LANCEJACK (The Union Series)

by Richards, Phillip

‘Why?’

  I shrugged, ‘I don’t know, Boss. You saw what they did to that woman, and the trail we followed. Clearly the rebels aren’t just one big happy family. I think somebody is trying to help us…’

  #

  We cleared the remainder of the trench, a process that took much longer than usual. Normally trenches were cleared in bloody, violent battles involving grenades and bursts of darts, but we didn’t want our enemy to know that we were there. A silent clearance took time.

  The wind battered the hillside, and occasionally I noticed tiny droplets of water landing on my visor. New Earth loved to rain, and I sensed that the heavens were about to open.

  We found the bodies of long dead Chinese soldiers lying within the trench, their armour covered in a thick layer of sand. I noticed that their weapons and equipment had been taken, including their respirators. Some of them had been left with nothing but the clothing that they had worn beneath their armour. The rebels had stripped them of anything that they thought they could use against us, leaving the bodies lying almost naked to slowly be buried in dust.

  ‘You’d think these guys would treat the Chinese with a bit more respect if they want them to be on their side,’ Okonkwo said as we passed yet another Chinaman, lying as the scavengers had left him, face down in the dirt.

  The trench was built into a plateau on the slope of a massive hill, which formed part of a jagged ridgeline, high enough for us to see the towering spires and bubble-shaped domes of Nieuwe Poort just over the horizon to our west. The ridgeline appeared to mark a clear divide between the low rolling hills that ran toward the city and the rocky terrain to the east. I couldn’t see anything beyond the crest of the hill, apart from the distant shape of mount Rottenberg, an immense mountain that dominated the skyline. Its peak pierced the pink clouds that gathered angrily around it.

  The boss called for all of the section commanders to close in, and his message was passed verbally along the trench from trooper to trooper.

  We weren’t going to use our net unless we had to, and even our datapads remained switched to passive mode so that they couldn’t transmit. Though our communication equipment was designed to encrypt every single digit of data so that it would take hours to decipher, it was still possible for even a casual listener to locate us by triangulating the signal. Judging by NELAs mastery of the electronic battlefield, it was highly likely that somebody would be listening from somewhere.

  We huddled together in a wider section of the trench, where Mr Moore sat himself down upon an upturned smart missile crate. There were six of us in all, the boss, the three section commanders including myself, Westy and Johnno. The 2ics had been left in command of our sections, and Johnno occasionally glanced above the trench to check that they were covering their arcs correctly.

  Mr Moore glanced up toward the heavens, where the clouds continued to gather ominously.

  ‘It’s going to rain, soon,’ I told him, knowing the weather on New Earth all too well. It loved to rain when you least needed it to.

  The platoon commander grunted in agreement, then regarded all of us, ‘Obviously you’re all aware of where you are from your own datapads, but for your information Archer’s Post is about fifteen kilometres in that direction.’

  I followed his outstretched arm to the south along the ridgeline, but couldn’t see anything. I checked the map on my datapad. It had automatically worked out its location since leaving the tunnels, and it showed me that the garrison was beyond a larger hill along the ridgeline, concealed from view.

  ‘It’s pretty close,’ I observed. Beyond that hill, well within the range of most missiles and artillery platforms, was regimental headquarters. I wondered if Ev had walked through the mountains to get there, somehow knowing when our warships were overhead.

  ‘I’m supposed to send the OC a message as soon as we break into the open,’ Mr Moore continued, ‘But I’m going to wait for now. If the rebels are here somewhere, then I want to be close enough to strike when I send the message, rather than be sat here waiting for the sky to rain with missiles.’

  He received a murmur of assent.

  It made no sense to send the message straight away, in fact it was tactically unsound. Even the lowest private could send our location to the OC with no more than a few taps against his datapad - so if we did come under contact we could still pass the message - even if half of us died right away. The idea of sending the message straight away made me feel very uneasy. We would be giving our position away, only to potentially be destroyed before our battalion even arrived. With any luck, the growing fleet of warships in orbit would manage to spot us anyway. Besides that, our task was to find and fix the enemy for the battalion. So far all we had managed to find was a stolen robot and a few dead Chinese, hardly anything worth calling in the cavalry for.

  ‘You’ve probably noticed that the location of these trenches provides perfect arcs out to the west, but nothing at all to the east,’ Mr Moore explained to us all, ‘Clearly its intended purpose was to defend against an opponent approaching from Nieuwe Poort, which means…’

  We looked up the hill, toward its wide crest and the rolling clouds beyond it.

  Johnno looked confused, ‘The rebels are off to the east?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ the boss answered quickly, ‘But whatever this position was originally built to defend is in that direction.’

  Re-orientating itself toward the east, our platoon broke cover from the trenches and advanced up the slope toward the crest of the hill. My section took the lead once more whilst the two other sections were kept back by Johnno, ready to be used if I came under fire. If that was to happen then my section would almost certainly be used as fire support, unless the position was close enough for me to ‘roll it’, which meant I would attack it myself without any assistance, and very little instruction, from the boss.

  As I neared the edge of the slope I ordered my section down onto their belt buckles with a downward wave of my hand.

  I had been warned by Mr Moore before I moved off, that there might be something on top of the hill, ‘It makes sense to put something there,’ he had said.

  We crawled forward slowly and stopped just before we exposed ourselves over the skyline. We were on what appeared to be the edge of another plateau, this time at the top of the hill. It was the perfect place to put a defensive position, I thought, cutting us down as we emerged onto the plateau.

  I removed the scope from my rifle and lifted it, as slowly as I could. The tiny metallic fibres woven into my gloves and combats fed the image back to my visor, and I continued to raise the scope until I could just about see the top of the pillbox. I knew that it was possible for some enemy sensors to actually detect the scope lens, despite its non-reflective properties, but it was better than poking out my head instead.

  I was right. Sure enough, on the other side of the plateau was a concrete pillbox, built into the rock so that it couldn’t be seen from above. I recorded the image and lowered the scope.

  I moved down to the boss, seeking further direction. Even if we were trying not to avoid coming under contact straight away, taking a pillbox wasn’t something I could do on my own.

  ‘Another position?’ Mr Moore asked me, as if he already knew the answer.

  ‘Yeah,’ I affirmed, ‘Some kind of pillbox.’

  He raised an eyebrow, ‘A pillbox? That’s interesting.’

  I didn’t understand, ‘Why?’

  ‘It suggests a fixed position,’ Westy explained to me, ‘Something of high value that can’t be moved. Do you remember seeing any pillboxes last time you were here?’

  ‘No,’ I admitted, though I still didn’t understand where he was going with this.

  ‘You’ll probably learn more about it when you attend your next promotion course and learn higher level unit tactics,’ Mr Moore said, ‘The Chinese are like us, all about mobility. Their tunnels are designed so that they don’t lose that mobility when the warships start pounding them, but they don’t c
are for fixed positions like pillboxes, they take up too much time and resources and then they get destroyed after five minutes.’

  ‘This one isn’t destroyed.’

  ‘That’s probably because the Chinese just surrendered,’ Westy replied, ‘Most of this province was given up pretty easily.’

  I allowed the boss to download the image through our gloves. He stared at the image of the pillbox for what felt like hours, trying to decide what to do next.

  The pillbox was sited to the far eastern edge of the plateau, where a slight rise in the ground allowed its occupier to see anything that came over the hill. Like us, the Chinese would have cited several, maybe even tens of positions, one behind the next. Such positions were known to us as ‘depth’, and their purpose was to slowly absorb an attacking force, sapping its strength through casualties and expended ammunition until eventually the attack stalled.

  I imagined an assaulting company, made weary by hours of fighting in the trenches and in the warrens, only to come face-to-face with that pillbox and the many others that probably flanked it. Dropships and their accompanying gravtanks, vulnerable to dismounted troops, would have been forced away by volleys of missiles, and unmanned aircraft would have been distracted by more important targets. The poor troopers would have been left to clear the position themselves, sacrificing their lives in order to secure the high ground, all to take control of a planet that didn’t want us any more than it wanted the Chinese. What a horrible, pointless world we lived in, I thought to myself bitterly.

  Johnno had arranged most of the platoon into a single file that ran away from us down the slope and out of line of sight to the pillbox, whilst we waited to be given our instructions. He left my section where they were and spread out in an extended line at the top of the hill. They were laid down far back enough to remain unseen, but far forward enough so that on my command they could simply kneel up and fire. I had no intention of doing so, but it was good to know that I could if I had to.

  Satisfied that the platoon were formed up correctly and that all of our arcs were covered from enemy attack, he made his way up to us in order to see what was going on. He looked over the boss’s shoulder at the image on his datapad.

  ‘What are you thinking, Boss?’ He asked.

  I could see that Mr Moore was deliberating over how best to deal with the pillbox, and he took well over a minute to respond.

  ‘I don’t want to go in noisy, in case it isn’t occupied,’ he said, explaining to Johnno his thought process. Although Johnno was a corporal and not a sergeant, he was still an experienced trooper and his opinion was important.

  ‘At the same time,’ the boss continued, ‘If it is occupied then clearly we will need to fire up our location to the battalion and go balls-out on the offensive.’

  Johnno nodded, ‘Maybe it’s worth trying to sneak up on it?’

  ‘Maybe,’ the boss looked down at the image, and Jimmy leant over his shoulder to have a look for himself. If anybody was assaulting then it was going to be him, since my section was already in position to provide fire support.

  ‘I could move my lads around there,’ Jimmy suggested, and he drew a line along a shallow gulley that approached the pillbox to one side. It was so shallow that his men would be forced to crawl flat to the ground in order not to be seen, since he wouldn’t have the benefit of suppressive fire from my section or smoke to cover him.

  ‘I think that’s what we need to do,’ Mr Moore agreed. He studied the pillbox for a second longer, before looking up at Jimmy resolutely, ‘You are to assault the pillbox. Regardless of what happens, whether you get contacted or not, you remain committed once you leave this location. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, Boss.’

  ‘You are not to fire, or use any form of communications equipment on your approach. If, however, you make contact, then the world is your oyster. Let them have it.’

  ‘Okay.’

  The boss turned to Johnno, ‘Have your smart launchers good to go. If it gets noisy, I want both missiles up in the air. Your grenade launchers as well, Corporal Moralee. Have them good to go.’

  I gave a thumbs up, ‘Roger.’

  ‘If it kicks off, and it may well do, I want every bit of kit that goes boom in the air. I want that pillbox to be a pile of dust and rubble before Corporal Myers even reaches it. Two section will be the next assaulting section, and Three will remain in reserve. Be ready to follow in hard and fast. I will send up a message to the OC, so you can expect the cavalry to rock in about five minutes later. Any questions?’

  There were none.

  Westy patted Jimmy on the arm and gave him a wink, ‘Good luck, mate.’

  I gave the section commander a respectful nod as he crawled past me, his face fixed with an expression of grim determination. Jimmy was hardly an inexperienced trooper, he was a fully trained section commander who had seen plenty of action in the past two days, but what he was about to do was very dangerous indeed.

  I moved back to my section and found Konny waiting for me to brief him on what was happening. I told him our plan, simple as it was, sweeping with my arm to indicate Jimmy’s approach on our left flank. We then both made our way to our fire teams and briefed up each trooper individually, so that we all knew exactly what was going on around us. It was important to do so, because in a matter of minutes Konny and I might not be around anymore, and one of them would have to step up to take command.

  As I turned to show Jackson the route that Jimmy was going to use, I could see his section trotting up the slope toward the edge of the plateau, spaced out so that they couldn’t all be killed by a single burst or missile.

  Jimmy was the only full corporal in the platoon other than Johnno, so it was only right for him to carry out such a dangerous assault, but I still wanted to take his place. I didn’t enjoy combat, quite the opposite in fact, but I had become good at it. I had been told many a time that a section commander was like an angry dog pulling on a leash, waiting for the boss to release him. Now I felt that leash holding me back. I wanted to attack, to unleash my vengeance upon those who had taken Ev and killed his wife, but I would have to wait my turn.

  ‘You want to take his place, don’t you?’ Jackson observed quietly, seeing the look in my eyes.

  ‘Yes and no,’ I replied.

  ‘I can see why you promoted so quickly. You’re mad!’

  I smiled, ‘Aren’t we all?’

  Jimmy’s section dropped onto their belt buckles, slipping over the top of the hill and onto the plateau. I watched them until the last trooper disappeared, and then raised my scope once more.

  I could see Jimmy’s section crawling up the shallow gully, hugging the ground with their bodies in order to keep as low a profile as possible. We had no idea what detection equipment the rebels possessed, if anything, but even if they had nothing then their own eyes would still do the trick if just one trooper was stupid enough to raise his head. From my perspective it looked as though they were horribly exposed, but I reassured myself that the pillbox probably couldn’t see them.

  It took five tense minutes for Jimmy to draw near to the pillbox. We all waited nervously, waiting for the air to suddenly explode with the rattle of gunfire, but it didn’t.

  Jimmy had reached the side of the concrete structure, where the firing slits didn’t allow for him to be seen anymore. He lifted his body onto his hands and knees and crawled like a baby for the last few metres with his section in tow.

  A lot of people would have stood to make their final approach onto the position, or slid themselves forward on their bellies, but Jimmy knew what he was doing. Sliding on your belly made a terrible noise on hard rocky ground. Standing up meant that you risked making yourself a target to further depth positions.

  I watched as he briefed his point man with a series of hand gestures, not daring to make a sound. Then they continued their crawl, disappearing behind the pillbox and out of view.

  I looked back to the boss, who was a good ten metres behind me w
ith the next section, ready to be launched.

  ‘They’re in,’ I announced in a whisper, and his headset amplified my voice so that he could hear me.

  He nodded, ‘Two section, stand by!’

  The next assaulting section quickly readied themselves, making final checks to their weapons and equipment. A couple of troopers gripped their bayonets and gave them a wiggle to make sure they were fitted correctly. There was a good chance that they would need them.

  My visor picked up something moving out of the pillbox slit. It was an outstretched arm, giving us the thumbs up.

  ‘Position clear,’ I announced, and straight away Two section ran forward with Mr Moore and his party sandwiched in their midst.

  Westy gave me a silly grin as he ran past, and I laughed. Troopers were idiots.

  They moved up using the same gully that Jimmy had, and though they didn’t take their time as he had done, they still kept down on their hands and knees. We never assumed that we were safe just because we had cleared a single position, because there were often others.

  Johnno moved up to the edge of the plateau, ‘Andy, follow on behind me, mate.’

  ‘No worries.’

  The next section waited at the edge of the pillbox whilst the boss appeared to receive a brief from Jimmy through one of the slits, and then they disappeared behind it, no doubt being pushed on to take another position.

  We stared at the pillbox anxiously. I wondered what lay beyond it, and more importantly whether or not it had been occupied. Finally after another few minutes we received another thumbs up.

  ‘Follow on,’ Johnno said, and he sped off with his work party.

  Keeping a good twenty metre gap between us and Johnno’s men, we ran up the gully. He went firm by the pillbox, keeping his work party inside the gully so that they couldn’t be seen by any other positions beyond. A message was passed to him via the slit, and he turned to pass it backward along the line.

  The last private in Johnno’s work party turned back to pass the message, ‘One rebel dead.’

  So we weren’t alone, then, I thought. My heart raced again as my body prepared itself for combat. Although we weren’t yet under fire, we had found the enemy and it was only a matter of time before battle resumed.