RECCE II (The Union Series Book 5) (26 page)

The man who had found him was from
Copehill - one of the population centres Butch had planned to burgle. Having
heard the battle, they had detected Butch and tracked him to his hiding place,
and there they had waited patiently for him to emerge. They took him back to
the crater, where they gave him shelter.

‘Don’t underestimate these boys,’ he said, looking
across the room at Marcus. ‘They saved my life. They know this place like the
back of their hand, and they know more about the Militia than the Loyalists do.’

I puffed my cheeks when Butch was finished, amazed
by his story of survival. The injured trooper was extraordinarily lucky to be
alive, thanks to the humanity and the quick thinking of the people of Copehill.
It was a rare incident of kindness in a world where human life seemed to be the
cheapest commodity.

Aleksi tapped me gently on the arm, stealing my
attention from Butch. He flicked his head toward the door. ‘Shall we talk?’

Aleksi and I left Griffiths and Butch to share more
of each other’s stories, moving to a quiet corner of the storeroom to talk
alone.

‘You should receive an authentication transmission
from orbit shortly,’ Aleksi told me, finding a small crate to perch upon.
‘It’ll confirm that we’re friendly.’

I chose to remain standing. ‘You’ve already sent a
tight beam?’

Aleksi smiled up at me. ‘Of course. My team have
sent it. I said no
weapons
were being pointed at you. I didn’t say you
weren’t being watched and listened to.’

‘But you
did
say your men were resting . . .’
I argued.

‘You can watch while you’re resting,’ he countered.

I considered his reply, then shrugged. ‘Fair enough.’

There was an awkward silence as the two of us
studied one another. Aleksi’s eyes kept flicking over me, as if he were
assessing every minor detail, from the way I was dressed to the way that I
stood. He was as unsure of me as I was of him, I realised, despite me being
fully dressed in drop trooper uniform.

Does he really think I could be an imposter?
I
wondered. No, our story would have been far more difficult to fabricate than
his. Besides, if he doubted me then he would demand an authentication as well. It
must be something else that concerned him.

‘So . . .’ The Scandinavian broke the silence, again
changing the subject suddenly. ‘You’ve had a really hard time. I had no idea.
I’m sorry.’ His sympathy appeared genuine.

My head lowered slightly. ‘It’s OK.’

It was probably obvious that I was lying. I was never
any good at hiding my emotions. Puppy often seemed to read me like a book, so I
imagined that Aleksi had no trouble doing so when the emotion from our past
experience was so raw. Things were far from OK. The entire platoon was in a great
deal of pain, and I was no exception. We had lost everything, including our
morals . . . thanks to me.

Aleksi went straight to the point. ‘Is your platoon
still combat-effective?’

‘Enough to perform a recce function,’ I answered.
‘Or fight as a regular rifle platoon . . .’

Aleksi’s eyes locked onto mine with a sudden intensity,
as he detected something in my voice. ‘You’d rather fight, I think.’

I regarded the Scandinavian for a moment. ‘Yeah.’

My datapad vibrated gently, alerting me to a
transmission it had received. I broke eye contact with Aleksi, looking down at
the screen and using my finger to navigate through the menus to read the
message on text.

The message was from a Union warship
, Cygne,
confirming
that a request for authentication had been received via tight beam from a
friendly call sign on the ground, and providing a long string of letters and
numbers.

‘
Cygne
?’ Aleksi asked, already knowing the
answer.

‘Yeah.’

Aleksi pulled back the sleeve of his jumpsuit to
reveal a skin-hugging datapad no thicker than a piece of cloth. He tapped the
display, squinted at the screen, and then recited the same numbers I had on my
own datapad.

The method of using a warship in orbit to
authenticate was extraordinarily rare, but then we weren’t exactly expecting to
bump into a Special Forces unit we’d never even heard of before. It was almost
impossible for an imposter to replicate the method, since it was the warship
verifying the sender’s identity using far more information than the code
itself. If I was to send up an authentication request, I would need to plug my
datapad into a tight beam unit, enabling it to send information on my vital
stats, recent activity including weapon usage, and even recordings made by my
visor and rifle camera. That information would then be closely scrutinised by
both human eyes and intelligent software in a process that could take several
minutes.

The Scandinavian cocked his head. ‘Are you happy
with the code?’

I continued staring at the code for several seconds,
then nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘Something still bothers you, though . . .’

I decided to take the direct approach. ‘Why am I
getting this now? Why didn’t you warn us you were coming?’

Aleksi smiled. ‘For the same reason that your sergeant
major didn’t warn us that you were coming here. He ought to have passed that
information up to EJOC, but he hasn’t. All he gave away was the grid location
of your harbour. Perhaps even that grid is incorrect . . .’

My eyes narrowed. ‘What are you suggesting?’

Aleksi held out his hands. ‘Nothing sinister on your
part, Andy. Your sergeant major simply knows not to pass on too much sensitive
information whilst he’s working for EJOC.’

I stared back at him, unsure how to respond. My
platoon knew all too well how EJOC had been manipulated by Paraiso, and how
it’s corruption could have wiped out our entire platoon at Cellini were it not
for the quick response of our brigade commander, but I felt uneasy discussing
it with someone I had only just met.

Aleksi raised his eyebrows. ‘You disagree with me?’

‘No,’ I replied, shaking my head. ‘We had a similar
problem in Cellini.’

‘Oh really?’

I told Aleksi about our ill-fated operation to assist
Edo in capturing Cellini and the suspicious errors and coincidences that seemed
to hamper our efforts, from the lack of air cover during a crucial phase in our
operation, to net communications that were intercepted, distorted or fabricated
to prevent us from calling for help.

‘We’re pretty sure that politicians from Paraiso
were manipulating EJOC,’ I summarised. ‘They wanted the mission to fail so a
stockpile of missiles in a nearby warren could be handed to the Militia.’

‘Well, those missiles are a drop in the ocean now,’
Aleksi said. ‘Whatever Paraiso were planning to get the Militia to do with them
is pretty irrelevant against the backdrop of all-out war. I’m not surprised by
what you’re telling me, though. Don’t get me wrong, Andy, EJOC is a good thing.
Without it this planet would descend into chaos within days. But let’s not
forget what it is, a collaboration between two colonial powers, with two different
agendas. It has to balance the individual security needs of the provinces with the
will of Brussels and Moscow. It’s tainted by politics, and influenced in some
form by all parties. We work for EJOC, but we keep it at arm’s length, only
feeding it the information it requires. There are a lot of people out there
that wouldn’t be too happy to learn what we’re doing here.’

‘Like Paraiso?’

He nodded. ‘Paraiso . . . Russia . . . to name only
two.’

I thought about the intricate web of deceit that
seemed to exist across the planet Eden, threatening to strangle it at any
moment. The conflict in the Bosque seemed to have multiple layers, as provincial
rulers, corporations and colonial powers jostled to achieve their own aims,
aims that were so intertwined that they often barely made sense. How could we
operate in such a cluttered theatre, with so many competing factions with such
varied agendas? The only people I felt I could truly trust were the friends and
comrades I fought with, because all we wanted to do was keep each other alive.

‘Our more . . .’ Aleksi waved a hand as he sought
the word, ‘. . .
sensitive
instructions come from Union forces high
command, somewhere up in orbit. They effectively work for EJOC as well, but
they still answer directly to Brussels. More importantly, they are entirely
military, which means we can trust their integrity.’

Just like brigade,
I
thought to myself. The brigade commander had ignored his instructions from EJOC
and had sent B Company to rescue us from Cellini. How could we have expected
less of him? As a senior officer who had risen through the ranks of the
dropship infantry, his loyalty to his own men was unquestionable. I reminded
myself that there were still others out there we could trust. Our separation
from our traditional unit command structure often made it seem as though
everyone was against us.

Aleksi suddenly nodded toward something behind me. I
turned to see Yulia speaking with Marcus at the far side of the storeroom. ‘Tell
me about your friend.’

I explained what I knew about Yulia, that she was a
defected Guard officer who had been based in Cellini, and that she had been
part of a large underground force that had played a pivotal role in the capture
of the warren under Hill Kilo.

‘That’s interesting,’ he said after a moment, still
watching her intently. ‘What was her role? Was she in command?’

I considered the question, then realised that I
didn’t really know the answer. I had assumed that Yulia was entirely in charge
of the large force that had helped us to capture the village, but had never
directly asked her.

‘I think so . . .’ I sighed. ‘So much has happened
over the past few hours. We never had the time to ask.’

Aleksi said nothing, waiting for me to elaborate
further. He listened as I told him how we had captured her, handed her over to
the Guard, then rescued her once more and used her as a guide.

‘That sounds messy,’ he said after I finished. ‘So .
. . the Guard turned out to be working with the Militia?’

‘Not the Guard itself,’ I said, ‘a group we call the
president’s “inner circle”. They don’t want the Alliance to return because they
know they will lose power.’

‘Are you sure she isn’t a member of this inner
circle?’ Aleksi interrupted.

So that is what is making Aleksi so
uneasy,
I
realised. I had been so wrapped up in my own suspicion of him and his hidden
team that I hadn’t considered how Aleksi might view our unlikely partnership
with the ex-Guard captain. He knew that we were trustworthy, but it was Yulia
and her influence on us that he doubted.

‘Yeah,’ I replied.

He still looked unconvinced.

‘Yes,’ I repeated. ‘She fought against one of the
inner circle commanders during the Dakar massacre. You heard about Dakar?’

Aleksi nodded. ‘We heard about it. Edo tried to
brand it a Loyalist atrocity assisted by Union troopers. It did our campaign here
some damage, and pissed off the Alliance pretty badly.’

‘The massacre was controlled by one of the inner
circle commanders,’ I explained. ‘A major called Bhasin. I was with Yulia when
she turned against him and his men. She defected after that, and later helped
us to track Bhasin when he made his escape from the warren under Cellini.’

The Scandinavian frowned as he tried to put the
pieces together in his head. ‘So this Bhasin guy . . . he was also involved in
Cellini?’

‘Yeah. He was working behind the scenes, though,
working with the Militia commander, Helstrom.’

Suddenly Aleksi’s eyes lit up. ‘
Helstrom
?’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘You know him?’

‘Yeah, we know Helstrom,’ Aleksi said with a grim
smile. ‘We know Helstrom all too well. He commands all the Militia in this area
- a real nasty piece of work. He’s a crook who uses the Boskers captured in Edo
as slave labour in the local mines. Perversely, he’s probably done more for our
cause than we ever could have done.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t follow . . .’

‘While we’re trying to persuade the Boskers to fight
against the Loyalist regime, Helstrom provides the example of what happens if
they don’t.’

He certainly did that
, I
thought. A vision of the dead civilians in the valley came back to haunt me, as
did the terrified man who had approached me with a bomb. Helstrom was truly
wicked, as were his band of mindless thugs that had descended upon the village
like a pack of wild dogs.

‘What else do you know about him?’ I asked.

‘His mining operation is state sanctioned,’ the Scandinavian
explained. ‘Most of the resources he produces are exported out of Europa, to provinces
that choose not to observe the sanctions imposed by EJOC.’

‘Russian provinces?’ I guessed.

Aleksi nodded. ‘Correct. All across Europa, mined
resources are sold to Russia in exchange for weapons, equipment, and hard cash.
The Union knows about it, obviously, but we chose to do nothing.’