Portal Wars 1: Gehenna Dawn (32 page)

Taylor had other motivations too. His forces
were short on supplies. There was no way they could sustain another
12,000 men, and even if they had the logistical capacity, there
were no soldiers to spare to guard them. Dragging along hostile
prisoners was a security risk Taylor wouldn’t have considered, even
if he’d had the resources to do it. The only other alternative was
to send them back to Earth…and that was out of the question. Taylor
was determined that any force the Earth authorities sent after his
people would disappear without a trace. There would be no survivors
to tell the tale. He wanted the UN authorities to know fear.

He turned toward Daniels. “Captain, the
prisoners are hereby sentenced to death, to be carried out
immediately. Assemble the forces you require, and see that it is
carried out.”

Daniels snapped to attention. “Yes, colonel.”
His answer was crisp. Taylor hadn’t designated the duty randomly.
He knew that Daniels agreed with him completely. He didn’t make a
habit of excusing soldiers from duty they considered upsetting, but
he knew the magnitude of what he was ordering, and his people had
lost enough of their souls already. Daniels would handle it better
than Bear or Blackie or any of the others.

He watched as Daniels saluted and trotted out
of the room. Then he took a quick look at the others and turned to
leave himself. “Dismissed.”

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.”

Book 7 of the bestselling Crimson Worlds series is
coming out in mid-December, 2013. Almost 200,000 Crimson Worlds
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Tombstone (A Crimson Worlds Prequel)

Bitter Glory (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)