my HUD went dark. I’ve got massive trauma to my chest. Not coming back from it.”

  Ruth froze, her hands shaking. A person dying next to her hadn’t happened in so long. Now it was someone who was ostensibly under her command. “No…” Her voice trailed off. “No, hang in there. I’ll inject some coagulant into your bloodstream, and we’ll get it under control.”

  Meissner reached up and grabbed her arm with what little strength he had left. “Listen to me. Mission first. You were right; we had to help. It’s almost done. Press on and finish. Promise me.”

  “I promise,” Ruth finally said, quietly and with a tear dripping down her face, falling against the hard shell of her helmet. As soon as she uttered it, his grip loosened, and his arm fell back. A few seconds later, heart function flatlined, and his breathing stopped. She pried off the mangled chest plate of his power armor to find it awash with blood. Realizing there was nothing she could do, tears poured down both cheeks, and it seemed like shock was imminent.

  “Seven, this is One. We’re trying to disengage to get up there. What’s going on?”

  “Meissner is down, One,” Ruth said, fighting with every fiber of her being not to sob on an open commlink. I will not show weakness.

  “Can you stabilize him?”

  “No. He’s dead.”

  “Stay put, we’ll come to you,” MacDonald replied. Ruth could hear sounds of gunfire and shouts through the commlink.

  “Negative, Master Chief,” Ruth said, finding a steely resolve somewhere deep within. I must carry on. “I’m only a few meters from our objective, and we neutralized all open resistance. I’ll proceed alone.”

  “LT, strongly advise you wait for one of us to reach you.”

  “Understood and denied, Master Chief. Don’t lose focus on the mission,” Ruth said, echoing Meissner’s words. “I’ll update you once I’ve secured the HVT office.”

  “One, out.”

  Ruth stood and ejected the magazine from her battle rifle, the spent one dropping to the floor while she slapped another in. Looking around, she found her sidearm and reloaded it as well, returning it to its rightful place in the holster on her thigh. Time to finish this and to make the Leaguers pay. Storming down the hallway like an avenging angel, she had one objective: Kill every enemy in her way.

  30

  “Conn, navigation. Emergence within two thousand kilometers of the target, sir,” Hammond called out, her familiar form a little harder to see thanks to the dim blue lighting on the bridge while they remained at general quarters.

  “TAO, raise shields the moment main power is restored,” David ordered.

  A few seconds later, Kelsey announced, “Shields up at maximum level
, sir. LIDAR array online, numerous contacts detected in orbit of Freiderwelt.”

  “The moment of truth, as you humans put it,” Aibek said.

  “Indeed it is,” David replied.

  “Conn, TAO. No change in status detected in contacts around the planet, sir. Designating them as Sierra One through Eighty.”

  “Negative, TAO. Re-designate contacts as Master One through Eighty, make forward VRLS tubes one through eighty ready in all respects, target one Starbolt missile per contact. Open outer doors.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Kelsey replied.

  “I’m not taking any chances on these things,” David said toward Aibek. “Without guidance to raise their shields, one missile per satellite ought to do the trick.”

  “I concur, sir.”

  “Conn, TAO. Firing solutions set sir, tubes one through eighty ready in all respects, outer doors are open.”

  “TAO, match bearings, shoot, tubes one through eighty.”

  The bridge rumbled slightly as the entire ship shook; dozens of Starbolt missiles thundered out of its forward launching tubes. David watched his tactical plot as the little blue dots indicating each weapon raced away from the Lion, their courses splintering as they moved away from the ship. Spreading out around Freiderwelt, they impacted one defense platform after another, in most cases erasing them from space in a massive fusion explosion.

  “Conn, TAO. All warheads have impacted. Twelve defense satellites are still intact.”

  “Navigation,” David began. “Put us into low orbit, all ahead full.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Hammond replied.

  “TAO, firing point procedures, all remaining contacts, one Starbolt missile each.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Kelsey said.

  “Low orbit to limit the time the pods have in freefall?” Aibek questioned.

  “Got it in one, XO. Who knows what other defenses the Leaguers might have… I don’t want them to pick off Marines in the atmosphere if we can at all help it. Low orbit at less than five hundred kilometers is preferable to a geostationary one.”

  “We won’t be able to offer fire support with that attack profile, however.”

  “No, but do you think we need it?” David asked rhetorically with a grin. “Three thousand of the TCMC’s finest against an equal number of League garrison troops spread out over a large area?”

  “Point taken, sir.”

  “Conn, TAO. Firing solutions set, sir.”

  “TAO, match bearings, shoot, tubes one through twelve.”

  The rumbling far was less notable with only a dozen missiles launching vs. eighty, but still, enough to jostle David about in his chair for a few seconds. The range closer now as the Lion had approached the planet at near flank speed, the Starbolts spread out like a flower almost as soon as they cleared the one-hundred-kilometer safety range of the ship. One by one, the remaining defense satellites disappeared from the plot as they were struck.

  “Conn, TAO. All contacts neutralized, sir.”

  David nodded with satisfaction; one less threat to his ship now. “Communications, patch me into the Marines. It’s go time.”

  Well, this has sure gone to shit. Pavlik threw open the doors to Pan’s office to find the man at his desk, banging on a tablet computing device. “We need to think about evacuating, Colonel.”

  “I’m trying to get us some reinforcements,” Pan replied.

  “Seriously, Colonel? Reinforcements? Have you lost your mind? We’re cut off and behind enemy lines. We should’ve evacuated months ago!” Pavlik thundered, his carefully controlled persona gone.

  Pan stood and flung his ornate leather chair backward. “I remind you cowardice in the face of the enemy is punishable by death, Major!”

  “Our defense systems are gone. There’s a Terran Coalition tier-one special operations team loose on this base, and they’ve killed over a hundred of our troops so far. Admitting it’s time to go isn’t cowardice. It’s common sense!”

  “The reports I’ve heard so far say there’s only a small number of enemy troops here. Less than ten,” Pan insisted stubbornly.

  “Colonel, for crying out loud, those less than ten soldiers have blown up our entire supply of armored vehicles, killed dozens of our men, and haven’t taken a single loss. That ought to tell you something. We need to leave. Now.”

  Pan’s shoulders shrugged, and Pavlik saw the light in the back of his eyes change; his typical way of signaling defeat. “Fine. I’ll activate the failsafe weapons with a timer of thirty minutes, and we’ll order a general retreat.”

  “Failsafe weapons?”

  “You don’t think we’d leave this world to the Terrans, do you now? I’ve had fusion warheads planted around all population centers and farmland. This place will be a lifeless husk once they go off.”

  “That’s murder… we can’t kill all those civilians,” Pavlik said, his face tight and red with anger.

  “Just following orders, Major. That was the last directive we had from command. Scorched earth… under no circumstances do we allow this world to fall intact.”

  Taking in how Pan stated it, without compassion, without feeling… like he was walking his dog, shocked Pavlik to his core. Who and what I serve is laid bare. If I go along with this, I’ll be complicit in the murder of thousands of innocents. “Surely, sir, we could disregard the order.”

  “Why would I possibly do that?”

  “Because killing civilians is wrong, sir. We took an oath to defend them as citizens of the League.”

  “You’ve been mixing with these Amish for too long, Major. Time to remember you’re a League officer first and foremost,” Pan stated with a sneer, turning away back toward the tablet.

  Pavlik reached down and put his hand around the butt of the sidearm on his hip.

  At that exact moment, Pan looked back up. “Take your hand off your weapon, Major, or I’ll have you shot.”

  Momentarily frozen, Pavlick didn’t release his grip, nor did he draw his weapon. “I won’t allow you to kill them all, Colonel,” he said quietly.

  “If you harm me, you’ll never get off this planet. You’re an officer of the League, Pavlik. The Terran Coalition would try you for crimes against humanity, whatever that is.”

  The sudden realization he’d spent a life in service to a barbaric regime slammed into Pavlik like a freight train going two hundred kilometers an hour. What have I done? As if sensing his indecision, Pan reached for his sidearm; finally spurred to action, they both drew at roughly the same time and sighted down on each other.

  “Traitor,” Pan hissed.

  “No. You’re the traitor to the ideals of human solidarity and compassion,” Pavlick replied.

  “Last chance, Major. Put down your weapon and we both walk out of here.”

  It would be so easy to make one more compromise, to step across one more line. “Not happening, Colonel. Drop the pistol.”

  “I’ll shoot you!”

  Pavlik allowed a small smirk to come over his face. “Not with the safety on, you won’t.” Pan is such a poor soldier.

  As Pan looked down at his weapon’s safety, his eyes widened in shock, and he began to fumble with the small lever. Pavlik squeezed the trigger of his pistol twice, sending two bullets directly into the colonel’s center mass. The man fell backward, the gun sliding out of his reach. He clutched his chest, blood pouring out of it. Pavlik kept his sidearm trained, his mind racing. I could surrender to the Terrans. Maybe they’d believe I didn’t know the warheads were there.

  Further thought was interrupted by the report of a Terran Coalition battle rifle and a searing pain in his chest. Pavlik looked down in shock to see blood spreading across his shift. Twisting around, he saw a power-armored soldier in the doorway, the Coalition Defense Force emblem visible on it. He dropped his weapon and tried to force his hands up. All he succeeded in doing was collapsing on the floor. “Please, I’m not one of them…please don’t,” he said, his voice weak and fading.

  31
/>   Ruth looked down the barrel of her battle rifle, tracking the fallen League officer in front of her as he fell. “Please,” he said in English, to her surprise. “Please help me.”

  She stepped into the room, sweeping it for other enemies; finding none, she strode to the desk and glanced down. Why would one Leaguer kill another one? “Why’d you shoot that man?”

  “Because,” Pavlik said weakly. “He was going to kill everyone on the planet. I need medical attention,” he gasped, his breathing uneven.

  Ruth knelt beside him and took a small medical kit off her armor. She ran the medical scanner over him, surprised at the results. “Must be your lucky day. I missed your vital organs and blood vessels. I’m usually a much better shot,” she said coldly. “I’ll hit you with a coagulant to stop the bleeding, along with a mild painkiller.”

  A few seconds after she’d made the necessary injections, Pavlik’s breathing improved, and he became more alert. “Thank you.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Major Vladislav Pavlik, League Army. Serial Number…”

  Ruth cut him off, mid-sentence. “I don’t care what your serial number is, Leaguer. What’s your job here?”

  “XO of the garrison on this planet.”

  He’s not fit to live. A mental image of shooting the man roared into Ruth’s mind. For a brief second, it was if he had the face of her interrogator from so long ago. “You…” she began, her voice trailing off. “People like you are why teenage girls are molested in their homes, and the League spreads its poison across dozens of planets.”

  “No. I kept those things from happening here and imposed harsh punishment on any soldier that disobeyed the rules.”

  “I don’t believe you’re the one honest Leaguer in the galaxy.”

  “Terrans are all the same,” Pavlik hissed. “You think we’re all evil and God’s sent you on a righteous crusade to rid the galaxy of socialists. You’re one of the commandos going around killing my men, aren’t you?”