EDEN (The Union Series) (3 page)

I activated the
datapad, and its screen bathed our underground lair in light. I waited the
sound of alarm, but nothing happened. After a few tense moments I breathed out
a quiet sigh of relief; it had gone undetected.

There were three separate
messages that I quickly queued up, all directed to brigade command in Paraiso.
The first demanded extraction from our pre-designated emergency rendezvous, a
location several kilometres to the south that I had conducted a recce onto
during my route into the valley several days ago. The second message called for
immediate close-air support to aid our extraction, as well as to engage any
enemy attacking the village. The third was for orbital bombardment, consisting
of two salvos. One was directed onto a position four hundred metres to the
north of the village. It would be near to the Loyalist platoon, but far enough
from the village to minimise the risk of civilian casualties - or so I hoped.
The second salvo was to be directed onto our position, five minutes after the
message was received. We would have to run fast.

Myers watched over my
shoulder as I entered the last few commands and deactivated my datapad. He
could see what I was doing, though there was no way for me to convey my entire
plan to him. But in truth, I didn’t really have much of a plan anyway.

‘Another minute,’ the
commander above me warned his comrades, totally unaware of what was lurking
beneath his feet.

We waited, the
muscles in our bodies tense as we prepared ourselves for whatever might happen
next. I wondered if I was able to stand, let alone run, if the need called for
it. My muscles were weakened from days of inactivity, and I knew that the other
men in my section would be the same. None of us had walked further than twenty
metres since our arrival, and even that was only for a night time ‘walk around’
inspection for damage to the OP camouflage, dropping back into the shallow pit
and replacing the roof once we were happy. I wondered if we could fight
effectively against the heavily armed soldiers above us, or if they might cut
us down before we even fired a single dart.

I shook the thought
from my head. Of course we could take them on - we were recce troopers - amongst
the best the Union army had to offer. I just hoped that we would all be alive
by the end of it.

My display clock
continued to count away the seconds, time seeming to slow down as we waited
anxiously to find out our fate, and those of the villagers below us.

The commander finally
gave his order, ‘Go on, then, guys, give it to them.’

The suit’s motors
whirred as it replied, ‘No problem!’

I jolted in surprise
as the suit opened fire, shaking the earth around me. Firing both of its
weapons at once it created a terrible noise, so loud that it vibrated through
the ground. Even though my headphones protected my ears from the ear-splitting
sound, it still caused my bones to judder and my stomach to churn.

I flinched as tiny
pieces of soil rained down upon my helmet and armour, and I expected the roof
to collapse any moment.
Christ
, my mind screamed,
this is madness
!
I resisted the natural urge to wail or moan as the terrible weapon above us
unleashed its devastating arsenal into the village below. My hand gripped my
rifle tightly, longing to use it against the machine.

A voice laughed over
the noise - ‘Get those guys there, with the rifles! Yeah!’

Servos whined, and
the noise intensified.

‘Ha!’ the suit
replied. ‘Did you see that?’

‘Yeah! Ha, these guys
never saw us coming!’

The OP was vibrating
so hard my limbs were almost leaving the ground. It was giving me a headache,
and I imagined it was because my brain was probably being rattled around inside
my skull. We couldn’t take much more of this, I thought, it was only a matter
of time before the roof caved in.

Suddenly a large chunk
of earth struck my helmet, knocking my face down into the mud with the force of
its impact. I growled softly in response to the blow. Enough was enough; we
couldn’t carry on like this.

I reached out and
squeezed Skelton by the shoulder, and he nodded in the dark. It was time. He kicked
out at the other troopers’ feet once more to inform them that we were about to
break cover. They didn’t need a proper message passed back to them; it was
obvious what needed to happen next.

I tested my muscles
quickly within the confines of the OP, resting and contracting them several
times. Then, slowly and deliberately, I activated my datapad once more, and my
finger came to rest back over the power up button on my rifle. I lifted myself
slightly from the ground, pressing my body up against the roof. The logs and
branches that held it above us flexed slightly, indicating that nothing was
directly above me, and that the roof would move if I pushed against it. I
braced my body, as did the rest of my fire team. They waited, and the
atmosphere inside the OP became thick with their anticipation. My heart thumped
hard, beating against my ribcage as my body prepared itself for action, pumping
adrenalin through my veins until my muscles shook with nervous energy.

I was ready as I would
ever be, and it was now or never. I stood.

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Extraction

The man
encased within his powered suit might have survived a dart from a distance, in
fact its automated ballistic defence system might have allowed him to avoid the
dart before he even knew it was coming, but there was no hope for him at such
short range. 

I
exploded out from the ground like a creature from the underworld, aiming for
the centre of the ape-like machine as I pulled the trigger. 

Sharpened
to a molecular level and accelerated well beyond the speed of sound, the dart
punched through his armour with such ease it might as well have been made of
cardboard. The suit stumbled backward, its motors desperately trying to keep it
upright, but there was little point, the man inside was already dead. The dart
had pierced one side of the armour, but not the other. Instead it had
ricocheted inside, striking him several more times.

I fired
another two shots into the suit as it fell for good measure.

Magnets
screamed like banshees as my fire team, now emerged from their hole, engaged
targets all around them. I looked around me to watch as several Loyalists fell,
including the commander who had been crouched next to the suit. Myers had
swiftly dispatched him with a pair of darts to the chest, and he collapsed into
the undergrowth with a startled yelp.

As one we
scrambled out of the OP, tossing aside the logs and clods of earth that we had
used to build our roof. I tapped my datapad, reactivating the section net and
instantly sending our series of messages back to brigade. There was no turning
back.

I took
cover behind the fallen suit whilst the other three troopers spread themselves
out into the forest, keen not to make the fire team an easy target.

‘One-One-Charlie,
contact!’ I announced on the section net, informing my second OP that the game
was up and we were compromised.

Somebody
swore to my right and I saw that Gritt had spotted two more Loyalists emerging
from cover to the north, presumably two more of the fire support group trying
to work out what was going on. Without a seconds thought he lifted his rifle to
a high angle and fired a grenade from its under-slung launcher. The miniature guided
missile weaved its way through the trees, detonating between the two soldiers
in a plume of dirt and vegetation.

‘One-One-Charlie,
this is One-One-Delta,’ my second in command replied to me on the net. ‘My
call-sign has broken out of cover, no resistance. We are in baseline, awaiting
instructions!’

There was
urgency in his voice, and rightly so. He too would have seen my string of
commands sent up to brigade, and he knew that we didn’t have much time to get
away.

‘Roger!
Remain firm!’

I scanned
around me, quickly taking in the battlefield as I considered my options.
Several hundred metres to my rear was the second OP, now formed-up into a
baseline that could provide us with fire support as we extracted. To my front
were potentially more Loyalist soldiers, strung out along the valley slope, and
there was definitely more between us and delta fire team, judging by the
conversation we had listened to. To my right the ground sloped away into the
valley, and between the trees I could clearly make out the village - an unruly
cluster of buildings beneath an atmospheric dome, built beside a river. Flames
and billowing smoke told of the attack that was already underway, and I
wondered if the Loyalist platoon commander even knew that his fire support
group had been attacked, so focused he would be on his quarry.

Suddenly
the air cracked and hissed as enemy darts passed just over my head, causing me
to duck instinctively behind the hard cover provided by the suit. Sparks flew
as a round struck its armour, missing me by millimetres.

‘Contact
front!’ Skelton screamed, and the fire team unleashed fury onto my assailants.
Skelton’s mammoth gun roared as it spat death into the forest and the earth
shook as grenades detonated in clouds of smoke and dust. Every rifleman in my
section carried an under-slung grenade launcher, providing us with overwhelming
firepower. We needed it, because the nearest friendly call-sign was far too
distant to be any help.

I looked
up to catch a fleeting glance of enemy soldiers moving through the trees no
more than a hundred metres away. Darts whizzed past us as they tried to return
fire and regain the initiative.

They were
either attempting to manoeuvre or counterattack, I guessed, but either way the
surprise had been lost. There was no more time to weigh up options, I had to make
a quick decision and commit myself to it. Better to do something wrong than do
nothing at all.

‘Charlie
fire team will peel left!’ I ordered over the intercom, ignoring the enemy
darts that passed close over my head.

The fire
team automatically repeated the message to each other so that nobody failed to
hear it: ‘Charlie will peel left!’

I pointed
to my front. ‘Myers, Gritt, give me smoke!’

The two
troopers responded instantly, selecting smoke and firing their launchers toward
the enemy. An instant later the grenades exploded in a shower of smoking
phosphor, creating an instant wall of hot smoke that obscured the enemy from us,
and burned anyone unfortunate enough to be too close.

I
screamed, ‘Peel left!’

The men
needed no encouragement. Gritt was first to move, darting from his cover on my
far right and running behind me, kicking the foot of the next man as he went.
Once he had finally taken up a position to the far left of the fire team and
had started firing, then the next man moved and repeated the process.

We moved
rapidly, continuing to fire into the smoke as we went, each man running from
the far right of the fire team to the far left. Wet plants quickly soaked my
combats as I tore through the undergrowth, keeping my head as low as I could
every time it was my turn to move. With every peel the fire team drew further
up the slope and further away from the village, and more importantly, out of
the way so that delta could fire.

After no
more than a hundred metres of peeling, and as the smoke began to clear, I gave
my orders to my second in command - ‘One-one-delta, rapid fire on my mark,
enemy dismounted infantry in the open!’

With an
outstretched finger I ‘marked’ the enemy with a red crosshair, visible only to
the visor displays of my section.

His response
was instant - ‘Roger, mate!’

A series
of thumps sounded from behind me, and seconds later a salvo of grenades detonated
around my mark. The plants in the undergrowth danced as delta fire-team’s
weapons opened fire from out of sight, firing blindly, but safe in the
knowledge that there would be no friendly troops between them and their target.

That was
all I needed. I couldn’t see if the enemy were correctly suppressed or not, all
I knew was that we were no longer taking fire from them and they would be
distracted by the sudden hail of darts.

‘Break
contact!’ I stopped firing, picked myself up and ran.

Understanding
the order and seeing me bolt through the trees, my fire team followed,
abandoning the fire fight to flee for safety.

Breaking
contact was exactly that - you were simply ending the contact by running away,
dropping out of view behind cover, or using any means necessary to get away
from a battle you either couldn’t win, or simply didn’t want to take part in.

I led my
team in a sprint, ducking and weaving through the trees as I sought to gain
maximum distance from the Loyalists, whilst my delta fire team gave cover. Although
I couldn’t see the second OP, it was marked by a blue crosshair on my display,
and I used the crosshair to guide me as we arced around toward them, avoiding
their line of fire.

‘Keep
going!’ I panted over the intercom, constantly checking behind me to see that
my fire team were following. I was far fitter than most of them, and didn’t
want to leave anyone behind.

We were no
more than fifty metres from Delta fire team, when a series of red crosshairs
flickered on the left hand edge of my visor. My targeting system had identified
enemy amongst the trees, and they were almost directly between us and delta.

The first
Loyalist soldier to see me cried out in alarm, spinning to bring his weapon to
bear upon the trooper storming out of the undergrowth.

My eyes widened.
‘Contact front!’

Some
people might say that moments such as this could cause time to change pace, as
if everything were in slow motion. Perhaps that’s how they might recall it, but
not me. Everything happened so quickly I could barely remember it.

My rifle
was already raised to fire, and with it pointed toward the man’s chest I pulled
the trigger. The array of magnets along the barrel screamed, accelerating the
steel dart toward him with such power that it snatched him backward, punching
straight through his armour like paper.

I didn’t
wait to see him land, for I had already thrown myself to the ground, crashing
amongst the ferns and long grass.

Just as I
landed, the air above me exploded with noise as several enemy weapons opened
fire at once, hacking chips of wood out of a tree that stood beside me.

I quickly
wriggled my body behind the tree, clutching at the earth as I desperately tried
to make myself as low as possible.

‘Hold
fire!’ I yelled back to my men, still hugging the ground. Ferns danced around
me as the enemy fire intensified.

Christ,
there had to be at least two to three guns out there to create such a devastating
barrage, and to make it worse they were directly between us and Delta, so
neither team could return fire. Like before, I had to move out of the way.

I looked
behind me, only to see Gritt lying unnaturally on his back; he’d been hit.

‘Man
down!’ I shouted, and then I swore. There was no way we could extract from such
an onslaught, not with a casualty as well. How could we possibly escape from
this situation?

It was
then that I regained my senses, shaking my head angrily.
What was I thinking?
It didn’t have to be me who moved!
My own adrenalin had prevented me from
thinking straight.

‘One-One-Delta,’
I ordered. ‘Push round for a frontal assault onto enemy on my mark! I’m marking
my location as well!’

Keeping
as low as I could, I quickly used my finger to drop crosshairs onto our virtual
overlay, marking the enemy position in red, and my own in blue.

Delta
responded seconds later … ‘Moving now!’

‘Roger!’

Uttering
a string of curses, I drew a smoke grenade from one of my ammunition pouches,
careful not to lift my head. Pieces of wood struck my back as the enemy weapons
continued to cut into the tree just above me.

‘Grenade!’
I warned, and tossed it toward the enemy. My headset bleeped in warning just
before it exploded in a puff of smoke, scattering burning phosphor around me.

The
Loyalist fire stopped, but I remained fixed to the ground. They would be
surprised or confused by the smoke grenade, but I knew it would only be for a
second. They weren’t idiots.

I had
done the best I could by blinding them with smoke. I needed to buy some time
for delta to hook around and assault from the flank, freeing me to collect
Gritt and extract the section. I prayed that he was the only casualty, because
if we had more we would struggle to get away. I hadn’t seen anyone else behind
me.

The
Loyalist fire resumed, and I forced my body ever lower, gritting my teeth as
more chips of wood landed on my helmet.

‘You’ve
got to move quick, Puppy!’ I urged. ‘We don’t have time to mess about!’

‘I’m on
it!’ Puppy, my 2ic, replied angrily.

I ignored
his rude reply, understanding his frustration. No commander liked to be rushed,
especially when he was probably already rushing.

Suddenly
a blue crosshair popped up on my display to the right of the enemy, and I
breathed a sigh of relief. I didn’t think I had ever felt such elation at the
sight of a net crosshair before.