by Jay Allan
Simmons leaned back, turning his head and staring off into the distance. Daniels sat quietly. He understood how difficult this was for the general, how sudden, shocking.
“Very well, Colonel,” Simmons said, his tone grave, somber. “You have convinced me. Too much of what you say makes sense…and now I begin to think for myself, more perhaps than I have before. And as I think, I begin to realize how little time we have. I will see to garrisoning the Portal immediately. And tomorrow we will address the army together…and put this choice to them. Though I fear many will be overwhelmed and elect to stay behind, only to regret that choice later.”
“No doubt you are correct, General. But that cannot be avoided. No man can come with us, save by his own free will.” Daniels leaned back in his chair. “Perhaps we should get some rest now, General. Tomorrow will be a big day.”
Simmons nodded, but a troubled look came upon his face. “But…” his voice trailed off.
“But what, General? Please speak freely.”
“If there are UNGov operatives in my army, how can we be sure none of them come with us?”
“We can’t.” Daniels’ voice was somber. “No doubt some have already infiltrated the Army of Liberation. But they have no way to communicate with Earth…and General Taylor is a wise commander. He will handle any problems that arise. All we can do here is refuse anyone you suspect.”
It wasn’t a satisfying answer, but it was all he had.
Chapter 2
From the Journal of Jake Taylor:
It is one thing to decide on a momentous course of action, a long quest where completion lies far in the future, to plan it and move steadily toward its conclusion. But it is quite different to stand at the precipice, ready to take the last step, to begin the final, terrible battle.
For years now, ever since the fateful day I discovered that all I had believed was false, that I had been lied to and sent to die by those I had called my leaders, I have moved forward coldly, relentlessly. I watched my soldiers suffer and die, listened over a com line as my best friend slipped away, far from me and beyond my help. I saw my closest companions change slowly, becoming instead mindless followers or recoiling from the reptilian monster I had become. But through all the pain, the darkness, the terrible unending loss, my devotion never wavered. Until now.
Our ranks have been swelled by men from the other planetary armies, and I now have almost 60,000 soldiers under my command. The Tegeri have supplied us, enabling my army to remain combat effective, though we have no factories, no significant civilian population to support us. My veterans from Erastus, cybernetically-enhanced for almost a decade now, are few, their numbers have dwindled to less than four thousand. But they are the greatest warriors mankind has ever known. And the others, the vast majority of my force, though they are no match for the Supersoldiers, are veterans of years of war against the Machines, against the superior technology of the Tegeri, and they are more than a match man for man against anything UNGov has to throw at us.
Still, though my forces have never been stronger, it is now I pause, at this moment for which I have so long struggled and pushed forward. Before I saw only that which drove me on, the outrage of what had been done to us, and to mankind as a whole. The innocent Machines killed in our unjust war, the guilt for that horror that clings to every one of my soldiers. I strove forward, driven by the insatiable need for vengeance. I swore to free a world, whatever it takes. I spoke softly into the darkness, to the shades of those lost in our battles, promising savage justice to ease their tormented spirits.
But now I see other things. Thousands of my men dead already, on battlefields far from Earth…and thousands more killed by them, in combats that should not have happened but did. And looking ahead, I see my 60,000 fighting the final battle for Earth…and dying in their thousands. My army is the largest it has ever been, but it is a laughably small force to invade a world.
I have long sworn that we would free Earth from tyranny, whatever the price. But now that cost is clearer in my mind, mounds of the dead lying unburied, burning and ruined cities, the suffering of millions. UNGov is responsible for the war against the Tegeri, and for usurping what had remained of humanity’s freedom. But it is I who will unleash this new nightmare on the world, my soldiers who will march through the Portal and begin this war. My cause may be worthy, but that will be cold comfort to the thousands—millions?—who will die. And even those who survive will never be the same, for some horrors change men, even in victory.
I have been sure of the justice of my crusade, and so I remain. But now I see the horrors in my mind too, the terrible cost. I know my next order will unleash hell on mankind. We have no more steps forward in the trail back to Earth. The next march will be home…and our return may very well destroy that home.
We wait now for the last parties sent out to rally support, but when they return, my excuses will be gone. Then will come the true test of my strength, for I must stand before my army and send them forth. And the orders will be clear and brutal…the destruction of UNGov, at all costs.
At all costs…words of great clarity, yet it is so easy to overlook their true meaning, the horror they can unleash. And yet I must give just that command.
And I will give it. Even if it destroys me.
Jake Taylor stood outside the portable shelter, the oval-shaped bit of hyper-plas that had served as his office and quarters for the past four years. It had been bright white once, he supposed, when it was new, but it had already become yellowed under the relentless light and heat of Erastus when he’d taken it for his use, and now it was a dull gray, the caked on dirt and relentless rains of a dozen worlds leaving their marks. He had no idea what the structure had been used for back on Erastus, before Hank Daniels had found it and had it set up as an office for the nascent AOL’s commander. Perhaps it had been a comm center or a small aid station, but none of that really mattered anymore. Now it was his, and soon it would be disassembled yet again and hauled through the Portal in pieces, as it had been through each transit point along the march of the army, from planet to planet as his soldiers moved ever closer to home. To the final battle.
The Army of Liberation had been on Ghasara for more than twelve Earth months, though the planet revolved so slowly around its sun there had been no noticeable changes in season over that time. Taylor had halted his battered army next to the Portal that led to Earth…and used the Tegeri’s knowledge of the Portal network to send parties out to other worlds, to rally other human forces to join the crusade. It was a difficult mission, he knew, for a handful of men to move through a series of Portals, sometimes with thousands of kilometers to travel on each world through varied conditions, to reach the next transit point. But he had realized the army needed reinforcements before it could hope to make the final transit and take on all the power of UNGov Earthside. And the only source of new recruits were the various UN Forces fighting on the other Portal worlds.
The strategy had been a success, with Taylor’s handpicked officers proving extremely persuasive. Not every Earth soldier agreed to return with them, to join the AOL and commit to the destruction of the only government they had known. But many did. First hundreds, then thousands of soldiers had trickled back. Tens of thousands.
The Army of Liberation had almost been destroyed in the cataclysmic campaign on Juno. Thousands had been killed, including almost two thirds of Taylor’s irreplaceable Supersoldiers. And numbered among the dead was Tony Black, Taylor’s oldest and best friend. Taylor had thought he was beyond feeling pain and emotional loss, that he’d truly become the cold-blooded avenger his soldiers thought he was. But Black’s death had hit him like a punch to the gut, and the pain still endured, more than a year later. Taylor still found himself looking for Black when he was uncertain, his impulse to seek his friend’s guidance proving slow to die.
He wondered what he would do the next time circumstances compelled him to put a friend at risk. Would he send another of his oldest comrades into the hea
rt of danger if that’s what victory demanded? He’d been certain he would do anything to complete the quest, but now the shade of his dead friend haunted him, and he wasn’t so sure. He knew he wouldn’t have the answer, not until he was forced to make such a fateful decision.
His eyes paused on the two flags hanging outside his shelter, the sight of the fabric flapping in the wind bringing him out of his daydreams. One had been designed by his own support personnel and, understanding his people’s need for a standard to rally behind, he had declared it the official flag of the Army of Liberation. The other was a battle standard, ragged and worn, but far better made than the army’s flag, sewn on fine hyper-nylon. The banner of the Black Corps had come to stand next to that of the AOL by Jake Taylor’s personal command. It was a strange choice in many ways. No force had killed more of his people, come closer to stopping the crusade before it reached Earth, than the enhanced warriors of the Black Corps. They had been the army’s most terrible adversary. But Taylor knew those men had not been his enemies, not really. The terrible fighting on Juno had been engineered by UNGov, by their lies and the atrocities they had inflicted on their own soldiers. The men of the Black Corps had been subjected to the same invasive surgeries and cybernetic enhancements as the Erastus veterans, and then they’d been sent after Taylor’s soldiers under the belief the AOL had sold Earth out to the Tegeri, and murdered thousands of their fellow human soldiers in the furtherance of their treason.
Taylor sighed, his thoughts drifting back to Major Evans. It was great men and women, Taylor knew, who sometimes stopped the worst tragedies, as often as not by pure force of will, and Evans had been such a man. The commander of the Black Corps eventually discovered the truth, and when he realized Taylor’s men were liberators and not monsters, he switched sides. But neither he nor Taylor had any inkling of the darkest truth about what UNGov had done to the soldiers of the Black Corps. For they had been subjected to far more than just the cybernetic enhancements that made them such formidable warriors…they were conditioned as well, deeply and irreversibly, and they had no power to resist the commands of their designated superiors. They attacked Taylor’s troops again, by surprise and against their will. But after the initial cries of treachery, Taylor realized the terrible truth. The men of Black Corps couldn’t join his army. They would only be turned against their new allies the moment one of their UNGov masters was able to transmit the code words. No, Taylor had known at that moment he had to go on without Evans and his people.
But the major had other thoughts, darker ones. The rage against what had been done to him and to his soldiers burned hot within him, and his pride and honor waxed greatly. He would not be a slave, he declared, nor would he allow himself to again become the tool of an evil and oppressive government. He would not raise a weapon against Taylor or the AOL. Never again. And his men listened to his final speech with rapt attention, and then they followed his lead, to the last man. Taylor had already left Juno, but he knew what had happened there, the ultimate end of that terrible tragic campaign. Four thousand men of the Black Corps stood at attention, watching as their commander paused for a moment…and then pulled a pistol from his holster and took his own life. And then, first in small groups and then by the hundreds, his soldiers followed his lead, choosing death over servitude…over a life as a slave.
Taylor had found the Black Corps flag in the hands of some of his soldiers just after the AOL left Juno, a spoil of war a squad had found at the end of the campaign and brought with them through the Portal. When Taylor found it, he took it and immediately declared it would be displayed outside his headquarters, as a tribute to the courage of the Black Corps, and as a reminder of the evil his people were going to Earth to destroy. And there it had remained, for the almost eighteen Earth months that had passed since then.
Bear Samuels slipped around the side of the shelter, making hardly a sound despite his massive size. Taylor’s electronic ears had heard the big man coming, but he suspected an unaltered soldier would have been taken completely by surprise.
“Bear,” he said without turning around. He didn’t want to give his hulking friend the impression he’d sneaked up undetected. “What can I do for you?”
“Jake, Hank and his people have transited back,” the towering officer said with his usual southern drawl.
Taylor felt a wave of excitement…and something else. Was it fear? Hank Daniels’ group was the last one. Whatever reinforcements they had managed to recruit on Samar, Taylor’s final reason for delay was gone. It was time. Years of struggle had brought them all to this point. It was time to invade Earth, to win or die. And for all the certainty and resolution he’d communicated to the army over the past four years, Taylor was plagued with doubts.
“How did he do?”
Bear reached over and put an arm on Taylor’s shoulder. “He did great, Jake. Looks like he got maybe half of Force Samar. About 8,000 give or take. Puts us close to 70,000 effectives. And he says more may follow.”
Taylor nodded. Hank Daniels was a hothead, the last person most people would expect to succeed at explaining the crusade and rallying forces to the cause. But Taylor knew Daniels was a believer too, a man who felt, perhaps even more fervently than Taylor, that those who had seized Earth’s future must be made to pay for their actions. And it turned out that enthusiasm was contagious. Daniels had led two expeditions, and he’d brought back more followers than anyone else, by a considerable margin.
Taylor looked out over the camp, allowing himself a moment of amazement at its size. He’d left Erastus with a force just over thirteen thousand strong, almost ten thousand of them enhanced Supersoldiers. Now, despite the losses incurred since then, he had over five times the manpower he began with…though the road the army had traveled had cost him almost two-thirds of his oldest comrades, mostly lost in the deadly struggle with the Black Corps.
Taylor felt the urge to delay, to order another round of recruiting expeditions. But he knew he couldn’t. The nearest contested Portal Worlds were many transits away. It would take months, possibly years for his people to reach them. And he’d waited as long as he could. UNGov knew he was out here…and there was little doubt they were well aware his forces would eventually return to Earth. He’d given them enough time to prepare, too much. Time served them, not him. They had the resources of a world to draw upon. No, he couldn’t wait. It was time.
“Okay Bear…it begins. Tell Frantic to get his people ready. They transit tomorrow.” Karl “Frantic” Young was another of Taylor’s original comrades, a soldier who had served at his side since the early days on Gehenna…and the man he had chosen to lead the advance guard, three hundred soldiers who would go through the Portal…who would secure the area and spread out, gathering intelligence before the main army followed.
“Yes, Jake.” Bear was always informal with his commander, and it was something Taylor appreciated, somewhere deep down. So many of his soldiers believed in the crusade, and they looked at him as something beyond just another man. The unquestioning loyalty was useful, no doubt, but Bear—and Frantic and Hank Daniels—kept Taylor grounded. They were his link to the past, to the days when he wore stripes on his sleeve and crawled around the blast furnace that was Gehenna. He’d hated his service there, they all had. They’d spent hours talking of other places, of where they’d come from on Earth, playfully taunting each other with tales of cool breezes and refreshing spring rains—and in Taylor’s case, snow-covered New Hampshire hills. But now Taylor realized that in some way, in spite of all that, Erastus had become his home too, and his memories of that blasted hell had taken on a sentimental aspect. Some part of him longed to shed the responsibilities of an army commander, to go back to the days when he was in charge of only the handful of men around him, friends and comrades he knew well…and trusted with his life.
Bear turned and began to walk away, but Taylor stepped after him. “Bear,” he called to his friend.
Samuels stopped and turned around. “Yeah, Jake?”
“Tell Frantic we’ll have dinner in my tent tonight. And find Hank and tell him too. I want the old crew, Bear…all of us who are left.” Taylor’s voice was soft, distracted. “One more night together before the final battle, eh?” He forced a grin. “We can talk about old times.”
Bear Samuels returned the smile. “Yeah, Jake,” the giant replied. “Old times. I’d like that. I think all the guys will.” Then he turned and walked down the camp’s main road.
* * *
The Army of Liberation had grown massively, and its camp had expanded along with its troop roster. Hundreds of shelters were lined up in neat rows, clustered around mess halls and other support structures. And next to one mess hall, in the wet clay just outside the door, lay a line of rocks. To the soldiers walking past before and after the evening meal, it was nothing out of the ordinary. But for a select few, it was a signal, a prearranged pattern they had been waiting for, and they took note as they entered. The message was a simple one. There would be a meeting, an hour after sunset, just outside the camp.
Mitchell Klein walked past the mess shelter, his eyes darting toward the line of stones. He knew what the signal meant…indeed, he’d placed the rocks there himself. Klein had been a soldier in Force Phillos, a lieutenant and a communications specialist, and he’d spent most of his time working like the other soldiers, first in Force Phillos and now in the AOL. But Klein wasn’t a draftee like the others, he hadn’t been conscripted or blackmailed into enlisting. He’d come voluntarily. And unlike the soldiers of Force Phillos, he’d always expected to return to Earth one day…not only return, but to receive a rich reward for his years of service on a shithole like Phillos. Klein was a spy, one sent to Phillos by UNGov, to monitor his comrades and seek out any signs of disloyalty.
