The troopers gestured us onward, and eventually I spotted Westy’s platoon commander engaged in a heated argument with a conscript officer.
‘What’s going on, Mr Williams?’ Mr Moore demanded. He glanced with a frown toward the conscript officer, who glared back through the respirator that he held against his face with his free hand.
‘This is the company second in command,’ the younger platoon commander explained, but Mr Moore simply kissed his teeth.
‘I don’t care who he is,’ he snapped, ‘He goes with the rest of the prisoners to the chamber before being segregated for questioning.’
‘This is an outrage,’ the conscript officer shouted in English, making his fury clear, ‘Who do you think you are dealing with?’
‘Potential rebel sympathisers,’ Mr Moore retorted, and looked back to Jimmy, ‘If you would, please, Corporal?’
‘Yes, Boss,’ Jimmy gripped the conscript officer by his shirt and threw him backward up the corridor. The officer’s protests were cut short as more troopers’ hands grabbed at him and he was rapidly passed up the chain along with the rest of the prisoners.
Mr Moore ordered our three fire teams to assist in the clearance of the warrens, and we joined with our comrades in the systematic search, moving through the caves without leaving a single corner untouched. We searched through accommodation laid out in a similar fashion to our own in Lash, as well as through large caverns filled with stores and others stacked with computer equipment.
Most of the conscripts had already been captured, but occasionally we found somebody hiding and they were quickly dragged away. All of them appeared to be completely shocked by what was happening, and I began to doubt that the ones left within Eindhoven had been a part of Ruckheim’s betrayal.
Once the two platoon commanders were satisfied that we had cleared every metre of the conscript warrens, we returned to the cavern where the prisoners we had found within the warrens had been amassed.
Westy, as the platoon sergeant, had segregated the prisoners into three groups, officers, NCOs and privates, each of whom was kept in a separate corner of the cavern under guard. They were sat cross-legged with their hands bound behind them, and tape was stuck across their eyes beneath their respirator visors so that they could not see . I knew that their headsets would have been de-activated so that they could not hear either, effectively rendering them unable to communicate.
We didn’t restrict the senses as a means of torture, although I had no doubt that it was unpleasant. We merely did so in order to impair the ability of our prisoners to attack us; not that a few terrified conscripts would be a match against more than a platoon of highly trained drop troopers anyway.
Somebody amongst the huddled privates sobbed in despair, and the pathetic sound caused me to grimace.
Westy strode up beside me and we exchanged a respectful nod, ‘You alright, mate?’
I sighed, ‘Just about. We took two casualties in the Citadel.’
‘Bad?’
‘They’ll live.’
Westy looked toward the sobbing conscript, ‘They haven’t a clue what’s going on, have they?’
‘No,’ I agreed.
As we watched as a trooper nudged the conscript. It wasn’t a violent nudge, I realised, for the trooper then leant over and patted him on the shoulder, whispering for him to remain calm. Nobody in the cavern had anything to fear, so long as they were innocent.
I looked at my old friend, ‘What the hell is going on?’
Westy puffed his cheeks, ‘I don’t know, mate. But I don’t think any of this lot have anything to do with it,’ he nodded toward the privates. ‘Ruckheim left half of his boys at the cordon, then took off in the LSVs with all of the rebels. The boys he left behind didn’t have a clue, apparently, pretty much the same as these.’
‘What about the officers and NCOs?’
He shrugged, ‘Who knows? But would you hang out here, if you were involved in all of this?’
‘I guess not,’ I agreed, ‘There was something about Ev, too,’ I added.
Westy raised an eyebrow, ‘Oh?’
‘I don’t think he went willingly. He looked like he was being forced.’
‘What are you saying?’
I told Westy about my conversation with the rebel prisoner, and my sighting of our old platoon sergeant being half dragged across the bridge.
‘So what was he doing in the Citadel?’ The Welshman asked, ‘Trying to stop them?’
I shrugged, ‘I don’t know. I don’t doubt that he’s wrapped up in all this, but I don’t think he’s the one calling the shots. At least not anymore. I think he knows it’s gone too far. You said it yourself - Ev wouldn’t want to be a part of this.’
Westy nodded slowly, ‘It is a bit much. Ev went on a lot about New Earth independence, but I can’t imagine him taking part in this slaughter. He doesn’t want any more death.’
‘That rebel prisoner talked about Ev like he really hated him,’ I recalled, ‘He said that he would see his ‘dreams destroyed’, whatever that means.’
Westy turned and fixed me with a stare.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Nothing,’ Westy replied finally, ‘Just a weird thing to say.’
‘Yeah,’ I agreed, ‘I wonder what he meant by that?’
The OC arrived inside the chamber, surveying the captured conscripts. Mr Moore reported to him that we had successfully secured the warren complex beneath Eindhoven, and that the base was now secured.
Westy and I watched as the conscript company second in command was brought over to the OC, guided by a trooper who gripped him by the shoulder so that he couldn’t do anything sudden.
The OC regarded the blindfolded officer. Unaware of what was going on around him, the conscript made a good show of remaining calm and impassive, despite having argued during his capture. Either he had a clean conscience and knew that he would be found to be innocent, I thought, or he was guilty as hell and didn’t want us to know it. I doubted that he was in on Ruckheim’s mutiny, otherwise he wouldn’t have stayed in Eindhoven only to be caught.
‘Such a shame,’ the OC said sadly, ‘This shouldn’t have to happen.’
‘We can blame Ruckheim for that,’ Mr Moore replied curtly.
The OC shot him an angry glance, but then nodded reluctantly, ‘Yes. It’s almost unthinkable, isn’t it? Whether you agree or disagree with the Union policy on New Earth, killing Union troopers is going far too far.’
Mr Moore nodded toward the conscript, ‘Shall we?’
The OC looked the prisoner up and down for a second time, ‘Yes. Please remove his blindfold and allow him to hear, trooper.’
The trooper removed the conscript’s respirator and ripped away the tape before replacing it back against his face. He then fiddled with an opened panel on the back of the conscript’s headset, reactivating it. Able to see and hear once more, the officer regarded his peers coolly.
‘Captain Schwartzkopf,’ the OC extended a hand in greeting, his eyes flicking to the name badge sewn onto the conscript’s uniform, ‘I am major Thomsett, Officer Commanding A Company.’
Captain Schwartzkopf looked down at the OC’s hand, ‘I do apologise, sir,’ he said calmly in English, ‘I cannot shake your hand, for my own are bound behind me.’
The OC frowned, ‘I’m terribly sorry. Trooper, remove his cuffs please, I’m sure a single unarmed officer is of little threat to us.’
‘None of us are any threat to you, Sir,’ the conscript replied curtly as the trooper cut the plastic cuffs away with his bayonet, ‘We’re on the same side.’
‘I wish we could believe you, captain, but unfortunately something has happened in the past hour which has caused us to doubt the loyalty of you and your men.’
Captain Schwartzkopf raised an eyebrow, ‘What could possibly lead you to question our loyalty, Sir? We may be conscripts, but we are all Europeans.’
‘So was Major Ruckheim,’ Mr Moore interjected, ‘But it appears that h
e runs the rebellion in Nieuwe Poort.’
‘Yes, thank you, lieutenant,’ the OC appeared irritated at the outburst, ‘We don’t know that he actually runs the show.’
The platoon commander grunted in reply.
‘I don’t believe it,’ the captain looked shocked, even more so than many of the conscripts had looked when we had taken them prisoner. People went AWOL, conscripts more so than troopers - because their service was completely involuntary - but Union soldiers didn’t turn on their own countrymen, it was unheard of.
‘I’m afraid it’s true,’ the OC confirmed, and he went on to tell the conscript officer of Major Ruckheim’s disappearance with the rebels.
As the details of his own company commander’s betrayal sank in, the captain’s head dipped lower and lower, weighed down by shame, ‘I don’t know what to say, Sir.’
The OC smiled, ‘Don’t be ashamed for one man’s actions. If you are innocent - and I am sure that you are - then you have nothing to worry about. What I do require from you, however, is your full co-operation. I require for you to have your electronic warfare team provide my company with access to their hardware. I also wish for you to identify your company commander’s quarters to my men so that they may be searched.’
The captain nodded quickly, ‘Of course, Sir.’
#
We unceremoniously pulled Ruckheim’s quarters apart. Drawers were pulled open and their contents tipped onto the floor. Expensive furniture was sliced open by bayonets so that their insides could be checked. We didn’t know what we were looking for, which made our search even more destructive.
Captain Schwartzkopf had looked on in dismay as the private quarters of his old company commander were torn to pieces before him. At one point he had asked Mr Moore if it was really necessary to make such a mess, but our platoon commander had replied in his usual unpleasant manner.
‘Is there something here you don’t want us to find?’
The captain appeared hurt, ‘Of course, not!’
‘If you tried to stop our search and we found something, you could be implicated as an accessory to Ruckheim’s treachery. Do you know what the Union does to traitors?’
‘No.’
Mr Moore lent close to the captain, ‘Nobody does…’
I turned away from the confrontation, returning to what I was doing, rifling through a desktop drawer.
‘Do you know what they really do to traitors?’ Okonkwo whispered as we searched.
I looked up at him, wondering why he might ask me such a question. Had Geany said something? I wasn’t a traitor, but I had withheld information due to misplaced loyalty.
I tried to appear innocent, ‘What?’
Okonkwo smiled, ‘The worst punishment the Union could ever give. They consign them to New Earth!’
I laughed, relieved that Okonkwo had merely been joking. New Earth was a pretty shit place to be, but I had little doubt that the Union had far nastier punishments up its sleeve for people like Ruckheim - and Ev. The people of Europe only heard from the colonies what the Union wanted them to hear, since it controlled all of the shipping that travelled between them. If the Union wanted someone to disappear, then it could do so.
The company EW team scoured the major’s datatablet and various other pieces of electronic equipment dotted about his quarters, searching for any data that might give us a clue as to his whereabouts, and what the rebel plans might be. Having finished stripping the room without finding anything, we stopped to watch as they did their magic.
‘He’s got a lot of data hidden away,’ one of the operators said as he sat behind the major’s desk manipulating a hologram produced by the tablet - numbers, letters and random icons dancing around his hands as he worked. He had attached several devices to it, none of which any of us had seen before. EW teams were composed of hand-picked individuals far smarter than the average drop trooper, and the equipment they used was beyond us.
Mr Moore leant over the desk and sighed impatiently, ‘What does that mean, then?’
I knew why he was growing impatient. Above us the battalion and countless more conscripts were struggling to regain control over the city, where pockets of rebel resistance still fought on despite their leader’s escape, meanwhile we were mincing around with a bunch of computers.
The EW operator ignored the boss’s rudeness, ‘He’s hidden tonnes of data within the tablet. Pretty well done, the code is spread over…’
‘I don’t care about the code, get to the point!’
Somebody snickered, but the operator remained focused onto the hologram, ‘He’s up to something.’
‘We all know that.’
‘I mean he’s up to something on the tablet.’
‘Like what?’
The operator waved his hand over the hologram, and finally sat back in triumph, ‘It’s code.’
I could see that Mr Moore was growing increasingly irritable, ‘What kind of code?’
‘I’m not sure,’ the operator watched endless lines of letters and numbers scrolling across the hologram, searching for some sense in it, ‘It would take a long time to decipher and I don’t really have the tools to do it here.’
‘So you’re saying you can’t do it?’ I asked.
The operator looked up at me angrily, ‘This is my bread and butter, mate. I’m not saying I can’t do it, what I’m saying is that it will take a long time.’
‘Well time is one thing we don’t have,’ Mr Moore replied, ‘While we mess about here, our enemy is making his withdrawal, and we don’t even know where or why,’ he paused to collect his thoughts, ‘How much time?’
The operator shrugged, returning his gaze to the hologram, ‘I couldn’t say…’
The platoon commander was about to say something, when suddenly the operator’s eyes widened, and his jaw fell open.
I looked at the endless scrolling code, not seeing what had surprised him, ‘What?’
For a moment the operator just stared in horror at the screen, and then he whispered so quietly that my headset had to amplify his voice for me to hear, ‘My God, it can’t be…’
‘What?’
The operator pointed at the screen, ‘The code. I couldn’t get past this for days, but I recognise its format from my EW course - it’s military communications - we get taught to recognise it. It’s the code of the enemy.’
The boss frowned, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
The operator fixed the boss with a frightened stare, ‘The Chinese, Sir. It’s the Chinese!!’
#
As soon as we informed the OC of our discovery he quickly pulled all of the officers and NCOs of the company together, crowding us all into Ruckheim’s office. Despite the size of the office there were so many of us that we were forced to huddle closely together, and the room filled with the whirring of the tiny filter motors inside our respirators.
I thought to myself that we would have made the perfect target. A single bomb dropped by a Chinese ship could pulverise us all, leaving the company entirely leaderless. The warrens built beneath Eindhoven were designed to protect the conscripts from attacks by rogue saucers and missiles controlled by the rebels, but I doubted that they could withstand an orbital bombardment from a far more sophisticated opponent.
‘Gentlemen,’ the OC began, eyeing each of us in turn, ‘As some of you may already be aware, the situation here in Nieuwe Poort has turned rather more sinister. It appears that our traitorous major, Ruckheim, has been in contact with the Chinese.’
Several NCOs exchanged surprised glances and the room filled with barely subdued murmurs of alarm. Westy caught my eye from across the room, and I held his gaze. I wondered if he knew how deep into this mess our old friend Ev was. Perhaps even Ev himself hadn’t known. He had fought against the Chinese alongside us. I couldn’t imagine him willingly assisting them.
The OC held up a hand for calm, ‘I have brought you all together because I don’t want to cause a panic amongst the company. The men are
already uneasy about the unrest within the city, and this is a revelation that they can do without for now.’
Johnno looked unhappy about keeping a secret from the men, ‘So what do we tell them, and what about those who already know?’
‘Nothing, Corporal Johnston. We tell them nothing. The men are already focused upon the task at hand, which remains the defeat of the rebels within this province. At this stage we have no idea whether this rebellion is setting the conditions for a Chinese invasion or if it is merely a sponsored effort to weaken the Union grip on New Earth. Until we know more we do not need to speculate, and we do not need to worry the men unnecessarily.
We are taking this revelation very seriously. The commanding officer has passed the information on to New Earth JOint Command, who have promptly ordered all of the Centauri fleet to move into a defensive formation in orbit above us. I can assure you, though I do not know the exact numbers, just that the size of that fleet remains considerable, far larger in fact than it had been the last time the Chinese came here. In effect, we now have a sphere of steel rapidly forming around the planet, giving us a formidable weapon to use to assist us in our efforts against the rebellion. In the short term at least, the tide has turned in our favour, because the change in situation has caused NEJOC to take notice. We now have countless eyes looking down from above, and unlimited top cover.’
It was mad to think that during all of the fighting that had taken place we had been in possession of so much military hardware that we were unable to use, purely because a few stuffy generals hidden away in a mountainside somewhere had decided that we weren’t worth the trouble. There was probably some reasoning behind it, I supposed. The Union didn’t want to make its full strength known to Chinese observers - and there would be some hidden away somewhere out there - plus it didn’t look good for the planet to be turned back into a battlefield.
‘Those outside of this room who are aware of the situation, all of whom are members of your platoon,’ the OC nodded toward Johnno and the boss, ‘Are to be kept isolated from the company as much as possible.’
Mr Moore nodded, ‘Understood. I’m afraid that’s about half my platoon, though.’
LANCEJACK (The Union Series) Page 19