by Jay Allan
Chapter 25
From the Journal of Jake Taylor:
Victory. Erastus is ours, the enemy army utterly destroyed. Yet there is no joy, just a grim satisfaction. Our war is just beginning, and we face an enemy vastly stronger than ourselves. We fight to destroy a tyranny, to free a world that looks at us as traitors. Those we would liberate are under the thrall of our enemies, too beaten down and blind to see the truth.
My soldiers have come far already, and suffered much. Yet I must ask so much more from them. Few, perhaps none, will survive this final war. But if I must ask them for their lives to right this horrific wrong, then that is what I will do. Just as I will willingly give my own.
Hatred is a more complex emotion than I’d imagined. I ordered the execution of 12,000 helpless prisoners yesterday, and I feel no doubts, no remorse for what I have done. There is no question Gregor Kazan was a willing participant in the great evil we fight, fully deserving of the death I gave him. The troops he led to Erastus, the 50,000 who now lay dead on the rocky sands of this inhospitable world – 12,000 of them shot along a stone wall by my command - they are more difficult to judge. Their culpability in the crime is more ambiguous, less straightforward to judge.
Surely, the jackbooted enforcers of a despotic government bear some of the guilt for the system they serve. These men spent their lives terrorizing helpless civilians and dragging people to reeducation facilities. They didn’t create the policies they imposed, but they were part of the machine that stripped freedom from the people. I cannot imagine the thousands these men beat and killed…how many they dragged from their homes in the night, never to be seen again by distraught families.
But was it really necessary to kill them all, to wipe them out to the last man? Certainly we sent a signal to our true enemies. The disruptions and panic on the Secretariat will almost certainly erode their efficiency. Fear will make them dither and argue, giving us more time to prepare, to move forward.
Yes, these soldiers had to die. All of them. I know not all my people agree, but I am in command and, as long as I am, I will do what I believe right. I will not allow misplaced sympathies, undeserved pity to stand in the way of our righteous fire.
My officers have doubts…I know that. Probably not Hank Daniels…he is as determined as I am that nothing be allowed to defeat us, nor divert us from our crusade. Blackie and the rest are loyal; I know that as surely as I know anything. They will follow me wherever I go. But they are conflicted, uncertain about the means we must employ. They will do what I command, but they will suffer for it, consumed by doubts, by pointless guilt. I am sorry for this pain added to all they have suffered, but if they insist on torturing themselves, so be it. The crusade transcends us all. Our own suffering, our pain, even our deaths…they are nothing next to the importance of victory. And that victory may well cost us all we have to give…all that is left of us.
I will have to stay close to my troops in this war, lend them support. They will be fine when the battle is raging and they are fighting as soldiers. But when victory is near, and they are chasing down panicked survivors, gunning them down in whatever ditch they crawl to for refuge…that is where they will need my strength.
The struggle is all. We have won nothing yet. War has just begun, and it shall not end until the last of those stained with the guilt of this crime are crushed beneath our boots, never to rise again.
*
Taylor stood on a small rise, watching the heavy diggers tear into the rocky sand. He was focused, staring intently at the excavation machines, flashing a thought to his aural implants to lower his auditory response. The damned things were loud.
Taylor was just glad he had them. They had to dig 40 meters, and that was a long way to go with shovels, even with cybernetically-enhanced muscles wielding them. It was expensive to transport and reassemble heavy equipment. When Jake got the loyalty of the engineers, he also got their machines. And that included these two plutonium-powered heavy excavators.
He knew there were more Portals here, buried near the recently exposed one the Tegeri had used to withdraw from the planet. T’arza had told him, and the alien had been true to his word on everything else. Taylor doubted most things, but not those the enigmatic Tegeri had shared with him.
UN Central never knew about the other Portals on Erastus. They probably assumed there were some, Jake thought, but they had no idea where they were. The Tegeri had buried them, practically rearranging the entire landscape to keep them hidden.
Now they had shared their location with Taylor, and he was going to use them to lead his forces off Erastus. Marching through the Portal to Earth would be a fool’s game. His troops didn’t have the strength to take on all of UN Central Earthside. Taylor would have loved nothing more than to end the war in one great battle, but he knew that was impossible. Their quest would be a long one, down roads he was sure he couldn’t imagine now.
Blackie had argued for standing firm on Erastus, digging in and defending against every attack the UN forces launched. But that strategy would fail as well. Taylor’s troops had decisively defeated a much larger enemy force, but when UN Central truly marshaled its resources, as it would certainly do now, they would dwarf the just-defeated army. The Erastus forces would draw their price in blood, but if they stood firm, sooner or later they would be overwhelmed and destroyed.
No, Taylor knew the only hope was to march on to other Portal worlds. Erastus was far too hostile an environment to support the army for the long term without resupply from Earth, but many of the other worlds were lush and green, unspoiled paradises that would provide food and water and other essentials. There were troops on many of those worlds too, not Supersoldiers, perhaps, but lifers like Taylor and his men. They didn’t know the truth on those worlds, not yet, and they hadn’t lived in the burning crucible Taylor and his men had, but perhaps they could be recruited to the cause, swelling the forces of the crusade. Taylor saw no other option, but whatever the pros and cons, the decision had been made. They were moving forward,
The Army of Erastus. That’s what they were calling themselves. Taylor was amused by the irony. Erastus was where they were all sent to fight…to die. A hell world the first expeditionary forces had dubbed Gehenna. A place where they had suffered, where their friends and brothers had died. Its name was spoken most often as a curse. But it was different now. It had become a source of pride as well, of élan. These men had survived the worst place men had ever been sent to fight. They endured betrayal and unimaginable hardship, and they had come together to form the most effective army in human history.
They faced a long march and many battles ahead. They would be vastly outnumbered by the forces they would face, but they were ready. There was guilt and uncertainty among them, but all agreed they’d been betrayed, as mankind itself had been. They were united in their determination to punish those responsible, though some were more prepared for the grim choices ahead than others.
*
Taylor stood on a small rise outside the old Firebase Delta, watching the large sun set. He was struck by the deep hues of red and pink in the sky, stretched out in long, gauzy ribbons. He’d seen it thousands of times, but this was the first time he really noticed the beauty of it. He’d been on Erastus for fourteen years, and he’d never expected to leave. Now that the army was preparing to depart, he was noticing all sorts of things he never had. He’d hated Erastus since he first stumbled through the Portal, but now he realized, it had become home to him in ways he could never have foreseen.
He didn’t know if any of the other guys had similar thoughts. He was too embarrassed to admit his own wistfulness to talk about it. Besides, they were just passing feelings, he thought, nothing more. Overall he was anxious to begin the next chapter in the crusade…and his mind raced with curiosity about what another world would be like. A new world. Something Jake had long ago ceased to imagine.
The army was elated by the magnitude of its victory. The men had been celebrating for days. They knew the grim realities
of what lay before them, but they believed in what they were doing…and they had a new confidence in themselves.
Taylor knew many of them had begun to idolize him as well. The legend of Jake Taylor was growing, taking on a life of its own. Taylor the man was uncomfortable with it, feeling it was wrong. But General Taylor, the revolutionary leader knew how useful it could be. In the end, he indulged it, even encouraged it. The cause before all else.
He heard the footsteps behind him. People didn’t sneak up on soldiers with the mods. His electronically-enhanced ears tracked them all the way from the base…four sets of footsteps.
He turned slowly from the fading sunset to face his four closest friends. The all had thoughtful looks on their faces, just as Taylor did. “Come to enjoy one last Erastus sunset, gentlemen?” Jake had become a grim and serious creature, but he managed a smile for these four brothers.
They all returned the smile, but it was Black who spoke first. “I can’t say I’m going to miss this place, Jake, but it still feels strange to be leaving.” The others offered a ragged series of nods.
“Yes, it certainly does.” Taylor let his smile morph into a pensive expression. “Well, boys, whatever happens next, we accomplished something here.”
They nodded again, but Jake continued before any of them spoke. “And I don’t mean the battle, though that was as brilliantly executed as anything I’ve ever seen.” He paused. “I mean the way we united the forces on Erastus…without firing a shot. The troops who came through the Portal were our enemies; we knew that going in. But it could have gone differently with the other Erastus forces.” He hesitated again and then continued. “And killing them would have only added to our crimes.” He was quiet again for a few seconds, looking thoughtfully out over the rocky desert. “If we are to prevail in this war we will have to make new allies, convince others to come over to our side. Destroying those who fight us…that is the easiest part of what we must do. Finding friends is always more difficult than finding enemies.”
They all stood quietly, pondering Jake’s words. There were a few silent nods, but finally, Hank Daniels was the one who spoke. “Jake, we all wanted to come out here and tell you what it means to us to serve at your side. You’ve saved every one of us, and some of us more than once. You’re the best commander soldiers anywhere could ever have.” Daniels wasn’t normally emotional, but his voice was halting, cracking. “We want you to know we’re with you to the end…wherever and whatever that may be.”
Daniels extended a hand, and the others quickly reached in, stacking their palms on top of each other. Taylor looked at them for a few seconds. He opened his mouth then closed it again. There were no words that could express what he was feeling…and none that were necessary between these five friends and comrades. He smiled again and reached into the center, grasping hands with the others.
“To victory.”
_o0o_
Now Available
Portal Wars II
The Ten Thousand
The action-packed sequel to Gehenna Dawn
General Jake Taylor and his army of cyborg soldiers are veterans of Erastus, a planet so brutal, so hellish, it is called Gehenna by the men sent to fight and die there. He and his comrades battled for years in the most appalling conditions human beings have ever endured, believing the entire time they were protecting Earth from bloodthirsty alien monsters. But it was all a lie, the cynical propaganda of the totalitarian regime that rules over all mankind.
The alien Tegeri, and their bio-mechanical soldiers Taylor’s men call the Machines, were the victims, innocent targets of human aggression. Taylor and the rest of the Earth soldiers have unwittingly been the aggressors. When the Tegeri chose Taylor as their contact and told him the horrible truth, he rallied the veterans of Erastus for a new battle, one to free Earth from its self-appointed masters.
Taylor’s soldiers begin the long campaign back toward Earth, toward a reckoning with the brutal government they are sworn to destroy. The heart of this force is the Ten Thousand, surgically-altered Supersoldiers, products of an experimental enhancement program and the first of their kind. But they are not the last, and on the planet Juno they will meet their counterparts, the Black Corps, a force created by the Earth government specifically to destroy them. The Black Corps outnumbers Taylor’s soldiers 2-1, and they have a vast advantage in supply and logistical support. But Taylor’s men are veterans of the furnace of Gehenna, and they don’t die easily.
But there is more at stake than the freedom of humanity, greater stakes than even Taylor can imagine. For there is another alien race, one shrouded in legend and myth, known to the Tegeri only as the Darkness. Long ago the Darkness made war on the Ancients, the mighty beings that built the interstellar Portals and mentored the fledgling Tegeri race eons ago. The Ancients are remembered in Tegeri lore as wise and powerful…almost as gods. But they fell ages past, destroyed utterly by the Darkness.
Now that great evil is returning, and this time it will destroy not only mankind and the Tegeri, but all the fledgling races the Ancients planted, hundreds of young species, only now grasping for civilization.
The Ancients long ago foretold that an alliance of men and Tegeri would stand and defeat the Darkness, and save the galaxy from destruction. But if this prophecy is to come to pass, Taylor and his men must destroy their enemies and bring the dark truth to mankind, that there is another war to fight, vaster and more terrible than any in human history or legend.
_o0o_
By Jay Allan
Tombstone (A Crimson Worlds Prequel)
Bitter Glory (A Crimson Worlds Prequel)
The Gates of Hell (A Crimson Worlds Prequel)
Marines (Crimson Worlds I)
The Cost of Victory (Crimson Worlds II)
A Little Rebellion (Crimson Worlds III)
The First Imperium (Crimson Worlds IV)
The Line Must Hold (Crimson Worlds V)
To Hell’s Heart (Crimson Worlds VI)
The Shadow Legions (Crimson Worlds VII)
Even Legends Die (Crimson Worlds VIII)
The Dragon's Banner (Pendragon Chronicles)
Available for Now for Preorder
The Fall (Crimson Worlds IX)
Release Date December 18, 2014
Upcoming
MERCS
(Crimson Worlds Successors I)
March 2015
Into the Darkness
(Crimson Worlds: Refugees I)
Spring 2015
Dragon Rising
(The Last War: Volume I)
Summer 2015
Find Jay’s Books on Amazon
_o0o_
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Table of Contents
INITIATE - Endi Webb 1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
Epilogue
MOON WRECK - Raymond L. Weil Moon Wreck - Chapter One
Chapter Two
Moon Wreck: Revelations - Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Moon Wreck: Secrets of
Ceres - Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
BONUS CONTENT The Slaver Wars: Alien Contact - Chapter One
BONUS CONTENT The Star Cross - Chapter One
THE INVISIBLE WAR - Jasper T. Scott Prologue
AFTERMATH Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
THE CROSSING Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
DERELICT Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
About the Author
TITANS - Edward W. Robertson 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
SKY HUNTER - Chris Reher Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Author’s Note
BONUS CONTENT Quantum Tangle
About the Author
QUARTER SHARE - Nathan Lowell Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five