C.R.O.W. (The Union Series) (23 page)

‘This defence
complex is the location of our headquarter element, as well as the Regimental
Aid Post,’ the major explained as if he read my mind. The Regimental Aid Post
was where casualties would be treated after the medics in the companies had
done as best they could with them. At this early stage of the invasion that was
as close to a hospital as you were going to get, since there was little chance
of you being lifted off the surface. I couldn’t even imagine being a casualty
underground in this hellish place, but better treated in here than out on the
surface where Chinese ships and saucers could get you.

‘It’s
presently defended by our C Company,’ the major continued, ‘Who are resting
after combat further down underground. A and B Company are located in two other
defence complexes where they are preparing to assault deeper.

We believe
the enemy are completely trapped within this particular warren and their morale
is shaken by the loss of orbital top cover. They’re desperately hoping that we
will lose top cover so that they can go back onto the offensive. As it stands
there is estimated to be several companies of these traitorous bastards down
here, including aircraft, artillery and God knows what else, just waiting for
that moment. Half of it is useless down here, but if they were to break back to
the surface with orbital cover we would be in a lot of trouble indeed.’

Corporal Jones,
One section’s new section commander nodded, ‘Which company are we going to
then, Sir?’

None of us
even raised an eyebrow when we were told where we were going.
Let’s face it,
I thought,
it wasn’t going to be C Company on rest, was it?

‘A company
will be taking you.’

A company,
just like my own company who were still perched up on the hills overlooking
Jersey City. I could only hope that it would not be quite as ill-fated as we
had been.

#

A company
gave us a frosty reception when we entered their part of the warren, another
collection of caves almost a kilometre beneath the surface of New Earth. In
amongst the masses of red glowing light sticks they regarded us with almost
hateful eyes, as if we were the enemy himself.

‘Don’t worry
about them,’ our new guide said when we came to a halt in a small empty cave,
‘They’ve been through a lot.’

‘No shit,’
Sam replied testily, ‘Haven’t we all?’

The guide
ignored Sam’s response and turned to the boss, ‘Just hang tight here, Sir.’

‘No worries.
Sit down lads, chill.’

As the guide
disappeared into a connecting tunnel we sat down either side of the cave. It
was long and narrow, only a little wider than a dropship crew compartment, so
our outstretched feet interlocked together along its length.

‘You all
alright?’ Westy asked us.

We chorused a
very unenthusiastic ‘Yeah’.

‘Pump, ain’t
it,’ he smiled.

Another ‘Yeah’
resounded.

‘I tell you
what,’ Sam said, ‘If we get one more cocky northern 4
^th
battalion
guide with a chip on his shoulder, I’m gonna have to hurt him.’

‘Roger that,’
Ray concurred.

‘I get it,
they’ve had a crappy time, but what about us? We’re the remains of two
sections!’

‘There’s no
point getting yourselves wound up, boys,’ Westy said, ‘Let’s just get this done
and get out of this hole.’

With my visor
set to normal vision, I scanned the hellish cave in which we sat, the red light
sticks casting dark shadows along its jagged walls.

‘This place
is like something out of a horror movie,’ I said.

‘It wasn’t
made to look nice, mate,’ Sam answered.

Ray sighed,
‘Is there anything on this planet that doesn’t look awful?’

‘The sea
looked nice,’ Brown said.

‘Yeah, it was
weren’t it? Do you know what?’ Ray leant forward enthusiastically, ‘If we get
out of here in one piece I’m gonna swim in that sea. Who’s up for it?’

‘That’s a big
‘if’, Ray,’ Stevo said.

We ignored
Stevo, ‘Can you even swim with one of these respirators on?’ I asked.

Sam shook his
head, ‘Nah, you got to wear a special one, I think.’

‘A special
one?’

‘Yeah, one
that doesn’t get clogged up by water.’

‘Well, what
if you kept your head out?’

Westy sighed
tiredly, ‘Are we really going to have a conversation about respirators and swimming
right now?’

Ray laughed,
‘Looks that way.’

It’s funny
when I look back at it, some of the ridiculous stuff that we troopers would
talk about in the most inappropriate places. Down hundreds of metres beneath
the surface of New Earth, waiting for the unknown to happen, we had a full-blown
conversation about whether somebody had designed a respirator that worked both
above and below the water. Ray pointed out that the Chinese probably had them
already. Well sod it, they had everything else, supposedly.

After several
minutes the guide emerged from the tunnels again and looked to the boss, ‘This
way, Sir.’

We were
spared the formality of being greeted by the company commander. I doubted that
being as close to the enemy as he was that he was really interested in meeting
new arrivals. The OC of a company of drop troops operating underground was
often subordinate to the engineer masterminds that worked around him. He might
know how to lead his men into battle on the surface, but he had no idea of what
layers of rock made up the crust of New Earth, or what methods the enemy might
use to slow our advance. But that didn’t mean his job wasn’t difficult for him,
quite the opposite in fact. Organising a company of three platoons to fit the
engineers plan in the mazes of tunnels and caverns that made up the warrens was
no simple feat.

Instead the
platoon was escorted deeper into the underground network. As we patrolled
downwards I noticed the guide begin to move more and more cautiously, until
eventually he was creeping forward with delicate steps on the mats.

I made sure I
kept my spacing to ten metres, hoping that if the Chinese blew us up it
wouldn’t be me who got it.

An IR torch
flashed ahead of us in the gloom. We had found our new company, and the front
line.

16: Battle in the Dark

We huddled
silently in the small tunnel. It was far smaller than the tunnels we had been
used to, so small that two men would struggle to pass each other without having
to remove their kit. The tunnel had been cut out of the rock by a robotic laser
drill an hour or so ago. before it had been destroyed by a detonation, most
likely caused by Chinese engineers.

The sound
created by the powerful explosion, even a few hundred metres away from the
drill with our headphones on was simply ear splitting, shaking the very ground
beneath our feet and engulfing us in clouds of dust that took minutes to
settle. The resulting collapse of the tunnel had rendered it impassable to us.

The Chinese
had rigged much of the tunnel systems that led to their underground lair with
explosives, so much so that it was impossible for anybody to use them to move
around. Instead we had been forced to resort to digging our own tunnels, using
automated diggers like the laser drill which were fast and not much noisier
than a team of men with pick axes and spades. Robots, although no replacement
for infantry even in this day and age, always had their uses and this was definitely
one of those times. I was glad that it hadn’t been me digging down in that
tunnel!
     

Brown was
crouched so close in front of me I could hear his respirator sucking in air, ‘What
happens now, then?

My reply was
so quiet it would barely stir a mouse, ‘I don’t know. I think the engineers are
trying to think of what to do next.’

‘Get the hell
out of this hole, that’s what we should do.’

We looked on
up the tunnel, listening. I doubted my respirator could hear as efficiently as
the listening tools that the engineers would attach to the walls, but I still
strained to hear the sound of the Chinese tunnelling. Sometimes I would hold my
breath, sure I had heard something.

Minutes
passed as our section sat and waited for something to happen. We were at the
front of the whole company, much to our dismay. Having had no experience of
combat with the enemy underground, nobody amongst us was amused at being made
to lead the company into the caves. Not that we had a choice, the boss wasn’t
in a position to argue.

A message was
passed verbally up the tunnel. Sam tapped my shoulder from behind, whispering,
‘Engineers have picked up an enemy tunnel.’

I repeated
the message to Brown, who carried it on down the line.

An enemy
tunnel was somewhere within the rock a few hundred metres from where I was
crouched. I wondered if they were listening in to us too. A stupid thought, of
course they were.

‘Are we gonna
pull back?’ I asked Sam, hopefully.

‘No,’ he
whispered, ‘I don’t think so.’ My heart dropped.

We crept
forward toward where the drill had been working its way through the rock,
taking care not to trip on the lines of pipes and tubes that ran along the
tunnel floor to feed it power and extract its spoil. We finally came to a halt
fifty metres from the end of the tunnel, tucked around the last of the corners
purposefully left by the drill to keep us out of direct line of sight, in case
the Chinese detonated a device or broke in somehow. Sweat dripped from my
forehead despite my respirator attempting to cool my face. My breath was ragged
with fear. They knew we were there, how could they not? 

A man crept
past us, his lower legs brushing against our shoulders. With my visor’s night
vision I could clearly see that he wasn’t wearing anything apart from his
armour and his respirator. He crept slowly, placing his feet like he was
stepping on broken glass.

I knew that
the man had to be an engineer, for nobody in his right mind would do what this
man was doing. In his hands he was cradling a plasma charge, taking it forward
to the end of the tunnel where it would be used to best effect. You could use a
robot drone to do this, but they were often easily detected, far better to use
a human being to deliver the payload. I could only imagine what it must feel
like creeping all the way up that dark tunnel, all alone, knowing that if the
enemy heard a peep from you they would blast you into the rock like beef patty.

‘That…’ Brown
whispered, ‘Is tapped.’

I said
nothing; to do something like that a man must have had either nerves of steel -
or a few screws loose.

I watched the
figure round a slight bend in the tunnel and out of sight.

The engineer
was gone for at least ten tense minutes. If I could have done I would have bitten
my fingernails, but instead settled for chewing on my drinking straw inside my
respirator to calm my nerves.

When the
engineer returned he was clearly no longer carrying his charge. He exaggerated
his creeping almost comically, and I could have sworn he was smiling. Crazy.

A minute
later a message was being passed up the line again, making its way past several
sections before it got to us.

Sam patted my
shoulder, ‘Fire in the hole. We will enter the enemy tunnel and assault left.’

‘Fire in the
hole, we will assault left’ I repeated to Brown.

When the
message got all the way up to Ray, the section point man and the furthest
forward of the platoon, he then sent the message back again.

Whispering as
quietly as our lips allowed, we passed the same message back up the line to its
source, confirming that it had reached the whole platoon correctly. We lacked
the ability to communicate by intercom without alerting our foe, but we made do
with the mark one mouth and mark one ear.

From behind
us a rifle IR torch flashed slowly and deliberately up the tunnel. I knew from
my training on Uralis that it was one of the engineers counting down to detonation
of the plasma charge, a powerful device designed to punch a man-sized hole
through soft or weakened earth and rock. After the third flash the device would
be detonated by remote.

Boom!

My body was
tossed from the ground where I crouched and I landed flat on my face. The
impact lifted my respirator seal away from my chin, allowing hot toxic air
inside and then a cloud of dust as thick as emulsion enveloped me.

‘Down!’
Somebody hollered over the noise of the explosion that echoed up and down the
tunnel.

‘Get fucking
down!’ Another voice screamed, more urgently this time. I recognised it as
Sergeant Evans, and I obeyed, keeping as low as I could.

‘Firing!’ I
couldn’t see, but a smart missile was launched. Over my head it flew, its
booster rocket driving it up the tunnel and away from us before the main rocket
ignited. It negotiated the corner in the tunnel with surprising ease, knowing
exactly where it was going without needing to be told.

‘Firing!’
Another missile was fired, then another.

The racket
down the tunnel was unbelievable, sending shockwaves through the earth beneath
me where I lay stunned. Blinding flashes of light burst through the clouds of
dust as the missiles successfully navigated the hole created by the charge and
detonated their payload within the Chinese tunnel.

I picked
myself up as quickly as I could, my respirator display alerting me to the loss
of a correct seal to my face. I pulled it back down over my chin and blew out
hard.

‘My God,’ I
exclaimed.

‘Let’s go!’
Westy screamed.

‘Go! Go! Go!’
Sam pushed at me from behind.

Brown was
stumbling in front of me. I grabbed him roughly by the arm and charged.

We sprinted
around the corner of the tunnel and then into the glowing, smoking hole that had
been blasted out by the plasma charge. As I ran, tripping and stumbling on
pieces of rock and debris in the cloud of dust and smoke, I powered up my rifle
to be used. I had no idea of what I was running into. The outlines of my
comrades faded in and out of the cloud as we went, the heat making thermal
imaging as impossible as Infra-red, and thus rendering my visor virtually
useless.

‘This one’s
for you, Jimmy!’ Westy screamed from somewhere in front of me, unleashing a
burst of automatic.

Before I
realised it I was in the Chinese tunnel. If there were any of them alive where
the charge had punched through and the missiles had followed, it was doubtful
that any would have managed to stay in less than a hundred pieces, much less
survived.

Upon entering
the enemy tunnel we turned left instantly, the section behind would turn right
so that we would be assaulting along it in either direction. Westy and Ray
advanced side by side, firing rapidly into the smoke so that sparks showered as
darts struck at the tunnel walls and ricocheted. Unable to fire without shooting
a mate in front of me, I followed behind with the others, ready to be used.

We had to be
rapid, the minute the Chinese worked out what had happened they were likely to
withdraw and blow the tunnel.

If any
Chinese had died in there I didn’t see any. Nobody could have survived the
combined effects of a plasma charge, a series of missiles fired in enclosed
quarters and then to top it off a good hosing down with steel darts. Westy
halted us ten or so metres up the enemy tunnel.

‘Withdraw!’

We didn’t need
telling twice. Even if the Chinese in this tunnel - if there had been any - had
died, no doubt there would be more further back or in neighbouring tunnels,
quickly readying their own response. We ran back toward our entry point as fast
as our bodies allowed.

‘Two times
charges detonating, friendly charge, friendly charge!’ The company commander
had broken the intercom silence, his message relaying from one trooper’s
headphones to another in the confined space.

Whump!
The
earth shook as the first charge somewhere nearby detonated.

Whump!
Another,
further away this time.

‘Fuck this
shit!’ Stevo screamed as we bounded around the corner and back into the hole we
had created for our attack.

Corporal Jones’
One section was withdrawing back into the hole with us, and the boss stood at
its opening pushing us toward safety in near panic.

‘Go, go!
Move! Move!’

Back inside
our own tunnel a figure was stood, pointing for us to go back to where we had
originally waited for the engineers to place their charge.

‘Get your
arses moving,’ Sergeant Evans shouted as we passed him, ‘Stay low! Stay low,
move fast!’

We ran in
single file through the darkness, the smoke clearing and our visibility
returning.

‘Go silent,
Westy, go silent!’ The platoon commander ordered over our section intercom.

‘Go silent!’
Westy hissed back at us and we slowed to a walk, and then a cautious creep. I
resisted the urge to bolt away, knowing full well that I would be heard by the
Chinese. Besides, where was I going to go?

Two almighty
explosions rocked the tunnel, throwing us against the walls and sending Brown
crashing to the ground at my feet. Another wave of dust engulfed us, so thick
it pressed against my body, almost like I was underwater.

I steadied
myself with one hand against the tunnel wall and with the other picked up Brown
from the floor, ‘You okay, mate?’

‘I’m not your
mate,’ he replied angrily, shrugging my hands away violently, ‘And do I look okay?’

‘Shut up, you
belters,’ Sam hissed urgently behind us, ‘Get moving!’

‘Close up,’
Westy called above the din of another explosion, ‘Stay with me.’

We closed
right together so that we could keep eyes on the man in front of us, continuing
to slowly make our way back up the tunnel.

When he was
satisfied we had moved a good hundred metres away from the hole into the
Chinese tunnel, Westy held up a hand to bring us to a halt. We crouched
together in a tight huddle, like a small herd of terrified animals. Stevo was
rocking.

‘Snap out of
it, Stevo,’ Westy hissed, ‘Get a grip of your body.’

I looked left
and right. In the settling dust I could see another section ten metres behind
us in a similar huddle. I assumed it was one of ours. Despite the risk of
losing an entire section or more in one go, we couldn’t communicate effectively
if we spread out without using the intercom and so it was necessary for
platoons to huddle close together. I was glad to be as close as I was to the
others, even Brown, their proximity was comforting.

As suddenly
as it had erupted into noise and violence, the warren became deathly silent as
again we sat and waited for the next move to be made. Our respirator motors
battled to draw air from the smoke. I hoped that the engineers were ventilating
the tunnels, because otherwise we would run out of air for our respirators to
filter, they weren’t designed to breathe pure carbon dioxide.

The silence
was broken when Stevo sobbed loudly.

‘Stevo, shut
up!’ Sam whispered angrily.

It was then
that I heard the distinctive click of a bayonet being disengaged from an MSG-20
and then a second, muffled sob escaped Stevo’s mouth as Westy pressed the blade
against his throat.

‘Make a noise
like that again,’ Westy whispered darkly, ‘And I will cut you open from ear-to-ear.
Do you understand me?’

‘I don’t want
to die,’ Stevo’s pathetic words were barely audible, even with my headphones.

‘You’re very
close to dying,’ Westy threatened, ‘So I suggest you shut up.’

Sam leant
close to me, so that our visors touched, ‘That bloke is a total arsehole.’

I nodded,
although it felt hypocritical; I was hardly a hero myself.

We waited for
five minutes in the dark, without a sound. I wondered what had happened and
what had caused the other explosions. It seemed likely that the closer blasts
had been caused by the Chinese blowing out their tunnel in an effort to stop us
advancing into it. The more distant explosions I couldn’t explain. Warren
fighting was a terrifying underground game of chess, and we were the pieces.
Engineers of both sides were deciding how best to make their next move and we
were just along for the ride.