LANCEJACK (The Union Series) (5 page)

4

Deployment

We
were up deep in the night to go back out onto the ground. Troopers spilled out
of their rooms and shuffled sullen-faced into the cookhouse to eat their early
breakfast. Rarely did anyone speak, the atmosphere was still that of shock. The
platoon had never experienced a death before, and the loss of such a prominent
figure had hit them hard.

I
wanted to find somewhere to sit away from the grieving troopers, but I knew
that it would only serve to alienate me from them further and decided to sit
with Lance Corporal Wysocki.

He
didn’t look up from his food, and continued to slowly spoon cereal into his
mouth.

‘You
alright?’ I asked cautiously.

He
sighed, ‘What do you think?’

I
said nothing, trying to resist the urge to lean over the table and throttle
him. I reminded myself that I still lived with the pain of losing my friends back
during the invasion, so his would be raw.

I
allowed a moment of silence, ‘What do you like to be called, mate?’

He
looked at me as though he was about to start swinging punches in my direction,
until I think he realised why I was asking. If he was to be my section
commander, I was going to need to know what to call him, and I certainly wasn’t
going to call him Lance Corporal Wysocki every five minutes.

‘Konrad,’
he said finally, Blokes call me Konny.’

‘I’m
Andy. I’ll need to get the blokes details into my datapad before we go out.’

‘We’ll
do it in the lock room,’ his brusque reply signalled that the conversation was
over.

Konny
left the table having barely finished his food, and I watched him as he went. I
wasn’t sure if he was simply upset or if he was actually an arsehole, but
either way he needed to snap out of it. I wasn’t the skinny trooper I had been
two years ago, I had filled out and I could fight. There was no way I was going
to be treated like an outcast for the duration of my tour, not like I had
before.

‘Andy
Moralee, right?’ A hand extended in my direction.

I
realised that it was Johnno, and I reached out to shake his hand, ‘That’s
right.’

‘Corporal
Johnston, mate, but just call me Johnno, yeah?’ He sat across from me where
Konny had been, slapping an empty tray onto the table. I saw that he was a few
years older than me, probably Westy’s age, though he was of much more average
build. He was young, even for an ‘acting’ platoon sergeant, but I knew that I
could hardly talk.

He
looked around at the troopers on the other tables. ‘They’ve taken it badly,
mate,’ he said quietly.

I
met his gaze, ‘They will do.’

He
nodded respectfully, then sighed, ‘I can’t believe it mate, I really can’t.
Never saw it coming.’

‘You
never do,’ I said knowingly, remembering Browner’s limbless body being carried
away by stretcher and my old friend Climo’s missing face.

He
changed the subject, ‘You know the platoon sergeant’s away, mate, yeah? It’s me
in the chair for the moment, so any dramas come see me.’

I
nodded, ‘No worries.’

‘You
got Konny as your section commander. There’s only one screw in the platoon now
other than me, so two sections are led by lancejacks, yours and one other.’

‘Okay.’

‘They’re
alright, mate, the NCOs,’ he assured me, ‘They’re just upset about Gaz, that’s
all. Westy gave us the low-down, we know you’re a good operator. Give them a
bit of time, mate.’

‘I
know, mate. I’ve just turned up at the wrong time.’

Johnno
shrugged, ‘Who knows, maybe you showed up at exactly the right time. Anyway,
I’ll leave you be. See you at the lock,’ he snatched up his tray.

‘Roger.’

At
least not everybody was acting-up, I thought as Johnno left. Westy had told me
that the NCOs in the platoon were alright, and I supposed that over time I
would see them in a better light. I couldn’t expect to make friends the very
morning after a full screw had died.

‘Come
on, lads, let’s go! Get your kit ready for inspection,’ Johnno hurried the
platoon into the lock room, lining them up against the walls as they would have
done a hundred times before. This time, though, the blokes looked as though
they were going to a funeral and I found myself wondering how we would manage
to motivate them over the next few days.
Surely they couldn’t be sent out
like this,
I thought to myself, but then my platoon had never had the
chance to stop and grieve during the invasion. We simply got on with it.

Konny
was already stood by three section, I saw, and so I made my way over to their
side of the lock room and laid my kit out at my feet.

‘Get
your kit out, then, fellas, so I can check it,’ Konny ordered.

I
tapped him on the shoulder, ‘It’s alright, mate, I’ll do that.’

As
the section second in command, Konny would normally check all of the equipment
and report to Gaz that his section was good to go. Unfortunately Gaz wasn’t
around anymore, and Konny was no longer the 2ic, he was the commander instead.
He hesitated, then nodded, ‘Fine.’

‘Commanders
close in,’ the boss ordered from the middle of the lock room, and Konny left.

The
six troopers that made up the remainder of the section watched me expectantly.
Some of them would have served within drops for several years longer than me,
and had I been a private, they would still be senior to me.

‘Right,’
I began, ‘Rifles - I want to see battery life and sight functionality.’

The
troopers obeyed and one-by-one I inspected each and every piece of equipment
that they carried, ensuring that it was present and that it worked. I was
thorough - as I should be - and nobody had any reason to complain. Drops loved
kit inspections;
‘Check, check and check again,
’ went the saying,
because you can’t check if you’re dead.

Each
of the three sections within the platoon carried a standard assortment of
weapons and equipment. Six of us carried the MSG-20 magnetic assault rifle, a
weapon with a range of over a kilometre and the ability to auto-correct the
firer’s aim by altering the angle of the steel dart it fired as it left the
barrel.

Two
troopers carried the MAM-G, or ‘Mammoth’ as it was known, which was a much
larger and more powerful version of the MSG-20 with a greater rate of fire.
They were usually carried by the more experienced troopers, trusted to use a
valuable section weapon effectively with minimum supervision. Another two
troopers carried the under-slung grenade launcher, which was fitted to their
rifles. Reserved for only the most senior and trusted of the blokes, the
grenades it fired were actually more like little guided missiles, with a
selection of smoke, high explosive and illuminating rounds. All of our weapons
communicated with our respirators using tiny wires that were threaded through
our combats.

We
all carried an assortment of hand-thrown grenades and explosives as well -
enough ammunition to fight our own miniature war. We were trained and equipped
to fight even if we were surrounded - as dropship infantry often were - we
could never rely upon ammunition resupply in contact.

I
inspected the troopers’ respirators, ensuring that their targeting displays
worked and that they each could communicate using the intercom. I made sure
that they each carried enough food in their daysacks and that their hydration
packs were full to the brim, and that their personal medical equipment was
carried in the correct place and was serviceable. Everybody had to carry their
medical equipment in the same place, because if a trooper didn’t and then
became a casualty he might not be able to tell his mate where he had put it if
he was bleeding out. Our combats were designed to detect and automatically
treat a whole host of injuries, but if they failed - and often they did - it
would be the treatment applied by our comrades that saved our lives.

Once
I was happy that everything was present I instructed my datapad to join the
three section net and checked that it held up-to-date information on each
trooper; vital readings such as heart and breathing rate and that the section
ammunition state was correct.

‘You
squared away, Andy?’ Johnno asked as he walked around the lock room.

I
gave him a thumbs up, happy that everything was in order, ‘Yeah, mate.’

‘Roger.
Boss is just briefing the commanders up, then we’re good to go.’ He walked
away.

I
was glad that Johnno was the acting platoon sergeant. He was a young section
commander, probably no older than twenty-five, but he oozed confidence despite
what had happened only the day before. He wasn’t Sergeant Evans, nobody could
step into that man’s shoes, but he was friendly and approachable, which would
make my job much easier. The section 2ics - including me - worked under the
platoon sergeant for ammunition resupply, casualty extraction, and general
administration. A harsh or incompetent platoon sergeant could make my life a
misery.

I
used the left over time to crouch down and check through my own equipment,
following the same logical sequence as I had with the section. I knew what I
carried - I packed my own kit - but better safe than sorry. Forgetting
something was an inexcusable sin for a trooper, but for an NCO to do it was
unthinkable.

‘How
long you been in, Corporal?’ One of the troopers in my section asked.

I
briefly looked up at him, quickly noting the grenade launcher attached to his
weapon - he was a senior tom. The other troopers were watching the encounter,
waiting to see how I would respond.

In
an effort to appear nonchalant I looked back down at my daysack and began to
repack it ready for the patrol, ‘Two years and a bit. You?’

‘Five,’
he said, and I felt his eyes burning into me. My eyes flicked up to the name
printed across his gel armour;  Private Geany.

‘I
take it you’re waiting to go back to Uralis?’ I asked. For reasons unknown to
me, the Junior Leaders course could only be conducted on Uralis, the home of
the dropship infantry, and so troopers would often have to wait months and even
years for the opportunity to go there in order to promote to lance corporals.

‘Yeah,
got to wait my turn. Unlike some people,’ he said the last part under his
breath, but I was intended to hear it. I pretended not to notice.

Konny
returned from his briefing and addressed the section in a monotone, ‘The
dropships arrive in two minutes. We then move to the conscript base in Nieuwe
Poort. We have two saucers in close support and an orbital weapons platform
providing top cover. If we get contacted on the route out then we will assault
the enemy and attempt to capture him.’

‘If
he doesn’t just drop bombs on us from our own weapons platform,’ Geany pointed
out gloomily.

A
couple of troopers nodded their agreement. There was no fight in them, I
thought, it was as though they had already been defeated.

Konny
ignored the comment, ‘Once the conscripts have sorted themselves out we’ll move
into the city to conduct arrests of key figures believed to be connected to
local NELA. The conscripts will be doing the arrests, we just provide the
security for them to do their business.’

‘Rare
for us to get the shit end of the stick,’ Geany said sarcastically, ‘Shall we
get on with it then?’

I
was surprised that Konny didn’t respond to Geany’s bad attitude. If one of the
senior toms in my old platoon had said something like that then his section
commander would have made an example of him. Instead he merely told them all to
get their kit on.

‘What’s
his problem?’ I asked Konny as the section began to prepare themselves to leave
the safety of the warren.

‘What’s
it to you?’ He snapped, and I jumped, the hostile response surprising me.

I
shook my head, enough was enough, ‘Listen mate, we’re about to go out on the
ground…’

‘Do
you think I don’t fucking know that?’ He snapped, causing several troopers to look
over to our conversation, ‘What, you think that you can just turn up and act
the boy just coz you got a…’

I
threw my arms up in exasperation, ‘What am I thinking? I’m thinking that we are
supposed to be working together
! Get a grip, mate.’ The lock room was
silent. I suddenly realised that the whole platoon, including the platoon
commander, were staring at us.

Johnno
shook his head in disappointment, ‘I’ll talk to you two later. Lads, get your
kit on, load your weapons and get in the lock.’

Stunned,
the platoon remained motionless.

‘Let’s
go!’

‘Belter,’
Konny hissed at me as we quickly pulled on our respirators and filed into the
lock.

I
clenched my teeth but remained silent. I already knew what Johnno would be
saying to us both later, it was unprofessional to be arguing in front of the
men. It didn’t do morale any good, especially with gob-shites like Geany about.