LANCEJACK (The Union Series) (7 page)

‘
Door
closing
,’ a computerised voice told me through my respirator headset, and
sure enough the rear ramp to the LSV raised and sealed itself with a thud, ‘
Exchanging
atmosphere
.’

I
could get used to this,
I thought. The compartment was spacious and the
seats were comfortable. I enjoyed the cool rush of air against my neck as the
toxic atmosphere was quickly exchanged for something we could safely breathe.

‘Exchange
complete. Initialising visual feed.’

My
visor display flickered, and then suddenly the compartment became transparent.
I gasped, it was as though we were simply sat in a large open topped trailer,
looking out at the vehicle park.

‘Shit
the bed…’ I whispered to myself. Patterson looked similarly surprised.

Jackson
gave me a nudge, ‘Mad, ain’t it? These things are mega! Don’t let the wheels
fool you!’

‘Thank
God they don’t have this in the dropships,’ I said, ‘Blokes would be puking all
over the shop!’

‘Bet
you were anyway, weren’t you, back then?’

I
chuckled at the memory, ‘My mate did.’ A hard drop onto a hostile surface from
orbit was stomach churning. Some troopers had even soiled themselves during
their perilous landing.

Jackson
laughed, ‘I bet you rag him for that all the time, don’t you?’

‘He’s
dead.’

‘Oh.
Sorry.’

‘That’s
okay, mate. You didn’t kill him.’

The
LSV began to manoeuvre itself toward a growing line of vehicles that queued at
the main entrance to Eindhoven, a massive archway built out of marble.

Eindhoven
was a square compound several hundred metres in length, blocked off from the
city beyond by walls tens of metres high and lined with concrete sangars,
raised fortifications, that bristled with weapons. It was unlike any military
base I had ever seen. It was built - at least originally - entirely above ground
and it wouldn’t have looked out of place a thousand years ago.

‘This
place looks like a Roman villa,’ I observed, considerably impressed.

‘A
what?’

‘A
Roman villa. You know… The Romans?’

Jackson
looked back at me blankly, ‘Romanians?’

I
sighed and waved it away, ‘Don’t worry, mate.’ Sometimes I wondered if I was
the only man in drops who’d actually listened in school.

The
convoy of LSVs exited the base and accelerated along a wide street lined with
warehouses toward the first of the city domes. One-by-one, the vehicles passed
through a series of airlocks built into the dome, and I saw that the LSVs were built
just small enough to fit through. The convoy waited until every vehicle had
entered the dome, and I used the time to again marvel at the classical
architecture of the city. Even apartment blocks had been built with grand
entrances flanked by pillars that towered high above our vehicles.

‘It’s
all like this,’ Jackson commented, pointing toward the buildings, ‘You’d have
to be loaded with cash to live in a place like that on Earth, but to these guys
it’s standard!’

‘Not
bad living.’ I agreed.

Jackson
went on enthusiastically, ‘Don’t think Nieuwe Poort’s all about old buildings
though! It’s all about the tech here! The whole city lights up with holograms
in the evenings, just before midnight. I’d love to spend a night out here on
the drink. Shame we’re not allowed.’

‘So
is that where everyone works?’ I asked, pointing through the countless domes
toward the glittering skyscrapers at the centre of the city, one of which must
have been a kilometre high. There were some tall buildings where I lived in
Portsmouth back on Earth, but nothing like what I saw in Nieuwe Poort.

He
shook his head, ‘No, not everyone. A lot of the factories are underground, and
the buildings above them are their offices. Those towers are where the
corporations run their business in the province.’

‘Well,
business is certainly booming.’

Jackson
nodded furiously, ‘No shit! See that massive tower in the very middle? They
call that one ‘
The Citadel’
. It’s the headquarters of a massive software
company or something.’

We
lurched slightly as the convoy began to move again along a wide street that cut
through the dome, in the direction of the towers.

‘What
kind of software do they make?’

‘Everything!
Military programmes like the robotic AIs for our saucers - all the way down to
holograms for kids to play with.’

‘Wow.
That’s one corporation you want to keep on your side!’

He
laughed, ‘Yeah. Otherwise they’ll send your kids porn!’

We
drove on deeper into the city, the convoy splitting toward its two separate
targets. There was no doubt that we were being watched, and so we accelerated
toward our objective, making several turns onto different streets to make it
difficult for an observer to predict where we were going until it was too late.

We
passed through several domes on our journey, many of which were interconnected
by tunnels of glass suspended by marble arches and beautiful buildings. Finally
the conscripts broke away from us as we drew close to our objective.

‘That’s
the conscripts moving into position,’ the boss confirmed over the platoon net
as our four vehicles continued on without them, ‘We will take up our own
position to their south, as per our orders. Once we go firm, keep the noise to
a minimum and spread your sections out. We should be in and out in less than
ten minutes, so don’t try to get comfortable.’

Nieuwe
Poort still slept while we dismounted from our LSVs into a quiet residential
area close to the target. The sections were spread around what appeared to be a
major crossroads lined with tall five or six-level apartment blocks, each of
the commanders placing out their men under the direction of Mr Moore. They
needed to ensure that the platoon could protect itself from all directions, but
wasn’t so thinly spread that individuals became isolated. Troopers were placed
out so that they had eyes onto not one, but two of their comrades as a minimum,
and where necessary they were doubled-up together. Although it had never
happened before, there was a real danger of ‘
man away’
, where a trooper
would be snatched away by the rebels. Nobody knew what the result of that might
be.

Konny
had tasked my fire team to cover a pair of alleyways connected to an open
courtyard, one running south and another east. I split the four men of ‘Delta’
fire team, with Patterson and Okonkwo together on one alleyway, and myself and
Jackson on the other. I wanted to be close to Jackson, so that I could direct
his mammoth onto targets with ease in the event of contact, but also because I
wasn’t sure if Okonkwo - who had cried and then glared at me in the Lash
airlock - shared the anti-new-guy attitude; I wasn’t in the mood for another
argument. Jackson seemed like an alright lad, though as I had previously
observed - overly energetic. I preferred that to the cold shoulder I seemed to
be getting off everybody else in the section though.

‘Get
yourself nice and low in the shadows,’ I told Jackson, and he obeyed, taking a
few paces into the darkness and then kneeling with his weapon ready to fire.

The
alleyway was a good few hundred metres long with numerous junctions along it,
but that was the least of my worries. What concerned me more were the dark
marble plated buildings either side of it, looming high above us. Each of their
windows, though decorated with flowers and ornaments, was a potential fire
position for a concealed foe.

‘Freaky
ain’t it,’ Jackson whispered so quietly that only my headset allowed me to hear
him.

‘Yeah,’
I agreed.

I
leaned out of the alleyway and looked across the courtyard to look for Okonkwo,
and my visor clearly identified him instructing Patterson to take up a better
fire position.

‘Okonkwo,’
I called over the section net, heard only by my fire team and Konny’s, ‘You
alright there, mate?’

‘Yeah,’
was the simple reply.

I
didn’t know if Okonkwo was minimising net chatter or just being short with me,
but I chose not to notice and looked back to the junction to identify the
positions of the rest of the platoon, including the ‘Charlie’ half of my
section, commanded by Konny.

‘I’m
gonna stay kneeling up, mate,’ Jackson said.

I
looked back round at him inside the alleyway, ‘What?’

‘I’m
gonna stay kneeling, so I can use the mammoth on them buildings above us.’

I
didn’t know why he needed to tell me the blindingly obvious, you couldn’t shoot
upwards from the prone position, ‘Okay, mate…’ I replied.

‘Right,
that’s the outer cordon in place, and the strike party going in now,’ the boss
announced over the net to the platoon.

I
lifted my head and listened out for the sound of the strike party crashing into
their target building, but I couldn’t hear anything. We were a few hundred
metres south of the target, I told myself, and so it was possible that I
wouldn’t hear them anyway. Instead I scanned the buildings around us, waiting
for something to happen.

‘It’s
quiet,’ I whispered.

‘Too
quiet?’ Jackson asked, a hint of humour in his voice.

I
smiled, ‘I don’t know, mate. You tell me.’
It’s funny
, I thought,  I no
longer seemed to be as afraid as I had been those two years ago. Perhaps it was
because I had seen so much death that it was no longer a stranger to me, or
perhaps it was because I no longer cared as much if I lived or died. My smile
faded.

‘People
start getting up around seven,’ Jackson explained, ‘You get the odd bloke cutting
about early to walk his dog, but not often.’

‘People
have dogs here?’

‘Some
do.’

I
looked at the clock on my visor, it was barely six.

Jackson
looked upwards to one of the buildings towering above us, ‘We’ve woken someone
up, though,’ he warned.

Sure
enough, my visor identified movement in one of the windows above us, marking
the potential target with an orange crosshair. The crosshair jumped about the
curtains as they rippled, but I couldn’t see anything.

‘Konny,
movement on my mark,’ with a point of my finger I marked the window with a blue
crosshair for the rest of the platoon to see.

‘Roger.
Probably nothing, keep an eye on it.’

‘Don’t
just keep an eye on it,’ the boss snapped irritably, having heard the message, ‘Keep
a barrel on it. Stay alert, gents, we’re bound to have attracted attention. The
LSVs are quiet but not silent.’

A
loud bang sounded to our north and I heard several shouts; the strike team had
entered their building. After that the city fell back into silence. I listened
to the whir of the tiny filters in my respirator, which had very little to do
inside the city domes apart from provide me with a cool breeze against my
cheeks.

‘See
anything in that window anymore?’ I asked Jackson curiously.

He
shook his head, ‘No. Not a peek anywhere.’

‘Ever
get the feeling you’re being watched?’

‘We
are! You don’t need to look out the windows to watch us here, there’re more
cameras in Nieuwe Poort than all the hologram studios in Europe. All you need
to do is pick up your tablet. Half of New Earth is probably watching us!’

‘That’s
a bit extreme.’

‘Don’t
count on it! These lunatics are all over their tech. Some of them spend days on
end hooked up directly to the net, like we do in the simulators.’

We
waited in silence for what felt like an age, straining to hear the sound of a
weapon being powered up, but nothing happened. We were extremely exposed, there
was no way we could move out of view from the buildings, no matter how low we
kept.

I
tapped the hand guard of my rifle impatiently, willing the conscripts to hurry
up so that we could move. My eyes flicked to my visor clock, we had only been
static for five minutes, but that was enough time for a sniper to plan his
shot, occupy a good position and then line himself up. At least a dart through
the head would be quick, I told myself.

‘Two-three,
this is Two-zero,’ Mr Moore spoke on the platoon command net, unheard by the blokes.
My ears pricked up, One-three was my section, ‘The conscripts are requesting an
additional section to assist with the extraction of a number of detainees. Move
north toward the target building and liaise with the major.’

‘Two-three,
roger,’ Konny answered, then he passed the message onto the section net, ‘Prepare
to move, lads.

We
checked our pouches were closed, our safety catches were applied and ducked as
low as we could into cover, as was the drill for preparing to move. Everybody
repeated the order so that there was no chance of troopers being left behind in
the dark.

‘Moralee,
close in,’ Konny called.

I
flinched. It was considered exceptionally rude to call senior toms or lance
corporals by their last names unless you outranked them by a considerable
margin, and I had specifically told Konny my name to avoid the situation. I
ground my teeth at the clearly intentional insult.