LANCEJACK (The Union Series) (14 page)

‘Earthling
bastards!’ the unseen rebel screamed.

Without
thinking, I bounded toward the door and held my rifle around the corner, just
enough to see the rebel through my sight camera. I fired several darts in his
direction, the recoil causing my weapon to jolt wildly in the unnatural fire
position.

The
first dart hit the rebel in the shoulder, causing him to lose control of his
rifle. Blood spattered across the tiled wall behind him. The second dart hit
him in the leg, and he collapsed onto his knees.

Knowing
that my enemy was incapacitated I swung out into the doorway, raising my rifle
to fire, and my eyes widened.

Somehow
the rebel had managed to use that split second to pull a grenade from one of
his pockets. I saw the hateful look in his eyes and the determination with
which he held the grenade high above his head. He reached to pull the pin just
as my finger squeezed the trigger.

I
must have shot the rebel at least four or five times. He was dead when he hit
the ground, his bloodied body slumping back against a toilet.

I
let out a huge sigh, relieved to have managed to kill the man before he blew me
and Okonkwo to pieces.

‘Okonkwo,
you okay?’ I asked, not looking away from the rebel. I half expected him to get
up and fight again. Blood seeped onto the bathroom floor.

‘Yeah,
I’m alright,’ Okonkwo answered from behind me, ‘You saved my life, mate!’

I
ignored his gratitude, ‘Are there any other rooms?’

‘There’s
a bedroom,’ Okonkwo answered, ‘But I… er… cleared it.’

‘How?’
I demanded. What was Okonkwo doing clearing rooms by himself without telling
me?

‘I
ran in there to hide!’ he laughed.

I
looked around me, the apartment was clear, and now Jackson stood in the doorway
covering back out into the corridor.

‘Apartment
clear,’ I announced, lowering my voice to a whisper once more, ‘Two enemy
dead.’

Jackson
nodded, and passed the quiet message back to the platoon commander and Konny.

We
made as little noise as possible because we were trained to fight against
well-equipped opponents who used headphones that could pinpoint us easily. To
the rebels, though, we must have been terrifying inside that building, making
not a single sound until we struck.

Okonkwo
moved across the apartment to join me as I inspected the man who had almost
killed him. The rebel wore ordinary civilians with a strange mixture of
military equipment over the top, some Chinese, some Union. He was wearing a Union
respirator identical to our own, though I doubted that the targeting system
worked with the Chinese rifle he had used.

Okonkwo
chuckled quietly, amused by something I couldn’t see.

I
raised an eyebrow, wondering what the large trooper had found so funny, ‘What?’

He
grinned as he whispered, ‘I’ve heard of dying to go for a shit, but that’s
ridiculous!’

Jackson
sniggered from the apartment doorway.

‘Oh…,’
I grimaced at the bad joke, ‘That’s bad, mate. That’s
really bad
.’

‘Oh
come on, you know that’s funny!’ Okonkwo insisted as I made my way back to the
corridor, just in time to see the next section push through.

Miraculously,
Konny had secured his nominated apartment, having found no enemy. If he had,
then I wondered if he would have frozen again, leaving the rest of his fire
team to deal with it.

Jackson’s
shoulders shook as he battled to contain his laughter, and I patted his
shoulder firmly, ‘Alright, mate, calm down. It wasn’t
that
funny.’

Actually
it was
,
I thought. It wasn’t the sick joke that was funny, though, it was the fact that
Okonkwo had used it at such a terrible time. You would never expect anybody
else to make such a crass joke at the sight of a dead body. but troopers did.
We used black humour to get through the worst of times, because if we didn’t
laugh, we cried.

There
were only two more terrorists on the first floor, both of whom were killed by
one section. They died hiding behind a wall, shot through by one of the section
mammoth gunners before the assaulting fire team even passed through the door. The
platoon continued past them in its never ending advance, clearing room after
room like a well-oiled killing machine.

Whilst
we waited in reserve, we watched the enemy dead being stripped of everything
useful by Johnno’s work party, who had now left the casualties with the
conscripts. Nothing was spared. They took ammunition that couldn’t even be used
by our rifles. They took wallets, electronic equipment and jewellery, all of
which was unceremoniously tossed into plastic bags and sealed.

‘It’s
all evidence,’ one of the work party explained to me as he carried out his grim
task, ‘One dead rebel can lead to ten arrests.’

He
continued to rifle through pockets like a man might sift through his laundry
for a lost set of keys.

I
looked over the bloodied bodies once more. The rebels were clearly well-equipped,
but hardly up to our standard. I marvelled that such an opponent had managed to
make an absolute mess of one of the most feared and respected infantry units in
the galaxy. Then I remembered that NELA had a weapon that they had used far
more effectively than any rifle or smart missile; the city network.

Outside
the dropships had managed to gain access to the street, negotiating the hole that
we had made in the glass roof and coming in to land. With them they brought the
rest of our company, giving us two additional platoons of drop troopers. One of
the platoons was tasked by the OC to relieve us, and they ran into our
building, charging up the stairwells into the floor above. The platoon cheered
as they watched the fresh troopers storm into battle, knowing that they were
saved.

‘No
noise, lads,’ Johnno shouted as he moved up and down the corridor, cutting
short our cheer, ‘The building isn’t clear yet!’

Despite
having put an end to our celebration, Johnno winked at me as he passed our apartment.
Although discipline had to be maintained, he too shared our elation.

I
felt my body relax slightly. Somehow, we had made it, but at a terrible cost.

With
or without our ability to communicate, we now completely outmatched our
opponent, both in numbers and in firepower. Several rebels surrendered having
realised that they were trapped, but many more fought on and the rattle of
gunfire told of their admirable yet futile last stand on the top floor of the
building. Finally the message was given that the building was clear, and that
Westy’s platoon
had teamed up with the
conscripts to clear the rest.

It
felt good to know that my friend’s platoon was on the ground with me, and my
spirits soared.

‘Well
done, lads,’ Johnno praised us all as he walked from room to room, and when he
passed me he patted my arm, smiling warmly, ‘Well done, mate.’

I
realised that he was talking about my idea to shoot out the glass, but he
didn’t know that it wasn’t my idea. It was Ev’s.

I
smiled back, ‘No problem.’

Johnno’s
face became serious once more. He turned away and shouted out to the entire
platoon, ‘Right, lads, let’s not switch off yet! 2ics, I want a work party of
two men from each section to assist with loading the casualties onto the
dropships! Meet me down at the entrance in one minute!’

My
smile faded.

10

The Traitor

‘Well
look who it is,’ Westy threw open his arms as we dismounted from our dropships
onto the landing pad of Eindhoven. Surrounded by the towering walls of the
base, the feeling of sustained menace lifted away from my shoulders, and I
couldn’t hide my elation as I hugged my old friend.

‘I’m
glad to see you’re alright, mate,’ he said sincerely, before laughing, ‘Even if
you are an ugly little scrote!’

‘Cheers,
mate,’ I said sarcastically, but I knew that it was just harmless banter, ‘I
think this is one of the first times I’ve ever been pleased to see you!’

We
joined the mass of troopers as they made their way through the airlocks and
into the same building we had entered for our initial brief hours before. It
took several cycles of the locks to get all of the two companies inside and we
were using at least three of the entrances at once.

‘You
had it bad out there,’ Westy said sadly, casting a glance over to where the
city skyline just peeked over the base walls.

I
followed his gaze and thought of the poor souls who hadn’t made it, and
Patterson, the fresh-faced recruit who I had never even got to know. His body
was already on its way back to Lash to be prepared for the sorry journey back
to Earth on a cargo freighter.

‘I
don’t think we would have made it if you hadn’t found us.’

‘We
would have taken longer,’ Westy admitted, as the group in front of us entered the
lock, ‘But the dropship crew saw an explosion on the roof and went in closer to
take a look.’

I
looked around me for members of my own platoon eavesdropping. I saw that they
had already entered the lock before me and we were surrounded by Westy’s
platoon, ‘I wanted to talk to you about that.’

Westy
eyed me curiously, ‘Yeah?’

I
nodded, ‘Yeah. Ev.’

Westy
frowned slightly, ‘What about him?’

‘He
was out there, mate. It was him who told me to shoot out the roof to attract
your attention.’

Westy’s
lips pursed, but he said nothing.

My
eyes narrowed, ‘You know he’s around, don’t you,’ I said.

The
airlock completed its cycle and its outer door opened again. We stepped inside
along with the remainder of Westy’s platoon.

Nobody
was interested in our conversation, but Westy was clearly unhappy to talk about
our old platoon sergeant again.

‘I
don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said flatly, but a sly dig into my
side with his elbow told me otherwise.

Taking
the hint, I nodded, ‘Okay, sorry.’

The
inner door of the lock opened, and the crowd of troopers made its way through
the dimly lit corridors and filed down a flight of stairs that led into the
warrens beneath it.

I
pulled my respirator away from my face and stopped Westy at the stairs, ‘What
do you know about Ev? Is he working for the rebels in Nieuwe Poort?’

‘Why
would he help you if he was working for them?’

‘Maybe
he was happy to shoot up Union troops, so long as he didn’t know them? You and
I both know he sympathised with the New Earthers.’

‘A
lot of us sympathise with them these days,’ Westy snapped, surprising me, ‘It
doesn’t mean we start slotting each other.’

I
repeated my first question, ‘What do you know about Ev?’

The
Welshman glared at me for a second, and then sighed in surrender, ‘I saw him a
few weeks back in Archer’s Post. It’s a garrison town on the edge of the
mountains where regimental headquarters is located, very pro-Union and swamped
with conscripts. We use it for local leave, so the blokes can unwind. He found
me in a bar. He’s still marked as AWOL, so God knows how he managed to get
between here and there without being caught, all of the maglevs are monitored
and you can’t move ten metres without a camera on you.’

‘Unless
the rebels switch the cameras off for him…’ I suggested, ‘What did you talk
about?’

‘The
war, mostly,’ Westy laughed bitterly, ‘What else are we gonna talk about?’

I
could imagine the pair of them drowning in alcohol and self-pity, but only because
I had been there myself, ‘So he didn’t ask you anything sensitive… patrol
locations, future operations…’

‘No,
don’t be stupid, mate,’ he said, waving the suggestion away with his hand, ‘Even
if he did, I wouldn’t have told him anything. The bloke’s AWOL, that’s it. He’s
not with NELA. The last thing Ev wants is more fighting, believe me. He had his
fill. We all did.’

‘And
yet, here we are,’ I said.

‘I’m
telling you - he’s
not with them
.’

I
trusted Westy, he was still a trooper - a good one at that - but I wondered if
he had been somehow misled by our old platoon sergeant during their drunken
meeting in Archer’s Post. Nieuwe Poort was thirty kilometres from the garrison
town, so why had Ev travelled so far to a place teeming with Union troops and how
was he doing it without being caught?

‘So,’
I said finally, ‘Now what?’

‘I’m
not gonna tell you what to do, mate,’ Westy replied, ‘If you want to tell your
boss you saw him, then be my guest.’

I
thought about it for a second, ‘I have to mention it. Even if I wanted to keep
my mouth shut, one of my blokes saw me talk to him, and he told my section
commander.’

Westy
frowned, ‘Who, Konny? Johnno told me all about him. He’s a little two-faced
shit bag. He acts like he’s the best lancejack in the Union, but with no
ability to back it up.’

‘I
know. I had to relieve him.’

The
stocky Welshman raised an eyebrow, ‘Really?’

‘Several
times.’

He
laughed, and slapped me hard on the back, ‘Who’d have thought it, eh? You were like
a wet paper bag when you first turned up two years ago, and now you’re cutting around
putting everyone in his place!’

‘Yeah,’
I said grimly, ‘New Earth can make a boy grow up quick.’

‘It
can,’ Westy agreed, and his smile disappeared, ‘Look, mate, you’re an NCO. I
understand if you need to tell somebody about Ev. Alright?’

‘Yeah.’

He
flicked his head toward the empty stairwell, ‘Shall we?’

We
made our way down into the warren.

#

The
platoon had been settled into a large cavern filled with crates whilst the officers
and what was left of our police escort went away to discuss the situation in
the city above us.

‘Where
have you been?’ Konny asked irately when I arrived.

I
ignored him. He was hardly in a position to act the good section commander as
far as I was concerned.

I
was far more interested in the cooked baguettes the platoon were busy stuffing
themselves with. They must have been given to them by the conscripts. The smell
of hot melted cheese caused my mouth to water and my stomach to rumble noisily.

‘Here
you are, Andy,’ Okonkwo held up a spare baguette from where he sat cross legged
in the middle of the platoon huddle.

‘Thanks,’
I took the roll and took a massive bite, savouring the taste as I chewed it
slowly. I doubted anybody had touched the rations they carried in their
daysacks, not with fresh food around to be eaten. Nobody liked the processed
mush that came in our ration packs, designed to be sucked through the feeding
straw fitted to our respirators. They were dubbed ‘horror bags’ for the expression
on a man’s face when he ate from them!

‘Johnno
wants to see you,’ a voice said.

The
voice was that of Corporal Myers, the section commander for One section and the
only other full corporal in the platoon. I saw that he was young like Johnno,
but I guessed that he was probably slightly junior to him. He looked across at
me from where his section sat along a line of crates.

I
swallowed my food, ‘Where is he?’

The
section commander pointed across the cavern to where Johnno stood beside the
CSM, deep in conversation. I was in trouble.

Konny
must have told somebody about Ev, I thought, and I prepared myself for the
worst as I handed Okonkwo back my barely eaten roll and made my way toward
them.

‘Good
call on the roof, by the way,’ Corporal Myers said as I passed him, nodding
respectfully, ‘Andy Moralee, isn’t it?’

‘That’s
right.’

He
shook my hand, ‘Jimmy. Glad to have you with us, mate.’

My
spirits lifted. Even if I was to be dragged through the mud for taking the
advice of a potential rebel, at least there were some people in my platoon who
thought that I did the right thing.

I
placed my respirator inside my helmet and tucked them under my arm so as to
look presentable to the Company Sergeant Major, who spotted me approaching. The
three platoons of the company watched curiously from their corners of the
cavern as I drew close to the CSM, wondering if their most senior NCO was about
to provide them with some entertainment whilst they ate.

Johnno
followed the CSMs stare, ‘That’s him now,’ he said.

‘Lance
Corporal Moralee,’ the CSM said my name slowly, as if deciding whether he liked
it or not.

‘Yes,
Sir,’ I affirmed, bracing myself for him to suddenly explode with rage.

I
had been in front of sergeant majors before, but I had never grown used to
their overwhelming presence. They were imposing, often terrifying men that
could cause troopers to shake with fear, and this man was no exception. Most
sergeant majors were veterans who had served in the dropship infantry for
almost as long as I had been alive, climbing up through the ranks as they
proved themselves worthy.

The
sergeant major’s cold, battle-hardened eyes pierced into my soul, but I wasn’t
going to appear frightened in front of the company, for it would earn me
everlasting ridicule.

He
rubbed at his temple as if he were trying to come to terms with what he had
been told, ‘You relieved your section commander on the ground. Why?’

‘I
had no choice, Sir,’ I replied honestly, ‘He had paused at a critical stage in
the battle.’

The
CSM looked briefly at Johnno, then back to me, ‘What about the roof? Who told
you to fire into it?’

I
couldn’t tell a lie, but for some reason I avoided telling the whole truth, ‘A
civilian, Sir.’

Ev
was a civilian, technically
, I told myself.

‘A
civilian,’ the CSM repeated.

‘Sir.’

‘So
why did you chose to go along with this civilian?’

I
considered my response, ‘It made sense that if any aircraft were nearby then
they would see the explosion, Sir. I also figured that losing the air might
shock the enemy and give us more time. If the civvy was right, we would be
saved. If he was wrong, it wouldn’t have made a difference.’

‘It
was a good idea, Sir,’ Johnno agreed, coming to my aid. After all, it was him
who had given the nod to fire the smart missile into the glass roof, and if we
hadn’t done so then there was a good chance that we wouldn’t have survived long
enough for the company to find us anyway.

The
CSM considered my reasoning, nodding slowly as he did so, ‘I don’t quite
understand what your boss is angry about. What Lance Corporal Moralee did was
irregular, but it was a considered action that probably saved lives. Commanders
must be able to act on their own initiative. Is that it?’

‘Near
enough, Sir,’ I said.

He
cocked his head, ‘Then there
is
more?’

Konny
had already stitched me up with the platoon commander, so I saw no reason to
protect him, ‘I had to get him moving during a previous ambush, Sir.’

‘How?’

‘I…
grabbed him by the throat, Sir.’

I
could swear the corner of the CSMs mouth twitched, ‘I can’t have my NCOs
filling each other in on the ground, Lance Corporal Moralee.’

‘I
know, Sir. But it got him moving.’

‘I’ll
bet it did. Corporal Johnston, see to it that young Moralee here is given a
fitting punishment for his actions once we return to Lash, whenever that might
be. I’ll talk to your boss.’

‘Sir.’

The
CSM fixed me with a penetrating stare, ‘Give me your hand, Moralee.’

Cautiously,
I held out my left arm, and as I did so he grasped it firmly, and slapped me
across the wrist.

‘Now
don’t do it again,’ his mouth twitched again, and he winked. Whether he knew
that Konny was an arse, or he simply knew that I was only trying to keep my men
alive, the CSM was clearly on my side.

My
shoulders relaxed as I turned to leave, but I couldn’t help but feel guilty for
not mentioning Ev. Had I done the right thing not to say anything? I still felt
such a powerful loyalty to him, even though he had gone AWOL. I thought that
Geany had noticed that I knew the man who told me the company were near, but he
obviously hadn’t told anybody.