Third Incursion to the Gate to Hell

by Kevin T

Based on the StarCraft II mod Doomed Earth. Revised by NukedaWhales, original by Yoz. In the summer of 1994, Private Chuck Horner of the US Army prepares to journey from to Cordoba to Borborema to seal a Gate to Hell opened there 19 years ago by demons assisted by the British Empire. Two previous incursions failed, and most of the American continent is in ruins because of it.

13. Chapter 13

The next three days saw preparations to move out. There were thousands of wounded to tended to, and some of the worse wounded were stabilized as best as possible and sent with a detachment back to Curitiba. Also, the damaged IBIS walker repaired as best as possible with the tools on hand, though what it really needed was to go back to the factory and be rebuilt almost from scratch. That wasn't possible, and a patched-up IBIS walker would be more use than none at all, and field repairs began on it. Chuck got information about the repairs secondhand. Basically, the right cannon of the poor IBIS walker was completely useless, and its coupling was detached. Its shield generator was broken, and that was discarded. Also, the armor cover for its chest had completely warped and broken off, and its chest-mounted machine guns were discarded as well. But, its legs were still fully functional, and its left cannon and was fully functional, even if without its right cannon it would not be counterbalanced and have reduced accuracy. So, some sheet metal was welded onto its chest to provide it protection from the weather, and thought it still could be destroyed with one more good hit from a void blast. Still, it was too important for fire support and would continue following the army behind the rest of the IBIS walkers to minimize its risk of destruction. Of the five other IBIS walkers, two others sustained moderate damage, but neither had any damage too serious and those were patched up as best as possible as well.

On July 16th Chuck marched out with his new platoon, this time under the command of Sergeant Albert Smith. He was a friendly Sergeant in his early 40s, with black hair, a clean-shaven face, blue eyes, and a slight tan. With such an exciting and nerve-wracking encounter with the Greater Demon it felt like such a thing would be the climax of the expedition, but Chuck Horner was reminded that there was still a very long way to go before they reached Borborema, and he had a long march as well to the next major objective, the city of Barreiras, 1,100 kilometers away. That was still 1,500 kilometers from Borborema, and one way or another it would be months before he ever saw the Gate to Hell. He checked on his map. At least so far he was about 3,400 kilometers from Cordoba, so actually, he was over halfway there. It made him feel a little better and put the long journey in perspective.

So, the army started off northeast, and avoided Brasilia, going north of the city. As they went north, the force encountered sporadic resistance, and had many little skirmishes with demons. But it was nothing the force couldn't handle, and there were no set piece battles. It despite the attacks, it was an uneventful trip. Private Kade was still alive, but he wasn't much of a talker, and they just had a professional working relationship. Without Jonathan Jones to talk to, Chuck Horner kept to himself much more and read more of Deicide. It was fitting that in the aftermath of the successful battle of Rio Verde, Chuck was also getting to the section in Deicide about the changes in American fortunes and the times in the last decade where America began seeing gains in territory rather than repelling invasions or fleeing helplessly from an unstoppable onslaught.