Guard at the Gates of Hell (Gladius Book 1) Read online

  //"Recruit Ettranty is down there, people. Anyone who can, get her out. That's a priority, but your main priority is the Predator. We've been hurt, but the Lord Above gave us this gift to soothe our souls. The Predator is coming to Bayview. We see him and we know him. He will not see the dawn.

  //"Gladio alieyo."//

  Gladio alieyo. The battlecry of the Corps and the most feared words in the galaxy, more often spoken softly than yelled. It was translated a variety of ways, but the most chilling was the simplest: The Gladius is here.

  The three thousand or so men on the landing deck, weirdly hard to see because of the refractive capabilities of their combat armor, showed no reaction, but none was expected. Instead, there was a feeling of vast grim anticipation. The Predator was coming. So was the Victrix.

  VICTRIX BASE

  A young Captain and his intelligence section were also loading out on a cutter, one with a high powered suppresser field and other devices to make it nearly undetectable. He, his men, and the legion's four recruits weren't going on the operation. They were heading for a wasteland on the other side of the planet. The legion was going to survive and it needed a place to return to after the battle.

  ITC 901

  On benches near their sleds, men stoically sat with their thoughts then a clear strong voice started a song.

  "Aaaaay, Eyn mol, eyn mol, eyn mol,

  eyn mol tu ikh zikh banayen:"

  "Eyn mol tu ikh zikh banayen," three thousand voices replied, stamping the time with booted feet.

  "A gantse vokh horevet men dokh,

  Af shabes darf men layen-n-n-n..."

  "A gantse vokh horevet men dokh,

  Af shabes darf men layen..." came back with a roar and a stomp. The singing - and the heavy stamping of boots - continued as the troop carrier swung out over the water headed for Bayview. The ship was low, suppressed, and totally off any sensors looking down from the assault shuttles.

  The Victrix was coming, Predator.

  CAULDWELL NEAR SPACE

  Wareegans were straight ahead. Two, Three, and Five were slashing into the classic position dead astern of their targets - targets preoccupied with One and Four. Datalink assigned individual targets within squadron sectors of fire, and Bat made a quick check of his targeting solution before he pressed the gun button on his control stick. A burst of two centimeasure bolts streamed into the engine compartment of an assault shuttle.

  As his target vomited flame and disintegrated, Bat calmly reacquired another shuttle. These were the easy kills before these bastards woke up, but he'd take every one he could get. It wasn't like they could turn around and engage him. They had to go down to the planet. Well, he thought as his second target blew apart, they were going down - in pieces.

  The Wareegan formation shifted to a shallow vee and began returning fire, reorienting shields to protect against fighter attack to the rear, but it didn't make any difference to the squadrons corkscrewing from the back. It just meant targeting an assault shuttle with two or more fighters. It also meant more of the fighters would die. It didn't mean they were going to stop killing Wareegans.

  A flash out of the corner of his eye and a red dot on his tactical screen told Bat he no longer had a wingman. He hard rolled, spiraling around a short stream of bolts from an assault shuttle in a maneuver that simultaneously avoided return fire, edged him closer to the dancing pair of fighters on his left, and kept his targeting systems locked on the assault shuttles. Tone and fire. Score one more.

  One and Four, now in a real combat formation, kept boring into the front of the Wareegan formation, keeping up the pressure. By now, Six had come around the planet's edge and were in the fight, attacking the flank of the Wareegan formation. It wasn't a melee - the formations were too widely separated for that - but it was a killing ground. The Wareegans wanted down and the Guard was going to make sure the raiders had to come through them to do it.

  PLANETARY CONTROL CENTER

  In the PCC, Imin was carefully watching the Big Board, judging the battle. They were getting kills. The new tactics were working, but it was a mathematical equation. The raiders had started with over a hundred shuttles and he only had thirty six fighters. No, twenty eight... twenty seven, he thought as he checked fighter status. They had over thirty kills and the total was steadily climbing, but they weren't going to be able to stop them. He opened his channel to the Legate. //"Legate, they're going to make it. Analysis says about fifty plus will land. About what we figured. Be ready."//

  //"We are,"// came the reply in even tones. //"Thanks for thinning them down. We can't make it in time to catch the landings, not and remain undetected. They won't be down long, though, before they have other problems. Let's see what ground defense can do."//

  Anti-air, remotely controlled robotic guns, won't do much before they were eliminated by the assault shuttles, Imin thought, but maybe something could be done. //"We'll keep 'em busy, just get there and finish the bastards off."//

  //"Victrix will do that, Commander,"// the Legate said with calm certainty. //"We've done this before. One zero mikes to drop point."//

  BAYVIEW

  By now, Shana knew they were in real trouble. The guns outside the city were firing. Worse, there were explosions from Wareegan return fire and the ground fire was thinning out. The Wareegans were coming to Bayview. Shana prayed to the Lord Above that some jackass wouldn't nuke the landing then wondered if it might not be better if he did.

  No, the Victrix was coming.

  She and her crew huddled under a building arch as the explosions grew deafening. Debris was flying in all directions. Looking up, she saw the assault shuttles screaming into a landing just outside of town, one exploding from a shot by a lucky anti-air gun. The rest were down.

  She turned down the audio on her headset. Adam was screaming, "Great! Fantastic! Get civilian casualties! Viewers will love it! Get as much of those Gumbies firing as you can! We'll run 'em together!"

  The Victrix wasn't here yet, asshole, Shana thought, ducking as a fragment ricocheted past. How about you wait until they were before demanding pictures?

  BEAUREGARD

  In the studio, one of the producers looked at Adam with surprise. "Why those two shots? Besides, they aren't there yet."

  "Not there? Then we'll punch that up! They ought to be there!" Adam yelled back excitedly. "Good call!"

  "Adam," the producer said with growing exasperation. "What the hell are you trying to do? Those guys are going in to defend us. They may not live through this. Hell, WE may not live through this!"

  "Oh, they'll win," Adam waved such a silly concern away. "I just want to make sure they don't get any political capital out if it."

  The producer stared at Adam with open mouthed amazement.

  #####

  The Narsima Matic Ettranty was thinking along Adam's lines as he sat watching the tridio in his underground bunker. A shame about Shana and all those proles, but some things were more important. If everything went well, Corona and his men would be a spent force after the battle. If things fell apart, the escape craft was on five minute notice. If he had a little luck during the takeoff, he was perfectly safe.

  BAYVIEW

  Shana wasn't safe, and neither was her crew. The two guys with her were as scared as she was, but just as determined to cover the battle. Shana wondered for a second how many were seeing the coverage. Then all those concerns became silly as she looked down the street and saw the large lanky insectoid figures dashing from cover to cover. Her recruit education told her what they were. Wareegan scouts!

  She swallowed her nausea as one of the Wareegans reached into a building entrance one handed and casually held a struggling human high off the ground. They were too far away for her to see if it was a man or a woman, but the sounds of the screaming came to her faintly. She wrenched her head around to the men behind her. "Out of here, now! They're coming and we're too exposed."

  The other two didn't question her, just followed as she ran crouched alo
ng the front of another building. There was a bank further up the street. Maybe there. The THWACK of a bolt and a chopped off squeal told her they were targeted, but she didn't stop to see who was dead. She couldn't do anything. Just run.

  Inside the bank, she looked around, to discover Samma Cosma, her sound man, wasn't there. Jhom, her tridio technician, stared back into the street through a window, white faced and shaking, but seemingly in control of himself. "Dead," he muttered to her, meaning Samma.

  "We will be too if we can't find someplace to hide until the Victrix comes," she shot back. "I'll keep watch. You check the offices and try to find something."

  As Jhom scrambled off to look for a better hiding place, a heavy bolt hit shook the building, dropping pieces of the ceiling, debris and dust around them. From where she'd ducked behind a counter, Shana stared at the debris for a moment then something registered. There was a thin metal tube, less than two measures long, lying with the rest of the rubble. It was only slightly bent and the end was broken jaggedly. A weapon?

  Howard's voice came to her. "There are no dangerous weapons, recruits, only dangerous people." She darted over to pick up the tube, holding it tightly as she scuttled back to her temporary shelter.

  She was breathing more slowly now, and her thoughts were running into unaccustomed channels. Shana suddenly realized she was no longer thinking of flight, or hiding, as anything more than an expedient. For some reason, time was slowing. The time dilation hormone her extra lobe produced - and she didn't know she had - was starting to enter her system. One of the results of her medical treatments before becoming a recruit. Fear was gone and something else had taken its place. Her body was ready to fight and, as yet unknown to her, her mind was starting to work in the channels her Gladius training had created. The Predator was here and she was developing the urge to hunt him. Hunt him, but be smart about it. Was this from her Gladius training? Whatever it was, she no longer saw herself as helpless prey. She was the hunter, concealed and waiting. Shana eyed the street outside through the plass front windows with a different attitude.

  She slipped further back around the corner of the counter, only an eye watching the street outside as the tall horror cautiously strode into view, weapon held across its chest in ready position. Wareegan. Could she get the alien's bolt gun? No, let it pass if it was going to, time and patience were on her side. The Victrix was coming. Stay alive and protect Jhom. Shana skinned off the camera headset. It was no longer a part of what she had to do and Adam's frenetic directions were irrelevant.

  She was calm as she watched the scout walk alertly into full view. Something in her reached out and melded with something else. She could feel it. She was no longer alone. She was part of a Whole, a Whole that had made hunting the Predator its coldly professional avocation for a thousand years.

  For the first time, she could repeat the age old words, words she never before felt she could say. Now, as part of the Whole, she knew she had a perfect right to them. She was part of something that included Those Now Gone, and others that were here. Others that watched with cold, cold eyes and waited until the right moment.

  "I stand guard at the Gates of Hell," she said softly to herself, but she was saying it with others, the ones with the cold, cold eyes.

  "Nothing will pass and harm

  those I am sworn to protect."

  The Oath came easily and she understood its true meaning.

  "My life is nothing." Howard was saying it with her. His eyes were cold, cold as he watched through his combat visor.

  "My duty and purpose are everything." Her words were softly murmured, but said at the same time by three thousand grim, deadly men.

  "If my life is called for,

  it will be given gladly." The volume of the Oath grew louder from the watching men. She said the words with soft tones, but with just as much deadly finality.

  "I go now to face my enemy." There were many eyes watching, many voices speaking. Men in harness in the sleds, heavy gun crews, scouts already in Bayview, the Legate with terrible fire in his eyes. Her. All were One now.

  "I have seen him, and I know him." She knew they were here waiting, waiting with terrible patience for the right moment.

  "He will not see the dawn." The Victrix was here. Her legion was here.

  The Gladius was here. Outside Bayview watching with cold, cold eyes. Inside Bayview quietly developing the situation and killing Wareegan scouts. Crouched in this bank and no longer afraid. The Gladius was here.

  Gladio alieyo.

  As the Wareegan scout drew cautiously even with the bank's entrance, Jhom came out of the back. "Shana, the vault was left open. We can..."

  The alien saw Jhom's movement and heard his voice. Instead of firing, it started into the bank, lured by the urge for more pain and fear. It was going to have fun with this food grub, then kill it and go back to its mission. There was nothing to stop it. This place was safe. Jhom froze in terror as he helplessly stared at the steadily approaching Wareegan.

  Shana waited with frightening patience and just as frightening purpose as she watched the alien pass in front of her position, then darted out, full of the soul-deep urge to kill the Predator. With the force of her charge and thrust of her newly trained strength, she drove the rod's jagged point into the Wareegan's back, filling the air with her war scream. The jagged point burst out the front of the insectoid's leathery carapace and the alien fell, dropping its weapon. In one smooth move, Shana scooped up the fallen bolt gun and pointed it at the flopping alien on the floor. She fumbled with the unfamiliar weapon for a second then found the firing button. One shot, and the alien had no head.

  CAULDWELL

  Adam and the crew at the network had been watching and listening. They couldn't see much once the camera had tumbled to the floor, tilting the picture to a crazy angle. The pickup volume was down, so they could hear Shana speaking softly to herself, but not make out the words. They could see the Wareegan's legs as it passed through the field of view and an indistinct portion of Shana as she made her rush. The scream came through clearly.

  "FANTASTIC!!!" Adam screamed. "Did you hear that death cry? Punch it up! I want a quick piece about Shana getting killed because of her devotion to duty! Get me a talking head to say it was because the Gumbys weren't there! Work up--"

  "Adam," the producer interrupted, "I don't think that was a death scream."

  "WHO CARES?!!" Adam yelled back. "THIS IS GREAT STUFF!! We'll do a big welcome home if Shana turns up alive, but we've got the viewers hooked!"

  The producer stared at Adam. "What happens if WE don't live through this, you idiot?"

  Adam gave him a look of total incomprehension.

  BAYVIEW

  Shana turned to a stunned Jhom. "Head for the back," she said calmly, an icy coolness running through her, her mind calculating the situation and assessing chances. Through her Link, she felt the Victrix already had men in the city, but she wasn't experienced enough to know exactly where or what they were doing. "I'll cover. The Victrix is here. We just have to survive for a while."

  "Your survival is my job now, recruit," a youthful tenor voice said behind her. "You did damn good."

  Shana spun, looking for the disembodied voice. A visor came up to reveal a face and she recognized the young trooper she'd met that first day in the Legionnaires Club. He was smiling. "Legionnaire Kamikal. Scout. I started looking for you the moment you joined the Whole, Recruit. We all have been. We don't abandon our own, and you're one of ours now. I've reported and the Legate knows you're safe. Street's clear now, so let's get the hell out of here."

  Jhom looked at the frightening disembodied face of the young Gladius, then at Shana standing calmly holding a strange gun, frightening in a different way. She was no longer the person he'd known for years. Something inside her was changed and she was different, deadly, focused. Then he looked at the headless body of the alien on the floor. If these two were what was coming, he thought, remembering his terror as the Wareegan approached
him, that was good. Time to scare those bastards shitless for a change.

  #####

  The scouts had ridden into the city on small one man sleds, little more than a seat, an engine and a small suppresser field. Even without the sleds' suppresser fields they were nearly impossible to see due to the reflective camouflage of their armor. A cloud of bird-shot sized recon nannies had preceded them, both the scouts and the legion getting their take.

  The scouts had the dual mission of defining the situation and eliminating enemy reconnaissance. The legion's eyes, the scouts were slowly, inevitably, blinding the alien force.

  Behind a low ridge just outside Bayview's landward side, a long line of assault sleds hovered, the men on them professionally calm as they watched the situation on their visors' Heads Up Display. Far out on the flanks and dispersed from their crews, the legion's sixteen centimeasure heavy guns were already targeted for preplanned fires. Terminal guidance of the rounds would come from recon nannies.

  //"We're about ready,"// the Legate sent to the Cohort Commanders. //"They're boarding their armored personnel carriers now. We'll let the situation develop until they're out of the assault shuttles, then it will be our time. Fire Support, target the shuttles first, then the APCs."//

  The fire support officer sent an acknowledgment tone, with no further comment.

  The Legate gave a slight smile. He knew he was being redundant. The FSO was highly capable and didn't need his reminders, but he was the Legate. He could do what he wanted and if he was translating his nervous anticipation into redundancy, he had the privilege.