RECCE II (The Union Series Book 5) (23 page)

‘I’ve told her you’ll be there at zero six hundred
hours,’ he continued, ‘which should mean you’ll beat the sunrise. Once you’re
with her I want you to soak up as much information as you can. I want to know
about enemy strengths and locations, but I also want to know who these friends
of hers are and what they bring to the table. Can we somehow use them to
enhance our recce capability? Are they armed? Do they have other affiliated
groups on this side of the border, etc., etc.? We need to assess whether or not
these people are useful to our operation, and if so, we need to utilise them.
On the other hand, make sure you don’t give away too much to them. If you smell
a rat - even the slightest whiff - bug out immediately.’

I nodded. ‘Roger.’

He held up a warning finger. ‘Remember, consider the
threat from both inside and outside, and organise your men appropriately. You
don’t want to appear untrusting, but you need to keep your backs covered.
Understood?’

‘Understood.’

‘Good.’ He paused for a moment, as if something else
was on his mind. ‘How are you?’

I hesitated, slightly taken aback by the question.
The sergeant major often asked how my men were, but he never asked how
I
was. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Listen, Corporal Moralee, I know you feel
responsible for what happened in the valley.’ The sergeant major’s voice hardened
as he confronted my guilt head on. ‘You’re looking at it from the wrong
perspective. Those civilians didn’t die because you shot them, they died
because they were sent by the Militia with the intention to
trick you
into shooting them. They played on our humanity, and turned it into a weapon to
be used against us. God only knows what methods they used to make those
civilians walk to their deaths, especially the ones strapped with explosives .
. .’

I considered mentioning that one of the people I had
killed was little more than a child, but my lips failed to move, as if my body
was holding back the words and the emotion that would follow with them. Like a
kettle threatening to boil over, I shook, but no words escaped me. I lowered my
head shamefully.

The sergeant major sighed. ‘Most of the senior NCOs
in this battalion have been to Eden before, but none of us like to talk about
it, barely even to each other. Now you know why. It sucks you in, corrupts you.’

A lifetime ago, back on Challenger when I was a young,
fresh trooper about to go to war, I would have sat bolt upright to listen to
such a rare insight into the sergeant major’s past experiences on Eden. Now,
though, it didn’t make a difference. After all I had been through on New Earth
and now on Eden, I finally understood, and all I wanted was to go back to being
that young boy again.

‘So you feel guilty for having accidentally killed
civilians,’ the sergeant major said harshly. ‘Good. That means you’re still
human. It means this place hasn’t yet beaten you, it hasn’t taken your
humanity.’

I looked back up at him. ‘Do you still feel guilt?’

He stared at me blankly, then went back to studying
his datapad. ‘Go get some sleep. You’re going to need it.’

I stood. ‘I’ll try, sir.’

‘For what it’s worth,’ he said finally, ‘you still
have my faith.’

‘Sir.’

10

Copehill

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We crept alongside the maglev rail, following the instructions
given to us by the sergeant major in order to make sure that we met with Yulia.
Suspended a few metres above the ground by metal struts, the rail ran through
uneven, rocky terrain, virtually consumed by the tree branches that grew around
it. I guessed that the line hadn’t been used for a long time, perhaps a decade
or longer, judging by its state of disrepair. Panels had been stolen from its
underside, and the contents stripped to leave the rail hollow and utterly
useless. The wide gravel path that once kept the rail clear of the forest had
given way to weeds and roots, and had been virtually buried in dead leaves and
other debris.

I wasn’t too happy following the rail. Though
clearly disused, it still presented an excellent navigation tool to the enemy -
just as it did us. Though Europa had plenty of roads for its vehicles and
soldiers to follow, the threat of attack from the air would have rendered those
roads off-limits. In the face of such a threat, a great deal of their movements
would be through the forest, and linear features like old maglev rails provided
a lazy navigator with a handrail to lead them where they wanted to go.

We had no option but to stick to the maglev rail,
for fear that we might miss Yulia somehow as we approached the rendezvous
agreed between her and the sergeant major. A hundred metres ahead of us was the
small river which the maglev crossed, and it was at that junction that she
would supposedly meet with us.

Without any instructions from me, our pace naturally
slowed as we drew near to the rendezvous. Weapons slowly raised, and troopers
scanned their respective arcs more frequently as they became more aware of the
potential threat. Through our own design, we were being channelled into an
obvious location that could be anticipated by our enemy. For all we knew they
were there already, waiting for us to arrive.

I trusted Yulia, perhaps more than I should. It was
a gut feeling, I suppose, but one which the sergeant major now shared. He had
highlighted an important issue that arose from co-operating with her, however,
one which was now beginning to concern me. Though I could trust her, I didn’t
know anything about her “friends” in the farming community. Had they received
her well? Or had they simply handed her over to the Militia?

‘Halt!’ a female voice suddenly ordered through the
darkness, stopping me dead.

We all froze.

I kept my weapon still, not daring to move it in
case it was misinterpreted as a sign of aggression. I knew that it was Yulia I
heard. I had worked with her long enough to recognise her voice, and I doubted
that there were many English-speaking women wandering about in the forest. She
didn’t necessarily know it was me, though, and a sudden movement could result
in us being shot by our own ally - presuming that she had acquired a weapon.

My visor display couldn’t identify anything in the
dark, despite the close proximity of Yulia’s voice. She was somewhere ahead of
us, beyond where Myers stood.

‘Who is that?’ she demanded.

‘It’s Andy,’ I whispered. It was just as well she
knew me, since we had never thought to give ourselves a password. She would be
just as wary of us being enemy as we were wary of her.

There was a moment’s pause before Yulia spoke again.
‘Walk forward, Andy.’

I turned around and held up a hand, telling the rest
of my section to stay where they were. Then I walked slowly toward the sound of
her voice, keeping my rifle low so that she could see I wasn’t a threat.

My visor picked up Yulia as I advanced, marking her
with a red crosshair as if she was a target. She was hiding behind one of the
maglev rail support legs, surrounded by dense foliage.

She stopped me again, this time when I was no more
than five metres away from her.

She must know it’s me
, I
thought,
isn’t she getting a bit carried away?

Then, for a moment, I wondered if she had indeed been
captured by the Militia, and that they knew about our rendezvous. We had all
witnessed first-hand how torture could prize information from even the most
fanatical Guardsmen. But torture wasn’t even necessary when it came to getting
information out of prisoners, not if you had the right equipment. Using devices
similar to our simulators, you could steal information right out of somebody’s
mind, just as we downloaded data from each other’s datapads. The Militia might
not have such equipment, but the Loyalists probably did.

Was somebody pressing a pistol into the
back of Yulia’s head as she spoke?
I wondered. I suddenly felt
increasingly uneasy as my mind began to race.

‘How many in your patrol?’ she asked quietly.

‘Seven . . .’ I replied with caution. ‘Including
me.’

I considered her question, and its deeper implication.
Yulia was checking that we weren’t being followed by an imposter, an unlikely
yet extremely dangerous possibility. Unless she was about to count us all, she
probably already knew how many troopers were within our patrol because somebody
else had already counted us.

‘Come out so I can see you,’ I instructed.

There was a moment’s hesitation, then Yulia stepped
out into full view. My eyes flicked across her, noting that she was now armed
with some form of long-barrelled weapon, presumably given to her by her contacts
within the farming community. She had also replaced her old bubble respirator
with a facemask version that covered her mouth and nose, and now wore a
separate visor. There were others somewhere out there in the dark. I could sense
their presence somehow. The hairs rose on the back of my neck as I felt their
weapons trained onto me and my men.

‘It is good to see you, Andy,’ Yulia said finally.
‘We must check you have not been followed.’

‘We?’ I asked with a raised eyebrow.

‘There are four of us,’ she replied. ‘Do not worry,
we are all friends. The people of Copehill only fight against those who would
do them harm.’

‘Copehill?’ I repeated the name.

‘It is the name of the laboratory,’ she explained.
‘They are happy to receive you as their guests, and share with you their
knowledge of the Loyalists.’

‘Were you following us?’

She shook her head. ‘No. We have been waiting for
you to come to us.’

‘OK . . .’

I tried to work out how Yulia and her hidden
comrades had remained undetected. Despite our state-of-the-art scanners, the
targeting systems in our visors and the audio enhancement capability of our
headsets, they had somehow managed to move around us, counting our number and
then passing that information without a signal or sound.

‘I have good news for you,’ Yulia said, changing the
subject.

I cocked my head. ‘What’s that?’

‘The people of Copehill have one of your friends.’

I stared at her for several seconds, trying to
figure out what she was talking about. ‘One of our friends?’

‘A trooper,’ she said with a nod. ‘You lost him
several days ago.’

My jaw worked as the cogs in my mind slowly turned,
trying to work out who she was referring to.
It couldn’t be . . . could it?

‘Butcher?’

‘He calls himself Butch,’ she confirmed.

I looked back at my section, scarcely able to
believe what Yulia was saying. We had taken such a punishing over the past few
days, it was hard to comprehend the sudden good news.

Wildgoose strode over to Griffiths and gave him a
reassuring pat on the shoulder. We all knew Butch and Griffiths were friends,
having been moved across from our sister platoon in the 6
^th
Battalion Welsh Dropship Infantry as casualty replacements. The third of their
number, Sanneh, had already met a grisly end at the end of Helstrom’s knife, and
the platoon all thought that Butcher would suffer a similar fate.

‘How did he end up in Copehill?’ I asked.

‘They say they found him after a battle,’ she said. ‘He
is injured, but they have looked after him well. He is lucky they found him.’

‘No shit,’ Myers uttered.

‘Come,’ Yulia said, urging us to follow with a wave
of her hand. ‘I will take you to Copehill.’

Led by Yulia, and escorted by three other armed
civilians who seemed to materialise amongst the trees, we made our way toward
Copehill laboratory. I noted that our escort were similarly dressed to Yulia,
with the same facemask respirator and visor. Their weapons were a mixture of
Alliance and Russian issue, which was hardly surprising considering how close
they lived to the border.

It took us another hour to reach the laboratory, as
our route snaked unpredictably through the forest in what was clearly an
attempt to throw any would-be trackers from our trail. Once we neared our destination,
the trees gave way to a vast open clearing, and we caught our first glimpse of
Copehill.

The laboratory was in fact a collection of large
buildings snuggled into an impact crater a few hundred metres across, with a
five-spoked roof similar to the one that had covered the city of Dakar. The roof
no longer supported any glass or plastic sheeting, and several trees grew
between the spokes, their branches reaching several metres above the lip of the
crater. Lights shone from within the buildings, casting a warm glow across the
basin. I could see various vehicles and pieces of machinery parked amongst them,
suggesting that Copehill was more than just another deprived Bosque village -
it was well equipped. A gentle slope spiralled around the crater’s edge, enabling
vehicles to access the surface and a road that snaked away amongst the trees.

 ‘This is the Copehill laboratory,’ Yulia said, as
she and her companions brought us the top of the slope. ‘It is the centre of
the community, but there are many smaller farms all across this area.’

From the vantage point at the edge of the crater, I
peered down at the tranquil scene below, surprised by what I saw. I had grown
accustomed to devastated population centres, smashed domes and buildings that
had been reduced to rubble, but Copehill was quite the opposite. Even in the
poor light I could see that the laboratory was well looked after. The roads that
weaved between the buildings were clean and free from debris, and the buildings
themselves appeared intact. Parked vehicles looked well cared for, and there even
appeared to be carefully planned gardens. The roof covering had been removed,
but somehow even that added to the pleasant, peaceful atmosphere of the
laboratory, with each of the redundant spokes shimmering in the starlight as though
they were made of silver. Rather than the skeletal remains of a grand old
structure, they took the appearance of a massive, purpose-built work of art.

‘Woah!’ Wildgoose exclaimed, clearly as impressed by
the view as I was. ‘Nice place.’

‘The people who live here are very fortunate,’ Yulia
agreed.

I looked back at Puppy, then discreetly held up my
hand for him to halt. My 2ic nodded, knowing that I wanted him to stay outside
the crater and take up a position of overwatch. There was no way I was taking
my entire section into the crater without some form of fire support, just in case
it turned out to be a trap – plus there was still the very real threat of us
being followed.

Yulia stopped on the road that ran down the slope,
turning about to watch Puppy’s fire team spreading itself along the edge of the
crater.

‘It is safe here,’ she assured me.

‘You can’t be too careful,’ I replied. ‘If anything,
my men will make it safer.’

She glanced at one of her companions, who simply shrugged
in response. ‘Very well,’ she said.

We left Puppy and his men in the clearing and then followed
the road, winding our way down toward the base of the crater. As we did so I
noticed two figures waiting there for us. They were both unarmed, dressed in
plain-looking jumpsuits, but I instantly noticed they were wearing the same facemask
respirators and visors as our escort.