LANCEJACK (The Union Series) (25 page)

I
whispered the situation to the platoon commander, telling him that I was
stalking a group of rebels intent on counter attacking onto the building.

‘Roger,’
he acknowledged calmly, ‘Seize the chance as soon as you get it. Two section
are moving around now. I’m marking their forward line.’

A
crosshair appeared to my right, showing me that Two section had already
advanced well into the maze. If the rebels were to counter attack, then they
would be cut off too.

I
finally caught a glimpse of the rebel group. It was a party of ten rebels,
hugging the shadows as they sneaked through the maze toward the building. We
kept back from them, waiting for our moment to strike. They were so focused on
attacking the building that they hadn’t even considered that we might be behind
them, and they never even glanced over their shoulders.
Bad drills
, I
thought. The rebels were hardly fools, but they weren’t trained soldiers.

Finally
the party of rebels stopped  at the last wall of containers between them and
the building. I could see now that they were well equipped, all wearing body
armour and carrying an assortment of weapons. From behind cover I watched them
as a single rebel, who I guessed was their commander, briefed them quietly.
They huddled close together to hear the plan.

It
was too good an opportunity to miss. I held up a fist to Okonkwo and then
pointed at the huddle.

He
knew exactly what to do. Without saying a word he selected his grenade launcher
and fired a single grenade into the mass of rebels. It detonated right in the
middle of the group and they disappeared in a cloud of smoke, dust and gore.

‘Go!’
I yelled. We charged toward them, firing into the cloud as we went. There was
little need though, because the grenade had made a terrible mess of them. The
containers were spattered with blood, and the rebels lay shredded on the floor.

One
rebel was still alive, though I doubted that he would be for long. His stomach
had been ripped open, and his guts hung out from the gaping wound. Through his
smashed visor I could see that his lower jaw had been blown away, exposing the
back of his tongue and glistening tendons. He gurgled as he fought to breathe.

I
stabbed him through the heart with my bayonet, ensuring that he was truly dead.
I felt no remorse. I was doing him a favour.

‘Jackson,’
I shouted, for there was no need to be silent any more. The enemy knew where we
were, ‘Get Geany back to the building!’

Another
fire fight erupted from within the maze as Two section began its attack on more
of the rebels. We ignored it and ran back toward the building.

‘Konny,
we’re coming back, mate, don’t shoot!’

‘Okay!’

Jackson
and O’Leary emerged from amongst the containers just after we did, running
straight toward the building with their stretcher.

As
we approached the building I noticed Konny peering down from the roof, waiting
to see if Geany was okay. I imagined how desperately he must have been hoping
that the senior trooper had survived.

I
held up a thumb just before I reached the building, ‘It’s okay, mate, he’ll
survive! He’ll have a headache, though!’

I
could swear I heard Konny breathe out a sigh of relief, even though he was
three floors above me. I hoped that news of Geany’s survival would give him
back some confidence, for whether I liked him or not, I needed him.

We
entered the room on the ground floor just as the nearby battle intensified, and
I had O’Leary re-join his fire team on the roof. If we came under attack then
Konny’s fire team could give fire support whilst I took the fight back to the
enemy.

‘Two-zero,
this is Two-three,’ I reported, ‘We’re back in the building. We destroyed one
enemy section on the way.’

‘Yeah,
roger,’ Mr Moore acknowledged, ‘Two section is assaulting now. Once they have
completed the assault they’ll return to link up with you for the final
clearance.’

‘Understood.’

Jackson
tapped me on the shoulder, ‘Andy, Geany’s awake.’

I
looked down at the injured trooper and saw that his eyes were open. He was
looking right at me. I knelt beside him and squeezed his hand.

‘Try
to relax, mate, you’re fine.’

His
mouth moved, and I leant forward to hear what he was trying to say.

‘Pain,’
he said weakly.

I
knew what he was after; pain relief. Our combats detected injuries and were
fitted with tourniquets and anti-clotting agents that activated automatically,
but they didn’t administer pain relief, since apparently they used to activate
accidentally! Pain relief could only be given by hand.

‘Pain.’
He mumbled again.

‘I
know, mate. I can imagine. I’m afraid I can’t give you any pain relief because
you probably have concussion. Sorry.’

‘Bastard.’

I
smiled. Geany could barely speak, but he still had room in his lungs to squeeze
out a swear word. Even in the state he was in, he was a gobshite.

‘Gonna
die,’ he said, and his eyes glazed.

I
laughed unsympathetically, ‘Shut up, mate. You’re not going to die!’

Suddenly
Geany fixed me with an intense stare, ‘I know.’

‘Well,
don’t say it, then,’ I said.

Geany
made an effort to shake his head, and winced, ‘No. I
know
.’

I
frowned, ‘Know what?’

‘Evans.’

I
said nothing, knowing exactly what he was getting at.

Geany
had recognised Ev. With a single word he could have had me in cuffs along with
Westy. I looked to see if anybody was listening to our conversation, but the
others were all busy observing out of the windows for enemy.

I
looked back down at him, ‘Why didn’t you say anything, then?’

Geany
gave a thin smile, ‘I’m not a snitch…you’re no rebel.’

I
laughed, ‘Well, if I was a rebel then I’d be a pretty bad one, seeing as I just
had Okonkwo kill ten of my mates with a grenade!’

‘Evans.
Rebel?’

‘I
don’t know.’

Geany
paused briefly, ‘You’re alright.’

I
hadn’t expected that, ‘Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself. I think I preferred
you when you were unconscious, though, to be honest!’

‘Belter.’

I
smiled at the insult, ‘Yeah, you’re probably right. Do me a favour and stay
awake, yeah?’

‘Okay.’

I
tasked Jackson to watch over Geany and keep him company. The main thing to do
was to keep him awake and alert, I was worried that once he closed his eyes he
might not open them again.

Two
section completed their assault successfully, reporting only a single casualty.
A trooper had taken a dart to the upper thigh. We could live with that, I
thought.

The
warehouse finally fell silent, and our two sections linked up, while One section
continued to watch from the roof. We took the two casualties to where Two
section’s ropes still dangled down from their fresh mouse-hole. We then connected
their stretchers to the ropes, and one-by-one they were lifted out of the
warehouse by Johnno’s work party.

‘There’s
a dropship up here waiting,’ Johnno reassured the platoon over the net as Geany
rose toward the roof, ‘We’ll have them back to Lash in no time.’

It
was important that the men knew that the platoon casualties were being
extracted successfully. If they knew they would be well looked after when they
were hurt, then they were less afraid of being hurt in the first place.

With
an almighty crash an LSV broke through a metal door that gave access to the
warehouse, and conscripts flooded through the gaps either side of it. They had
been tasked to assist by the OC, but it had taken them far longer to reach the
warehouse in their wheel based vehicles.

Johnno
brought down his work party and Jimmy’s section, and we joined in with the
conscripts in their sweep of the warehouse. There were more than a hundred of
us altogether, and it wasn’t long before a message was passed to the boss that
something had been found. He ordered for us all to close in whilst the
conscripts continued their clearance, and we forgot ourselves as we huddled
together to look inside the tunnel entrance.

‘Is
that it?’ Johnno asked, sounding disappointed.

I
had to agree with his sentiment. The tunnel was barely any larger than a mouse-hole,
and judging by the jagged edges it had probably been blown out by some form of
explosive and finished off with traditional digging tools. It ran diagonally
downward beneath a particularly large container that was beside the building that
my section had cleared. I assumed that the container was normally placed on top
of it to keep it hidden.

‘That
explains why they tried to counter attack the building,’ I observed, ‘We were
blocking their way out.’

I
peered inside, but couldn’t see anything. It looked as though the tunnel changed
direction ten or so metres down.

‘Not
quite what I was expecting,’ Mr Moore admitted, ‘You can’t fit anything large
down there, nothing big enough for us to worry about, anyway.’

‘Maybe
whatever it is they’re trying to smuggle out isn’t really that big,’ I replied,
‘Maybe they aren’t trying to smuggle anything out at all…’

‘Stop
talking in damn riddles,’ the boss scolded, ‘Clearly this is another trick.
Corporal Weston has given us false information to lure us in to this place.’

I
shook my head, ‘I don’t think so. The rebels didn’t even fire at us until we
were halfway along the gantry. They were caught by surprise. I don’t think they
were expecting us at all.’

We
stopped when a voice called out from behind us, ‘Have we found our tunnel,
then?’

The
platoon turned around as one. It was the OC, with his small entourage of
signallers and specialist advisors. Behind him stood Westy, his hands bound in
front of him. I thought that he looked strange wearing his armour, but without
his weapon and equipment. A trooper stood beside him, just in case he chose to
run or fight.

Realising
that the entire platoon was now crowded around the entrance along with the
company commander, Mr Moore glared at us all angrily, ‘Spread out, for God’s
sake!’

Snapping
back into trooper mode, the platoon quickly scattered amongst the containers to
take up fire positions.

I
remained behind, exchanging a glance with my old friend. He looked tired.

The
OC approached us and took a look into the dark tunnel.

‘Is
that it
?’
He asked, repeating Johnno’s disappointed question. He turned back to Westy,
‘Corporal Weston?’

‘I
think so, Sir,’ Westy agreed, ‘Ev only said that there was a tunnel here. He
didn’t say anything about the size of it.’

‘It’s
clearly meant for people only and small items of equipment,’ the OC mused, ‘Let’s
see what the gurus think.’

One
of the OCs specialists crouched beside the tunnel opening, studying a readout
on his datapad. I recognised him as one of the OCs electronic warfare team, the
same operator that had found the Chinese code.

‘I’m
not picking up any wires,’ the operator announced, ‘No fibre optics and no
wireless telemetry. This is literally just an empty tunnel.’

‘Any
idea how deep it goes?’ The OC asked.

‘No
idea,’ the man answered, ‘You’d need engineers to answer that.’

We
were out of luck there, then
, I thought. We had no engineers with us.
You couldn’t move for them during the invasion, since it was they that constructed
the endless miles of warren tunnels that we fought through, but in peacetime
they were kept busy elsewhere constructing bases and infrastructure.

‘So
where does it go, then?’

‘Somewhere
near Archer’s Post,’ I blurted.

‘What?’

‘It
goes to the mountains. That’s how Ev managed to meet up with Westy.’

The
OC frowned, ‘Are you suggesting that the rebels have built a base right next to
regimental headquarters?’

I
sighed and shook my head, ‘No, Sir. That’s where Ev has been hiding. What he’s
doing there, I don’t know, but it’s no rebel base. At least, it wasn’t.’

Westy
nodded his agreement, ‘Ev isn’t a rebel. He’d never attack his own people. He
just didn’t want to fight any more.’

Mr
Moore rounded on me, ‘What makes you so sure?’

‘Westy
and I were in the same platoon,’ I admitted, ‘Ev was our platoon sergeant. I
know him, and I know how he thinks.’

‘So
why didn’t you tell me that, then?’ The platoon commander demanded angrily, but
the OC held out a hand to silence him.

The
company commander glared at me, ‘What makes you so sure that this Evans
character isn’t a rebel? I sense that there is something that you’re not
telling me, young man, and I don’t like it when my NCOs hide secrets from me!’