Portal Wars 1: Gehenna Dawn (15 page)

Black let out a deep breath. “To protect
Earth.” He paused. “To save everyone back home from the Machines.
Better we fight them here than in New Hampshire…or Philly or New
York.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve heard it all before. Hell,
I’ve said it all at least a thousand times.” He hesitated, looking
down at the floor. “Why didn’t they just nuke the Portals?”

“What?” Black had a confused expression on
his face. “What are you talking about?”

Jake was still staring at the ground. “If the
Machines are such a threat to mankind, why didn’t they just destroy
the Portals on Earth…lock the Machines out.” Black was just staring
at Taylor. “I know it would have been a huge scientific loss, but
we have men fighting and dying on almost 40 planets now, and people
starving at home because of the massive cost of it all. Is it worth
it?”

Taylor looked at Black, saw the confusion,
the surprise. This was something they’d never discussed before. “So
when they say we’re fighting for Earth, that’s bullshit. Isn’t it?
We’re fighting so they can exploit the science and technology on
the Portal worlds. I’m not saying that’s not a good thing, but
fighting to save the race sounds a lot better, doesn’t it?”

Black didn’t have an answer. For any of it.
He’d never considered what Jake was talking about. His perspective
on things tended to be grittier, less philosophical than Taylor’s.
“Whatever, Jake. You may be right about all that. But we fight for
those boys coming through that Portal. Because whatever you and I
think, they’re still gonna keep coming.” He blurted it out loudly.
“Those stupid, clueless kids who couldn’t manage to stick their
hand down their pants without help.” He stared at Taylor, a hint of
desperation in his face…a need for Taylor to agree, to
understand…to acknowledge at least one reason their sacrifices
weren’t in vain. “Do you know how many of them you’ve saved in ten
years, Jake?”

“Have I? Have I saved any of them? Or just
pushed their deaths back a few months, or a year? Have any of them
gone home, Blackie? How can you save someone from death when
they’re already in hell?”

Black just looked at Taylor. He didn’t know
what to say…or what to think. Everything Jake said was true. It was
stuff they all knew but never let themselves think about. But
Taylor’s defenses had crumbled. He was thinking the unthinkable,
about the things that could destroy him, rip from him the fragile
false hope the veterans of Erastus created for themselves. Black
was really beginning to worry about his friend.

The two sat quietly for a few minutes, each
deep in his own thoughts. Finally, Black broke the silence. “Jake,
I can’t give you the answers you want…I’m not sure anybody can.” He
sucked in a lungful of air and exhaled it slowly. “But you’re my
friend. You make this place more bearable for me…for all the guys.
And you’re right…we’re all lost men, condemned.” His voice was
thick with emotion. “But I don’t want to die, Jake. Not yet. I
can’t explain why I want to live. It’s not hope. Maybe it’s just
pure animal self-preservation instinct. But if you make one day
something I can live through…I am grateful for that. If you save my
life so I can live another month, year, whatever…I’m grateful for
that too. Even if I live that extra time on this shithole of a
planet with no hope of anything better.”

Taylor moved his eyes slowly upward toward
Black’s. “Thanks, Blackie. I’d have never made it this far without
you and the guys either.” His voice was wistful but sincere as
well. He let out a hard sigh. “Don’t worry about me, old friend.
I’m just having a bad day.”

Black stared back at Taylor, a suspicious
look on his face. “Are you sure, Jake? It feels like there’s
something else bothering you.” He paused, staring inquisitively at
his companion. “I’m here for you. You know that.”

Taylor smiled, reaching out and lightly
slapping Black on the shoulder. “I’m alright. Just feeling like a
whiny little bitch today.” He held the smile for a few seconds.
“Don’t worry about me. Like I said, I’m just having a bad day.”

“You sure you don’t want me to stay? I was
going to go over this month’s logistics report, but that can
wait.”

“No, I’m OK.” Taylor looked over at Black.
“Really. I just need some quiet.”

Black stood slowly. “OK, Dog.” He turned and
started toward the door, still clearly worried. “Call me if you
want to talk. Or just hang.”

“I will.”

Black nodded and opened the door.

“Hey Blackie.”

Black stooped and turned around. “Yeah,
Jake?”

“Did you ever know someone who went to a
reeducation facility?” Taylor looked intently at his friend, the
fragile smile gone.

“Sure, I guess.” Black was staring back at
Jake. “A few.”

Taylor spoke softly, almost without emotion.
“Did you ever know one who came back?”

The room was silent.

From the Journal of Jake Taylor:

Strategy and tactics. Two words that
are often used – incorrectly – as synonyms. In reality, they are
two very distinct things, managed by entirely different personnel
within a military organization.

The science of tactics is grittier,
closer to the ground. Tactics is about how to achieve specific
objectives. Generally more focused than strategy, it can still vary
enormously in scope. Five men deciding how to take a hill is
tactics. An army of 10,000 planning a major battle…that is tactics
too.

I knew nothing about tactics when I
walked through the Portal; in fact, I knew almost nothing military
at all. But when they put me in the line, I just seemed to
understand somehow. It was normal to me, right from the beginning,
like it was all just common sense that anyone could see. Then I
began to realize that things that were obvious to me were complex
and difficult for many of my comrades. I could tell good ground
from bad…my instincts on when to attack, when to pull back…they
seemed to be right most of the time.

Tactics is like art…you can train
someone, teach them all the fundamentals, but you can only make
them good, never great. There’s something inside that makes a
natural tactician. If you don’t have it, you can learn, but you’ll
never become more than unimaginatively competent. The Machines are
like that. They know everything we do, but they just don’t have
that spark to maximize it. They know how to maneuver; they don’t do
stupid things…but they’re limited, predictable. Given anywhere
close to comparable numbers and resources, I can beat them every
time.

Strategy is different. I use tactics
to win an individual engagement. The high command uses strategy to
decide when and where I should fight that battle. Strategy is the
science of managing part or all of an entire conflict…or even a
series of wars taking place over many years. For example, UNFE HQ
has a strategy for pacifying Erastus. The commanding officers
direct troops all over the planet, with the ultimate goal of
searching out and capturing the Machine production centers. When
the last one is taken or destroyed, the war on Erastus will be
over.

Like with tactics, there are
multiple levels of strategy, each dealing with successively larger
problems. At the top, UN Central directs the overall strategy of
mankind’s war with the Tegeri. They allocate resources to the
various planetary theaters, and they direct the development of new
weapons and systems. Like the Supersoldier program. UN Central’s
strategic planning determines which planetary battle zones get more
supplies. They decided to launch Supersoldier on Erastus. They
could have done it on Frigida or Corealus or Oceanus, but for some
reason, they picked us. That was a strategic decision.

The gift I possess for tactical
operations never extended to strategy, or at least I was never
placed in a situation where strategy was in my control. Large-scale
logistics, planetary allocations of resources…I always felt such
things were beyond my understanding. For years I didn’t question
any strategic directives. I just did my best to execute the orders
given to me. I considered anything outside my immediate area of
operations to be a waste of time. But recently I’ve begun to think
about the bigger picture, and I don’t like what I see. Things don’t
add up. There’s more to UN Central’s strategies than it appears at
first glance…I’ve become certain of that. I’m starting to think
we’ve all been lied to far more than we ever imagined.

Taylor stared at the enemy positions on his
visor. He squinted, trying to get a good look at the flickering
projection. He hit the controls and darkened the visor, trying to
keep out the light so he could get a better view of the images.
Both suns were up, and it was bright out, even for Erastus.

The drone feed could provide direct neural
input to his NIS, but that was one of the mods that didn’t work
quite the way it was supposed to. He’d be able to see the images in
his mind, but there were side effects, ones he didn’t want to deal
with in battle. He had 2 reinforced battalions to handle, and a
battle to fight on difficult terrain. Now wasn’t the time to risk
dizziness, nausea, and disorientation. The visor projection would
be just fine.

The terrain was worse even than he’d
expected. The walls of the gorge rose almost 500 meters on both
sides of the dry riverbed running along the bottom. The waterway
that had cut its way hundreds of meters through the rocky ground
had been dry for at least 50 million years according to the
geologists. But its handiwork remained…a deep gash in the ground,
running for over 20 kilometers. The whole stretch was difficult to
traverse, with sheer cliffs in some spots dropping 350 meters or
more.

It was called Devil’s Claw Canyon. He
thought, as he often did, about how this place got its name.
Stupid, he thought…how do these spots end up getting such silly
monikers? He didn’t come up with a good answer; he never did. Men
liked to name things…that was the most he ever deduced. The canyon
didn’t look anything like a claw…not from the ground, certainly,
and not on the drone feeds from the air either. He could only
assume some grunt had imagined it looked like something the devil
might have scraped into the ground with his claw. That wasn’t a
very good explanation either, but it was the best he could come up
with. The devil and other hellish images were always popular for
naming conventions on Erastus. That never surprised Taylor…the
place was as close to a vision of hell as his mind had ever
conjured.

In ten years, Taylor had never been sent
anywhere on Erastus that didn’t already have a name. He wondered
how many more years he’d have to fight before he got to give
someplace its title. Probably never. Maybe it was the prerogative
of those first waves coming through a Portal into the teeth of an
entrenched enemy. If so, he thought, it’s the least those poor
bastards deserve. Taylor knew it was rough when UN Central first
invaded a new Portal world. He didn’t know just how bad, but he’d
heard a few rumors he wished he could forget. Though UNFE denied
it, Jake had been told more than once that the life expectancy for
newbs during the first month of the war on Erastus had been 31
hours.

He shook himself out of his daydream and
focused again on the data feed from the drones. It wouldn’t last
much longer…they’d put up a dozen of the sophisticated aircraft,
but there were only two left. As soon as the enemy targeted that
last pair, he’d be blind again. He could launch another spread, but
his supply was limited, and he wasn’t planning to burn them all
this early.

His objective was the bottom of the canyon.
It was the only route within 3,000 klicks that offered terrain
passable for a large force…and it led directly toward the largest
Machine factory yet discovered on the planet. The ground closer to
the enemy base was rugged, too broken for transports to land. The
only practical avenue of attack was a march right through the
canyon.

But the riverbed was perfect ambush country
too, and the enemy was dug in all along both sides of the canyon.
Taylor and his people had to clear them out completely and take
undisputed control of the heights, or any force moving through
would be hit from both flanks and destroyed.

“They’re really dug in there, Blackie.”
Taylor’s voice was grim. A lot of his boys were going to die in the
next few hours.

He stood quietly for a minute, maybe two,
then he let out a loud sigh. “Alright, Blackie…sitting around
here’s not going to accomplish anything. Let’s kick off this dance.
Send in the Dragonfires.” Taylor’s people were only getting one
pass from the gunships. The canyon was a deathtrap for antigravs
making low-level attacks…and the battlefield was too constricted
for effective higher altitude support. Long-range fire would hit as
many friendlies as enemies once the battle was underway.

Black switched on his com. “Raptor, Condor
squadrons…commence attack run. Blackhawk squadron, assume covering
position.” That was 12 gunships inbound, weapons blazing…and six
more protecting them from enemy air units.

“Frantic’s strike forces will move out under
cover of the bombardment.” Lieutenant “Frantic” Young was leading
two reinforced strikeforces set to move up the north side of the
canyon. The ground was less steep there, and his people were going
to climb up and hit the enemy flank. Taylor paused, waiting while
Black relayed that order as well.

“When do we grab the heights?” Black turned
and looked right at Taylor. The 213th was dropping onto the edge of
the canyon. Taylor and Black had a special affection for their old
unit, though there weren’t many guys left there from the old
days.

Taylor hesitated. He was worried about the
drop. The personal antigravs were a new system, never before tested
in combat. If everything went according to plan, the strikeforce
would jump from hovering transports, dropping slowly – and safely –
to the ground as the antigrav harnesses slowed their descent.
Tested or not, the drop was the only way he could get men up there
quickly, so the 213th was going in no matter what.