Gates of Hell, page 23
“Disappearing?” Skadi asked.
“Yeah. One clerk mentioned how she hadn’t seen as many people as she would expect.”
“If they’re changing they probably would not go shopping,” Niels said.
“That is what I was thinking,” Vili said. “Any word about us getting out of here?”
A loud buzzer sounded, and everyone covered their ears. The video changed to an alert.
“Attention, full curfew is now in effect. Anyone except Guards on the street will be shot on sight. Hate-filled capitalist fascist elements of the Vapaus Republic have released a virus causing the wonderful citizens of Zhukov City to rebel. Under no circumstances is anyone allowed to leave their home. Guardsmen will sweep the neighborhoods looking for these vile, repugnant, evil dissidents, and they will provide food and critical supplies to our brave citizens. Anyone with special needs should contact their block warden immediately by phone. Anyone with pale skin and red eyes should be reported immediately to emergency services. Failure to comply will result in death.”
“SOG is losing,” Bern said.
“Paska,” Vili said. “Nothing from control?”
Bern shook his head.
Gunfire erupted in the distance. Then the tempo increased.
Skadi looked out the window and watched an armored personnel carrier stop in front of the building but the ramp didn’t drop. Another APC pulled up next to it, both turrets facing the street where Skadi heard the gunfire.
“That’s close,” Vili said.
“Armor up,” Skadi said. “Full kit. Be ready to bug out.”
“What about me?” Vince asked.
Skadi winced. They didn’t have an armored suit for him. All he had were the clothes he was wearing, and they weren’t exactly fresh after the last couple days. “Bern, you need to get Control Otto and tell them we may have to depart quickly; the fighting is starting up just outside our window. We need exfiltration right now.”
“Zen,” Bern said, stripping and pulling on his kit.
Skadi did the same. She kept looking out the window. The two APCs hadn’t started firing, but the fighting down the street was getting more intense.
She was watching the APCs when a figure leapt off the roof of a nearby building onto the nearest one. Skadi zoomed in her view.
It was Hermod, but his skin was pale, and even from her position she could see his red flashing eyes as he leaned over and literally ripped the hatch off the APC turret. In the blink of an eye, he reached in and pulled out a Guardsman.
Skadi stared in shock as he pulled off the Guardsman’s helmet and sank his teeth into the screaming man’s throat.
She expected a spray of blood and she watched as Hermod held tight to his victim. Instead, the Aesir team leader sat back as if temporarily content. Another figure landed next to him and scrambled headfirst into the open hatch, moving with a speed that was unnatural.
Shuddering, Skadi stepped back.
“Hermod is outside,” she said.
“Why does that sound like a bad thing?” Niels said.
“He isn’t human anymore,” Skadi said. She couldn’t get his flashing red eyes and the commander tattoo on his pale skin out of her mind’s eye.
“Paska-lounas,” Vili said, testing the sling retention of his armor.
“I just watched him rip the hatch off an APC,” Skadi said.
“Is he wearing armor?” Vili asked.
Skadi shook her head.
“Paska-lounas,” Vili said. “What do we do?”
“We go to the spaceport,” she said. “We need to get off planet. What does Otto say?”
“Control Otto is not responding,” Bern said.
“Not responding?” Skadi asked, and Bern shook his head. “Do we have a link?”
“Yes, but Otto isn’t listening or transmitting,” Bern said. “We have a connection with five nodes.”
“This is so much worse than Haberdash,” Vili said. “At least there we had a ship to escape to. Do you think we can steal a SOG ship?”
Skadi swore. There would be no way to hijack a ship. She wasn’t about to ditch their armor and weapons.
“Cancel that,” she said. “We head out to the wilderness. We need transport.”
“Do we have the coordinates for any nodes outside the city?” Bern asked.
“Get in touch with Otto and get some,” Skadi said. “We can’t stay here. Everyone and their grandmother will be trying to get to the spaceport to evacuate the planet.”
“Why do you think that?” Vince asked.
“Because that is behind those APCs,” Skadi said. She glanced outside and saw the second APC’t turret hatch had been ripped off, but Hermod was nowhere in sight. “He is gone.”
There was a body lying beside the APC, but Skadi could only see it was wearing a brown Guard’s uniform. The gunfire in the distance was dying off. The shots were coming faster, but there was less of it. It sickened Skadi to realize the SOG was not winning, and for once, she wanted them to.
The Aesir put on their helmets and readied their weapons, scanning the doors and windows. Vince crouched behind Bern.
“The quickest way out of the city is to the north,” Niels said.
“Toward the fighting,” Vili said. “The space port is in the other direction. The creatures are trying to take the spaceport.”
The ground shook and plaster fell as cracks appeared in the ceiling and walls. The video screen flickered and died. It was almost a relief, but the silence was ominous.
“What was that?” Vince asked trying to make himself smaller.
“Kinetic strike,” Skadi said. “A few miles away. That’s very bad.”
“Never thought I’d root for the SOG,” Vili said.
The ground shook again.
“We need to go! Now!” Skadi checked outside. There was no more gunfire but she saw movement in the shadows. SOG Guardsmen did not move that stealthily.
Then she saw someone, or something, break a window on the other side of the street.
Someone kicked the apartment door open, and Vili put a burst from his silenced wire gun into the creature’s head. The creature fell backward, but another quickly took its place. Skadi fired a short burst and it collapsed.
The Aesir watched the door, waiting for another one to come in.
The one Skadi had shot was missing most of its head, but then it twitched and pulled its hands underneath it. Skadi stitched its spine with several rounds, shooting below the base of the skull. Outside, the other one sat up, and Vili shot it in the chest, center mass.
“When you kill them they’re supposed to stay down,” Vili said. “Were those bodies trying to get up?”
The one Skadi had shot was still trying to move.
“Out, now,” Skadi said and led the way out the door. They were on the second floor so they could go out the window in case of an emergency, but Skadi was pretty sure that would be a bad idea right now. Wherever Hermod was, she wanted to go the opposite direction.
Who in their right mind kills by biting a man’s throat? The Hermod she knew was well-versed in weapons. That thing he had become was a bloodthirsty monster that didn’t need weapons.
* * * * *
Chapter Fifty-Two: Spaceport
Gunnery Sergeant Wolf Mathison, USMC
The sun set, and Mathison hoped things would quiet. Transports were still bringing down troops, but as soon as they landed, they headed into the city. From where Patriot was, Mathison could see troops moving around at the edge of the tarmac. The entire starport was now surrounded by a bunker system that was crammed full of Guardsmen. The spaceport perimeter looked like they were preparing for an attack.
Over the bridge speaker, Mathison was listening to Guards units being deployed. Based on what the Guards were saying, a team of Aesir had released a biowarfare agent among the civilians which made them attack the Guardsmen. Anybody with pale skin or red eyes was to be shot immediately and repeatedly. Headshots were recommended because body shots did not always drop the target fast enough.
Instead of things quieting down with the setting sun, Guardsmen were becoming more active. Most of the corvettes had already lifted for orbit except for three that had lost their captains. Mathison was looking at a nearly empty starport. Freya had blocked or delayed several attempts to order new captain’s computers for the ships, and had finally sent the installation teams to a base far from the parts that needed to be installed. The corvette squadron commander was frustrated because he wanted to get his last three corvettes into space.
It was looking more and more likely that the commodore would just write them off because he did not dare come down in person.
Mathison watched the screens as several gunships slid into the sky and headed toward the city.
He felt the first artillery rounds being fired.
“Artillery, Gunny?” Stathis asked.
“I’m guessing things aren’t going well,” Mathison said, cycling through the different screens. Freya had tapped into the spaceport security systems, so he now had access to several thousand cameras.
There was a flash of light and the ground trembled.
“Kinetic strike,” Mathison said. He pulled up a display and saw the impact zone was in the city. The SOG was launching kinetic strikes against neighborhoods now.
“They’re going to lose, aren’t they, Gunny?” Stathis said.
“Yes.”
“Will we get out of here in time, Gunny?”
“Yes,” Mathison said. “We’re much better off than those Guardsmen. We’ve handled those creatures before.”
“Aye, Gunny.”
Mathison didn’t like lying to Stathis. Two Marines, no matter how well armed and equipped, couldn’t stand against hundreds, or thousands, of those creatures. There was interference with SOG communications as well, so the Marines were only getting part of the picture.
“How is the ship’s integrity?” Mathison asked Freya.
“This corvette is an armored brick. We are locked up tight. They’ll need heavy weapons to get in.”
“If they’re pushing back the Guards, they might have heavy weapons.”
“We have received no incoming fire, so I can’t say for sure,” Freya said. “But nothing on the Guard’s channels indicates the enemy is heavily armed. They are numerous and hard to kill, but not well armed.”
“Show me the city,” Mathison said, looking at the holographic plot in the center of the bridge.
The area lit up, showing the city wrapped around a bay. The spaceport was along the shore, where the heavier and more awkward ships could land in the water and dock at piers. About thirty kilometers to the north, the suburbs gave way to forested land, and in between were numerous warehouses, factories, schools, commissaries, hospitals, and recreation centers. Everything looked clean, pristine, and organized. Each block had its own commissary, recreation center, and other community facilities. Several blocks often shared schools and there was an occasional warehouse or factory that separated the blocks. To the west was more ocean, so the city sprawled to the east and then down and around the bay.
Freya began lighting up the different areas.
“Red is what the SOG Guard claims is under rebellion,” Freya said. “SOG-controlled regions are amber. I marked contested areas in flashing red and amber. This data is based on what I can hear. SOG communications are unreliable right now. It may be the attackers jamming communications.”
Mathison looked it over and noticed there was a lot of red. He watched as new areas started flashing.
“It looks like the creatures are waking up and engaging the SOG,” Freya reported. More and more areas flashed. “Communications are getting worse.”
“SOG is getting their ass kicked,” Stathis observed and pointed at an area with a river running through it. “Do they know they’re going to get cut off there?”
Mathison looked at it. There were three bridges, though two looked to be destroyed. There were several amber areas on the far side of the river and the red was moving to capture the last bridge. Freya popped up identifiers showing the SOG 882nd Guards Regiment was in that area. Another unit was holding the bridge. If the enemy made it there, they would cut off the 882nd.
“Maybe,” Mathison said. “Not our problem, though. Maybe they’ll get gunship support.”
Mathison felt a rumble and black spots appeared to show more kinetic strikes.
“Gunny? What if they decide to blow up the corvettes so the creatures don’t capture them?”
“Shut up, Stathis. I’m pretty sure our SCBIs thought about this.” Freya remained silent and Mathison hoped she was busy.
Freya and Shrek had reprogrammed some of the smaller robots so Freya could manage some of the engineering herself instead of relying on Mathison or Stathis. Mathison wasn’t really keen on giving them that much autonomy, but the only other real alternative was death. What had been really awkward was when Freya asked him to bleed a little on the robot so she could infect it with some of the nanites from his bloodstream.
Now Mathison watched the graph and saw the SOG slowly getting pushed back. He listened to the 882nd Guards Regiment get slaughtered after they were surrounded, and he listened to other units screaming for help or mercy as they were overrun but the enemy horde.
“No creatures with telekinesis,” Mathison said around midnight.
“What, Gunny.”
“I have heard no reports of creatures using telekinesis. All the SOG Guardsmen reported that the enemy is fast moving, which makes them near impossible to kill. They look human except for the red eyes and pale skin.”
“And mouths full of razor-sharp teeth, Gunny.”
“Right. The creatures we fought on Nugget and at the secret SOG base were a lot less human.”
“What does that mean?” Stathis asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe the creatures are morphing to be more like humans?”
“But what’s making them change and why?” Stathis asked.
“No idea,” Mathison said as he watched Guardsmen retreat to the spaceport.
Around the space port, Guards engineers began flattening nearby buildings, allowing for better fields of fire. They were getting ready for a showdown. The nearby space elevator was in almost constant motion, going up and down. There were countless civilians huddling around the space elevator, waiting their turn.
“I kind of expected the SOG to abandon the civilians,” Stathis said.
“This is Xray-niner,” a voice said. “We can see at least twenty of them coming at us. We need more ammunition. Where’s our support?”
“Xray-niner, this is Bravo-three,” said another voice. “No support is available at this time. Pull back another block.”
“Negative, Bravo-three,” the first said. “Civilians are still evacuating. We’ll hold a little longer.”
“Negative, Xray-niner,” the second voice said. “You are ordered to pull back, now.”
“No copy, Bravo-three,” the first voice said. “We will hold. Just a few more minutes. Shit. Here they come. There are more than twenty this time.”
“Xray-niner, retreat, I say again retreat!” Bravo-three said. “Xray-niner? Respond, Xray-niner?”
“This is Xray-niner-three.” This voice was hard to hear because of the constant fire of someone nearby. “Xray-niner is dead. We can’t retreat. They cut us off. They are massacring the civilians. We will hold as long as we can. Maybe we can take more of these bastards with us. Long live the Social Organizational Governance!”
“Xray-niner-three,” Bravo-three said, “I order you to retreat. I say again. Retreat! Xray-niner-three, how copy? Xray-niner-three, respond.”
Mathison grunted in sympathy. This was a side of SOG he hadn’t expected. The Guard was fighting hard and had to be inflicting heavy casualties, but they were still dying. Listening to them on the radio, there were plenty of them fighting and dying like heroes. Some were dying a coward’s death, but there was plenty of heroism. Xray-niner was one example of many. Poor bastards.
There were fewer kinetic strikes, but the artillery continued nonstop and the gunships constantly strafed targets in the city.
“Gunny, you need to hear this,” Stathis said, monitoring another channel. “Looks like other cities are experiencing similar outbreaks.”
Mathison scowled as he listened to some general order a retreat from a city with about a million people a couple hours away. All the SOG troops were being pulled back to Guard the space elevator and capital city.
A section of the starport perimeter began firing. Checking the cameras, Mathison saw fewer and fewer troops were coming through the fences. The starport would be heavily engaged by morning.
“If they think it is an infection,” Stathis asked, “why aren’t they checking people coming through the gates?”
“Dunno,” Mathison said. “I haven’t heard of any cases of a person just changing.”
“That makes little sense.”
“Maybe you should go ask one of the creatures.”
“Only if you provide cover fire, Gunny.”
Mathison grunted and went back to listening to the radio intercepts.
The situation got worse.
* * * * *
Chapter Fifty-Three: River Route
Lojtnant Skadi – VRAEC
Hiding in a basement until the fighting passed them by didn’t seem very brave, but then everyone, including Vince, was still alive. Screams from above told Skadi there had been civilians in the building who hadn’t fled. The screaming didn’t last long, though, and the creatures didn’t seem intent on searching basements or attics.
She heard the constant hum of gunships and the pop! of their weapons as they strafed the streets. Artillery slammed into the area, but it quickly moved on, staying close to the active fighting. A small window let them see into the street.
“How could they assemble so many troops so fast?” Vili asked.
