EDEN (The Union Series) (16 page)

I stopped the section
fifty metres short of the Ghandi, choosing a section of the stream running
parallel to the river. I took a knee against the bank and held my arms out
either side of me.

Understanding the
hand signal for extended line formation, my fire team quickly formed-up either
side of me, with Myers to my right and Skelton to my left. Puppy’s fire team
closed up, and the section turned to face the Ghandi so that all of its weapons
faced the direction of enemy threat. Although my task involved observation
rather than direct involvement in the battle, I would be foolish to assume that
I was safe with no friendly troops in front of me. I wanted the maximum number
of weapons to bear.

I waited while my men
slowly caught their breath, listening to the savage exchange of gunfire to my
left and the steady whir of my respirator filters.

Yulia joined me,
propping herself against the stream bank with her rifle ready to fire.

'What’s going on
now?' I asked.

Yulia turned her head
to the fire fight further west along the river. 'The relief is almost complete.
One of our companies is now preparing to assault on the left flank.'

'OK.'

I swept my gaze over
the marsh, and the fast-flowing river that separated us from the Loyalist
horde. I knew that the river was at least three hundred metres across from
having studied the map on my datapad, and that the far bank was also bordered
by marshland before the forest resumed.

There was no way that
soldiers could cross the river without using rafts, bridges or dropships. I
strongly doubted they would use the first two, since not only would they
struggle to make a slow and laborious crossing with FEA companies dotted along
the bank, but the bulky equipment would be near impossible to move through the
forest in the first place. Dropships would be the best method, but not by
attacking head-on. The enemy commander had learnt that the hard way. This time,
I knew, he would seek a crack in the FEA defence, before using his dropships
and the soldiers they carried to drive a wedge through it.

 I turned to Yulia.
‘Do you have anything ready in case the Loyalists attack on the flanks?'

'We have reserves on
the edge of the forest, including a company of Guardsmen,' Yulia responded,
pointing behind us. 'If they try to attack, we can bring them forward to
wherever they are needed.'

I nodded slowly - the
decision made sense. What the FEA didn't want to do was commit all of its
forces onto holding the river, lining them along its length like a human chain.
That left them with no reserve, and no reserve meant no offensive capability.
With the FEA forces outmatched by the Loyalist war machine, defence would only
work if it came coupled with an offensive spirit.

I studied the ground,
considering the plan. The first move was already happening - which was the
relief of embattled soldiers along the river. The second move - which was to
secure a beach head on the left flank, would happen very soon. I wondered what
the Loyalist commander would be thinking.

'They’ll attack
again,' I concluded aloud, ‘and soon.’

Yulia cocked her head
inquisitively. ‘Why do you say that? We have beaten them off once, now they
expect
us
to attack.’

‘The smoke and the
attack on their artillery have confused them momentarily,’ I explained, ‘but
they will want to maintain their advance. They’ll attempt to find out what
you’re doing and mess it up with another offensive action.’

'What do you mean?'

'A feint,' I replied,
resuming my scan of the river. 'They’ll assault with a small force, maybe
company strength. They’ll then follow up with a larger force somewhere else.’

The sudden roar of
gunfire announced the arrival of the saucers, darting through the smoke in a
blur of gleaming metal. Their twin cannons strafed the far bank with thirty-millimetre
shells, engaging targets obscured to me by the smoke. I watched the two craft
unleash their fury, imagining the surprise and the terror that the Loyalists
felt at their mercy.

'Blackjack-One-Zero,
this is Blackjack-One-One-Charlie,' I announced. 'I have eyes on my airborne
assets and will direct from here. Cancel smoke mission.'

'Understood,’ the boss
replied instantly. ‘That's the smoke mission cancelled.'

His signaller would
relay the message instantly to
Warrior
, ordering it to stop dropping
bombs over the Ghandi.

‘Roger. I’m sending
my airborne assets along the length of the river, I anticipate an enemy force
will attempt to probe on the flanks.’

‘I agree.’

I tapped the screen
of my datapad, activating my wizard kit. A pale blue menu screen appeared on my
visor display, and I quickly used it to issue commands to the saucers, pointing
where I wanted them to go.

‘What are you doing?’
Yulia looked at me as though I was mad. Only I could see the wizard menu, so to
her I simply appeared to be pointing and waving my arms around.

‘Directing the
saucers,’ I replied, watching as the unmanned aircraft obeyed my commands.
Still hammering targets beneath them, the saucers zigzagged along the river to
the north and south, changing direction almost instantly to make themselves
near impossible to hit.

As one of the two
craft passed in front of us, it darted upward suddenly, chased by a trio of
smart missiles launched from behind the cloud of smoke.

Somebody was there on
the right flank. It might be nothing more than a defensive position placed out
in anticipation of the FEA counterattack, I told myself. The Loyalist commander
might have misread their intent, expecting an assault on the east. It could
also be a fire support group, though, placed out prior to the probing attack
that I feared.

I knew what needed to
be done, and I had no time to confer with Mr Barkley as I quickly issued more
instructions on my wizard menu, this time selecting the railgun artillery that
had been placed tens of kilometres behind us. I marked the far bank where I had
seen the missiles launch with my outstretched finger, and gave the command to
fire incendiaries.

A voice quickly
answered over the net. ‘Blackjack-One-One-Charlie, this is Thunder-God, fire
mission received. Wait!’

Somewhere tens of
kilometres behind me, ‘Thunder-God’ - the aptly named railgun battery placed
into position by Union dropships - was preparing to fire onto the co-ordinates
sent by my wizard kit.

I turned to the
section. ‘Fire mission going into the far bank! Possible enemy counterattack!’

Yulia looked alarmed
as the message passed along the section line. ‘You think they will attack
here?’

‘What do you think?’
I snapped.

Just as I spoke the
smoke began to part, revealing the far bank, and tens of red crosshairs
appeared as my visor targeting system began to identify enemy all the way along
the river. I could make out the main cluster of Loyalist soldiers directly
opposite the FEA first company, and then another smaller cluster just opposite
my own section. Magnifying my view, they appeared to be taking cover along a
small tributary river that cut through the marshland on their side. I couldn’t
make out accurate numbers, but the soldiers I could see had their attention
firmly focused onto the air, waiting for my saucers to return.  

‘Stay low!’ I
ordered, worried that one of the Loyalist soldiers might spot us hidden in the
long grass. Our equipment was designed to render us virtually invisible to
thermal and visual imaging at a distance, but I wasn’t willing to put it to the
test, and I doubted that Yulia’s kit was anywhere near as good.

As one the section
slid down the bank into the water. Cold water ran into my boots as I held up my
rifle, ensuring that I could still see the enemy through its camera without
exposing my head.

‘Blackjack-One-One-Charlie,
this is Thunder-God, shot three-zero!’

Thunder-God had
fired, the railgun shells hurtling through the air toward us at several times
the speed of sound. The words ‘shot three-zero’ told me that I had thirty
seconds until the shells landed.

I quickly warned the
section of the incoming artillery strike, but as I did so something on my
camera display caught my eye - a metallic object moving at high speed in the
distance. It wasn’t one of our saucers. One of them was still attacking targets
along the river to my left, while the other was still darting through the
clouds high above in an effort to escape from the Loyalist smart missiles.

I zoomed in to
identify the object, cursing as I finally recognised what it was. It was a
Loyalist dropship. As I watched, more of them were emerged from across the
forest kilometres ahead of us, rapidly coming together to form into some kind
of attack formation. It was coming straight toward us.

‘Incoming dropships!’
I hollered. ‘Get the launchers out!’

There was a flurry of
activity along the stream as launchers were quickly unclipped from troopers’
daysacks and prepared to fire. We didn’t have much time, dropships could move
as fast as saucers, limited only by the G-forces their human cargo could
endure.

They probably didn’t
know that we were in front of them, but I wasn’t taking any chances.  

I sent a warning to
the boss over the platoon net, not taking my eyes away from the approaching
formation. There were four of them, enough to carry an entire platoon of
Loyalist soldiers, and they were closing fast.

‘Engage air,’ Myers
told his launcher as he threw it onto his shoulder. The launcher beeped back at
him, letting him know that it understood the task and was ready to fire.

I held up a hand. ‘Wait
for it!’

If the dropships were
going to pass directly above me, then I had the perfect opportunity to shoot
them down before they even knew that I was there, but I needed them to be
close. We didn’t have enough smart missiles to engage all four at once, and every
dropship was armed with a Vulcan cannon specifically designed to shoot them
down. The closer we were, the less chance they would have to defend themselves.
Once the missiles were gone, it would take critical seconds to reload, and by
then the game would be up.

I watched the four
dropships approach, zigzagging as they began their ‘run in’. They were still a
few kilometres away, but they were headed directly for us.

Myers blinked at me
anxiously, poised to fire. ‘Now?’

‘Wait for it!’ I
hissed.

Even Yulia was
becoming nervous. ‘We need to fire now, Andy! We must destroy them!’

‘No!’

It wasn’t until the
dropships had nearly passed the edge of the forest on the far bank when I
finally gave the order. ‘Launchers - enemy dropships - left and right … FIRE!’

The response was
instant. The two troopers stood, water splashing around them, and turned to
face to the left and right of the dropship squadron as they fired. ‘Firing!’
they yelled simultaneously.

The missiles leapt
from their launchers with a bang, and were propelled several metres before the
main rocket ignited and they shot away from us. The missiles screamed away at
an angle to the dropships, leaving behind a trail of smoke as they went.

The enemy formation
broke as the dropships saw the missiles, their Vulcan blazing as they tried to
shoot at them with a hail of darts. By firing the missiles either side of the
dropships though, I had already created confusion. Smart as they were, the
missiles approached from both directions, leaving trails of vapour across the
river as they arced toward their quarry, carrying out their own evasive manoeuvres
to avoid the spray of Vulcan.

‘Get down! Reload!’ I
shouted, and with a sweep of my arm I directed the saucers back to attack the
dropships.

I never took the
opportunity to check on the smaller force hiding just across the river from us,
so focused as I was upon the dropship charge. They had no doubt spotted us now,
as we fired our volley of missiles, but they had no chance to react. There was
a shrill whistle, just before the railgun shells detonated above them in a
devastating shower of flaming liquid.

Two of the Loyalist dropships
had been destroyed, though I didn’t have the time to see whether they had been
struck by the missiles or by the attacking saucers. I was far more concerned
about the remaining two.

They continued their
charge, their shape now clearly visible as they hurtled toward us, Vulcan
cannon blazing as they tried to fend off the saucers and a single remaining
missile.

Myers and Thapa were frantically
reloading their launchers with fresh missiles, but the dropships were almost
upon us. I knew they wouldn’t have time to complete the action before the
dropships arrived.

‘
Get down!
’ I
screamed.

As one we fell into
the mud, just as the dropship railguns opened fire. The ground thumped behind
me as the first rounds overshot the stream.

I switched my
under-slung launcher to high explosive grenades, hollering over the din, ‘Prepare
for dismounts! As soon as those things slow down to drop their troops, we’ll
hit them with everything!’