INVASION: UPRISING (Invasion Series Book 3)

by Dc Alden

  Mac turned around and booted the door of the house open. ‘Inside,’ he ordered Eddie and the others.

  They piled in and cleared the ground floor. Eddie followed Mac up the narrow stairs, keeping low as they entered the main bedroom. It was neat, but the windows had been shattered by gunfire and rain had soaked the glass-strewn carpet. The occupants were an elderly couple, Eddie reckoned, clocking the frames of beaming kids on the sideboard.

  A volley of incoming rounds cracked off the flint wall outside, but they were wild. Mac took one window, Eddie the other. He peered over the sill and checked the open ground they’d just vacated. The wall he’d taken cover behind had been blown apart in several places. Dead bodies lay sprawled in the grass.

  ‘Fuck me, that was close,’ Eddie whispered. Somewhere to the south, gunfire rattled. There was no mistaking the repetitive thump of the Ripsaw’s auto-cannon.

  Mac grinned. ‘Give ‘em hell, ya wee bastard.’ His smile slipped as he pressed his scope against his eye. ‘Here they come.’

  Eddie did the same and saw a sizeable group of armed men crossing the distant roundabout and heading through the trees towards the hamlet. ‘I count 30, maybe more.’

  Mac keyed his radio. ‘Digger, bring your gun up here.’

  Boots thumped up the narrow stairs and Digger appeared a moment later. ‘Where d’you want me?’

  Mac pointed. ‘Window. Arc of fire is everywhere in front of you. Take out the HVTs, signallers, and any heavy weapons.’

  ‘Roger.’

  ‘Where’s Steve?’

  ‘Getting a brew on.’ He saw Mac’s face and winked. ‘He’s covering the downstairs with two other guys.’

  Digger set up next to Eddie and squinted through his more-powerful scope. ‘I’ve got movement, trees on the other side of the roundabout, one-five-zero metres.’

  Mac swung his rifle around. ‘Sneaky fuckers,’ he whispered. ‘Possible command element. When it starts, thin ‘em out.’

  ‘Rog.’

  Eddie rested his gun barrel on the sill, and the world jumped a little brighter through his holographic scope. ‘Another 20-plus targets moving towards our location. That’s what, 80 now? Maybe a hundred.’

  Next to him, Eddie grinned. ‘Try not to shit your pants, Novak.’

  ‘Piss off.’ Eddie kept his eye pressed to his scope. There was shouting from the darkness below, voices down in the trees, in a tongue Eddie didn’t understand. The intention, however, was clear enough.

  ‘Here we go,’ Mac warned, jamming his M27 into his shoulder. ‘Make your rounds count, boys.’

  No one moved. Eddie breathed slow and easy, a gloved finger resting on his trigger, his heart pounding.

  The shadowy world outside sparkled like Christmas lights—

  A storm of noise and gunfire slammed into the house, chewing flint and timber, and punching dusty holes through the walls. Digger was already firing, the semi-automatic DMR kicking in his shoulder while he jabbered away to himself.

  ‘Hit! Down you go, fucker. Next one…stay still…good boy.’ Boom. ‘Hit. Stupid twat. Who’s next?’

  Eddie was firing too, trying to focus on his targets, his eyes distracted by the hundreds of red and orange tracer rounds crisscrossing his line of fire. Grenades cracked in the garden below, smoke and fragmentation, and the first screams shrilled on the night air. Eddie couldn’t tell if they were friend or foe, but he saw Hajis running from tree to tree, charging towards the house. Rounds poured in through the window, then something hit the wall outside with an almighty bang. Eddie hit the deck. Dust filled the air.

  ‘RPG!’ he yelled.

  Mac was on the carpet too, coughing violently. Digger was still firing. Mac yanked him to the floor.

  ‘Downstairs, now!’

  Digger went first, oblivious to the rounds that were chewing the walls to pieces and filling the air with dust. Mac shoved Eddie forward. ‘Move! Next one is coming straight through that window!’

  Eddie rumbled down the stairs on his belly. He got to his feet and ran into the kitchen, scrambling behind the marble-topped centre island with the others. The windows that overlooked the garden were all smashed, the frames splintered. Steve crouched beneath the sink, changing out his magazine.

  ‘They’re closing in, Mac.’

  ‘Then get some fucking rounds downrange! You see anyone with a heavy weapon, drop ‘em first!’

  Mac stood up and fired in short, controlled bursts. Eddie did the same, and Digger was rocking his DMR from the shoulder. Steve racked and pumped a couple of grenade rounds out towards the shadows that were dodging towards them, firing, screaming.

  Despite the noise, the yelling and the gunfire, the thump and crack of grenades, Eddie felt an unusual calm envelop him, and he wondered if his own death was imminent. He wasn’t scared now. He was simply fighting for his life, for the lives of his friends, for the terrified families he knew would be cowering in their homes.

  Fire, switch target, fire, switch target…

  He swept his rifle barrel left and right, squeezing the trigger, controlling his rounds, his breathing. He saw targets dropping, and for a moment he thought they might hold their position. Then a fresh sound reached his ears and suddenly the spell was broken. The distant rumble was building into a loud, terrifying clanking.

  ‘Tanks, 12 o’clock!’

  Everyone saw them, two French Leclerc battle tanks rolling up the A1 slip road towards the hamlet, belching white diesel smoke. Fifty-tonne monsters bearing down at 50 miles an hour. Eddie flinched as their 120-millimetre guns roared in unison. The ground shook as a house nearby exploded in a furious blast and a shower of flint shrapnel.

  ‘Jesus!’

  He saw the other two guys from Three Section scramble out of the door and knew they should be right behind them because the tanks would go for the buildings first.

  Mac knew it too. ‘Get the fuck out!’ he screamed. ‘Move—’

  The house exploded in a giant fireball. Eddie felt a wall of pressure before the building came down in a thunderous roar. He fell to the floor, and grey dust swirled and billowed, blinding and choking him. He coughed and spat, then tried to get up, but something immovable was pushing down on his assault pack. The ground shook again as another shell detonated close by. More debris crashed down on top of him. But he didn’t feel it crushing the life from him. He was on all fours, blind and breathless, but he could move. Gunfire rattled, rising and fading, and urgent voices whispered in the dark. Eddie stayed motionless, knees and hands on the ground, trapped in a smoke-filled hole. A Kalashnikov chattered right outside the kitchen window. Something metallic bounced and rattled across the room.

  Grenade—

  Eddie lay flat as the blast rocked the kitchen, and more dust filled the darkness of his tomb. He felt no pain, and he could still move. Then he felt a hand squeezing his arm. He fingered grit from his eyes and Steve’s face loomed out of the dark. Mac squeezed next to him, a pistol in his hand. As the dust cleared he saw Digger, lying face down next to Mac, unconscious and covered in dust and blood. Mac held a finger to his lips and pointed.

  Eddie turned his head slowly, then realised two things at once. The ceiling above had caved in, but they’d been caught in the narrow gap between the sink and the centre island. It had saved them, bearing the brunt of the collapse and trapping them in a dark, dust-filled pocket.

  Then he realised the other thing; they were not alone.

  He heard rapid jabbering in a language he didn’t understand. Through the mesh of collapsed timbers, he saw torches sweeping the wreckage. There was a shout from outside, and the lights disappeared. Close by – too close – a tank engine roared and the walls of the house shuddered. Eddie felt a surge of panic as he imagined the beast rolling over what was left of the house.

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ he whispered.

  Mac shook his head. ‘Don’t move. Don’t talk.’

  Eddie swallowed his fear. They heard more gunfire, some of it their own,
but most of it was AK. What remained of Charlie Company was getting pushed back hard.

  Tank guns roared again. The ear-splitting bangs dislodged more debris, filling the shattered room with choking dust. Explosions shook the ground, and then the firing all but stopped.

  Steve was the first to hear it, a terrible wailing that drifted on the surrounding air, a sound so harrowing that Eddie wanted to clamp his hands over his ears. He knew what it was. So did the others.

  ‘That bastard tank took out the care home,’ Mac said.

  AKs chattered, and the wailing stopped. No one said anything, not until Digger stirred.

  ‘What the fuck?’ he drawled sleepily.

  Mac whispered in his ear. ‘They’ve overrun the hamlet. Get yourself together. We’re moving.’ And then Mac was easing the timbers and broken slabs of plaster aside, making a hole, crawling out. Eddie was the last man; he stayed low, crawling around the kitchen on his hands and knees. Above him, the roof had disappeared and stars flickered in the clear night sky. The rain had stopped, and that was bad news. Rain gave them cover.

  Eddie got to his feet and followed the others as they crept out into the hallway. It was dark, but he could see well enough. He could hear, too. The tank was right next to the house, so close that Eddie could feel the rumble of its mighty engine in his chest. Mac pulled Steve close.

  ‘Take Digger and head due east, into the trees. Don’t stop until you reach the fields. When you get there, stay out of sight and wait for us.’

  ‘What’s the plan?’ Steve whispered.

  ‘The plan is, we’re getting the fuck out of here before they get organised and sweep back through the hamlet. If we’re not there in ten minutes, keep heading east, then north, try to link back up with our guys. Got it?’

  Steve nodded. Mac stood in the twisted doorway of the cottage and looked outside. He waved, and Steve and Digger were moving, turning hard right and into the darkness. Mac watched them go, then slipped outside himself. Shots rang out, but they were some way off. Finishing off the care home residents, Eddie guessed. And the Nine Platoon wounded, probably. The cold grip of vengeance squeezed him, and now he longed for a target. Any target.

  Mac ducked back into the dark hallway. ‘Tank is right beside us,’ he whispered, pointing. ‘How many eggs you got?’

  ‘Four,’ Eddie told him, feeling for the grenade pouches on his tac-vest.

  ‘Okay, that’ll do it.’ Mac went over the plan. Well, a sort-of plan, but Eddie wasn’t worried about the risk. He wanted payback.

  He followed Mac outside and immediately saw the enormous tank barrel pointed to the north. The rattling engine covered the crunch of their boots on the gravel, and then Mac was around the corner. Eddie followed, squeezing through the narrow gap between the tank’s treads and the wall of the house. The smell of warm engine oil and sickly diesel fumes was almost overpowering. The tracks were right by his face, rusted and ugly, and smeared with grease and oil, grass and mud, and God-knew-what else. Just ahead, Mac paused before the open ground at the rear of the tank, and Eddie heard more excited jabbering over the grumbling engine. Mac turned, gave him the thumbs up. Eddie returned the gesture, then Mac was gone.

  Eddie scrambled up the side of the metal monster, using the cage armour to climb on top. He heard the suppressed stutter of Mac’s weapon, saw a body below drop out of sight. He saw the turret hatch ahead, propped open. He checked the immediate area. There were figures around, but it was dark and they were moving north through the trees. Eddie tried to act casual, just in case someone looked his way. He knelt down and plucked four grenades from their pouches, laying them on the turret. Mac climbed up next to him.

  ‘Ready?’ he whispered.

  Eddie nodded. A voice echoed from inside the tank. Mac leaned over the hatch.

  ‘Ya rifaq bakhyr?’

  The voice answered, the tone casual. Mac took two grenades and pulled the pins. Eddie did the same, and then they dropped them into the hatch. Mac kicked it shut, and then they were scrambling off the back end and running hard, past the shattered cottage towards the eastern side of the hamlet. The grenades detonated a moment later, a rapid series of muffled bangs, and then an enormous explosion almost knocked them off their feet.

  Neither of them looked back. Instead, they kept running, dodging through the trees, Eddie following Mac’s shadow, the woods briefly lit by an orange glow before the dark crowded in once more. After another 50 metres, Mac stopped and spun around, taking cover behind a tree. Eddie leap-frogged him and did the same, watching the ground behind them for signs of pursuit. Flames roared above the distant rooftops, and he heard frantic shouts, but no one was headed their way. Still, it didn’t pay to hang around.

  They kept moving east, the woods darker and deeper. After another 15 minutes, the trees thinned out and they saw open ground ahead. Mac took a knee at the edge of the trees and whistled. Eddie heard Steve’s musical response coming from a hedgerow that stretched away in both directions.

  ‘Did you get them?’ Steve whispered.

  ‘Are you deaf?’ Mac grinned.

  ‘Sweet,’ Digger slurred, a field-dressing wrapped around his head.

  ‘How’s he?’

  Steve winced. ‘Concussion. Significant laceration, but ears and nose are clear of fluids. He needs to rest up. Come on, I’ve found a spot.’

  The hedge was a tall hawthorn with vicious barbs. Steve crawled beneath it via a well-worn animal path and they all followed. Eddie was last and found himself in a vast, empty field. Steve led them north, moving quietly, keeping close to the thick boundary and the cover it offered. After five minutes of walking up the gentle incline, Mac called a halt and let Digger down gently.

  ‘It’s all right, I’m fine.’

  ‘You’ve got a concussion,’ Mac told him.

  ‘Stop fussing. Where’s my gun?’

  ‘Back there, buried under that house.’

  Digger swore violently. Eddie scanned the horizon with his scope. More fields stretched into the distance, rising and falling, dissected by dark hedgerows. ‘We’re pretty exposed here.’ He pointed across the field towards a dark cluster of roofs a kilometre away. ‘Looks like a farm down there.’

  ‘I need my gun,’ Digger said, an obvious slur to his words. ‘I feel naked without it.’

  ‘Forget it,’ Mac told him. ‘We wait here. Cover is good and we’re a long way from the hamlet. We keep out of sight, then wait for our boys to catch up. Couple of hours, maybe.’

  Steve turned to the east. ‘Sun’ll be up by then.’

  ‘We can’t get caught out in the daylight,’ Eddie warned.

  ‘And we can’t move. Nipper’s in no fit state.’

  ‘I’m fine, Mac. Stop babying me.’

  ‘Enough of your lip,’ the Scot scolded, ‘or you’ll no get a bedtime story.’

  Eddie grinned in the dark.

  The smile faded as gunfire rattled in the distance.

  32

  Bridge of Sighs

  Beyond the abandoned frontier settlements of Haydon Bridge and Gilsland, the B52s had transformed those heavily-defended areas into vast landscapes of mud and broken earth, scattered with twisted sculptures of metal and concrete. The huge bombs had walked their way from south to north, stamping across the earth, obliterating everything in their path. Minefields, barricades, surveillance systems, oceans of razor wire, SAM batteries, and sub-surface control centres had been vaporised, leaving behind a pockmarked, desolate moonscape beneath the leaden night sky. Operation Rolling Thunder had opened the door. Now it was up to others to keep it open.

  As the last of the mighty aircraft had emptied their bomb racks and climbed back towards the North Atlantic, huge convoys of British and American engineering teams emerged from woods and forests and raced towards the broken, smoke-filled landscape, rumbling down the tracks and approach roads in their specialist vehicles, safe in the knowledge that the enemy troops defending the ground to the south had been temporarily neutralised. Time, now,
was of the essence.

  At Haydon Bridge, the first troops into action were the US Army bulldozer drivers, their giant blades pushing mountains of grey stone down into the shallow South Tyne River, strengthening the banks for the bridge-layers behind them. After they’d spanned the waterway, British Trojan engineering vehicles roared to the opposite bank and began carving a wide path across the frontier with their dozer blades. The road layers followed with their high-density polyethylene panels, quickly forming the first hundred metres of a four-lane highway that would eventually link both sides of the frontier.

  The engineers worked furiously, knowing that combat units waiting in staging areas behind them were desperate to enter the fray and support the spearhead forces now pushing out from the city centres of Newcastle and Carlisle.

  In the low, damp cloud above the engineers, attack drones circled the sky, their wings heavy with Hellfire and Sidewinder missiles. Far above their combat counterparts, surveillance drones swept the ground below, their multi-band sensor packages watching and listening for the reappearance of enemy forces.

  As the new roads stretched across the breaches in the frontier, surviving caliphate SAM units registered aerial activity to the north. Knowing that they were prime targets for the infidel missiles and bombers, the mobile SAM launchers kept their engines running, moving every 15 minutes, desperate to stay one step ahead of the forces they knew were hunting them.

  They also knew something else; the SAM envelope that had protected the skies over the frontier for so long had been torn open.

  At Edinburgh airport, four Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolts took to the pre-dawn skies and headed south on full power. In service since the 1970s, the ‘Hog’, as the A-10 was affectionately known, remained one of the most effective weapons platforms in the US military’s inventory, and the four black aircraft – each decorated with sharks mouth nose art – were carrying some serious ordinance.