For the first five or so minutes, they rode in silence.
Jack stared out over the miserable hellish wastelands that surrounded them, unable to keep his attention inboard. It was just so...bizarre. So other. Mainly it was that crimson sky that was doing it. And the strange rock formations they were passing every now and then. They were basically granite boulders, or they appeared to be granite, but they also had these weird, shimmering red and blue veins growing along them.
And he could swear he saw what looked like red coral out there, growing straight up out of the rock and black sand ground.
Green was the first to break the silence.
"So I was wondering if maybe we should all talk about how we got here," she said. Jack looked back inside, at her, ahead of him in the driver's seat. "I mean, we're all here for a reason. We all fucked up. We all did something."
A beat of silence passed.
"Guess I'll go first," Green said. "It's really embarrassing, so I'm sure it'll make all of you feel better. I got drunk."
"What?" Jack asked, the word coming out of him before he realized he was going to say it.
Green chuckled. "Yep. Drunk. About a year and a half ago I was on duty over in...shit, I can't remember. Estonia, Czechoslovakia, somewhere around there. The region was hot with local 'freedom fighters' who were really just anarchist assholes looking to loot, pillage, and plunder anything and everything they could. But it had been quiet for close to a week around my firebase. And I just...needed a fucking break. I thought I was going to snap. I'd been tense for so long, and I'd just received news that my husband was tired of waiting for me, as I'd been stop-lossed fucking three times in a row. So...yeah, it was a bad time. I'd just signed the divorce papers digitally and I knew I was going to freak out if I didn't do something.
"So I got drunk. And ended up, uh, accidentally shooting the munitions reserve. Most of it was stable stuff, but enough of it was unstable that it blew a good sized hole through the munitions building. No one was hurt, thank God, and there were no real repercussions, but at that point they really didn't know what to do with me. They didn't want to get rid of me, but they could tell I was pretty messed up, emotionally, and I was liable to do something stupid like that again. So they had to put me somewhere else. Really, it was bad press. That's all they care about now: press. The public eye. So I got rotated up here, to Mars," she explained.
"I got half my squad killed because of a bad call," Jennifer said after a moment, and her tone indicated that that was all she was going to say about it.
"Oh...I'm sorry," Green replied.
"Yeah, me too."
Green looked in the rearview, her eyes meeting Jack's briefly. He sighed. "I was ordered to fire on a building that we thought held some insurgents. I was doing some scouting, saw civilians in the building, lots of them. Tried to report it, but my superior didn't care. I disobeyed orders, went in there, found nothing but civvies. No guns between them. Nothing. We would've bombed forty innocents just trying to hide into oblivion, but my superior didn't care. All he saw was that I made him look bad, and he had a lot of pull. Dad was a Senator, uncle a General. He squawked until they decided to do something, sent me up here."
"Damn, that sucks," Green muttered.
"Yep. Especially considering what happened...what about you, Stratton?" Jack asked.
"Nothing too special," he replied. "Got into a fight with my superior over something stupid. Fist fight. He was an ass and he was riding all of us over every little goddamned thing. You know how some guys can get. I just...snapped one day. Landed me out here." He shrugged. "But I'm not entirely sure I regret it."
"How do you mean?" Jennifer asked.
"Well, before, it was all just bullshit, you know? We were all fighting these endless little wars. Fight 'cause the politicians or the corporations or the bureaucrats told us to. It was a waste, just a huge waste, of time, of resources, and mainly of life. We were all killing each other over nothing. But up here, these demons, these freaking monsters? That's evil. That's something worth laying your life on the line for. That's something worth fighting for, worth killing for, worth dying for. It feels like we're doing something that matters for once in our long, stupid, bloody history."
"I know exactly how you feel, Stratton," Jack said.
"Same," Jennifer said.
"Yeah, I hear you there. At least we have a very clear-cut goal here. No ambiguity, no uncertainty, no moralizing. Just kill, kill, and kill some more, because these things are pure fucking evil," Green said.
They drove on.
It didn't take much longer to reach the Slough of Despair. Jack didn't even know what a slough was, though he didn't like the sound of it. And he didn't like what he saw, either. Dead ahead were two big walls made of black rock with shining red veins running through it. These walls, parted in the middle, were a good thirty or forty feet tall.
"Get ready, I'm taking us in," Green said.
So far, they could see nothing, but that didn't mean there wasn't anything there. And the way beyond the walls was a blind spot, since there was another wall almost directly in front of it. Jack and Stratton slotted their weapons through the openings in the sides of the ATV and Jennifer spun up the minigun. The ATV moved slowly through the opening, coming into a small ingress. There was just enough room to turn, either left or right, to get around the wall dead ahead of them. It seemed to be a pillar of some kind.
Jack had his SMG ready for action, trying to see if there was any movement out there. They made their way into another courtyard beyond, it being beset on all sides by more of those obsidian sheers. Jack spotted three openings, one dead ahead and one to either side, as well as the vague makings of what might have once been a simple research camp.
And then, suddenly, seemingly from everywhere at once, the hordes of Hell attacked.
Demons, Imps, and Z-Sec zombies spilled in from the three openings, and from overhead, a small flotilla of Lost Souls and Cacodemons descended.
"Fire! Fire!" Green shouted, and above them, the minigun roared life, spewing out a stream of red hot metal death as Jennifer brought it around them in a slow arc. As Jack opened fire, putting a few rounds through through a pair of Imp skulls, he saw a trio of Z-Secs get turned into so much free-flying chewed up meat by the minigun. A Demon went down next, most of its skull blown away onto the wall behind it, then she was firing somewhere else and it was back to him. He aimed and fired, aimed and fired, but there were too many of them.
There had to be a couple of dozen Demons alone, and they were the ones that bull-rushed the ATV. Jack emptied his submachine gun trying to keep the Demons from getting up to the vehicle, but only managed to put down a half dozen of them before the rest smashed into the vehicle. It began shaking violently and he could hear the rending of metal.
"Get them off of us!" Stratton called.
"Hold on!" Jennifer replied, and suddenly Jack heard the unmistakable sound of the hatch for the minigun housing being opened. "Fire in the hole!" she called, and then slammed it shut. Jack barely had time to prepare himself before a pair of tremendous explosions rocked the ATV so hard that he thought it was going to blow up. All the while, he heard more gunfire from the minigun and glanced up, managing to catch a glimpse of two Cacodemons being shredded. All at once, the minigun fell silent, and it became dead quiet.
"That was risky," Green said finally.
"That's life at the moment," Jennifer replied.
"I suppose it is, any survivors?"
They looked out through the windows, now smeared with blood and ash, and saw just a handful of Imps and Z-Secs limping around, most of them blinded. Jennifer took the opportunity to put them down with bursts from the minigun. After waiting a bit longer, they all exited the vehicle. When Jack tried to open his door, it simply fell off the frame of the vehicle and onto a pile of Demon corpses. He laughed despite himself.
The four of them exited the ruined vehicle and began moving among a sea of corpses and freshly spilled monster blood.
"Secure the area, I'll get the structure," Green said.
They responded affirmatively and split up. Jack moved across the dead bodies, making sure they were really dead bodies, and paused to pilfer the Z-Sec corpses. They were poorly equipped, and between the grenades and the minigun, most of their gear had been ruined, but he at least managed to snag a pair of magazines for the SMG. It was a good, sturdy weapon, though he missed his pump action shotgun.
He checked out the left passageway, saw it snaking away from him and then turning, disappearing out of sight. No hostiles, for the moment at least. He finished his sweep of the perimeter and met back up with the others as they did as well, regrouping at the structure Green was checking out. It was a really basic command center, he saw as he stepped inside. Little more than an entryway, really. And although it looked like it had gone through a tornado, Green had managed to locate one single good thing among the wreckage.
A map.
"There's three main tunnels," she said, studying it. "Here, off to the left, is bunks and infirmary. Stratton and I will check there for survivors, emergency medical supplies, etcetera. Right is the armory and security center, Ward, you and Taylor get there, grab anything you can. We meet back here in half an hour, then tackle the final passageway, which leads to the teleporter. And then we figure out how to handle that. Got it?"
Jack nodded. He was glad she was here, doling out orders. On the surface, it was easy work, because, when nothing went wrong, it was relatively easy. Or simple, at least. It was when shit went wrong that suddenly everyone's looking to you, the leader, to fix it or, at worst, pay for it, because you were the one that was giving the orders. Leadership was often nothing more than a scapegoat for people to blame when shit went wrong.
Because human beings needed someone to blame, even if there was no blame.
They split up, him with his SMG, Jennifer with her shotgun, and the two of them made their way down the right tunnel, delving into the black and red rocks.
"So, you seemed like you were having fun up there," Jack said.
Jennifer laughed. "Yeah. I never get to use those things. They're fucking awesome."
"That they are," Jack replied. It felt good to laugh, to feel elated, even over something so small. That encounter had been a close call, but it felt like a badass win, and everything that helped boost morale was now a crucial, precious resource. Which they really needed right now, because they were headed into a maze of dark rock and horror. Jack led the way this time, heading to the end of the initial pathway and breaking left. He was at least grateful it wasn't really a maze, all they had to do was follow the main path and it would eventually take them to their destination. The problem was that there were a lot of alcoves and offshoots.
He recalled the last maze he was in and hoped not to have a repeat.
At least there was a lot more room to maneuver here.
Jack felt the tension begin to mount yet again as he moved through the rock maze. Distantly, and sometimes too close for comfort, he could hear something growl, or roar. And he heard that distinctive strange gurgling-clicking sound of the Imps. He hated that sound. Their progress slowed as they had to stop and check every alcove. Most of them dead-ended in nothing, but sometimes there was a lonely corpse of a dead Space Marine or scientist. They didn't see anyone or anything until they reached the final stretch of passageway.
As soon as they stepped into it, it was like they'd breached some silent alarm. A general roar of fury went up and two dozen Demons and Imps spilled into the area from a string of side passageways. Jack cursed sharply and opened fire, hosing the first wave of enemies down with his SMG. "Got any more grenades?!" he shouted as his first magazine ran dry and he slapped a fresh one in. "'Cause I'm not sure what else to do!"
"No! Pure luck I found those!" Jennifer called back over the roar of the encroaching horde of monsters and their gunfire.
Jack emptied his SMG and let it hang, his mind working furiously. They'd only put down maybe a third of the things and there were a shit-ton of Demons stomping towards them. His hand fell to the Plasma Rifle he'd found earlier.
Well, time for a field test.
It was built just like any other gun, so Jack aimed, warning Jennifer to get back, and squeezed the trigger. Brilliant blue-white balls of what seemed to be pure energy began rapidly pumping out of the end of the long-barreled weapon. Realizing how rapid fire it was, Jack quickly began to move the barrel in arcs, swinging it back and forth slowly, hitting the creatures with the balls of plasma. "Hell yeah!" he screamed as he saw the effect it was having. The things were being destroyed by the energy, stopped dead in their tracks.
After several seconds he let go of the trigger, realizing that he had no way to reload this, at least not yet, and figuring they might need it later. Once he did that, he and Jennifer finished off the stragglers with pistol rounds.
"That thing is amazing," Jennifer said. "I really need one of those."
"I've got to find more ammo for it," Jack replied, studying a small bar of what he realized was energy remaining. It was a little over halfway depleted. Well, now at least he had a better understanding of what it was capable of.
No more demonic beasts showed up and Jack figured they'd finished off their local supply. Or hoped, at least. They managed to hit the end of the maze and found exactly what they were looking for: a basic rectangular structure. It was at least bigger than the one by the entrance. They hurried into it, finding about what they'd expected to find. A lot of dead bodies, a lot of blood, a lot of sparking, broken equipment.
But the armory at the back of the room, though depleted, wasn't totally emptied out. Besides finding a stash of magazines and shells, and a pair of fragmentation grenades, (Jack took one for himself, he hadn't even seen these things before now, he was beginning to wonder if they even had them up there), they made a big discovery.
"Armor!" he cried as he pried open one of the crates.
"Not combat armor, but I guess it'll do," Jennifer said.
"It will definitely do."
They watched each other's back and took turns pulling on the standardized green security armor. It was the same make and model as the one he'd showed up on Phobos with. It was definitely a step down from combat armor, but it was a big step up from a freaking uniform and skin. Once they were both suited up, they tested the comms link and found it functional.
"Well, that solves that problem, at least," Jack said.
"Provided comms work the same way here," Jennifer replied.
"Here's hoping. Come on, there's another crate here with two more suits. We've got to get it back to the meeting area."
"Hooray, I was hoping to lug heavy ass shit through enemy-infested territory," Jennifer muttered as she took one of the handles.
Jack grabbed the other and they began hurrying back.
They managed to get back without any further trouble, and didn't have to wait too long for Green and Stratton to show back up. The pair were thrilled with the discovery, and after they pulled on their suits of armor and did a radio check, the quartet of survivors pressed on with their journey, making their way slowly through the final portion of the maze.
Jack put his SMG to use, pumping round after round into the twenty or so zombies and Imps that were strung out along the length of the natural corridors. He found himself wondering about the teleportation process as they drew ever closer to the end of the Slough. On the one hand, he wanted to be done with this, wanted to make that next step, complete this part of his journey and get closer to the end, but he was also afraid.
What if something went wrong?
Faster than he probably would have liked, they found themselves at the teleportation device. There were all sorts of workstations set up in the small open area, no doubt there to study the pad itself. Now they were just as broken and bloodied as everything else in this awful dimension. As they approached, Jack studied the teleportation device itself. It was vastly different from the dark, bizarre construct he'd seen in Phobos Anomaly.
It was a simple square of metal that had a pentagram carved into the rust-colored material. Jack tried not to sigh, or shiver. More demon iconography. Was it coincidence? Or something more? Was this truly Hell? If it was, he had to admit, he wasn't all that impressed. Although he vastly preferred demons you could blow away with a shotgun, it seemed very strange considering what a big deal religions made of it.
"So...who goes first?" Jennifer asked.
"Should we draw straws?" Stratton replied.
"I'll go," Green said. "Give me a twenty second count, then I want Ward going next. I don't know how it works for sure, but I imagine if one of us is standing on the other end and another tries to teleport in, it'll be bad for both of us. So get off the pad as soon as you come through, you got that?" she asked.
They nodded.
Green sighed and stepped up. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained," she murmured, and stepped onto the pad.
There was a burst of bright, neon green light and a strange whooshing sound and she popped out of existence.
Jack began counting, still trying to process what he had just seen. It looked insane, impossible. When the twenty count was up, he stepped forward.
As soon as his boot touched the plate, he was suddenly somewhere else.