Portal Wars 1: Gehenna Dawn Read Online Free PDF Page A

easy.
    Taylor sat quietly while Doc finished up. The
light in the treatment room was glaring, the strips on the ceiling
augmented by several focused spots. It wasn’t as bright as Erastus’
two suns at high noon, certainly, but it was an unpleasant change
from the welcome dimness of the rest of the base.
    Taylor didn’t utter a word about Cadogan
until Evans was almost done. Then he worked up the courage to ask
what he’d been wondering, what all the guys had been wondering.
“How’s the lieutenant, Doc?” There was a nervous edge to his voice.
Taylor had been hesitant to ask for a number of reasons, not the
least of which was that he wasn’t sure he was ready for the
answer.
    Doc let out a long sigh. “He’s not good,
Jake.” His eyes met Taylor’s. “There’s a decent chance he’ll pull
through, but even in the best scenario he’s looking at a long
recovery. At least a year. Maybe more.” The surgeon paused again,
his eyes dropping, looking down at the floor. “And I doubt he’ll
ever be 100% again. Without a miracle, he’s done in the field.”
    Taylor sat quietly for a few seconds before
he slid off the table and started getting dressed. It just wasn’t
right. He hated casualties…despised the whole bloody slaughter…the
waste of good men. He blamed himself for his own KIAs, reviewing
every aspect of each mission over and over, trying to figure what
he’d done wrong, or what he hadn’t done…why his soldiers had died.
It wasn’t entirely rational, and deep down he knew it. But it
didn’t matter. That was just who he was.
    Jake was lost in his thoughts, and he almost
walked out without another word. He caught himself at the door and
turned. “Thanks, Doc.” He swung his arm around. “It feels better
already.” He paused. “And let us know about the lieutenant, will
ya, Doc?”
    “Sure thing, Jake.” Evans’ voice was
soft…sympathetic and sad. “But I doubt anything will change for at
least a few days.” Doc was looking down at the table, slowly
putting away the instruments he’d used. “But Cadogan’s a tough old
bird.” The lieutenant was old to the grunts he commanded, but Evans
was at least ten years older still. “He’ll make it.”
    Taylor nodded and ducked through the door
into the hallway. The lieutenant wasn’t his responsibility, and he
didn’t blame himself like he did with his own men. But Steve
Cadogan was one of the best combat officers he’d ever known, and it
twisted him in knots to think of such a good commander – such a
good man - going down because of a botched assignment. He could
reconcile with losing someone like Cadogan in a straight up fight,
but he knew that’s not what the combat on Blackrock Ridge had been.
The whole thing had been one administrative fuck up after another,
and Taylor knew no one would be held responsible. Cadogan might
die, but the planning staff officers would cover for each other.
They weren’t lifers on Erastus like Jake and Cadogan…or even Doc.
They were UN permanent staffers doing two-year rotations onplanet.
They had return tickets through the Portal and political patronage
and careers waiting back home. None of them were about to let the
deaths of a few footsoldiers interfere with any of that.
    Jake knew why there were men fighting on
Erastus. He hated the pus-sucking Admins from New York and Geneva
who treated the combat troops with callous disregard, but deep down
he believed in their cause. The Machines, and the Tegeri who built
and commanded them, were mankind’s enemies, a deadly alien menace
who would destroy or enslave humanity…unless men like Jake and his
brothers stood in the breach and barred the way. The methods UN
Central employed to conscript soldiers or blackmail them into
volunteering sickened him. But he couldn’t blame them for the war.
He even had to acknowledge that, however imperfect the methods had
been, the UN Consolidation had saved Earth from invasion, mankind
from defeat. The individual