Before the Shattered Gates of Heaven

by Bryan S. Glosemeyer

  Daggeira met Sabira’s gaze again, holding it longer than they had with the other skins. There was no knowing smirk or joking expression this time. Just a moment, silent and pure, just for them.

  Attendant Spear gestured, and one of his floating displays enlarged and repositioned itself into the center aisle. Target Planet Thirteen-Nine-Seven-dash-Four. The wrecker was between the target and its sun, so nearly all the planetary sphere was illuminated. They saw much more of the green and purple world than the crescent seen during the command summons. The white rings encircling the planet sparkled like a vein of diamonds in the full sunlight.

  A red line marking their landing trajectory spiraled over the planet, diving around and then under the rings, encircling one more time, and then terminating at the target hive city. The planet’s spin would plunge the city into shadow in about a shift. A dot representing their wrecker marked the other end of the spiral at the farthest point from the planet’s surface. An ever-changing readout of navigational and trajectory numbers floated beside it.

  A swarm of bright blue dots with their own set of floating numbers circled through the holo-projection as well: satellites, stations, and orbiting defense platforms. Two new red dots and their trajectory lines appeared next. Their initial starting point was identical to their own, but instead of spiraling down, their lines closed into loops around the planet and took intercept orbits with the defense platforms.

  The projection collapsed to a single point of light hovering in the aisle and faded out.

  “I’ve been summoned to the command cabin,” said Attendant Spear. “I’ll see you again planetside. May the Gods see you all.”

  “May the Gods see you, Attendant,” answered First Drum Lance.

  Spear turned to the very fore of the hold. A flat, red bar of laser light scanned his glyphs, and a hatch slid open. He entered into the tube and turned aft to face them. He gave Sabira the slightest of nods before the hatch slid closed.

  “The warseers are making the final preparations for the descent. Time for the breathers, and then secure your helmets and gloves. The mission clock is starting. Understood?” said Lance.

  “Yes, First Drum,” the crew answered in unison.

  “Strap yourselves and your palukai down tight,” added Arrow. “First Drum Lance will distribute the breathers now. They’ll be at full efficiency by the time we make planetfall. Once we begin our descent, the artificial gravity generators will power down.” If the artificial gravity hit the planet’s, it sent out a kind of gravity quake that the stealth fields couldn’t hide.

  Caller Arrow had explained to them all before the mission that the target planet was smaller than Nahgohn-Za. They should expect to feel lighter, stronger. Sabira had experienced different gravity effects during her discipline, but this would be her first time on an alien world. Another dream of the little mine rat was about to come true.

  Even if I die, it’s godsdamned better than plopping out babies in the tunnels back home.

  First Drum Lance passed out the breathers to the ranks and then to the skins, coming to Sabira last. He instructed them to place it under their tongues and let it dissolve there. Sabira tasted a hint of the pitters brew’s sharp bitterness. After taking their pills they pulled on and sealed their gauntlets. First drum and the ranks strapped themselves into their seats near the forward hatch.

  After sealing his gauntlets, Cannon repositioned himself as much as the straps could allow to face Daggeira and Sabira. “Let’s all come back from this together,” he said, “with all the good stuff still attached. Then we can talk about what a pain in my ass you two are.”

  The three of them bumped forearms and secured their helmets. Sabira pulled her visor down to cover her grin and realized that this, right now, was what she always wanted.

  In the corner of her vision hung a numerical display counting down the mission timer. The hours were already ticking away. Next to the timer, another countdown displayed only a few remaining seconds.

  The voice of First Drum Lance projected in her ear. “Deactivating artificial gravity in three, two, one, zero.”

  Sabira was sure her helmet would turn into a bucket of puke. The nausea was sharp and strong, but it faded quickly. The feeling was soon replaced by a faint burning sensation in her lungs and her belly. The pill was doing its work. Breathers weren’t the only agents in the pills Lance distributed. Different missions required different ingredients. Arrow had informed them the pills would have anti-nausea agents to counteract the effects of gravity loss. The pills also included a time-released concentrated dose of the same accelerants used in the pitters brew. The accelerants and the breathers would be in full effect right as they made planetfall. They were going in locked-down, sharp, and ready.

  The mission countdown ticked nine hours when they hit atmosphere. Tearing a silent scream through the alien sky, they fell toward the target planet, invisible invaders on a divine mission.

  17.

  SABIRA EXPECTED TARGET Planet Thirteen-Nine-Seven-dash-Four to be hellish and foul. All her life she’d been told how the Vleez, just like all the monstrous races of the Monarchy, were outside of Divine Will. Their existence was so abhorrent to the Gods that they were found unworthy of unification and were ultimately to be exterminated. She had been face-to-eyeless-face with vleez enough times to know how revolting they were. Their smell, their wiggling sense tendrils, their awful buzzing voices, everything about them disgusted her. It only made sense for their planets to be equally as vile.

  The target planet turned out to be more beautiful than she could have imagined. The smells hit her first. Instead of rank decay, she breathed in humid air full of industrial odors, and as she made her way down the ramp, a strange salty tang hung in the air. Since the breathing pills had already kicked in, they opened the vents on their helmets to the local atmosphere, and the alien smells seeped through the vent’s microfilters. They each had a backup tank of oxygen snapped on to their backs that could last them up to about one hour, less if they were exerting themselves. Before the mission, medics had given them all inoculations against all the known airborne illnesses of the target planet, giving them the option to breathe the local atmosphere without concern of contagion.

  The wrecker had touched down in the far end of a vacant lot attached to a cargo shipping port. The horizon to the east and north was blocked off by large stacks of shipping containers. Though the shape and aesthetic were strange to her, Sabira recognized the dimly lit outlines of cranes arching across the black sky to the north and west. They must be near the river, but from the lot she couldn’t see the water. To the west, directly across the open blankness of a wide riverbed, a tumble of dark hills rolled up from the far banks. Slow-drifting fog seeped through the low spaces between slopes and crept toward the rounded tops. Trails of moving lights wound through the hills and illuminated the shifting fog in pale yellows and grays.

  A small white moon illuminated the fuzzy edges of clouds, streaks of soft silver across black. Lights from the port illuminated the underside of low hanging clouds. Shimmering stars, far fewer than she could see from the viewing deck, dotted the sky and poked through gaps in the thin cloud cover.

  Her very first glimpse of another planet. Its beauty stunned her. But only for a moment. Caller Arrow led them away from the ship to where the lot ended above the river. She didn’t actually see him, nor any of the other crew. With the stealth fields their suits and wrecker generated, no being on this planet could see them. Their visors, however, could read the secret signatures of the stealth fields, presenting them as outlines of human shapes in glowing red with a small floating name glyph next to it.

  Their armor was keyed to disintegrate if the servant was captured or killed. If the Monarchy ever got their claws on the technology to create and read stealth field signatures, it would derail the Unity’s momentum in the war.

  In addition to visual stealth, no sound would escape the fields either. But as long as they were with
in twenty meters, their suits could transmit tight beam communications to each other, allowing them to speak normally and still not be heard by someone standing right next to them. They did, however, still leave footprints and trails. They had spent shift after shift practicing how to minimize trails when maneuvering in infiltration armor.

  Attendant Spear pointed out the lights of a distant cargo ship slowly descending from the night sky to the port. “The warseers timed our descent behind another cargo ship. If any signals manage to leak through the stealth fields, the enemy will assume it’s from their own traffic.”

  “Stupid vermin,” said Hatchet.

  “Soon to be dead stupid vermin,” added Sabira.

  “Conqueror see us,” said Bomb. The six skins all clanked right-arm gauntlets together.

  “Warseer Ahzk Vohg gave the command,” said First Drum Lance. “Let’s go bring our nameless home.”

  To the west, the lot ended in a small ridge of dirt and rocks just over a meter high and two meters wide. Once she stood atop the ridge, Sabira could look down the steep, reinforced embankment to the black river below. Lights from the port and the far hills jittered in warped reflections across the surface between strands of shifting fog. Sabira had never seen so much water in all her life.

  Here she could get a clearer view of the southern sky. Realized what she mistook for faint stars before were the parts of a much larger whole. An expanse of shimmering lights arced low across the southern horizon. The rings. Even in the planet’s nighttime shadow, countless chunks of ice and stone reflected moonlight back toward the surface.

  Sabira felt a rage flaring within her, no doubt fueled by the accelerants kicking in. It wasn’t right, she thought. How could beings as gross and profane as the Vleez deserve so much beauty and riches? The planet belonged in the Unity by right of Divine Will, not with godsless vermin.

  The crew made their way single file along the edge of the cliffs above the river. Attendant Spear took point with First Drum Lance just behind, followed by the skins. Third Drum Misseila and Caller Arrow took the rear guard. They headed south toward the hive city. As they walked, Sabira noticed her armor weighed less than usual on her shoulders and back. Her steps sprung forward easier. Arrow was right, there was less gravity than Nahgohn-Za.

  Sabira noticed no one else tilted their heads back to look at the sky and stars. They all kept their gaze no higher than the horizon. She remembered how First Drum Lance had pulled her aside a few days ago at the end of a duty shift. He told her that craving the endless sky and stars was inappropriate. Instead, she should find solace in confinement and duty, for that is their place under Will. Grandfather Spear didn’t disapprove of her stargazing, though, and he outranked the first drum, so she continued to spend her privileges on the observation deck until she was directly ordered not to. And when they were on a mission, who could fault her for looking up?

  A dilapidated mesh barricade marked the end of the port. Caller Arrow configured his palukai into a curve-bladed halberd and noiselessly scythed an opening through the hexagonal mesh. About a hundred meters to their left, a gate in the barricade opened to a wide roadway also leading south. Lined up beside the gates were rows of strange cargo transporters. Each was made of interlocking pairs of hover pods facing down and carrier arms reaching up, looking something like a pried-open ribcage. Sabira figured the shipping containers they landed near would slide into the ribcage for transportation. The pods were powered off, and the long machines all rested silently in a paved lot beside the gate.

  The crew cut inland until they reached the road, then followed it south before it forked. The left fork continued inland to the southeast. The right led to a long bridge spanning the river. Three tall metal towers rose from the water to support the span. White lights shone at the top of each tower, and strings of lights ran down the heavy cables suspended between the peaks. An intricate framework lattice stretched out from the midpoint and held up the roadway. Another lattice of smaller cables stretched from the framework to the main heavy cables. A steady flow of low hovering transport vehicles traversed from each side, floating a meter above the surface, outlined in glowing white and yellow.

  Farther south, through low tendrils of fog, Sabira could see a row of hills rising from the water and marching east. The hive city. The slopes were covered in structures and dotted with little lights, a bright green one shone from the very top. But it was still too far and too dark for Sabira to make out much detail.

  Attendant Spear and First Drum Lance led them toward the bridge. The ground here was covered with dry and brittle vegetation. Occasionally a small, furtive creature would dash from one grassy shrub to the next.

  “See those little six-legged fur balls running around?” asked Daggeira. “I’m going to confiscate one for the Unity and take it back to the Ihvik-Ri. Crew could use a mascot.”

  “Shut it,” commanded Misseila, “and keep it shut.”

  They veered away from the roadside and headed toward the span. Spear sliced through another decrepit wire mesh as they approached the bridge’s underside. Nearby, transports continued to stream to and from the bridge, completely unaware of their presence. The collective whine of the hover pods grew louder as they approached.

  Sabira envisioned herself transforming her stick into an assault rifle, walking invisibly to the center of the bridge, and opening fire. Exterminating vermin as they raced toward her, screaming for the Gods to look from Heaven and see. This was why they trained so hard to ride out and control the violent urging of the accelerants. Giving in to such homicidal daydreams would not meet stealth protocols, obviously, and servant and crew would end up as dinner for the vermin.

  When they came up from the underside of the bridge, First Drum Lance found a cracked and unused service road leading along the edge of the river. The ground was gently sloping downwards, coming closer to the water level. The service road passed through an unguarded gate and led them on toward the hive city. They marched until the service road ended at another unguarded gate connecting it to a main street at the base of the northern slope. The buildings here looked ancient and smeared with years of layered grime. This street was constructed of six-sided stone tiles. There wasn’t much traffic, but occasional vehicles came floating past on their whining hover pods. Small hexagonal cones covered the walls of many buildings. But they were so cracked and caked with grit, it was difficult to make out much detail in the faint light.

  The top of the slope merged into tall, fortified walls. Along the top of the fortress walls, gleaming new cannons pointed toward the stars, silhouetted by a green light whose source was set too far back for Sabira to see.

  They didn’t encounter any locals on the road. But occasional sounds of machinery, hover pods, and alien voices dripped down from the buildings and roadways covering every meter of the hillside. There were very few straight lines of sight, all the passages up the hill were narrow and winding. Endless options for the enemy to wait in hiding, or to hide herself if needed.

  They continued south along the stone road, the dark river to their right, the sloping hive city to their left. Several of the buildings, while still streaked with grime, displayed complex engravings and statuary. Where the walls weren’t covered with decoration, they were wreathed in dark vines. Occasionally entrances to arched staircases or narrow, twisting roads flowed down the hill and merged with the riverside roadway. Looking up the stairs and streets, she spied vleez locals going through their nightly routines oblivious to the infiltration crew a few meters away.

  The mission timer in the corner of her visor counted seven hours when they reached the far base of the slope and the road curved sharply left around a wide plaza. In the direct center of the plaza, a large statue loomed at least six meters high. It depicted a vleez in strange, angular garments straddling what looked to be the head of a gigantic centipede-like creature. The horrific thing stood on hundreds of rows of little claws. The front of the creature was reared up, claws pawing th
e air. The statue faced the water, its back to the hive city. Twenty meters before the statue, the plaza ended in a wide, crumbling ramp descending into the river.

  If something, anything, happened to their stealth fields now, they’d be fatally exposed.

  Around the open plaza, small groups of vleez congregated, talking in their strange, harsh language and sharing food and drink together. Bizarre sounds came to them from the far end of the plaza, like a drone of interwoven, warbling tones. The sounds had a kind of rhythmic pulse to them, and Sabira wondered if such noises passed for music in the Monarchy.

  Another twenty meters behind the statue, a row of six, thirty-meters-tall stone arches marked the inner edge of the plaza. Across the tops of the three-planed arches, statuary depicted larger-than-life vleez marching heroically, their angular garments flowing behind them on the breeze of history. Down the lengths of the seven hexagonal columns hung thick vines, tangled in ropes and bursting with huge, multicolored flowers. Small floodlights illuminated the base and mantle of the high arches, so their details were visible in the night.

  To the south of the plaza rose another slope dense with winding passageways and buildings covered with cones, vines, and gritty soot. A few kilometers to the east, the northern and southern slopes curved together, so that the entire hive city took the shape of a bowl with a narrow opening scooped out of one side.

  “Caller Arrow, Third Drum Misseila, you have a lock on the satellite navigation?” asked First Drum Lance. The ranks replied their affirmative. “Good. Caller, you and right arm are with the attendant. Third Drum, you and left arm are with me. Gods see us, we’ll converge on the target area, determine the precise whereabouts, and be back in orbit before dawn.”