Chapter 2

  The shuttle slammed into solid ground with a crunch, quaking and groaning, containers flying, my seat nearly torn out of its place. My SAC’s stabilization worked hard to keep me secure inside, but my insides still shook as if I had been dropped from a great height only to bounce back from the ground and fall again and again and again. Good thing I didn’t bite my tongue off.

  [Impact detected. Please initiate appropriate checks]

  ‘No shit, Sys!’ I groaned, heaving for air, my vision blurry and unstable, but I made the effort to turn my head and look.

  The shuttle was no more, only a small section — my section — of the passenger compartment existed still. The edges of the bulkheads and outer hull glowed a bright orange where they’d been cut. Cut, huh? I had no other way to think of it; it sure looked like the aliens somehow carved my section out of the shuttle with an ice cream scoop-blowtorch hybrid. Poor private Baxter next to me had just happened to be in the wrong seat; he was cut in half from head to toe, also glowing a hot orange. Shit! And beyond the remaining shuttle hull and my dead squadmate, blackish yellow fog covered everything, illuminated by sickly, orange lights scattered everywhere.

  ‘SAC check, full environment check, comm check, health check!’ I instructed Sys and began to unbuckle myself from my seat.

  [SAC suit operational. No damage detected. Life support functions nominal.]

  [Gravity and atmosphere suggests planetary surface. Temperature: 38 degrees celsius. Atmosphere contains sulfur-dioxie and hydrogen-sulfide. Please rely on your SAC’s life support system for breathable air. O2 supply: 72 hours remaining.]

  [No traffic on shipcom channel. No traffic on squad channel. No traffic on platoon channel. No traffic on battalion command link. No open channels detected.]

  [IFD Suite shows elevated heart rate, neural activity suggests high levels of stress. No physical injuries detected. Stay safe, Sergeant Hyde!]

  ‘Stay safe, huh? To hell with you, Sys!’ I groaned as I finally managed to get out of the harness and stand up.

  I didn’t feel so good, but as Sys had noted, my SAC was working fine, and the servos and synthfibers assisted my movement without hiccups. I grabbed my rifle, linked its targeting system to my SAC, and my NeuroHUD brought up the little red dot into my field of vision. I did a sweeping movement check, a zoom check, and Sys gave me the conclusion.

  [JTEC S80 Assault Rifle targeting system linked and nominal.]

  ‘Cheers for that. Good stuff.’ I sighed, and shouldered my bulky weapon, trying to psych myself up for taking the first step outside of the wreckage.

  The blackish yellow sulfuric fog was slowly filling up the remnants of the shuttle, and visibility was becoming worse. I could only make out vague shapes and light sources, and … movement. A shadow, moving slowly. I turned on the infrared sensors and the world in front of me lit up with heat sources. My heart nearly stopped as a towering figure of intense, glowing heat not ten meters away took a step towards me, lifting its arm. An alien! It must have been one of them, a Ghost, because what else could it have been? Almost three meters tall, bulky as hell, thick, curved horns on its head, and in its hand it held a … sword? The creature tilted its head down, looking at my feet at the edge of the wreckage where I stood. I looked down too, and saw a rapidly cooling heat source in the shape of another alien, its torso sticking out from under the wreckage, the rest of it crushed underneath. Visual details were sketchy on infrared, but it did seem like a somewhat similar horned creature as the first one, large and brutish looking. And … was it wearing armour? Maybe. But I was sure this one was dead.

  The very much alive sword bearing alien looked back up, and it roared with a deep and gurgling voice, it’s wide open mouth filled with what looked like rows of sharp teeth made of heat so intense it glowed on my infrared visor display. I lifted my gun just as the alien burst into a sprint towards me, red dot right on it. I pulled the trigger once, twice, three times. Boom-boom-boom. The three-round bursts tore through the creature at point blank range, nine high velocity AP rounds leaving large holes in its face and torso. Its momentum carried the dead creature for a few more meters before it collapsed, its sword clattering to the ground right at my feet. What the hell kind of alien would use a sword? They had spaceships didn’t they? The bastards were contesting an entire star system for god’s sake, and down here on the surface they were running around with swords?

  Hold on! Surface? That didn’t add up. Well, I didn’t doubt Sys about being on some sort of planetary surface; gravity felt right, and there were certainly aliens present here, but I didn’t think the shuttle had been anywhere near Ripper’s World when we got hit. And even if we had been, both the wreckage and I would have either stayed in orbit, or burned to cinders upon atmospheric entry. And even that would have taken some time. How much time had passed between the shuttle getting hit and finding myself right here? A minute? No. Seconds. This did not add up at all. Was there anything I could do about it though? No, there wasn’t.

  I finally took the step off the remnants of the shuttle onto solid ground and two dead aliens at my feet. It looked like a smooth, rocky surface, some sort of stone, maybe even tiles, I wasn’t sure. But first things first, I had to secure a perimeter all by myself, check if anyone was still alive — although I didn’t have much hope — and to see how I could ensure my own survival. So, the first thing to do was to …

  [Warning! System breach detected.]

  Sys sounded the alarm abruptly.

  ‘What?’

  [Warning! System breach detected. Firewall breach attempt no. 345 repelled. Firewall breach attempt no 456 repelled. Warning! Firewall breached.]

  ‘Sys! What the hell is going on? Sys?’ I yelled, looking around frantically, pointing my rifle everywhere, hoping the targeting system would pick something up. This must have been the aliens! Swords didn’t work, duh, so they changed tac, and now hacking my SAC was the way to go? Fucking aliens!

  [Warning! SAC OS database compromised.]

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  [Warning! Language database compromised]

  [Warning! Personal files compromised]

  [Warning! NeuroHUD kernel compromised]

  [Warning! Entertainment library compromised]

  [Warning! SAC AI kernel compromised.]

  [Warning! SAC AI kernel overwrite imminent.]

  [Warning! SAC AI … kernel … shutting … dowwwnn …]

  The messages appeared on my NeuroHUD in quick succession, and with the last one, they flickered out of my field of vision. SAC OS was still functional; I could move, and the red targeting dot in my vision told me NeuroHUD was still running. Sys on the other hand … was gone, and I still couldn’t see or find anyone or anything to shoot at, and I had run a full circle around the wreckage, looking for a target. What the hell?

  I arrived back to the spot where I’d left the two dead and dreadful aliens, my heart thumping in my throat, waiting for the moment the alien hackers would finally shut down life support or SAC OS movement controls. Then I’d be done for. All I could do was to keep scanning the area, zooming in and out on every heat source and every shadow in the stupid sulfuric mist, but I found nothing. The horrible feeling in my gut that I’d die here was growing uncontrollably, and I really, really wanted to smoke one last cigarette and eat one last Crunchymel bar before my end.

  [Hello, hello, testing, testing!]

  A new message popped up, but instead of the greenish text I was used to, this was a bright, orange-red.

  ‘Sys! You’re back! Did you repel the hackers? Talk to me!’ I screamed out loud, being stuck somewhere between immense relief and a heart attack.

  [Uh, no. Sorry, Sys is … well, gone for now. Good news though: you can see my messages.]

  ‘What? What’s happening?’ I yelped, once again looking for a target to shoot, but the toxic mist offered none.

  [This NeuroHUD thing is great. I’m in your head, Sergeant Hyde, quite literally. I’ve never encountered something like this. Exciting!]

  ‘Who are you? Why do you know me? What do you want?’ I blurted out the words in a panic.

  This was bad. More than bad. I was at the mercy of whoever had taken over my SAC from Sys.

  [I know who you are, I’ve just read your personal file. What I don’t know is what you are. You appear to be human, but you’re definitely not like the upstairs humans I know. You don’t have a soul to start with, which is weird, and your body is completely untouched by any type of magical energy. How did you even get here? Care to explain that?]

  ‘I … I don’t … I have no idea what you’re talking about. You tell me!’ I screeched at the digital intruder.

  [Yeah, that figures, you’re not from around here, are you? I’ve never heard of this Earth, or this Allied Systems. I also find it hard to believe souless, magicless humans like you can travel between the stars in the sky. That’s just ridiculous.]

  I took a deep, shaky breath, then another, and another. I had no idea what was going on, but it was starting to grate on me.

  ‘Listen, whoever or whatever you are! If you want to kill me, show yourself and do it yourself, alright? Let’s get this over with!’ I grunted.

  [Oh! You have misunderstood me, haven’t you? I don’t want to kill you, quite the opposite.]

  ‘The opposite? We’re enemies. I killed your people, those … those aliens.’ I pointed at the creature I had shot dead, then at the one crushed underneath the wreckage.

  [Aliens? No, no. I don’t know these aliens you speak of. These two are demons. Quite high ranking ones at that. And they were going to die here one way or another.]

  [You definitely killed Ugrathar the Great Calamity. No big loss to be honest, the guy was an idiot. I do like that weapon of yours by the way.]

  [The other one is a champion from the Third Ring. Well, you ... uh ... falling on him was an accident, technically speaking, but you know what? I’m going to assign that kill to you as well. You’ll get all the EXP and all the perks. And some levels. Though it seems I’ll need to do some work on you before you can take it.]

  I just blinked. I had no idea what the entity behind the hacking was talking about. If it wasn’t going to outright kill me, was I doomed to a slow death by not enough O2 and toxic mist? I had been in life and death situations during my almost eighteen years long career as a combat medic, but this was the first time I didn’t know what to do or what to think. I wondered if anyone would think less of me if I just resigned myself to my demise instead of nabbing at imagined lifelines in this god-forsaken place. I was alone, comms were all down, and I had 72 hours left to breathe and read weird messages from alien hackers. Or demons. Or whatever. And with a sudden bout of inspiration, I just stopped caring.

  ‘Alright, listen, I don’t understand what’s going on. At all. Who the hell are you and what do you want with me? And for shit’s sake, simple answers, please!’ I barked at the disembodied entity apparently inhabiting my SAC’s AI kernel now.

  [Sigh.]

  ‘Just answer, you … you!'

  [Right. I’ve read through your entertainment library, so I believe you should be familiar with the concept of a genius loci. Correct?]

  ‘A spirit of the place?’

  [Yep, that’s me.]

  ‘And the place is?’

  [Hell. Another concept you should be familiar with.]

  ‘I’m … in hell? Am I already dead?’ I gasped. I couldn’t believe it: was there an afterlife after all? So this was it then?

  [No, not dead. This is not that kind of hell, but it’s a hell nonetheless.]

  ‘You’re not making sense.’ I breathed out a sigh of irritation, unable to feel any relief at being alive.

  [Alright, listen, details can wait. I need to do some work on you before I can assign the kills and give you the rewards, so settle down!]

  ‘Work? What work? Why?’ I demanded angrily. At the very least it seemed I had gotten past the panic stage.

  [Look, it’s not within my rights to directly interfere with the denizens of my realm, which you are not, so I can bend some rules here. Which I’m already doing by talking to you. Now, as far as I’m concerned, you’re a mystery outsider who doesn’t fit in here, so I intend to make you fit in here, so I can get on with my life. As far as you’re concerned, it’s a choice between life and death. Do you understand?]

  ‘Fit in? How?’

  [Easy. You want to stay alive in Hell? You’ve got to become a demon. Sort of.]

  Well, I’ve had worse news in my life, but none weirder. I looked down at the now almost room temperature bodies of the so called demons at my feet, as featureless as ever on my infrared display.

  ‘You’re going turn me into one of those?’ I asked, death suddenly looking like a much better alternative.

  [Oh, no. I can’t change your species, but I can slap a soul into your body so you can store and utilise magic, then use some of the magical energy from your kills to give you a few demonic traits, thus enabling you to live here without your marvellous armour’s life support system. I’m … working on the details as we speak.]

  [In the end, you will become a denizen of my little ring here in Hell, and after that you may do as you please. I won’t interfere with your life any further.]

  I was gobsmacked. Become a demon? A denizen of Hell? Was I really in Hell? What the hell? Well, at least I’d remain human, sort of, if I could believe The Genius. The real question was this though: did I really have a choice? I looked around once again; the smoldering wreckage of the shuttle compartment, the dead aliens or demons and the toxic mist aside, I couldn’t see anything else. I could try to explore the place and find a way out, but I’d last only three days with SAC’s life support, then it would be suffocation time. Maybe becoming a half demon half alien half human abomination wasn’t that bad of a deal. It would give me a fighting chance if nothing else.

  ‘Fine,’ I said.

  [Fine?]

  ‘Yeah, fine. Turn me into a demon. Good stuff.’

  [Alright, I will do just that. A little heads-up: after it’s done, you will inherit the titles of your kills as well, so you’ll be a demon lord and a champion. As a bonus, I’ll give you access to basic information a demon lord would normally know or have access to, and you’ll be able browse through it through your NeuroHUD thing.]

  [The rest, well, you’ll figure it out, I’m sure.]

  Ah shit, what was I getting myself into? Not just demon but demon lord and champion? What did that even mean in my present context and situation? Ah, what the hell! As the old Earth saying went: “improvise, adapt, overcome!”

  ‘Fine. Let’s do it!’

  [You should probably sit down for this.]

  Before I could do so, the pain came, and I promptly passed out.