EDEN (The Union Series) (2 page)

The ground began to
vibrate rhythmically, and soon the vibrations were accompanied by dull thumps.
The suit was nearby, Christ it must have been no more than a couple of metres
away! I clenched my teeth as I waited for the OP walls to subside and our roof
to collapse.

The suit appeared to
pass us, and I breathed out a sigh of relief as I saw that our roof had held.

But then it stopped.

My mind screamed just
as my hand shot toward my rifle lying beside me.
Shit! It’s fucking seen us!
My fingers closed around the pistol grip, my finger hovering over the power
up button as I prepared to fight for my life.

But there was silence.

What were they doing?
I strained to hear even the slightest noise from my headset. I imagined the
suit, having detected our electronic equipment or having seen through our
camouflage, lining up its weapons to fire. Perhaps it was waiting for the
remainder of the patrol to take cover before it opened fire, or maybe the
commander was considering the possibility of more OPs. It wasn’t normal to have
two so close together, but my orders had stated that I should retain an
offensive capability, one which I would lose if I split my eight-man section
too far apart.

There was the sound
of more footsteps, and the ground thumped as the suit moved slightly. I
flinched as a piece of earth dropped down and struck the back of my helmet.

Still nothing
happened.

I braced myself. If I
was about to be compromised, there was nothing else that I could do. Strong as
it was, our roof allowed for us to break through it in order to stand -
bursting out from the ground like zombies out of an unmarked grave. I would
have milliseconds to power up my rifle, take aim and shoot before the suit
responded, then seconds more before the enemy patrol realised what was
happening and opened fire. That was if they didn’t already have all of their
weapons trained upon us.

There was no choice.
This wasn’t going well at all. I reached out my hand and grasped Myers by the
shoulder. I then jabbed my thumb upwards and then opened my palm to show five
fingers.
We’re going up, five seconds.
He nodded grimly, then kicked the
two troopers lying behind us to pass the message.

My finger moved over
the button to my rifle mounted torch, and I flashed it on and off as I counted
down the seconds.

Five … four …
three … two …

‘This looks like a
good spot, eh?’ a voice with a very strange, but distinctive accent called out,
interrupting my countdown. The voice was a whisper, though my headset magnified
the sound for me to hear it as a shout.

Myers turned to look
at me, and I turned my palm downward in a calming gesture. Clearly we hadn’t
been found, so there was no need to go loud. Not yet.

Another voice sounded
from above, with the same odd accent. ‘Yeah, that’ll do. I’ll get the guys set
up.’

There was no
mistaking the Europa accent. It was different from other European accents on
Eden, possibly due to their proximity to Alliance provinces, or perhaps the
original colonists were the descendants of a different mix of nations. The
Loyalists would vehemently deny the first possibility, they were so obsessed
with their ‘pure’ descent that it was often said they believed they were more
European than people actually born in Europe.

I instantly
recognised the potential for such a close encounter, wondering if perhaps our
seemingly dire situation was in fact a great opportunity to gain intelligence.
My OP was able to listen to the Loyalist patrol, passively scanning their
communications and patrol net as well as gauging their morale and future
intentions. It was priceless.

But my morale didn’t
rise, and the sense of foreboding didn’t pass over me. Something was wrong,
alarm bells were ringing in the back of my head, because there was something
altogether sinister about the patrol.

What were they up to?
Why had the enemy pushed up so far from the low ground? They didn’t need to be
so high to bypass the village, and why had their detour brought them directly
to this spot if it hadn’t been to find us? What was so special about my
position that led them to it and caused them to choose to stop on top of it?

 I replayed the words
of the Loyalist voice in my head … ‘
Yeah, that’ll do. I’ll get the guys set
up.’

Suddenly I realised
what they had found. It was the same thing that I had found when I located the
OP in the first place: level ground and a clear view onto the village. There had
been a reason why the patrol was so heavily armed, and a reason why they had
brought the suit - a weapon that the Loyalists prized and would never risk
sending on a regular patrol - they were fire support, I realised in horror, and
they were setting up to fire onto the village.

I had known from the
day I arrived on the southern Eden hemisphere that the Loyalists were racists.
They were determined to rid the huge and rolling expanse of forest, known as
the Bosque region, of what they called the ‘infection’ of non-European
colonists, even though most of those people had lived there for generations. Dissected
through its middle by the Edo-Europa border it had been long disputed, even
before the war between the Union and the Alliance.

Having seen enough
hatred in the worlds that I had visited to know that it was within mankind’s
nature, I hadn’t been surprised to learn that Eden was a brutal and deeply
divided planet, but even I couldn’t believe what was happening above us.

‘I want four of the
guns moved further along the valley,’ the Loyalist commander ordered, and my
visor display alerted me to a close proximity transmission, picked up by our
scanner. The small device, plugged into my datapad by optic cable to minimise
the chances of being detected itself, had picked up an invaluable piece of
information. Coupled with the voice heard over my headset, we could easily work
out how the enemy network scrambled transmissions, making them far easier to
decode. It was pure gold dust, but I couldn’t feel any sense of joy - instead I
felt revulsion as the commander continued to give his instructions.

‘I want your gun
group to have wide arcs along the base of the valley,’ he explained with a
coolness that sent a chill down my spine. ‘You’re to act as cut-offs; anybody leaving
the village to the south is fair game. Use the southern edge of the village as
your left of arc - we will deal with that. Save your ammunition.’

The scanner informed
me that somebody had responded over the net, but it was unable to attempt to
decipher the code. It wouldn’t even attempt it unless told to do so - the
sudden spike of electrical activity, however small, risked giving the game
away.

‘Francis, use the
heavy weapons against the village, strike at these three locations,’ the
commander continued, this time to someone nearby. I presumed that he was
pointing something out.

‘No problem,’ an
inhuman voice responded. I realised that it was the wearer of the suit,
responding by some kind of speaker module. I heard the whirr of motors as the
machine orientated itself to engage the targets assigned to it.

Heavy weapons?
I asked myself, my stomach boiling with anger. What
possible use did these people have for heavy weapons? It was unlikely that the
poor bastards in the village below us had more than a couple of rifles at best.
They weren’t soldiers - they were civilians caught up in a war that made
absolutely no sense. The people of New Earth spilt blood to rid themselves of
the Union, the Russians and the Chinese before them, but these people were more
than happy to slaughter each other as well.

Brushing my emotions
aside, I thought back to our orders, trying to fit the scenario into them. The
detailed instructions given to me by my platoon commander had covered every
phase of the operation, from our insertion, the move to, recce of, and the
establishment of our OP. Every eventuality was considered: what to do if we
encountered enemy during our route between the drop zone and the OP location;
what to do if one of our sister patrols were contacted; or what to do if we
were spotted by the villagers. But this was different.

The Loyalists had
been expected to bypass the village in pursuit of the fleeing Free Edo Army,
more interested in forcing them out of the Bosque. They might use the valley to
locate their headquarters briefly as they advanced ever-south, inadvertently providing
us with vital intelligence that we would pass back to brigade.

Nobody had told me
what to do if they decided to attack the village, home to hundreds of
civilians. Should I respond, or simply lie there while the Loyalists laid waste
to them in their twisted quest to ‘liberate’ the Bosque?

‘They have no idea
what’s about to come their way,’ the voice said, and there was laughter.

I gritted my teeth.
Fucking bastards! They were actually laughing about it!

‘The platoon is
moving into position now,’ the commander informed his men. ‘You should see the
forward line a few hundred metres to the north.’

‘I see them,’ the
suit replied.

‘Just remember, don’t
do too much damage, we need the village intact. The commander wants there to be
some survivors, they will be useful.’

So there was at least
a platoon of Loyalist soldiers somewhere in the valley, I thought. They were
forming up, somewhere in the low ground, preparing to attack the village at a
time decided by their platoon commander. I imagined soldiers creeping through
the undergrowth, scanning for obstacles and defences constructed by the
villagers.

If I were their boss,
I decided, I would hold firm a good three to four hundred metres north of the
village, not wanting to spoil my attack by being detected on the approach. The
surprise would be initiated by overwhelming fire support from the mass of weapons
I had placed halfway up the valley, allowing me to move the rest of the way
into a decent forming up point. Only once I had closed right up to the village
would I unleash my sections. As my sections broke into the village, then I
would ensure that my fire support group switched fire, so that they continued
to suppress further south without shooting my own men. It was a simple plan,
but simple plans were often the best ones. I doubted the villagers would put up
much of a fight anyway.

‘H-hour in three
minutes,’ the voice said, passing on a transmission from his platoon commander,
who I guessed was somewhere in the low ground with his assaulting sections.
They were getting ready to attack.

As the clock in the
corner of my visor display counted down the seconds, I thought again about the
suit. It had to be right next to us, and the fact that the weight of it hadn’t
caused the walls of earth around us to collapse was nothing short of a miracle.
What would happen when it fired? The thing was carrying weapons similar to
those mounted on a gravtank, and the recoil would be devastating. Would the OP
collapse?

My section was more
than just a recce patrol. There was a reason why we had two OPs and not one: we
were organised to possess an offensive capability. We had a magnetic machine
gun, known as the MAM-G or ‘mammoth’, in both fire teams, and a smart launcher
in each as well. Two troopers in the rear OP were trained snipers, one of whom
carried the Orion-125 sniper rifle, and we had enough grenades and ammunition
to take on a company of Loyalists all on our own. Our greatest weapon of all,
though, was wired into my datapad and my visor display. So-called for the way a
trooper appeared when he used it, my ‘wizard’ kit gave me full and immediate access
to whatever happened to be above me at the time - from warships and orbital
platforms capable of pounding mountains into rubble, to unmanned attack
aircraft like the saucer. If we were going to be compromised, and it was
looking like we were, I wanted it to be on our terms and not those of the
Loyalists. We would need to strike hard, fast and aggressively, before running
up into the hills for dear life.

I looked across at
Myers. Our thermal vision didn’t allow for us to identify each other’s
expressions through our visors, but I could tell he knew what was going through
my mind. He shrugged.

It was a tough call.
There really wasn’t a right or wrong answer, not tactically anyway, which made
the decision even harder.

I made my decision.
If the ground showed any sign of subsidence when the suit fired, then I would
be forced to unleash everything, but until then I couldn’t simply abandon my
OP, risking the lives of my men and the success of my mission. Our scanner had
already recorded critical data which could be sent back to brigade as soon as
the Loyalists left us - data which could allow our EW teams to hack into their
communication network.

There was one risk
that I was going to have to take though, I decided. If we were compromised then
I didn’t want to be fighting out of the valley with just a section of men,
however much firepower we possessed. I decided to queue up a series of messages
onto my datapad, all of which I could send to brigade instantly at the touch of
a button. The only danger was that somebody might detect my datapad as soon as
I activated it, but under the circumstances it was probably the right thing to
do.