Gates of Hell, page 2
All the vehicles were neatly parked, not that there were many, mostly automated farm tractors. Most of the bikes were near the houses, which again indicated evening, as people were settling down, going about their chores, children returned from school, or adults returning from work at the commissary or manufactories. Maybe whatever had happened occurred at sunset or shortly after?
“Nobody,” Ailne said. “Nothing.”
“Zen,” Hermod said.
“That school, though,” Ailne said. “It’s the only building we haven’t really gotten a good look inside.”
Hermod checked his overhead view and plotted a course. The school wasn’t quite in the center of the village, City Hall was, but it there were several buildings surrounding it.
Both manufactories were quiet with full resource bins. It looked like they had run through the night and nobody had arrived to empty them, or the night shift had been otherwise occupied.
“No blood stains or sign of combat?” Hermod asked.
“I’m not seeing anything,” Ailne said.
Hermod was sure the school was a trap. But what kind?
If satellite imagery from Valkyrie 19 was any clue, all the villages and the main colony center were also empty of people.
“Are you picking up any networks or anything?” Hermod asked John, his network intrusion specialist.
“Low level maintenance networks only,” John said. “No traffic that doesn’t appear automated. I’m not picking up any other communication or data networks on any bands. Just the maintenance. It would take me a while to get in. They have the newer firmware, from the looks of it, much harder to crack. There’s also some odd static, but that could be sunspot activity.”
“How long to crack into the network?” Hermod asked.
“Probably five or six hours,” John said. “But then we’ll be able to see anything on the maintenance networks. Not sure what that will get us, though. They have upgraded since we were here last.”
Hermod nodded. If there were easy answers, or the SOG really was that incompetent, this war would have been over decades ago.
“Ailne and I will take overwatch,” Hermod said. “John, Rorik, I want you to see what is in that school building.”
“Zen,” his team echoed. Hanz’s icon on the heads-up display blipped, indicating he was paying attention and acknowledging what Hermod was doing.
Cautiously, as if they were being watched, both John and Rorik slipped into the town, while their drone hovered overhead, watching. Seconds later, Ailne sent up another drone to do a wider sweep around the two Aesir.
If it not for their IFF beacons, Hermod would have lost track of them. They had their camouflage active so anybody looking with human eyes would only see two ghosts crawling or sprinting from hiding spot to hiding spot. In seconds, they were hidden by the buildings and Hermod had to follow their progress with the drone. Ailne was an expert and kept the drone moving around, watching for any movement, any observers, any other drones.
Both her drones were newer model Aesir stealth drones and should be undetectable to most SOG sensors. With a free market and an innovate or die incentive, the Vapaus Republic was steadily pulling ahead of the SOG in technology, despite the teeming hordes of scientists the SOG employed.
At any moment, Hermod expected SOG gunships to appear on the horizon with drop shuttles to pour hordes of brown-uniformed Guardsmen into the region. Drone fighters would be the first sign.
The two Aesir made it to the school without incident. They peered the windows.
“No lights,” John said, and Hermod watched as they tested the door. “It is unlocked.”
“Proceed with extreme caution,” Hermod said as he watched John check the door for booby traps before inserting a wire-cam so he could look around without opening the door any further.
A minute later, John pulled open the door. With Rorik at his back the two disappeared into the building. Ailne’s drone followed them while the second drone stayed outside and slid into the sky for a better view of the surrounding area.
The sun would soon set in the distance, which didn’t worry Hermod in the slightest. Aesir gear had no problem with the dark. The only people inconvenienced the dark it would be people without night vision equipment. The dark would make him feel better, less exposed, less visible to any spy satellites in orbit.
At this time of year near Epsilon Village, the nights were almost as long as the days. Hermod had originally planned to set up a patrol hide near the town so John could crack their systems and make sure there were no surprises. If everything had been clear, the Aesir would have approached in the morning. But nothing about this mission was going according to plan or expectations.
Hermod switched to John’s view inside the school. No signs of damage, no signs of struggle, no blood spray or drag marks.
Had the SOG rounded everyone up and sent them off to some ideological assessment or re-alignment camp? It wouldn’t be the first time, but they usually didn’t take every person on the planet. The current population of Green Hope was around thirty thousand, spread out in about twenty villages or towns. Nothing unusual for a SOG colony and difficult for sedition to take root on the scale required for a purge.
John peered into each room as they passed them. All the shades were down, keeping everything dark.
Large, reinforced double doors blocked the entrance to the gym. As John and Rorik approached, Hermod’s heart began beating faster, but he couldn’t put his finger on why. There was something behind those doors he didn’t want to see, he just knew it. He was half tempted to tell the two Aesir to pull back, but they still needed to know what was going on.
The gym was a special affair in most towns and villages. They were usually sunk into the ground and designed to serve as emergency shelters. Hardened from radiation, storms, and most natural disasters, it was a safe space in each village. Frequently, the city hall also had emergency shelters, but the schools, tasked with educating, indoctrinating, and protecting the future generations of socialist slaves, maintained shelters for children.
The sun set, disappearing over the horizon as John began checking the gym door. It was silent except for the movement of his Aesir. John slipped the wire-cam under the door and it bumped into something soft, something that might have been cloth. Or a body.
With their weapons aimed at the door John turned the latch.
Both doors opened and several bodies fell at John’s and Rorik’s feet. They backed a couple steps; Hermod jumped even though he wasn’t there. The two Aesir were disciplined enough to not shoot the bodies, but Hermod wasn’t sure he could have held his fire. There were bodies everywhere, men, women, and children. It was likely everyone from the village was here.
“I nearly pissed myself,” John said.
“What the hell happened?” Rorik asked looking around.
John knelt to look at the nearest body. It was a boy, maybe fourteen or fifteen, with bleached hair. His nearly closed eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling.
“Rigor mortis hasn’t completely set in,” John said, lifting a hand. There was resistance and it fell slowly. “But I would say he’s been dead for over six hours.”
Hermod triggered John’s biological warfare sensors. The Aesir battle dress was fully self-contained and should have reported any problems but it didn’t actively scan for biowarfare contaminants.
“Thanks.” John examined the boy. There was blood on his shirt and arm, like he’d been bitten near the neck and on the arm, puncture wounds rather than something trying to eat him.
“Injected poison?” Rorik asked. “That could affect rigor mortis, I suspect.”
John nodded as he looked at the other bodies. It was impossible to step into the gym without walking on the corpses.
“See how he died?” John said. “He was leaning against the door. He couldn’t have been stacked in there. He died there.”
“So, is it still in there?” Hermod said, more of a statement than a question.
“I’ve got nothing on thermals,” Rorik said, looking across the ceiling to see if anything was hanging there. “No movement at all.”
“Hermod, this is Valkyrie 19,” the Eversti said.
“Go,” Hermod said.
“We might have a problem,” Halko said. “I just detected a transition. It’s reading as a medium ship, maybe a light cruiser. I’m going to pull 19 back to the rally point. Keep your head down.”
Hermod cursed silently. “Zen.”
If this was some SOG test of a biological agent, Hermod had confidence in Republic biowarfare protocols and defenses, but why would the SOG do such a thing? The people of Green Hope weren’t seditious or in rebellion, they just needed medical supplies the bureaucracy was slow to give them.
But what was up with the puncture marks? Not much blood had been spilled from the puncture marks. A drone?
John turned on a light, and Hermod thought the bodies looked extremely pale. There was a speck of blood on the boy’s lips. John reached down and pulled back a lip.
“Hermod?”
Hermod focused on what John was seeing. The boy’s teeth were misshapen, almost sharp, the canines more elongated. “This kid is not normal. Is there some new dental fashion or something in the colonies I haven’t heard about?”
“I haven’t heard of anything.”
John reached up and shined his light directly on the boy’s face. He pulled back an eyelid and revealed a solid black eye. He released it and it slid closed. “Now that is creepy.”
“You should check others,” Rorik said. “The kid’s a teenager; they do some really weird things these days. Heck, in my day they did weird things. Back in school on Gimli, cylinder Gama, there was a craze for a few years where it was all the rage to have purple skin and gold eyes.”
“I remember that,” Hermod said. “Damn. I didn’t know you were that young. I visited Gimli and thought we were being invaded by aliens.”
John lifted an eyelid of an older woman. It was also midnight black.
John leapt back. “Shit!”
“What?” Rorik brought his weapon to his shoulder.
“Man,” John said, obviously trying to relax. “I thought I saw her eye move.”
Hermod triggered thermals. Nothing. All the bodies were room temperature. They were dead.
The boy opened his eyes and looked directly at John.
John’s and Rorik’s suit sensors logged movement within the gym.
Eyes opened and heads turned to look at the Aesir.
* * *
Valkyrie 19 lost their link with the Aesir team in a wave of static.
* * * * *
Chapter Three: Homestar
Gunnery Sergeant Wolf Mathison, USMC
Wolf Mathison set his face to make it easier to hide his disappointment as the shuttle slid into the hangar. There were no windows and the video links for passengers was disabled for security reasons. Not even Skadi had access. If there was an better way to stroll into a trap, Mathison was hard pressed to think of one.
The Republic Executive Council had to recognize he and his Marines were a danger. When it was decided they were no longer worth the risk they would be killed instantly. Though Skadi and Sif were pretty calm about the Marines being allowed on a homestar and did their best to mask their confusion and uncertainty, nobody, including Mathison and his Marines, thought it was a good idea. While he couldn’t find an exact reason not to trust the council, that little voice was warning him that right now, without a ship of their own, the Marines were at the mercy of their hosts. There was nobody they could appeal to for arbitration or rescue.
Curiosity drove Mathison forward. Skadi and the other Aesir had described the homestars as sprawling city-ships in space, hiding between the stars, mining the remnants of exploded stars, and hiding from the SOG battle fleets that hunted them. He imagined the people of the Vapaus Republic were starving refugees, crammed into ghetto-like starships, eking out a bleak living while their Aesir and Vanir raided and fought the SOG to bring back critical supplies. It sounded like a life of hardship, danger, and little reward. What did they eat? How bland was their diet? Would that be a life worth living? Could he and his Marines find happiness and a future as refugees aboard an ancient starship on the run from the most powerful regime in history?
Skadi had mentioned how obsessive the Vanir were about security and how seriously they took their mission. They could even overrule the Executive Council in certain circumstances, but this time the Executive Council had overridden the Vanir to bring the Marines to Asgard, capital homestar of the Vanir Republic.
Politics had never much interested Mathison except how it related to his Marine Corps and the wars he fought. Presidents came and went, some had stupid policies, some were smart, some betrayed the armed forces, other didn’t. Regardless, American presidents were only there for four or eight years before government policy took a sharp turn in the other direction when the other party took power. Both parties did their best to reverse the gains and policies of the other, keeping the United States on a road to the future, if one imagined the driver was drunk and couldn’t decide which shoulder of the road they wanted to crash on.
In the United States, there were good years and bad, depending on how the driver swerved, but in the Vapaus Republic? There was probably at least one secret police force. It made sense for a government to have multiple agencies that did similar jobs. Like the Army and Marines. Keeping them in competition kept each from becoming dominant and pushed them to be better.
Too many thoughts went through Mathison’s mind as he waited for the hatch to open. Would there be secret police operatives ready to escort him and his Marines away, to dissect them and remove their SCBIs? Skadi had insisted that Mathison and his team wear sidearms, but they would be worthless against heavily armored opponents.
Skadi was like Mathison, or so it seemed, in that she spent little time involved in Republic politics. She was a warrior, and her enemy was the SOG. Any information that did not have bearing on her ability to wage war was secondary. She seemed as clueless as Mathison why the council wanted to see the Marines or why they would risk the Vanir’s wrath by violating their precious security protocols.
The tattoo on Skadi’s eye was back, advertising she was an Erikoisjoukot Special Operations Team Leader. The big hulking masses of Niels, Bern, and Vili were nearby. A giant warrior princess guarded by other giants. Mathison felt strange being near other men as large as he was. Next to them, Stathis seemed tiny in comparison, and Sif was almost unnoticeable. The Aesir were armored, their battle dress showing the parade colors of black and gold. Sergeant Levin had managed to color coordinate the Marines with dark blue and scarlet, to set them apart from the Aesir. They were as close to Marine dress blues as Levin and Stathis could manage. Wearing armor made Mathison feel a little better, but it would offer little protection against blazers without the trauma plates.
Mathison felt like a peacock on parade. Freya had interfaced with his suit and used the settings Levin had set up to add her own touches, such as rank, ribbons, and medals. Mathison thought it looked like a salad had exploded over his heart. To Mathison’s surprise even Stathis had ribbons that went past a single row: National Defense, Combat Action, Papua New Guinea campaign, space service medal, sea service medal, space combat service award, a Navy unit commendation, North Africa Expedition medal, and a meritorious unit commendation. Far too many for a mere private, and almost as many as Chief Winters. Levin also had a small salad on his chest, but then Levin had been a Raider for years. Usually, that space on their armor was reserved for rank insignia and the eagle, globe, and anchor. It let people know their Marine rank, and there was little else they needed.
Had Stathis really been around that long? He had been in a line infantry battalion for several years before coming to the Raiders. Mathison knew he had been busted back to private once or twice, maybe three times, but Stathis was clearly better traveled than he acted.
The medals felt gaudy and pretentious to Mathison. It wasn’t like anyone would recognize the awards, and it wasn’t like they would be given any new ones, though the SCBIs had taken certain liberties with the space service and Papua New Guinea ribbons.
Skadi looked at him and nodded. She seemed satisfied. Mathison wanted to scowl. Gunnery sergeant was a staff NCO rank. Dealing with civilians shouldn’t be in his job description; that’s what officers were for or someone from public affairs.
Damn it.
Mathison glanced at Winters. She was an officer, and she was supposed to outrank him. Could he push her to the front and have her deal with this circus?
The hatch finally slid open, and a chilly breeze blew through the cabin. Skadi and the other Aesir shuffled to the door.
“Are we allowed to get drunk, Gunny?” Stathis asked.
“Is there a way I could keep you from getting drunk and stupid?” Mathison asked.
Stathis pursed his lips and thought.
“Sure, Gunny,” Stathis said after a moment. “But I don’t want you to be unhappy. I learned early that the only happy gunny is a frothing-at-the-mouth-screaming-his-head-off gunny. Since I’m your only private, I have a lot of work ahead of me. It’s a big responsibility, and I take it very seriously.”
Mathison took a deep breath and opened his mouth, but what could he say to that?
He was saved from responding by following the Aesir or getting left behind.
The nice, clean, brightly lit shuttle bay might have been the last thing Mathison expected. The bay itself was big enough for several large shuttles, but currently their shuttle was the only one in it. Large, double doors slid open, and Mathison saw a welcoming party start toward them. The welcoming party comprised of two Aesir wearing their battle dress without trauma plates, which Mathison understood was like wearing their day-to-day utility uniform.
