EDEN (The Union Series)

by Richards, Phillip

  I forced a smile. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Not bad,’ Skelton replied, taking a massive bite from some kind of greasy mess wrapped in foil. ‘You coming out?’

  ‘I might do later …’ I lied.

  ‘Come on,’ Myers beckoned insistently. ‘You can’t have the whole section out on the drink while you stay in camp being boring!’

  I desperately sought an excuse to make my escape, but couldn’t think of anything that would get the pair of them to let me go. My men already thought that I was losing the plot, and hiding away from them wouldn’t help.

  ‘Don’t be a bell end …’ Skelton said, as though his words added weight to their argument.

  I sighed. ‘Fine. But only a couple.’

  Bars in Paraiso were no different from anywhere else I had been, although the alcohol brands were different. I sipped at my drink, trying to make conversation with the drunken members of my section. They were in good spirits, having been told that Gritt had stabilised and would make a full recovery.

  ‘Here’s to Gritt,’ Puppy held up a glass of oily green liquid, swaying precariously on his barstool. ‘May he forever shit out the hole on the side of his arse for leaving Eden early!’

  The lads cheered, clinking glasses together in their unsympathetic toast. As they did so somebody caught my eye further along the bar, and I growled as I realised who it was.

  I rolled my eyes up to the ceiling. ‘Really?’

  ‘What?’ Myers asked from where he sat beside me.

  I nodded toward the girl staring at me from the far side of the bar. ‘Her. She’s been following me.’

  The young trooper followed my eyes and a grin spread across his face. ‘Well that’s not bad going, is it? Alliance spy, is she?’

  I glanced at him irritably. He was suggesting that she was interested only in using me as a source of intelligence, and that a girl like that could never be genuinely attracted to me.

  ‘Are you gonna go and speak to her?’

  ‘I’ve already spoken to her,’ I said gruffly. ‘I told her to leave me alone.’

  Myers gasped as he leant back from his stool. ‘You never …’

  ‘Never what?’ Skelton asked, and Myers pointed at the girl.

  ‘He told that girl there to leave him alone!’

  Skelton’s eyes widened. ‘You told her to go away? Are you insane?’

  I took a big gulp from my drink, knowing that I would never hear the end of it now. Once the blokes latched onto something they never let it go.

  ‘Go over there and talk to her, mate,’ Myers urged.

  Skelton joined in as well, shoving me gently on the shoulder. ‘Yeah, go on! How many times do you get to pull a fit posh girl from Paraiso? She might buy you out of the army!’

  ‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  The two of them weren’t having any of it, though.

  ‘Come on!’

  ‘Do it for me, Andy! Look at her!’

  ‘Do it for Gritt!’

  I snapped, slamming my fist against the bar. ‘I said NO!’

  The two troopers fell silent, and several other members of the section turned to look at me curiously. I knew I shouldn’t have allowed myself to be dragged out to drink, now I was spoiling their evening for them. Didn’t anybody understand that I just needed a few moments of peace?

  ‘Rare for you to be kicking off, Andy,’ somebody called out from behind. The voice sounded hostile, and I spun around to see who it was.

  I recognised the trooper stood behind me almost instantly, having served in the same platoon as him during the New Earth invasion.

  My lip curled at the sight of him. ‘Stevo, I thought you got out?’

  Stevo had been best friends with Woody, my old torturer from my days as a fresh recruit. The two of them had taken great pleasure in treating me as a lower form of life, right before my platoon dropped into battle, pushing me to the limits of what a young mind could endure. During the short, but brutal campaign that raged across the planet, Stevo showed his true colours, running away when the battle grew fierce. My old friend and section commander Westy blamed him for the death of another trooper, though he never did tell me what Stevo had done to cause it.

  The trooper shrugged, his eyes fixed onto mine and burning with hatred. I could tell that he was drunk - the old bully coming out of him. He would never have dared to confront me sober, not after the war anyway. He knew that I could fight, he had seen it first hand, and he knew that I was particularly vicious when I was angry.

  ‘I decided to stay,’ he said. ‘I needed the money, and not much goes on here anymore.’

  My eyes flicked down to his rank insignia, noting that he was still a private.

  ‘Not here, it doesn’t,’ I corrected.

  Whilst we fought a covert war in the Bosque, most of the dropship battalions, including my own, remained in bases dotted around Paraiso, held back as a reserve in the event of an Alliance invasion. The Union didn’t want to appear militarily active on the continent as they tried to cool relations with their old foe.

  No wonder Stevo had stayed in the dropship infantry. With enhanced pay far above that of a lowly conscript, and the promise of an easy residential tour in Paraiso, it was right up his alley. I could imagine him enjoying his cushy life as a senior private, bullying the younger lads in his platoon, and telling tales of his bravery on New Earth. Stevo loved to spread lies and rumours, especially when there were so few people to catch him out. Most of our old platoon was either dead, wounded, or living at the bottom of a bottle somewhere on Earth.

  Stevo looked around the bar, then back at me. ‘You know this is a Third Battalion bar, right?’

  ‘And what of it?’

  ‘I’m just surprised you would show your face here after what happened on New Earth … Everybody’s heard, you know that, right?’

  I bristled. ‘Heard what? Your spin of events? I wouldn’t believe you if you told me the grass was green!’

  ‘Everybody knows,’ he repeated with a drunken sneer. ‘We all know that you got Westy thrown in jail, even though it was you who tried to ally with a traitor. Everyone knows the truth, even if the battalion won’t say it. You’re protected by that star you wear on your chest, and without it you’d be in jail where you belong.’

  I growled. Stevo had managed to hit me where it hurt. ‘Fuck you.’

  The drunken antics of my section had subsided into quiet whispers. They could see that their section commander was being confronted, and listened cautiously, eyeing up the newcomer and those around him. Stevo wasn’t alone, I noticed several other troopers standing nearby, watching to see what happened next.

  ‘Fuck me?’ Stevo laughed. ‘How many people have you fucked over in your career, Andy, to get where you are now? Lance Corporal Moralee, Union Star, hero of the warrens, now a recce commander in his old battalion with less than a few years under his belt … How many blokes did you have to fuck over to get there? Westy we know about. He was one of our top full screws, everyone loved him …’

  ‘He didn’t like you though, did he, Stevo?’

  Stevo threw up his arms. ‘Who are you to say? I wonder who else got trodden on by Andy Moralee’s march up the ranks? I heard you hid in a trench while your whole section got killed - so there’s a few lads straight away - all dying while you look out for number one. Then there was Sam in the tunnels, when you won your star. Funny it was you who got the medal, when it was Sam who got shot!’

  My jaw tightened as the blood in my veins boiled. ‘Leave it, Stevo …’

  ‘Why?’ he grinned maliciously. ‘Does the truth hurt? I’ll make sure the battalion knows the truth about you, Andy. I’ll make sure they know how you look after your mates, your section … Climo … Sam … Ray … Browner…’

  Each name sent a shockwave down my spine. I remembered Climo’s face, or what was left of it, after a dart had punched through his visor, and I remembered Browner, whimpering as we tried to staunch the bleed
ing from his bloody stumps.

  I leapt out of my chair, my fists clenched in rage. ‘I hope you’re hungry, because you’ll be eating your fucking teeth in a minute!’

  Several troopers formed-up around Stevo, and I realised that this wasn’t going to be a fair fight. The bar went silent as everybody stopped to watch.

  ‘I’d like to see you try, mate,’ one of the troopers said, taking a few steps in front of Stevo. He was clearly from Stevo’s platoon, although I didn’t know him. He was big, his fatigue shirt barely fit around his muscles, the result of a year spent with nothing to do but pump iron in the gym.

  My muscles tensed, I was within striking distance.

  ‘Let’s calm down, lads,’ Puppy soothed, placing a hand onto my shoulder. ‘We’re all just having a quiet drink, no need to fight.’

  I hesitated, and then nodded reluctantly, relaxing my muscles again and unclenching my fists. Puppy was right. I couldn’t be drawn into a fight, even if the antagonist was making such awful accusations. I needed to be the bigger man.

  ‘Stroker …’ Stevo hissed from behind the bigger trooper.

  I looked down at the floor, totally humiliated, as the section looked on in dismay. Puppy had been right to stop us fighting, but their section commander had still lost face in front of them by standing down.

  I shook my head angrily, before looking back up at the small crowd of troopers building around us.

  I licked my lips, and cursed under my breath. ‘To hell with it!’

  Without warning I struck out with my fist, connecting with the big trooper’s eye socket and sending him sprawling backwards. Before anybody could stop me I pushed past him and lunged toward Stevo.

  The bar exploded into violence as the section joined in, piling into the fight.

  Everyone sees a fight at least once in their life, but no fight compared to one fought between groups of trained dropship troopers. Even the youngest trooper, fresh from Uralis, had received hand-to-hand combat classes, and they were actively encouraged to participate in various martial arts when they arrived in battalion. Fists and elbows flew as the section clashed against Stevo’s gang.

  I caught Stevo by the collar just as he attempted to make a break for it, snatching him back toward me. Ignored the fighting around me as I pulled him in, catching the wide-eyed look of surprise on his face when I snapped my head forward and head-butted him square on the nose.

  ‘You bastard!’ I roared as the hapless trooper went limp in my arms, and I threw him backward. Barely conscious, Stevo collapsed onto a table as its occupants scattered. Glasses smashed on the floor as he fell to the ground.

  Something glinted out of the corner of my eye, and I instinctively dodged backward to avoid a bottle being swung at my face. It missed me by centimetres, brushing against my chest as the would-be assailant continued his swing without connecting.

  It was a stupid, drunken move. The trooper had swung overarm, and having failed to hit me over the head with his bottle his arm passed directly in front of me. I gripped the arm, holding him in place as I struck once at his gut and then at his face. Dazed, the trooper dropped his weapon, and I grasped him by the head and slammed it onto the bar with all my might. He dropped to the ground unconscious.

  The entire section were locked in combat. I turned to see Wildgoose take on several troopers at once, his huge frame and long reach putting himself at a distinct advantage over the smaller attackers. It was like watching hyenas trying to attack a lion.

  ‘Andy, watch out!’ Myers screamed.

  His warning came too late, for this time I never saw the bottle as it crashed down onto my head, the blow driving me to the floor. Shards of glass scattered around me, and cold liquid poured down my neck and soaked into my fatigues.

  ‘Andy’s down!’ somebody hollered.

  ‘Somebody get that belter!’

  My mind fuzzy, I crawled away from the fight that raged around me, struggling to get back onto my feet. A bar stool crashed against the wall beside me as I stumbled out of the bar, clutching at my throbbing head. Blood oozed from a gash from the bottle, enough of it for my hand to come away wet.

  ‘Oh God, are you OK?’

  I swore as I realised I had been followed out of the bar by the girl. ‘What do you want?’ I snarled.

  The girl flinched as something smashed inside the bar, and a woman screamed. I would have gone back inside, but I was in no condition to fight, there was barely anything left in me.

  ‘Let me help you,’ she offered.

  I waved her away. ‘No. I told you once, leave me alone. Find some other trooper to bother. You don’t want to waste your time with me.’

  ‘Please. You really look like you could use a friend right now. Let me get you away from here …’

  ‘Are you even listening to me? I don’t want any fucking friends!’ The vehemence in my words caused her to take a step back, but I wasn’t finished. ‘Do you think you’re gonna take a poor, messed-up trooper and set him right? This isn’t a hologram, this is real life! Do yourself a favour, and fuck off!’

  Visibly shocked by my unexpected tirade, the girl sobbed and then ran, disappearing up the street.

  Well done, Andy, I thought sarcastically as I watched her go, she won’t be coming back any time soon. You’re a real hero.

  I slipped around the corner of the bar, disappearing into an alleyway, whilst taking a look over my shoulder to check that I wasn't being followed. The city of Paraiso glittered, every dome bathed in light as its people enjoyed their lives of luxury.

  Like every other peacetime city, I realised Paraiso was alien to me. This provincial capital, my home town of Portsmouth … I didn't belong in any civilised place, not anymore. I didn’t even belong in my own battalion.

  I turned away from the cityscape and staggered further along the alleyway, weaving blindly between goods trolleys and other machinery, before finally coming to a halt and sitting myself on the ground with my legs out in front of me.

  I stared blankly at the wall across from me, utterly absorbed by my misery. The last time I had been like this, I remembered that Westy had found me, and offered me comfort and friendship during my darkest hour. Now there was nobody. Westy was gone, locked in a Union jail that I was only spared from by my stupid medal. Ev was dead, as we're most of my friends. All that was left was the darkness that shrouded my every waking moment, that and the ghosts that terrorised me throughout the night.

  I couldn't cry. I was far beyond that. My mind had become too numbed by the pain, and I could bear it no longer.

  The shard of broken glass flickered as I drew it from my pocket, like a bayonet blade catching the light of the sun. I had taken it from the floor during the fight, stuffing it into my pocket as I crawled to make my escape from the bar. I looked down at the makeshift weapon.

  I could end it, I thought. Nobody would find me down this alley, not before I bleed out and die. A few minutes of pain, then finally I would be free of my nightmare.

  I clutched the shard firmly in one hand, extending my arm to expose my wrist. I can do it, I told myself, I was no stranger to pain.

  But I couldn't do it. It was as though my muscles refused to move, denying me the right to end my life. The hand holding the piece of glass shook as anger welled up within me. Why couldn't I do it? Why?

  I swore, tossing the glass across the alley. It struck the wall with such force it fractured into tiny pieces, rendered useless.

  I knew why I couldn't do it. The act of suicide went against my natural survival instincts; instincts that were too strong to break. My mind must be weak, I told myself, and because it was weak I was forced to continue the torture that was my life. Only the enemy could kill me. I thumped my fist against the ground in despair.

  'Andy?' a voice called, snapping me back to reality with a jolt. Somebody had followed me up the alley. I realised that I had left a trail of blood that had dripped from the wound on my head.

  'Lance Corporal Moralee?' the voice called aga
in, cautiously. It was Myers.

  'I’m here,' I replied finally, heaving myself up from the ground. I couldn't appear weak in front of my men, even though I knew that I was. 'What do you want?'

  As I reached Myers, he instantly noticed the wound on my head. 'We need to get you to a medic, mate.'

  'I'll be alright,' I replied gruffly, but he shook his head.

  'You could be concussed. You might not make it through the night.'

  I don't have a problem with that. 'I'll get in the shit for fighting,' I muttered.

  He laughed. 'Troopers against troopers? Nah, nobody would report it, and the medics won't care. The bars don't want us to go away - they make too much money out of us! Everybody turns a blind eye so long as no one gets too badly hurt.'

  I thought to argue, but then decided against it. He wasn't going to take ‘no’ from me. Even if he left, he'd only come back with Puppy.

  ‘Fine,’ I agreed reluctantly.

  ‘Can you walk alright?’

  ‘Of course I can,’ I snapped.

  Myers blinked, looking hurt for a second. ‘OK. Follow me.’

  As the young recce trooper led me back out of the alley, he glanced across at me one last time. ‘Andy, what were you doing …?’ he started to ask.

  ‘None of your damned business.’ I silenced him with my reply.

  I thought about where Myers had found me for a second; it must have seemed strange to him that I had found somewhere so secluded.

  They already think you’re a nut job, don’t give them more ammunition.

  ‘I thought the security forces would be called,’ I lied. ‘I was just trying to find somewhere to lie low.’

  Myers seemed to accept my excuse, nodding slowly. ‘Fair one. I wouldn’t worry, though. The others have all done a runner and the bar staff won’t say a word. If the police turn up now you could just say you were attacked from behind and that was it. They never bother to look at the cameras if there weren’t any civilians involved.’

  Sure enough, as we emerged back onto the promenade I could see that music was still playing once more inside the bar, and its patrons had resumed drinking and chatting as though the fight had never occurred.