This saucer was different to all of the others, though. It carried no weapons, and no bombs. Instead it had been left hollow, its insides turned into a crude troop compartment, and its inspection hatch turned into a cargo door. The seats were tightly packed together, even by dropship standards, and the roof was so low I doubted we would be able to sit upright.
We had inserted by saucer several times before - a ploy used to deceive the Loyalists and the FEA who didn’t know that the unmanned craft could transport troops. A permanent no-fly zone was enforced over the continent, allowing only dropships to operate, so long as they remained under a hundred metres from the ground. The restriction was enforced by the saucers, which patrolled the skies regularly. Nobody would bat an eyelid as our saucer carried us to our drop zone, unloading its cargo before continuing on patrol.
I had my men place on all of their kit and sit inside the compartment, making sure we would all fit. The load plan was made easier by the lack of our eighth trooper, even though the compartment was still painfully cramped. We had to help each other buckle in, one by one, and squeeze our bodies tightly together to allow the door to be closed.
‘I love riding in these things,’ Puppy said sarcastically, as the compartment filled with the groans of crushed troopers.
I grabbed the release latch, twisting it to the right to allow the door to be slid upward. Myers had to push me to help get me out of my seat, and we all gave a unanimous sigh of relief as we climbed back out of the saucer.
‘How long will the ride be?’ Skelton asked me as we removed our weapons and equipment, placing it neatly alongside the saucer.
‘Roughly one hour, I’m told.’
The section groaned again in chorus. An hour might not seem like a long time, but crammed into the saucer even five minutes felt like an hour.
‘That’s gonna be painful,’ Wildgoose moaned.
‘No shit,’ I replied, then raised my voice to address the section. ‘Right, lads, let’s not waste any more time. We could be waiting in this hangar for hours, or even days, so let’s get comfortable. Get your thermal bags out and get your heads down.’
The section didn’t need to be told twice, within seconds they were ripping their thermal bags out of their patrol sacks, and taking their boots off to get comfortable on the floor of the hangar. Nearby the rest of the platoon would be doing the same thing, preparing for an indefinite wait. We all knew from past experience that we could be left in the hangar for hours before being told that the operation was cancelled. There was no point in waiting up.
‘You reckon we’ll go in tonight?’ Puppy asked from where he stood beside me, watching the men wriggle into their thermal bags.
I took a deep breath. ‘Yeah. I’m pretty sure we will.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘EJOC must be getting pretty nervous with the Alliance hanging around close by, they’ll be telling the brigade to do something quickly, before all hell breaks loose.’
‘You think the Alliance could win if they invaded?’
I shrugged. ‘Not sure, but I’m willing to bet that if they try to take the planet, both sides will lose in the end.’
Puppy stared at me blankly. ‘I don’t follow you.’
I smiled grimly. ‘China will be waiting right behind.’
I ran through burnt out greenhouses and wilted crops, flames licking at my combats as I ran from the advancing Chinese horde. Darts whizzed past my head, showering me with sparks as they struck against the metal greenhouse frames. Driven on by sheer terror, I ran toward the safety of the ditch and the rest of my section ahead of me.
My legs were weak, though. Somehow it was as though I was wading through treacle, and every step seemed to barely move my body forward.
Run, Andy, run!
Bodies littered the ground at my feet, their blood soaking into the red New Earth soil. Amongst them was Climo, my old friend and protector, his face caved in by a Chinese dart.
You need to get away!
But there was no way I could escape; the enemy were coming for me, their fire becoming ever more accurate. No matter how hard I pumped at my legs, willing for them to drive me forward, some invisible force held me back.
Terror swept over me, consuming me like a cloud of black smoke as I realised that I had no chance.
Suddenly I found myself in a puddle at the bottom of the ditch. Shocked by the sudden fall, I frantically looked around me as the battle still raged. Somehow I had escaped, but not for long. The Chinese were still coming.
I realised that most of the section were dead, except for Browner. My old friend lay dying in the mud, blood pulsing from his bloodied stumps. He whimpered, a horrible sound that turned my stomach, and I crawled toward him to help.
Browner, no! Please don’t die! Don’t leave me!
I never made it to him, though, because a cold hand gripped me by the shoulder, stopping me dead. I looked up.
Corporal Evans, my section commander, was stood over me, weapon in hand. His body was soaked in his own blood, which flowed freely from the gunshot wound on his chest. His skin was rotten, and he stared through me with cold, dead eyes.
‘Get up, you stupid little shit!’
‘Fuck!’ I jerked, sitting bolt upright so fast that I nearly head-butted the trooper trying to wake me. He jolted backward, almost losing his balance in surprise.
‘Andy, you alright?’
It was Myers, I realised. He blinked at me.
I took a deep breath, trying to calm my thumping heart. ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’
‘You were having a nightmare.’
I brushed it off. ‘Yeah, it must be the lack of sleep or something.’
It was a pretty lame excuse, but Myers appeared to take it. ‘Fair enough. The boss just came in - we’ve been told to load up.’
I propped myself against a girder and glanced down at my datapad. It was just gone two in the morning. ‘We’re going in, then?’
Myers nodded. ‘Apparently the sergeant major’s multiple left an hour ago, so it looks like it.’
‘Right then, let’s get the hangar lights on and get cracking.’
Although it lasted less than an hour, our flight in the converted saucer was probably one of the most unpleasant rides I had experienced in a long time. My legs throbbed as the blood slowly left them, and my backside ached as my pelvis was crushed between the solid metal door and Myers’s bony frame.
‘My arse is killing me,’ Myers complained, his head lowered so that it didn’t bang against the padded ceiling just above us.
‘Shut up, Myers,’ Puppy answered from the rear of the compartment, ‘you don’t even have an arse!’
‘Well something’s hurting,’ the trooper replied sulkily, clearly not in the mood for exchanging insults.
‘Shouldn’t be long now,’ I reassured them.
My visor display clock showed that we had been in flight for almost fifty minutes, darting across the upper atmosphere like a supercharged can of sardines. Of course we could have completed the journey in half the time, but that was all part of the deception. The saucer was to act as though it was on patrol, as usual, enforcing the no-fly zone over the Bosque as it darted randomly from one location to the next in search of legitimate targets. It would be un-opposed, of course. The last thing the advancing Loyalist army wanted was to give a saucer just cause to attack. As long as they left the Union forces alone, they believed that they could continue their assault into Edo without fear of reprisal. After all, they had once fought alongside the Union as allies, why would they turn on them now?
Skelton groaned, straining against his straps as he tried to lift his backside away from his seat. ‘This is pump! This must be the worst dropship ride ever!’
‘That’s because it’s not a dropship,’ I corrected, irritated by the constant moaning, ‘and trust me, I’ve had worse.’
Skelton wasn’t convinced. ‘Nobody has had worse than this!’
‘Try taking a drop without your
seatbelt …’ I suggested, ‘… with the back door open.’
He quietened, and for a moment he sat still. ‘Fair enough.’
‘We’re less than a kilometre from the target,’ I announced, changing the subject as I turned my attention to the rest of the section. ‘Remember, the drop zone will be marked on your display. If for some reason you see nothing, aim to land at the co-ordinates you received on orders. If you fail to link up one hour after the drop, make your way to the emergency rendezvous. Don’t try to find us because we won’t wait for you any longer. Understood?’
Six heads nodded, they all knew what needed to be done. Every recce trooper had completed parachute jumps during his Recce Course on Uralis, the only difference this time was that we would be jumping out of a stripped-out saucer instead of a dropship. The idea was that the enemy would fail to detect us falling from the robotic aircraft, with no reason to suspect it was conducting anything other than a routine patrol. A dropship might attract attention, because dropships meant troops, but saucers were never designed to carry humans. They were engineered to be able to change direction and accelerate so quickly that they could turn any hapless passenger into a messy pulp. Fortunately ours knew not to do that!
I felt the saucer begin to decelerate, and I looked down to check my datapad. ‘We’re in position, lads! Standby!’
My datapad, wirelessly connected to the saucer computer, flashed red at me, and I grasped the door latch. A shrill whistle filled the compartment as I slid the door open, cutting out the internal lighting and plunging us in darkness. Cold wind blasted against my visor and bit at my neck as I was instantly exposed to the high altitude weather. Eden wasn’t known for having particularly pleasant weather, made worse by the large oceans and the effects of rapid terraforming, and at this height it was made even worse. I checked that my rifle was strapped tightly to my body, and that all of my kit was secure. Not only would it be extremely embarrassing to lose an item of kit on the way down, it risked compromise if it was found by the enemy, and the loss could potentially cost my life.
With Myers pushing against my backside to help me up, I clambered into the doorframe, my hands braced against the lip as I leant out into the open. I ignored the wind that threatened to toss me from the saucer, observing the night sky before I jumped. Dark clouds loomed over the tiny aircraft, like great black mountains towering tens of kilometres high. Turning my gaze downward, I saw that they blotted out the planet’s surface far below, obscuring our drop zone several kilometres ahead of the saucer - although it was still marked on my visor display. For a split second, I admired the beauty of the scene before me, a magnificent spectacle that reminded me that a man was insignificant against the full power of nature.
It was time to go. I leant my body forward so that I was nearly clear of the door. All I had to do was let go. I looked back into the compartment at the rest of the section, all sat poised to follow me into the void.
‘See you down there!’ I shouted. I fell.
The wind battered me as I plummeted away from the hovering saucer, spreading my arms and legs to unfurl my glide suit wings. I was still falling, but the suit allowed me to steer myself toward the drop zone several kilometres away, without the need to open my main chute until the last safe moment. As I fell, I took several gentle turns to ensure that my trajectory would land me as close as possible to the drop zone.
It wasn’t long before I entered the black carpet of cloud that hid the ground from view, and droplets of rain streaked across my visor as the altitude on my display decreased rapidly.
I was fast approaching the ground, my descent angled so that I looked as though I would overshoot the drop zone, before smacking into the ground beyond it. My trajectory was perfect though, the result of endless training jumps both in and out of simulators. I knew that as soon as I opened my main chute my speed would reduce dramatically, and I would come in close, if not right on top of the green crosshair that told me where to land.
I couldn’t see the ground beneath me, as my view was restricted to less than fifty metres by the thick cloud, but I knew not to take interest in the view. All that mattered was my altitude and trajectory. Having studied my map in detail, I knew that the ground beneath me was relatively flat, interspersed by impact craters of various sizes. The only issue was the trees, which I might not see until the last minute. The area chosen by the boss had only a few small woods and forests for us to worry about, but nevertheless I had instructed my men to open their chutes slightly early to allow time to avoid a painful landing. I didn’t much like the idea of hanging from a tree by my chute, trying to cut myself down!
Visibility didn’t improve as I readied myself to deploy my chute, and I supposed that the cloud had become mist on the ground as well. I cursed as I closed my arms and legs together in order to collapse the glide suit wings, before tugging at the cord on my main chute.
With a violent jolt my shoulders were wrenched backward, leaving my legs to shoot out in front of me. I quickly looked upward to check that my chute had deployed correctly, making sure that nothing was twisted or damaged. If that was the case then I only had seconds to cut it and deploy my reserve chute before I dropped like a stone, splatting against the ground like a bug on a windshield.
Happy that the chute was fine, I turned my attention back to the landing crosshair. I didn’t want to land on top of it directly, but within a few hundred metres. There was nothing wrong with that, since if all seven of us messed about trying to land on it, we’d end up crashing into each other.
As I approached the crosshair I took a look around, checking that there were no other chutes nearby before turning into the wind. Catching in the canopy, the wind acted as a brake, slowing me down for my final descent. If my ground speed was too high when I landed I risked breaking a bone, or worse, regardless of my rate of descent.
Perfect, I thought, all I need now is to be able to see the ground!
There was no such luck, my altitude was still decreasing rapidly and I had no visibility at all. Nobody outside of the army would ever dream of parachuting in such ghastly weather, but we didn’t have the luxury of choosing when we jumped.
I watched my altitude closely, making gentle turns in an attempt to slow myself down further. Soon I was under a hundred metres, and I prepared to flare my chute, effectively applying the brakes on my descent before I landed.
Suddenly something loomed out of the dark just in front of me.
‘Shit!’ I swore as my legs clipped the branches of the tree, almost sending me into a spin that risked twisting my chute.
At least I had prior warning that I was approaching the ground. There were a few more trees around me, I realised, but none close enough to get in my way. I waited until the last moment, then flared my chute.
I struck a bush as I came down, knocking me sideways. The chute carried me on, dragging me through the branches, until I finally landed beyond the bush in a crumpled heap.
Dazed, I rolled onto my back and stared at the sky for a few seconds.
Nice landing, Andy, I told myself sarcastically.
I picked myself up, quickly disconnecting my chute before it caught the wind and dragged me along with it. I then removed my glide suit and stuffed both items into the bottom of my daysack. We couldn’t leave our chutes lying around, not yet anyway. I decided we should keep them until we met the FEA, perhaps even asking them to dispose of them for us. We didn’t want the Loyalists knowing that we were actually on the ground helping the FEA, especially not in such small numbers, otherwise they might focus all of their military might onto killing or capturing us.
As soon as all of my equipment was packed, I slung my daysack back onto my shoulders and took the time to scan my surroundings. Despite a strong breeze, the mist hung in the air, swirling around me and denying me any view beyond twenty metres.
There was nothing wrong with that, though, I was more than happy with the weather now that I had managed to land. The Eden mist was a double-edged weapon,
making it as difficult for us to be detected as it was the other way around.
I headed toward the landing crosshair, keeping one eye out for anybody accidentally coming in to land on top of me. With the section net deactivated, nobody could know where anybody else was, all we had to work with was the single green symbol hovering in the mist.
One by one the section formed-up in a tight circular formation beneath the crosshair, and Puppy counted each trooper as they emerged out of the inky void. Myers and Wildgoose switched on their scanners, beginning their check of the surrounding area.
Satisfied that all of us had made it safely, Puppy patted my shoulder gently. ‘All in, mate.’
‘Roger,’ I whispered. ‘We’ll have a soak period here for five minutes, then we’ll move off.’
Whilst we listened and waited, I began to notice a distant thumping sound, like a drum beating rhythmically. I turned my head, intrigued by the noise. It was coming from our north.
‘What’s that?’ Myers asked me quietly, following my gaze.
‘Artillery,’ I answered.
‘Loyalist?’
‘Yeah.’
The thumping continued ominously whilst I checked my map, making sure that my bearings were right. As an extra precaution I used a paper map that I kept in my pocket, never fully relying upon an electronic version. I knew too well how easily they could be taken away from me, having had my datapad scrambled by New Earth hackers, and in the middle of the Bosque, not knowing where you were was a major issue. Puppy checked his own maps concurrently, in order to double-check that I wasn’t making an error. It was important that we were both involved in the navigation process, not only because I was only human and capable of making mistakes, but because Puppy was only one dart away from taking command.
EDEN (The Union Series) Page 10