LANCEJACK (The Union Series)

by Richards, Phillip

  The battle around us became irrelevant. The most important thing in the world to the men in my section had become those two doorways and the fingers on my hand.

  My last finger came down, and with a chopping motion of my hand I pointed toward the doors. Without a word, we launched into the attack.

  As part of my simple, silently constructed plan, Jackson opened fire with his mammoth straight into the wall from behind me. There was no risk of ricochet, the supersonic darts pierced through the wall like it was made of paper.

  I squeezed Okonkwo’s shoulder, ‘Go!’

  We moved as one, rounding the door like we were joined at the hip. Both of our weapons came to bear at the same time, Okonkwo aiming to the right, me to the left.

  As we entered, Jackson’s hail of mammoth darts peppered the room, striking a couch and scattering a cloud of stuffing into the air.

  My eyes were instantly drawn to movement, beating my own visor display. A man was trying to move out of the way of Jackson’s fire, and I shot him twice in the chest. He crumpled to the ground without making a sound.

  ‘Check fire,’ I ordered back to Jackson, who ceased firing instantly.

  We didn’t stop our advance. Instead we broke into two, moving quickly across to the far sides of the lounge so that we had every angle covered. I knew there was somebody else in the apartment, I had heard him.

  There was a window on the far wall that looked down onto the street where our overturned truck still smouldered. I quickly dismissed the window as a low threat, knowing that friendly troops were on the other side, covered by a fleet of dropships. I was more interested in a closed doorway on my side of the lounge, and I followed the wall toward it, my rifle raised to fire.

  Just before I reached the door it flew open, and somebody opened fire from within the room beyond, hosing the wall where Okonkwo stood with an uncontrolled burst of automatic fire. The trooper almost fell backwards, desperately trying to avoid being shot.

  ‘Earthling bastards!’ the unseen rebel screamed.

  Without thinking, I bounded toward the door and held my rifle around the corner, just enough to see the rebel through my sight camera. I fired several darts in his direction, the recoil causing my weapon to jolt wildly in the unnatural fire position.

  The first dart hit the rebel in the shoulder, causing him to lose control of his rifle. Blood spattered across the tiled wall behind him. The second dart hit him in the leg, and he collapsed onto his knees.

  Knowing that my enemy was incapacitated I swung out into the doorway, raising my rifle to fire, and my eyes widened.

  Somehow the rebel had managed to use that split second to pull a grenade from one of his pockets. I saw the hateful look in his eyes and the determination with which he held the grenade high above his head. He reached to pull the pin just as my finger squeezed the trigger.

  I must have shot the rebel at least four or five times. He was dead when he hit the ground, his bloodied body slumping back against a toilet.

  I let out a huge sigh, relieved to have managed to kill the man before he blew me and Okonkwo to pieces.

  ‘Okonkwo, you okay?’ I asked, not looking away from the rebel. I half expected him to get up and fight again. Blood seeped onto the bathroom floor.

  ‘Yeah, I’m alright,’ Okonkwo answered from behind me, ‘You saved my life, mate!’

  I ignored his gratitude, ‘Are there any other rooms?’

  ‘There’s a bedroom,’ Okonkwo answered, ‘But I… er… cleared it.’

  ‘How?’ I demanded. What was Okonkwo doing clearing rooms by himself without telling me?

  ‘I ran in there to hide!’ he laughed.

  I looked around me, the apartment was clear, and now Jackson stood in the doorway covering back out into the corridor.

  ‘Apartment clear,’ I announced, lowering my voice to a whisper once more, ‘Two enemy dead.’

  Jackson nodded, and passed the quiet message back to the platoon commander and Konny.

  We made as little noise as possible because we were trained to fight against well-equipped opponents who used headphones that could pinpoint us easily. To the rebels, though, we must have been terrifying inside that building, making not a single sound until we struck.

  Okonkwo moved across the apartment to join me as I inspected the man who had almost killed him. The rebel wore ordinary civilians with a strange mixture of military equipment over the top, some Chinese, some Union. He was wearing a Union respirator identical to our own, though I doubted that the targeting system worked with the Chinese rifle he had used.

  Okonkwo chuckled quietly, amused by something I couldn’t see.

  I raised an eyebrow, wondering what the large trooper had found so funny, ‘What?’

  He grinned as he whispered, ‘I’ve heard of dying to go for a shit, but that’s ridiculous!’

  Jackson sniggered from the apartment doorway.

  ‘Oh…,’ I grimaced at the bad joke, ‘That’s bad, mate. That’s really bad.’

  ‘Oh come on, you know that’s funny!’ Okonkwo insisted as I made my way back to the corridor, just in time to see the next section push through.

  Miraculously, Konny had secured his nominated apartment, having found no enemy. If he had, then I wondered if he would have frozen again, leaving the rest of his fire team to deal with it.

  Jackson’s shoulders shook as he battled to contain his laughter, and I patted his shoulder firmly, ‘Alright, mate, calm down. It wasn’t that funny.’

  Actually it was, I thought. It wasn’t the sick joke that was funny, though, it was the fact that Okonkwo had used it at such a terrible time. You would never expect anybody else to make such a crass joke at the sight of a dead body. but troopers did. We used black humour to get through the worst of times, because if we didn’t laugh, we cried.

  There were only two more terrorists on the first floor, both of whom were killed by one section. They died hiding behind a wall, shot through by one of the section mammoth gunners before the assaulting fire team even passed through the door. The platoon continued past them in its never ending advance, clearing room after room like a well-oiled killing machine.

  Whilst we waited in reserve, we watched the enemy dead being stripped of everything useful by Johnno’s work party, who had now left the casualties with the conscripts. Nothing was spared. They took ammunition that couldn’t even be used by our rifles. They took wallets, electronic equipment and jewellery, all of which was unceremoniously tossed into plastic bags and sealed.

  ‘It’s all evidence,’ one of the work party explained to me as he carried out his grim task, ‘One dead rebel can lead to ten arrests.’

  He continued to rifle through pockets like a man might sift through his laundry for a lost set of keys.

  I looked over the bloodied bodies once more. The rebels were clearly well-equipped, but hardly up to our standard. I marvelled that such an opponent had managed to make an absolute mess of one of the most feared and respected infantry units in the galaxy. Then I remembered that NELA had a weapon that they had used far more effectively than any rifle or smart missile; the city network.

  Outside the dropships had managed to gain access to the street, negotiating the hole that we had made in the glass roof and coming in to land. With them they brought the rest of our company, giving us two additional platoons of drop troopers. One of the platoons was tasked by the OC to relieve us, and they ran into our building, charging up the stairwells into the floor above. The platoon cheered as they watched the fresh troopers storm into battle, knowing that they were saved.

  ‘No noise, lads,’ Johnno shouted as he moved up and down the corridor, cutting short our cheer, ‘The building isn’t clear yet!’

  Despite having put an end to our celebration, Johnno winked at me as he passed our apartment. Although discipline had to be maintained, he too shared our elation.

  I felt my body relax slightly. Somehow, we had made it, but at a terrible cost.

  With or without our
ability to communicate, we now completely outmatched our opponent, both in numbers and in firepower. Several rebels surrendered having realised that they were trapped, but many more fought on and the rattle of gunfire told of their admirable yet futile last stand on the top floor of the building. Finally the message was given that the building was clear, and that Westy’s platoon had teamed up with the conscripts to clear the rest.

  It felt good to know that my friend’s platoon was on the ground with me, and my spirits soared.

  ‘Well done, lads,’ Johnno praised us all as he walked from room to room, and when he passed me he patted my arm, smiling warmly, ‘Well done, mate.’

  I realised that he was talking about my idea to shoot out the glass, but he didn’t know that it wasn’t my idea. It was Ev’s.

  I smiled back, ‘No problem.’

  Johnno’s face became serious once more. He turned away and shouted out to the entire platoon, ‘Right, lads, let’s not switch off yet! 2ics, I want a work party of two men from each section to assist with loading the casualties onto the dropships! Meet me down at the entrance in one minute!’

  My smile faded.

  10

  The Traitor

  ‘Well look who it is,’ Westy threw open his arms as we dismounted from our dropships onto the landing pad of Eindhoven. Surrounded by the towering walls of the base, the feeling of sustained menace lifted away from my shoulders, and I couldn’t hide my elation as I hugged my old friend.

  ‘I’m glad to see you’re alright, mate,’ he said sincerely, before laughing, ‘Even if you are an ugly little scrote!’

  ‘Cheers, mate,’ I said sarcastically, but I knew that it was just harmless banter, ‘I think this is one of the first times I’ve ever been pleased to see you!’

  We joined the mass of troopers as they made their way through the airlocks and into the same building we had entered for our initial brief hours before. It took several cycles of the locks to get all of the two companies inside and we were using at least three of the entrances at once.

  ‘You had it bad out there,’ Westy said sadly, casting a glance over to where the city skyline just peeked over the base walls.

  I followed his gaze and thought of the poor souls who hadn’t made it, and Patterson, the fresh-faced recruit who I had never even got to know. His body was already on its way back to Lash to be prepared for the sorry journey back to Earth on a cargo freighter.

  ‘I don’t think we would have made it if you hadn’t found us.’

  ‘We would have taken longer,’ Westy admitted, as the group in front of us entered the lock, ‘But the dropship crew saw an explosion on the roof and went in closer to take a look.’

  I looked around me for members of my own platoon eavesdropping. I saw that they had already entered the lock before me and we were surrounded by Westy’s platoon, ‘I wanted to talk to you about that.’

  Westy eyed me curiously, ‘Yeah?’

  I nodded, ‘Yeah. Ev.’

  Westy frowned slightly, ‘What about him?’

  ‘He was out there, mate. It was him who told me to shoot out the roof to attract your attention.’

  Westy’s lips pursed, but he said nothing.

  My eyes narrowed, ‘You know he’s around, don’t you,’ I said.

  The airlock completed its cycle and its outer door opened again. We stepped inside along with the remainder of Westy’s platoon.

  Nobody was interested in our conversation, but Westy was clearly unhappy to talk about our old platoon sergeant again.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said flatly, but a sly dig into my side with his elbow told me otherwise.

  Taking the hint, I nodded, ‘Okay, sorry.’

  The inner door of the lock opened, and the crowd of troopers made its way through the dimly lit corridors and filed down a flight of stairs that led into the warrens beneath it.

  I pulled my respirator away from my face and stopped Westy at the stairs, ‘What do you know about Ev? Is he working for the rebels in Nieuwe Poort?’

  ‘Why would he help you if he was working for them?’

  ‘Maybe he was happy to shoot up Union troops, so long as he didn’t know them? You and I both know he sympathised with the New Earthers.’

  ‘A lot of us sympathise with them these days,’ Westy snapped, surprising me, ‘It doesn’t mean we start slotting each other.’

  I repeated my first question, ‘What do you know about Ev?’

  The Welshman glared at me for a second, and then sighed in surrender, ‘I saw him a few weeks back in Archer’s Post. It’s a garrison town on the edge of the mountains where regimental headquarters is located, very pro-Union and swamped with conscripts. We use it for local leave, so the blokes can unwind. He found me in a bar. He’s still marked as AWOL, so God knows how he managed to get between here and there without being caught, all of the maglevs are monitored and you can’t move ten metres without a camera on you.’

  ‘Unless the rebels switch the cameras off for him…’ I suggested, ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘The war, mostly,’ Westy laughed bitterly, ‘What else are we gonna talk about?’

  I could imagine the pair of them drowning in alcohol and self-pity, but only because I had been there myself, ‘So he didn’t ask you anything sensitive… patrol locations, future operations…’

  ‘No, don’t be stupid, mate,’ he said, waving the suggestion away with his hand, ‘Even if he did, I wouldn’t have told him anything. The bloke’s AWOL, that’s it. He’s not with NELA. The last thing Ev wants is more fighting, believe me. He had his fill. We all did.’

  ‘And yet, here we are,’ I said.

  ‘I’m telling you - he’s not with them.’

  I trusted Westy, he was still a trooper - a good one at that - but I wondered if he had been somehow misled by our old platoon sergeant during their drunken meeting in Archer’s Post. Nieuwe Poort was thirty kilometres from the garrison town, so why had Ev travelled so far to a place teeming with Union troops and how was he doing it without being caught?

  ‘So,’ I said finally, ‘Now what?’

  ‘I’m not gonna tell you what to do, mate,’ Westy replied, ‘If you want to tell your boss you saw him, then be my guest.’

  I thought about it for a second, ‘I have to mention it. Even if I wanted to keep my mouth shut, one of my blokes saw me talk to him, and he told my section commander.’

  Westy frowned, ‘Who, Konny? Johnno told me all about him. He’s a little two-faced shit bag. He acts like he’s the best lancejack in the Union, but with no ability to back it up.’

  ‘I know. I had to relieve him.’

  The stocky Welshman raised an eyebrow, ‘Really?’

  ‘Several times.’

  He laughed, and slapped me hard on the back, ‘Who’d have thought it, eh? You were like a wet paper bag when you first turned up two years ago, and now you’re cutting around putting everyone in his place!’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said grimly, ‘New Earth can make a boy grow up quick.’

  ‘It can,’ Westy agreed, and his smile disappeared, ‘Look, mate, you’re an NCO. I understand if you need to tell somebody about Ev. Alright?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He flicked his head toward the empty stairwell, ‘Shall we?’

  We made our way down into the warren.

  #

  The platoon had been settled into a large cavern filled with crates whilst the officers and what was left of our police escort went away to discuss the situation in the city above us.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Konny asked irately when I arrived.

  I ignored him. He was hardly in a position to act the good section commander as far as I was concerned.

  I was far more interested in the cooked baguettes the platoon were busy stuffing themselves with. They must have been given to them by the conscripts. The smell of hot melted cheese caused my mouth to water and my stomach to rumble noisily.

  ‘Here you are, Andy,’ O
konkwo held up a spare baguette from where he sat cross legged in the middle of the platoon huddle.

  ‘Thanks,’ I took the roll and took a massive bite, savouring the taste as I chewed it slowly. I doubted anybody had touched the rations they carried in their daysacks, not with fresh food around to be eaten. Nobody liked the processed mush that came in our ration packs, designed to be sucked through the feeding straw fitted to our respirators. They were dubbed ‘horror bags’ for the expression on a man’s face when he ate from them!

  ‘Johnno wants to see you,’ a voice said.

  The voice was that of Corporal Myers, the section commander for One section and the only other full corporal in the platoon. I saw that he was young like Johnno, but I guessed that he was probably slightly junior to him. He looked across at me from where his section sat along a line of crates.

  I swallowed my food, ‘Where is he?’

  The section commander pointed across the cavern to where Johnno stood beside the CSM, deep in conversation. I was in trouble.

  Konny must have told somebody about Ev, I thought, and I prepared myself for the worst as I handed Okonkwo back my barely eaten roll and made my way toward them.

  ‘Good call on the roof, by the way,’ Corporal Myers said as I passed him, nodding respectfully, ‘Andy Moralee, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  He shook my hand, ‘Jimmy. Glad to have you with us, mate.’

  My spirits lifted. Even if I was to be dragged through the mud for taking the advice of a potential rebel, at least there were some people in my platoon who thought that I did the right thing.

  I placed my respirator inside my helmet and tucked them under my arm so as to look presentable to the Company Sergeant Major, who spotted me approaching. The three platoons of the company watched curiously from their corners of the cavern as I drew close to the CSM, wondering if their most senior NCO was about to provide them with some entertainment whilst they ate.

  Johnno followed the CSMs stare, ‘That’s him now,’ he said.