Portal Wars 1: Gehenna Dawn (24 page)

The screen showed a small village, nestled in
an idyllic valley. New Earth was a beautiful world, not a hell like
Erastus. There were fields and forests…and deep blue rivers
crisscrossing the landscape. But there was something wrong in the
image Taylor was watching. Columns of smoke rose from the small
cluster of buildings, and people were running, screaming…trying to
escape the fiery death raining down on their tiny community.

There were soldiers attacking the town. They
wore bluish-gray fatigues with black body armor. Those are
pre-Consolidation UN troops, Taylor realized. He was sick to his
stomach watching the soldiers bombarding the town, raking the
peaceful hamlet with mortars and hyper-velocity rounds.

Small units detached from the main forces,
pursuing the colonists who escaped the village. The terrified
civilians ran for a nearby wood, but they were mowed down by
automatic weapons fire. Not one of them made it 100 meters from the
dying village. Taylor watched them die. He saw a child, no more
than 5 or 6 years old, stumbling, fleeing…holding his own severed
arm in his hand.

He wanted to weep, to give the victims the
tears they deserved, but his mechanical eyes couldn’t cry. He
watched as the soldiers advanced, checking the bodies, finishing
off any that were still alive. This wasn’t a battle…it was
methodical genocide. Taylor felt the sickness coming. He lurched
forward, onto his hands and knees, emptying the contents of his
stomach onto the polished stone floor.

“No,” he spat out. “This isn’t true…it is
your video that is fake.” He said it, longing for it to be true.
But inside, he already knew. Everything T’arza had told him was the
truth.

The Tegeri remained silent, clearing
empathizing with the pain Taylor was feeling…the shock at the
revelations he’d provided. “Jake…” He spoke softly, slowly. “…I
understand this is a terrible discovery.” He paused, giving Taylor
a few seconds to focus on what he was saying. “You were chosen very
carefully for this contact. We have examined many of your people
before selecting you. I fear that I am laying upon you a great
burden.”

Taylor was silent. His mind was racing, but
not a word came to his lips. He just stared at his alien companion,
a numb expression on his face.

“We are prepared to offer you one more proof
of our sincerity, Jake Taylor. Even as we speak, our forces are
withdrawing from this planet. Within four planetary days, we will
be gone from the world you call Erastus.”

Taylor was shocked again. He sat quietly,
trying to get some perspective on all he’d heard. He could hear the
sound of his heart beating in his ears, feel the weakness in his
legs. “What am I supposed to do?” His voice was weak, throaty.

“I cannot tell you that, Jake.” T’arza spoke
softly. “I do not know the answer. You must find this yourself…you
must take what I have told you and decide how to proceed. Our
peoples have fought an unnecessary and pointless war for far too
long.”

“But I am one man.” Taylor’s words were a
plea. “What can one man do?”

“One man can do much. As I said, you have
been chosen with great care. You are an extraordinary
representative of your species, both in fighting ability and
intelligence. You also have a number of less-easily defined
qualities.” T’arza walked closer. “You are capable of far more than
you might imagine. And you inspire an especially potent form of
loyalty from others.”

Taylor looked up, staring at the Tegeri. He
opened his mouth then closed it, once again without saying
anything.

“There will be no more war on Erastus. You
will have the opportunity to communicate with your fellow
slave-soldiers, to spread the word…and formulate whatever actions
you wish to take.”

Taylor winced at T’arza’s choice of words. He
was about to object, but then he thought, he is right…what are we
but slaves? “Actions? What actions? What can a few soldiers
do?”

“You will have to decide that, Jake. It is
only knowledge that I can offer you.” T’arza paused. “It is
important that you understand the truth in all of this. Do you
still doubt anything I have told you?”

Taylor sat quietly for a few seconds,
thinking, trying to get a grip on his emotions…to think rationally
about what he’d been told. As he thought, he became more and more
convinced. It all made sense to him. “No.” He spoke slowly quietly.
“I don’t doubt any of it.”

“I will give you a few solitary moments to
collect your thoughts.” T’arza moved toward the door. “Then I will
return. I have more to share with you. I will provide you with my
people’s full knowledge of the Portal network. It is far more
extensive than your people know. Your neural implant will retain
the knowledge for your use. Perhaps one day it will be useful to
you.”

Taylor watched T’arza walk through the door.
Then he bent over and vomited again.

From the Journal of Jake Taylor:

Betrayal. It is a common story
throughout human history, one all too familiar. Yet rarely has
there been so shocking a revelation of perfidy as the one T’arza
made to me.

It was a lie. All of it. Everything
I fought for. All my men suffered and died for. A waste, a
deliberate fraud perpetuated so a group of politicians and
diplomats could seize power. It is all I can think about. It
consumes my thoughts by day and through every sleepless night. I
feel as if it will drive me mad at any moment.

The Tegeri didn’t start the
war…their Machines did not attack the human settlements. They had
come in peace, to teach the colonists the secrets of the Portal
worlds. And they had been attacked by secret UN forces. The whole
thing, forty years of war and incalculable suffering…all to create
a crisis, one the UN’s leadership could use to annex the remaining
independent nation states. Even worse, it was continued for
decades. Why? Because it was useful to keep the masses in line?
Because faced with an ongoing threat to mankind’s existence, people
will meekly accept whatever is imposed on them? It was a deliberate
plot, a creation of minds so monstrous, I cannot comprehend such
creatures. Or perhaps now, I can.

I felt empty, violated. My
parents…my brother. The family I lost. Beth, my sweet Beth. It was
all for nothing. I was taken from those I loved and consigned to
hell. Even my humanity was stolen from me. For nothing save to
further base political corruption, the lust for power of a group of
men not worth the life of even one of my soldiers.

The things I have done claw at me in
the night, the horrors I have inflicted…on my own men…and on an
enemy I have misjudged, one that didn’t deserve my hatred. The
Machines weren’t an evil foe, seeking to destroy humanity. They
were victims, unwilling warriors trying to defend the Tegeri
against ruthless invaders…my men and I, and thousands like us.
Their blood is on my hands now.

Ten years of war. A decade of
bloodshed, of death. Ten years in hell, fighting an alien enemy, an
adversary I long believed to be evil, ruthless. I have wronged the
Machines, the Tegeri. My men and I, unwittingly, have become all we
hated about our enemy. Our cause was the unjust one, not theirs; we
were the aggressors, the killers.

The Tegeri released Taylor, just as T’arza
had promised. He was dropped 10 klicks from the battlefield, with a
canister of water and a day’s rations. It was just after the small
sun set, during the first twilight of the day. The second twilight,
when the large sun passed below the horizon, was the coolest time,
but it lasted less than an Earth hour. T’arza had carefully chosen
the moment of Jake’s release. Taylor was tired, and struggling to
assimilate what he’d been told, but the effects of the Tegeri stun
weapon were gone. T’arza wouldn’t let him leave until the last of
the symptoms had passed.

The transport carrying him had come in low,
escorted by a dozen gunships. The Tegeri had gone to great lengths
to choose Taylor, and they weren’t about to get him shot down by
his own people when they were trying to release him.

He started to walk slowly. He was really
feeling the heat, even though it was far from midday. He’d been so
confused, so disoriented, he hadn’t even noticed that the room
where he’d met T’arza was considerably cooler than normal for
Erastus. It wasn’t Gregor Kazan’s air conditioning, but it was a
hell of a lot more comfortable than the blasted rock and burning
sands he was now traversing.

Ten klicks wasn’t that far by most standards,
but it was a long walk in the searing heat of Erastus. Unsure of
his stamina, he moved deliberately, not wanting to tire himself out
too quickly. Overdoing it early, exhausting yourself in the middle
of the desert…that was the surest way to get killed on Erastus.
He’d explained it a thousand times to rookies. They didn’t all
listen, but Taylor kept trying.

He could hear faint explosions…the sounds of
battle in the distance. His men were still fighting. He was pretty
far away, but the noise was random and sporadic. Whatever was going
on at the front, it didn’t sound very intense. He moved toward the
noise, but he got less than a kilometer before he heard the
antigravs moving toward him. The gunships were pretty quiet for
aircraft, but when you knew what to listen for you could hear them
coming from a distance.

He ran toward a small cluster of rocks,
instinctively looking for a place to hide. He was halfway there
when the sound of his com exploded in his ears.

“Jake!” The voice was immediately familiar.
“Jake, is that you?” Taylor recognized Bear Samuel’s slow southern
drawl.

“Bear?” He stopped running and turned to
watch two of the gunships land. “What the hell are you doing on a
gunship?”

A team poured out of each of the antigravs,
fully armed and equipped. They formed a perimeter around Taylor,
weapons drawn and aimed outward, ready to defend their commander
against any threat.

“I was looking for you…what do you think? We
were almost ready to give up on you. Everybody but Blackie. He’s
got MacArthur’s people out scouring the entire area for you.”

Taylor saw his massive friend hop out of the
gunship and run toward him. “Goddamn, Jake…I’ve never been so happy
to see anybody in my life.” Samuels threw his massive arms around
Taylor and gave him a colossal hug.

“It’s damned good to see you too, you big
oaf.” Taylor’s voice was strained. “Now let me go so I can
breathe.”

Samuels took a step back. “What the hell
happened, Jake? Everybody in the command post was unconscious when
we finally got through those incendiaries. Nobody was seriously
hurt, though. And you were the only one missing.” The big man
stared at Jake with a confused look.

“It’s a long story, Bear.” Taylor was looking
past Bear, toward the battlefield. “But first, what’s going on with
the battle?”

“It’s the damnedest thing, Jake.” Bear put
his hand behind Taylor, herding him gently toward the gunship as he
spoke. He wanted to get his newly found commander to a secure
location as quickly as possible. “The bastards just up and ran.
They abandoned every position.” Jake could hear the surprise in
Samuels’ voice. “It’s the closest thing to a rout I’ve even seen.”
His face morphed into a bloodthirsty smile. “Blackie’s got the boys
hot on their heels…and the rest of MacArthur’s birds will be
hitting them in a few minutes. We’re gonna blow them to hell,
Jake.”

“No.”

Samuels stopped and turned toward Taylor. “No
what?” He was completely confused.

Taylor stared back at him. “No pursuit, no
air assault. I want all units to stand down immediately.”

Samuels stood silently, a dumbfounded look on
his face.

“Do you understand me, Bear?” Taylor’s voice
was cold and grim. “Immediately.”

“Sure, Jake…I mean, yes, sir.” Samuels yelled
through the open door of the gunship. “Raise Major Black right
away.” The individual coms had a limited range, but the unit in the
Dragonfire would reach Black wherever he was on the field. “Tell
him we found Colonel Taylor.” He paused for a second or two, a
puzzled look on his face. “Advise him that the colonel orders all
units to stand down at once. Repeat, all units are to cease attacks
and stand down immediately.”

Bear turned back toward Taylor. He looked
completely lost.

“I’ll explain it all, Bear.” Taylor reached
up and grabbed one of the handholds on the antigrav, pulling
himself inside. “But let’s go find Blackie and the others first.”
He smiled, an odd expression on his face. “I only want to go
through this once.”

No one said a word…they just stared back in
shocked silence. Jake Taylor, Ten Year Man, Supersoldier…the
invincible warrior of Erastus was telling them to let the enemy go.
The Machines were withdrawing across their entire line, abandoning
their entrenchments. Taylor’s forces were ready to pursue…and
MacArthur’s gunships were rearmed and standing by to attack and
annihilate the fleeing enemy. Everything was perfect…the entire
army was ready to utterly destroy the Machines facing them. But
Taylor was in command, and he said no.

“Jake…” Blackie’s voice was strained. “…I
don’t know what’s up with you, but do you realize the shitstorm
we’re gonna get if we let them get away?” He didn’t want to push
Taylor too hard. He didn’t know what to do.

“Fuck it.” Taylor’s voice was cold,
emotionless. “I don’t give a shit what HQ wants.” He turned and
looked at Black with an icy expression. “My order stands. All units
are to stand down.” He was silent for a few seconds. “And I will
shoot the first officer who disobeys.”

Black stared silently at Taylor, trying to
find his voice. He was Jake’s best friend, but he felt like he
didn’t know him at all right now. What the hell is going on, he
thought…what happened to him out there? Black had assumed Taylor
got stunned or disoriented during the attack on the command post
and wandered into the desert. But now he started to wonder what had
really happened.