C.R.O.W. (The Union Series)

by Richards, Phillip

  A couple of times I passed Climo as we worked and he looked away from me awkwardly.

  In the end I found myself carrying out the solitary task of cutting open the seals to the crate lids with a knife, before the others emptied the half-metre long missiles for the armourer to inspect them. They were well sealed and it took a good five minutes to open each crate - and there were a seemingly endless supply of crates being delivered by the forklift - but I was happy to be doing something that gave me a good excuse not to talk to anybody. Instead I listened to the other lads in the platoon who were working nearby chatter about their exploits on shore leave in the Uralian capital, Forsta Byn, glad to keep myself to myself. Be the grey man, Andy, I told myself once more, watch the platoon and learn your place.

  The day had been such a whirlwind of emotions and information that I had barely even had a chance to work out anything about my platoon, who its NCOs were, the names of anyone outside of my room or even which of the three sections I was to be placed in.

  Every platoon in the dropship infantry was divided into four distinct groups, much like the company was divided but on a smaller scale. First of all there were the three rifle sections which were the fighting units within the platoon, each one being eight men strong with a further six man headquarter group. This group included the platoon commander and his signaller, the platoon sergeant with his runner, and two smart gunners. Each section also included a section commander who had the rank of full corporal, or ‘full screw’ as he was known, a word carried through the centuries which supposedly originated from prison inmates - no surprise there, then.

  The full screw was in charge of the section and made all of its decisions, managing the men beneath him both in and out of contact with the enemy. I suspected that I was in One section, because I could overhear the lads in my room sometimes referring to themselves as One section whilst they talked. It was often normal practice to put all of the section men in rooms together so that they developed the distinctive bond that only existed between troopers, or in my case so that they beat any new blokes senseless.

  Corporal Evans was likely to be our section commander, I presumed. He wasn’t working with us in the stores, but then I didn’t expect him to, being a full corporal with far better things to do than lug crates. There was something about full corporals that filled me with awe and wonder and Corporal Evans was no exception. They were god-like men; fit, tough, tireless troopers with years of experience serving the Union, and they were only ever over-shadowed by the overpowering presence of the platoon sergeant. They would likely be away with the platoon commander, probably planning our training and discussing whatever the future might have in store for us all. Or perhaps relaxing in Challenger’s modest recreation room probably, I figured.

  Each section was divided further into two smaller teams of four or ‘fire teams’ as they were known, one of which was called ‘Charlie’ and commanded by the section commander, the other was called ‘Delta’ and was commanded by a lance corporal or ‘lancejack’ as they were known. Overall control of both fire teams still came under the section commander, however. Every platoon in every regiment in the Union used the same basic breakdown, although they might use different words to describe the same thing.

  The lancejacks were second in command to the section commanders, and they took control of the sections in their absence. They were often in charge of administration within the sections, ensuring ammo states were correct, that the men were fed and hydrated and overseer of any other minor trivia that might otherwise distract the section commander’s attention from the bigger picture - the battle itself. They worked under the platoon sergeant, who was to them as the platoon commander was to the section commanders. In the stores it was they that were in charge, as the commanders never got involved in the platoon sergeant’s administration.

  I had never worked with lance corporals before, having never had any within my training platoon on Uralis. Instead we had been expected to practice the role of section second in command ourselves under the watchful eyes of our instructors, as every rank in the Union army was always trained to be able to carry out the job of the man at least one rank above him. We were, after all, only one dart away from having to step into their boots, or further.

  The lancejacks appeared to be much friendlier with the regular troopers than most screws I had met. They worked alongside everybody and chatted with them freely, only stopping to check that everybody was doing what needed to be done. I supposed that they had probably not long ago been promoted from troopers, and so the line between NCO and private was still slightly blurred.

  The younger looking skinny lancejack who had got me in trouble during PT was Lance Corporal Reece, who the lads referred to as ‘Reecy’. He appeared to be fresh out of the Junior Leaders course, a ten-week thrashing conducted on the surface of either Earth or Uralis by instructors pooled from across drops. He was loud and boisterous with an angry face that was trapped in an almost permanent scowl. Even when he smiled he still managed to look angry. He caught me looking his way that afternoon and stopped his work to return the stare.

  ‘Oi, don’t stare like you fancy me! Fancy me do ya? Get on with your work or you’ll end up with another one of those black eyes, mate,’ I blanched, and the platoon laughed mercilessly.

  I didn’t look his way again, and thankfully that was the last I heard of it.

  Lance Corporal Cham or ‘Chammy’ as he was known was as young and skinny as Reece. He was a total comedian, and spent much of his time telling jokes and funny stories of his past antics that had the lads roaring with laughter.

  The third of the three lance corporals was Lance Corporal Joe Mac. He was the tattooed man who had checked on my room that morning and had told me off for calling him ‘mate’ in the ablutions. He was large for a drop trooper, with a beak like nose and dark, thick black eyebrows and he looked like he could handle himself in a fight. He appeared friendly with Woody and Brown, and I suspected that he was my section second in command.

  Our work kept us busy until close to seventeen-hundred hours, our evening meal being an hour later in the ship’s artificial Earth-like day. By the time we finished my stomach had begun to rumble, and depressed or not, I understood the need to eat.

  Thankfully Peters was there in the queue for food and spotted me straight away, and it didn’t take long for him to notice my eye.

  His friendly smile turned into a concerned frown, ‘You okay, mate? What happened, man?’

  I could feel the eyes of troopers eating at the tables upon me, amused at the sight of a new trooper already learning the hard way about how his new world worked.

  ‘I’d rather not talk about it, mate,’ I said quietly.

  Peters looked left and right at the other lads in the queue, understanding that we weren’t in a safe place to talk about it.

  As soon as we were sat down I spilt the beans, ‘There’s this lad in my room, Woody,’ I said softly, not wanting anyone to hear from the other tables.

  ‘What? And he did that?’ Peters blurted loudly, and I flinched.

  ‘Alright, keep it down, mate,’ I hissed.

  Nobody appeared to have heard anything from any of the other tables around us, and in retrospect they probably weren’t interested anyway.

  ‘Yeah, a couple of hours ago,’ I continued as Greggerson took a seat with us, followed by Gilbert. They had probably been waiting to find out what had happened to me all day.

  ‘Why’d he do it?’

  I shook my head, ‘I think it was just the way I spoke to him before, I don’t know. One minute I’m in my room waiting for lunch, then he just attacks me out of the blue.’

  ‘Was it Woody?’ Greggerson asked as he opened his horror box.

  ‘Yeah, who told you that?’

  ‘He’s a bully,’ Greggerson said, ‘Everybody says it in my room. He likes to pick on new blokes and he’s the platoon senior bod so he gets away with it.’

  ‘Proper bastard,’ Gilbert agreed in his
thick country accent, ‘One of the lads told me earlier, he abuses any new bloke until more recruits come in. Gives him a kick. Proper nasty piece of work, he is.’

  ‘You don’t say,’ I pointed at my swollen eye, ‘I reckon this morning was all his idea too. That’s great, so when do we pick up the next intake, a couple of years?’

  ‘Mate, it won’t be that bad,’ Peters said, attempting to reassure me and failing miserably.

  ‘My sides are still killing me from this morning,’ Gilbert said, and Greggerson nodded furiously, ‘Took a right kicking, us lot, and Kane and Berezynsky too.’

  ‘Really? What happened?’

  We told Peters about how we were savagely beaten that morning by a gang of troopers masked in respirators, and the look of shock on his face told me all I needed to know - I was in the wrong platoon.

  ‘Some sort of initiation, the lads in the room were telling me,’ Gilbert said in between mouthfuls of brown mush, ‘‘New bloke’ here is a dirty word.’

  ‘That’s two words, Gilly,’ Peters corrected.

  ‘Whatever.’

  And then our conversation descended into the usual idle chatter and banter that perhaps without our knowing had got us through our lives in space, and the army, with our humanity intact. I sat back in my chair having eaten my meal, and for a few minutes at least forgot where I was and enjoyed the sweet moment of company with friends.

  #

  I returned to my room with caution, not sure what to do if I was to be attacked again by Woody for some other random infringement, but he wasn’t there to greet me with his sick smile. Glad for the time alone, I changed quickly into my track suit, as was the dress for after the evening meal on ship or in barracks, unless told otherwise. I couldn’t shower as I had not been to the gym, as were ships rules, and besides I wanted to get the rest of my bag unpacked and locked away into my locker where it would be safe from ransacking.

  I placed my tablet inside my locker and selected a picture of my family for it to display, gently brushing the image with my finger. I took no comfort from the touch. Instead the loving faces of my family, trapped by Earth’s poverty, wrenched at my heart and caused a sting in my eyes. For a second I wished that I could have had no love for my family, like many of my mates from broken homes, to be free of the terrible longing to be home. I desperately missed them, but I knew as we all did that I had no choice anymore, I had chosen to be here and that was that.

  The dropship infantry was voluntary, even though military service wasn’t. Conscripts often sat in garrisons across the Union and her far flung colonies with little else to do other than hold ground that was probably never going to be taken, and those that would come with us to war would follow only in our wake, only landing when we had secured a landing zone the size of a nation. We in the dropship infantry often referred to them as ‘sandbag fillers’ for their defensive role, and we resented them for their easy ride.

  The day my conscription papers had come through had been not a week after my sixteenth birthday. Theoretically I had the qualifications to go to college and become something more, but my family would never have been able to afford it and I certainly wasn’t smart enough to get an education grant from the Union, so like the rest of the impoverished masses of Europe I had been ‘selected’ to serve. My mum had cried that day, but my dad had taken it well.

  ‘Don’t worry, son,’ he had said, ‘You’ll probably end up on a nice garrison somewhere warm on the Med or something.’

  Why had I then chosen to enlist with the dropship infantry, whilst my unknowing family waited anxiously outside the recruitment office one cold day in Portsmouth city centre?

  ‘To kill people,’ was Peters’ answer to that question. And to many of those who served within the Union’s voluntary ranks that was the only answer that made sense, but I think there was more to it than that.

  I think I wanted to do something, see something, and be part of the new world that man had made for himself up in the stars - even if it wasn’t all that pleasant. I wanted to be more than another disadvantaged child who saw out his four years of national service on some lonely garrison, only to return to the slums with nothing to say for himself. I wanted to see more even than the galaxy; I wanted to fear, I wanted to see the whites of my enemies eyes and I wanted to share in the glory of the Union’s eternal war across the heavens. Unfortunately I was beginning to realize that life wasn’t always quite so poetic, and that service in the dropship infantry brought with it pain, loneliness and sometimes, misery.

  My mum was devastated when she found out what I had done and that I had been selected for training for the dropship infantry, she cried well into the night. Even my dad shed a tear, but he chose not to scold me.

  ‘You’ve made your decision, son,’ he had said woodenly.

  I had made my decision, and there was no going back. My dad’s smiling face, wrinkled around his squinting eyes stared through me from the tablet. I wished he was there for me, but he wasn’t.

  ‘You alright?’

  Startled, I spun around from my open locker, it was Climo. I would have to be mindful of those bulkhead doors in future, I told myself, because I hadn’t even noticed him enter the room.

  ‘Yeah,’ I answered curtly. I busied myself again with my locker while Climo changed into his tracksuit.

  ‘How’s your eye?’

  ‘It’ll heal, nothing broken.’

  ‘Maybe you should see the doc, get it checked out?’

  Climo appeared to be genuinely concerned for me, but I couldn’t forget how he had watched as Woody pounded me while I lay helpless on the ground.

  Climo must have read my mind, because he threw up his arms defensively, ‘Look, mate, I’m sorry about what happened. What could I do? Woody’s a senior bod, I’ve only been on ship just over a year.’

  Climo’s explanation only made me angrier, but I knew not to kick off with him, he was senior to me, and I had quickly learnt that on Challenger seniority was everything, ‘It’s fine, don’t worry about it.’

  I felt him staring at me as I turned my back, probably thinking of something else to say, but eventually he set about sorting out his kit in his own locker.

  ‘Laundry drop off’s at half-six in the morning,’ Climo said, presumably trying to change the subject. Annoyed as I was, I took note of the time, my PT kit was soaked in sweat and I only had three sets of it.

  ‘Where is it?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ll show you in the morning, if you like.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I finished what I was doing and locked my locker. I stuffed my dirty kit into a laundry bag and slid it under my bed ready for the morning, then began undressing for bed.

  ‘You going to sleep now?’ Climo asked, surprised.

  ‘Yeah.’ Damn right, I had barely had a few hours of sleep in over a day, and the time lag between leaving Fort Abu Naji, and having almost had my head knocked off my shoulders hadn’t helped.

  Climo shrugged, ‘Fair enough.’

  As soon as my head hit the pillow I fell asleep.

  7: The Call to Arms

  The soft kiss from the lips of a girl I had once fancied at school was interrupted by a familiar screaming alarm. Startled, her lithe arms withdrew from around my body and her breasts no longer pressed seductively against my chest. Instead it was only my blanket that I felt against my skin, and her sweet voice was replaced by the groaning of troopers and the constant whine of the air ducts in our tiny four man room.

  It was zero-six-hundred aboard Challenger, and the beginning of a whole new day. But my soul plummeted into despair, and I had to force myself to sit up and put my feet down once more onto the cold metal floor of reality.

  ‘Why do they have to make that alarm so loud?’ Brown complained, thrashing in his bed.

  My face felt wet, so I instinctively went to wipe it and my hand came away covered in shaving foam. How original, I thought. I quickly wiped it away with my towel before I stood up, so Woody and the others might think it had c
ome off whilst I slept and their prank had been in vain.

  ‘Morning, Moralee,’ Woody’s voice caused my heart to skip a beat as I stood.

  ‘Morning,’ I answered flatly.

  ‘How’s the eye?’ he slid out from under the covers so that his legs dangled over my bunk. I knew he was big, but I hadn’t realised quite how big he really was until then. Woody clearly worked out in the ship’s gym a lot, his biceps were enormous and his stomach rippled with muscle. He had an awful tattoo of a man’s face on his thigh, I couldn’t work out what it was meant to be, and I never chose to ask.

  ‘Not too bad,’ I lied, it was agony, ‘Hurts a bit.’

  ‘Well, that’s what you get for gobbing off isn’t it? Got to learn your place, haven’t you, Moralee?’

  I nodded feebly, ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Yes, what?’

  I hesitated, ‘Yes, Staff.’

  Woody giggled to himself, like a disturbed child might laugh whilst tormenting a small animal, ‘Much better.’

  What a freak, I thought as I wrapped my towel around my waist and made my exit for the shower. My locker was locked, so I knew there wasn’t much he could do with it. If he broke the lock or damaged my bedding he would be charged, and I doubted even the most senior of troopers would escape the platoon sergeant’s wrath if he messed around with his accommodation.

  I joined the queue for the ablutions, ignoring the stares and the hushed chatter about my eye from other members of the platoon.

  ‘You happy with what’s going on today?’ Joe, who I now knew was my section second in command, was on his way out of the ablutions. He seemed unhappy that he had to talk to me, and his tone was meant to convey that it was not a friendly conversation.

  ‘No, Corporal,’ I replied. Lancejacks were still corporals, and were meant to be addressed the same even though they were not on an equal standing with the ‘full’ corporals.

  ‘Right, you need to make sure you check to find out what’s going on every evening. Surely you know that?’