LANCEJACK (The Union Series) (22 page)

‘What
are you saying?’

I
told Westy about my conversation with the rebel prisoner, and my sighting of
our old platoon sergeant being half dragged across the bridge.

‘So
what was he doing in the Citadel?’ The Welshman asked, ‘Trying to stop them?’

I
shrugged, ‘I don’t know. I don’t doubt that he’s wrapped up in all this, but I
don’t think he’s the one calling the shots. At least not anymore. I think he
knows it’s gone too far. You said it yourself - Ev wouldn’t want to be a part
of this.’

Westy
nodded slowly, ‘It is a bit much. Ev went on a lot about New Earth
independence, but I can’t imagine him taking part in this slaughter. He doesn’t
want any more death.’

‘That
rebel prisoner talked about Ev like he really hated him,’ I recalled, ‘He said
that he would see his ‘
dreams destroyed’
, whatever that means.’

Westy
turned and fixed me with a stare.

‘What?’
I asked.

‘Nothing,’
Westy replied finally, ‘Just a weird thing to say.’

‘Yeah,’
I agreed, ‘I wonder what he meant by that?’

The
OC arrived inside the chamber, surveying the captured conscripts. Mr Moore
reported to him that we had successfully secured the warren complex beneath
Eindhoven, and that the base was now secured.

Westy
and I watched as the conscript company second in command was brought over to
the OC, guided by a trooper who gripped him by the shoulder so that he couldn’t
do anything sudden.

The
OC regarded the blindfolded officer. Unaware of what was going on around him,
the conscript made a good show of remaining calm and impassive, despite having
argued during his capture.
Either he had a clean conscience and knew that he
would be found to be innocent,
I thought,
or he was guilty as hell and
didn’t want us to know it.
I doubted that he was in on Ruckheim’s mutiny,
otherwise he wouldn’t have stayed in Eindhoven only to be caught.

‘Such
a shame,’ the OC said sadly, ‘This shouldn’t have to happen.’

‘We
can blame Ruckheim for that,’ Mr Moore replied curtly.

The
OC shot him an angry glance, but then nodded reluctantly, ‘Yes. It’s almost
unthinkable, isn’t it? Whether you agree or disagree with the Union policy on
New Earth, killing Union troopers is going far too far.’

Mr
Moore nodded toward the conscript, ‘Shall we?’

The
OC looked the prisoner up and down for a second time, ‘Yes. Please remove his
blindfold and allow him to hear, trooper.’

The
trooper removed the conscript’s respirator and ripped away the tape before
replacing it back against his face. He then fiddled with an opened panel on the
back of the conscript’s headset, reactivating it. Able to see and hear once
more, the officer regarded his peers coolly.

‘Captain
Schwartzkopf,’ the OC extended a hand in greeting, his eyes flicking to the
name badge sewn onto the conscript’s uniform, ‘I am major Thomsett, Officer
Commanding A Company.’

Captain
Schwartzkopf looked down at the OC’s hand, ‘I do apologise, sir,’ he said
calmly in English, ‘I cannot shake your hand, for my own are bound behind me.’

The
OC frowned, ‘I’m terribly sorry. Trooper, remove his cuffs please, I’m sure a
single unarmed officer is of little threat to us.’

‘None
of us are any threat to you, Sir,’ the conscript replied curtly as the trooper
cut the plastic cuffs away with his bayonet, ‘We’re on the same side.’

‘I
wish we could believe you, captain, but unfortunately something has happened in
the past hour which has caused us to doubt the loyalty of you and your men.’

Captain
Schwartzkopf raised an eyebrow, ‘What could possibly lead you to question our
loyalty, Sir? We may be conscripts, but we are all Europeans.’

‘So
was Major Ruckheim,’ Mr Moore interjected, ‘But it appears that he runs the
rebellion in Nieuwe Poort.’

‘Yes,
thank you, lieutenant,’ the OC appeared irritated at the outburst, ‘We don’t
know that he actually runs the show.’

The
platoon commander grunted in reply.

‘I
don’t believe it,’ the captain looked shocked, even more so than many of the
conscripts had looked when we had taken them prisoner. People went AWOL, conscripts
more so than troopers - because their service was completely involuntary - but
Union soldiers didn’t turn on their own countrymen, it was unheard of.

‘I’m
afraid it’s true,’ the OC confirmed, and he went on to tell the conscript
officer of Major Ruckheim’s disappearance with the rebels.

As
the details of his own company commander’s betrayal sank in, the captain’s head
dipped lower and lower, weighed down by shame, ‘I don’t know what to say, Sir.’

The
OC smiled, ‘Don’t be ashamed for one man’s actions. If you are innocent - and I
am sure that you are - then you have nothing to worry about. What I do require
from you, however, is your full co-operation. I require for you to have your
electronic warfare team provide my company with access to their hardware. I
also wish for you to identify your company commander’s quarters to my men so
that they may be searched.’

The
captain nodded quickly, ‘Of course, Sir.’

#

We
unceremoniously pulled Ruckheim’s quarters apart. Drawers were pulled open and
their contents tipped onto the floor. Expensive furniture was sliced open by
bayonets so that their insides could be checked. We didn’t know what we were
looking for, which made our search even more destructive.

Captain
Schwartzkopf had looked on in dismay as the private quarters of his old company
commander were torn to pieces before him. At one point he had asked Mr Moore if
it was really necessary to make such a mess, but our platoon commander had
replied in his usual unpleasant manner.

‘Is
there something here you don’t want us to find?’

The
captain appeared hurt, ‘Of course, not!’

‘If
you tried to stop our search and we found something, you could be implicated as
an accessory to Ruckheim’s treachery. Do you know what the Union does to
traitors?’

‘No.’

Mr
Moore lent close to the captain, ‘Nobody does…’

I
turned away from the confrontation, returning to what I was doing, rifling
through a desktop drawer.

‘Do
you know what they really do to traitors?’ Okonkwo whispered as we searched.

I
looked up at him, wondering why he might ask me such a question. Had Geany said
something? I wasn’t a traitor, but I had withheld information due to misplaced
loyalty.

I
tried to appear innocent, ‘What?’

Okonkwo
smiled, ‘The worst punishment the Union could ever give. They consign them to
New Earth!’

I
laughed, relieved that Okonkwo had merely been joking. New Earth was a pretty
shit place to be, but I had little doubt that the Union had far nastier
punishments up its sleeve for people like Ruckheim - and Ev. The people of
Europe only heard from the colonies what the Union wanted them to hear, since
it controlled all of the shipping that travelled between them. If the Union
wanted someone to
disappear
, then it could do so.

The
company EW team scoured the major’s datatablet and various other pieces of
electronic equipment dotted about his quarters, searching for any data that
might give us a clue as to his whereabouts, and what the rebel plans might be.
Having finished stripping the room without finding anything, we stopped to
watch as they did their magic.

‘He’s
got a lot of data hidden away,’ one of the operators said as he sat behind the
major’s desk manipulating a hologram produced by the tablet - numbers, letters
and random icons dancing around his hands as he worked. He had attached several
devices to it, none of which any of us had seen before. EW teams were composed
of hand-picked individuals far smarter than the average drop trooper, and the
equipment they used was beyond us.

Mr
Moore leant over the desk and sighed impatiently, ‘What does that mean, then?’

I
knew why he was growing impatient. Above us the battalion and countless more
conscripts were struggling to regain control over the city, where pockets of
rebel resistance still fought on despite their leader’s escape, meanwhile we
were mincing around with a bunch of computers.

The
EW operator ignored the boss’s rudeness, ‘He’s hidden tonnes of data within the
tablet. Pretty well done, the code is spread over…’

‘I
don’t care about the code, get to the point!’

Somebody
snickered, but the operator remained focused onto the hologram, ‘He’s up to
something.’

‘We
all know that.’

‘I
mean he’s up to something on the tablet.’

‘Like
what?’

The
operator waved his hand over the hologram, and finally sat back in triumph, ‘It’s
code.’

I
could see that Mr Moore was growing increasingly irritable, ‘What kind of
code?
’

‘I’m
not sure,’ the operator watched endless lines of letters and numbers scrolling
across the hologram, searching for some sense in it, ‘It would take a long time
to decipher and I don’t really have the tools to do it here.’

‘So
you’re saying you can’t do it?’ I asked.

The
operator looked up at me angrily, ‘This is my bread and butter, mate. I’m not
saying I can’t do it, what I’m saying is that it will take a long time.’

‘Well
time is one thing we
don’t
have,’ Mr Moore replied, ‘While we mess about
here, our enemy is making his withdrawal, and we don’t even know where or why,’
he paused to collect his thoughts, ‘How much time?’

The
operator shrugged, returning his gaze to the hologram, ‘I couldn’t say…’

The
platoon commander was about to say something, when suddenly the operator’s eyes
widened, and his jaw fell open.

I
looked at the endless scrolling code, not seeing what had surprised him, ‘What?’

For
a moment the operator just stared in horror at the screen, and then he
whispered so quietly that my headset had to amplify his voice for me to hear,
‘My God, it can’t be…’

‘
What?
’

The
operator pointed at the screen, ‘The code. I couldn’t get past this for days,
but I recognise its format from my EW course - it’s military communications - we
get taught to recognise it.
It’s the code of the enemy
.’

The
boss frowned, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

The
operator fixed the boss with a frightened stare, ‘The Chinese, Sir. It’s the
Chinese!!’

#

As
soon as we informed the OC of our discovery he quickly pulled all of the officers
and NCOs of the company together, crowding us all into Ruckheim’s office.
Despite the size of the office there were so many of us that we were forced to
huddle closely together, and the room filled with the whirring of the tiny
filter motors inside our respirators.

I
thought to myself that we would have made the perfect target. A single bomb
dropped by a Chinese ship could pulverise us all, leaving the company entirely
leaderless. The warrens built beneath Eindhoven were designed to protect the
conscripts from attacks by rogue saucers and missiles controlled by the rebels,
but I doubted that they could withstand an orbital bombardment from a far more
sophisticated opponent.

‘Gentlemen,’
the OC began, eyeing each of us in turn, ‘As some of you may already be aware,
the situation here in Nieuwe Poort has turned rather more sinister. It appears
that our traitorous major, Ruckheim, has been in contact with the Chinese.’

Several
NCOs exchanged surprised glances and the room filled with barely subdued
murmurs of alarm. Westy caught my eye from across the room, and I held his
gaze. I wondered if he knew how deep into this mess our old friend Ev was.
Perhaps even Ev himself hadn’t known. He had fought
against
the Chinese
alongside us. I couldn’t imagine him willingly
assisting
them.

The
OC held up a hand for calm, ‘I have brought you all together because I don’t
want to cause a panic amongst the company. The men are already uneasy about the
unrest within the city, and this is a revelation that they can do without for
now.’

Johnno
looked unhappy about keeping a secret from the men, ‘So what do we tell them,
and what about those who already know?’

‘Nothing,
Corporal Johnston. We tell them nothing. The men are already focused upon the
task at hand, which remains the defeat of the rebels within this province. At
this stage we have no idea whether this rebellion is setting the conditions for
a Chinese invasion or if it is merely a sponsored effort to weaken the Union
grip on New Earth. Until we know more we do not need to speculate, and we do
not need to worry the men unnecessarily.

We
are taking this revelation very seriously. The commanding officer has passed
the information on to New Earth JOint Command, who have promptly ordered all of
the Centauri fleet to move into a defensive formation in orbit above us. I can
assure you, though I do not know the exact numbers, just that the size of that
fleet remains considerable, far larger in fact than it had been the last time
the Chinese came here. In effect, we now have a sphere of steel rapidly forming
around the planet, giving us a formidable weapon to use to assist us in our
efforts against the rebellion. In the short term at least, the tide has turned
in our favour, because the change in situation has caused NEJOC to take notice.
We now have countless eyes looking down from above, and unlimited top cover.’