Inferno Station (Helltroopers Book 1)

by Isaac Stone

  Until now.

  Mecha-Satan walked down the passageway between the rocks where they were located. It made a grinding sound as it thumped on the floor. Ash noted some kind of artificial tale in the rear that acted to balance the entire mechanism. At first, he couldn’t decide if it operated on its own accord or had remote guidance. What happened next told him what he needed to know.

  One of the prisoners hiding behind a rock decided to pick that moment to run out into the open. It was impossible to understand why; the heat alone would drive most people insane at that point. Whatever, the man, who wore dirty, torn clothes, decided to make a run for it. Perhaps he thought it was possible to make it around the infernal war machine and get to somewhere else.

  Mecha-Satan didn’t even look down. As the man ran away from it, one of the automatic guns whirled in his direction and fired off a burst of shells. Empty casings spun in the air as the gun fired at him.

  The man was torn apart in the passage. In seconds, he was ripped to pieces by the rapid fire of the automatic gun. He never even made five steps away from the monstrosity. They stood there and watched him reduced to a red fountain as Mecha-Satan filled the cavern with the loud sound of the shells firing away. Even the report of its weapon sounded like a monstrous roar, and Ash realized that the ventilation system for the gun must have been crafted to make just that sort of sound.

  Then it ceased firing and slowly turned, making it clear the creature had finally noticed the troopers.

  The twin guns began to swing up at Team Omega.

  “Kill it!” screamed Ash.

  Team Omega had been through a lot in the last few hours. Most of them were down to their last few magazines, oxygen was getting thin in the tank, and they’d lost Ester after witnessing more horror in a day than anyone deserved. Still, through all of that, the troopers raised their rifles and prepared to give Mecha-Satan some hell.

  Ash snapped his rifle to his shoulder and squeezed the trigger, sending an impact round thudding into the war machine’s chest. He was probing more than anything, hoping to gain some valuable intel on the beast before fleeing into the maze to avoid its deadly volley. Praise to the makers of impact guns, thought Ash to himself as he watched the round slam into the beast, not penetrating the armor but certainly knocking a fist sized dent in it. The trooper scrambled right after, and no sooner had he rounded a corner of the maze then Mecha-Satan’s autoguns chewed into the rocky wall.

  Ash sprinted down the passageway, hoping that he could keep Mecha-Satan on his tail while giving Team Omega a chance to flank the monstrosity. More shots rang out in the fire-lit gloom and Ash knew his people were making good. Suddenly the roar of the monster filled his ears and he threw himself to the ground instinctively. The air just above him was filled with the sound of bullets, buzzing like angry wasps through the empty space where he’d just been standing and biting into the rock wall. Someone screamed to his right and Ash rolled over to see a prisoner holding his face, presumably having just caught shrapnel from the wall.

  Ash scuttled backwards into a side passage, knowing that the screams would draw the beast, and sure enough the autoguns roared again. The prisoner was pulped by the hail of bullets, though as the war machine was focused on killing the prisoner Ash was able to get to his feet and draw a bead. The trooper began squeezing the trigger, methodically punching Mecha-Satan’s center of mass with impact rounds. Just as the beast turned its guns towards Ash several more rifles began firing from within the maze as troopers from Team Omega began encircling the monster.

  Ash fired as long as he dared before turning and fleeing into the maze, the withering fire of the autoguns following him. He sprinted in what he hoped was a wide circle around the creature, always turning right as he went through the maze. Soon he ran into Jack and saw that the trooper had slung his rifle and drawn his heat sword. Ash himself checked his ammo counter and saw that he was down to his last four rounds himself, and knew that once it came to heat swords alone Team Omega was in trouble. They had been able to ambush the battle droid in the suicide chamber, but this lumbering giant was another matter entirely.

  Jack saw Ash’s ammo counter and shrugged even as he gave his leader a gallows smile. More team members chimed in that they were either out or low, and from his vantage point Ash saw that this fight was far from over. Mecha-Satan was battered for sure, the last of Team Omega’s strength having taken a toll, but it wasn’t enough. Inferno Station had used them up, and Team Omega didn’t have anything left. Just as Ash began to lose hope Jack pointed upwards.

  Ash watched as Barbara Ann walked gracefully, somewhat catlike with her bare feet, across the narrow top of the maze walls. She was so close to the beast that it would have had to step back to shoot her, so instead it attempted to crush her by swinging raising its autogun and bringing it back down upon her. The android waited until the last moment to step to one side as the monster’s autogun bashed into the top of the wall upon which she was standing. Before the war machine could react to the near miss Barbara Ann calmly raised her plasma pistol to point blank range and shot Mecha-Satan twice in the face. The beast’s leering visage melted to slag as the super-heated matter savaged everything it touched.

  Ash wondered where she’d gotten a plasma pistol as the beast fell to the ground in a smoldering heap, the giant slain by the woman in the green dress. Plasma pistols were as rare as they were illegal, and only had three shots in them per magazine. Considering the astronomical cost of weaponized plasma canisters, this mission had already cost him a small fortune. His hand went to his holster and Ash realized it was his own pistol she’d used. Sneaky bitch.

  “Nice,” Makulah commented over the team channel. “You just killed the Devil.”

  It was a quick walk to the small building that Ash noted in the distance. They went around the corner with care, not wanting to touch the scattered remains of the infernal machine.

  Ash stopped for a moment to look at the remains of the huge battle droid. He found it strange there were so many of the new power packs hooked up to the inside. Those things were supposed to be expensive. Why would someone waste so much money on a device designed to traumatize and kill people? He shook his head and continued to move. Seemed like he could ask that question of the whole facility at this point.

  As he suspected, the small building had some kind of administrative function. As he also suspected, the attached long building was a barracks for guards. Both were empty, although used recently. Bodies of the guards who didn’t get away fast enough were still lying outside the barracks. With the heat, it was hard to tell how long they’d been there because of the purification.

  Inside the administrative center, paperwork was scattered everywhere. The office had a few functional computers at one time, but the last person to leave had put bullets in them. Most of the paperwork had gone up in a fire in the middle, but there was plenty still there.

  “You find any trace of AI’s in this place?” Ash asked the box on Costa’s belt where Char was located.

  “Not a thing,” Char told him. “Nothing that I can even communicate with. A little odd, because I would expect that Satan thing to be run by an AI or two, but it didn’t have one. Even the station AI has no presence down here.”

  “I guessing that Satan took everyone out,” Jack speculated as he looked at the holes blasted through the walls. “Those bodies out there, hard to tell, but it appears they were gunned down by it. Crazy, did someone build that thing just to kill everyone inside this place?”

  “My guess is that its normal programming had it wandering the labyrinth, taking out prisoners when it was able to find them, keeping the entire population of this level scared and on the move,” Ash spoke up as he kicked some metal crates out of the way. “Until someone, maybe Haddo, showed up to play his own cards. Mecha-Satan was unleashed to kill the guards. Almost did it too. They didn’t plan on anyone who would show up with our level of firepower.”

  “No clue what happened to Simon Haddo,” Jac
k said to Ash. “He could be a red blob on a wall somewhere. If the Satan were sent out to kill everyone, it would’ve included him too, unless that was part of his plan. Can’t figure out why they would pay us to come down here and try to find him when that thing was shooting people. Did you see what was left of those bodies on the other side? I went over there and there wasn’t much left. Looks like our friend Satan caught a bunch of them out in the open.

  “On the contrary,” Barbara Ann spoke up. “I think it is very obvious what happened to Simon Haddo.” She looked up to the top of the ceiling in the small building.

  Ash and the rest of them looked up, right over some over-turned file cabinets. The letters were written in plain English, not the strange Enochian script they’d seen on their way down. They were dripping, but nearly dry. From what Ash could tell, they were painted not more than a few hours ago. Right about the time Haddo had issued his challenge via projected image. The old man near the treasure house was right, time was indeed a little funny in this place, or at least the perception of it.

  Purgatorio.

  “He’s gone,” Ash deduced. “How the hell did he get out of this place? Aren’t we in the middle of the asteroid?” He was astonished and furious at the same time.

  Barbara Ann walked over to several crates stacked on the floor. She kicked them out of the way with ease, a little surprising for such a small and slight woman. After she’d removed some paperwork off the floor, she was able to show everyone what she wanted to find.

  It was a sealed hatch of some kind with a wheel on top. This was an older model that was nerveless very easy to conceal. Someone had done it after Haddo made his escape. The only thing Ash couldn’t understand was how Haddo had found someone to cover it up for him.

  Barbara Ann could tell by the confused look on Ash’s face what he thought. “Any number of ways you could bribe these prisoners. It might seem obvious to us what he did, but they wouldn’t know where he was going.”

  “Are you trying to tell us he had a ship waiting for him at the other end of this thing?” Jack asked. “That is crazy! Why did he come down through the top?”

  “My most educated guess would be that he found it necessary for his purposes to test himself, take the journey through Inferno, so that he would be sufficiently empowered when he came out the other side. Much of the Enochian we have encountered would support such a theory, that he was testing himself and the station, gathering power as he went.” Barbara Ann explained. “This is likely an elevator that runs to an alternate port, hidden of course, on the other side of the asteroid from where your Thelema is docked. It runs directly to the other docking port. He could have done it remotely. Perhaps he planned to stay here for a while. Then our Satan showed up and started to kill people, likely re-programmed by one or more adversaries within the station itself, or EAC at large, to move against him. So he held onto whatever power he believed himself to have gained and took the ratline out.”

  “Then all we have to do is bring the gunship around to the other docking port,” Ash concluded. “Char, can you control it from here?” He waited for a response.

  “I can do it,” Char replied from the box. “Won’t be too hard, I’ll have Thelema orbit a few times until she can find the escape dock, triangulating on our position. Once she’s found it, we’ll have her dock and transfer us back inside.”

  “All this trouble and he was probably off the station before we were even through half the levels,” Makulah sighed. “Guess we’ve lost him. What the hell is Purgatorio?”

  “A place between heaven and hell,” Barbara Ann spoke again. “Also a base of operations for EAC on Mercury.”

  “We’ll get him there,” Ash announced. “I’ve heard of this place, just rumors really, supposedly a corporate black site for deep tech, avoiding espionage and such by being on such a harsh little world. We have enough fuel to take us there. He won’t get away this time. Okay, Char start the gunship and have her find the other docking port.”

  The team opened the hatch, and as suspected they were able to descend to a small docking bay on the far side of the station. They wasted no time in boarding Thelema, and within the hour the gunship hung in orbit right at the edge of missile range of the station. They were somber as the crew observed the station from a distance, each wrestling with their own demons as they considered the nightmares they were leaving behind.

  “I hope if there is a god that these people are judged fairly, they’ve suffered enough,” said Theo as he primed the nuke that Ash had finally revealed to the rest of the team, each of them far beyond caring about what was legal or not, “Mark them down as time served.”

  “Amen,” whispered Ash as he keyed the launch.

  Moments later Inferno Station was no more.

  FROM THE AUTHOR

  Thank you so much for taking this adventure with me, take a quick break and if you liked what you just experienced check out some of my other work.

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