LANCEJACK (The Union Series) (9 page)

I
brought my visor close to his and looked directly into his eyes. They were so
wide I thought they might pop out of his head.

‘Konny,
it’s a minor wound. You’re fine.’

‘I’m
bleeding
,’
he insisted. There was another explosion, not too close this time. I glanced up
and realised that Geany had fired a grenade from nearby into one of the
buildings.

‘You
were,’ I said firmly, ‘But not anymore. We need to move the section. Do you
understand?’

Konny
shook his head, ‘We need to wait for the platoon.’

‘No!’
I snapped, ‘We need to move NOW!’

Konny’s
eyes suddenly burned with anger, and he punched the ground with his good arm,
‘What makes you suddenly think you’re in charge? You…’

Konny’s
rant was cut short by me grasping him by the throat, ‘You want to compare
length now, you stroker? Listen to me! We don’t know the platoon are coming for
us! We are sat in the middle of an ambush waiting to die, the very fact that we
haven’t taken more casualties is a miracle! Now, I am going to order the
section to peel left, you either take charge from there, or I will relieve you.
Your choice!’

I
released my grip and lifted my head above the wall, ‘Section will peel left!’

The
warning message was passed. Konny stared up at me in a daze, still trying to
understand what had just happened.

‘Geany,
give me HE!’

‘Roger!’
I think that was the first time I had heard Geany respond to a command like a
trooper ought to. The grenades went up almost instantly.

‘Peel
left!’ I threw two more of my smoke grenades across the street as the section
began to peel.

Peeling
was a simple manoeuvre that allowed a section to move across an enemies
frontage whilst still maintaining an effective fire base. Upon peeling left,
the furthest right-hand trooper would move, on his own, running all the way
along the section line - behind his comrades (so that he didn’t get shot!) -
until he could take up a position on the left side of the section. As he did
so, he would tap or kick the first trooper he passed, thus informing that
trooper that he was now the next man who needed to move. No more than an absolute
maximum of two troopers would ever be moving at once, so that there were always
several others continuing the fire fight. The action of peeling could continue
for as long as the section commander wanted.

Okonkwo,
who had been on the right end of the section line, bounded past us as the rate
of fire from the section intensified. The blokes didn’t need to be told to give
the enemy all they had, they knew how much they wanted covering fire when it
was their turn to move.

Leaman,
a trooper from Konny’s fire team, was next to run past. Behind him came
Jackson, who had managed to strap Patterson onto the lightweight stretcher that
he carried alongside his medical kit, designed to allow a casualty to be
dragged without making the injuries worse, they were invaluable.

Jackson
was clearly exhausted from the effort. I would have taken more men from the
section to assist him in the extraction of the casualty, but I knew that every
man I re-tasked took valuable firepower away from the section. Firepower was
the only thing keeping us alive.

‘Bring
him here, Jackson!’ I called, and Jackson obeyed, lifting Patterson over a low
wall with a grunt and dragging him the final few metres before near enough
collapsing at our feet.

‘I’m
knackered,’ he panted heavily, and I patted his helmet in recognition of his
hard work.

‘Well
done, mate. Not finished yet.’

I
felt Konny watching me as I checked Patterson’s datapad, ignoring the fire
fight raging around me. I didn’t have time to read the full diagnosis, however,
I could see that his pulse and breathing rate were reasonable, if a little low.
What worried me was that he was bleeding internally, and so he needed proper
medical treatment - more than I was able to give him. We needed to get him out.

‘Konny,
I’m gonna be moving with the casualty. Shout if you need me, alright?’

Still
slightly dazed by my outburst, Konny nodded.

‘Jackson,
let’s go,’ I grasped the stretcher by the handles and Jackson, relieved to no
longer need to drag the casualty alone, did likewise. We lifted Patterson and
we ran.

Patterson
weighed a ton, despite his equipment being made from the most advanced
lightweight materials known to man. Movement was slowed by the speed at which
the section could peel, and all the while I was worried that we were unable to
defend ourselves whilst we carried the stretcher. I eyed every doorway we
passed warily, waiting for a gunman to emerge. Surely the enemy would want to
take advantage of the section’s focus to only one side of the street, I told
myself.

Fortunately
he never had the chance to do so, because Konny, now leading the section as he
should, noticed an alleyway running between two buildings and ordered the
section into it. With a final hail of grenades fired by Geany and Okonkwo, the
section broke contact and ran into the relative safety of the alleyway.

‘Okonkwo,
swap on the stretcher,’ I ordered as the section hurried along the alleyway,
and Okonkwo quickly came to take the handles from me.

‘Not
me, relieve Jackson!’

Without
allowing the pace to drop, Okonkwo and Jackson swapped.

‘Thanks,’
Jackson said to me and shook the blood back into his hands.

‘I’m
not doing you a favour, mate,’ I snapped harshly, ‘Get behind us and protect
the rear of the section! I want that gun where I can use it!’

Whether
Jackson was hurt I couldn’t see, but he quickly dropped back behind us to take
up the rear of the section as he had before we were contacted.

From
my position with the stretcher at the rear I could see that the section were
complete, nobody had been left behind. I quickly shouted out the fact to Konny
so that he didn’t stop to count the men. We needed to move fast, so that by the
time the enemy lifted his head from the rubble and realised we were gone, he didn’t
have time to outflank us.

The
section ran as fast as it could, with the laden stretcher setting the pace.
Weapons scanned the walls of the two buildings as we ran between them,
searching for windows from which the enemy might fire down into the alleyway.

Above
the buildings the sky was brightening, almost like it might on Earth, but with
a strange green tinge that I knew would eventually turn turquoise.

There
was still the sound of gunfire nearby, I realised. The enclosed space of the
alleyway made it almost impossible to tell where the noise was coming from, but
there was definitely another battle taking place somewhere not far from us.

The
alleyway came to a T-Junction, where a wall at least five metres high ran along
the back of the two buildings. Twenty metres or so beyond that more buildings
towered, each with  of blacked out windows. I figured that normally the lights
would be on by now, but the people of Nieuwe Poort weren’t stupid enough to
make targets of themselves.

We
turned right at the junction, in the direction of our platoon, or at least
where we hoped to find them. With our communication network shut down by rebel
hackers, it was impossible to talk to them. The alleyway ran for a good two
hundred metres and had several junctions along its length to worry about, but
it afforded good protection - so long as the enemy didn’t have enough time to
get up into the buildings and hail darts down onto our heads.

‘Keep
your heads up,’ I hissed at the troopers in front of me, seeing the danger.

I
realised the alleyway clearly ended just off the junction where our platoon had
been placed originally, and my spirits lifted. I willed us ever closer, and for
the rebels not to reach us before we made it to safety.

They
did reach us.

‘Contact!’
Geany yelled as he passed one of the junctions. He fired two shots at an unseen
foe and then fired a grenade, almost falling over onto his backside as he did
so.

Okonkwo
and I placed down the stretcher and we each took  a knee, scanning the windows
above us. I cursed our bad luck as I waited for battle to recommence, but
nothing happened.

‘Jesus…’
Geany stared down the alleyway in disbelief as Konny and his fire team closed
in to help.

‘What
is it?’ I shouted.

Konny
peered around the corner of the alleyway, ‘They’re all dead!’

‘Well
let’s get going, then!’

We
ran on, and as I passed the junction I looked to see what had happened. A
horrible bloody pile of bodies lay halfway up the new alleyway, blown to
smithereens by Geany’s grenade. How many enemy had been there was hard to say -
I didn’t have time to count body parts.

‘Good
shooting,’ Okonkwo remarked respectfully. I decided not to point out that the
grenades were guided and that Geany was lucky he hadn’t died himself at such
close range.

As
we reached the end of the alleyway the sound of battle grew louder. I braced
myself for more combat. I had Patterson placed down again and made my way to
the front of the section, where Konny had taken a knee and was peering out onto
the street.

‘See
anything?’ I asked hopefully.

‘Two
of the LSVs are on fire,’ Konny replied grimly, and my heart sank, ‘And it
looks like the platoon have occupied a building.’

‘Well,
we need to get to them,’ I insisted, not caring if I further insulted Konny.
His inaction had risked annihilation at the hands of the enemy and I didn’t
want a repeat performance.

Konny
said nothing, continuing to watch the unseen battle around the corner of the
alleyway.

I
grew impatient, ‘Can you talk to them?’

We
didn’t have the platoon net, but we still possessed something gloriously
effective; the human mouth. I wondered if Konny had forgotten that.

‘Hey!’
Konny shouted across the street, ‘Oi!’

I
could almost have laughed. The section and platoon net were so advanced that
they made even the most chaotic battlefield simple to control - from managing
casualties and ammunition - to indicating enemy positions for other troopers to
engage. Take it away and the result was, on the modern battlefield, comically
simplistic.

‘Oi!’
Konny shouted again.

Finally,
my headset magnified a nearby voice against sporadic gunfire, ‘Yeah?’

‘It’s
Konny!’

A
pause, ‘Wait, I’ll tell the boss!’

‘Fuck
that,’ I said, ‘Tell him we’re coming over now.’

Almost
reluctantly, Konny nodded, knowing that I was right. There was no way we were
going to sit around and wait for the boss to think about what to do with us. We
had already killed God knows how many enemy in our alleyway and there was no
telling how many more there might be coming for us.

‘We’re
coming over!’ Konny shouted. He looked back to the section, who were spread out
along the alleyway watching and waiting anxiously, ‘Prepare to move!’

As
I ran back to the stretcher the section repeated the message, looking almost
visibly relieved to get out of the alleyway and back to the platoon.

‘Prepare
for rapid!’ Somebody shouted from across the street. The platoon, now knowing
that we were about to break cover, would provide covering fire. Whether Mr
Moore wanted us to come over or not, he wasn’t going to risk us all being shot.
I gripped the stretcher by the handles and braced my muscles for one last burst
of speed.

‘Rapid
fire!’

‘Let’s
go!’ Konny shouted, and we ran.

Spurred
by the fear of death, we ran out of the alleyway and up the street as fast as
we possibly could. There were now four of us carrying the stretcher so that we
could move quickly, but my muscles still screamed in protest. After carrying
the stretcher for so long it felt as though I might dislocate my shoulder, but
I willed myself on, using my free arm to bring my rifle to bear.

The
platoon was a good fifty metres up the street, occupying a building beside the
junction they had been holding before NELA had attacked. Sure enough, two LSVs
burned fiercely, their armour warped and blackened, and the sight of such
powerful machines in ruin reminded me of how dangerous our situation really
was.

A
trooper leaned out of the entrance to the building and beckoned us toward him
furiously, and my visor identified several troopers in the windows above firing
at unseen targets. We didn’t have time to see what they were firing at, we just
kept our heads low and ran.

‘Come
on lads, hurry up!’ The trooper virtually threw us one-by-one into the open
doorway, and I realised as he grabbed me by the shoulder and followed me inside
that it was Johnno.

We
were inside some kind of entrance hallway that was as grand as the buildings were
outside. In a different situation I would have stopped to admire the beautiful
paintings that adorned the walls or the intricate mosaic that covered the
entire floor. The hallway echoed with the sound of tens of weapons firing
throughout the building, as well as our heavy breathing.