RECCE II (The Union Series Book 5) (2 page)

I nodded slowly. Myers was right. Of course he was.
Who else could have killed so many innocent civilians but the president’s right
hand men?

‘You were at Dakar?’ Rusakov asked me, sounding
surprised.

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘Then you will know what the zombies can do.’

I remembered the horror of the massacre. I
remembered women and children falling to their deaths as they tried to cross a
narrow bridge in a desperate bid to escape the slaughter. And I remembered the
stacks of naked corpses we had found near to another “liberated” village.

‘Yeah,’ I said sadly. ‘We know exactly what they can
do.’

‘Corporal Moralee.’ The sergeant major turned to
address me, swiftly changing the subject. ‘Take us right up to their
headquarters, but exercise caution. I want to start off by trying to negotiate
with these lunatics.’

‘They didn’t seem that keen on negotiating,’ I
reminded him. Our last attempt to enter the Guard headquarters had almost
resulted in one of us being shot.

‘No, they didn’t. But we need to try to get through
to them before we start exchanging darts.’ He held up a warning finger. ‘Let’s
not forget that these people are possibly armed with explosives . . .’

Suddenly there was a shriek of gunfire, causing us
all to duck instinctively. Somebody behind me swore in surprise.

‘That was close!’ Myers exclaimed, as we quickly snatched
up our weapons again.

The gunfire continued as multiple weapons fired from
somewhere ahead of us. I could make out orders being shouted through the din - although
my headset offered no translation.

I glanced at the sergeant major in alarm. ‘That’s
got to be coming from their headquarters . . .’

He nodded. ‘The negotiations are already underway.’
He swept a finger across my section with fresh urgency. ‘Keep a professional
head on, men! There’s a lot of scared little boys and girls down here, so let’s
not get sucked into the madness and start shooting friendlies! Corporal
Moralee, take us in, as discussed. If you’re engaged, then you need to confirm
you’re dealing with enemy and not FEA. You may assault if necessary, but do not
advance any further than fifty metres unless I say otherwise. I will be right
behind you with the next section. Happy?’

That was all the information I needed. I snapped
into action, addressing my men: ‘Prepare to move!’

‘Prepare to move!’ my section repeated.

There was no longer any need for quiet, the unseen
battle ahead of us had reached a crescendo. Then there was a mighty thump as
something exploded nearby, causing the ground to shake beneath our feet. It
sounded like a grenade, but I couldn’t be sure.

Knowing that we had no time to lose, I tapped Myer’s
daysack. ‘Let’s go!’

Myers sprang to action like a sprinter released from
the block. We hurried through the tunnels toward the noise, rifles ready to
fire. I kept as close behind Myers as possible, the two of us hugging either
side of the tunnel so that I could shoot over his shoulder. Each time we
reached a corner we stopped, quickly closing up and then rounding the corner as
one.

On one such corner, Myers hesitated, then raised a
hand telling me to stop. A faint wisp of smoke hung in the air, suggesting that
we were close to the source of the explosion we had heard moments ago, and over
the noise of gunfire my headset identified and magnified a different sound-
heavy breathing.

He held a hand out to his side, thumb pointed downwards-
enemy.

The two of us fought to control our own breathing, aware
that both the Militia and the Guard had hearing equipment just as good as our
own.

Normally I would have simply thrown a grenade around
the corner, and then emerged with rifle magnets shrieking, but I hesitated. We
didn’t actually know that the people around the corner were enemy.

I gripped Myers by the shoulder and gently tugged
him backwards, taking his place right beside the bend in the tunnel. Then I
slowly moved my rifle forward, pointing it around the corner to see with its
camera.

There were several figures in the tunnel beyond. I
didn’t have time to count them, however, for as soon as my rifle emerged one of
them saw it and jumped in surprise.

The figure cried out in alarm, and I snatched the
rifle backward just as a burst of darts struck the wall across from me in a
flash of light.

‘Shit!’ I cursed through gritted teeth as flecks of
rock struck my visor.

‘Contact!’ Myers hollered. He grasped my daysack as
he attempted to pull me further away from danger.

‘No!’ I countered his warning, shrugging his hand
away. ‘Friendlies!’ I then raised my voice even further. ‘DON’T SHOOT!’

There was a loud commotion from around the bend, and
I braced myself as I prepared to defend myself against a gang of confused FEA
soldiers. I was sure it was the FEA and not the Militia. I had worked with them
long enough to recognise the outline of their equipment in the dark.

‘DON’T
FUCKING
SHOOT!’ I repeated. ‘WE’RE UNION
TROOPERS!’

There was a pause. Gunshots still rang out through
the tunnels as the FEA continued their attack against the rogue Guardsmen, but
the group around the corner appeared to have hesitated.

‘Are they FEA?’ the sergeant major asked from the
rear of my section.

‘Yeah!’ I replied. I was fairly certain.

A voice shouted over the sound of battle, and my
headset quickly translated the challenge. ‘Who are you?’

I licked my lips, regaining my composure as I tucked
my body close to the tunnel wall. ‘I am Corporal Moralee of 1
^st
Battalion, the English Dropship Infantry. We’re the ones who captured the top
of this hill yesterday!’

‘Why are you here?’ the voice demanded. ‘We heard
that you left us!’

‘The
Guard
left you!’ I corrected. ‘We are
still here. We want to help you.’

There was a pause . . .

‘Why do you want to help us?’

Despite the monotone of my headset’s translation, I
could sense the doubtful cynicism in the FEA soldier’s voice, and I understood
it. Why should they trust us when their own comrades had turned on them? In the
madness of the tunnels, they had taken it upon themselves to recapture the
Guard headquarters in a desperate bid to restore control over their scattered
battalions. There was still a serious danger that they might turn on us,
believing us to be enemy.

‘The Guard are holding our commander hostage!’ I
explained. ‘We want to get him back!’

There was another long pause as my answer was
considered. If I had said that we wanted to help for the sake of maintaining
our uneasy alliance then I doubted that the FEA soldier would believe me, but coming
back to rescue our own captured comrades would have made more sense to him.

‘How do I know you are telling the truth?’ the
soldier asked.

‘Let me come out and show you.’

There was no answer. Deciding that the FEA’s silence
was as good an invitation as I was ever going to get, I lowered my rifle and stepped
out gingerly.

I froze under the glare of several rifle torches,
all trained onto me. There were at least twenty FEA soldiers, I saw, spread
along a fifty-metre-long stretch of tunnel. I assumed that they were the reserves
of a company strength unit waiting to be launched into the fray.

‘I am a Union trooper,’ I repeated, keeping the
barrel of my own rifle lowered as I allowed the FEA to study me and decide for
themselves. It was entirely possible for a Militiaman to impersonate one of us,
should he manage to steal all of our kit. I hoped that they wouldn’t come to
that conclusion and open fire.

‘He’s no Militiaman,’ a nearby soldier decided.

‘Will he help us? Will he–’ another asked in a
hushed voice.

‘Yes, we will,’ I interrupted, relaxing slightly as
the rifle torches lowered. I gestured around the corner where my platoon
waited. ‘I have a whole platoon here with me. We want the same thing you do, we
want you to take back control of the Guard headquarters so that we can find our
platoon commander.’

The tunnel suddenly shrieked again with the sound of
magnetic weapons firing, and all the FEA soldiers flinched, clearly agitated by
their proximity to the frontline.

‘Come!’ One of them beckoned for me to follow her.
‘We are already attacking!’

I looked back at Myers and the rest of my section
strung out behind him and said, ‘Let’s go, lads!’

The FEA soldier turned and ran toward the battle,
and I hurried after her, brushing past her comrades in the narrow tunnel. They looked
at me bewilderedly as I passed them, barely able to believe that the Union had
come to their aid.

I heard a commotion over my shoulder as I reached
the far end of the tunnel.

‘He’s with us!’ I heard the sergeant major shout.
‘He’s on your side!’

I hesitated for a moment, wondering what was
happening behind me.

‘It’s Rusakov!’ Griffiths informed me as I slowed.
‘The FEA are kicking off with him!’

‘Leave him alone!’ the sergeant major bellowed
behind us.

I slowed to a trot, looking over my shoulder to see
what was happening. Several troopers were pushing angry FEA soldiers out of their
way whilst the sergeant major propelled Rusakov forward, maintaining the
advance.

‘Keep going!’ he barked at me, driving me on.

As I ran on toward the battle ahead of me I shook my
head, struggling to comprehend what I had witnessed. Rather than turning on us -
hated troopers sent to their province by the Union - the FEA were directing
their anger toward Rusakov, one of their own countrymen. They had found
themselves fighting against Guardsmen, and now they didn’t know who to trust.
It was a stark display of the utter chaos that gripped Hill Kilo and the world
beyond it, as friends and enemies appeared to change places like contenders in
a game of musical chairs.

Our newfound guide led me around a corner at the end
of the tunnel, waving her arm to hurry us after her.

‘We are fighting the Guard traitors!’ she panted as
I caught up with her. ‘You must help us or we will all die in this hell!’

The next section of tunnel was as terrifying and
claustrophobic as any warren tunnel I had ever fought in before. The tunnel was
littered with bodies, twenty- maybe even thirty all together. Dead Guardsmen
and FEA soldiers lay tangled together where they had fallen, telling of a
ferocious close-quarter battle fought with rifles, grenades and bayonets. Both
sides had clearly taken horrendous casualties, as the suicidal obedience of the
Guard zombies collided with the sheer desperation of the FEA.

Close to the next junction in the tunnel, a section
of FEA waited, packed together as though poised to launch into battle.

We had to slow down to step over the fallen
soldiers, for even in the horror of the warrens a man knew to avoid treading on
the dead. Myers tripped on one of the bodies, swearing as he stumbled onward.

As we approached, an FEA soldier at the very end of
the tunnel lifted his head and shouted, ‘Next team! Go!’

‘Go!’ somebody repeated, and the section of FEA
launched forward, piling around the corner. There was an immediate roar of
gunfire, and several members of the section were snatched backward as a spray
of enemy darts cut through them. Those that survived the burst returned fire,
then continued their charge and disappeared out of view.

‘Call forward the next team!’ the FEA soldier
shouted.

I assumed that he was their platoon commander, or
perhaps even their company commander, controlling the battle from a point as
close to the enemy as he dared. It was good leadership, I noted with admiration.
Many of the inexperienced commanders leading Edo’s conscript army would have
preferred to command from the rear, where they were safe.

One of the shot FEA soldiers was still alive, and
was left screaming on the ground in front of the commander, clutching at his
leg. I couldn’t see him too well in the sporadic flickers of light that
emanated from weapons firing somewhere around the corner, but it looked as
though a dart had struck his shin and virtually severed it, such was its power.

‘Get him back here!’ the commander shouted back to
the small entourage that remained behind him, and two of them hurried forward
to rescue their fallen comrade.

I stopped beside the last FEA soldier who crouched
behind the commander, leaving our guide to negotiate her way up to him. The
platoon quickly stacked up behind me, sticking to one side of the tunnel in
order to keep a gangway clear. More FEA were already trying to get past us,
most likely a work party moving forward to help extract the casualty. The tight
confines of the tunnels made advancing soldiers forward whilst bringing
casualties rearward extremely difficult, especially when a platoon of foreign
troopers were in the way.

The guide tapped urgently on her commander’s back. ‘The
Union are here,’ she announced.