LANCEJACK (The Union Series) (12 page)

‘They
hate us, don’t they,’ Jackson said almost sadly, hearing the shouts from
outside.

It
couldn’t have been him, there was no way. Ev went AWOL just before my old
platoon returned to Earth two years ago, there was no way he would hang about
in the capital city of a Union controlled province. Instead he would have
escaped north to the Russians or hidden himself away somewhere in the country,
somewhere nobody would ask any questions.

I
looked over to Jackson, who awaited my answer, ‘Right now they hate us, yeah.’

Jackson
paused thoughtfully, ‘Are we the bad guys?’

‘Shut
up, Jacko,’ Okonkwo snapped almost instantly.

I
thought about the question, and then sighed when I found the only answer I could
give, ‘There are no good guys on New Earth, mate.’

‘Oh.’

Keen
for some peace and quiet, I leaned back into my seat and closed my eyes.

8

Old Friends

A
sudden collision woke me with a start, tossing my body toward Jackson on the
other side of the compartment. My straps stopped me from colliding with him,
hurling me back into my seat with my limbs still flailing.

‘What
the f…?’

Konny
screamed at the top of his voice, ‘BRACE!’

We
had no time to react to what followed, because it happened so quickly I barely
remember it. There was a blinding flash of light as something massive exploded
against the side of the truck with such power that it rolled it right over onto
its roof in no more than a second. Thick smoke engulfed me as I dangled
helplessly from my seat, only held in place by my straps.

Something
else exploded outside, and the vehicle rattled as some form of rubble or
shrapnel showered across its hull.

My
visor couldn’t adjust to the darkness, the smoke was hot, and it was interfering
with both my thermal and image intensified viewing modes. The image flickered
between the two for a second, before it eventually gave up. Somebody was
shouting, I realised, as my dazed mind began to come back to its senses.

‘Oh
my God! What the hell is going on?!’ It sounded like O’Leary.

‘Everyone
alright?’ Konny’s voice asked in the darkness.

O’Leary
continued with his string of curses.

We
were trapped on what was now the ceiling, and I knew there was only one way
down.

‘I’m
gonna unclip myself,’ I warned, bracing my body.

‘Me
too,’ Konny replied.

‘And
me,’ I think the other voice was Okonkwo.

‘NO,’
I shouted, ‘We can’t all do it at once!’

If
we all fell from our seats at once somebody would break a bone, if he hadn’t
already. My sides smarted, but I was pretty confident that my armour had
protected my ribs and organs from the roll.

I
thought about how I was going to drop without knocking myself unconscious. The
straps bit at my shoulders and made it hard for me to breathe, even with my
respirator. I knew that we had to act fast, for outside our upturned vehicle I
could clearly hear the sound of battle. It seemed the rebels didn’t care about
what Nieuwe Poort thought of the police after all, for we were being ambushed
once again.

‘Okonkwo,’
I called. He had been sat next to me.

‘Yeah?’

‘Give
me your hand.’

I
felt out in the dark and found Okonkwo’s hand searching for mine. I gripped it
and placed it onto my strap buckle.

‘When
I tell you to, unclip me.’

‘Okay.’

I
gripped the straps where they connected to the seat with both of my hands and
then braced myself again.

‘Do
it!’

Okonkwo
unclipped the buckle and I fell, my body suddenly released from the straps that
held me
in my seat. My bodyweight yanked at my
arms with such force that my hands lost their grip on the straps and I fell the
final distance face first onto the compartment roof, my rifle clattering
against metal as I landed in a crumpled heap.

‘You
alright?’ Okonkwo asked from above me just as a second crash announced Konny’s
undignified descent.

I’d
landed on top of something large . My eyes widened when I worked out what it
was:  Patterson on his stretcher. The roll had probably broken every last bone
in his body; but a quick check of his datapad told me that he was dead. A
snapped vertebrae. I swore.

‘Patterson’s
dead,’ I announced, and cursed again. All that effort to keep him alive during
the previous ambush, and he had died anyway.

The
almost constant string of uttered swear words finished with another thud, as
Konny released O’Leary, only to have him fall on top of him.

I
knelt up and reached to feel Okonkwo’s helmet, and then managed to find his
shoulders, ‘Unclip yourself, and I’ll help you down.’

‘I’m
heavy,’ Okonkwo warned, and then released his buckle. He fell, and I just about
managed to slow his fall enough for him not to crush me.

Something
else exploded nearby, and the vehicle rattled again, hurrying us to make our
escape.

‘What
the hell, man? What is going on?’ O’Leary said again, and Leaman hissed at him
to shut up.

‘Everyone
down?’ Konny asked. A chorus of affirmations told him that the section had
managed to unclip themselves and drop down to what was now the floor without
injury. I had no doubt that there would be a few fractured ribs, but at that
moment it was the least of our worries.

I
saw a dim light through the smoke, Konny was trying to use his rifle torch, but
it wasn’t much use. Our visors allowed us to see in the dark, but the darkness
wasn’t the problem.

‘Can’t
see a thing,’ he said, and I could hear him fumbling around in search of the
handle to the rear door, a task made far more difficult in the upside down
truck, ‘Got it!’

Konny
grunted as he yanked on the handle as hard as he could.

‘You’ve
got to push it up,’ Geany pointed out, ‘We’re upside down.’

‘I
know that!’ Another angry grunt, and the handle squeaked in protest as it
moved. He heaved against the door, and a crack of light appeared through the
haze. The smoke rushed out of the gap, and I quickly began to make out the
shapes of the huddle of troopers, crouched around their dead comrade on the
roof of the flipped vehicle. The seats where we had sat had become the ceiling,
the straps dangling down around us like party decorations gone wrong.

‘Give
me a hand with the door,’ Konny ordered, and Geany joined him to brace against
the metal and heave. It moved a few centimetres, widening the shaft of light
that sliced through the centre of the compartment like a blade made of dust.

‘Something’s
jamming it,’ Geany said.

‘Keep
pushing!’

They
heaved again, and this time the door opened much further, allowing much more
light into the compartment and the remainder of the smoke to escape.

There
was the unmistakable sound of gunfire, and Konny pressed his visor up to the
gap to steal a glance outside.

‘Jesus…’
he whispered to himself.

‘What?’

‘It’s
just a mess,’ he said, and then heaved on the door again. I saw that a piece of
masonry had been blocking it, but under Konny and Geany’s combined strength it
eventually gave way and the door swung open.

I
gaped. Where there had once been a wide street there was now a carpet of rubble
and twisted metal, scattered even as far as the pavements and the buildings
beyond. Twenty metres away from our upturned vehicle another police truck
burned, a section of conscripts in cover behind it, two or three of whom were
exchanging fire with an unseen assailant somewhere off to our left. Sparks
showered from the metal hull of their vehicle as darts struck metal and
ricocheted off into the air. Behind the embattled conscripts two men lay on
stretchers, though I presumed that they were the casualties from the previous
attack.

Konny
paused at the door, as if he were thinking about what to do next. The section
waited anxiously, while I grew impatient. Another explosion rocked the truck,
and plates of marble clattered to the ground in front of us.

Our
section commander remained frozen.

I
was beginning to grow agitated, knowing that we needed to get of our vehicle.
We were useless as long as we remained inside it, and if an enemy smart missile
identified us inside the compartment it would surely go for us. We were an easy
kill.

‘Konny,’
I demanded, ‘What are we doing?’

‘Wait!’

‘Wait
for what, Konny?’

‘Just…
Wait!’

I
shook my head, and pushed through the section toward the gaping door where
Konny remained rooted to the spot. I looked outside.

The
enemy had set up another ambush almost identical to the last, except that this
time it was much larger. I saw firing points all along the row of buildings to
the side of the road as far as I could see. No single section of our convoy
appeared to be spared by the hail of darts and as I watched, another volley of
smart missiles screamed across the street, smacking into one of the trucks
further along the line. It was carnage.

‘We
need to get out of here,’ I told Konny, but he didn’t respond. He remained
motionless, staring at the ambush as though mesmerised by it.

I
remembered how I had responded to my first contact. I had cowered in fear at
the bottom of a ditch whilst the rest of my section fought on. I knew all too well
that the terror of battle could paralyze a man who had never experienced it
before, and I realised then that Konny was in the grip of that terror.

I
looked back at the section, and saw Leaman just behind me. His fingers twitched
over his mammoth trigger guard as he saw the look in my eyes and anticipated my
order.

‘Bring
up that gun!’ I ordered.

Leaman
squeezed himself between me and Konny, careful not to smash the massive weapon
against the seats above him.

‘Up
there!’ I pointed with an outstretched arm, and Leaman, poking his head out of
the gaping doorway, nodded enthusiastically. Like the rest of us, he was happy
to be fighting outside, and wasn’t too keen to stay inside the claustrophobic
compartment anymore. Nothing made a trooper feel better in a bad situation than
to fire that thing! Somebody once told me that firing the mammoth in contact
was like a drug that a trooper could become addicted to, such was the power it
gave him.

‘Give
me rapid!’

Leaman
obeyed, quickly bringing the mammoth to bear around the side of the door. He
fired, and it roared as it began to eat into its ammunition box, spitting out pieces
of link onto the street.

‘Let’s
get out of here!’ I called back to the section, grabbing Konny by his sleeve.
Pulling the section commander with me I ran past Leaman, around the right side
of the truck and out of line of sight to the enemy. I threw myself against the
metal hull of the vehicle, tucking in as much as I could for protection from
ricochets. The section quickly peeled in behind me and Konny, leaving only
Leaman behind, still firing his mammoth.

I
realised instantly what had caused our vehicle to flip. One of our own LSVs had
emerged from a narrow street, crashed into the side of us and detonated all of
its smart missiles at once. The robotic vehicle now sat dormant a few metres
away, its dented hull blackened with soot.

I
pointed at Jackson, ‘Get your gun on the opposite side of the vehicle!’

Jackson
nodded and quickly moved to find a fire position.

I
pointed again, this time at Geany and Okonkwo, ‘Use your grenades. Fire them
from behind the vehicle, so you can stay in cover!’

They
understood. You didn’t need to see the enemy when firing the little guided
grenades, they could pick out the targets for themselves.

As
the section weapons began to open up, I ran to the cab where Jackson was firing
from behind twisted panels of metal.

I
had expected the worst. Two Nieuwe Poort policemen had been in the front of our
vehicle, including the one that I had spoken to outside the target building. Now
nothing remained of them. The combined detonation of all of the LSVs missiles
had spared our compartment, instead tearing through the cab and spreading it
and its occupants half way across the street.
At least they died instantly
,
I told myself, though it was little consolation.

Our
convoy had been struck by two LSVs, at two different points along its length.
The other had struck one of the conscript vehicles a few hundred metres behind
us, and enemy fire harried the entire length of our stricken convoy. Several
other vehicles were burnt or destroyed, suggesting that even more smart
missiles had been used during the initiation of the ambush, either by the enemy
or another LSV.

‘Three
section! Konny!’ A voice shouted from the truck in front of us, trying to grab
our attention. It was Johnno, who had managed to unload the casualties from his
vehicle and now remained pinned behind it with his work party. His two smart
launcher crew were preparing their weapons for the next LSV to arrive, for we
had no idea exactly how many more were in our enemies hands.

Konny
was incapable of commanding the section, and so I decided that it was me who
should answer for him.

‘Yeah?’
I shouted back over the noise. My whole section were firing.

‘You
all okay?’

I
shook my head, ‘Patterson’s dead!’

Johnno
paused to tap the information onto his datapad. It might sound ridiculous to
somebody who has never been in such a situation, but it was entirely possible
for a platoon sergeant to actually forget the casualties and fatalities that
his platoon sustained if he didn’t keep a record of it. Without the platoon
net, everything needed to be done by hand.