Guard at the Gates of Hell (Gladius Book 1)

by George Olney

  Khev nodded. "For small favors and major enemy blunders give thanks."

  "Amen. Do you want the Augusta from the Army's fight? They're not heavily committed."

  "No. Leave them there. Jon's people still have a lot to do and they may be needed. Like I told Lane, I intend to pry loose the whole Victrix if I need to. They're motivated to support those Strike troops anyhow. Lieutenant Ettranty's one of the Strike platoon leaders. She's commanding the position."

  Shyranne blanked at that statement for a moment, wondering what could make a lieutenant so important to a whole legion. Then it hit her. "She was their first female recruit after Victrix Base was destroyed. The only woman I've ever seen that wears a kilt. I've met her several times, but I also noticed the entire Victrix seems to regard her as an icon of some kind."

  Khev nodded. "Karl once told me that he didn't think there'd be a female commander of the Victrix until she worked her way up to the position - which he thinks she will - because the troops held her in such high esteem. She symbolizes the rebirth of the legion to them. That's important to those guys and they'll go across the floor of Hell itself to get her out of trouble."

  Shyranne's face was grim. "Judging from what you've said and what I'm seeing, that's just what they'll have to do."

  They looked at each other. There was something else. Shyranne spoke first. "We can't let that bunker be taken. If the Guard captures those embryos, this whole war will have been for nothing."

  Khev's face was stone hard. "Understood and agree. I can get with Lane and set up a fall back in case it looks like relief can't get there in time and the bunker's going under."

  His voice sounded like slate grating on rough granite. "A precision kinetic strike. No way to do that without collateral damage."

  Shyranne thought for a second about the sterile words, "collateral damage". Any strike would kill hundreds, perhaps thousands of their own troops, certainly kill most of the Victrix cohort headed to relieve whoever was left in those Strike platoons. That had to be balanced against what amounted to the loss of the war, possibly the loss of the Cluster and humanity's future. The tradeoff was simple - and brutal. They simply could not take the chance of giving a quarter of a million future reinforcements to the Guard. "Do it."

  As she silently watched her husband contact Lane, her thoughts turned inward. May the Lord Above have mercy. On her troops and on Khev and herself. No matter what happened, the decision was made. They'd carry that burden with them to their graves.

  CHAPTER 17

  IMPERIAL CITY

  Shana and Sergeant Stauer were busy setting up defenses, constantly in motion checking fields of fire to ensure they interlocked and covered the right area, then explaining their defensive plan to the troops. 4th Platoon arrived to take the rear of the building and eased part of Shana's problem by drastically reducing her frontage. Lieutenant Tom Cnr, 4th Platoon commander, was junior to Shana, so there wasn't any question of her retaining command of the position.

  Good and bad, she thought. She didn't have to ask Tom's permission for something, but responsibility for the position was all hers. Actually, she was okay with responsibility, she decided. She liked command.

  One of Shana's teams managed to salvage some of the weapons from the destroyed emplacements on the roofs. The 2 cm guns were useless, but the recovery of five functional 12.7 mm guns was happy making. As Sergeant Stauer said when the guns were brought down, "Mark Two's. Those damn things haven't changed for a century or more. The old Ma Deuce could take a hit from a nuke and keep putting out bolts. Good guns."

  Two of those went to 4th Platoon and she kept three since her platoon covered the main avenue of approach. She was going to need the extra firepower. They used one of the Ma Deuces to cut rubble from surrounding buildings, leaving piles of it all over the streets leading to the warehouse. Some channeled attackers. Others held surprises. Some of those piles were even legitimate rubble.

  Working at a feverish pace, both platoons built a waist high wall of rubble around the building, but not for defense. It had another purpose. Cratering charges found in the basement's small armory had proved useful to blast deep holes forming a ditch right behind the wall. That ditch also had a variety of uses.

  Even the Guard bodies were now making themselves useful. No better bolt sponge than a nice fresh dead body. The former Guard members were now an efficiently bolt absorbent layer over the outside of the defensive wall. Their no longer needed armor was used to reinforce various spots in and around the defensive perimeter.

  No defensive position was ever really finished, but 2d Platoon was as close to it as they were going to get when the first alerts started to come into the control room. Shana figured that ammunition was going to be her only supply problem and that wasn't much of one given the small armory found in the building. One way or the other, they weren't going to be in the position long enough for limited food or water to have any effect. It was nearing noon, and they'd be out, or dead, before the sun went down. Her one big advantage was that the Guard had designed this building as a heavy bunker. Nice of them. Now she had to make the best use of it.

  "Lieutenant, we're starting to get probes." It was Corporal Chofal in the control room, monitoring the outer perimeter sensors. She walked over and took a quick look to evaluate the situation. Guard scouts were popping up here and there. She wondered how long it would take them to find out that their booby traps were under new management and in different locations. As she watched, one of the hostile icons turned red and went out. Apparently, it didn't take them long.

  //"O-Ps, be aware we're getting Guard probes,"// she sent to her two early warning teams roaming the warehouse area. //"We've started the reconnaissance battle, people. Keep them blinded. Engage whenever you can without revealing yourselves, but try to channel them."//

  Keep the enemy more or less in the dark about yourself and keep them going where you wanted them to go. That was Basic Combat 101. She wanted the oncoming Guard forces fumbling around until they found the targeted corridors she'd set up. She couldn't keep them out of her outer perimeter, but she could nudge them to where she wanted them.

  On the monitor, icons showing hostile troops quickly started changing color and disappearing. The boys were feeling enthusiastic today. Good. A few hostile icons were left active in the right places. Things were going according to plan and she hoped the Guard didn't notice.

  Sergeant Stauer came into the control room and glanced at the monitor, where new hostile icons were appearing while others turned red and disappeared. "I see we're starting to get visitors."

  Shana turned to him as he gave his report. "Lieutenant, the wall's finished and the Ma Duces are in their initial positions. We've only had time to make two alternate positions apiece for the guns, but more'll get made as we have the time. Teams are ready."

  He looked thoughtfully at the monitor again. "Lieutenant, didn't the Legate say we were going to be facing forces from all over the Guard?"

  Shana nodded. "Detachments from all of their legions, as a matter of fact. I don't know how many we'll be looking at, but they want this place at any cost. Protecting the Emperor is their entire mission. They want that body."

  Sergeant Stauer continued to watch the monitor for a few seconds then turned to her. "I was thinking the same thing, Lieutenant. What bothers me is that I don't see the kind of reconnaissance a force like that could put out."

  Shana started to answer, but stopped herself. He was right. A force the size she was expecting could just roll over her, without all this preliminary sparring. The probes outside were starting to look like a feint to attract their attention, if you thought about it. Where was the Guard? Not coming from above. The Fleet was pretty well in control of the airspace over Imperial City. When fighters could avoid ground fire. The AA was ferocious and survival of a fighter or assault shuttle in ground support mode wasn't exactly a sure thing.

  The Guard wasn't coming up the streets. Not yet. Where were they? What had she forgotte
n?

  Then it hit her. Urgently, she said, "Tunnels! The Guard likes underground stuff, Sergeant. Spider holes. Tunnels. All of the Legions are reporting that kind of encounter. Ten to one they have tunnel ingress to this building. Hell, they'd be stupid not to!"

  Sergeant Stauer's eyes got big and he spun, headed for the door. "Teams Two and Six to me! We've got some walls to check! Bring all your sensor gear! Evns, grab both of the platoon's directional plasma mines! Move!"

  It wasn't long before Shana got a com call. //"Got it, Lieutenant. One spot on the third level down shows an open area behind the wall. We'll have to cut through the wall to get to it; I can't find the opening mechanism."//

  //"Aye, get cutting,"// Shana replied. //"Be careful. I expect there ought to be a bunch of hostiles already headed for that door and it may be booby trapped as well. Also check the floor of the bottom level. They might have a tunnel directly under the building to the Emperor's vault."//

  //"Aye. Six cutting now. Two designated to check the bottom floor."//

  Sergeant Stauer had team six begin cutting into the wall with their short swords. Meanwhile, team two headed for the bottom level basement floor. Soon enough there was a report of two more tunnels. Shana and Sergeant Stauer listened to the team leader's report. He replied, //"Cut into the tunnel roofs. I'm sending the second plasma charge. Set that one for command detonation in the first tunnel and place a remote so we'll know when to fire it. Cut into the other tunnel, get into it, and set some demo to collapse it as far away from the building as possible. Don't engage any Guard force in the tunnel, just put in a few booby traps to delay them and drop the longest stretch of the tunnel you can, as far out as you can get. We don't want them digging through any time soon."//

  A few moments later, //"Sergeant, Novak. We're about two hundred measures down the tunnel and starting to get distant life readings. I'm putting in demo charges here."//

  //"Do it and get back as soon as possible,"// Sergeant Stauer replied. //"The ball's opening and we need you for the dance."//

  Shana was monitoring but remained quiet. Sergeant Stauer had things well in hand and didn't need his Lieutenant's interference. The fact that the Guard was coming up the tunnel was enough for her to know. She walked over to stand behind Corporal Chofal, her attention on the take from the sensors in the plasma booby trapped tunnels. She wanted to take out as much of the Guard as she could with the plasma charges. The fewer that survived, the better. The survivors would be coming at her above ground and that would cause no end of bother.

  It wasn't long before sensors in the tunnels started showing intruders. Novak's team was back, mission accomplished. The third tunnel was blown, leaving a dip in the basement floor along the tunnel's length. Novak believed in really plugging a tunnel when ordered to plug one. Shana had to heartily agree.

  As Shana watched, scouts in the other two tunnels were followed by larger groups. This was their initial attack. Her tunnel blocking teams had carefully replaced the materials they'd cut away. When the plasma charges went off, Shana figured slag created by the backblast would reseal the breaches anyhow, but the more blockage, the better. //"5, 6. Are all of your people away from the breaches? I'm ready to detonate the plasma charges."//

  //"6, 5. Aye. Blow when ready."//

  //"5, a little more. I want as many of these bastards in the kill zone as possible."//

  A few moments later Shana checked her sensors. The tunnels were beginning to fill. She gave the command to Corporal Chofal. "Detonate."

  When he set off the charges, a large ball of superheated plasma suddenly formed in each tunnel and shot forward, collapsing walls behind it as they failed under the ball's heat, crisping anything - and anyone - in its path. Each ball slashed at light speed down its tunnel until finally impacting, one at a sharp bend, the other at the tunnel entrance, both detonating in an almost catastrophic blast.

  Shana looked on with satisfaction. She could imagine the damage and hoped there had been sizable forces already in those tunnels. Her problem now was she was out of plasma charges. If the Guard came at her in mass, those charges would have been invaluable, but they had to block the tunnels. Now all she had were small arms and the Ma Deuces, which were officially small arms to anyone that had never been on the receiving end of one. Gldblum promised air support, but AA was complicating that picture. All she could do was hope she got air support in time and what she got was enough.

  Chofal called out to her, "Lieutenant, we're starting to see main forces. Looks like they've given up probing."

  "Aye," she replied. "Pull back those OPs. Maintain surveillance with sensors." The enemy was partially blinded, which was good, but she was going to lose her human eyes out there when the OPs came in. The sensors she'd inherited would only last until the Guard found and deactivated them. After that, she lost her electronic eyes. Cross that bridge when she came to it. Meanwhile, continue to interdict with remotely controlled booby traps. She needed those six men back here.

  #####

  Khev watched the tactical monitor intently as the retreating Guard column finally reached its base. The column had been tailed the whole way by a scout from the Valeria, now out of the blast area and using his recon nannies to track the retreating troops. Someone had definitely activated a Go To Hell plan and this was one part. Lieutenant Ettranty was fighting off the other part.

  In a moment, a heavy kinetic strike was going to blot that column and its base from Central, hopefully obliterating the entire strength of the Guard that wasn't still engaged in Imperial City. Some might call it genocide, since the Guard was as much a people in its own right as the Corps, and Khev was honest enough to use the word. He was also honest enough to know that the Guard's death was necessary to guarantee the future of the Cluster. What he felt at the idea wasn't satisfaction, but it was close. They were going to win this one, once the Guard was destroyed. The Guard's fighting strength in Imperial City wasn't enough to stop four legions.

  On the other hand, the Victrix still had to get Ettranty out of trouble.

  #####

  Shana got a report about the kinetic strike that killed most of the Guard, but it wasn't important to her situation. Too far away. Instead, she walked out of the control room and through the warehouse facade to the front doorway. She took a few steps outside, then stood, looking quietly up the empty street, her B-42 cradled against her chest in her right arm, her feet a comfortable distance apart, simply waiting for the Predator to arrive.

  She and her troops were Strike. By definition, the best of the best. Now their prototypes as Gladii were about to come at them in force. The Guard. The ancestral Gladius. The Guard was coming up against her men, men bred from the survivors of a thousand years of battle. Led by her... and she was of the Guard's blood. There was a grim irony here, if she spent the time to think about it. Not worth it. The Guard was coming. She was going to stop them.

  Shana found herself strangely calm as she contemplated the coming fight, feeling the relaxed confidence of a master craftsman about to go to work. Her troops were as ready as they were ever going to be, as ready as she and her sergeant could make them. Now all that remained was the mission. The mission. Now it was no longer a Strike mission. It was a Gladius mission - one that came from the soul of the Gladius. They were going to save a quarter million children.

  She wasn't a Gladius by birth, at least in her own mind. She was a recruit. Now she was a combat officer doing a job she loved, in a life she loved. She looked back at her old life as a tridio star reporter, the parties, the glamor, the glittering surroundings, and knew all of it was time wasted. Here was where she was meant to be.

  She pushed back her helmet visor and looked up at the sky. It was deep blue, but not empty. It was full of the contrails of fighters and assault shuttles as they went about their own missions and the bright lines of laser straight bolt fire from the AA guns trying to take them down. Dark clouds of smoke in all directions formed patches and haze. It was the sky of war. Still, she h
ad to see it, one more time, even if it was crowded and polluted.

  She thought about what she wanted for her future. She wanted to be Karl's wife, to be part of him and have him be part of her. Children? She was sure she wanted them, but didn't see a way as long as she was a century grade officer. How did you kiss a child then go off to kill someone or maybe have them kill you? Finally, she understood why the women of the Corps were exempt from combat. A child had to have a mother.

  A child needed a father, too. Karl would be a good one and a Legate didn't go on crazy missions like a Strike officer. It would be good if both she and Karl were able to back away from this sort of thing while they raised their family.

  Maybe after she made Major. Captains commanded Centuries, and she wanted her Century. Majors were staff officers. Maybe she could take a staff job in Intelligence once she made Major. Raise her family then. Buck for a battalion command once the kids were old enough.

  She snorted at her thoughts. Why think about the future? She probably wasn't going to live through this afternoon. There was a short legion of mixed Guard units coming down that street to kill her and take what she protected from her. They'd try to do it properly, first. She was sure of that. They'd get their nose bloodied. She was sure of that, too. Then they'd wake up and just come at her in waves. Pick up units never worked well together, but they didn't have to. All they had to do was just come at her in mob after mob. Two platoons couldn't handle that sort of mass. They'd roll right over her.

  The Sergeant Major had told her that she'd one day be asked to pay the Gladius Price when she put on the uniform. She'd already paid a part of it when she killed her father. The Price wasn't always death. Now she had twenty willing men - forty one, with Tom's platoon - and they were going to pay the Price with her.