RECCE II (The Union Series Book 5) (30 page)

The sergeant major lifted his head and peered in my
direction. ‘Ah, Corporal Moralee,’ he said quietly. ‘I was wondering what time
you’d get back. Your rendezvous with Yulia appears to have been successful, I
see . . .’

My brow raised. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We’ve received an . . . interesting message relayed
from orbit, sent by a Special Forces call sign working somewhere in the area.
That was then followed by another interesting message from EJOC, confirming the
message but with far less detail . . .’

‘So you know about Butch?’

He nodded. ‘Yeah. Great news. But that wasn’t what
made the whole thing interesting. It seems we’re being released from our ops
box to take part in an operation further north.’

‘Trondheim barracks?’ I guessed with some certainty.
Somehow I knew the answer, as if it was fate.

‘Correct. We’re attacking it in a day’s time.’

My heart leapt as I realised I had been provided
another opportunity to finish what we had started, but I couldn’t think of what
to say in response. Aleksi had said that his job was all about influence, but I
had no idea quite how influential he really was. Within hours of our
conversation, he had organised an attack against Helstrom’s base, and managed
to get us to join in.

In the end I simply shook my head with bewilderment.
‘Fucking hell.’

Even in the darkness of the forest, I could see the
sergeant major’s teeth flash in a devilish grin. ‘My thoughts exactly.’

13

Camp Assault

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Like the lightning during a raging thunderstorm, the
heavens continued to flash on the following night, though now with even greater
frequency. Each flash was accompanied by a powerful thump that sounded almost
thirty seconds afterwards, the thumps often coming together to form a drum
beat, beating our advance through the shadows like the soldiers of an ancient
army. The bombs were for us this time, as several of our warships turned their
attention to the area around our objective, beginning the first phase of our
attack before we even arrived.

We couldn’t drop bombs onto Trondheim, the barracks
was conveniently attached onto a Russian commercial shuttle port on its
northern side, protecting it from our target list. We could drop them around it,
though. Rather than pounding the barracks itself, the purpose of the bombing was
to isolate Helstrom’s Militia from potential re-enforcement, as well as
destroying outlying defensive positions and “saturating” our approach routes.
The last time I had received such a preparatory bombardment was prior to the
offensive into Jersey City, when I was a young fresh-faced trooper.

Similar bombardments would be taking place all
across the southern edge of the province, as a whole army of Boskers were
mobilised by Einsatzgruppe-19 ready to take on the Militia. To further isolate
the Militia from the regular Loyalist army, the Bosker offensive was perfectly
timed with the beginning of the Union air campaign. Though we were yet to see
any sign of it, the skies were swiftly filling with saucers and other unmanned ground
attack aircraft, bombers and fighters, all directed to strike at the heart of
the Loyalist military. The idea was to dislocate the two forces from one
another, with one having to deal with an unprecedented guerrilla assault, and
the other harried from the skies.

Occasionally I turned my head up to the light show
above the forest canopy, watching the fireballs as they broke through the
clouds and then arced across the sky, striking the ground less than a kilometre
away. It was strange, despite bearing witness to such a massive display of the
firepower being unleashed against the Loyalist regime, I felt little
reassurance in knowing that our ships and aircraft were supporting us. The navy
might have extended some mercy in assisting us, but we had no control over
them. Not even Aleksi, who had planned and co-ordinated the attack with
surprising speed, could control the will of our navy. A single change in some
distant commander’s plan could redirect their bombs away from us and
potentially scupper our mission in a heartbeat. I didn’t feel as though we were
part of the war that had begun above our heads, but rather we were waging our
own separate war within it. Our war wasn’t against Europa, or the Loyalists, it
was against Helstrom and his Militia.  It was against Bhasin.

We quickly formed up at our final rendezvous, a
nondescript location within the forest almost a kilometre away from our
objective. Having closed up into a tight triangular formation similar to that
of our harbour, we waited for the time to move forward to our next forming up
point, a further five hundred metres away. This point and our route from there
to Trondheim were still being saturated by our bombs, destroying any potential
sensory equipment or other defences that might spoil our final approach. At the
same time, salvos were being dropped all around the barracks, making it
impossible to predict what direction we would be coming from, even if the
Militia did work out that we were preparing to attack.

‘That is fucking mental,’ Weatherall whispered,
gaping up at the flickering canopy whilst we waited. The trees shook visibly,
indicating the sheer power of every impact. Without our headsets, the explosions
would probably have damaged our eardrums by now.

Several troopers spared Weatherall disdainful
glances, knowing that he was one of the few troopers in our platoon that hadn’t
seen a naval bombardment so close.

‘Don’t worry,’ Puppy assured him quietly. ‘Even we
aren’t stupid enough to drop bombs on ourselves!’

‘Maybe we’re not . . .’ Wildgoose replied, ‘but the
navy might be!’

‘Halt!’ somebody hissed on the other side of the triangle,
and we all fell silent.

I looked over my shoulder to see an orange crosshair,
marking a figure twenty metres away. The figure was stood with his arms held
outward to indicate that he posed no threat. Just as the tight beam orders sent
by EJOC and Aleksi had told us, a member of Einsatzgruppe-19 had arrived to provide
us with equipment for our upcoming assault.

For a second, the figure was left standing, whilst
numerous sets of eyes scanned him cautiously.

‘Advance to be identified,’ somebody ordered. It was
the sergeant major, having moved across the inside of the triangle to see the
newcomer for himself.

The figure advanced toward us, before being halted
again less than ten metres away. I recognised his facemask respirator and
visor, they were the same as those that Aleksi and his Boskers wore.

‘Romeo-Alpha,’ the sergeant major said.

‘India-November,’ the figure replied, completing the
password that had been sent with our orders. Low-tech though it was, a verbal
password removed the chance for any electronic trickery. RAIN . . . I didn’t
know who had chosen the password, but thankfully it wasn’t raining.

‘Who are you?’ the sergeant major asked, still not
taking any chances.

‘Van-Zyl,’ the figure responded. ‘Einsatzgruppe-19.’

‘How many with you?’

‘Four others,’ Van-Zyl said. ‘We bring you gifts.’

‘Close in.’

Responding to a wave from Van-Zyl, more figures materialised
in the darkness, instantly marked by my targeting display. It was impossible
for me to tell if any of the other figures were members of Einsatzgruppe-19, or
if they were Boskers working for Van-Zyl, since all of them wore similar
clothing and respirators. None of them appeared to be armed, presumably so they
could move easily across the province without being noticed.

The party moved into the centre of our triangle,
carrying bundles of equipment over their shoulders. I watched as the group
placed down their wares, including three metal ladders and another three large
sacks that appeared to be full of clothing.

‘None of this is very exciting,’ Van- Zyl admitted
as Abs and the sergeant major inspected the equipment. ‘Three extendable
civilian work ladders, courtesy of the local villages. Ignore the lack of green
paint and they’re as good as any assault ladder. Then you have thirty cold weather
coats. I’m told that’s more than enough, so just leave whatever you don’t want
and I’ll have them taken away.’

The sergeant major pulled a coat out from one of the
sacks, holding it aloft so he could inspect it. He nodded in satisfaction.
‘Good.’

Abs lifted his head as he addressed the platoon in a
hiss. ‘2ics, close in and grab this kit!’

The Three Section 2ics moved into the centre of the
triangle, where they quickly unpacked the sacks, counting the number of coats
they needed. Once they were happy, they closed in work parties to distribute
the new equipment to their men.

‘Griffiths, you’ll take the ladder,’ Puppy ordered
whilst Myers handed out the coats to the rest of us.

‘Awesome,’ Griffiths replied sarcastically, making
his way over to collect the ladder. It probably wasn’t heavy, but civilians
didn’t design ladders with combat in mind, so it was likely to be awkward.

Whilst Griffiths quietly cursed at Puppy’s decision
to make a mammoth gunner carry a ladder, Myers handed me my coat. I inspected
this “new” piece of clothing that I was now expected to wear. Of course it
wasn’t new at all, no newer than the battered ladder that lay at Griffith’s
feet. It was a tired-looking old trench coat, designed to protect a Bosque
civilian in the colder extremes of the Eden climate . . . that night, though,
it would be my cloaking device.

Weatherall started to remove his daysack, but Puppy
stopped him. ‘Leave all your kit on,’ the section 2ic ordered. ‘Wear the coat
on top.’

Weatherall slung his trench coat over his back
without removing his equipment. Once he had managed to get his arms into the
sleeves, he took the appearance of a large hunchbacked man. To complete the
look, he pulled the hood up over his helmet and respirator.

‘I look like a troll!’ Wildgoose commented as he
pulled on his own trench coat.

‘I feel like a bell end,’ Myers moaned in turn,
expressing his distaste for his new outfit.

‘Well, I didn’t want to say anything . . .’

Once we had dressed in the trench coats we really
did look like a band of oddly shaped trolls, but the one thing we
didn’t
look
like was Union troopers, not to a non-human eye anyway. Our orders from Aleksi
told us that there were no human eyes guarding Trondheim.

The Militia barracks was defended by six sangars,
each of them almost three storeys high. Four of the sangars were sited on the
corners of the barracks itself, whilst a further two were located further east,
on the outer edge of a tented camp where the civilian workforce was kept
prisoner. Each of the six sangars was armed with a single automated gun on its
roof, and all of those were linked together into a fully automated defence
system. The human guard force, we had learned, rarely occupied the sangars. They
were too frightened of our bombs to stray away from the main buildings, but content
that the automated guns were more than enough to match any attack from the Boskers.
They were right, to an extent, but that automated defence system was about to
be put through its paces by a series of feints and smaller attacks, putting its
target recognition and artificial intelligence to the test. Wearing the coats
over our Union equipment, we no longer took the appearance of Union troopers,
but strangely dressed Bosque civilians with an unusual gait.

Would the automated system see us as a potential
threat? Of course it would. But faced with a greater perceived threat - a
large-scale Bosker attack coming from the east whilst we approached from the
south - it would give us lower priority and ignore us until it was too late.
Our shabby old coats were more than just disguises, they were a low-tech
solution to a high-tech problem.

‘Is this everything you need?’ Van-Zyl asked once
the platoon finished putting on their coats.

Abs gave a thumbs up. ‘Bang on, mate. We’re ready
for a night on the town!’

‘Ha!’ Van-Zyl smiled, then flicked his head up to
the flickering canopy. ‘The disco has already started! Everything is in place.
Let’s get this war going!’

Van-Zyl and the sergeant major shook hands, and then
the small party took up their empty sacks and melted back into the darkness.
For a moment, their orange crosshairs hung against the trees, then they too
disappeared, leaving us alone once more.

‘It freaks me out working for that lot,’ Myers said
after a moment.

I raised an eyebrow. ‘How so?’

‘They’re in control of everything. We’re just along
for the ride.’

‘When were we ever in control?’ Griffiths asked.
‘We’ve been pawns on someone else’s chessboard since day one.’

‘Yeah,’ the young trooper agreed, ‘but it still
feels weird knowing that they’re cutting around the place organising a whole
army of Boskers we don’t know about.’

I pointed up to the heavens. ‘I’d be less worried
about Einsatzgruppe-19, if I were you, and more worried about that lot up there
. . .’

Myers followed my outstretched arm. He stared upward
for some time, then sighed. ‘I guess it doesn’t matter anyway.’

My face hardened as I regarded the younger trooper. Just
like me, he was struggling to cope with a world filled with misery and death, a
world to which he contributed whether he liked it or not. He had killed
innocent civilians just as I had. He had seen his friends brutally disfigured,
and he had killed his enemies with the same ruthlessness as me. I remembered
him sawing through a Guardsman’s throat with his bayonet one dark rainy night,
the blood flowing freely down his arm. Time and time again I had mistaken his
mood swings for bad attitude, when they were really cries for help from a young
man who had seen and done too much.