RECCE II (The Union Series Book 5) (34 page)

‘Fucking bastards!’ I cried, stabbing and shooting
at the screaming mass of flesh and gore. Blood spattered across my visor,
obscuring part of my vision.

One of the Militiamen managed to get free from the
melee, long enough to raise his rifle, but Puppy cracked him around the side of
the head with his rifle butt, sending him crashing to the ground. Leaman
suddenly appeared, setting upon the fallen Militiaman with his mammoth. Though
the weapon was too cumbersome to use with a bayonet, Leaman made use of it as a
brutal club, cracking his victim’s visor with his first blow.

Gunfire erupted to our left as more Militiamen
attempted to enter through the second mouse hole. Fortunately, Weatherall and
Myers were still in a position to cover the hole, and quickly cut the attackers
down. Then something exploded above our heads, causing everyone to duck except for
those of us locked into the hand-to-hand melee. We were lost in battle, utterly
engrossed in our orgy of violence.

‘Push them back!’ I snarled through my blood
spattered visor, firing two darts into another Militiaman just as he fired
close to my head.

With a powerful bayonet thrust into the man’s
abdomen, Puppy forced him backward into the mouse hole, his helmet striking the
wall as he staggered over the bodies of his fallen comrades. The Militiaman
squirmed and convulsed at the end of Puppy’s blade, but his body effectively
plugged the hole, sealing it off from those trying to push their way into the
compound.

Leaman stuck his mammoth under the man’s armpit and
fired a burst into the Militia behind him, cutting several more of them down.
Light flashed against their stricken bodies and sparks showered over them as
more grenades detonated outside the compound, presumably thrown over the wall
by our comrades in order to stall the human wave bearing down upon us. There
was no doubting the Militia’s determination to seize the sangar compound. They
were throwing absolutely everything at it.

The man speared upon Puppy’s bayonet was about to
fall backward, but I grabbed him by the collar, suddenly gripped by a plan I
knew would work.

‘Hold onto him!’ I shouted, my face contorted with
fury. ‘Use his body as a shield!’

As if from nowhere, Corporal Kamara appeared behind
us, reaching over Puppy’s shoulder and gripping the Militiaman, holding him
onto Puppy’s bayonet. Our victim let out a sickening wheeze as he attempted to
breathe, despite the blade that now pierced his thorax.

‘Push him through!’ I ordered. ‘Give me space to
fire!’

The two troopers pushed the injured Militiaman
through the hole like rag doll, using him as a shield against the automated
gun. Knowing that its programming wouldn’t allow it to kill a soldier on its
own side, I leant in after them, firing wildly into the barracks beyond. Several
of my darts punched through the hapless Militiaman’s arm, ripping out chunks of
flesh and flicking them toward his comrades.

Once the dying Militiaman was almost clear of the
mouse hole, I squeezed my rifle through the gap between him and the wall.
Without waiting to study my visor display, I held my rifle horizontally out to
the right and fired my grenade launcher.

There was no way the sangar gun could respond to a
guided grenade fired directly toward its target rather than lobbed upward.
There simply wasn’t enough time. The grenade must have travelled no further
than twenty metres, its minimum arming range, before detonating.

Slightly taken aback by the sight of one of their
own comrades emerging back through the mouse hole on the end of a bayonet, and
then having seen a rifle grenade pass right beside them, several Militiamen
paused no further than a metre away along the compound wall. They fired in my
direction, but somehow missed me completely. I snapped my rifle across and
returned fire, cutting them down.

‘Push back!’ I shouted, swinging my rifle out of the
way and then using both hands to drag the dying Militiaman backward, plugging
the hole once more.

Puppy withdrew his bayonet and we stepped out of the
way just before the automated gun opened fire, causing our hapless victim to
disintegrate as he was struck by a hundred darts. Just as I had expected, a
human operator had stepped in to override the defensive network, instructing
the automated gun to engage a man who was clearly going to die anyway.

Troopers were hurrying across the courtyard, and I
realised that it was Weatherall and Myers helping Leaman to limp back to the
outbuilding. He was flashing yellow on my visor display, having taken an injury
to the leg. Weatherall was also flashing, though his injuries clearly allowed
him to move.

‘You alright?’ Corporal Kamara panted, my headset
magnifying his voice above the din of the automated gun.

I looked down at myself, feeling slightly unsteady
as unspent adrenalin flowed through my shaking limbs. I was slick with blood,
but I was pretty sure none of it was mine.

‘I think so . . .’ I said.

The sergeant major was stood nearby. As I watched,
he picked up one of the grenades that Puppy had piled up close to the wall and tossed
it over. I realised that he had been throwing them throughout, having seen that
my section had become sucked into the fight around the mouse hole. Everyone was
now involved in the desperate fight to hold onto the compound, a fight which we
couldn’t afford to lose.

‘What’s happening, Moralee?’ he asked as the grenade
exploded outside the compound.

‘I’ve taken two casualties!’ I said, suddenly aware
of the exertion it had taken to prevent the Militia breech. It felt as though I
had been running flat out for an hour.

‘We’re not going to be able to hold this wall!’
Corporal Kamara added, gesturing out to the west. ‘Not with that fucking sangar
shooting at us!’

As if to prove the point, another burst of darts peppered
the two mouse holes, ripping through the bodies left behind by the Militia.

The sergeant major scowled, then surprised us both
with his response. ‘Corporal Kamara, why are you here and not with your own
section?’

‘I saw one of Andy’s men went down, and–’

‘Then send one of your
troopers
!’ the
sergeant major scalded, gesturing for him to return to his section. ‘Why are
there only NCOs here? Get a grip of your men, the pair of you!’

He was right. The only people in any position to
defend the western wall were me, Puppy, Corporal Kamara and the sergeant major,
whilst my three remaining troopers were all back at the outbuilding nursing
their wounds. Such a collection of rank on the battlefield, though
understandable given the situation, was tactically unsound.

‘Myers!’ Puppy shouted, snapping into action. ‘Come
back and cover the mouse holes! I need to look at the casualties!’

The trooper obeyed, sprinting into the courtyard and
taking up Weatherall’s previous position at the corner of the sangar. Puppy
then hurried back to the outbuilding, ready to begin the thankless task of
re-organising my section.

Corporal Kamara ran back to the northern wall,
unwilling to argue with the sergeant major. I decided not to point out that Two
Section’s commander had come to us at just the right time, remembering that the
sergeant major never saw anything outside of a tactical viewpoint. In a way it
was reassuring to know that he would always impose order even when chaos ought
to reign. He never allowed his emotions to get in the way of battlefield
discipline.

More weapons fired, causing me to jump. This time the
sound was coming from outside the sangar compound, and thankfully it wasn’t
directed at us.

‘One-Zero, this is One-Three!’ Stan shouted over the
net, forgetting himself. ‘We’re engaging a platoon of Militiamen attempting to
encircle the compound from the south!’

The sergeant major cursed loudly before answering,
‘Keep them fixed!’

Far from deterred by the punishment we had dealt
them from the compound walls, the Militia were now attempting to surround us.
Fortunately, the sergeant major had correctly anticipated the threat and had
sited Stan’s section accordingly. The question was, how long could Stan hold
out? His section was already split, and in the open.

As if in answer to our developing predicament, Wildgoose’s
hushed voice sounded in my headset. ‘One-Zero, this is One-Four. I am in
position to engage the south-western sangar, however, I will require some form
of distraction whilst I set up to fire . . .’

‘One-Zero, roger,’ the sergeant major replied,
briefly looking at me. I knew what he was thinking - my section would be the
ones to provide that distraction. ‘What do you need?’

‘Anything to keep the gun firing at the wall for a
couple of seconds.’

For a moment, my mind spun as I tried to think of
how we could distract the automated gun that watched over us. Though it still
occasionally fired bursts of darts onto the mouse holes, I knew that the only
way to fully distract it was to provide it with a target. Asking somebody to
expose himself for longer than a few seconds was as good as handing out a death
sentence, so if anybody was going to do it, I decided, it needed to be me . . .
Not only would it be morally wrong to get anyone else to do it, I didn’t have
any free men to use anyway.

Just before I offered my life to the sergeant major,
though, an idea occurred to me. ‘Puppy!’ I called back to my 2ic, who was
tending to Weatherall within the outbuilding airlock. ‘Grab me the dead lad’s coat
and helmet!’

The squat NCO wasted no time, running inside the
building in search of our comrade’s body.

‘Fieldy!’ Corporal Kamara corrected me from the
northern wall, sounding hurt. ‘His name was Fieldy!’

‘Get Fieldy’s coat and helmet!’ I repeated the
correction, though I doubted that Puppy heard me anyway.

It didn’t take my 2ic long to return with the two
items. Everyone across the courtyard watched as I draped the coat over the top
of the ladder, then placed the helmet on top of that.

‘That’ll never work,’ Myers said, shaking his head
at the poor attempt at a fake trooper.

I frowned. ‘Why won’t it?’

The sergeant major obviously thought the idea was
worth a try, and leant down and grasped the ladder by the legs. ‘Come on, let’s
get it up!’

I took my own grip of the ladder, and the two of us
swung it upwards.

‘Looks like a fucking scarecrow,’ Myers commented as
the sergeant major and I held the ladder so that the helmet and coat remained
slightly below the top of the wall.

‘One-Four, this is One-Zero,’ the sergeant major
announced. ‘We have your distraction ready. Are you good to go?’

‘Ready when you are, sir,’ Wildgoose replied,
forgetting to use the sergeant major’s call sign. The sniper was so relaxed
whilst fulfilling his true role, I doubt he even cared.

‘Lift!’ the sergeant major ordered, and we pushed
the ladder up against the wall and then heaved it upward, exposing the helmet
and jacket above the compound.

Automated guns were surprisingly intelligent, but
they could be tricked as easily as any human once you understood how they
worked. Having seen two of the sangar guns destroyed by oddly shaped men
wearing coats and helmets, the automated gun saw all that it needed to see . .
. It opened fire, causing the ladder to judder in our hands as thousands of
darts struck it at once, punching through the metal like a needles through cloth.
The trench coat flapped as though it was caught in the wind, and the helmet spun
around on the top of the ladder for a second before being thrown across the
courtyard in several pieces.

I never heard Wildgoose fire, but after a few
seconds the gun stopped abruptly, leaving the remains of the jacket to hang in
tatters on the end of our ladder.

‘That’s the south-western sangar gun destroyed,’ Wildgoose
announced with a trace of smugness. If I didn’t know any better, I would say
that he was enjoying himself.

‘Well done, One-Four!’ the sergeant major replied,
his relief evident. His head snapped across to me. ‘Get men in those mouse holes
now! I want eyes out!’

I didn’t need to parrot the order, for Myers had
already abandoned his position beside the sangar and was hurrying toward the closer
of the two mouse holes, having heard the sergeant major’s praise to Wildgoose.
Less than a second later he opened fire. Finally able to engage freely with his
guided grenades, Corporal Kamara fired several of them above the wall and
watched as they flew across the barracks toward the nearest target. Three
Section simultaneously fired smart missiles toward the stricken sangar,
destroying the tower itself in order to deny it to any remaining Militiamen.

Weatherall then surprised me as he occupied the
second mouse hole, carrying Leaman’s mammoth instead of his own rifle. He still
flashed yellow on my visor display, but I wasn’t going to send him back to the
outbuilding when I needed all the manpower I could get.

I moved up behind Myers and took a look over his
shoulder. He and Weatherall were both firing at tens of Militiamen scattered across
the barracks, cutting them down amid the sparks of stray rounds striking the
ground around them. There was no sign of any co-ordinated attacks, but rather a
scene of panic as our enemy saw that the tide had turned against them. Without
the sangar guns in support, they were caught out in the open by a far more
capable opponent, with a horde of Boskers rapidly bearing down upon them.