Guard at the Gates of Hell (Gladius Book 1)

by George Olney

  If it didn't, well, she was still his responsibility. He'd already told the doctor to keep his hand off the kill switch. He'd do it himself with his short sword. If Shana had to pay the Gladius Price through no fault of her own, she wouldn't be the first in the history of the Corps. At least he could make sure she went out like a Gladius should go.

  As for the contents of those chambers, Olmeg had already made the common sense recommendation for the embryos. Get some incubators. The embryos were too undeveloped for the Empire to have done anything to them yet. Some of those embryos would be born as children in the Legion and others would find civilian parents. New blood and the Corps could always use it. The civilian community could also use the capabilities those children represented. The plan was for the Corps to eventually return to humanity as a whole, anyhow. May as well get a start now.

  Meanwhile, that left them with five thousand adults, totally unrecoverable and highly dangerous if revived. A full legion's fighting strength. The decision there was obvious, too, but Olmeg shied away from it. Killing people, even an enemy, while they were helpless was one of those decisions that stained the soul. Every soldier had decisions, made in seconds during the heat of combat, that had no right answer, just made so the unit could survive or accomplish the mission. He had a few on his conscience that returned to haunt his dreams from time to time. He was glad this one was above his pay grade.

  Olmeg's head snapped to one side as Doctor Jandrews made a sound then said, "Ah. Found it." The doctor's hands got busy on his control panel.

  Olmeg stared at the doctor until the man finished and turned to look at him. Jandrews smiled. "No problem now, Sergeant Major," he said. Olmeg sighed deeply, then turned back to watch Shana.

  Shana opened her eyes to a familiar sight: Sergeant Major Olmeg was scowling at her. "Hope you had a nice sleep, Cadet," he growled. "Let's go see the Colonel." Shana got the distinct sensing that the Sergeant Major was relieved. For some reason, that made her feel better.

  Even for a man with a game leg, the Sergeant Major could set a pretty good pace. It was fast trot, but Shana could keep up easily and try to ask a few questions about what the hell was happening to her. He made it impossible. Every time she opened her mouth, he spit out a question about something in one of her classes, all of which he'd apparently memorized, and she shot the reply back. A correct answer simply prompted another question while a hesitation or wrong answer received a minor butt chewing and a textbook solution.

  Shana's reporter's sense was fully awake now. She was being played and she knew it, but the Sergeant Major wasn't giving her an opening. She was going to get answers as soon as she saw Colonel Paten.

  In the event, she did get answers. As soon as she was back in front of the Colonel, Paten handed her a reader and told her to sit down and review the information on the chip in it. What she saw left her speechless.

  "That's the full history, so far as we know it, of the lost legion and the Emperor's Guard," Lieutenant Colonel Paten said after Shana finished, "along with everything we've been able to deduce.

  "As you saw, it includes you," she added dryly.

  She gave Shana one of those piercing looks. "To recap, your father's DNA shows no family relationship to you. In fact, your DNA shows you're not from the Cauldwell general population. What it does show is that you're one of the ancestral versions of the Gladius, the same as the people we found in the cache. Since you're one of the ancestral types, we had to assume you were one of the Guard embryos. It's interesting that Ettranty got you from Nero V, the Emperor that Shangnaman replaced, because it tells us the embryo program goes pretty far back. It also makes us wonder how many more like you there are in the Cauldwell general population, given its purpose as an Imperial refuge."

  Shana was still in mild shock. She was one of the original Gladius gene types? Then her eyes narrowed. "That's why all of this running and bustling to doctors?"

  Paten didn't reply immediately. Instead she touched a sensor and a hologram of Doctor Jandrews appeared, apparently sitting comfortably in a chair next to the desk. He smiled smugly at her. "I hate to run so I took the easy way," he said pleasantly.

  "Cadet Ettranty, until proven otherwise, we had to assume you were a major danger," Paten said evenly. "It's been proven otherwise."

  "And if I was a danger?" Shana said in grim tones.

  "We'd have had to kill you, Cadet," the Sergeant Major said in an iron voice. "I would have done it myself. You deserve a proper death from the Victrix." He looked her firmly in the face as he spoke.

  Shana returned the look as she thought hard. The Gladius in her fully understood what he was saying. They were here on Cauldwell secretly and survival depended on that secrecy until they could bring down the government. Her Gladius outlook said if she was a danger to the legion, she had to die. "Thank you, Sergeant Major," she said softly. He humphed softly then settled back in his chair, looking at the floor for a few seconds with an expressionless face.

  "So you found nothing?" Shana asked the doctor.

  "Oh yes we did," Jandrews said with the same cheerful expression. "A beautiful compulsion buried deep in your psyche. In fact it was a little obvious and I'm naturally suspicious, so I kept looking and found the one it was supposed to hide. I've reduced both so that you will feel them if they activate, but they will be no more than a slight inclination to you. You can override them at will."

  "What was I supposed to do?"

  Jandrews crossed his legs and cradled one knee with his interlocked hands. "Well, let's see. They were both pretty much the same, to tell the truth. Basically, when given a certain order you would repeat everything you saw or heard at a time you were given - dandy compulsion for a spy by the way. The hidden compulsion was a bit more ominous. It would cause you to do anything you were told by the person giving the order. I expect the person with the key words was your father."

  "Or his Imperial liaison," Paten added. "Cadet, you were intended to be used as a spy - or a possible assassin - by your father. The doctor went deep into your mind and instances started to surface when you were used as just that by him - a spy, anyhow - as a child. Those episodes continued into adulthood. The last one was just before you underwent Gladius modification. Apparently, he felt it might be too dangerous to 'turn on your playback' after that. He had no idea what we'd implanted."

  Shana looked sharply at the Sergeant Major. "And did you implant anything?"

  He scowled and answered. "No, girl, we did not. That's against our beliefs.

  "You were so important to us," he continued uncomfortably, "that I'm not going to say we wouldn't put in a suggestion or two, but that's as far as we were willing to take it. Even that wasn't needed because you turned out to be a perfect recruit. You took to the Corps naturally... like it was your real home. Like one of us."

  "I understand why, now," Shana said thoughtfully. "I am one of you. I always was. I'm a Gladius. You know, everything felt so right once I began to relax and get into the training. Ideas and feelings began to float up from nowhere. I can see and feel Those Now Gone like any Gladius."

  She looked down at her uniform and touched her arm dagger. "I'm comfortable now. I like what I am. Looking back, I feel that way for the first time in my life."

  "Still..." Now the reporter was looking at the Colonel.

  "My father," the word was an epithet, "was given me to use, as a spy if nothing else. Easy to do, since I was his possession, not his child. People will say and do things around children they won't do or say around adults. Is that why he got me?"

  Lieutenant Colonel Paten looked at her with sympathy. "Cadet, I can't speak for the man, so I can't say what that was in his mind then, or now. All I can tell you is that he seemed to do a good job of raising you until we came along and grabbed your life. You were a pretty good person before you became a Gladius."

  "I always was a Gladius," Shana said grimly. "Thank Teenie, my nurse, for the rest. She raised me. My so-called father wasn't around all that much."


  Shana could feel the anger building in her, like an impending explosion. Her fury at her father, at an uncaring Emperor, at the Victrix that had used her in its own way, was snowballing, piling anger on frustration on pure fury at being lied to and used. Even this whole business of resolving her past was based around a deception.

  Sergeant Major Olmeg took a hard look at her face and reached a conclusion. Decurions ran the Corps and this particular decurion was going to salvage what would one day be an excellent officer if things didn't get out of hand. "Attention, Cadet!"

  Reflexes took over and Shana snapped out of her chair into rigid attention.

  He walked over and growled in her face. "Cadet Ettranty, you are carrying a bit too much steam and I am going to do something about that. You will accompany me to the gym, where we will do three rounds of full contact. You will make the attempt to kick my ass. You will fail, because I will kick your ass instead, but you will make your best attempt. Am I understood?"

  "Aye!" Shana popped off. Her military reflexes in full control now.

  "After that, Cadet, you will accompany me to the Decurions Club. There you will proceed to get stinking drunk. I am awarding you a twenty four hour pass from OCS to sleep it off after we finish. Any questions?"

  "No, Sergeant Major!"

  "Very good, Cadet Ettranty. Follow me. Forward at a trot... ho!"

  As the pair took off out of the office, Doctor Jandrews grinned then looked at Camille. "Can he do that?"

  She smiled. "Olmeg's a Legion Sergeant Major. The Sergeant Major of this legion, in fact. I'm certainly not going to stand in his way. That's not the way I'd do it, but she's not a normal female Gladius. I suspect his way will work better than mine would."

  #####

  Sometime later, two Legionnaire Thirds acting as Club orderlies were watching a packed table with a group of very senior male decurions and a solitary brown haired female Gladius with the collar flash of an OCS cadet. War stories and liquor circulated around the table in abundance.

  The rest of the Decurions Club was bustling, too. Over on the dance floor a female decurion was gracefully dancing to the music of a small band, including a deep toned hand beaten drum that had materialized from somewhere, her body sinuously swaying to the heavy beat.

  "You know," one said judiciously to the other as they looked at the table loaded with senior decurions and a cadet, "Shana's going to end up blasted before this is over. I've never seen her like this."

  The other one shrugged. "You going to argue with them?" He jerked a thumb at the number of stripes and grizzled heads around the table.

  The first one grinned. "That's how I ended up with this detail, mate, and clean up duty to boot." He smiled tolerantly at the group. "I expect we'll be carrying Shana back to her quarters, or someone will."

  He watched as she finished off one drink, only to have another put in front of her. She waved away the drink, then got up and headed purposefully for the dance floor, empty now that the woman had finished her dance. It was plain that Shana was planning on doing the next one. That was an event, since nobody in the legion had ever seen her dance.

  The band started, a slow sway of sound supplemented by an exotic beat at the chorus. Shana picked up the beat with her body, swaying, her hands holding her skirt outward from her sides, each side of the skirt swaying in turn as she paced gracefully forward in time to the music. The chorus started and she released her skirt then kicked forward just enough to make it flow around her outstretched leg. At that point, she extended her arms to one side and began to sway, turn, and whirl with unexpected grace to the flow of the song. It was plain to everyone in the Club that Shana wasn't an experienced dancer, but just as plain that she shared the Gladius love of dancing and music, and - inexperienced or not - she was reading the music with her body with the natural ease of any Gladius. Her improvised movements interpreted the music as joyful and, just as important, as a release. Her dance was a perfect match for the song.

  "I've never seen Shana dance before," the first young trooper remarked. "She's pretty damned good, if you ask me. Those moves she makes are a little different from most of the girls I've seen, but I kind of like them."

  "Well," his partner said, "what do you expect? She was a recruit. She wasn't born to this like the rest of us goons."

  The first one waved the comment away as irrelevant. "Hey," he said, "she's a Gladius, just like we are."

  Shana, dance finished, was now back at the table, blushing to the riotous applause from the entire Club, led by the crusty decurions at her table. This time she took the drink and slugged it down.

  "Yep," the first trooper said, "she's definitely letting her hair down and getting tanked."

  "Well," he continued magnanimously, "she's entitled to have a blow off I suppose, for whatever reason. Does a man good, every once in a while."

  "She's not a man," the other said.

  "Like any careful observer," the first young trooper answered in a superior manner, "I'd noticed. Of course, I'm not sure a regular girl would go on a bender in the Club with a bunch of senior noncoms. My girlfriend wouldn't. But Shana's different."

  "Of course she's different," his friend topped him. "She's our Shana."

  CHAPTER 9

  LEGIO IX VICTRIX

  CAULDWELL

  An OCS graduation was usually a somewhat sedate affair. Friends and family normally made up a small audience to watch the cadets receive their pips and become newly minted Second Lieutenants. This one was a little different. One cadet had no family in the audience, but over three thousand members of the Victrix thought it fit that they see her graduate. A number of those brought girlfriends. A smaller number brought wives. Several married couples brought new babies, forcing the ceremony to be held in one of the largest chambers of Victrix base.

  In the clear area between the audience and the stage, all twelve members of the graduating class stood in formation. Centered and two paces to the front of the formation was their leader, Cadet Captain Shana Ettranty, standing at perfect attention and wishing the itching under her skirt's waistband and the butterflies in her stomach would go away. She couldn't do anything about the butterflies, but it would have been wonderful to be back in the ranks where she could discreetly scratch without anyone knowing. No such luck. Sometimes rank sucked, thought former Corporal and current Cadet Captain Ettranty. Even in formation, she realized, scratching was out. She was being watched by most of a legion. Sometimes notoriety sucked.

  She had been astounded and flattered on being told the graduation was being shifted to the Main Hall because the surviving members of all three original cohorts wanted to see her cross the stage. It was a tiny bit embarrassing, truth be known. Deal with it, girl, she told herself, the guys were family. That's why they were here. Put up with the damned itch.

  Shana stared straight ahead like a proper little Cadet but seated in those rows behind her were the members of the Victrix still alive from the day she'd joined. The thought gave her a lump in her throat and that lump only got bigger when she realized she was sensing the original women of the Victrix. She was still their embodiment and they were still with her. Stand proud, girl. Her impish side made her add that soon enough this formation would be over and she could scratch.

  Legion Sergeant Major Olmeg stumped to the center of the stage and looked down on the class, favoring each individual with a gimlet eye that promised dire consequences for past sins. More than one individual, Shana included, ran through a catalog of such past sins at that look. "Cadet Captain," the Sergeant Major growled as he gave her the last order he'd ever be legally entitled to give her, "bring your class to attention and present arms."

  Shana did a crisp about face. "Class, Attention-n-n-n... Ho!" she sang out in a parade ground voice. "Present Arm-m-m-m-ms... Ho!"

  She spun on her heel to face the stage and her right arm snapped level with her breast, hand flat and palm down, in a salute. She and her class held the salute as the Legate replaced the Serg
eant Major.

  Legate Athan commanded, "Give your class order arms and parade rest." Then he watched as Shana went through the commands and the formation responded with precision. He smiled to himself. He knew what they were dreading. Well, he had a surprise for them.

  "I'm not going to make a long speech, people," he said conversationally, and the smile he was hiding almost broke free as he could see the subtle shifting that showed relief in the class ranks. "I'm just going to tell you a few things you ought to know by now. You are about to be commissioned Second Lieutenants. That means as soon as you attach that pip you will suffer an immediate brain drain and become a danger to all about you."

  He noticed Shana wince and decided that little bit of humor was ill chosen. Oops. Well, it wasn't the first mistake he'd made in his life. She'd live. "You men will be assigned troop units where your immediate subordinate will be a decurion. You women have all done your Virgin Mission so you are Exempts. As Exempts, you will be assigned sections within Legion Support Command. Your immediate subordinate in that section will also be a decurion. In some cases, those decurions will have more service time than you have time on two feet. Listen to them, people. A Second Lieutenant is given that rank so he or she can learn by doing. The person teaching you will be your decurion.

  "Some of you were pretty good legionnaires." He looked around. "A couple of you were decurions with a little time under your belt. You may think that makes a difference and you won't make the mistakes you all saw Lieutenants make. It won't. You'll make mistakes all your own and your commanders will make you aware of them. Some of those mistakes will be real beauts and will live on in song and story for decades. Your decurion will help you keep from making the worst of them, and if not, try to keep you from making them more than once. That decurion runs your unit or section for you."