EDEN (The Union Series) (4 page)

‘That’s
my location,’ Puppy panted. Clearly he had been running to get into position. ‘Give
me some fire support if you can!’

‘Roger!’
I replied, rolling to one side and lifting my rifle to fire. There was no way I
was going to lift my head and have it blown off, so I used my rifle camera to
aim instead. It wouldn’t be as accurate, but it had to do.

‘Charlie,
prepare to give rapid fire!’

‘Prepare
for rapid!’ two voices repeated.

Thank God,
I thought, only one man was down.

‘Rapid …
FIRE!’

Somehow,
despite being suppressed by such a massive weight of firepower, the three of us
managed to re-join the battle. It wasn’t enough - we were unable to take up
proper fire positions to see the enemy - but at least we were doing something.

Suddenly
another burst of gunfire joined the noise, and somebody shouted out in surprise
as delta launched their attack, breaking out of the vegetation all at once.

The enemy
gunfire stopped instantly, and I leapt from the ground as if I had been
released from a spell.

Delta
rapidly swept through the trees, two men bounding forward, while the other two
covered. As I watched, an enemy soldier writhed amongst the ferns and was
quickly despatched with the steel blade of a Union bayonet. The trooper used
his boot to withdraw the blade, before taking a knee beside the body to cover. Another
Loyalist emerged from hiding, sprinting for dear life to escape the advancing
troopers. He didn’t get far. A massive bang sounded from delta’s Orion sniper
rifle, and the fleeing soldier’s head flew clean off his shoulders in a spray
of crimson, his body disappearing into the undergrowth.

There was
no time to hang about and give praise, instead I hollered out to my section, ‘Prepare
to withdraw!’

The
message repeated, and I looked across to the remainder of my fire team. ‘Get
that casualty …’

There was
no need to say another word; the lads were already on top of him. Myers ripped
open the stricken trooper’s medical pouch, whilst Skelton searched his body for
injuries.

‘He’s
taken a dart to the shoulder,’ Myers shouted, reading straight from Gritt’s
datapad. ‘It looks like it’s passed through his left lung and part of his gut.
Came out just above his arse!’

I stooped
over the casualty, pulling his gel armour aside to inspect the wound. The entry
hole was tiny, but there was a lot of blood. It frothed with little bubbles as
air escaped from his chest cavity. His breathing was laboured, as though his
body was fighting to get air into it. I knew that every time Gritt tried to
breath, he was simply sucking air through the hole into his chest cavity,
rather than through his windpipe and into his one good lung - he was
suffocating.

‘Chest seal
on his shoulder,’ I ordered. ‘Skelton, plug his arse! I want him ready to move
in one minute!’

‘Roger!’

I looked
across at Puppy. Now in line with my fire team, his men scanned their arcs for
enemy.

‘Ready to
move in one minute!’ I repeated.

He gave a
thumbs-up. ‘OK, mate!’

I noticed
that the sound of battle continued in the valley, as the platoon of Loyalists
assaulted the village unabated.

It was
highly unlikely that the platoon commander would ignore the new threat on the high
ground, I thought. For all he knew, we could be preparing to set up our own
fire support location, with him as the target. He also wouldn’t commit another
section to attack us, leaving him no reserve and thus no freedom to manoeuvre
during his attack on the village. Mirroring our own rifle platoons and
dismounted tactics, Loyalist platoons came with only three fighting sections.
If the Loyalist platoon was on its own, then our presence would cause their
platoon commander to stop his attack. There were far more of them out there, I
deduced with a chill, probably a company, or at least another platoon, and no
doubt they were coming for us.

‘How you
getting on?’ I demanded, my impatience growing. We needed to move.

‘Almost
there!’

Myers had
just finished wiping blood away from the wound on Gritt’s shoulder. He ripped a
chest seal from its packaging and pressed it hard against the wound to ensure
that it stuck, taking care to locate the valve just over the hole. It allowed
air to escape, but not to enter, so that air could only be breathed into the
lung and not the chest cavity. Skelton had finished plugging the wound on
Gritt’s back with clotting foam, and was busy wrapping a large abdominal
bandage about his body, having to lift him every time he passed it under his
waist.

‘Good to
go?’ I asked again.

‘Yeah,
good to go!’

 ‘Right,’
I announced, ‘let’s get the fuck out of here!’

Before I
could give the order to move, there was a sudden explosion a hundred metres
away from us, rocking the ground beneath our feet and causing several troopers
to fall backward in surprise.

‘Hurry
up, lads, let’s go!’ I hollered urgently, as Myers helped Skelton to lift the casualty
onto his back, the trooper grunting as the weight bore onto his shoulders.
There was no time to mess around setting up the lightweight stretcher - we
would have to do that later.

I looked
across to Puppy, who waited anxiously for my command. ‘Follow me!’ I shouted.

‘Roger!’

I turned
to the southwest and ran, just as another explosion echoed through the forest,
closer this time. The soft earth must have absorbed some of the blast, because
a quick glance over my shoulder revealed no further casualties.

The section
quickly followed as I bounded uphill away from the village and the enemy
platoon, forming into single file with Myers and Skelton behind me, followed by
delta fire team. I knew that Skelton would be having a hard time keeping up
with Gritt on his shoulder, but I had to create distance from our last
position, as clearly our enemy knew roughly where that was.

With a
blinding flash of light something broke through the canopy to our right,
screaming through the forest at an angle, before suddenly darting toward us and
exploding against a tree a few hundred metres away.

‘Keep
moving!’

I needn’t
have said a word. The section was right behind me, puffing and panting as they
charged up the slope, desperate as I was to get away from the explosions.

The Loyalists
were firing smart missiles at us, probably from the valley below. They were
probably instructing the missiles where to go in the hope that they would find
us once they passed through the canopy, guessing where we might be. The last
missile had seen us, hence its sudden change in direction, but not soon enough
for it to work out a flight path. I knew that eventually one of them might be
lucky, finding its way to us through the trees.

Harried
by a series of further explosions behind us we ran on, powering up the slope at
best speed. I tried to keep my pace reasonable, knowing that the casualty would
slow us down.

‘We need
to change over,’ Myers shouted from behind.

I turned
to see that Skelton was dropping back. He was a strong lad with a similar age
and build to mine, and he wanted to get Gritt to safety as much as I did, but
he was only human and the slope was steep. We had another few hundred metres to
go before we reached the top.

I swore,
knowing that there was no choice. ‘Do it quickly!’

 There
was a thump as another missile struck a good few hundred metres to my north,
and my spirits lifted. It seemed that the enemy had miscalculated our
extraction route.

With a
groan, Myers heaved Gritt over his shoulder and sprinted up the slope toward
me. He was young and skinny, but he was far tougher than he appeared.

We
continued our ascent, our lungs aching with the exertion as we tried to get as
far from the contact point as possible. My respirator motors whirred loudly as
they fought to prevent my visor steaming up, blasting sweat away from my brow.

I
wondered if my messages had made it through to brigade, and flicking to the
brigade net, I said, ‘Zero, this is Blackjack-One-One-Charlie, over!’

The
response was instant. ‘This is Zero, send message.’

We had
the full attention of brigade, of that I had no doubt. If a Blackjack call-sign
was sending contact messages, calling for fire missions and close-air support,
everyone back in Paraiso sat up to take notice.

‘My
call-sign has broken contact, extracting to Emergency Landing Zone One,’ I
panted. ‘Any news on close-air support?’

‘Zero,
roger. Close-air is inbound, two minutes. Confirm you are clear of your second
orbital bombardment grid, I have no eyes on …’

I swore.
Our orbital assets couldn’t see us through the canopy, and had decided not to
drop their payload without confirmation that we were clear of the impact zone.
That was all well and good, but somewhere down in the valley our enemy was
licking his wounds and preparing to follow us up.

‘I am
clear,’ I responded, failing to hide my impatience. ‘I need those bombs to aid
my extraction!’

‘Zero,
understood.’ If the operator on the other end was offended, he didn’t show it.

‘Blackjack-One-One-Charlie,
roger, what about the first location I sent, for the valley base?’

There was
a pause, as though the operator was conferring with someone. ‘Zero, no, we are unable
to prosecute that request. It’s too close to a civilian population.’

‘The
bombs are to protect the civilians,’ I protested as I drove on up the hill. ‘They’re
being attacked by Loyalists!’

‘Understood,
but we cannot drop bombs next to civilians.’

‘Shit!’ I
cursed, switching off the net. There was no point in arguing; brigade had made
their mind up already. Eden Joint Command dictated that no bombs were to be dropped
near to civilian populations in case the Alliance, watching from a distance,
got the wrong idea and launched an attack on the Union. We would allow civilians
to be killed, just so that it didn’t look like we were trying to kill them
ourselves. Like New Earth, Eden was a messed-up place.

A burst
of darts whizzed through the trees, clipping a branch nearby. I wasn’t sure if
the Loyalists had located us, or if they were just trying their luck, firing
into the forest to see if we gave away our position by shouting or firing back.

‘Fucking
hell,’ Myers growled, and I saw that he too was now struggling under the weight
of his wounded comrade.

I
stopped. ‘Give him to me!’

‘I’m
alright,’ he protested, barely able to get the words out. He was clearly
exhausted.

Another
burst cut through the forest. It wasn’t aimed at us directly, but clearly the
enemy had finally worked out which way we were headed. They must have found our
trail - we had hardly been careful in our haste not to make one.

‘This
isn’t the time to be a hero!’ I snapped. ‘Give him here!’

With
Skelton helping, we moved Gritt onto my shoulders. I allowed my rifle to drop
by my waist on its sling as I shifted the trooper to balance across my back,
grasping his legs and arms to hold him in position. God only knew what harm we
were doing to him by carrying him that way, but we didn’t have a choice. If the
Loyalists caught us he’d be dead anyway.

‘Let’s
go!’

I was fit
- far fitter than most of my section. Endless hours of training had seen to
that. I sped up the slope as fast as my legs could carry me, the section
trailing behind. It wasn’t normally the ‘done thing’ to carry casualties as a
section commander, but this wasn’t a normal situation. Not only were we taking
fire, however inaccurate it was, but we were also about to be on the receiving
end of an orbital bombardment. Somewhere high above us co-ordinates were being
confirmed, and trajectories were being calculated, before the nearest ship or
orbital platform finally released its payload onto the surface of Eden.

‘Blackjack-One-One-Charlie,
this is Zero, that’s release nine-five, bombs in the air, bombs in the air!’

I
understood the message from brigade. The first salvo had been dropped -
depleted Uranium bombs that would turn into molten balls of metal as they
plummeted through the atmosphere to smack into the surface like a man-made
meteorite. We had ninety-five seconds before they struck, and we had no way to
call them off.

The enemy
fire increased, and I ducked instinctively as a round cracked overhead, causing
me to stumble forward and drop to my knees.

Cursing,
I picked myself up to continue the withdrawal.

Somebody
hollered from behind, ‘Man down!’

My gut wrenched
- not another one! I set Gritt onto the ground.

Behind me
I could see two of Puppy’s fire team clustering around another fallen trooper,
and my visor display identified it to be Wildgoose, the section sniper.

‘Skelton,
Puppy!’ I ordered. ‘Bombs up, now!’ I pointed downhill toward the source of the
enemy fire, and the grenades were fired seconds later. ‘What’s up with him?’ I
demanded anxiously, ignoring the detonations. We needed to keep moving.