The Ten Thousand: Portal Wars II

by Jay Allan

  “If possible, you are to try to capture Secretary Keita and bring him back alive.” Keita was a different matter entirely. Taylor had no more empathy for a member of the Secretariat than he did for an Inquisitor, but Anan Keita was one of the most highly placed men on Earth. He was likely a treasure-trove of useful information, and Taylor wanted whatever intel could be squeezed out of the wretch.

  “Yes, General.” Black’s tone was still chilly, though not as frigid as it had been. He stared at Taylor for a few seconds, his mouth slightly open, looking as if he wanted to say something. But he just saluted and turned to walk away.

  Taylor turned back toward Ralfieri. “Good luck, General.”

  “Thank you, General Taylor.” Ralfieri saluted Taylor, the first time he had done that. Then he spun around on his heels, following Black and motioning for his small group of men to follow.

  Taylor watched them walk away. He knew the mission was difficult and dangerous, but there was no other way. The stakes were enormous. There were at least 12,000 of Ralfieri’s men still in the line. They were remnants of both the Black Corps and UN Force Juno. If the mission succeeded, if Vanderberg and Keita were neutralized, there was a good chance most of those soldiers would join the AOL, swelling its depleted ranks. Taylor and Ralfieri would address them together and, without the Inquisitor’s brutal repression, he was optimistic they could reach most of them.

  If the mission failed, the blood would continue to flow. Taylor’s battered survivors would carry on their apocalyptic fight, a wasteful struggle against men who should be their allies, not their enemies. Even if they won in the end, there would be so few of them left they’d have no chance of success on Earth.

  Taylor watched the party walk slowly away, wondering if just over 300 men were about to undertake the decisive operation of the war.

  * * * * *

  The sergeant at the checkpoint held up his hands, signaling the lead transport to stop. The trucks were from the AOL, but they bore no markings or insignia. They were the same kind the Juno forces and Black Corps used, but with no identification they aroused suspicion from the sentries.

  Evans jumped out of the front cab and walked slowly toward the cluster of troops standing in the convoy’s path. He wanted to keep the guards away from the transports, hoping they wouldn’t decide to do a search. He held his hands out in front of him, making it clear he had no weapon at the ready. “I am Major Thomas Evans, Sergeant. My detachment is transporting captured trucks and supplies to the rear.”

  Evans continued walking forward. His stomach was tight. The trucks were filled with Taylor’s veterans, their weapons at the ready. If the sergeant insisted on checking out the vehicles, there was going to be one hell of a firefight more than ten kilometers away from the Portal. There was no doubt Black’s men could take out the sentries, but the alarm would be raised, and they wouldn’t stand a chance of making it to their destination.

  “Excuse me, sir. Inquisitor Vanderberg ordered tightened security around the Portal zone.” The Sergeant sounded a little nervous. A veteran major was a terrifying beast, and the non-com was trying hard to sound respectful. “I just need to do a positive ID before I wave you through.” He reached down and pulled a small palm scanner from a box at his feet.

  “Very well, Sergeant.” Evans took another few steps and held out his arm. “But then we must be going. We’re on a tight schedule.”

  The sergeant held the scanner out, and Evans placed his palm on top. The device lit up briefly then beeped softly. “You can remove your hand, sir.” The sergeant looked down at the scanner. “Very well, Major Evans. You may proceed.”

  Evans turned and walked back to the lead transport. He wanted to run, to get through the checkpoint as quickly as possible, but that would only raise suspicion. He moved smartly, but not too quickly, and he made sure not to look back as he did.

  Evans climbed into the cab of the transport and signaled for the driver to move. He was relieved to see the sergeant and his men moving the barricade out of the convoy’s way. He allowed himself a small sigh as the trucks moved forward, carrying Colonel Black and his 300 men plus General Ralfieri and a section of Black Corps troopers.

  Evans was a veteran with years of combat experience, but he could feel the sweat soaking his shirt, and his heart was beating like a drum in his chest. He’d never been in a situation like this, sneaking to the rear of his own army. It wasn’t just the fight he expected with Vanderberg’s men. It was what came next. Could Ralfieri and Taylor get through to the forces deployed along the line? Would they manage to convince them all of the terrible truth? Or would the Black Corps and UN Force Juno fracture, begin fighting each other? In the coming battle, his fate would be in his own hands, at least to a considerable extent. But once they secured the Portal and dealt with Vanderberg’s men, he would have nothing to do but sit back and see what happened. And Thomas Evans hated feeling helpless.

  They were through the first hurdle, at least. Now they just had to take on an Inquisitor and all of his men – and any other troops stationed around the Portal if Ralfieri couldn’t get them to stand down.

  * * * * *

  “Let’s go, boys. Move!” Tony Black stood behind one of the transports, waving his arms as he urged his men forward. “Kill any of the Inquisitor’s men on sight. Everyone else is off-limits unless you’re in a life or death defensive situation.”

  Ralfieri was on the com already, ordering the Black Corps and UN Force Juno soldiers to stand down, not to fire on the forces attacking Vanderberg and his men. He was their commander, and they had no love for the brutal Inquisitor who’d ordered hundreds of their comrades executed. But they had all grown up in the UNGov era, conditioned their whole lives to fear Inquisitors. Black liked Ralfieri, and he could see his former enemy was a capable and charismatic leader. Hopefully his men would obey his commands and ignore the inevitable counter-orders from Vanderberg. The forces on Erastus had all rallied to Taylor, but it had been a close thing there too, and they’d almost come to a fight. Could they get lucky again?

  Black watched the last man hop out of the cargo hold, and he spun on his heels and followed his men. He had his assault rifle in his hands, and he set it for single shots. The Juno forces were going to be scattered all around with Vanderberg’s men. It wasn’t a situation where Black’s people could go in blazing away on full auto. Not without killing a lot of potential new allies.

  “All UN soldiers, this is Colonel Black of the Army of Liberation. We are here with the authorization of General Antonio Ralfieri, and our sole targets are the Inquisitor and his men. You will not be attacked if you do not fire upon us.” Black knew Ralfieri had already issued orders to stand down, but he figured it might be useful for the men on the line to hear it from the leader of the armed force bearing down on them.

  He switched back to the forcewide com and addressed his own men. “Take fucking care who you shoot, all of you. You know what the targets look like. The first one of you who hits anyone but a deputy is going to have to deal with me. And that’s before General Taylor gets to you.” Vanderberg’s men wore black uniforms, and the UN regulars wore light brown, so there was no likely confusion there. Despite the name, the Black Corps wore charcoal gray fatigues. The color was close enough to black to get confused with the Inquisitor’s men unless his people were careful. Black knew that one targeting mistake, one idle Black Corps soldier shot by one of his troopers, could start a huge firefight between forces who should be allies. “So be fucking careful, all of you.”

  There was a commotion all around the Portal as they approached. Vanderberg’s deputies were taking positions behind crates, trucks, whatever cover they could find. Ralfieri’s transmission had tipped them off, but there had been no other choice. Ralfieri’s address was the only chance to get the Juno forces to stand down and stay out of the fight.

  Black heard gunfire up ahead. A rattle of singe shots from his men, followed by automatic fire from the defenders. He crouched down and adva
nced cautiously, stopping at a pile of crates covered with a tarp. It was good cover, and the position offered him a strong vantage point.

  The Inquisitor’s troops were in good positions, behind cover and firing indiscriminately, unconcerned with any collateral damage they inflicted. His own men were pinned down behind whatever cover they could find, returning the enemy fire slowly, cautiously. It was hard to pick out and positively ID the enemy targets in cover, and they could see there were plenty of Juno regulars in their fields of fire too.

  Black sighed. This was a must-do mission. There was no easy way in, no method to distinguish the targets at this range. His people were going to have to rush the position and finish the fight at close range. He didn’t want to think about how many of his men were going to be slaughtered racing across that open ground, but he couldn’t think of any option. His people were never going to pick off the Inquisitor’s people at this range, not without hosing down the whole position. And that would kill hundreds of the regulars too.

  He took a deep breath, willing himself to order his people to attack. His bent his legs, muscles tense, ready to spring forward. If he was ordering men to charge through that fire, he was goddamned going with them. He was just about to give the command when all hell broke loose in the enemy position.

  It was fire, but it wasn’t the machine guns of Vanderberg’s people. The sound of assault rifles, hundreds of them, ripped through the air, firing irregularly. The automatic fire dropped off and nearly stopped, and he could hear shouts and the sounds of battle from the enemy position.

  Ralfieri’s men! That was the only answer, Black thought, his stomach clenched with excitement. It all made sense. They hated the Inquisitor and his thugs who had slaughtered their comrades. Ralfieri’s message gave them the courage to rise up, Black thought, and by God, that’s just what they are doing.

  “The Juno forces are fighting the Inquisitor’s troops, boys. Let’s get in there and help them.” Black popped his half-spent cartridge and reloaded. “Remember, we don’t want to hit any friendlies, so make sure what you’re aiming at before you fire.” There will be close fighting before this is over, Black thought. Knife work.

  “Charge!”

  Chapter 26

  From the Writings of T’arza, Elder of House Setai:

  I have become more certain than ever that the Ancients foresaw the Tegeri and the humans fighting side by side against the Darkness, that it was their design from the beginning. I have come to realize that the humans are essential to our chances of victory, for they excel at war and strife in a way we Tegeri are simply not equipped to match.

  Tegeri will fight when threatened or when their freedoms are attacked, but it is a necessity to us, a last resort when all else fails. Humans will fight over anything – land, currency, power, women, pride, vengeance. They will fight at the command of unworthy leaders, embrace causes they don’t understand, sacrifice their sense of self to feel they are part of something larger.

  They profess to want peace, but this is a fiction they create, a salve to protect them from the realization of what they truly are. They want to believe themselves peaceful beings who value freedom, but their actions and their history speak against this self-assessment. Humans retain a primitive, feral side, something that was bred out of the Tegeri race eons ago.

  I have led more forces to the planet the Earth people call Oceania, and we have attacked the human armies and taken possession of the Portal leading to Juno. We have stopped the flow of reinforcements and supplies to the forces fighting Taylor, though I do not know how long we can hold. Perhaps this will be the respite he needs to win his fight and continue on to Earth, to overthrow the despotic regime that rules his people and bring freedom to mankind…then to lead them against the Darkness, to take their rightful places as our brothers and allies and not our enemies.

  I am reminded how terrible is war, what a scourge it is to those forced to fight. The New Ones I led here have suffered terrible losses, and I shall carry the burden of their deaths as long as I live. The battlefield is a horrific sight, covered with the dead and dying. I dread the thought of the coming war against the Darkness. If the carnage I witness now is the result of a misguided war with the humans, what nightmare will the fight against the Darkness unleash on the galaxy?

  T’arza stood outside the headquarters structure, watching the columns of newly arrived troops move toward the front line. The New Ones were manufactured beings, produced in sophisticated crèches the Tegeri constructed expressly for that purpose. Their genetics were carefully designed by their creators, and they suffered from no diseases, no defects. They were physically similar to both Tegeri and humans, but they lacked the weaknesses that plagued naturally-evolved beings.

  The Tegeri created this new race as their protégés, to follow in their footsteps. Tegeri were long-lived beings, but their race was slowly dying. Reproduction rates had been declining for centuries, and no effort of Tegeri science had been able to determine a cause or cure. Slowly, inexorably, the Tegeri were dying off. At the current rate of decline, it would be millennia before the last of them was gone, but far sooner there would be too few to maintain the infrastructure and industry of Homeworld.

  The New Ones were created to fill that void, to take over the roles that became vacant and to continue the legacy of Tegeri civilization when the last of the ancient race had departed this plane of existence.

  The Tegeri had poured all their knowledge and centuries of effort into the creation of the New Ones, but they had not yet fully achieved their goal. The New Ones were intelligent and capable, physically superior to their creators in many ways, but they were incomplete. They could not reproduce on their own; they had to be quickened artificially. They required bio-mechanical implants to function properly. The Tegeri had tried for centuries to make them self-sustaining, but all their efforts had failed. The New Ones were capable of thought but not true free will.

  The Tegeri had not created them as slaves – indeed, such would be anathema to their culture. Yet the New Ones acted almost as slaves, seeking the guidance and approval of the Tegeri in all things, despite the wishes of their creators that they embrace their own independence. The Council had debated many times whether the New Ones had yet attained true sentience, but they had never reached a conclusion.

  T’arza realized how similar the New Ones were to the humans in some ways, yet different in others. The New Ones lacked the baser instincts of humanity, greed, dishonesty, thirst for power. Yet in other aspects, there were eerie correlations. Their subordination of will to the Tegeri did not have the same terrible effects as the human tendency to follow leaders unquestioningly, but T’arza recognized the similarity of the traits. Perhaps the difference between the two is merely providence, T’arza thought. The New Ones subordinated themselves to the Tegeri, who were their creators, but the Tegeri did not fight wars of aggression or seek to impose their will on others. The humans bended their knees to the worst of their own kind, men who sought to dominate others for their own gain and accumulation of power. Would the New Ones behave the same way when the Tegeri were gone?

  Perhaps there was less difference between New Ones and humans than he had thought. Had the Tegeri been different, more violent or conquest-minded, T’arza didn’t doubt the New Ones would obey as readily when they were ordered to fight.

  Did we err long ago, T’arza wondered…did we leave the humans on their own when they needed us to help them understand freedom and self-determination? There was no way to know if his people could have altered human history, helped their sibling race avoid its worst mistakes. Intervening would have required dominating the humans, and that was against all the Tegeri’s moral and ethical principles. Should they have ignored their own beliefs, become mankind’s masters to save them from their own folly? The question was irrelevant. That time had passed, and the humans, for better or worse, had been left to develop on their own.

  All T’arza could do now was hope Taylor was victorious and t
hat he managed to sway his race, to lead them from slavery and bring them, as a free and united people, to their place alongside the Tegeri as guardians of the entire galaxy.

  “Honorable T’arza.” A voice called, pulling him from his introspection.

  “Yes, Commander Jemorah. Speak your mind.”

  The New One soldier stood before T’arza, clad in battle armor and fully armed. Jemorah was a High Commander, one of the highest ranked of his kind. The Tegeri were generally uncomfortable with hierarchy and authority. The members of the Council served out of duty and obligation, and beneath this top level, Tegeri society had very little stratification. They had been compelled to create a more complex rank structure for military units, but they had never become comfortable with the concept, and their armies had far fewer layers than those of their human counterparts.

  Humans thrived on dividing themselves into ranks to such a great extent the Tegeri had tremendous difficulty comprehending their motivations. The human economy, government, and army – even families and informal social groups - were divided and sub-divided into an almost unimaginable series of levels, each claiming its own perquisites and authority. Humans relentlessly sought control over others and exalted status, and they considered themselves superior to any of their own race who had achieved a lesser position.

  It was a trait that had led humanity to most of its worst disasters, but it was one uniquely suited to war. On the battlefield, there was rarely time for debate and discussion. The way humans naturally subdivided themselves into ranks made them excellent soldiers. Tegeri leaders had to force themselves to issue orders to their New One subordinates, but human commanders didn’t hesitate to exercise their authority – or to submit to those ranked higher. Blind obedience, so destructive to a society as a whole, was tailor made for the battlefield, where discipline often meant the difference between victory and defeat.