RECCE II (The Union Series Book 5) (11 page)

I peered through the mesh at my feet, gazing down
into the jet-black water below. ‘Actually
in
the water?’

‘I have told you about your spies,’ she said. ‘We
knew they were amongst us . . . as they are now. Surely you know this?’

‘Nobody’s going to tell us about what our special
forces are up to,’ Myers replied. ‘We don’t get paid enough to know stuff like
that.’

Yulia continued. ‘We kept the missiles sealed in
special bags to protect them from the water, then used weights to keep them to
the bottom of the reservoir. If we needed them, they could be brought back up
and used as if they were new.’

‘How many were down there?’ I asked.

‘Several thousand.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Several
thousand?’

‘Yes. Many of them are probably still there. Bhasin
would not have taken that many. He would not have enough men to carry them, and
Helstrom would not have the launchers to fire them.’

I puffed my cheeks. ‘So . . . where did they take
them?’

‘I will show you.’

The platform turned out to be a natural feature, a
shelf of rock a hundred metres across that appeared to have been smoothed by
water that once flowed over it. It was several metres above the water level, and
given the recent heavy rain I assumed that meant it never became submerged. At
its far end, I noticed a series of pipes that emerged from the water, snaking
over the lip of the platform before disappearing into a piece of machinery that
was easily the size of a dropship. On the other side of the machinery the pipes
appeared again, running into a wide horizontal crack in the rocky wall little
more than a metre high.

As I stepped out onto the platform, I quickly moved to
the right side of Myers, ordering him to go firm with a downward wave of my
arm. I then took a knee five metres to his right before holding my arms out
either side of me.
Extended line.

I waited and listened whilst the section formed up
either side of me, my Charlie fire team taking up positions on my left and Delta
on my right. Once everyone was in place, we stretched all the way across the
platform, from the cavern wall on my right to the reservoir on my left.

‘Nothing on the scanner,’ Myers assured me quietly.

Satisfied that we were capable of defending
ourselves against any rear guard Bhasin might have left within the chamber, I
crossed over to Yulia and gently placed my hand on her shoulder, careful not to
startle her as I spoke. ‘I see a piece of machinery on the far side of this
platform–’

‘There should be pipes coming out of it,’ she
interrupted. ‘They go into a wide tunnel with a low ceiling.’

I looked back at the horizontal crack into which the
pipes all disappeared. ‘I see it.’

‘You must go that way.’

The sergeant major emerged from the mesh tunnel, and
I quickly briefed him on what Yulia had told me, and the route I was about to
take.

He nodded. ‘OK. I’m happy to push on.’

‘Do we still have comms?’

‘No. Three Section have closed up and are following
behind.’

I regarded him quizzically for a moment.

‘I didn’t get to be a sergeant major without taking
the odd gamble here and there, Moralee. The difference between you and me is
that I wait until the odds are at least
slightly
in my favour. We have
recently spoken to B Company, and know that the situation is under control. We
know that the FEA are now able to consolidate their position within the warren
now that they have their network up and running. Proceed with caution. If this
goes wrong, then we’re heading back to the surface best speed.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I acknowledged, then drew a circle with
my hand, telling the section to prepare to move. Then, with a sweep of both my
arms, we moved off toward the far end of the platform.

The horizontal crack was at least ten metres across,
but too narrow for us to enter it in extended line. Instead I had my section
form into two files, so that at least two of us could fire if needed. Myers
kept to one side, careful to avoid banging Yulia’s head on the low ceiling,
whilst I kept to the other, with everyone else following on behind. I could
only just adopt a decent aim as I moved, the rock scraping against my helmet if
I didn’t keep my knees well bent and my back arched. My thighs burned through
the effort of keeping my body so low, but I ignored the pain, sensing that the
distance between us and our quarry was closing. They, unlike us, had a rather
heavy burden to carry, as well as several prisoners to slow them down.

The crack meandered like a river, which presumably
it had once been, before suddenly opening into another, much smaller cavern,
containing yet another reservoir. Water poured from the pipes into the
reservoir, siphoned across from its far larger neighbour. We found ourselves
stood on another natural shelf, looking into the reservoir.

Suddenly I noticed irregular shapes sprawled out
across the shelf, and my heart skipped a beat. They were bodies.

‘Myers, stay there,’ I ordered, then carefully
stepped up to one of the figures laying lifeless on the ground.

It was difficult to see how the man had died without
using any form of torchlight, but I could see by the lack of heat coming from
his body that he had been dead for a long time. I checked his equipment,
lifting his head and moving his limbs to identify his uniform. He was a
Loyalist. Not a Militiaman, but a professional Loyalist soldier. Most of his kit
had been stripped - though I could recognise his uniform anywhere, even in the
dark. I figured he and his comrades must have been tasked to guard the pipeline
prior to our attack. Obviously they hadn’t done a very good job.

Whilst I inspected the body, the remainder of my section
had formed up on the shelf, each taking up fire positions that overlooked the
reservoir in front of us.

‘Andy . . .’ Puppy whispered from the lip of the shelf,
beckoning me toward him. I left the dead Loyalist and made my way over to my
second in command, who promptly pointed out across the reservoir. ‘Look.’

I followed his gaze to the far side of the
reservoir, where I could just make out the outline of a perfectly circular
tunnel entrance. Not a tunnel, a pipe . . . large enough for a man to walk
through.

I studied the pipe entrance for a moment. It was
half submerged in the water, which appeared to be flowing into it.

‘This is the pipeline Yulia was talking about,’
Puppy said, sounding relieved as well as surprised to discover that her story
was true. ‘The one that we saw before we captured Cellini.’

‘Leading straight out of the warren . . .’ I said
thoughtfully.

Puppy let out a quiet chuckle. ‘Quite a serious
design flaw, don’t you think?’

‘Yeah,’ I agreed, glancing over my shoulder to check
that Yulia wasn’t close enough to hear me. ‘And they wonder why the Alliance
lost . . .’

Somebody tapped his rifle gently to grab my
attention, and I turned to see Wildgoose stood over another one of the bodies.

‘They’re all Loyalists,’ he confirmed. ‘Looks like they
were all shot or stabbed, but they’ve been dead for ages.’

I waved for Myers to close in, and waited whilst he
led Yulia across to me.

‘There’s a load of bodies here,’ I said once they
both arrived. ‘Your handwork?’

‘These soldiers were killed by villagers who worked
down here, just before we emerged from the pipeline,’ Yulia replied. ‘We have
many friends in Cellini. They knew that we were coming.’

‘And I’m guessing the pipeline I can see at the
bottom of the reservoir is the one you were talking about.’

She nodded. ‘Yes. It was built to provide water to
the air factory and its fusion reactor not long after they were built, when the
colonists discovered that the reservoir levels beneath Cellini weren’t
sustainable enough to support their great project–’

‘And then it started raining,’ I finished.

She nodded. ‘The pipeline was no longer useful when
the rain increased, so it was deactivated long before any of the provinces were
formed.’

The sergeant major arrived next to us once more, and
I pointed out the pipeline to him. ‘That’s the way out.’

‘So that pipe runs all the way out to sea?’ he asked.

‘That is correct,’ Yulia replied. ‘It heads to a
pumping station and then out to a chemical plant on the western coast of Edo,
which is being held by FEA soldiers loyal to us. It is the route we used to
enter the tunnels beneath the village.’

The sergeant major raised his eyebrows
disbelievingly. ‘And the Loyalists never even thought to defend it properly?’

‘
We
never thought to use it,’ I said.

‘I did,’ Myers mumbled.

‘Myers . . .’ The sergeant major lowered his head
and gripped his visor irritably. ‘Go away for a moment, would you?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the trooper replied sulkily. Puppy
quickly wrapped an arm over his shoulder and led him away.

Yulia waited a moment before continuing. ‘The way through
this pipeline is very dangerous. The water is very cold, and often very deep.
The Loyalists kept a small guard force here, and decided that would be enough.’

I looked at the dead, looted Loyalist soldiers
scattered across the rocky shelf. ‘Clearly it wasn’t.’ I considered asking her
for more information, but now wasn’t the time. We still needed to catch up with
Bhasin, before he made off with the missiles, and our friends. ‘How deep is
it?’ I asked, changing the subject.

Yulia pointed to the pipe entrance. ‘If you can see
the top of the pipeline, then you can stand in the water.’

‘And is there a way down?’ I asked. I didn’t fancy
wasting more time with ropes.

‘There is a ladder.’

I swept my gaze across the edge of the shelf, finally
spotting a metal ladder on the edge of the reservoir. Not wanting to spend any
more time talking, I trotted over to it and then climbed down into the water
below. It was just as cold as the water in the drainage tunnels, but this time
my body adapted much more quickly. I reached the bottom of the reservoir just
as the water reached my chest, and gently stepped away from the ladder. A
current tugged at my body, pulling me toward the pipeline entrance. It wasn’t
strong enough to take me off my feet, but enough for me to have to lean
slightly against it.

‘The water is flowing out pretty steadily,’ I warned
as Yulia followed me down into the water, having been guided onto the ladder by
Myers.

Yulia took a couple of steps away from the ladder. I
remembered that she couldn’t see a thing, so reached out and gripped her
shoulder before guiding her away from my descending section. Using my remaining
arm, I kept my rifle trained onto the pipeline and slowly waded toward it,
making room for my men whilst moving to cover the direction of enemy threat.

Once I reached the pipeline, the flow of water
became almost as powerful as it had been before the waterfall, trying to suck
me in. I propped myself against the pipe entrance, making sure that Yulia was
safely behind me before peering into the gloom, expecting a target to appear at
any moment, but there was nothing.

The remainder of my section swiftly formed up behind
us, lining up along the reservoir wall either side of the pipeline. They closed
up together, expecting a brief before I moved off again. They all knew that
somewhere along the tunnel was Bhasin’s extraction point, and a potential
battle to follow.

‘The water does not usually flow like this . . .’
Yulia observed, sounding puzzled.

‘Could be the rain?’ Wildgoose suggested. He flicked
his head upward. ‘There must be a huge amount of water soaked up inside this
hill.’

‘It would have been raining when Yulia and her men
came up here,’ I replied.

‘It would,’ he agreed, ‘but the rainwater wouldn’t
flow down here instantly. Think how big Hill Kilo is. The water soaks into the
mud, then travels hundreds of metres through rock and whatever else before it
gets here. It probably takes a day or two.’

‘Who made you the rock expert?’ Myers asked.

The older trooper smiled. ‘Nobody. Just guessing.’

I noticed Yulia shiver involuntarily, probably
hoping that no one would notice. A Guardsman through and through, she didn’t
like to admit weakness in front of her old enemies.

‘How the hell did you travel so far in freezing cold
water?’ I asked her.

‘Rafts,’ she answered.

‘Rafts?’

‘We made inflatable rafts using materials we found
in the pumping station. We floated on the water. Sometimes we were wet, but not
often.’

I nodded respectfully. ‘Good idea.’

‘I know a good idea,’ Myers suggested with a touch
of sarcasm. ‘Why don’t we use those same rafts now, instead of freezing our
balls off?’

‘The rafts are hidden in another tunnel,’ Yulia
answered, ‘but I do not think they would be there anyway. If Bhasin made my men
talk, then he will know where the rafts are. He would use them to help his men move
the missiles along the pipeline.’