RECCE II (The Union Series Book 5) (43 page)

‘Aleksi!’ I called. ‘Have you got antidote on your
saucer?’

‘Yes, I have!’

‘Get him up!’ I ordered, and we reached under our
platoon commander’s armpits, lifting him up onto his feet. ‘Aleksi, grab my
helmet, please!’

‘I’ve got it!’

‘We’ve got you, boss, we’ve got you.’ Wildgoose
soothed.

We half-carried, half-dragged him across the sand
toward the saucer, led by Aleksi who seemed to know exactly where it was.

Once we had him inside the saucer and administered
antidote to counter the toxins in Mr Barkley’s blood, it quickly became
apparent that our platoon commander’s captivity had been brutal. He was covered
in bruises and cuts, and his body was caked in dried blood. God only knew what
they had done to him. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

Whilst I replaced my helmet and Yulia looked on, Wildgoose
threw off the trench coat he had been given for the assault onto Trondheim. He
wrapped it around Mr Barkley, and then gently sat him down on one of the seats
and buckled him in. Griffiths and I then removed our coats and laid them across
his lap like blankets. He was shaking violently, which I presumed was a mixture
of shock and exposure, but his breathing had begun to return to normal.

‘Nice deep breaths, boss,’ I said, taking a seat
beside him and strapping myself in. ‘Everything’s alright. You’re with us,
now.’

When the boss finally spoke, he was shivering so
hard that his words were almost unintelligible. ‘Who . . . who a-are y-you?’

I realised that he probably couldn’t see me in the
dark, since he wasn’t wearing a visor. ‘It’s me, boss. Corporal Moralee. I’m
with Wildgoose and Griffiths.’

The compartment walls became invisible once more and
the saucer lifted, heading back up toward the clouds so that we could look down
upon the chemical plant once again.

‘How . . . d-did you . . . f-find me?’ Mr Barkley
asked, so quietly my headset had to amplify his words.

‘It’s a long story,’ I said, before changing the
subject. ‘Are you OK?’

In our rush we hadn’t inspected the severity of his
injuries. The main thing was that he was conscious and breathing. Anything else
could hopefully wait until we brought him back to Paraiso.

‘I think so,’ he said weakly.

‘Where are the others?’

Without warning, Mr Barkley began to cry. His
shoulders hunched and he lowered his head like he was trying to curl into a
ball, letting out long anguished sobs that tore at my heart. I didn’t need to
ask anymore. The rest of his team were dead.

‘Poltergeist-One, this is Hammersmith-Zero-Alpha.’
The OC’s voice cut through the crying. ‘Our visibility is pretty poor from this
far out, but we can see what appears to be a small group of figures moving out
from the chemical plant and into the marsh.’

I exchanged glances with Aleksi.

‘They used your platoon commander as a distraction,’
the Scandinavian deduced. He peered down at the marshland, trying to spot the
figures. ‘Hammersmith-Zero-Alpha, send mark?’

A blue crosshair promptly appeared a short distance
away from the chemical plant. Sure enough there was a small group of figures,
about a section of them, hurrying across the marshland. Once again, Aleksi
created a magnifying glass around them, zooming in so that we could watch them
making their escape. They weren’t in any kind of formation, they were simply
running for their lives, stumbling through thick reeds and waist-deep pools of
water. They were all wearing Guard uniform.

‘I’ll bet you one of them is Bhasin,’ Griffiths
said. ‘Let’s get them.’

I looked at Aleksi. ‘Can we re-task Louis?’

Aleksi didn’t respond. Instead he stared into space,
as if preoccupied by something else. I realised that he was receiving a message
that I wasn’t privy to, and was listening to it intently.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked after a moment.

‘We can’t wait for Louis,’ Aleksi decided, then flicked
to the net. ‘Hammersmith-Zero-Alpha, I have reports of aircraft inbound from
the south, possibly a Guard dropship coming to extract the survivors. I want
you to engage the figures now.’

‘Hammersmith-Zero-Alpha, roger. Firing now.’

Seconds later, the ground around the Guardsmen
erupted, as a torrent of Vulcan rounds hailed down upon them.

‘Fuck you!’ Griffiths taunted, as the Guardsmen
collapsed to the ground under the withering barrage.

‘That will do, Hammersmith-Zero-Alpha!’ Aleksi
instructed. ‘From now on do not engage under any circumstances unless I
specifically give the order. I’m going to move in to take a look.’ He pointed
to where the figures now lay. ‘Saucer, take us down to that location.’

The saucer obeyed, and we swooped down toward the
marsh, finally coming in to hover less than ten metres from the fallen
escapees.

Aleksi suddenly chuckled to himself. ‘I’ve just been
told the aircraft has turned around,’ he said, noticing our curious glances. ‘I
guess they decided Bhasin isn’t worth the trouble. Shall we get out and take a
look?’

I nodded.

On Aleksi’s order, the saucer hovered lower, its
ramp coming down to touch the ground.

‘Someone will have to stay with the boss,’ I said as
we removed our straps.

There was a moment’s silence. Everybody wanted to be
there to see Bhasin dead, but somebody needed to stay with our platoon
commander. He had stopped crying, and had now resorted to rocking himself
gently as if trying to comfort himself.

‘I’ll stay,’ Wildgoose said reluctantly.

‘Cheers, mate.’ I said, knowing that the section
sniper would rather come with us if he had the chance.

‘Kill him,’ the boss uttered quietly as I stood. He
looked up at me, fixing me with glistening red eyes. ‘You make sure that bastard
is dead!’ 

My jaw clenched, but I said nothing as I brushed
past him to exit the saucer. All of us, including Yulia, carefully made our way
down the ramp, weapons raised as we stepped out onto the watery marsh.

Aleksi grasped my arm, stopping me from moving away
from the ramp. ‘If we stay close to the aircraft then we remain within its
field. It gives us a second to look around before we reveal ourselves.’

‘So I’m still invisible right now?’ I asked.

‘No, you’re never
fully
invisible.’ He swept
an arm across the marsh. ‘But this lot will be in such a state that they’ll
never notice us, not if they’re alive, anyway.’

‘Well, what’s the plan?’

‘If you three spread out and search for the bodies,
I’ll come with you and start taking images and biometrics for our intelligence
cell. I’m sure they’ll want to know who was involved in this.’

We waded through the water toward the crosshair left
by the OC, spreading out to cover as much ground as possible.

It didn’t take long before I spotted the first body,
or at least half of it. Everything above the stomach was missing, leaving
charred organs to spill out into the murky water.

I dropped a crosshair on the body. ‘There’s one.’

Another crosshair appeared nearby, created by
Griffiths. ‘And another.’

We slowly found more and more bodies as we advanced
through the reeds, all of whom had met a grisly end, until I had counted six.
After that, there didn’t appear to be any more of them, and after twenty metres
I came to a halt.

‘That must be it,’ Griffiths said. ‘Bhasin must be
one of the bodies back there.’

I stared out into the dark expanse of reeds,
listening to the wind brushing against them. ‘No. There was more than six . . .’

For a moment, none of us made a sound. I knew what
would happen if we did nothing. Any of the survivors would slowly creep away
from us, hoping to disappear into the marsh.

I licked my lips. ‘Griffiths.’ I said quietly on the
section net. ‘On my order, fire a burst into the marsh.’

‘Roger.’

‘Fire!’

Griffiths opened fire with his mammoth, the powerful
weapon letting out a mighty roar as it sprayed the marsh with darts.

I raised my voice, shouting out so all could hear.
‘I’ve spotted them! In the reeds! One-Two, assault from the right flank!’

It didn’t matter that there wasn’t anybody on our
right flank. Already spooked by the mysterious appearance of Louis’ team within
the chemical plant, three surviving Guardsmen broke from their hiding places
and ran.

Yulia snapped up her rifle, tracking one of the fleeing
Guardsmen before firing, snatching him down to the ground. The other two turned
and fired, their darts cracking overhead and forcing me to duck.

‘Griffiths, keep suppressing! Yulia, we’ll bound
forward! I’ll move first!’

‘OK, Andy! I will cover you!’

I bounded forward, splashing through the water
whilst keeping my head as low as I could. Once I stopped, I remained half-crouched
but on my feet, scanning with my rifle as I tried to spot the Guardsmen amongst
the reeds.

My headset cut out the sound from Griffith’s
mammoth, instead magnifying a nearby sound, that of something gently sloshing in
the water less than ten metres away.

With a downward wave of my hand I stopped Yulia, and
then slowly edged through the water, rifle raised.

My visor display flashed red, marking a Guardsman
attempting to crawl away through the water on his hands and knees. Realising
that he had been spotted, the Guardsman shouted something and attempted to
swing his rifle around, but too late. I shot him twice through the chest,
sending him sprawling backward. He splashed into the water, then bobbed
lifelessly.

Suddenly there was another burst of enemy fire,
forcing me to duck again. This time it was directed toward Yulia, and as I
watched in horror, one of the rounds struck her, knocking her down to the
ground.

‘Yulia!’ I cried out.

My anger rapidly mutated into sheer rage. With my
lips curling into a vengeful snarl, I switched to automatic, spraying the marsh
with steel.

‘Die, you fucking belter!’ I bellowed, my rifle
vibrating in my arms as I emptied the entire magazine. When it ran out of darts
I then switched to my grenade launcher, firing my remaining two high-explosive
grenades into the reeds. Somebody screamed in pain when they detonated, and
then there was silence.

I looked back to where Yulia had fallen.

Not her as well,
my
mind pleaded as my eyes searched for her in the reeds.
Not after all we’ve been
through!

‘Yulia! Are you OK?’

‘I am fine, Andy!’ She replied from somewhere out of
sight. ‘It is a flesh wound - not serious!’

I glanced up to the heavens in thanks for just a
moment, and then my eyes narrowed as I looked to where the enemy darts had come
from. The painful scream had followed one of my grenades, but I knew that the
Guardsmen wore body armour capable of surviving grenade shrapnel, especially
when the blast of the grenade would have been greatly reduced by the wet mud
and water. Whoever was out there was likely to still be alive.

‘Griffiths!’ I ordered. ‘Double check Yulia is OK
then follow me up!’

‘Will do, mate!’

I waded out through the marsh, towards where I had
seen the Guardsman fall. There was no body there, but it didn’t take me long to
figure out where he was. A path had been flattened through the reeds, and as I
followed it my visor suddenly picked up a reading, flickering between orange
and red as it tried to work out if it had detected a target. My headset
magnified the sound of ragged breathing and sloshing water.

The Guardsman was crawling through the marsh in an
effort to escape. Unaware that he was being followed, he slid his soaking wet,
muddied body through the reeds, taking care not to make a sound. I couldn’t see
any sign of injury, but I had no doubt that I had hit him. His pained,
laborious movements suggested that he was wounded.

I followed him for a moment, gently gliding my boots
through the water as I navigated the reeds until I was no more than ten metres
behind him. Then, pointing my rifle directly at his head, I raised my voice.

‘Where are you going, Bhasin?’ I asked goadingly.

I
knew
it was Bhasin. I don’t know why, but I
knew it was him. After all the bad luck my platoon had suffered, something good
was bound to fall at my feet at some point.

Bhasin stopped, remaining perfectly still.

I had my quarry at last. After all the fighting, all
the killing and all the senseless barbarity that my platoon had endured, there
in front of me was the man I held responsible. Savouring the moment, I looked
up at the vast expanse of marshland, and the hills rolling away far in the
distance. Bright white flashes illuminated the morning sky to the north, as the
Union fleet pounded Europa from orbit.

‘There’s no one to help you out here,’ I said
menacingly. ‘The dropship you called for has turned around. It’s just you, and
me.’