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

  Camille returned the salutes, then added, "Yes, but we are going to need you in the future. Come back!"

  Sergeant Passal nodded. "That is also in our mission orders, Major."

  #####

  Thirty minutes later, Camille impassively stood in front of the small formation, hiding her nervousness at the situation with the ability of lifelong discipline. Every survivor of the legion was there in the massive assembly bay, watching and silently sending their support, but she ignored them. The destroyer was close to locking onto the liner and they needed to be moving. Timing was critical to the success of her plan. She regretted the time needed for the inspection, but it was a vital necessity, not a formality. Every Gladius knew time taken checking now meant less to go wrong later, when mistakes and problems could kill. Besides, she had to give them Release.

  Lieutenant Ariel marched forward to position herself in front of her superior and salute. "Assault unit ready for inspection, Major."

  Camille returned the salute. "Aye."

  Sergeant Passal joined them once they marched to the formation and began to walk down the first rank. The troopers were arrayed in standard formation by three man teams, two teams each in the first two ranks and one in the third. Camille noted the boys made up the rear rank team, as befitted juniors.

  Ariel and her troops were in combat armor, fully equipped for the drop including B-42 shoulder fired bolt guns resembling the ancient "bullpup assault rifle", holstered pistols, battle axes and short swords hung from their left hips. Their refractive armor and the equally refractive camouflage woven into the cloth of their kilt covers kept the troopers' outlines shifting and blurred, but inspecting men hard to see was an old task for Camille. Visors were up, so she could clearly see the professionally expressionless faces, even the repressed eagerness of the boys.

  It amused Camille slightly that Ariel had to wear the standard combat pants of a Gladius woman, or at least she was supposed to be wearing them. Only women in combat training wore the pants universally detested by every female Gladius. She wore them only until her combat mission, the Virgin Mission, was complete, then the pants were burned with great satisfaction. Camille enjoyed the feel of her full skirt and envied the men the regulations that made their kilts combat as well as garrison uniform.

  Camille remembered her Virgin Mission and the way she dodged the requirement to wear pants by wearing complete lower body armor. It hid the fact she'd left her pants in garrison. It amused her to note that, while the men wore full upper body armor with thigh guards and greaves under their kilts, Ariel was in full upper - and lower - body armor. Camille was pretty sure what that meant.

  Two sets of practiced eyes scanned every trooper as they stepped in front of each one. Gratifyingly, nothing was out of order. Passal was both competent and thorough, a good decurion. Even the boys were properly kitted out, although their less than full growth meant they were probably wearing some adapted portions of women’s armor.

  Ariel escorted her back to the front of the formation, where the two stopped and exchanged salutes. Ariel returned to her position and Camille faced the formation. "All right," she said. "We haven't got any time for speeches. Current situation is that both the liner and the destroyer are sub-light and we'll be in normal space by the time you launch. You've all been briefed and Sergeant Passal has done an outstanding job getting you ready in a hurry. You only need to know one thing: The Predator is out there, attacking those we swore to protect. The Predator thinks we can no longer offer that protection.

  "I expect you to show the Predator that it's wrong before it dies. Save those people in that liner, then come back. That is your mission."

  Ariel saluted, her right arm across her chest, flat hand palm down. "Aye. We have seen our enemy and we know him." She took a knee.

  Camille returned the salute and gave the utterly important traditional reply. "He will not see the dawn."

  Airel's soft soprano finished the ritual as she rose. "We have release."

  Camille gave her final command. "Lieutenant, load your troops on the shuttle.”

  The Lieutenant stood and did an about face. "Sergeant Passal."

  "Aye." He saluted.

  "Board the troops."

  "Aye."

  Gladio alieyo. The battlecry. The Gladius was again coming to protect the weak.

  #####

  In the shuttle's troop bay, the squad took its places on the long benches that faced each other along the shuttle's walls. The seating made it easy for Passal to see the faces of his men and keep one diplomatically close eye on his new lieutenant. It was her first drop since training, so it behooved him to pay close attention to that most ancient of all noncom responsibilities, Keeping the Lieutenant from Screwing Up, at least until she got her feet under her and the shit started flying. In Passal's experience, junior officers that didn't get themselves killed in the first few minutes generally settled down to do a creditable job and normally survived the fight.

  He wasn't really worried about the rest of the troopers. The men were all veterans and the boys were going to be put where they could hopefully live through this triple damned mess. Still - Lord Above help him - he had a new Lieutenant that required his full attention if he wanted her to live through this mosh fuck, three Recruits on a Virgin Mission, half the men he needed, and an enemy of unknown strength. Shit. Another wonderful day in the Corps.

  Sharon was also dismally aware of her lack of combat command experience. She rocked in her seat as the shuttle shifted onto the loading conveyer. Its jerky movements up the loading belt shook all of them as it was shifted up the stages into the launching tube. Why the hell couldn't the Fleet use something that moved a shuttle smoothly?

  She began to worry what to do next. She'd done this in training, but that was a long time ago. For that matter, her Virgin Mission was a dismounted raid, bush banging, long marches, and all that sort of thing. Boarding actions weren’t her area.

  What to do next?

  Help came with a gentle nudge in her rib cage from Sergeant Passal, carefully hidden from the rest of the squad. She leaned over and whispered in his ear, "What do I do, now, Sergeant?"

  "Not to worry, L.T.", he whispered.

  Sharon thrilled for a second to hear herself awarded the ancient title of a Lieutenant commanding a combat unit.

  "Just tell me to get us set up. I'll do the rest. Follow my lead."

  She nodded and looked at the rest of the troops, seated a small portion of the jump seats that ran the length of the troop compartment. The experienced men had the expressionless, slightly bored air of veterans about to do something they knew was dangerous and probably stupid. The boys wore expressions that were almost burlesques of those the men wore, but their enthusiasm clearly showed through the facade. For a moment, Sharon was melancholy. Those boys were about to get their first experience at the Gladius hereditary trade - war. She didn't envy their loss of innocence.

  "Sergeant Passal, take charge and prepare the troops for the drop."

  The sergeant nodded to her. "Aye, Lieutenant."

  Quickly turning to the rest, he said, "ALL RIGHT YOU MOTHERLESS BASTARDS, LISTEN UP! Secur-r-r-e..."

  Sharon wasn't entirely sure about the phraseology of Passal's commands, but the reaction from the troops was swift. Hurriedly, she grabbed the clasps of her own harness.

  "...Harness!" Satisfying collections of clicks answered the command. Everyone, including Sharon and her sergeant, raised their right hands to signify their harness was secured. After a careful scan of each man and a close check of his lieutenant, Passal continued, "Prepare for Launch!"

  Passal watched carefully as each trooper hugged his chest and braced his feet on the raised and angled foot plates running along the shuttle’s troop bay floor. The low power grab fields in the benches held them securely, but the damn fields weren't strong enough to completely offset the maneuvers of a wild assed pilot. Passal hoped to the Lord Above that their pilot was wild assed. Wild assed kept you alive.
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  The shuttle made a final lurch upward and a loud tone buzzed raucously in the air, followed immediately by the pilot's voice, "Launch imminent. Is the unit secure?"

  Passal made the reply. "Unit secure. Launch at will." There was a breathless pause, then WHAM! The shuttle was fired from the launch tube and they were on their way to a visit with the Kayelen to discuss Imperial law. Passal settled himself on the bench and spent some time stewing again about taking out that Kayelen destroyer with the pickup crew he had, including three virgin underage troopers and a Lieutenant that might as well be Virgin. He was truly thrilled.

  #####

  In the cockpit, Warrant Pilot Millen and Fleet Ensign Tobarge swung the shuttle into an approach curve towards the Kayelen ship. The Ensign had experienced the "juice" before, the electronic linkage between himself and the ship's computers that raised his mental speed and physical reactions to a level that matched his equipment, but this was his first time under combat conditions. It was a bit unsettling.

  Fleet Ensign Tobarge was acting as the shuttle's Electronic Fields Officer and this was first real assault mission. He'd boarded the escaping transport because he was still young enough to be idealistic about the Fleet. He looked up from his monitors for a moment and saw the Kayelen destroyer had already locked onto the liner, boarding tube extended. "Chief," he said, in a slightly uneven voice, "they've tied onto the liner."

  Millen, intently watching his projected approach curve on the forward monitor's tactical display, only grunted. He had well over his thirty combat drops. He was on the carrier and on this flight because he was third generation Fleet and believed in what it stood for, not that he'd ever say so. "Watch your suppresser, Ensign. We don't want those bastards to see us until we're right on them. When we drop those boys in back into the destroyer, I want those assholes to wonder where in hell they came from. Understood?"

  Tobarge gulped and nodded. It suddenly dawned on him that the shuttle's protective screens and suppresser field, both under his control, were all that stood between him and death. Then he realized the Gladii in the troop compartment were all that stood between the liner's people and death. People. He was trying to save people. Quietly, the nervousness and fear left him. A calm something else took their place.

  Millen glanced at the youngster and saw the change in his expression. He nodded with satisfaction. The kid was settling down. Then he set himself to hit the tightest attack curve he could fly without suppresser field bleed-through. The assault shuttle had an inertial negator the size of a corvette's and any good pilot tried to push its envelope. Millen considered himself a damned good pilot. They were about to hit the machine's limits on this one, he thought, then some. There wasn't time for anything else.

  #####

  Inside the troop compartment, Sharon gave a quiet order, one she remembered well from her Virgin Mission. "Link up."

  One of the secrets of the Gladius was a genetic modification made back when the legions were first being created, an extra lobe of the brain. That lobe existed in most humans today, but it required training and some modification to use completely, one of the more important parts of recruit training. The lobe had many functions, including releasing time dilation hormones into the body that speeded up thought and reactions in the same manner as the electronically induced "juice" used by Fleet command crew.

  The lobe had other uses - ESP, for instance. Where other militaries or races used sensors, Gladii just knew. Gladius units also worked with a smooth coordinated precision previously unknown in war. The secret was an ability born in this extra lobe. You couldn't actually talk back and forth, but each Gladius still knew where all the rest were in battle and what they were doing, a priceless advantage. Privacy, courtesy, and tradition required the mental linkage be restricted, but it was a part of any combat operation. Like now. Sharon could feel every member of her small strike team fitting into her thoughts like pieces of a well-designed machine. The Link became alive with awareness as each member joined.

  Passal checked and they were ready, even the boys and the lieutenant. Passal began the traditional game of all Gladii riding a shuttle on a drop. With a flip of his wrist, his tractor-presser bracelet snatched his ax from its holster and into in his hand. His gesture was immediately matched by the rest of the team, except the lieutenant, who used her arm dagger. Ought to make the game interesting. He banged the butt of the ax on the seat frame next to him and half sang, half chanted the traditional ax game song, "Oh-h-h, my mother was a lady..."

  With the last word, he snapped the ax through the air at one of the others, catching a thrown ax in return. Each Gladius did the same, banging the butt on a seat stanchion, and the ax game continued, chanting and throwing.

  #####

  Ensign Tobarge glanced at the troop compartment monitor and gulped nervously. Those axes they were throwing would cut through the shuttle’s heavily armored skin without stopping. There was even a dagger flying around. The edge of every one of those blades was tipped with a monomolecular shear field that would literally slice through anything. The short swords were also enhanced, but he didn't care about them. They weren't being thrown. He knew about the games, but watching made him jumpy.

  Millen also glanced at the screen, but didn't worry. He had enough to think about and those robots never missed anyhow.

  #####

  On the troop carrier's bridge, Camille watched the target in the main screen. A lifetime as a Gladius told her what was happening aboard the liner, but she shut the pictures from her imagination. She could only hope they were in time to save as many as possible. "Lieutenant," she said in Unispek, "prepare to open a com channel to the Kayelen."

  He looked at her in shock for a moment and she returned the look calmly. "Don't worry, I haven't lost my mind. But I fully intend to tell them we're here."

  She smiled the frightening battle smile of the Gladius. "I will talk to them, but they will not enjoy the conversation."

  Slowly, Kavasos nodded. "As you say, Major Paten."

  Carefully, Camille watched the shuttle's icon on the main screen arc along the plotted attack curve, its end terminating squarely on the destroyer. Timing. Timing was everything. There!

  "Lieutenant, open com channel."

  Kavasos nodded to a rating that touched a sensor on her board. "Channel open. I have a response. They've accepted communication."

  The picture in the main screen faded, replaced by the command deck of the destroyer, the surprised figure of its captain looking back at her.

  Behind Camille, Staff Sergeant Tna Elanta had quietly coupled the sole remaining brushara’s transmitter to the ship's com. The sound from the electronically amplified ram's horn was normally loud enough to injure everyone on the command deck and break everything when it was blown. The coupling would transmit the sound to the destroyer without anyone on the command deck hearing more than a muted tone.

  Elanta's parents, husband, and children had paid the Gladius Price on Tombele. Now a Predator was within range. Maybe not the same Predator that took her family, but still the Predator. She was proud to be the here now, preparing to sound the brushara, the Battle Shout. Normally, only the brushara bearer of a Cohort could perform this honored task, but that young Gladius was dead. His mother would do his duty for him.

  Camille looked in to the Kayelen captain's eyes. He tried to match her hard, utterly cold eyes. He couldn't do it.

  "Hellspawn," she said tonelessly into the silence. She spoke Unispek and knew the Kayelen would understand. Every educated being spoke it.

  "Hellspawn, look at me. You know who I am."

  The captain drew strength from the fact that he was facing a small human female, even if she did wear that damned uniform. "I know who you are, but I also know you're beaten, you and all your kind."

  "No," she replied quietly. "Never beaten. We die, but we are never beaten."

  The captain gave an elaborate Kayelen shrug. "So you die." He smiled unpleasantly. "I can promise you that if you stay.
"

  "Hellspawn," she replied, her words frighteningly soft and even, "I will stay here and I will come for you. You are attacking Imperial citizens, and the penalty for that is death."

  The icon of the shuttle was almost at the point where the destroyer's sensor suite would burn through the shuttle's suppresser field. Now was the time. Just hold the captain's attention a moment longer.

  She drew herself up and her chin jutted forward aggressively, the immemorial unconscious gesture of a Gladius about to do battle. "Hellspawn, I see you and I know you. You crawled through the Gates of Hell to threaten citizens. You thought you were free."

  The Kayelen stared at her, fascinated, unable to reply.

  "But you forgot one thing...

  "The Gates of Hell have guardians. The Gladius is coming for you. Gladio alieyo."

  The last was said quietly and in Copio, the language of the Corps, but it raised hives on the Kayelen captain's skin. He knew what it meant. The Gladius is here.

  Behind the captain, a sensor tech said loudly, "COLLISION ALERT! Incoming vessel at 6-2-4-5 mils relative to course, ascension 0-9-5-0 mils!" The incoming bogey was to their front left and just above them.

  He whirled, but before he could shout an order, Camille gave a command she never thought she'd ever give in her lifetime. Only a commander of a Cohort or a legion ordering Gladii into battle could order the sounding of the Battle Shout, the brushara. Well, she was now the commander of what was left of a legion, ordering it into battle. So be it. In a firm, steady voice, she gave the ancient order, "Cattan na brushara." Sound the Battle Shout.

  Taking a breath, Elanta set the brushara to her lips and blew. The transmitted blast of sound scrambled every electronic device on the destroyer's bridge and stunned the bridge crew as surely as a direct hit from a heavy weapon.