RECCE II (The Union Series Book 5) (15 page)

I fired several darts after the figure, but I wasn’t
sure if I had hit him. I then continued forcing my way through the undergrowth,
negotiating my way around the bushes in search of more targets.

The two mammoth guns continued to fire overhead,
despite Myers and I being virtually on top of the blue crosshair. For a second
I feared that they had failed to notice us encroaching into their arcs, until I
realised that they were firing ahead of us, onto something further along the
valley.

‘Enemy attempting to withdraw!’ Puppy shouted over
the net, causing me to flinch at the sound in my headset. ‘Multiple targets! We’re
switching fire!’

‘Roger!’ I replied. ‘Weatherall, move!’

‘Moving!’

Suddenly more gunfire erupted a few hundred metres
ahead of us, except that this time it wasn’t from our own weapons. I looked to
the high ground where Puppy and his half of the section continued to engage
targets ahead of us, wondering if the enemy fire was directed at them.

‘One-One-Delta, this is One-Zero-Alpha, is that you
in contact?’ the sergeant major asked Puppy over the net, sounding worried.

‘One-One-Delta, no!’ my 2ic replied.

‘Contact front!’ Myers shouted again, snatching me
back to the battle in the immediate vicinity. In the blink of an eye, both of
us fired simultaneously, engaging two figures scrambling from their hiding
place amongst the rocks. They were headed for the far bank where the sergeant major
and Two Section waited, but they never made it that far. The first man screamed
as a dart struck his upper thigh, before disappearing into a cluster of ferns.
The other collapsed without a sound as I shot him square through the chest.

‘Move!’ Weatherall shouted from over my shoulder. I
saw that he had gone firm alongside me on my right, not far from the two men we
had shot.

I pointed at the spot where the two figures had fallen.
‘Keep eyes on them, Weatherall! Confirm they’re dead on your next bound!’

‘Roger!’

We weren’t taking prisoners. We didn’t have the
means, or the will to do so.

‘Myers, let’s go!’

The pair of us took another bound forward, and as I
moved I listened to the continuing conversation between Puppy and the sergeant
major.

‘One-One-Delta, do you have eyes onto the contact
ahead of you? Who’s firing at who?’

There was an uncertain pause. ‘I’m trying to move
myself to get a look . . .’

As we completed our bound, the OC’s disembodied
voice cut in to our net. ‘Blackjack-One-Zero, this is Hammersmith-Zero-Alpha.
I’ve got
Richelieu
looking into your area now. Dropships are on standby.
Wait out.’

I checked to see that Weatherall had taken his cue
to advance. Sure enough, the trooper was already up, cautiously stepping toward
the fallen enemy with his rifle raised.

‘This is Zero-Alpha.’ The OC spoke again. ‘
Richelieu
has a good viewing angle into the valley from the north. She has eyes onto a
small group of firers who have emerged onto the southern bank, approximately
section strength, engaging a group attempting to escape along the valley base.’

‘FEA?’ I wondered aloud.

‘What? That’s FEA?’ Myers nodded toward the distant
firing, having heard my suggestion. ‘They’re getting a bit necky coming out
here, aren’t they?’

He was right to be sceptical. Surely, having
suffered such horrendous losses within Cellini, the battered young conscripts
wouldn’t dare venture out into the forest?

‘Andy,’ Puppy announced, ‘I’ve got no more targets
in your area. I think they’ve all done one, mate. All the firing is directed
onto the fleeing enemy.’

‘OK,’ I replied, flicking to the platoon net
immediately afterwards. ‘One-Zero, this is One-One. Position clear.’

‘Roger.’ The sergeant major’s reply was abrupt,
indicating that he was no longer interested in my situation on the valley base.
He was far more concerned about the unknown contact ahead of us. If there were
FEA out there trying to engage the fleeing enemy as well, then we were in serious
danger of a “green on blue” - a friendly fire incident involving us and our
not-so-well-trained allies.

‘Andy!’ Weatherall called from behind me, causing me
to forget the net as well as the battle raging ahead of us. The tone of his voice
told me that something was wrong . . .
very
wrong.

I slowly looked around, and saw the trooper stood
beside the fallen enemy. There was something funny in the way he stood, fully
upright with his rifle at his side, as if he had decided that the battle was
over and it was time to go home.

I frowned. ‘What’s up?’

‘They’re not Militia . . .’

‘They’re Guardsmen, then,’ I decided for him. Of course
they were Guardsmen. If they weren’t one, then they were the other. ‘Are they
clear?’

‘They’re civvies.’

My frown deepened into a scowl.
What the hell was
that idiot talking about?
‘Say again?’

‘They’re civilians, Andy.’

The blood rushed away from my cheeks as realisation
of what Weatherall was saying sunk in. For a moment, my mouth hung open, until
I came to my senses and screamed over the net. ‘Check fire! Check fire! They’re
civvies! We’re shooting fucking civvies!’

7

Collateral Damage

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There are moments on the battlefield when things can
happen that are so awful, they seem to cause everything else to become little
more than background noise. The gunfire was still there, just as loud as ever,
but somehow it didn’t matter. Nothing outside the valley mattered anymore.

One of the two civilians that had run from us was an
old man, perhaps in his sixties. It was me that shot him, square through the
heart, which perhaps might have been a small mercy. The other was a middle-aged
woman. She had lost a huge chunk of flesh from her thigh, presumably as the
dart had chipped a bone and the resulting chip had become a secondary
projectile. She had been silent initially, perhaps due to the initial impact
having knocked her out or something. Now she was conscious, and she had begun
to scream.

‘Don’t just fucking stare at her, Weatherall!’ I
barked as I approached. ‘Get a tourniquet on her, now!’

Weatherall knelt over the screaming woman, looking
panicked as he fumbled with his med pouch.

I knelt by her head and placed a restraining arm
against her shoulder, stopping her from attempting to look at the wound. ‘It’s
OK’ I tried to sound soothing. ‘It’s OK.’

It was pointless. My reassurances had little effect.
The woman was in agony, her respirator face piece already clouded by her
screaming and heavy breathing. Through the material of her jumpsuit I could see
that her wound was extremely deep, and wide enough to fit my hand in. Flesh
quivered and pulsed as blood ran freely over it.

‘Oh my god!’ Myers exclaimed.

I turned to see that the young trooper was stood a metre
away, in the same stupefied stance as Weatherall had been a moment earlier.

‘Myers!’ I snapped, pointing away. ‘Get back to
where you were and cover!’

Sensing that my words brooked no argument, Myers quickly
returned to where he had been.

I looked over at Weatherall, who was now attempting
to move her trousers to get to the wound. ‘Don’t worry about the material, you
belter, put the tourniquet straight over!’

Why was I having to tell him this?
I
wondered. Weatherall had the same medical training we all had, and he knew that
he didn’t need to mess around with clothing to get a tourniquet on.

Snapping back to his senses, the trooper wrapped the
tourniquet around her thigh, just above the wound. He fixed it together and
then began to turn the toggle attached to it, tightening it around the thigh.

‘Keep going!’ I ordered as an increase in the
woman’s screaming caused him to hesitate. ‘Don’t be gentle! You’ve got to cut
the blood supply right off!’

Stepping back from the casualty, I gave Weatherall
the space to do what he needed to, as well as giving myself time to comprehend
what had happened.

What had we done?

I looked around me, searching for more casualties.
Guilt stabbed at my heart like a knife, driven deeper with every scream from
the agonised woman in front of me.

What had we done?

‘All call signs, let’s consolidate.’ The sergeant major
sounded firm over the net as he tried to restore clarity. ‘Now is the time to
keep a cool head. Keep your eyes outward. This is clearly a come-on intended to
break our formation and fix us in position. Anticipate an attack. One-One, send
situation report.’

‘I’ve got one civilian casualty and one dead so far,’
I answered gravely. ‘We’ve engaged more of them on our way up the valley,
though, so there will be more.’

There was no reply. I imagined the sergeant major
was as dismayed as I was, with no idea how to respond to such an unexpected and
ghastly predicament.

Guilt turned into anger as it began to dawn on me
what the Militia had done, and how we had fallen for their ploy like a band of
amateurs. We knew that the Militia raised and controlled slave gangs of
captured civilians to do their bidding. Before our arrival at Cellini, they had
already used the village population to move tonnes of supplies and ammunition
across the border into Europa. They were probably using them to move the
missiles as well. Now, knowing that a platoon of Union troopers was in hot pursuit,
they had sent the civilians toward us in the hope that we would confuse them
with enemy in the reduced visibility of the forest. Their plan, though simple,
had worked spectacularly.

I remembered the gunfire further up the valley. In
the face of our attack, the hapless civilians had disobeyed their masters and
returned, only to be cut down in punishment.

Suddenly I realised that the weapons were still
firing. I flicked back to the platoon net. ‘They’re shooting the civvies as
they run away! Get Zero-Alpha to engage!’

The sergeant major responded immediately. ‘Hammersmith-Zero-Alpha,
this is Blackjack-One-Zero, engage the targets identified by
Richelieu
!
The people within the valley are civilians!’

‘Zero-Alpha, confirm you want me to engage the
firers on the valley bank only?’

‘That’s correct!’

‘Wait out.’

Only moments later, the heavens exploded with noise
as a torrent of Vulcan passed overhead. Though I couldn’t see the dropships
from the valley floor, I knew they were firing directly along it, strafing the
southern bank with enfilading fire.

‘There are more civilians over here!’ Myers shouted
over the noise. He pointed across to his left.

I hurried toward him, ignoring the overhead barrage
as I looked toward where he was indicating with his outstretched arm. There in
the bushes, no more than ten metres away from him, lay several more bodies
strewn amongst the ferns. None of them moved - not that I expected them to.
Exposed to the full fury of two mammoth magnetic machine guns, they would have
been cut to pieces. It was a massacre, and we were the culprits.

The guilt I felt was unbearable. It didn’t matter
that the Militia had played a trick on me, I should never have fallen for it.
My desperation to catch up with Bhasin and my thirst for revenge had caused me
to make a critical error. I hadn’t confirmed my target. I never even attempted
to get a view of them. In my haste, I had decided that the approaching figures
had to be enemy and I had unleashed the full force of my section firepower.
Even when my victims failed to return fire, I never thought to question why.
The fault was mine, and mine alone.

‘We couldn’t have known . . .’ Myers said, staring
at the carnage.

I regarded him for a second, unsure whether he was
talking to me, or himself.

The onslaught from the dropships stopped abruptly,
leaving the valley to echo for several seconds afterward.

‘Blackjack call signs,’ the OC announced, ‘the
target has been engaged and destroyed. I’m having
Richelieu
take another
look in your vicinity. Be aware, she has competing tasks elsewhere now, so her
assistance might become limited.’

I wondered what “competing tasks” might be
considered more important than us, but then cast the thought from my mind. How
could I be bitter toward the crew of
Richelieu
, when it was me that had
just brutally murdered innocent civilians through my own incompetence?

The woman was still screaming behind me. I looked
back, and saw that Weatherall was trying to tend to her wound below the
tourniquet, packing the bloody hole with quick clot. He was right to do so,
since there was always a chance that we could save her leg. It was a common
misconception that a tourniquet guaranteed amputation.

‘What the hell are we gonna do now?’ Myer asked,
following my gaze.

I said nothing for several seconds. ‘I don’t know,’
I eventually replied.

The platoon advance had come to a standstill, as
everyone struggled to decide what to do next. Even the sergeant major, cold-blooded
and ruthlessly committed to fulfilling his mission priorities, was now torn
between his mission and his morals. We couldn’t just leave the injured civilian,
not when it was us that had caused the injury, but we couldn’t simply abandon
our chase either.

My headset cut out the screaming as the OC spoke. ‘All
Blackjack call signs, this is Hammersmith-Zero-Alpha. Be aware,
Richelieu
reports three separate groups rapidly approaching your position. One to the
north, one to the south, and one following the valley from the east. She
doesn’t have the visibility through the canopy to give accurate numbers, but
she estimates each group to be anywhere between section and platoon strength.’

I swore loudly, turning my head up toward the valley
bank where Puppy controlled the remainder of the section. Suddenly the forest
had become very still, as if preparing for something awful, and the trees
towering either side of the valley took on renewed menace. Only the woman’s
cries cut through the silence.

I licked my lips nervously. ‘Puppy, make sure your
men are covering! Don’t engage unless you’ve confirmed your target!’

‘I’m on it, mate,’ he replied straight away. I heard
a commotion on the bank as my 2ic quickly composed the remainder of the section
to repel any incoming attack.

‘What’s going on?’ Myers asked with a concerned
frown.

‘There are more coming,’ I said. ‘From all
directions.’

He gasped. ‘Shit . . . civilians?’

‘No idea.’

‘Andy!’ someone shouted from behind me.

I spun around, to see Abs crouched twenty metres
away, close to the no fire line that still hovered above the valley floor.

He lifted his head to survey the area. ‘How many
casualties?’

‘One!’ I shouted back. ‘She’s a priority one. Catastrophic
bleed to the upper thigh!’

‘Vital stats?’

I hadn’t thought to check. Normally vital stats were
displayed on our datapads, and were often sent over the net so long as it was
live. Clearly a civilian didn’t have anything like that, so we had to work out
the pulse and breathing rate the old-fashioned way.

‘Weatherall–’ I started.

Weatherall looked up from the woman and cut me short.
‘Pulse is one-twenty per minute, breathing is twenty breaths per minute. Tourniquet
applied. I’ve given her painkillers.’

The high pulse and breathing rate weren’t
surprising, but they were still a cause for alarm. Having lost a large amount
of blood through the hole cut from her leg, her blood pressure might have
dropped considerably, meaning that her cardiovascular system needed to work
harder to supply her body with oxygen. On the other side of the coin, assuming
that Weatherall’s speedy tourniquet application had prevented too much loss of
blood, then the high stats might be the result of shock - or something else
entirely.

‘OK.’ Abs started tapping the information into his
datapad. ‘Stand by. Three Section will extract her back! We’ll hold onto her
until we can make some sense out of this mess.’

As if on cue, a four-man stretcher party burst
through the undergrowth, having been generated from Three Section’s manpower. The
rest of them would still be covering the rear of the platoon.

The stretcher party sprinted up to the woman, one of
them laying his lightweight stretcher onto the ground whilst the other three
jostled Weatherall out of the way, taking control of the situation.

‘We’ll deal with her, Andy!’ Abs shouted. ‘Get
yourself back up there with your section!’

I nodded, feeling slight relief as the burden of the
injured civilian was removed from my shoulders. Nothing could take away my
guilt, but at least I didn’t have to carry the woman to whom I had effectively
dealt a life-changing injury.

‘Let’s go lads!’ I called, shaking the thoughts from
my head. Now was not the time to allow myself to be consumed by grief again. My
section needed me to remain focused.

 As I led Myers and Weatherall back up the rocky
slope toward Puppy and the remainder of my men, I listened to the sergeant major
transmitting over the net. ‘Hammersmith-Zero-Alpha, this is Blackjack-One-Zero.
Request immediate cas-evac for one times civilian casualty.’ There was a long
pause. ‘Confirm priority?’