The Gates of Hell

by Chris Kennedy

  “Hell, no, we’re not surrendering. Not to the likes of them. We’re not going to surrender; we’re going to attack.”

  “But they outnumber us, and they have better weapons…”

  “Yes they do.” Shirazi smiled and tapped his temple. “But we’re smarter.”

  Kazemi’s brows knit. “What do you have in mind?”

  “How extensive is the tunnel network for the mine?”

  “Damn extensive, sir—you know that. What am I missing?”

  “Do the tunnels only go back into the mountain, or do some of them loop around back in front of the mine?”

  “They go everywhere. Back into the mountain, to both sides, and a few wind back in front of the mine entrance…” He smiled. “…right under where the Besquith are dug in.” He shook his head. “They’re pretty deep, though, I thought.”

  “I don’t know,” Shirazi said. “I don’t know mines. But I do know we have some of the best diggers in the galaxy here in this mine. If sufficiently motivated—like if a group of aliens were about to eat them—I think they might be able to dig us to where we need to go, don’t you think?”

  “They just might at that,” Kazemi said with a chuckle.

  * * *

  Command Center, Roget’s World, Kak’L’Kak System

  “Make ready your troops,” the lead Caroon miner said. “We’re starting the final phase of the dig.”

  “Okay,” Shirazi said to his assembled troops. “It’s time. Time to make a name, not only for ourselves, but for humanity as well. The other races laugh at us as mercs—hell, the only reason we got this contract was that we were the only company the Caroons could afford. But here we are, and here’s where we’re going to make our stand.

  “Now, we could try to defend the tunnel entrance another day, but in looking at the fortifications, I don’t think they’re going to hold, and when they fail, it will be down to hand-to-hand combat with the Besquith. I don’t know about you, but that’s not something I’m looking forward to. Rather than let that happen, we’re going to attack.

  “Right now, the Caroons are digging a tunnel into the Besquith’s camp, and are about to reach the surface. If they’ve done their jobs right, we’ll come out right behind the tent we’ve identified as their barracks, where the dogs are resting comfortably, getting ready for their assault on us tomorrow.

  “We’re going to hit them there and wipe out as many as we can, then kill any of the stragglers who won’t surrender.”

  “Do you think there’ll be any who will surrender?” Kazemi asked from the back.

  Shirazi shook his head. “No, I don’t. If you see a Besquith and it doesn’t have its paws in the air, shoot it. In fact, shoot it several times just to make sure. You’ve all manned the wall and seen how much damage they can take. If you put one down, make sure it stays down.”

  Shirazi smiled. “If we all do our jobs well, when the sun rises, humanity will be the winner here on this planet, and we’ll be one more step closer to being taken seriously by the aliens. Any questions? No? Then grab your gear and follow me.”

  Shirazi turned to the Caroon and said, “Lead on.”

  The anteater-analogue dropped to all four feet and loped off quickly, and the Humans had to double-time to keep up. The Caroon led them to a part of the tunnel system Shirazi had never been in before, and, looking at the walls, he realized why—they hadn’t existed until today. The boring machine they used had just finished digging out the tunnel, and the Caroons were still spraying sealant on the walls in places and installing shoring where needed.

  The Caroon Shirazi was following didn’t stop for any of this activity; he charged past it as if it was of no matter. After another minute, they came to a small spur. “Wait here,” the Caroon said, indicating the side passage.

  Shirazi signaled his men to go into the passage, which was almost the exact size needed to hold all of them. Shirazi nodded in appreciation. The Caroons really are excellent diggers.

  A minute later, a machine trundled backward from up-tunnel. The massive vehicle was the boring machine, Shirazi saw as it passed on its tank-like treads. Its front was an interesting mélange of boring bits, lasers, and scoops for picking up the rock and sending it back behind it. Despite its size, though, it rolled quietly, with a minimum of noise

  Still, the noise reverberated in the tunnel, and Shirazi winced, hoping against hope the Besquith hadn’t heard it.

  As soon as the machine passed, the Caroon was back, and he waved the Humans forward again. Shirazi smiled; even the Caroons were trying to be quiet. Of course, they’d have to be idiots not to realize their lives depended on the Humans’ success.

  Shirazi led the troopers forward to the end of the tunnel, where two ladders had been propped up into a 10-foot-diameter tube that extended up toward the surface. The floor underneath the shaft was covered in foam, with a number of Caroons standing around, shifting nervously.

  The lead Caroon motioned for the Humans to mount the ladders, and Shirazi stepped forward and looked up into the shaft. Near the top of the ladders, a Caroon waited on each, holding a mining laser. The shaft was still sealed above them.

  “What do we do?” Shirazi whispered.

  “Climb up the ladders on the back side from my men,” the lead Caroon replied. “Breach is imminent. As soon as you’re ready, they’ll drop the plug.”

  Shirazi nodded, and his eyes swept the men nearby. Their eyes met his, and he could see the fear in them. They all nodded, though; they’d heard and were ready.

  Shirazi gave them a smile to strengthen their resolve. “Let’s teach them why they need to fear humanity. For New Persia and Earth!” he said in a stage whisper.

  He turned and went to the closest ladder, going up the back side from the Caroon until he couldn’t go any farther. Although the ladders were nearly vertical, it still took most of his strength to hold himself in place, and he hoped it wouldn’t be long.

  He looked down at the lead Caroon, who nodded and moved back out of the way. The Caroon above Shirazi turned his laser on and went to work. From his new perspective, he could see the area above them had already been prepared; very little cutting was necessary to finish it. Within seconds, the center of the roof fell away to drop onto the foam below it. If he hadn’t been right above it, he wouldn’t have heard it hit.

  The Caroons standing around leapt forward and pushed the tops of the ladders away from the walls they were braced on at the top, and Shirazi found himself now on the “up” side of the ladder. The Caroon on the other side of the ladder dropped his laser—caught by one of the Caroons below him—and jumped off to land on the foam. It was so well choreographed, Shirazi had to wonder if they’d practiced it before.

  Once the ladders were free, they telescoped, extending up beyond the mouth of the shaft. The ladder came to rest on the lip of the shaft, and Shirazi climbed as quickly as he could to the top. There, not 15 feet away, was the barracks tent. The tunnel was easily within three or four feet of where he’d asked them to put it. Amazing.

  He looked down into the shaft, gave them a thumbs-up, and crawled the rest of the way up the ladder. It was snowing again, but he barely noticed as he started forward to the tent. He couldn’t hear any noises coming from it or around the camp.

  His men flowed forward like wraiths, their white camouflage blending in with the snow. Shirazi collected his squad and moved toward the command tent, while Kazemi took his squad around to the entrance of the barracks tent.

  * * *

  Besquith Base, Roget’s World, Kak’L’Kak System

  Kazemi motioned his squad forward as he led them around to the entrance of the barracks tent. Outnumbered two-to-one by the Besquith, he knew his portion of the assault would help determine the outcome of the attack. If he was successful, the Humans had a chance of achieving victory; if he wasn’t, they would all be dead before the sun came up.

  Even though they hadn’t seen any of the Besquith roaming around the camp in the middle of the
night, the snow swirling around helped hide his force and gave him a sense of security. They reached the entrance undetected. Kazemi reached for the hatch, but it started moving on its own.

  “Someone’s coming!” he whispered as he jumped to the side.

  The alien stepped out of the hatch and turned away from Kazemi to shut it. It saw the rest of the squad and opened its mouth to call a warning, but then Kazemi was on its back, and he looped his left arm around the Besquith and jammed his combat-armored forearm into the monster’s mouth.

  Rather than try to flip the Human off, the Besquith bit down on his armor, and its rows of shark teeth crushed it.

  “Kill it!” Kazemi gasped in pain. He jabbed his knife repeatedly into the alien’s back, but it didn’t appear to have any effect.

  The creature was taller than Kazemi’s six feet and far more massive, and it leaned forward slightly, lifting Kazemi from the ground, and began shaking, trying to throw him off. Kazemi had to drop his knife to hold on.

  After a couple of seconds it paused to get a grasp on Kazemi, and Sergeant Ghorbani stepped forward and shoved his knife into the Besquith’s throat all the way to the hilt, then ripped it out to the side. The alien fought for another few seconds, then it collapsed. Kazemi picked up his knife and cut the Besquith’s throat the rest of the way, just to be sure.

  “You’re hurt,” Ghorbani said, pointing to the blood dripping from Kazemi’s mangled arm.

  Kazemi looked down. It hurt—a lot—but blood wasn’t spurting, and it didn’t look like any of the arteries had been hit. “No time for it,” Kazemi said. He waved the rest of the squad forward. “Let’s go.”

  The tent was a giant open bay, with rows of cot-like beds lining both sides, and heaters interspersed to fight off the cold of the Roget’s World winter. The door had been open for a while, and the cold air was starting to cause the troopers to shift in their beds. He shut the hatch after the last trooper entered and pointed toward where the soldiers needed to set the satchel charges they were carrying.

  The men snuck forward, placing the charges throughout the space. It would have been better if they could have just knifed the Besquiths in their sleep, but after his short struggle with the one at the door, Kazemi was glad they hadn’t opted for that strategy. He didn’t see how the ten members of his squad could have killed almost 30 of the Besquith without one of them alerting the rest of the group.

  Corporal Ardavan had just placed the charge in the farthest corner when the Besquith in the bed next to him sat upright and yelled, “Intruders!”

  Ardavan tried to run, but the alien sprang from bed, cutting off his escape.

  “Humans! Intruders!” the Besquith shouted again. The other Besquith began sitting up in their beds.

  “Run!” Ardavan yelled, retreating to the satchel charge he’d just placed as he drew his hypervelocity pistol. “Get out of here.”

  Kazemi opened the door, and Private Sasani and Corporal Mazandarani ran through it into the cold. He could see the rest of the men had been cut off by the Besquith. Some had drawn their rifles, and others their knives or pistols, but all were moments from being killed in horrific ways. There would be no escape for them.

  One of the Besquith turned toward the door, saw Kazemi, and shouted, “More of them at the door.”

  Kazemi knew two things; his group was overmatched in this fight, and if he failed to kill the Besquith troopers, the rest of Asbaran would be overwhelmed, too.

  He dove through the doorway and triggered the explosives.

  * * *

  Command Tent, Roget’s World, Kak’L’Kak System

  Shirazi and his squad had made it to the command tent unopposed, and the squad stacked up outside the door. “Quietly,” he reminded them, “until you need to go loud.” He triggered the door open, and the men flowed forward, only to find themselves in an airlock-like space, probably to keep the cold air out. The fact that the outer door was unlocked or didn’t require a code was sloppy. Or, Shirazi realized, probably just indicative of how little the Besquith feared them.

  Hopefully we’ll change that right now, he thought as he stepped to the controls of the next door.

  The men got ready again. He nodded. “Here we go.”

  He toggled the door open, then he rushed forward with the rest of the squad at his back.

  The tent was about a 30-foot square, with consoles lining the perimeter of two sides. Several Tri-V monitors showed the mouth of the mine. Most of his attention was taken up by the three technicians monitoring the equipment and the larger Besquith in the command seat overseeing the operations.

  “You’re late—” the Besquith in the command seat started to say as he turned. Two things happened simultaneously to interrupt him, though—he saw Shirazi at the same time a massive set of explosions rocked the tent. “Intruders!” he roared. “Kill them!”

  “Fire!” Shirazi yelled in response, and he leveled his laser rifle and fired.

  Unfortunately the alien leader was faster than Shirazi had expected, and the shot went wide as the Besquith exploded from his seat in a blur of motion. Some of the technicians weren’t as lucky; he saw laser bolts from his troopers spear into them.

  All he got was a glimpse, though, for the leader was immediately on him, slashing down at him with its razor-sharp claws. Shirazi brought his rifle up and blocked the attack, but the force of the strike snapped the stock. He threw the half in his right hand into the alien’s face and drew his knife as he deflected the alien’s follow-up attack with the rifle half in his left hand.

  The alien swatted the rifle away then swiped at the knife, impaling it in his palm. The force of the blow ripped the weapon from Shirazi’s grasp. The Besquith’s lips pulled back from its mouthful of shark’s teeth in a snarl—or maybe a smile; Shirazi couldn’t tell—as the alien pulled the knife from its paw.

  “You’re mine now, Human,” the Besquith said, dropping the knife to the side. It slashed out with its other claw, catching Shirazi unprepared as it ripped across his face. He fell backward, blood filling his left eye.

  “No!” yelled Sergeant Will McClain as he dove onto the alien from the side.

  The Besquith was more massive than McClain had expected, though, and his attempt at a tackle left him hanging off the alien’s side as it stood, unmoving. The Besquith slapped McClain to the ground and stomped on his head. The armor shattered with the force of the blow, as did McClain’s head. He jerked once and went still, but his sacrifice had given Shirazi the time he needed to draw his hypervelocity pistol.

  “Don’t move!” he ordered, looking down the barrel at the Besquith.

  The alien leapt forward, but this time Shirazi was ready, and he fired. The round went through the Besquith’s eye at four times the speed of sound, snapping its head back and dropping the alien in place.

  Shirazi scooped up his knife and turned, but the other aliens were down, along with most of his squad. Only Corporal Paul Sparks was still standing. Both spun as the doorway opened, only to find Sergeant Major Kazemi, Private Sasani, and Corporal Mazandarani.

  “Everyone else?” Shirazi asked.

  Kazemi shook his head. “The Besquith woke up, and we had to blow the charges early. Most of the troops were trapped in the barracks when the charges went off.”

  “Did you get them all?”

  “All of the ones in the barracks. I have imagery of 31 before the charges went off. A couple survived the blasts, but we put them down.”

  “There were four in here; that’s 35.”

  “And our latest estimate was 38?”

  “Yeah; we’re a few short.”

  “They must have had a—”

  With roars of challenge, five Besquith shredded the sides of the command structure with their claws and sprang into the tent. Shirazi and Kazemi each killed one as the aliens charged, then the other three were on top of them.

  Corporal Sparks screamed a challenge and stepped forward, firing his rifle at the aliens. He shot one, then the Besqu
ith behind it ripped out his throat with a swipe as it went past.

  Shirazi fired again, taking a chunk out of its arm, and the Besquith turned on him. He fired again, but the alien dodged and then slapped his pistol away. Shirazi stepped back, drawing his knife, and fell into a defensive stance.

  The Besquith leaped forward, and Shirazi tried to backpedal, but a body on the ground caught his feet, and he fell over backward. The alien trooper grabbed his shoulders and rode him down. Shirazi jabbed at the Besquith with his knife, and after several tries, finally found a joint in the trooper’s armor. The Besquith roared into his face, and Shirazi pulled on the knife, trying to cut deeper.

  “I will eat you now,” the Besquith swore, ignoring the wound, and it leaned forward, its mouth open, trying to get at Shirazi’s neck. Shirazi brought up his other arm and got his forearm across the Besquith’s forehead, momentarily stopping the Besquith’s forward movement.

  Shirazi could feel the Besquith’s hot breath in his face as it pulled on his shoulders, trying to draw him close enough to bite. Shirazi could feel his arm growing weak—the alien was incredibly strong—but the horrific sight of the creature’s rows of shark teeth moving ever closer to his neck gave him an adrenaline boost to hold it off a bit longer. He pulled the knife from the Besquith and dragged it along the alien’s armor, searching for another opening.

  The Besquith reached forward, sliding its arm around the back of Shirazi’s head. Shirazi could feel his strength waning, but then his knife found the creature’s armpit, and he drove the blade in. The alien pulled back and roared again, and Shirazi allowed himself to be pulled forward so he could thrust again, driving the blade in as far as he could.

  He must have hit something vital, for the creature’s eyes rolled into the back of its head and it fell forward onto Shirazi. Unprepared for the monster’s sudden collapse, he wasn’t able to direct the body to the side, and it fell onto his face. He was able to turn his head slightly so he could breathe—barely—but the stench of the Besquith threatened to overwhelm him. The weight of the alien, plus all of its armor and other combat gear, bore down on him, making breathing even more difficult. He tried to push the alien off him, but the weight was more than he could move on his own, and he struggled feebly, feeling himself grow weaker with each attempt, as his oxygen-starved body failed him.