RECCE II (The Union Series Book 5) (35 page)

I spotted a section of Militiamen running toward the
glass structure between the barrack buildings, and jutted a finger in their
direction.

‘Use a smart missile!’ I ordered. ‘Take that roof
down!’

‘Roger!’ Myers quickly prepared his launcher, then
pointed it through the mouse hole. ‘Glass roof! Distance . . . two hundred metres!
Stay low to avoid sangar to north-west!’

The launcher beeped in acknowledgement.

‘Back blast!’ I shouted, checking over my shoulder
to make sure nobody was behind the launcher when he fired.

With a mighty explosion Myers fired his launcher,
sending the missile screaming toward the glass roof. By the time I leant
through to see for myself the missile had detonated just above the glass
structure, blasting it to smithereens and sending a thousand glittering fragments
hurtling to the ground like a shower of knives, slicing through anyone
unfortunate enough to be beneath it.

‘Good work, Corporal Moralee!’ the sergeant major
said from behind me, patting my daysack in a rare display of approval before
switching to the net. ‘All call signs, the main effort is now to fix the enemy
within the barrack buildings in order to allow the Bosker echelon to make their
break-in. One-Four, I want you to deny freedom of movement across the open
ground, whilst the remaining call signs are to focus their fire onto the
buildings themselves. One-Four, acknowledge.’

‘One-Four, roger,’ Wildgoose replied. ‘My call sign
is now split across the southern and eastern edge of the barracks.’

‘One-Zero, that’s fine. Just be wary of the Boskers
coming through.’

‘Yeah, roger.’ Wildgoose chuckled. ‘We’ve seen them.
One of them already tried to shoot us . . .’

There was an amusing story behind Wildgoose’s
chuckle, I had no doubt. I imagined the surprise of the Bosker that tried to shoot
one of the sniper group, only to discover that his rifle didn’t work.
Unbeknownst to them, the Boskers couldn’t shoot any of us, not as long as their
weapons remained synced to the visors Alexi had provided them. They could pull
the trigger, but the visor refused to let the rifle fire so long as its barrel
pointed toward Union personnel. It was a final protection measure against
insider attacks, one which had just now proven itself invaluable.

Suddenly a fresh barrage erupted to the north,
somewhere outside the compound. None of the gunfire appeared to be directed at
us, and I quickly realised that it wasn’t a fresh Militia charge, but the
Boskers finally beginning their assault.

‘The Boskers are inside the wire!’ Corporal Kamara
confirmed whilst peering through his section mouse holes.

Several troopers cheered, and others pumped their
fists in jubilation as they saw the Boskers take over the battle, sweeping over
Trondheim’s perimeter like an ancient horde and screaming their battle cries as
they went.

‘Thank fuck for that . . .’ somebody breathed.

I looked around and saw that it was the sergeant major
who had spoken, perhaps forgetting that our headsets would magnify his voice.

It was then that I noticed how much blood was
smeared over my visor. I attempted to wipe it away with my sleeve, but then
found that only made it worse . . . my sleeve was soaked in it.

A familiar Scandinavian accent sounded on the net. ‘One-Zero,
this is Poltergeist-One. I am currently with the main Bosker force. They are assaulting
the north-eastern sangar as well as the barrack complex itself. The north-western
sangar doesn’t appear to be an issue from where you are either, so I suggest that
you take advantage of the lull and re-organise yourselves.’

I could see the hidden meaning within Aleksi’s
message.
Don’t get too comfortable
. Though we had effectively completed
our mission, we were far from relieved from combat. EJOC had placed our platoon
under Aleksi’s command, and
his
mission was to capture Trondheim, rather
than capture a single sangar. He would undoubtedly call on us again, and we
were already anticipating some form of involvement in clearing the buildings
themselves. I wasn’t just anticipating it, I was banking on it. I wanted Bhasin,
and I wanted Helstrom.

‘One-Zero, roger.’ The sergeant major acknowledged
Aleksi’s instruction. ‘Be aware, I have at least two casualties on my position,
both priority three, and one dead trooper.’

Aleksi replied quickly. ‘Understood. We can keep
priority threes on the ground for a while. Be assured that I have the means to
conduct the extraction, but I don’t want to show my cards until the last safe
moment. Let me know the second their condition changes.’

The sergeant major and I exchanged wary glances. We
were both well aware of the constraints placed upon the casualty evacuation
chain, particularly Aleksi’s unwillingness to share knowledge as to how that
chain actually worked. Myers had been right in the FUP, I realised. Though
Aleksi was clearly on our side, it was becoming unnerving to work for someone
from such a shady organisation. I wondered how serious a casualty needed to be
before he would “show his cards”.

‘One-Zero,’ the sergeant major agreed after several
seconds, sharing my unease.

Right on cue, Abs emerged through the mouse hole at
the rear of the compound. ‘2ics, time to earn your money!’ he shouted. ‘I want
a full ammo-casualty state from each of you, now!’

Puppy was already scurrying around the compound,
quizzing every trooper on his status. Much of the info he required was readily
available to him, but we always physically checked when the opportunity
presented itself.

Deciding to help Puppy while we waited, I moved
across to Weatherall and tapped his shoulder. The trooper fired a short burst
with his mammoth and then looked at me wild-eyed. ‘They’re all running away!’ he
said, his mind still focused onto the battle outside the compound.

‘Good,’ I said, looking him over. ‘When did you get
hit?’

Weatherall flicked his head toward the outbuilding. ‘A
missile or something exploded over the compound when you were fighting. I think
the Militia guns must have shot it before it got too close. I’m fine, though.
Just a few scratches.’

‘Let me see . . .’ I gestured for him to show me his
datapad and then read his vital stats. I knew all too well how a mixture of
adrenalin and bravado could cause a man to play down or ignore his injuries.

Weatherall had been hit by multiple fragments,
mostly on his limbs where his gel armour was thinner. I inspected each of the
wounds visually, making sure his combats had correctly treated the injuries.
Sure enough, the materiel was swollen where it had expanded in order to stop
the bleeding, but some of the wounds still needed packing with quick clot. He
wasn’t about to die, but he needed attention.

Puppy trotted across from the outbuilding, seeing me
attending to Weatherall. ‘How is he?’

I gave a quick summary of the trooper’s status,
highlighting the need for medical attention.

‘I’m fine,’ Weatherall insisted. ‘I don’t need to go
back.’

‘Well, it doesn’t look like you’re going back yet
anyway.’ I answered. ‘You need those wounds packing, though.’ I looked to
Puppy. ‘How’s Leaman?’

‘Cut up, mate,’ My 2ic replied gravely, then pointed
at the scattered bodies at our feet. ‘He got stabbed through the arm by one of
these bell ends. He won’t be any use to us anymore. He’ll live, but he’s
nothing more than baggage.’

I added the numbers together in my head. There were
only four men left in my section who were good to fight, including myself, and
one of those was fragged as well. I could do with having Wildgoose and
Griffiths back, but they were both busy fighting their own battle elsewhere.

‘Confirm your ammo, mate?’ Puppy asked me. ‘The net
reckons you’re pretty flush for darts?’

I quickly checked myself over, working out my
totals. I hadn’t actually fired that much with my rifle, since my part in the
fight mostly involved my bayonet. ‘I’ve used less than half a mag, but I’ve
used all my hand grenades and one from my launcher.’

The section 2ic quickly tapped the figures into his
datapad. The net could work out how many darts we had fired, but it wasn’t able
to record things like mouse holes and hand grenades.

‘What’s the section ammo like?’ I asked him.

Puppy puffed his cheeks. ‘We’re fine for darts, but
all other natures have taken a hit. We’re depleted on mouse holes and guided
grenades, and we’re almost out of hand grenades. I’m just about to give our
ammo state to Abs.’

I nodded, knowing that there was no point in asking
for specifics. Once Abs had all three section’s ammo states then he would
balance our totals, getting us to share everything evenly so that no section
was better equipped than the other. Two Section had fired far more mouse hole
charges and darts than we had, so they were likely to suck up a large amount of
our ammunition. Maintaining that balance was Puppy’s job, so I left him to it.

I turned to the sergeant major, who now watched the
unfolding battle over Myers’ shoulder. ‘What’s the plan now?’

He regarded me briefly, as if irritated by the
interruption to his thoughts. ‘Once the ammo’s balanced, we’ll get in early and
cross to the barracks. We can’t all stay bunched up in here, plus I think Aleksi
will be asking for us soon anyway . . .’

Abs approached the sergeant major, then squatted with
his back against the wall. He regarded us all. ‘Glad to see you’re alright.’

‘You too,’ I answered with feeling. It felt as
though our numbers were slowly being whittled down to nothing, just as they had
in my old platoon back on New Earth.

Just then there was an almighty boom, as if
something massive had exploded just above our heads. We all ducked
instinctively, only realising what it was seconds later. It was a sonic boom,
caused by an aircraft passing overhead. We knew that the Union air campaign had
begun, but this was the first time we had noticed it.

‘There goes the cavalry . . .’ Abs said gloomily.

Nobody was excited at the arrival of our aircraft.
They weren’t going to help us, not directly anyway. They might scare away any
Loyalist gravtanks or dropships preparing to counterattack, but they wouldn’t
be attacking Trondheim itself. Even when Union troopers eventually broke into
the atmosphere, they wouldn’t be interested in us. They would only be
interested in seizing key strategic objectives such as the provincial capital,
large population centres, as well as warrens and major military installations.

‘So what’s the situation, Corporal Abdi?’ the
sergeant major asked, leaving the mouse hole and crouching beside Abs.

Abs consulted his datapad. ‘Ignoring the fire
support group, we’ve got One Section down to three blokes, Two on five and Three
on six–’

‘So we can equalise that if we pull in two from the
fire support group?’ the sergeant major interrupted. ‘We could pull in the two
from One Section and put them up to five. Six if you include Weatherall, who
seems content on carrying on.’

‘That would mean bringing in Wildgoose,’ Abs
cautioned. ‘He’s in command of the fire support group . . .’

‘I know that,’ the sergeant major snapped irritably.
‘They don’t need a commander anymore, since they’re already split over the
battlefield. We need to try to maintain some form of unit cohesion as long as
we can, rather than mixing the blokes up.’ He looked back at his signaller. ‘Rigden,
pass the message for One-Four to split into two sniper pairs and answer up from
now on as One-Four-Alpha and One- Four-Bravo independently. The two troopers from
One-One are to close in to this location and return to their section.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the signaller replied, moving out of earshot
to pass the message whilst we continued our discussion. At the same time Stan
and Corporal Kamara arrived, both keen to hear what the sergeant major planned
to do now.

‘How are we for ammo?’ the sergeant major asked,
ignoring the arrival of the other two commanders. Though he had previously
reprimanded us for bunching together, sometimes such assemblies were a
necessary evil in order to share information on the battlefield.

Abs paused as another aircraft shot overhead, then
looked at his figures. ‘All natures are fine, except for smart missiles, grenades
and mouse holes. I’ve got the 2ics sharing them out again now, but we’re
looking at no more than two or three grenades per section and one mouse hole
each.’

Those weren’t good figures to hear. Our short siege
had chewed through an enormous portion of our explosive munitions. In open
ground, such an ammo state would barely present a problem, but in the confines
of the barrack buildings the lack of explosives could reduce our advantage
significantly.

The sergeant major simply shrugged. ‘We’ll have to
make it work. How soon until we can move?’

Abs nodded at me. ‘As soon as those two blokes from
Andy’s section get in.’

‘Good. We will follow the Boskers into the barrack
buildings as soon as they secure a decent foothold. Three Section will lead
since they’re in the open already, followed by One-One. Two Section will stay
back here and maintain a hold on this compound, along with the casualties.’