The fall of Union (Rise of the Union Book 1)

by Niall McGrath

  He paused, looking Ryder in the eyes. “Is your head in this? It’s not been a good day for the Union and it’s going to get worse. People like the Sergeant are going to keep giving you a hard time when you’re not a citizen. I need people like you beside me, and I need you at your best.”

  Ah, the Union thought Ryder. After NATO and the UN had fallen the United Earth Nations, or UEN, had rushed to fill the power vacuum. Few of the surviving nations hadn’t signed up after eight long years of negotiations. Some had been too late to get full citizenship - like Ireland.

  Ryder nodded. “I’m with you. Wouldn’t be any fun if I had to win a war by myself, would it? You owe me though.”. Ryder knew Bernard’s limits, and knew Bernard did too. Bernard knew why he needed someone like Ryder by his side too - someone who could look beyond the target in front of them.

  Bernard stared over his shoulder at the city sadly. “Good. Now get your head in the game, we’re moving out.”. As Ryder started to walk towards the transports, Bernard called after him “And Sergeant? You still owe me for Moscow. Call this us being even.” Ryder flashed him a grim smile as memories of their time in Moscow ran through his mind and saluted before disappearing behind the rear LAV.

  VIII / Sober and irrelevant

  “All troops. This is a broadcast from theatre command. Information as follows.” washed across his visor. He looked up and met Jansen’s eyes, nodding towards an area off the road sheltered by a highway support. Jansen and several other NCO’s followed him.

  It probably wouldn’t hurt to learn their names, thought Ryder. Captain Bernard came hurrying over, having finished up establishing order for an infantry advance supported by their vehicles - spearheaded by the 2 LAV’s and their heavy weapons.

  Major Kelly’s face swam into view on the interior of his visor. With teeth clenched and eyes narrowed, she glared at the video feed. “In the absence of any other battalion command staff outside Union City, I’ve taken theatre command. Majors Rahjan and Terry are in agreement. You are part of five battalions are closing in from the South and West. Command on the ground is given to Captain Bernard of Bravo Company, First regiment of the Black Cannon Rifles.”

  Glancing off screen, she continued. “Unknown foe is continuing to push the Senate from the east. Satellite cover is non-existent and we can’t keep any aircraft in the skies. You’re going to have to rely on your eyes. Get in there and put an end to this. Capture prisoners where possible, I want answers. Make them pay.” She nodded past the camera as the feed cut out.

  “She’s really pissed. Good thing we didn’t want to ask any questions.” Ryder remarked to Jansen, a wry smile ghosting past the Dutch Sergeants lips.

  Bernard stepped away from them and began to gesture into the air like a conductor directing an orchestra, using the haptic feedback from his armored gauntlets to manipulate data projected into his visor - a recent addition to their battle technology, and a useful one at that.

  “She should be a colonel you know.” said Jansen by way of reply.

  “But she’s not. Let me guess. Too good, intimidates the established order, would be too successful?”.

  “Hell no!” Jansen laughed, rolling his eyes. “They’re fucking terrified of the woman. She listens to nobody but herself and she’s likely to try and pension off anyone that disagrees with her.”

  Ryder laughed with him. “Well, you heard her. Bernard is in charge. Let’s see what he’s doing.” As they followed Bernard, he was having an animated conversation into his visor. ...ing care. Get a... fu...highway 12…you bas...

  Bernard gestured north towards the distant Senate building after cutting his visor feed. “You two clowns, get this rabble into gear. Jansen, you’re on the left flank; I’m on the right and Ryder you’re up the middle. LAV’s to anchor the center with transports rolling the flanks. Echo company are attaching themselves to our right flank, Oscar company to our left. Charlie are rolling up behind us. Kelly sent them out 30 minutes after we hit the road, but they have no armored support, only those shitty Armadillo troop carriers.”

  Both saluted and jogged off. Jansen pinged the first two platoons over his visor and began advising them on the plan of advance.

  Looked like that arsehole of a Sergeant was following Jansen without complaints, realised Ryder, the benefits of Jansen having citizenship. At least he seems to know what he’s doing, he reflected. Squaring his shoulders, he jogged over to the shade of the LAV’s where the remaining platoon stood.

  “Right, you lot are on me. Rolling infantry advance up the center, the Captain and Sergeant Jansen are going to cover our flanks. Check your gear and let’s go. We’re heading up 18 until we’re 2 klicks from five, then regrouping. Keep your eyes open.”

  Leaning around the LAV, Ryder could see the platoons with Jansen splitting; One following Jansen off a trunk road to their left and another jogging after the Captain on his right, Transports accompanied them with the high-pitched whine ‘fuel cell’ whine common to most hybrid military vehicles. Both groups vanished from sight.

  “What I wouldn’t do to hear the noise that old man’s truck was making right about now…” Ryder said to himself. Might tell them we’re coming but the noise was definitely intimidating.

  He looked around at the troopers surrounding him and groaned, spotting a familiar face. He’d gotten that arsehole Smith as part of the split. Best make do, he thought, too late to change it now. Heaven forbid I let my accent slip and start to sound Irish.

  He chopped his hand through the air in the direction of their advance, and the LAV’s started to move as his squads fell in beside them, squad leaders herding the men into the semblance of an advance.

  The noise of pounding footsteps made him look up as Fuchs sprinted straight towards him from around the closest building. “Sarge! We’ve got incoming! Looks like a recon patrol, 100 or so men half a klick north, just off the highway. Heavily armored, never seen the like. Only looks like they have small arms and close combat weapons. They can’t hit us without going through the Captain or Sergeant Jansen, and risking us hitting them too, so they’re coming straight at us”.

  “Good work specialist.” he replied, sweeping his gaze over the area and connecting roads. It was already too late to bring the supporting squads back without disrupting his own troops. “Wu! Get your arse up that signpost over there.”. Wu pointed in query. “No goddamn it, the one with the gangway. Yes, that way.” as Wu pointed again before jogging off.

  “LAV’s in support, spool up those rails. Fifth squad, anchor that left flank beside that fan. Eighth squad, on the right flank near the fence. Everyone else find cover and get ready. Automatic weapons to the front, check your fire until they’re within 300 meters. Wu, give us a range marker.”

  Wu pulled an electronically guided flare from his webbing and mashed the dials on the side before firing it, the projectile arcing over the highway and casting the highway in a bright white glow. It was barely visible through the murky grey air.

  Since the orbital strike, visor connections over the military SatNet had been becoming increasingly poor - as he tried to contact Bernard and Jansen in vain, he realised the feeds had dropped out. It was working in line-of-sight mode now, communications downgraded to radio.

  There’s no fucking lack of cover at least, he considered, cars abandoned by the dozen in the middle of the highway. Standing in the shadow of the lead LAV, he pulled the railgun from his combat harness and slammed in a magazine of tungsten cored slugs. Flicking the switch on his rifle, the vertical rails began to glow green in the dull morning light.

  IX / Overload

  “Tango, 12 O’Clock!” shouted Wu from his sniper’s perch.

  Ryder raised his rifle to his shoulder, it’s scope slaved to his visors display and projecting its feed onto the glass in front of his eyes. Ryder drew in a sharp breath. He didn’t understand. Ranging the rifle over other targets that became visible, his brow furrowed. What the hell are we facing? He thought. Short and lithe, their foe wa
s revealed - and he didn’t recognise them at all.

  Brown armour the colour of rich soil, their enclosing helmets glowing, red light spilling from their ‘V’ shaped visors. Dull charcoal coloured weapons that seemed to suck in light held across a chest of flat, angular armor plates. Propelled on backwards jointed legs, they moved with an unnatural grace, bounding over obstacles like a flood towards Bravo Company.

  He realised they were fast - unbelievably fast, and they were closing the distance to the range marker faster than they had expected. “READY!” he cried out, “WEAPONS FREE! FIRE AT 300!”. As he watched through his scope, the first target passed the flare.

  The rattle of automatic fire exploded into the overcast morning, dust and debris dancing on the ground around his troops. The target he was watching staggered, sparks flashing off his armor. He kept coming. Nothing could take that sort of punishment, Ryder thought, hunching closer to the cover offered by the LAV beside him.

  A muted crack split the noise of the battlefield and the lead tango fell as Ryder watched the feed through his visor. He knew the cause - Wu had put a round right between the man's eyes. The gunfire around him was ragged and unfocused, troops too confused at what they were looking at to function as a co-ordinated unit.

  Right, he thought. Time to grow a set and get stuck in. “Place your shots!” he cried, the words ringing out over the highway as he raised his railgun and found a target. “Let’s see how you stand up to a railgun, you bastards” he said to himself, exhaling slowly and pulling the trigger.

  A high pitched snap rang out from his railgun and his target was blown clean off it’s feet, cartwheeling to the side and tripping one of the other oncoming attackers.

  It was as if the man had run straight into a solid wall, momentum arrested by a round with more than five times the stopping power of an ordinary bullet. The rifle kicked like a mule and made a dull clunking noise while reloading as Ryder smiled to himself.

  “Come get some you arseholes!” he shouted as his face creased with a feral smile. Raising the rifle again, he fired a second round but it went wide of his target, blowing clean through the rear end of a transport van.

  The vans hydrogen fuel cells spat blue flames as they ruptured before launching the van into the air on a pillar of blue flame, shrapnel washing over the advancing foe but doing little harm.

  Picking targets and firing again and again, he radioed the two LAV drivers a simple instruction. “Light those bastards up!”.

  Concussive waves of force radiated out from the autocannons on their compact turrets, steady streams of fire illuminated by bright white tracers reaching into the onrushing enemy. Most rounds went wide of their marks, but enough found their targets to mist the air red with blood.

  It wasn’t going to matter, realised Ryder, We’re outnumbered and they’re nearly on us. As the thought crossed his mind, the enemy began to return fire. Delicate beams of white light fringed with blue stabbed from their compact weapons, leaving glowing after images on his eyes.

  Several troopers fell, holes bored through rigid armour and soft flesh beneath causing the smell of charred meat to rise into the air. Ryder pulled out his knife in anticipation, his heartbeat quickening. His hands began to tremble.

  Taking one last leaping bound, the enemy were upon them. He sprinted towards the front line, pulling his sidearm and releasing the safety and gripping the hilt of his combat knife until his knuckles turned white, but he didn’t stop or deviate. I won’t be any use standing thirty yards from my own men, he thought, it’s time to show them what a Classer can do.

  It wasn’t his first time in close quarter combat, that mad, swirling melee - he knew the most important thing was staying on his feet. He wouldn’t be much good on his goddamn arse.

  Snapping off shots from his pistol as he moved, he came face to face with his foe for the first time and took a fist straight to the face as the man leapt at him and caught him by surprise. He rode the blow, cheek stinging where he’d been struck and head swimming with the remnants of his concussion. He raised his pistol and shot his opponent in the center of the chest but all it did was piss him off, forcing him back a step.

  Goddamn it, these guys are tough, he thought. He jumped backwards as the soldier facing him attempted to land another blow, when one of his troopers fell between them, an arm clamped around the neck of an armored brown figure as the other hand was stabbing the figure he held over and over again in the abdomen.

  His opponent was momentarily distracted by the interruption and made the mistake of looking down. Ryder tackled him, dragging him to the ground and repeating what the trooper climbing to his feet beside him had done, stabbing his knife in and out of the soldier again and again. Warm blood ran from the soldiers wounds as he stabbed, the sickening feel of warm blood running down his forearm making his stomach churn.

  The same scene played out around him - troopers of every shape and size were overpowering their attackers with little effort, knocking attackers sprawling with every blow and channelling their own rage and frustration into every strike.

  Fingers of white light scissored between them but most were well off target, their opponents rattled by stiff opposition.

  Bodies were piling around them, his men extracting a fearsome toll on their attackers. The cough of a shotgun was audible above the melee, held rigidly in Specialist King’s hands and reaping a fearsome tally of kills.

  As he grabbed hold of the frame of a car and pulled himself to his feet, he glanced around the battlefield. His inattention nearly cost him his life as a curved knife smeared with blood flashed towards his throat.

  Throwing himself backwards over the rear of the car he had been leaning against, he rolled and lept to his feet as his attacker followed through, the knife coming in low towards his right side. He blocked it with his elbow, smashing the hilt of his knife on his attackers elbow and feeling a dull crunch before powering his fist into the man’s visor.

  The soldier went down hard, and looking around he realised he stood alone as their opponents turned and began to retreat. Wu picked his targets, every shot into the base of the spine of a retreating enemy and more troops began to add to the weight of fire.

  “Hold your fire!” he shouted, gunfire continuing sporadically. “HOLD YOUR FIRE!” he yelled again, and the sound of gunfire cut off.

  The road grew silent, broken by the heaving breaths of his men and of his own shaking inhalations. He looked around and realised they were surrounded by bodies, a trail of broken carcasses on the ground leading from the direction of their enemies charge and piled high around their firing lines.

  Ryder made a rough estimate of the number of downed foes. At least 80. Maybe more. It couldn’t have been more than 3 minutes since the enemy hit their lines and they had taken down over 200 troops.

  Kneeling down, he retrieved his pistol he had dropped during the fight. He checked it over - a few minor scratches - and replaced it in his hip holster after flicking the safety back on.

  “Casualties?” he queried over the radio. As he walked back towards the LAV’s and tried to slow his breathing, he overheard the troops talking in low voices. Got five of them...Reinhardt down, bastards got him... Lieutenant got a couple too, didn’t hold back....who the hell are they?

  He spied Smith leaning against a car and glaring at him from the corner of his eye as he walked past, but brushed it off with the feeling Smith hadn’t been much help in the melee - there wasn’t a mark of dirt on his fatigues.

  “Three dead, one seriously injured.”. “Five dead, no major injuries.”. “One down, one moving”. “Only two injured in seventh.”. Nine dead, four seriously injured for over 80 dead attackers. He couldn’t quite fathom it.

  Why had they ran straight at them? Their weapons were superior, burning through his force with ease and their armor, at least at range, was too tough for their standard rifle rounds to break. It made no sense - overconfidence? Poor intelligence?

  He pinged Jansen and Bernard on the r
adio channels but got no response but static, the buildings around him and particles in the air playing havoc with good old fashioned radio communications.

  As he stood over the soldier he’d knocked unconscious, he unclasped the man's helmet and pulled before staggering backwards in shock.

  X / Number of the beast

  “Wu! Wu, get the hell down here!” he radioed, swallowing several times as he glanced at the body lying at his feet, his mouth as dry as the desert sands they stood on. “Wu!”.

  Wu came to a skidding stop beside him, opening his mouth to speak.

  “Don’t speak, trooper. Look.” gestured Ryder at the unconscious figure at his feet. He was struggling to reconcile what his eyes were telling him.

  Wu looked at the soldier at Ryder’s feet and jumped backwards, catching his heel and barely keeping his balance. Eyes wide. “What the fuck is that?” asked Wu, voice low and unsteady.