The Battle Ground Series: Books 1-3

by Rachel Churcher

  Before long, I’m out of the woods, and running along the bypass – but something’s wrong. It’s much too quiet. I haven’t seen a single car. I slow down, looking for traffic or people. Someone taking a walk. Someone driving to the shops.

  But there’s no one here.

  I stop, and step into the road. I turn around, and look up and down the carriageway, but there are no cars – no vehicles at all. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up. This is wrong.

  I step back onto the pavement and start to run again, faster this time. I need to get into town. I need to see people and traffic, and reassure myself that everything is normal. I’m breathing heavily and I can feel the sweat, cold against my back, as I reach the industrial estate.

  Town

  I’m walking into town, along the busy road I’ve come to know, but the buildings that should be here are gone. The road is blocked with cars, all empty, all silent. The trees are ragged shards of splintered wood. The road surface is split with deep cracks.

  I can’t take in what I’m seeing. This is our town – it should be full of people. People driving, people walking, people carrying shopping and walking dogs and bringing their children home from school. I don’t know where the people are.

  Along the road, between the cars, I see pieces of people’s lives. There’s a handbag, dropped next to a car. A brightly coloured raincoat on the grass verge. A pink teddy bear. A single red glove.

  I keep walking, past the skeletons of buildings. Shops, offices, factories, schools; all demolished. Here and there a steel frame breaks the skyline, or the corner of a brick wall. I hold my gun more tightly. I’m searching for any sign of life, or any clue as to what happened here.

  All I can think is that the terrorists must hate us, to do something like this. To attack ordinary people, far from any government buildings. To destroy everything in town.

  And suddenly, I can’t breathe. I’m on my knees at the side of the road, clawing at my helmet, twisting it out of the neck seal on my suit, taking great gasps of air as I try to calm down and think clearly. Who did this? Why would they attack here? Where are all the people?

  The silence is terrifying. I can hear gusts of wind whistling through the remains of the buildings, and something creaking on the other side of the road. With my helmet off, this feels way too real.

  There’s a faint chemical scent in the air. I can’t place it, but it doesn’t smell fresh or natural. I check my contamination panel and it’s a pale shade of pink in the Chemical zone. I take a few more deep breaths and put my helmet back on, sealing myself off from the cold reality.

  I pull myself to my feet, force myself to keep walking.

  More cars. More buildings. More splinters of trees.

  And then I see movement, up ahead. Figures in suits like mine, but black all over. Their black visors are closed, and the grey daylight reflects from their helmets as they crouch down in a parking lot to inspect something on the ground.

  I shouldn’t be here. I can’t risk being seen. There’s a third figure, walking round the building beside them, gun cradled across its body. It stops near the crouching suits and stands guard, gaze sweeping up and down the road as they work. I freeze. I can’t afford to be seen.

  Slowly, I crouch down and crawl into the road, between the cars, silent as I can be. I sit with my back against the wheel of a grey family car, gun across my knees, out of sight, and wait.

  Under the car next to me, there’s a shoe, the kind a woman might wear to work in an office. Slip-on – hard to run in, and easy to lose. I look more closely at the car, and realise that the front door is open, just a crack. Someone has opened it, and not stopped to close it. They’ve not stopped to pick up the shoe, either. Or the handbag. Or the teddy bear.

  Did the people in the cars get out and run away? Or were they dragged from their cars while they were trying to drive? A little further ahead along the road, the cars are not in straight lines any more. They’re slewed across the road, diagonal and messy, like a bad accident. There’s a car half up on the verge, near the parking lot where the people in suits are working. The drivers were trying to avoid something, to get away from something.

  My suit radio crackles to life, and I start, and nearly drop my gun. A local broadcast from somewhere in town.

  “All units East, all units East: report.”

  So these are government troops. I’ll be in trouble if they find me, but I won’t be a prisoner. We’re on the same side. I mute my microphone, hold my breath, and wait to see who responds.

  “Unit Five, condition green. Over.”

  “HQ to Unit Five: understood. Over.”

  “Unit Three, condition green. Over.”

  “HQ to Unit Three: understood. Over.”

  I risk a glance over the cars to the parking lot. The guard taps his wrist to activate his radio, and I hear his voice.

  “Unit Two, condition amber. Code 17 in location 128. Proceeding as ordered. Over.”

  “HQ to Unit Two: understood. Do you require backup? Over.”

  “Negative, HQ. This is routine. Object will be ready for pickup in 5 minutes. Over.”

  “HQ to Unit Two: acknowledged. Pickup authorised. Continue to your next retrieval location. HQ out.”

  That means more soldiers heading this way. I need to disappear.

  Two cars ahead of me on the road is an SUV, with tall wheel arches and the ground clearance to match. If I can get under there, I’ll be out of sight to anyone walking along the road.

  I swing my gun into its clips on my back, and lie face-down in the road. I start to crawl, low against the pavement, on my elbows and knees. Past the car I have been sitting against, past the gap between the car opposite and the car in front. I’m being as quiet as I can, but it’s hard to tell how much noise I’m making in the silence.

  The radio beeps in my ear, and I lie still in the road.

  “Unit Two to HQ: we’re done here. Heading out to location 129. Object is ready for retrieval at location 128. Over.”

  “HQ to Unit Two: good work, ladies and gents. Keep it up. HQ Out.”

  The people in the parking lot are moving on. I need to be under that SUV. I start to crawl again, as fast as I dare.

  I’m getting closer to the parking lot. I catch sight of the object, a grey cylinder with red markings, through the gap under the car next to me. The people in the suits are standing near it. I can see their boots and gloves as they collect up their equipment and pack it into black cases.

  Very slowly, I crawl along the road, and silently thank my luck when I notice that the car next to me has run into the car in front, closing the gap and keeping me out of sight while I crawl to the SUV. I keep glancing at the object and the soldiers, glimpsing them through the gaps under the cars. I’m almost at the SUV, trying to avoid the broken glass and plastic in the road from the car crash next to me. I crawl past the rear wheel, just as the soldiers pick up their cases and start to walk towards the road. Towards me.

  I reach the SUV, and start to roll underneath. My gun catches on the door, and I’m stuck in the road. I can’t see the boots, but I know they’re getting closer. I roll back, into the road, my heartbeat loud in my ears. I grab my gun, tear off my helmet, and roll under the vehicle. Freeze.

  I can hear footsteps, loud on the pavement, and the small sounds that armour makes as you walk. I hold my breath. I can hear muffled voices – they must be using their radios to talk to each other on a private channel. I hear laughter, and someone breaks stride, scuffing their feet on the ground.

  My lungs are burning. My limbs are aching. My hands are wrapped tightly around my helmet and gun. I will myself to stay still.

  And then the boots are there, in the road, next to me. Three soldiers. They’ve seen me. They must have seen me. They stop, and someone spins on the spot, a dance move, absurd in this place of silence. More laughter, and the boots move on, out of sight.

  It takes me a moment to believe that I am safe, to breathe again, to rel
ax. My heart is hammering, and I’m shaking, but I’m still here. I lie still for a minute or two to give the soldiers time to move away.

  And then I realise what the object is. It should be impossible, it shouldn’t be here, but the more I think about it, the more I’m sure. That’s a government weapon.

  I think about our weapons training video. Grey cylinder. Red markings. It’s a City Killer.

  There will be many of them, in a grid across the town. They will have been dropped, by drone, into accurate positions, and activated remotely. Individually, they wouldn’t do much damage, but together? In a network, they work together to trigger an electro-magnetic pulse. That knocks out anything electrical: cars, phones, radios, lights – anything that runs on electricity. Then they co-ordinate to produce a ground tremor, faint at first, but escalating until buildings fall apart, trees shake themselves to pieces, and people fall. The drones fly back into range and watch the process, and when the destruction is sufficient, the remote operators shut off the devices. Job done.

  If you want to make sure there are no survivors, you add a chemical element. Gas canisters that open when the shaking stops. I look down at my contamination panel – the colour is getting darker. Nowhere near the danger point yet, but there are residual chemicals in the air.

  I’m missing something. The terrorists don’t have these weapons – they’re far too advanced. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was mistaken about what I saw.

  I need to see the object up close.

  Danger

  Keeping very still, I hold my breath and listen to the sounds around me. The soldiers have gone – far enough away that I can no longer hear their footsteps. I can hear the wind, whistling through the ruins. There’s no other sound.

  Very carefully, I slide myself out from under the SUV. I check behind and ahead of me on the road, then sit up and put my helmet on, twisting it back onto my suit. Gripping my gun tightly, I push up into a crouch, and raise my head so I can see over the cars to the object.

  No one around. I duck back down, check my surroundings again, then stand. Bent low to stay out of sight, I walk round the crashed cars in front of me and into the parking lot.

  The object is a grey metallic cylinder, about waist-height, and as wide as my shoulders. It has a domed top, which makes it look like a missile, waiting for launch. But this thing has been launched. It’s dropped its payload. The soldiers I saw were making sure of that. This is the mechanism for the EMP and the tremors, with an empty chemical tank, nothing more.

  I walk around the object. The red markings on its side confirm my suspicions – this is a government weapon. The codes relate to its function, but also its deployment commands. There’s a computer-readable code printed on the side. I try scanning it with my glove.

  My radio announces, loudly, the unit and commander of the force that activated this weapon, but I don’t believe what I am hearing. That can’t be right. I scan it again.

  “Commander Holden, Special Weapons Unit, Emergency Armed Forces Act. 7866577B-12”

  The Emergency Armed Forces Act.

  The reason I’m here.

  The government did this.

  *****

  I’m shaking. I’m shaking and I’m angry and I don’t know how to understand what I’m seeing. I sit down, hard, on the cold ground. There are tears in my eyes, on my cheeks, running in hot streams down my neck and soaking the collar of my base layers.

  I stare at the object. The government’s weapon. My army’s weapon, used on my town, and on innocent people. My people.

  We’re not the terrorists! We’re not killing people and taking hostages and breaking this country. We’re fighting the terrorists. We’re protecting the people. We’re guarding hospitals and schools and factories all over the country, making sure that life can continue, that the terrorists won’t win.

  Aren’t we?

  What happened here?

  What the hell happened?

  My radio barks to life. The cleanup team is here. I can hear the sound of their vehicle approaching: time to move.

  I stand up and look for somewhere to hide. At the back of the parking lot, away from the road, are the remains of a building. This used to be a row of shops, and there’s a brick corner still standing, next to an empty doorway. I jog over to the door, gun raised, and step through into the shadow of the wall. I crouch down, and make sure no one outside can see me.

  The frame of the roof, and the wooden beams that supported the second floor, are jumbled on top of the pile of bricks behind me. If anyone comes looking for me, I’m trapped, but I’m counting on them not being here to explore.

  The noise of their recovery vehicle turns to a roar in the quiet street as they pull out from a side road and drive along the verge, driving into the cars and pushing them out of the way. There’s a crashing sound and a screaming of metal dragging against metal.

  A pickup truck with oversized wheels hurls itself into the parking lot and stops next to the weapon. There’s a crack in the brickwork in front of me, and I use it to watch the pickup team jump from the truck, scan the weapon, and load it onto the back of the vehicle. I expect them to jump back in and drive away, but instead they stand around, stretching and rolling their shoulders, talking on a private channel.

  One of them checks his contamination panel, shrugs, and takes off his helmet. He takes a deep breath, and grins. The others join him – helmets off, ration packs out. They’re taking a meal break, here.

  And then I see their faces clearly. It’s Jackson and Ketty, and another of the Senior Recruits, laughing and eating ration bars as if this is all a joke. The bruises on my ribs are still fresh, and I know they mustn’t find me here. I might not be so lucky this time.

  Jackson laughs, and points to something on the ground in front of my hiding place. For a chilling moment I think he’s pointing at me, but the others turn and laugh, and I’m still hidden. He jogs across to my hiding place and stands with his back to the wall, blocking my view of the others. He’s so close – I mustn’t move. I mustn’t make a sound. He picks something up from the ground, and jogs back to the truck.

  My legs are cramping, and I’m regretting not finding a more comfortable hiding place. I cannot move – I cannot give myself away. I’ve already overstayed my time in town, and I’ll miss roll call if I don’t head back soon. I’m starting to regret this whole adventure. I had to come and see for myself, but what good has it done me? I’ve only earned myself another beating and a punishment detail. I check my contamination panel. Darker than before.

  It’s a lipstick. They’ve picked up a lipstick from the ground in front of me, and now they’re trying to catch each other’s suits with it, shouting and dodging the tiny weapon. Eventually, Ketty gets hold of it, and convinces the others to stand still. She holds their heads steady, and draws war paint on their faces. Three stripes from hairline to chin for Jackson, running over his closed eyes. Angled stripes on the cheekbones for the other man, and one stripe for her, splitting her face in two from forehead to neck. Laughing, she tosses the lipstick away, and climbs back into the truck.

  I watch the lipstick roll across the pavement and out of sight.

  The truck engine starts. All three put their helmets on, and settle into their seats. Ketty guns the engine and angles the truck across the road, ploughing the cars out of the way as she goes. The noise is like pain, and I know she’s laughing.

  After

  Dinner is tight, but I make it. I walk back to camp through the trees, keeping out of sight for as long as possible, sticking to the shadows. I slip back in under the fence, and start jogging round the perimeter, as if I’ve been running circuits of the field all afternoon. At the dormitory, I break away from the fence and let myself in through the back door, stripping off my helmet and gloves as I hurry along the corridor.

  I have time to drop my armour and gun into the crate, throw my fatigues on over my base layers, and head towards the hall. The meal bell rings as I reach the doorway, and I’m in
line with everyone else when Commander Bracken and Robin the clipboard carrier walk through the front door for the evening briefing. For a moment, I wonder where the Senior Recruits are, but then I experience a vivid flash of memory: Ketty ploughing her vehicle through the lines of cars. I close my eyes and shake my head with the realisation that everything that has happened this afternoon, everything I saw out there, was real.

  My knees start to give way, and I’m fighting to stay standing. I put my hand on the edge of a table to support my weight. Someone is calling my name, and I realise that I’m at the front of the queue. Someone behind me pushes me gently forwards, and I manage to take a tray and accept a bowl of food. I force myself to take a bottle of water from the table, and I turn round to look for a seat. Dan is on the far side of the room, waving me over. I start walking towards him. All the sound in the room seems very loud and very distant at the same time. I can’t hear what anyone is saying, but everyone keeps talking at once. I take one step, and another, and keep going until I reach Dan’s table. I put my tray down, pull out a chair, and sit.

  I can’t even look at the food in front of me. I’m still trying to understand what happened to the people. I remember the contamination panel, and the City Killer. The gas. The cars. The woman’s shoe. The teddy bear.

  I put my head in my hands and close my eyes, tight.

  Dan is saying something to me. He’s crouching next to me on the floor, gently shaking my shoulder. I need to move. I need to get control of myself, and look as if I’m OK. I take a deep breath, and look up.

  “Bex, seriously. What’s the matter?”

  “I’m OK,” I mumble. “I’m OK.” I shake his hand off my shoulder, sit up straight, and pull my chair in closer to the table. I make an effort to look around, and smile at the people next to me.

  “I’m OK. Honestly.” I pick up my fork, but I still can’t force myself to eat. I poke my food while Dan goes back to his seat. Everyone is watching me. Dan looks at me with concern. He reaches across the table and takes my hand.