LANCEJACK (The Union Series) (28 page)

‘Anything
he said might be useful, mate,’ Johnno said, gently trying to help the Welshman
to overcome his mental block.

‘All
he said was to go along the tunnel away from Nieuwe Poort,’ Westy said. ‘He
then said ‘
Go up, just keep going up, and you will know exactly where I am
.’’

The
boss let out a short laugh, ‘More bloody riddles!’

‘That’s
what he said,’ Westy snapped angrily, ‘We were drunk, I thought he was just
talking a load of shit! How was I supposed to know that we’d end up here?’

The
boss was about to respond when Konny approached with something in his hand,
‘I’ve found something, Andy.’

I
held out my hand and he gave me a small piece of foil packaging. It was just a
meal taken from a ration pack, designed to be consumed through a feeding straw.
Nothing special.

I
looked up, ‘Are you taking the piss?’

Konny
shook his head, ‘No, take a proper look at it.’

‘It’s
a piece of rubbish,’ Mr Moore waved his hand dismissively.

I
turned the packaging over in my hands and raised an eyebrow, seeing what Konny
had found interesting about it.

‘It’s
not just rubbish,’ I said, handing it to the platoon commander, ‘It’s Union
rubbish.’

The
meal was taken from a Union ration pack, identical to the ones that we carried
in our daysacks. There were only two kinds of people who used Union equipment -
us and the rebels.

‘Where
did you find it?’ I asked.

Konny
pointed across the station, ‘Leaman saw it ten metres up one of the tunnels. We
can’t see anything else up there, apart from that one piece of rubbish.’

The
boss was still looking at the packaging, ‘This could have been dropped by Union
troops back in the invasion.’

‘Unlikely,’
Westy argued, ‘If we made it down here then the Chinese would have blown out
the maglev tunnels. Even if they hadn’t brought the roof in then if we would
have mapped this place, just like we did every other major tunnel.’

I
waited until Westy had finished, ‘Boss, look at the date on the packaging.’

I
could see Mr Moore’s eyes widen slightly as he did so, according to the
information printed along the side of the foil packet it had only been produced
a few months ago, in Nieuwe Poort.

‘Those
rebel bastards are stealing our food!’

Johnno
laughed, ‘They’re welcome to it, Boss!’

Several
of us shared a chuckle, it made us all feel slightly better to know that our
enemy were eating them!

Mr
Moore regarded us all, and we silenced so that he could speak, ‘There’s no
guarantee that this piece of rubbish means anything, but it’s all we have. We
will push upwards and attempt to make contact or reach the surface, whichever
comes first. Corporal Moralee, you will continue to lead with your section, and
keep Corporal Weston with you. Understood?’

‘Yes,
Boss.’

He
tossed the packaging to the ground, ‘I’ll let you know when to proceed. Gents,
return to your sections.’

As
we stood to go I patted Konny on the shoulder, ‘Well done, mate, cheers.’

Konny
searched my face in the dark for any sign of ridicule, then, seeing that I was
sincere, he nodded, ‘Thanks.’

‘Have
the lads in order of march by the tunnel, I’ll be over in a minute.’

Konny
nodded, and quickly ran away to organise the section for me.

Westy
noticed me watching Konny go, ‘Does he still give you dramas?’

‘Not
really. He’s alright.’

‘Oh?
Only yesterday you sounded like you wanted to kill him!’

‘I
know, but he’s changed a bit. I’ve seen a different side to him.’

Westy
smiled, his teeth clearly visible through his visor, ‘Was that before or after
you filled him in?’

‘I
didn’t touch him!’ I replied indignantly. Then I remembered our scuffle in
Eindhoven, ‘Well, alright, maybe I did, but there’s more to it than that. He made
a mistake. One of his blokes was badly injured.’

The
Welshman nodded slowly. None of us wanted the men under our command to get hurt
or killed, especially as a result of our own decisions. It was a burden that
all commanders bore upon their shoulders, and at times that burden could become
too much.

The
platoon advanced along the access tunnel, twisting and winding ever upward into
the warrens. I would have been completely disorientated were it not for my
datapad keeping track  of where I was going, mapping out the route as I went.

The
tunnel forked on several occasions, leaving us unsure of what route to take. We
stopped and closed up together whilst Okonkwo and I scanned the darkness,
trying to decide which route way to go. Johnno quickly moved along the huddled
line of troopers, tapping each man on his helmet as he counted to ensure that
nobody had managed to get lost. It had been known for separated troopers to
wander through the warrens for days before anybody found them.

At
every junction there was something discarded on the ground in the tunnels, as
if telling us which way to go next.

‘Does
it seem to you that somebody’s leaving a trail?’ Okonkwo asked, as once again
our choice of direction appeared to be marked, this time with an empty water
bottle.

Okonkwo
was right, it was as though somebody was dropping items on purpose, anything
that he knew he could leave behind. Perhaps it was merely so that the rebels in
the warehouse had a route they could follow. That made some sense, though the
marking system was basic and a little difficult to follow without some pretty
good night viewing equipment. Then I wondered if perhaps it was there for us.
Was it possible that somebody was marking the route in the desperate hope that
maybe we would follow it?

‘You
think it’s Ev, don’t you?’ Westy whispered as I passed the message for the
platoon to prepare to move again. It was as if he had read my mind.

I
nodded, ‘I want to think that it is, yeah.’

‘Me
too.’

‘What
do you think they want with him?’

Westy
shrugged, ‘I don’t know. It’s got to have something to do with that ‘Utopia’
thing he was on about.’

‘What
did he say about it?’

‘He
just said it was wonderful. He said it would inspire the people of New Earth to
live in peace. I didn’t pay too much attention, to be honest. I was really
drunk!’

‘This
Utopia,’ I said, ‘I think that’s what the rebel meant when he said they were
going to destroy his dreams before he dies.’

The
Welshman chuckled, ‘They must really hate him!’

Funny,
really
,
I thought
everybody liked Ev
. Even our old platoon sergeant sort of
liked him, even if they didn’t always see eye-to-eye. I’d bet you half the
Chinese would have liked him too, had they met him in a bar!’

I
sighed deeply, ‘I just don’t know what to do, mate.’

Westy
gripped me by the shoulder gently, ‘Me neither, mate. We’re in this together.
Remember that.’

His
words stabbed at my heart like a knife.
I should have told him about Ev’s
wife
, I thought. Westy was good friends with Ev, but I hadn’t known him
nearly as well. Who was I to hide something so important from him, in the
mistaken belief that I was somehow protecting him from guilt?

The
message for the platoon to prepare to move was passed back to me. It had got
all the way to the end of the line and then returned, confirming that everybody
knew and understood what was going on. I patted Okonkwo’s daysack to tell him
that he was good to go, and we moved off once more into the darkness.

16

Utopia

The
whistling sound increased as I approached the light, and I realised that it was
the sound of the wind whipping past the warren entrance. It was daylight
outside, our move through the tunnels had taken us right through until morning.
I was exhausted, but I knew that our patrol was far from over, and my training overrode
the natural desire to collapse onto the ground and sleep. I stopped a hundred
metres back and listened for any other sounds to suggest that somebody or
something was waiting for us outside.

I
could almost feel my section waiting anxiously behind me, watching every move I
made with weary eyes. Although they were relieved to be exiting the
claustrophobic tunnels unscathed, they now feared the unknown, for nobody knew
what lay in store for us outside.

Mr
Moore had pulled Westy back to his command group, anticipating enemy contact.
He had been reluctant to leave my side, like an older brother wanting to
protect his younger sibling, but he knew it made sense. Still unarmed, the
stocky Welshman was about as useful to me as a plastic dart loaded into my rifle,
and so in a way, I was glad to have my friend out of the way.

I
crept forward again, scanning through my sights. I couldn’t see anything but a
sky shrouded in dark pink clouds. The weather was turning ugly, as though it
were warning us of our impending doom; heavy clouds full of heavier rain.

I
wasn’t going to see any more until I left the tunnel, I realised, due to the
angle of the tunnel. I waved Okonkwo toward me, knowing that I would need him
to cover the rear as I moved out. We stood back-to-back and edged outward, one
deliberate step at a time, until our heads were lifted above the lip of the
tunnel entrance.

We
were inside a trench. The tunnel had been dug so that Chinese soldiers could
emerge straight into it from the warrens below and catch the Union out as they
advanced.

I
stepped cautiously out into the trench, lowering my body so that I didn’t
expose my head over the top. I didn’t want anybody to know that we were around
until the last safe moment.

Battlefield
litter lay scattered across the ground, from empty ammunition crates to medical
waste. A fierce battle had been fought inside that trench, every single item I
saw told its own story of pain, horror and misery. I remembered my own
experiences in the muddy trenches and waterlogged ditches that had surrounded
Jersey Island, and I shuddered.

I
motioned for Okonkwo to follow me and I crept further along the trench,
allowing space for the remainder of my section to exit the tunnel. Ahead of me
it turned sharply right. I knew that trenches were purposefully built in a zig-zag
pattern so that if they took a direct hit from some form of explosive then not
everyone would get a piece.

I
arrived at the edge of the bend, and leant out slowly. There was nothing there,
just another bend twenty or so metres down.
Maybe we hadn’t come out in the
right place
, I thought. Maybe instead we had found an old Chinese trench that
probably hadn’t seen a single human since the war.

I
glanced behind me, seeing that the remainder of my section were now out of the
tunnel. Konny had them spread along the length of the trench with a few metres
between them.

I
turned my head upward to the lip of the trench. The wind blasted overhead,
whipping up small bits of sand and gravel that showered upon my visor.

We
couldn’t just stay hiding below the lip forever, I thought. If we wanted to
know what was outside the trench, then one of us was going to have to have a
look. I certainly couldn’t get one of my men to do it. I slowly straightened
and stood just tall enough to see over the edge.

Instantly
I regretted my decision. My eyes widened as I saw a menacing black shape just
off to my left, mounted upon a tripod. It was some kind of automated machine
gun, and it was directly facing me.

‘Shit!’
I exclaimed, and I fell backward against the far wall of the trench in an
effort to get out of its way.

I
brought my rifle around to fire, knowing that there was no way that I could
possibly hope to defend myself against an automated weapon, since it could detect
its victim and engage within milliseconds. I pulled the trigger.

Nothing
happened.

Shit!
I had been so
surprised by the robotic weapon that I’d forgotten that my rifle was still
powered down from our patrol through the warrens. I quickly hit the power up
button and brought my finger back to the trigger.

I
hesitated. My heart was pumping hard against my chest, and my finger pressed
hard against the trigger, though not quite enough to fire.

Why
was I even still alive? I stared at the vicious looking machine for several
seconds, but it sat dormant. If it had any intention of killing me, then it
would have done so by now.

‘What’s
up, Andy?’ Okonkwo lifted his head to look, then swore. He brought his own rifle
up to fire instinctively.

‘Don’t
shoot!’ I shouted frantically over the wind, ‘It’s not doing anything!’

My
section stood up to look at the device that had caused their  commander to panic
and a few of them murmured surprise at the menacing machine.

I
saw them all staring in the same direction and frowned, ‘Alternate arcs, lads!’

Snapping
out of their daze, Okonkwo, Jackson and Konny quickly turned to face the other
way out of the trench, so that the section had complete coverage of the
surrounding area. Like the warrens below them, trenches were often a chaotic
and confusing environment to fight in, and there was always the possibility
that our enemy were hiding in a neighbouring trench waiting to strike. We had
to remain vigilant.

I
slowly lifted myself out of the trench and crawled toward the weapon, keeping
my body as low as I could so that I couldn’t be seen by a nearby observer.

It
was some kind of heavy machine gun, larger even than our mammoth guns. A thick
plate of armour shielded the body of the weapon, stamped with the stars of the
Union. It was one of ours, though I hadn’t seen the model before. The concept
was old, but the design was clearly new. It had obviously been stolen from a
Union factory by the rebels, either in Nieuwe Poort or elsewhere.

I
carefully inspected the weapon, and it didn’t take me long to work out why it
hadn’t fired; it was switched off.

Mr
Moore caught me as I slid my body back down into the trench, Westy and his
signaller helping me down. His EW operator looked terrified.

‘What
is it?’

‘Some
kind of new automated gun,’ I said, ‘It’s switched off.’

‘Switched
off?’ The boss frowned as if he were annoyed at the enemy for not doing their
job correctly, ‘Who in his right mind would leave something like that out there
and forget to switch it on?’

Westy
stole a glance at it and laughed, ‘You’re one lucky bastard, mate! That thing
would make you into mince!’

We
were
all
lucky. Weapons like that were programmed to communicate with
their masters, informing them at the same time as they engaged their hapless
victims. If the gun had been working then the platoon would have had no choice
but to abandon me and run back into the tunnel - their lives would have
depended upon it - praying to God that a smart missile wouldn’t soon be
following after them!

‘The
boss kind of has a point,’ I replied thoughtfully, ‘It is a bit stupid not to
switch it on. Maybe somebody turned it off.’

‘Why?’

I
shrugged, ‘I don’t know, Boss. You saw what they did to that woman, and the
trail we followed. Clearly the rebels aren’t just one big happy family. I think
somebody is trying to help us…’

#

We
cleared the remainder of the trench, a process that took much longer than
usual. Normally trenches were cleared in bloody, violent battles involving
grenades and bursts of darts, but we didn’t want our enemy to know that we were
there. A silent clearance took time.

The
wind battered the hillside, and occasionally I noticed tiny droplets of water
landing on my visor. New Earth loved to rain, and I sensed that the heavens
were about to open.

We
found the bodies of long dead Chinese soldiers lying within the trench, their
armour covered in a thick layer of sand. I noticed that their weapons and
equipment had been taken, including their respirators. Some of them had been
left with nothing but the clothing that they had worn beneath their armour. The
rebels had stripped them of anything that they thought they could use against
us, leaving the bodies lying almost naked to slowly be buried in dust.

‘You’d
think these guys would treat the Chinese with a bit more respect if they want
them to be on their side,’ Okonkwo said as we passed yet another Chinaman,
lying as the scavengers had left him, face down in the dirt.

The
trench was built into a plateau on the slope of a massive hill, which formed
part of a jagged ridgeline, high enough for us to see the towering spires and
bubble-shaped domes of Nieuwe Poort just over the horizon to our west. The
ridgeline appeared to mark a clear divide between the low rolling hills that
ran toward the city and the rocky terrain to the east. I couldn’t see anything
beyond the crest of the hill, apart from the distant shape of mount Rottenberg,
an immense mountain that dominated the skyline. Its peak pierced the pink
clouds that gathered angrily around it.

The
boss called for all of the section commanders to close in, and his message was
passed verbally along the trench from trooper to trooper.

We
weren’t going to use our net unless we had to, and even our datapads remained switched
to passive mode so that they couldn’t transmit. Though our communication
equipment was designed to encrypt every single digit of data so that it would
take hours to decipher, it was still possible for even a casual listener to
locate us by triangulating the signal. Judging by NELAs mastery of the
electronic battlefield, it was highly likely that somebody would be listening
from somewhere.

We
huddled together in a wider section of the trench, where Mr Moore sat himself
down upon an upturned smart missile crate. There were six of us in all, the
boss, the three section commanders including myself, Westy and Johnno. The 2ics
had been left in command of our sections, and Johnno occasionally glanced above
the trench to check that they were covering their arcs correctly.

Mr
Moore glanced up toward the heavens, where the clouds continued to gather
ominously.

‘It’s
going to rain, soon,’ I told him, knowing the weather on New Earth all too
well. It loved to rain when you least needed it to.

The
platoon commander grunted in agreement, then regarded all of us, ‘Obviously
you’re all aware of where you are from your own datapads, but for your
information Archer’s Post is about fifteen kilometres in that direction.’

I
followed his outstretched arm to the south along the ridgeline, but couldn’t
see anything. I checked the map on my datapad. It had automatically worked out
its location since leaving the tunnels, and it showed me that the garrison was
beyond a larger hill along the ridgeline, concealed from view.

‘It’s
pretty close,’ I observed. Beyond that hill, well within the range of most
missiles and artillery platforms, was regimental headquarters. I wondered if Ev
had walked through the mountains to get there, somehow knowing when our
warships were overhead.

‘I’m
supposed to send the OC a message as soon as we break into the open,’ Mr Moore
continued, ‘But I’m going to wait for now. If the rebels are here somewhere,
then I want to be close enough to strike when I send the message, rather than
be sat here waiting for the sky to rain with missiles.’

He
received a murmur of assent.

It
made no sense to send the message straight away, in fact it was tactically
unsound. Even the lowest private could send our location to the OC with no more
than a few taps against his datapad - so if we did come under contact we could
still pass the message - even if half of us died right away. The idea of
sending the message straight away made me feel very uneasy. We would be giving
our position away, only to potentially be destroyed before our battalion even
arrived. With any luck, the growing fleet of warships in orbit would manage to
spot us anyway. Besides that, our task was to find and fix the enemy for the
battalion. So far all we had managed to find was a stolen robot and a few dead
Chinese, hardly anything worth calling in the cavalry for.

‘You’ve
probably noticed that the location of these trenches provides perfect arcs out to
the west, but nothing at all to the east,’ Mr Moore explained to us all, ‘Clearly
its intended purpose was to defend against an opponent approaching from Nieuwe
Poort, which means…’

We
looked up the hill, toward its wide crest and the rolling clouds beyond it.

Johnno
looked confused, ‘The rebels are off to the east?’

‘Not
necessarily,’ the boss answered quickly, ‘But whatever this position was originally
built to defend is in that direction.’