EDEN (The Union Series) (5 page)

Puppy
helped the fallen trooper to his feet. ‘Nothing. A sprained ankle! He’s just
being weak!’

I
resisted the urge to laugh elatedly; Wildgoose would live.

‘Let’s
get going, then!’

We continued
our charge up the hill. The enemy fire seemed to become infrequent and
inaccurate as we approached the lip of the valley. Then, just as we reached the
top, a series of almighty explosions rocked the ground beneath our feet with an
almighty thump. The first orbital salvo had struck the ground, blasting our OP,
and anything nearby to it, into atoms.

I
stopped. ‘Myers, get your stretcher out!’

The
stretcher was quickly assembled, and we gently lowered Gritt from my shoulder.
I checked his datapad; he was alive - just about.

As Gritt
was strapped onto the stretcher, I cast a glance through the trees, spotting
something silver darting across the sky. The saucers had arrived, and not a
moment too soon. I felt relief as I heard their cannon strafing the forest
below, attacking anything that carried a weapon, and I didn’t worry when I saw
smart missiles launching into the sky moments later.

Let the
Loyalists do battle with our saucers, I thought. I didn’t even care if they
shot the robotic craft down, so long as they kept our foe occupied long enough
for us to make our extraction point.

‘Good to
go,’ Myers announced once more.

I turned
back to see my section standing ready with the stretcher. ‘Good. Follow me.’

Our
dropship banked hard as it soared over the pickup point - a large crater just
over a hundred metres across. I didn’t wait for it to land, I started signalling
for my section to collapse from their defensive positions around the lip of the
crater, and move close in to me at its centre.

I patted
Gritt on the shoulder as the dropship came to hover beside us, its open ramp
just touching the ground.

‘You’ll
be alright, mate,’ I assured him, though I knew he couldn’t hear a word I said.
Gritt had sustained his sucking chest wound almost an hour ago, but he had
survived so far. He looked like a boy, not much older than Myers, but his looks
were deceiving. Like all troopers, he was a tough bastard.

The
section snatched up the stretcher as they bundled into the dropship, strapping
it onto the central isle, before taking their seats either side. The crew
compartment was cramped already without a stretcher in the middle, and they
were forced to keep their feet up on the opposing seats, their legs
interlocked.

I was the
last to mount-up, quickly placing my rifle in its rack just as the dropship
raised away from the ground. No sooner had I taken my seat and clipped my
straps together, than the dropship accelerated hard, its rear ramp still
closing as it raced away from the pickup point.

As the dropship
banked, I caught one last sight of the valley - a pillar of black smoke telling
of the orbital bombardment, and another of the Loyalist attack onto the
village.

Those bastards, I thought,
my jaw tightening.

Myers caught my eye
from where he sat across from me, just as the dropship weaved around some
unseen obstacle at breakneck speed.

‘You alright, Andy?’
He asked.

Not really
,
just when I thought the world couldn’t sink to
lower depths, I had witnessed an attack onto a civilian village
.
Eden
was hardly a biblical paradise; it was merely another manmade hell.

‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I
lied. ‘Everyone else OK?’

There was a chorused,
‘Yeah.’

Satisfied, I switched
my headset over to the dropship intercom to confirm our route would be via
Paraiso.

There was no point in
taking Gritt to our patrol warren hidden in the Bosque, when another five
minutes flight would take him to first-class medical care in the provincial
capital; we would drop him off right at the hospital, where a team of doctors
and medics would be waiting to take him away.

It was said that if
you turned up at Paraiso hospital with a pulse, then you would almost certainly
leave with one. Built to serve one of the most affluent and privileged populations
on Eden, it was known to house some of the best medical facilities in the
galaxy.

We were in the air
for no more than ten minutes before the dropship rapidly decelerated, tossing
us against our straps as it came in to land fast.

‘Get the casualty
ready,’ the dropship commander ordered over the intercom. ‘Ramp down in ten
seconds!’

‘Ramp down in ten!’ I
shouted, and we quickly removed the straps that held Gritt’s stretcher in place,
just as light burst into the compartment.

We didn’t have to
move from our seats - as soon as the ramp was horizontal the medics leapt onto
it, dragging the stretcher out of the isle and carrying it away so fast that if
I’d blinked then I might have missed it.

There was no stopping
for breaks, as soon as the stretcher and the medics were clear of the ramp we
rose once more, treated to an unspoilt view of Paraiso city as we turned to
make our way back into the Bosque. It was a breath-taking sight - a great
metropolis built into a deep, ancient crater. Spires of glass gleamed in the
setting sun, towering high above the lip of the crater in their reach for the
heavens, and around them great domes contained rich suburbs, offices and
high-tech factories. As the ramp slowly rose, I wondered how a province of such
wealth and beauty could exist right beside such a brutal warzone.

‘Do you think Gritt
will be OK?’ Myers asked me, just as the ramp slammed shut and the dropship
accelerated once more. He blinked furiously, which I took as genuine concern
for his friend.

I regarded him for a
second. ‘I think so.’

‘I hope so,’ Puppy
said with a laugh. ‘I want to tell him you told the lads to plug his arse!’

I smiled as the
compartment roared with laughter, for a second forgetting the horror of the
world we lived in. ‘Mate! Trust you to remember that!’ I said.

Back to the contents page

Paraiso

‘What was all that
about?’ The sergeant major scowled as he regarded me from where he sat on the
end of his metal cot bed.

I stared back at him
blankly, unsure of what to say in response. I still wore all of my combat
equipment, having been summoned to his chamber as soon as my section returned
through the patrol warren airlock. I was coated in mud, the result of several
days living in a hole, followed by a lengthy fire fight.

I was also exhausted.
After leaving Gritt in the capital, we had been dropped several kilometres away
from the warren and left to patrol back - a purposeful act intended to avoid
giving away our location. The warren was on the western fringe of the Paraiso
province, where it bordered with Edo. There was still a threat from Edo itself,
which up until recently had been fighting a guerrilla campaign against Paraiso,
sabotaging maglev rails and attacking factories. The Loyalist attack from the
north had ended the campaign, but we still needed to be careful, the Bosque was
a wild and dangerous place where anything could happen.

The sergeant major
had been eating, but despite having a spoon in one hand and a horror bag in the
other, he still looked like a nasty piece of work in the dimly lit burrow
chamber. I saw that his patrol kit was arranged about his cot bed, and his
rifle was laid across his lap. He must have only just returned to the burrow
recently, pulled off the ground from the brigade OP screen deep within the
Bosque, and I suspected it had something to do with my section being
compromised.

He raised an eyebrow.
‘Well?’

‘We were
compromised,’ I replied flatly.

The scowl deepened. ‘I
know you were compromised, you belter! Why?’

Even dressed in full
combat equipment with my bayonet still fixed to the end of my rifle, I couldn’t
help but feel awkward under the recce 2ic’s withering glare. Sergeant Major
Davies was as intimidating as they came. With sharp, hawk-like features and a
shaven skull that some troopers swore he waxed, you could be forgiven for
thinking that you were looking at the Devil himself. He was also an operator. A
sergeant major didn’t get to be the recce 2ic by simply being good - he had to
know his job inside out - and everybody else’s as well. When he asked a
question, you answered honestly, or he would sniff you out like a rat.

I explained how the
suit had fired its weapons from only metres away, threatening to collapse my OP
and give away my position, but he wasn’t satisfied.

‘So, you gave away
your position - in order to prevent your position from being given away?’

‘I allowed myself to
become compromised under my terms,’ I corrected, ‘rather than theirs.’

‘Is that why?’ His
eyes narrowed. ‘Is that really the thought process you used? Or was it simply
because you fancied having a pop?’

‘No, Sir,’ I argued.

His eyes burned with
rage as he glared up at me, looking as though any minute he might pounce up and
start throwing punches. For a second I considered whether or not I could take
him if he did.

Shut up, Moralee,
I scolded myself,
what the hell is wrong with you?

‘It pisses me off
that I’ve been made to collapse my platoon from the OP screen,’ he continued.
‘Four separate OPs, all abandoned and filled in. It also pisses me off that
priceless intelligence, gathered by your OP, is probably rendered worthless
now, because the Loyalists will know we have it. They’ll change the scramble on
their net, and that’ll be the end of that. All thanks to you.’

I swallowed hard as
the sergeant major raised his spoon, pointing it at me like a gun.

‘What really pisses
me off, though, Lance Corporal Moralee, and frankly worries me,’ he continued, ‘is
that one of my section commanders is using his section as a fucking death
squad. We’re recce. Yes, we
do
get punchy tasks, yes, we
are
the
special forces of the battalion, but we are not here to rack up kills! Do you
understand me?’

I nodded slowly. ‘I
understand, Sir. I can assure you that I made my decision with only the
tactical situation in mind.’

He went on, the anger
in his voice increasing. ‘Sixth battalion recce have had to plug the gap we
have left behind. Sixth!’ He spat the word as though he found it disgusting. ‘Brigade
will be questioning whether we’re up to the task here. It’s fucking
embarrassing! To make it worse, I have one of my troopers, one of
your
troopers, in a critical condition. It’s a miracle he made it into surgery, I’m
told!’

I remained silent. There
was nothing I could say in response - he had gone for the jugular, near enough
making me personally responsible for Gritt’s injuries. 

The sergeant major
lowered his spoon. ‘Look, Lance Corporal Moralee, you’re a good NCO. You lead
from the front, and you like to get stuck in to it. We need people like that
right now, especially with the way this shithole is going. I know you were top
third out of your recce course, otherwise you wouldn’t have been sent here to
us in the first place. I certainly don’t doubt your ability. What we don’t
want, though, is you using this place as an opportunity to wage your own
personal war on the world. Do you understand that?’

‘Sir.’

He stared at me in
silence for a few moments, and then sighed deeply. ‘Have you handed the scanner
in to Electronic Warfare downstairs?’

‘Puppy would have
handed both section scanners in by now, Sir.’

‘OK. We might as well
take the data and get it up to brigade, not that it’ll be any use in a few
hours.’ He paused. ‘How was Gritt when you left him?’

‘He’ll live,’ I replied.

‘Well that’s the main
thing, I suppose. And the men?’

‘They’re fine.’

‘Good. I’m sending
your section back to Paraiso tomorrow morning for some rest.’

‘Sir, I’d rather just
stay here …’ I protested.

‘I hardly think
you’re in a position to dictate to me what you would prefer to do,’ the
sergeant major replied harshly, the spoon raised again to point again at my
head. ‘Don’t get into thinking that I give a shit about
you
, right now.’

‘Sir.’

He lowered the spoon,
stabbing it into the food inside his horror bag. ‘Your blokes need rest - a bit
of time in civilization will do them good. They just saw one of their mates
shot to bits, after all. Don’t listen to any of that false bravado shit they
push out, half of your lads are kids and they’ll need trauma counselling. It’s
pink and it’s fluffy, but it keeps troopers from losing the plot, and believe
it or not, I can’t simply replace recce troopers by clicking my fingers. You’ve
lost one already.’

I swallowed hard,
saying nothing.

‘You’re all going,
end of story,’ he summarised. ‘Understand?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

The sergeant major
resumed eating. ‘Good. Now, get away from me before
I
lose the plot.’

I promptly left the
sergeant major’s chamber, my head lowered as I negotiated the narrow warren tunnels
toward my own little manmade cave.

My mind was spinning.
Was the sergeant major right, was I really as dangerous to the platoon as he
was suggesting? I was sure that I had broken out from my OP with no motive
other than the defence of my section, but now I wondered if maybe something
else was working within my mind. Would one of the other section commanders have
done the same thing? Would Puppy have done the same thing? My blood boiled as I
considered the question.

God, I hated Puppy,
and yet I loved him. People often said that there was a fine line between love
and hate, and that statement was never as true as it was with me and him.

Puppy was simply
amazing. He never set a foot wrong. The lads looked up to him - even though
physically he was the shortest man in the platoon - and they were right to. He
was more than capable as a section second in command, as well as a recce
commander, and he had taken out patrols of his own plenty of times before. Tough,
intelligent, and with a wicked sense of humour, Puppy was a natural leader
whose ability was shrouded only by my seniority as a lance corporal - that and
my Union Star. Although he had been in drops for longer than I had, he had only
been a lance corporal for half the time, and hadn’t yet completed the Recce Commander’s
Course. I had no doubt that he was good enough to return to Uralis and pass it,
since he was already at the standard required. I often wondered if he resented
me for being placed in charge of the section. I had been fortunate enough to be
placed straight onto Recce Commanders after achieving top student on the Basic
Recce Course only weeks prior, which effectively qualified me as a full
corporal within the elite arm of the dropship infantry.  It meant that I was
more qualified than Puppy, even though we shared the same rank. He never showed
any sign of bitterness toward me, though. It was obvious that the section
didn’t need me even half as much as it needed him. If I was the head of the
section, then he was its beating heart, keeping the men happy, motivated and
even laughing when others might break down and cry.

The light sticks that
I used to illuminate my chamber had died out long ago, so I cracked a couple
more as I entered, bathing the tiny underground room in dim yellow light as I
stripped off my kit in solitude.

I was glad that I
lived alone in my own chamber, away from the section. I struggled to get on
with people on a personal level, and found joining in with their banter and
mindless conversations hard. I didn’t mind it for a while, but I always yearned
for time to myself, to think of the future, to reflect on my past, and to
grieve for my friends.

I placed my kit down
at my feet and gently sat on the end of my cot bed, the old metal frame
protesting under my weight. I looked at the walls of my tiny chamber, studying
the shapes of the shadows cast across them by the light sticks. They were
blank, without a single picture or memento. What would I possibly want to
remember? My past was soaked with blood and clouded by misery, and the less I
thought of it, the better.

Minutes passed before
I finally shook my head, wrenching myself out of my funk.
Snap out of it,
Andy
, I told myself as I stood,
there are still things to do and they
aren’t going to get done as long so you sit on your bed sulking. You chose this
life, so deal with it.

Leaving my chamber to
find the section, I ran through a mental checklist in my head, working out what
tasks still needed to be done. As the section second in command, Puppy would already
be busy administering the men, but it was a task delegated down to him from me.
Ultimately I was responsible for the section, and it was me who needed to check
that everything was done properly before I allowed my men to rest.

We needed to recharge
the batteries on our rifles. They hadn’t been active for much of the time we
had spent in the OP, but even a single per cent of battery life kept our
weapons operating for an hour longer on the ground, and it might be that hour
that saved our lives. We needed fresh rations and ammunition, respirator filters
needed to be cleaned or replaced if required, and our gel armour needed to be
inspected for any sign of excessive wear and tear. Although capable of stopping
shrapnel and even darts fired at a great range by hardening on impact, the
armour could easily be damaged after a prolonged period of use, so it needed to
be checked regularly. Only once all this had been carried out, and I was
satisfied that my section could deploy again if required, would I return to my
chamber to eat. After that I would try to sleep.

The section room was already
a hive of activity, with Puppy at its centre. Fresh magazines were laid out
onto the floor, and the old ones were being sorted into piles depending on
whether they were full or not. Regardless of the amount of ammunition left in
each magazine, they would still be taken away to be checked over and
reconditioned. The MSG-20 rifle that most of us carried was a complex weapon,
and even the slightest fault in a magazine could affect its ability to function
properly.