“Curtis! Thank God you’re alive!”
Curtis let out a shuddering breath, relieved beyond measure that his best friend was still among the living. It was probably a bit unusual for a major to be friends with a lowly tech sergeant, but Human merc units tended to be far less formal than the old professional militaries of Earth. The two young men had become close while they were putting together the Raiders’ first CASPer company and had remained that way since.
“I’m still here, Jacob, at least for now. Ready for a SitRep?”
“Go!”
“Something is preventing the fixed defenses from engaging. Still trying to locate the cause. We’ll localize and get it fixed ASAP. Our infantry platoon is still holding the building, but has taken heavy losses. Not sure how long they’ll be able to hold.”
The brutal hammer of Jacob’s fifty-caliber M2 machine gun replied to the situation report. Three thunderous bursts ripped out at an unseen enemy. “Curtis, you’ve got to get this figured out. My CASPers are kicking the shit out of the Zuul, but we can’t be everywhere, and there are a lot of them. They’re going to pick the company apart if we don’t get help from the defenses!”
“We’re on it, Jacob, we’ll get it done.”
“And stay alive, Curtis! We’re clearing out Zone 3 right now, and we’re going to replenish ammo and power cells at the secondary supply cache here. Then we’re headed into the center of the compound, and we’ll be there soon. Hang on!” The slate let out a mournful beep as Jacob cut the connection, and Curtis turned back to the scrolling status reports.
He reached over to brush pieces of the ceiling from one of the three slates he had plugged into the guts of the workstation and tried to make sense of what he was seeing.
The console had been the primary control site for the automated defenses until it had shielded Curtis from the debris and fragmentation that scythed down half his tech crew as they raced to bring everything online. That frag had also destroyed the screens and controls on the terminal, leaving Curtis in his current position, half inside the console, frantically trying to activate the fixed defenses to engage the Zuul running wild across the whole compound.
The Zuul had played their transport off as a normal freighter doing a pickup of the refined biologicals from the processing facility. When they were close above the compound, Zuul dropships had erupted from the transport’s holds and dropped their mercenaries all over the facility. They were almost entirely infantry with a few soft-skinned vehicles and would normally have been an easy match for the automated MACs, lasers, and missile batteries all in hardened enclosures spread out in concentric rings around the Ksshtah facility’s centrally located headquarters building.
But something had gone terribly wrong. None of the defenses were even trying to acquire targets. They just sat in their bays, doing exactly nothing.
Early in the assault, the Zuul dropships had delivered salvos of missiles on several points throughout the city, including the building where the control room was located. Curtis had always thought the lightly built HQ building a poor choice to house the vitally important control room, but the Ksshtah loved symmetry and overruled the Human engineers installing the defenses.
The waves of Zuul missiles had smashed both outer wings of the building and collapsed the rear exit entirely, leaving the surviving techs and infantry with only the main entrance. The Humans were lucky that the massive concussions hadn’t brought down the central portion of the building on their heads, but the Zuul seemed determined to take the HQ building intact. Luckily for the Humans, the front entrance of the HQ opened to a wide courtyard, giving them a perfect field of fire to cut apart the Zuul attacks before they could reach the doors.
Curtis coughed roughly, his throat scarred from the acrid smoke of burning electronics. Shaking his head, he pushed aside the lingering disorientation from the missile strikes. “Ok, ok, ok, ok…” he mumbled to himself as one slate finished a self-diagnostic on part of the defense control system. “Sensors and targeting parameters are good, so what’s going on here?” He shoved himself back inside the console and unsnapped the diagnostic slate’s cable from where it was attached to the terminal. “Maybe the main power system has some issue? Just need to get hooked in there and get a diagnostic running.”
Curtis pawed around in the guts of the terminal through the multi-colored bundles of wires and connectors, but the main lighting in the building was down, and he could barely see. Turning to look over his shoulder, he roared, “ASHIZ, LIGHT!” at the terrified apprentice technician huddled under another workstation across from him. The beam from the big flashlight Ashiz held whipped back up into the access panel, giving Curtis a much better view of the console’s wiring.
“Better! Now let’s see here…” Curtis grabbed the correct data connector with shaking hands on the second try. He clumsily snapped the lead from the slate into the computer terminal controlling the main power distribution for the defense system and started another diagnostic test. As the diagnostic began, he could hear the pulses of the laser rifles fired by the defending infantry platoon as they opened up on the attackers. Seconds later they were joined by the rapid chatter of a pair of crew-served machine guns. The Zuul had rushed the HQ building four times now, and the only thing that had saved the Raiders so far had been the multi-barreled Gatling on the APC they’d grounded near the front entrance.
Curtis heard the high-pitched electric whine of the Gatling in question as it spun up, ready to deliver a hail of penetrators to the Zuul infantry storming across the wide plaza surrounding the HQ building. He tried to tune out the droning roar of the weapon as it engaged the enemy and concentrate on the slates in front of him.
“Tech Sergeant Adams, what seems to be the problem?” Curtis looked up in astonishment at the Ksshtah standing up in the middle of the room right beside him.
“Sir, you really need to get down right now! It’s dangerous to be standing up like that!” Curtis looked around at several Ksshtah bodies scattered around the control room, victims of stray weapons fire or debris falling from the roof. The fungoid-descended Ksshtah twisted around, evidently arriving at the same conclusion as Curtis. The Human stared in fascination as the mushroom squatted, lowering itself down to the ground, all three legs and three arms sticking straight out from its torso.
“I see, Tech Sergeant, this area does seem to be somewhat dangerous; perhaps we should evacuate?” came the same mechanical voice again. A pendent hung from one of the three stubby eye stalks protruding from the walking mushroom’s cap to translate the whistles and tones the Ksshtah used for speech.
“No, not yet, we need to figure out what’s preventing the automated defenses from firing, and fix it, otherwise the Zuul are going to destroy the Raiders, and all of you afterwards.” Curtis turned back to his slates, silently urging the diagnostic on. He recognized the alien from his unique color pattern as one of the engineers involved in the defense system project, but couldn’t remember his name.
“Hmm…that would be unfortunate,” the disturbingly calm Ksshtah mused. “This is a new experience for us Ksshtah, you understand. We have no natural predators on our planet, so the concept of one sentient preying on another is very strange to us.”
“I get it, not used to being shot at, sure, sure,” Curtis mumbled distractedly. The slate dinged as the diagnostic completed, and he hurriedly sorted through the multitude of error messages thrown out by the program.
“The main reactor is online, so how can every single weapons installation be cut off from main power? This makes no sense!” Curtis slammed a fist into the console beside him, desperately searching for some sort of explanation.
“Probably because the main power relay for the defense system was damaged by missile strikes while the fusion reactor was spinning up to full power,” the Ksshtah said. “Based on my quick survey, it appears the inrushing power surge from the reactor combined with some damage caused a short ahead of the main relay switch, which shut down automatically to prot
ect itself.”
Curtis turned and stared at the Ksshtah in disbelief. “How could you possibly know that? And that should affect only one of the main power runs, not all of them. The backups would take over and…” Curtis looked around at his surviving tech crew and the bodies of friends who hadn’t been as lucky. “How the hell did you get in here, anyway? You weren’t part of the control crew!”
“Oh, well, you see, I came in through the passageways in the maintenance sub level from the shelter in Zone 1. I was curious as to how exactly this ‘fighting’ worked, and I thought I would come see for myself.” The short alien crouched as a handful of MAC rounds slammed through the building above them, raining more debris down. “It’s very loud here; I didn’t anticipate the volume. Interesting, very interesting!” The alien wiggled happily, apparently delighted by his discovery that desperate combat included loud noises.
“And to answer your question, as I came in through the passageways, I observed the damage to the relay. There’s only one main power relay and one power run feeding all of the weapons systems you installed, so it was easy to see the damaged component. We reviewed your recommended design of the power system and felt it was inelegant. We revised the design to be much more in keeping with our principles. The main power run starts underground here, in the relay enclosure adjacent to the reactor, and then spirals outward through all nine zones of the complex, supplying power to all required stations. It is a beautiful design! I believe you Humans call this a Fibonacci spiral…Tech Sergeant? Are you well? Why are you striking your cranium against this console?”
Curtis struggled to contain his rage at the naïve alien. Of course they’d revised the power system design! They’d attempted to do the same thing to every other aspect of the automated defenses. It was just that the entire power system was underground and had been installed entirely by the Ksshtah before they arrived, so none of the Humans had even thought to check it.
“Nevermind that, can you lead my people down through those passageways to the damaged relay?” Curtis demanded of the confused Ksshtah.
“Yes, Tech Sergeant, it’s quite simple. The entrance is down this corridor in the room used for…”
“Ok, great, one second,” Curtis cut off the rambling alien and shouted, “Howard! Can you move the wounded?” The short, barrel-chested Sergeant Howard Smith had organized several of the uninjured techs to try to care for the wounded infantry and support staff. He leaned out around the corner of a smoking console and shouted back to Curtis.
“We can! There’s only a couple of the infantry and Tech Owens left. None of the others made it.” Curtis closed his eyes at the grim news. A lot of their people were dead, and all because some Ksshtah had wanted a nice, pretty design for their power cable!
Howard crawled over a pile of debris and dropped down by Curtis, glancing at the seated Ksshtah in surprise. “We got a tourniquet on Owens’ arm, and the bleeding has stopped. He should be ok for a little while.” He reached up to brush debris out of his high-and-tight, then motioned towards Curtis’ collection of slates. “Making any headway?”
They both flinched as several explosions rocked the building and prompted the Ksshtah to comically cover his head with all three hands. The Gatling fell silent as well, and for a few minutes all they heard were the calls of the infantry platoon for aid or ammo. Curtis looked back at the other sergeant and replied, “Yeah, this Ksshtah found out what happened. Listen up, this is what we’re going to do. You organize everyone mobile to get the wounded and follow him to the service passageways. He’s going to lead you to where the power relay is damaged. Once you get there, send all the wounded over to the Zone 1 shelter so they can try to get some medical attention.”
Curtis pulled one of the slates over to him, setting the automated defenses to engage automatically when able, then shoved the slate back inside the console. He slammed the access panel closed and locked it. “If the Zuul get in here before we can get the relay repaired, maybe they won’t think to check inside a destroyed console. If they leave it alone, it should automatically engage when power comes back on.” Curtis turned back to Howard. “You get a team started working on the damaged relay while I tell the infantry platoon leader what’s going on. For some reason I don’t have comms with them anymore, so I have to go in person. I’ll be down as quickly as I can to help, but you’ve got to get started at least.”
Howard nodded assent. “We’ll get on it.” He motioned toward the Ksshtah. “Come with me, but stay low so you don’t catch a bullet. What’s your name, anyway?”
“Very well, I’ll guide you to the relay room. And please, call me Mike.”
Both Humans stared at the alien, then glanced at each other incredulously.
“Your name is Mike?” Curtis asked, not sure if he’d heard the alien correctly.
“Why, yes, it’s a new descriptor I’ve adopted since meeting you Humans. You have such lovely names! Short, succinct, and full of meaning. In our language, Mike is an almost perfectly symmetrical tone sequence. Quite pleasant!”
The alien did his happy wiggle again, and Curtis shook his head. “What a strange fucking planet. All right, Mike, get going with Howard. I’ll find you in a bit. Show Ashiz where the tunnel entrance is and have him wait for me.” Curtis slapped his Egyptian apprentice on the shoulder and moved off toward the front entrance of the building.
He got up into a crouch, then darted around Ashiz’s console to the half-shattered door leading out of the control room. He peeked through the opening to make sure it was clear and pushed through the portal into the wide, spiraling corridor beyond. The first side corridor he reached was totally collapsed from the missile strikes, and another room further down was rapidly turning into a crackling inferno. He moved down the corridor in a crouch to avoid the choking smoke, his boots crunching through a layer of broken glass from the shattered skylights above. The pale yellow sunlight flooding through the jagged openings illuminated dense streams of smoke lazily drifting up and out of the building.
If we don’t get out of here, we’re toast anyway.
Outside, he heard the distinct scream of dropships rocketing back and forth over the compound, punctuated by the harsh crash of airstrikes hitting their targets. Weapons fire of all types filled the background, creating a roaring cacophony of sound that made Curtis’ guts clench in fear.
He reached the end of the hallway and dropped down to the debris-strewn ground to get a little cover from any incoming fire. Coincidentally it let him catch his breath in the clearer air and let his nerves settle. Steadier now, he eased down the last few meters of corridor and into the antechamber.
The high-ceilinged vestibule had once been a beautiful entrance to the building. Decorative containers with carefully chosen varieties of colorful fungi native to the planet had been scattered around seating configured for the many different species that might visit the facility. Strange art had been hung on the walls with cleverly placed windows to allow the natural sunlight to accentuate different pieces at different times in the long Ksshtah day. Curtis had passed through that beautiful chamber only an hour before, but now that seemed like some soft-edged dream he had only imagined in his sleep. As he entered the entry foyer of the building, he halted and stared open-mouthed at the embodiment of Hell.
The outer wall of the foyer was riddled with holes, to the point that Curtis was shocked the roof hadn’t fallen in yet. Thousands of projectiles had gone through the building, and missiles had blown gaping holes in at least four places he could see. One of the holes was conveniently located near ground level, and the soldiers had piled debris all around it to convert it into a firing position for one of the medium machine guns.
Small fires smoldered everywhere as infantrymen and women crawled around checking on wounded comrades and pulling chemical charge packs for laser rifles from dead soldiers. Just outside the front doors of the HQ was the grounded armored personnel carrier, solidly ensconced behind the concrete barriers the Raiders had added for just t
hat purpose.
Curtis crawled over to the closest surviving infantryman, trying not to think about the warm, sticky blood soaking through his uniform coveralls. The young soldier saw Curtis making his way over and crouched down to meet him. “Any news on the defensive turrets, Sergeant?” he asked hopefully. The trooper was almost unrecognizable in the filthy gray battle dress and light combat armor he wore. His face was smudged with dark grime where he’d wiped his face with a dirty glove.
The tech sergeant nodded but had to cough to clear his smoke-scarred throat before replying, “We think we know what the problem is and can get it fixed, but I need to tell your CO. Know where he is?”
The dust-covered private motioned toward the grounded vehicle. “He was over by the APC with Sergeant Tulls a while ago, check there first.”
Curtis waved his thanks and moved over toward the platoon commander’s position. It seemed like the firing had died away almost completely, so Curtis felt safe to get back up into a crouch and dart over to cover behind the vehicle.
He found Sergeant Tulls and Lieutenant Baker where the young private said they would be, covering behind the bulk of the APC. “Lieutenant, I think we can get the fixed defenses back online! My people are headed down now to start work on repairs.”
The lieutenant and his platoon sergeant looked at each other.
“Ok, Adams, we’ll just have to hold here while you get it done.” Baker took a quick look around the corner of the APC at the buildings across the plaza. “I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be able to give you, though. We’re down to 22 effectives. Second Platoon isn’t responding to radio calls anymore. We have no idea what happened to them. The other infantry company is clear on the far side of the complex, getting hammered by Zuul dropships. The tank company is bogged down in street fighting, and Major Rawlins’ CASPer company is running low on ammo and power.” He shook his head in resignation. “If you’re going to get the defenses online, you have to do it now, or there won’t be anything left of the Raiders.”
The Gates of Hell Page 38
