LANCEJACK (The Union Series) (19 page)

Eyes
wide with terror, the first rebel died before she even managed to bring her
weapon to bear. Okonkwo shot the second as he emerged from behind a storage
unit to see what was going on.

I
rounded their cover and as I did so a third terrorist stood up almost right in
front of me, turning to fire from the hip in a desperate bid for survival.

He
was too late. I allowed my momentum to carry me into him, the blade of my bayonet
piercing his chest. Designed for no purpose other than to kill, the bayonet was
perfectly shaped to break the skin and then part the ribcage without embedding
itself into the bone.

I
pulled backward, and the deep channels cut by the bayonet squelched sickeningly
as they allowed the blade to be released. Eyes bulging, the man collapsed with
a gargling noise, and I stabbed him again on the floor for good measure. Blood
ran freely from his wounds and onto the floor.

I
fired a burst of darts into another nearby enemy marked on my visor and Okonkwo
and Jackson joined in.

‘Konny,
move!’

The
enemy had not expected us, they had become transfixed upon an opponent fifty
metres away, when suddenly they were being engaged by a section of troopers who
were right on top of them. We swept through them with merciless efficiency,
each fire team bounding forward five to ten metres whilst the other gave
covering fire. Anybody we encountered in amongst the wreckage was either shot,
or if he was unfortunate to be close enough, stabbed.

At
one point somebody emerged from cover right at Leaman’s feet. and swung at him
with some kind of blade, slashing him across the arm, but so bloodthirsty was
the trooper that he kicked the man to the ground and beat at him with his
mammoth, crushing his skull into a pulp.

‘Stop!’
I heard a voice calling as we advanced, and I wondered where it had come from.
A hand raised toward the far corner of the building, ‘We surrender!’

I
paused, confused. Nobody had ever surrendered to me before, the Chinese had
been pretty stubborn most of the time, and I wasn’t sure if it was a trick.

‘STOP!
STOP!’ The voice screamed again, and strangely all of our weapons fell silent
at the desperate plea. We were troopers, trained to kill the enemies of the
Union, but we didn’t kill those who didn’t want to fight.

I
allowed myself a second or two to calm down, the orgy of killing was over for
now, ‘Stand where we can see you!’

Four
rebels stood, their hands held up into the air.

One
of them shouted something in Dutch, and I received the translation shortly
afterward, ‘We do not want to fight anymore! We surrender!’

‘Don’t
move!’ I ordered, and the section swept forward toward them.

We
found another three rebels on the ground, two of whom were dead, and the other
one was shot through the leg. We searched them, stripping them of their weapons
and equipment whilst I had Okonkwo treat the casualty.

The
platoon commander approached and addressed the rebel prisoners, ‘How many more
of you are there?’

‘There
are many of us,’ one of them replied simply.

‘How
many?’

The
rebel shrugged, ‘Fifty in this building, I think.’

‘Where
is your leader - Evans?’

The
terrorists exchanged a glance, ‘He isn’t our leader,’ despite the polite
translation there was no hiding their vehemence, ‘He is a
traitor
.’

Mr
Moore harrumphed, ‘We worked that one out for ourselves.’

I
ignored the sudden rush of wind as a dropship swooped away from the floor
above, taking casualties away to Eindhoven. Johnno was already busy extracting
our wounded. More dropships were approaching, carrying three platoon toward the
floor below us so that they could continue the battle.

‘Why
is Evans a traitor?’ I asked the terrorists, ‘And why is he up here?’

‘I’ll
ask the questions here, Lance Corporal Moralee,’ the platoon commander snapped.

The
rebels looked between us as Johnno’s work party arrived to cuff their hands and
take them away to be loaded onto the next dropship.

‘It
doesn’t matter,’ one of the them said with a shrug, ‘He will die soon anyway.’

‘That’s
enough,’ Mr Moore turned to the work party, ‘Get these scum extracted to
Eindhoven, Corporal Johnston, I want them out of the way before we get called
to assault again.’

‘Roger,’
one of the work party replied, and they grabbed the rebels by their cuffs and
marched them toward the stairwell, where Johnno had Jimmy’s section busy
smashing away one of the windows so that another dropship could gain access to
the building with its ramp.

Suddenly
frightened for Ev, I chased after the prisoners, forgetting myself, ‘Where is Evans?
Why did you say he’ll die soon?’

‘
Moralee
!’
Mr Moore shouted, but I ignored him. Another sudden blast of cold air announced
the arrival of the next dropship, its massive hull blocking out the sun. It
turned around to allow its rear ramp to gently lower to the floor through the freshly
smashed out window.

‘Why
do
you
care?’ The rebel asked me as he was led toward the ramp, ‘He is a
deserter.’

‘He
was my friend once,’ I admitted quietly, and the trooper escorting the rebel
looked at me in surprise.

The
rebel laughed harshly, ‘Then he is our
enemy
. He will not die yet.
He
will live long enough to see his dreams shattered before he dies.’

I
couldn’t understand what the rebel meant. Either my translator wasn’t making
proper sense out of the words he was using, or he was talking in riddles.

I
was about to continue my interrogation when Mr Moore shouted from across the
office at me, ‘Moralee! Snap out of your funk, we haven’t the time to
fraternise with a bunch of prisoners! Consolidate your section so that they’re
ready to assault again!’

I
nodded reluctantly and allowed the prisoner to be marched away to his waiting
dropship. He probably wasn’t going to tell me anything anyway, I figured. He
certainly wasn’t going to tell me where they were taking Ev.

So
Westy had been right
,
I thought as I watched the work party load our prisoners onto the waiting
dropship,
Ev was no rebel.

No.
But he
used
to be a rebel
,
I reminded
myself,
just not anymore
. He was far too wrapped up in all of this to be
entirely innocent. So why had the rebels turned on him so angrily? Had they
seen him helping us during our ambush, or had he committed some other crime
against their cause? Why had they brought him up to the tip of the Citadel, and
why we’re they even bothering to attempt to get him out?

I
thought back to what the rebel had said to me, ‘
He will live long enough to
see his dreams shattered before he dies.’
The rebels hated him, clearly,
but they hated something else about him. They hated something that Ev had stood
for
before
. But the real question was what did the rebel mean by Ev’s
‘dreams’
?

I
shook my head to clear my mind. I knew that if there was any hope for Ev, it
would be through us continuing our sweep downward, flushing the rebels into the
arms of the conscripts who waited for them at the foot of the Citadel. Ev would
be captured, but at least he would have the chance to explain himself. If he
was truly innocent, then he would have a chance of survival, even if that was
to be in a Union prison for desertion. It seemed that his only alternative was
death at the hands of the rebels.

‘Moralee!’
The platoon commander was getting angry.

I
stole one final glance to the dropship as it fell away with the prisoners, and
I knew what I had to do. I had to find Ev.

12

Betrayal

The
company stormed through the building rapidly, finding no sign of the rebels as
it cleared floor-by-floor, room-by-room. Under the direction of the OC the
three platoons of the company struck again and again, their dropships peppering
the building with their vulcan cannon before disgorging their cargo of troopers.
We weren’t taking any chances.

It
quickly became apparent that the rebels had fled toward the lower sections of
the building in their bid for freedom, and we picked up the pace of our assault
as we became increasingly confident that there was no longer anyone around for
us to fight. We were thorough though despite our speed, careful not to allow a
lone rebel the ability to sneak behind us.

Every
time I entered a room I half expected to find Ev’s body riddled with holes, but
I never did.

I
tried not to think about the fate of my old friend, but I couldn’t shake him
from my mind. I couldn’t help but remember the rebel prisoner’s words. What the
hell did he mean? The thought that my old friend was not on the side of NELA
and that he might need my help filled me with resolve; I had to find him.

As
we made our third entry into the building I noticed that the level was much
wider, and as we cleared through I noticed a strange, glass pyramid in the
centre of a large office.

‘What’s
that?’ I pointed, and the troopers in my section followed my outstretched arm.
Light emanated from the base of the pyramid, and I suddenly realised that it
was in fact a window into a space below.

‘The
Citadel’s hollow,’ Konny pointed out.

I
walked over to the pyramid and leant against the glass, trying to ignore the
extreme sense of vertigo as I saw that I was staring down into a huge chamber
that grew wider and wider for hundreds of floors, until it finally reached some
kind of garden or park at the base of the tower. Halfway down a walkway passed
across the chamber, bridging the gap between two sides of the building.

My
visor flickered with several orange crosshairs, and with a start I realised
that there was movement in one of the floors just above the walkway.

‘Sir!’
I called.

‘What?’
The platoon commander was nearby, directing the other two sections in their
clearance of the remainder of the floor.

‘There’s
something I need you to take a look at!’

Mr
Moore joined me by the pyramid. He leant over onto the glass so that, like me, he
was suspended over the chasm below.

‘Can
you see them?’ I asked as the orange crosshairs continued to appear and
disappear far below us.

‘Yeah,
I see them! Good spot, Moralee!’

I
would have swelled with pride at the compliment, if I hadn’t already given the
boss up for a dour, arrogant pain in the arse.

Mr
Moore glanced back toward the work party who were covering the stairs, ‘I need
a launcher!’

‘Roger!’
One of Johnno’s men responded instantly, and seconds later the trooper arrived
with his smart launcher balanced on his shoulder ready to fire.

I
moved away from the glass as the platoon commander briefed the trooper and held
my rifle so that the camera could look down to where I had seen the orange
crosshairs.

Figures
were now crossing the walkway, most of them running, but two were struggling
with some kind of load. I zoomed in to get a better view of what they were
carrying, and there was no mistaking it. It was an unconscious man:  
It was
Ev!!

‘Shit
the bed!’ I exclaimed.

‘Them
lot will be shitting the bed in a minute,’ Mr Moore joked darkly as the trooper
readied his launcher. He pointed to me, ‘When I tell you to, you smash out the
glass so the launcher can fire.’

‘We
can’t!’

He
frowned in puzzlement, ‘Why not?’

‘That
Evans bloke is down there!’

‘Well,
so what? He’s the enemy leader for God’s sake!’

‘He’s
not their leader,’ I corrected, ‘They’re planning to kill him!’

‘I
don’t care! Step aside, Moralee, I’ll break the glass!’

I
don’t think we were far from throwing punches when Johnno intervened, having
heard the commotion. He pushed the launcher away from the window.

‘Boss,
what the hell are you doing?’

The
platoon commander quickly explained his plan, but as soon as he mentioned the
words ‘smart missile’ Johnno stopped him.

‘Are
you out of your mind?’ He threw his arms up into the air, ‘This building is
over two hundred floors high! You’ll take the whole thing down with us in it!’

Mr
Moore calmed down as he saw that Johnno was talking sense, the Citadel was a
massive building and there was no telling how much damage the lower sections
could take before it fell. I breathed a small sigh of relief. Ev was saved from
our smart missile, though he was still in the hands of the rebels.

‘Damn
it,’ Mr Moore cursed as the figures disappeared into the other side of the
building. He struck the glass with a gloved hand, ‘There’s no way we can catch
up with them!’

He
had caught the scent of blood and was desperate for the kill, but he knew that
his quarry was escaping and there was little he could do about it.

‘We
could leave the company to continue their clearance,’ I suggested, ‘Then punch
down in the dropships to close the gap?’

The
platoon commander looked pained as he considered my suggestion. I knew that he
wanted to do it.

‘I
don’t know,’ he said almost sadly, ‘The OC wouldn’t go for it. He wants
thoroughness.’

I
tried a different approach, trying to prize open the crack in his armour, ‘Our
orders were to clear the building. But if we take our time up here the enemy
will set up defences lower down, or they might even attack the conscripts on
the ground. There are fifty of them. That’s almost half a company heading
straight for Major Ruckheim!’

‘Yes,
I’m aware how large a company is, thank you,’ he looked to Johnno, ‘What do you
think?’

Johnno
paused thoughtfully, ‘Andy has a point, this building is massive. Normally
you’d need a whole battalion to clear it. It makes more sense to maintain
mobility and strike again lower down, keep the enemy on his toes. Explain it
like that and I’m sure the OC will go for it.’

Mr
Moore looked at each of us in turn, as if considering our argument. He was an
aggressive platoon commander, more so than any other I had met. He already wanted
to go on the offensive, all we had to do was give him a nudge.

Finally,
after several precious seconds, he nodded, ‘You’re right. I’ll talk to the OC.
Give me a second.’

We
nodded as one, ‘Okay, Sir.’

As
if in afterthought the platoon commander fixed me with a stern look, ‘Moralee,
I can’t make sense of you. You’re either a tactical genius or a raging madman!’

As
he spoke to his own commander using the company net, I thought about what Mr
Moore had said. He hadn’t been the first man in the platoon to say that I was
crazy. Maybe I was. After all, I had just managed to persuade him to assault
deeper into the building with the sole intention of chasing after my old
platoon sergeant, who was an ex- member of a rebellion hell bent on bringing a
city to its knees.

It
took less than a minute before Mr Moore gave Johnno the thumbs up. The OC had
agreed to our plan and we were allowed to give chase.

Johnno
flicked to the battle group net, ‘Hades-four-zero, this is One-zero-Bravo.
Request pick up on my call!’

He
gave the platoon commander the thumbs up. ‘Hades’, our small squadron of four
dropships, had received the message. Somewhere a few kilometres away our
dropships would be arcing around toward us at incredible speeds, waiting for
our call to be picked up.

‘We
won’t have any other platoons in support,’ Mr Moore told Johnno, ‘So we will
assault on the same level in echelon. Therefore I will take the first two
sections in, you will hold back with the third in reserve.’

Johnno
nodded, ‘Roger that, boss! I’m gonna have the dropships meet you over there,’
he pointed toward the far wall of the office, which was made entirely of glass.

‘Good.
Moralee, get your men over there and prepare the pick-up point!’

I
waved over my section and lead them across the office toward the window, and as
I did so I heard Johnno giving the final co-ordinates for the dropships to
locate us. Corporal Myers and his own section converged with us and Mr Moore
quickly explained to us his plan. With the remainder of the company continuing
to clear through the Citadel we would thrust downward using the dropships. We
would then conduct another entry onto the floor with the bridge, which was
where we had last seen the enemy, in an attempt to harass him on his escape.

We
used the butts on our mammoth gunners to knock out several panels of glass, to
enable access to the approaching dropships. Once again the building whistled as
the wind rushed through, causing one or two troopers to stagger precariously
close to the edge.

Alpha
Centauri Alpha glowed orange as it set behind a distant mountain range, casting
long shadows that slowly crept across the endless farmland that surrounded
Nieuwe Poort. I looked over the edge of the Citadel toward the darkening
cityscape far below. The tallest buildings were insignificant against the Citadel,
barely half its height, and it was almost impossible to tell what was going on
inside the domes without using the zoom on my rifle. In between the towers I
spotted the dropships, weaving left and right in an attempt to make themselves
a near impossible target for the rebels to engage.

‘Here
they come!’

With
a blast of air that almost threw me from my feet the first dropship arrived,
quickly lowering its ramp.

‘Corporal
Myers,’ Mr Moore shouted over the wind, ‘You first!’

The
section commander nodded and ushered his men onto the dropship, spurring them
on into battle with a slap against their daysacks. No sooner had he seated
himself inside the tiny crew compartment than the dropship fell away from the
window and another appeared.

Mr
Moore tapped my shoulder, ‘You’re on the third one, Corporal Moralee!’

‘Roger!’

He
was gone, taking the signaller with him. In order to keep Johnno and the other
section behind in reserve he had requested a fifth dropship, since they only
carried eight fully-kitted troopers. There wouldn’t be room for the two of them
with us. Anymore than eight resulted in the additional trooper being thrown
around the compartment like a brick. Not good.

‘Give
‘em one for me, mate!’ I heard Johnno shout over the platoon net as our dropship
arrived, and I ordered the section to load.

Konny
accepted his new place at the back of the compartment without a word and we
boarded the dropship as quickly as we could behind him, this time with my fire
team closest the exit. Each trooper hurriedly strapped himself into his seat as
soon as he was in.

I
paused by the ramp for the last man to step aboard, so that I could take my new
place at the front of the compartment. Now that I had become the section
commander I was one of the first out.

Suddenly
I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye. It was moving
impossibly, changing direction so fast that if it had been manned it would have
turned its crew to mush. I knew only too well what it was;  it was a saucer.  But
I had been told that our own saucers were keeping clear of the city unless
called for? This one was coming straight for us!

‘Contact
- fast air!’

Johnno
hollered from behind me, ‘Andy, look out!’

I
dived into the dropship, throwing myself across the legs of its surprised human
cargo with only seconds to spare. We fell.

The
dropship hurtled to the ground so suddenly that it threw me toward the roof of
the compartment, and hands grasped at my armour to prevent me from being sucked
out of the door by the sudden rush of air.

Okonkwo
grunted as he tried to pull me down toward my seat, but with the extreme
G-forces it was as though gravity had been reversed and I cried out as I felt
his grip slipping. The endless windows of the Citadel became a blur as we
accelerated away from the saucer, and the dropship began to vibrate as its
vulcan cannon opened fire.

The
dropship ramp closed with a thump just before it lurched to the side violently,
and I was thrown to one side of the compartment like a rag doll, knocking my
head against the wall. I cried out again, more in shock than in pain. I cradled
my rifle close to my body, aware that it could easily kill one of my comrades
as I was tossed about.

‘Get
him in his seat!’ Konny shouted urgently to those around me.

He
knew as well as I did the result of a trooper not being strapped in. With or
without his armour, it meant broken bones and possibly even death. The section
struggled to move me toward my seat in a tangle of arms that grabbed at every
loose piece of fabric and every piece of equipment I carried, and finally I
heard the wonderful sound of my buckle clipping and the reassuring tightness of
the straps about me.