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

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  On the shuttle, the air in the troop compartment suddenly glowed red. Drop coming. Close faceplates and prepare. Passal sounded off from deep in his chest, "ON YOUR FE-E-ET!"

  The time dilation hormone was already in their systems, so the move was made with speed and precision. Passal continued yelling orders anyhow. "ALL RIGHT, INTO LINE. THE LIEUTENANT FIRST, THEN BY TEAMS, SECURITY TEAM LAST."

  All of them lined up on the transport rail that ran down the center of the compartment. Sharon braced herself as the men behind her began to push closely into her back. Passal, taking his place at the rear of the line, shoved the group tighter. A tight group kept a better formation when they landed inside the ship. He was still bellowing. "PUSH IT IN, PUSH IT IN, C'MON YOU PEOPLE, MAKE YOUR BUDDY SMILE."

  Sharon was amused at that then realized what the last phrase meant and blushed instead. She heard the hands slap shoulders up the line from the rear as each man signified his readiness for the drop. When she felt the man behind her slap her shoulder, she announced over the shuttle com net, // "Team ready for drop."//

  The response was a laconic, //"Drop imminent."//

  Sharon felt the lock-down field grab her armor, locking her body and those of her team into position, keeping them immobile and protected for the final frantic seconds of maneuvering. The shuttle was executing a normal combat maneuver, ramming the destroyer to deliver troops. Once the shuttle's nearly solid nose was buried in the target, a drop ramp would be instantly extruded into the body of the ship like a hypodermic, ejecting the Gladii into the lightly armored destroyer’s hull. Speed was vital in this operation, to protect the attacking team and - just as important - to place the team into fighting range of the ship's crew before it could react.

  Sharon knew all of this. No problem. It was what was going to happen at the instant of impact that she dreaded. The grab field would automatically strengthen and secure the rest of her body to protect her from the shock of impact. She didn't relish having her breathing and heartbeat frozen, even for the seconds between initial impact and drop. That was necessary for her safety, but she still didn't look forward to it.

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  In the front, Millen had the Kayelen destroyer fully centered on the main screen. "Going in. Prepare for collision."

  "Aye." Tobarge looked up at the main screen as he acknowledged. His eyes widened as the destroyer grew explosively to fill it, then the incredible shock of impact rocked him in his command seat even though his seat’s grab field had him effectively immobilized. The crash automatically initiated the preprogrammed drop sequence.

  The shuttle was buried half up its armored nose in the outer hull of the destroyer and the drop tube immediately injected itself, stopping at an internal passageway. The troop compartment air glowed a bright green, and the team was launched through the drop tube like an old-fashioned missile.

  Even with her enhanced reactions and thoughts, the drop was almost instantaneous. Sharon landed ready to fight, her B-42's pistol grip in her right hand, butt braced against her upper arm. She sensed rather than saw the rest of the team drop around her and scatter to their positions with the well drilled precision of veterans. Briefly, she noted that even the boys were properly located. She felt a quick wash of disorientation then she was suddenly part of the thousand year old being that was the Gladius, performing the ancient mission of the Gladius. She no longer was apprehensive, only a part of a greater Whole. "Special weapons deploy!"

  Sharon took an instant to orient herself on the destroyer’s schematic the transport beamed to her helmet then resumed giving orders. "Control's directly below us. Boarding tube's below that. Sergeant, open a path."

  "Aye." Sergeant Passal made a brief check to ensure both special weapons teams were headed to the proper ends of the destroyer then grabbed one of his boarding charges and emplaced it where the Lieutenant pointed.

  The boarding charge wasn't an explosive. Instead, it was a product of the Empire's highly developed field technology. It emitted shear fields in a wagon wheel pattern, then immediately bloomed with a presser field that blew the sections back and down, like an opening flower. The one the Passal was using was rated for any material up to two measures in depth. The deck was considerably lighter than that.

  When the field bloomed and the deck peeled downward, the effect was like an explosion in the control room. The point man jumped in after a quick check. The rest followed. Within a few frantic seconds, any Kayelen still alive in the compartment died from precisely aimed bolt fire.

  Sharon didn't waste time looking at the devastation in the control room... or the messy bodies scattered around it. She ordered over her com, // "Seal the breach."//

  On the upper deck, Legionnaire Recruit Kardo took a small field generator from his belt pack and, pressing its adherent surface to the hull next to the breach, activated it to produce yet another energy field acting as an air seal. //"Breach sealed, Lieutenant."//

  //"Aye. Now get down here with us."// Sharon switched channels and commed the shuttle commander. //"Breach sealed. Prepare to undock."//

  Millen replied, //"Aye. Undocking now. Going to hide position until clear."//

  The shuttle withdrew its boarding tube and slid gently to hover near the destroyer's hull. It wouldn’t do to move away from the hull and into the reach of its weapons, not while guns were still active. Not too close either, not with what was coming. All they had to do now was wait, but there wouldn’t be a long wait.

  Sharon switched bands. //"Special weapons. Activate. Advise me when accomplished."//

  The two teams with special weapons fired their crumple charges. Launched towards opposite ends of the destroyer, the two crumple charges created ultra-small, precisely calibrated black holes running the length of the destroyer, crushing everything in their path - ship and crew - into a tiny mass before reaching their preset point of dissolution. With that, nothing remained of the destroyer but the small section holding the Gladii, the boarding tube into the liner, and the assault shuttle on the remains of the outer hull. //"Special weapons fired. Results nominal."// Both teams were back with the rest of the squad in moments.

  Ariel called the shuttle again. //"Feed me a placement on the passengers and the remaining hostiles, if you can get them."//

  Her response was a laconic //"Aye."//, followed by a download from the shuttle's bio sensor suite. The schematic on her helmet visor's HUD wasn't pretty. She saw a clump of human life sources below her in the middle of the liner. Her lips tightened at the low number of those sources, and the random scattering of only a few others aboard the big ship. There were far too few for the size of the liner. It took no imagination to realize what had happened to the rest.

  She superimposed a schematic of the liner’s decks over her image of the main group’s location, oriented herself then passed it over the squad net. "Down we go," she said. "Orient on the central lounge of the liner. We'll have to move fast, so I want to just cut through the decks and go straight in."

  //"Security team,"// she said over her communicator, // "down here now. Follow us through the destroyer. Set up at the mouth of the boarding tube when we get on the liner. Watch our backs when the rest of us drop in on these bastards. Stay out of trouble and keep our way home open."//

  Kardo replied with a crisp, //"Aye!"// He sounded excited, but Ariel didn’t feel like telling him to settle down. That was a decurion's job, anyhow. At least those three would be out of most of the trouble.

  She expanded on her orders as the boys joined them. "That holding point where the passengers are located is our destination. As soon as we get on the liner, I want to assemble on the deck just above the compartment where they're being held. Point, your job is to get us there, understand?"

  The point man replied, "Aye."

  "All right, let's do this!"

  Passal set off another boarding charge, and the unit dropped down through the resulting hole. When they hit the destroyer's deck below, the point man immediately set off
for the boarding tube at a dead run. The rest of the unit followed at a precisely drilled distance, far enough behind to let the point trip any surprises, but close enough to provide support if needed. The point didn't waste any time at the mouth of the Kayelen boarding tube, but dove through it, followed by the rest of the teams. Inside the liner, the men didn't break stride as they ran on towards the designated assembly point. Only the three boys on the security team stopped to secure the tube entrance.

  Several times the Gladii encountered startled Kayelen marines. Surprise made the Kayelens a little slow with their weapons. The Gladii weren't.

  The point skidded to a halt at the designated spot, above the compartment holding the remaining passengers, but one deck above. There was no break in the unit's speed as Passal slapped his third charge on the deck and the rest formed a quick perimeter to let it blow.

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  The Kayelen marine lieutenant was disgusted with his assignment, but still following orders. The terrified mob he'd assembled in the compartment didn’t seem to contain the two females he was sent to find, so they were just so much useless garbage to him. Those damned females were proving hard to find, and the Captain's last transmission to him was showing the beginnings of irritation. Bad. This assignment was choice, but failure to accomplish it with his customarily smooth efficiency would earn him a large black mark with the ship's commander. Not good for the future of his career. He ground his dental ridges in frustration at the inability of his search teams to find the women.

  One of the terrified mob under his men's guns chose that moment to scream something at him. Like every educated being, he was fully conversant with the standard language of the galaxy, Imperial Unispek, and this was not the moment to call him a murderer. As he'd already done several times on this mission, he drew his sidearm and shot the offending human, blowing off the woman's head.

  Some of the blood spattered on a female child standing to his front and the accursed little beast began screaming. He was training his pistol on the child when a grown female, evidently the child's dam, snatched her up, followed by a male that tried to hold both of them and place his body between the frustrated lieutenant and his family. With a snarl of rage, the lieutenant crossed swiftly to them and, slamming the male out of the way with the butt of his pistol, cracked its barrel over the female's brow then snatched up the child by its hair.

  He had only a vague idea what he was going to do with the noisy little monster, only that his frustration needed an outlet. He’d finally decided to jam his pistol into the open mouth of the screaming brat and pull the trigger when the thin thread holding the Sword of Damocles over his head parted.

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  As the boarding charge opened up the deck, his lieutenant, to Passal's complete aggravation, immediately jumped into the hole without so much as a look. Damn it! That was how wet-behind-the-ears lieutenants got killed!

  In the seeming slow fall to the deck below, Sharon had enough time to take in the situation below her. She let her B-42 begin to snap back to her armor as she threw her weight toward the Kayelen and the little girl, thinking out what she was going to do when she landed. She hit the deck in front of him, cushioned by her no-weight belt, and spun to her right, her wrist dagger in her hand. With a smooth backhanded slash, she neatly severed the Kayelen's throat to the spine and grabbed the child with a scooping motion of her left hand before the little girl could fall. Continuing her spin, she pitched the girl to one of her troopers and continued her rotation, turning it into a side hand throw that buried her dagger in the chest of another of the marines. She used the tractor-presser bracelet on her wrist to pull it unerringly back to her hand. The rest of her troops were already on the deck and firing, killing the remaining startled marines before they could return fire.

  After a wary survey of the compartment, ensuring no Kayelen remained a threat, Sharon slowly rose from her crouch and raised her helmet visor. "Corps of Imperial Gladius," she shouted in Unispek to the room at large. "Are there any ship's officers here?"

  A stocky competent looking man in uniform got slowly up from among the still shocked mob of passengers lying on the deck and made his way to face her. Privately, he was a little dismayed to discover she was a woman, and a small one at that. Then the dead Kayelen, her armor, and the imperturbable Gladius calm registered. Things were going to be all right! The Corps was here! "I'm Esterhazy Line Lieutenant Commander Parcalus, Lieutenant, ship's First Officer" he told her with a relieved grin. "Damn, I'm proud to see you."

  "Lieutenant Ariel, Lieutenant Commander. How many more are there?"

  "This," he said as he spat on the Kayelen's corpse, "had search teams out looking for somebody. We don't know who. I think most of the teams are still out."

  "We'll get them," she said to Parcalus. "Thank you, First Officer." Turning to Sergeant Passal she reverted to Copio as she passed her orders. "Detail a team to guard the passengers in case some of the marines return. The rest of us will run a standard search and destroy pattern on the Kayelen"

  Passal nodded and raised his own visor, mildly amazed he still had a lieutenant. "Aye. ...If the Lieutenant will permit?"

  "Yes?" Sharon answered curiously, slightly lightheaded and elated at the so-far successful mission. She was now truly a combat commander!

  The decurion leaned close and hissed, nose to nose with his officer, "If the Lieutenant lives through another crazy stunt like jumping down a hole without a check, the Sergeant will kick her ass as soon as they are back on the ship, understood, L.T.?"

  Sharon gulped, her face beet red. "Understood, Sergeant," she said in a small voice.

  Passal straightened, saluted and replied in a loud voice, "They will not see the dawn."

  Sharon forced her face into a proper Gladius imperturbability. Passal's little sermon had brought her squarely back to reality with a thud. "Aye. Carry on, Sergeant."

  Passal was just turning away when their extended mental linkage brought them the same message. Sharon was a little slow understanding. Passal wasn't. "Lieutenant, it's the boys!"

  He spun to the rest of the unit. "Ramas! Your team stays here and protects the citizens! Rest of you, up and haul ass!"

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  As the unit was leaving to rescue the passengers, the three boys quickly - if a little raggedly - fell into a standard triangular security perimeter. As the oldest, sixteen year old Kardo was by unspoken consent the team leader. He checked the positions of the other two and repositioned Smythe slightly to give him more cover in a recessed hatchway. Kardo really wanted to be where the action was and looked a little wistfully in the direction of the departed troops. On the other hand, he was mature enough to realize securing the way out was vital. With a sigh of resignation, he settled into his own position and began scanning the empty passageway.

  It was after his third - or maybe tenth - visual check of his two team members that he heard the scream. It came from far down the passageway opposite where the troops went, but the reason was obvious. A citizen was in danger! Instead of calling in the situation to his commander, the boy made a rookie's mistake. An instant's quick thought and he was up, nervously shouting orders. "Something's wrong down there! Smythe, you stay here and guard our back! Chofal, with me!"

  Smythe watched the other two speed off down the passage way with a little resentment then realized he was being left on guard while they settled the problem down the passageway. His chest expanded slightly as he settled his B-42 more comfortably against his shoulder. Whatever happened, nothing was getting past him.

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  One of three Kayelen marines had Lana with one hand in her hair and one arm around her neck. The girl could only struggle helplessly and scream. Clarine, on the other hand, was standing, frozen in shock as her daughter was forced into the stateroom and thrown roughly at her. The two women huddled together as they stared fearfully at their captors. It took Clarine's mind a moment to begin working again and try to think of a way out the situation with a whole skin.


  In the corridor outside, the two young Gladii were moving silently towards the open door of the stateroom, following the noise. When it died down, Kardo judged there was nothing happening for the moment. He knew that if the screams began again, it meant something bad. The silence was giving him a few moments for him to set up for their move, whatever it was going to be. He knew the textbook way to enter a hostile room and he saw the other boy remembered his own training. Go in fast, hard, instantly assess the situation and use a maximum of violence. Kardo also remembered the tough old decurion telling him it was also an excellent way to get killed.

  Not knowing what was on the other side, he decided to lead with his ax. A wrist flex, and his tractor-presser bracelet snatched the weapon silently into his hand. He raised his ax slightly and Chofal motioned readiness with his B-42. Kardo took a deep breath, nodded at his team mate, then ducked through the open doorway, throwing as soon as he had a clear target.

  The problem was there were three marines. Kardo's ax took out the first, returning smoothly to his hand in a perfect throw. Chofal's bolt caught the second marine, but the third had time to raise his weapon and fire. The Kayelen's bolt was a glancing blow, but the breastplate fragmented, knocking Kardo backward with a hole in his side. Chofal's second shot took out the marine.

  Chofal immediately knelt and unsnapped the damaged breastplate, ripping off the rest of Kardo's upper body armor and his helmet. Armor could staunch wounds, but not one that big on the torso. Quickly sizing up the wound and noting the armor fragment embedded deeply below his teammate's rib cage, he grabbed the first aid kit from his equipment belt, breaking a treatment capsule in the wound and swiftly bandaging the hole. It looked bad, and there was no telling how close to the heart the long sliver had penetrated. Kardo was already shocking out on him and he didn't know what to do. Plug it and pray to the Lord Above.