‘Shit!’ I hissed, as one dart pinged off a nearby rock and forced me to duck.
Despite us having reached the foot of Hill Kilo, the Militia were still brazenly attempting to finish us off. What the hell were the Guard doing? Sitting back on the hill, enjoying the show?
‘Come on!’ I shouted, ignoring the rounds striking the mud around us as I heaved Skelton back to his feet, pulling his arm over my shoulders. I wasn’t about to die now, not when we were so close. I had to get all of my men to safety.
‘We’re gonna fucking die out here!’ Griffiths snarled in anger. There wasn’t a hint of fear in his voice, but rather frustration at the savage beating our platoon had received.
‘Not if I can help it!’ I replied, and the two of us hurried on toward the hillside.
We hadn’t carried Skelton for more than another five metres when the air exploded above us, and we threw ourselves back to the ground once more, smacking our visors against the wet soil. Skelton swore through gritted teeth.
I lifted my head, and was about to curse at the Militia’s persistence when I spotted a familiar shape silhouetted against the night sky. With a roar so loud that it caused the ground to judder, the gravtank spewed steel darts into the forest like a vengeful beast defending its offspring.
Several troopers swore in surprise at the appearance of the mighty machine, their surprise quickly turning to elation as they realised that it was on their side. Fists punched at the air as the gravtank fired a salvo of shells from its turret-mounted railgun, creating a wave of overpressure that caused several of them to stumble back to the ground.
‘Take that, you ball bags!’ Myers shouted, as the shells detonated somewhere in the forest with flashes of light.
I gaped up at the fearsome craft, in surprise as well as awe. I had never seen a Union gravtank out in the Bosque. Even our dropships remained clear of the conflict zone unless absolutely necessary.
‘Let’s go!’ the sergeant major hollered from the foot of Hill Kilo, bringing us back to our senses. The gravtanks had given us the golden opportunity to make our escape, and we were wasting it.
In a final burst of effort, the platoon ran up the hill. We ignored the pain of our protesting muscles as we powered toward safety.
Behind us, the gravtanks continued to pound the forest with their railguns, scuppering any chance the Militia had at finishing us off. I hoped that the missing troopers had the sense to keep clear - if they were still alive. Nothing could have survived such a hailstorm.
As we reached the top of the hill I could see tens of Guard helmets lining the trenches, and I could feel all of their eyes upon us, watching us as we stumbled and staggered toward them.
‘Cheers for the help, guys!’ Myers shouted at them sarcastically.
The Guardsmen didn’t respond. There was something sinister about the way they were watching us struggle up the hill. They had left us to die out in the forest, making no effort to come to our aid. I wondered if they were disappointed that we had survived.
I realised that several dropships were waiting in the centre of the plateau, surrounded by tens of troopers. The sergeant major had already reached the dropships and was rapidly handing casualties over to the newcomers. The troopers hurried the stretchers up the open dropship ramps, loading them into their crew compartments where medics set about their wounds in a flurry of activity.
The sergeant major pointed toward Skelton as my section approached, confirming his casualty status. ‘Private Skelton - open wound to the upper thigh?’
‘I think so,’ I replied, slightly out of breath from having carried him up the steep hillside. ‘I haven’t had the chance to check him over yet!’
‘OK. We only get one lift, so all casualties are going now!’ He flicked his head toward one of the dropships. ‘Put him on that one, mate! Make sure you strip his kit!’
Griffiths and I hurried our injured comrade toward the waiting dropship. Red light flooded from its open crew compartment, revealing two medics who were already busy dealing with a trooper from Three Section.
‘If you haven’t got a casualty then spread out into all round defence!’ the sergeant major shouted at the remainder of the platoon as they gathered around the dropships, eager to help their friends. The platoon quickly scattered in response to his command, adding to the defence provided by the fresh troopers.
‘Looks like I’m off, then,’ Skelton said, as we lifted him onto the dropship ramp. There was no relief in his voice, but rather a trace of disappointment. Nobody wanted to leave his mates behind, even if he was injured.
One of the two medics spotted us and hurried over to help manoeuvre our casualty onto the nearest seat within the compartment.
‘What’s his injury?’ he asked as he inspected Skelton’s leg. It was obvious that the trooper had a large open wound to the thigh, but it was always possible for a casualty to have a far more serious injury hidden elsewhere.
‘He’s been shot in the leg,’ I confirmed. ‘His combats haven’t detected any other injuries, but I haven’t had a chance to check him over.’
‘Check him now.’
I nodded to Griffiths, who began to physically search Skelton’s body for further injuries. The tiny wires and sensors woven into our combats were pretty good at detecting tissue damage, but they could easily be damaged themselves during operations. We never trusted them fully - not when our lives depended on it.
Whilst Griffiths checked Skelton’s body, the medic drew an evil-looking, hooked blade from a scabbard on his belt and used it to tear his trouser leg open. He pulled the material clear of the wound and swore at the sight of it.
‘I’m gonna need to put on a tourniquet,’ the medic decided, ripping open a medical pouch around his waist.
Skelton groaned. ‘Oh, screw the nut, mate!’
The medic ignored the trooper’s protest, quickly wrapping the tourniquet around his leg just above the pulsing wound. ‘You’ve cut a major artery. You’ve already lost a lot of blood, and how you’re still going is beyond me. I need to slow down the flow or you won’t make it back to Paraiso.’
For the first time a flash of fear appeared on Skelton’s face. ‘I’m not gonna lose my leg, am I?’
‘We’ll let Paraiso worry about that. Let’s just focus on staying alive, alright mate?’ He tugged on the tourniquet strap, causing Skelton to wail in pain.
‘I’m gonna give him painkillers,’ I said, seeing the agony on the wounded trooper’s face. Whatever natural pain relief his body had given him during our flight from the forest had clearly worn off.
The medic looked up at Griffiths. ‘Are there any other injuries?’
The priority was the treatment of the casualty before the use of painkillers, and certain injuries made their use dangerous.
‘No,’ Griffiths answered.
‘Crack on, then.’
I withdrew one of Skelton’s painkiller auto-injectors from his kit and brandished it in front of him. ‘You want me to do it?’
‘No,’ the trooper replied, snatching it out of my hand. ‘I’ll do it.’
I allowed Skelton to press the injector against his uninjured thigh. He activated it and winced in pain as the thick needle stabbed into his flesh, administering a cocktail of chemicals into his body.
‘I need to strip your kit, mate,’ I said to him, almost apologetically, as he slumped back into his seat, the medic busy stuffing his wound with clotting foam.
Skelton nodded, looking slightly shaken. His eyes glistened in the dim lighting of the dropship compartment as he tried to maintain his composure. He was terrified at the prospect of losing his leg. Paraiso would keep him alive - but they wouldn’t go any further than that.
I tried to brush my own emotions to one side as Griffiths and I quickly ransacked our comrade’s equipment, stripping him of his ammunition and any other equipment he no longer needed.
‘Swap your rifle for his mammoth,’ I told Griffiths, and the Welsh trooper nodded obediently. A MAM-
G was a far more potent weapon than his regular magnetic rifle - there was no sense in Skelton flying back to Paraiso with it.
Skelton looked like he was about to burst into tears. The shock of the sudden transition from being a capable trooper to being stripped of equipment like a corpse on the battlefield had begun to sink in. His lip quivered.
I quickly ran through a checklist in my head, making sure there wasn’t anything else worth taking from him. Skelton still needed to possess enough equipment to survive the unlikely event of the dropship being shot down, but anything else was fair game. We had everything else: his spare batteries; his rope; his spare respirator visor and filters …
‘You got everything?’ the sergeant major demanded from the foot of the dropship ramp. His eyes flicked over Skelton, checking to ensure we hadn’t missed anything. Once the dropships left with our casualties then that was it - whatever kit they had was as good as gone.
I nodded after a moment. ‘Yeah!’
He glanced at his datapad briefly, and then his eyes flicked to the mammoth Griffiths had taken from Skelton. ‘Did you swap that?’
‘Yeah!’
‘Have you got all his ammunition?’
Griffiths patted his webbing pouches. ‘Got it.’
‘Good. Let’s go, then. Leave him to the medics. I want these dropships off the ground in the next minute!’
I spared one last look at Skelton as Griffiths followed the sergeant major back down the ramp. I realised that I didn’t really know the trooper that well … I had been so wrapped up in my own problems in the past that I hadn’t paid him much attention. Now he was another casualty, desperately in need of comfort from his friends, and all he had was a medic and me.
‘You’ll be alright, mate,’ I said, trying to sound reassuring. In a slightly wooden gesture, I gave him one final squeeze on the shoulder, and then exited the dropship.
The sergeant major was stood just outside, shouting over the noise from the nearby gravtanks as he spoke to another trooper. My visor identified the newcomer as B Company’s company sergeant major, or CSM, and I lifted an eyebrow in surprise at his presence.
‘That’s all my lads on!’ the sergeant major announced.
‘No worries!’ the CSM answered. He relayed the message to his troopers - who were providing protection around the dropships - and they promptly abandoned their positions, running inward toward their respective aircraft.
I realised that all of them were B Company - my old company. There weren’t that many of them - no more than two per dropship. If there had been any more then they wouldn’t have fitted into the compartments along with our casualties and the medics. Presumably their CSM had made sure that the dropships had plenty of space for us. It was odd that they had come to us, since we had our own dedicated dropships to evacuate casualties. Obviously B Company had decided they couldn’t sit back and wait for those dropships to arrive.
‘Sure you’re alright, yeah?’ the CSM asked as his men stormed up the dropship ramps and quickly strapped themselves into the seats. Casualties were arranged onto the walkway that ran between them, their stretchers secured in place so that they couldn’t bounce around the compartment during flight.
‘We’ll be OK, mate,’ the sergeant major replied. ‘For now at least!’
‘OK. If you need anything, let me know!’ The CSM pointed eastward, in the direction of Paraiso. ‘I don’t know what those idiots are doing, but you know you’ve always got us, mate! We’ve got your back!’
The sergeant major nodded respectfully, and the two senior troopers shook hands.
‘Cheers, mate! See you at the re-org!’
‘Fuck the re-org! See you in the bar!’ The CSM then turned to board his dropship, and then hesitated. ‘Oh yeah, I forgot to mention … a load of my blokes didn’t get my message to load up! Guess I’ll have to leave them behind!’
He gestured to a small group of B Company troopers who were still spread out amongst our platoon, facing outward of the dropships. It took me a couple of seconds to register what he was saying, but when I did a smile spread across my face … the CSM had ‘accidentally’ left behind at least a section of his men, most likely hand-picked volunteers who were fed up of doing nothing in Helsinki.
The sergeant major looked like he was about to protest, but then relented. He knew he needed the manpower.
‘I’ll look after them!’ he said.
‘Make sure you do! They’re on loan - you don’t get to keep them!’
With that, the CSM bolted onto his dropship, just as the ramps began to rise.
The dropships lifted together, hovering just a few metres above the ground before they shot away toward the southeast, rapidly accelerating over the Guard trenches before dropping over the edge of the plateau and disappearing into the night. Then, with one final thumping volley from their railguns, the two gravtanks followed after them, and the hill was suddenly silent.
The sergeant major and I stared out into the night, momentarily forgetting we were stood upright in the open. The appearance and departure of the dropships had left us stunned, bringing about a sudden and dramatic end to our running battle through the forest.
We had taken a horrendous amount of casualties, and lost two others. Though B Company had effectively replaced the troopers we had lost, the shock still resonated.
‘Thank God for B Company,’ I said quietly.
‘Thank God,’ the sergeant major repeated. ‘No one else would have helped us.’
15
The Deal
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The platoon remained in all round defence on the top of Hill Kilo rather than breaking back into two again, occupying the trenches in between the Guard units already positioned there. After the brazen attack by the Militia, the platoon commander wasn’t taking any chances, keeping all of the sections together whilst we waited for any potential follow-up assault. With its steep slopes and extensive trench system, the hill was far easier to defend than the village. Only a few hours ago I would have said that an attack on Cellini was unthinkable, but now I wasn’t so sure.
It seemed that the fight had been knocked out of the Militia by B Company’s gravtanks, for now at least. There was a stunned silence in the dark night air, the only sound coming from a stiff breeze that dried the mixture of sweat, mud and blood that coated our combats and armour.
I joined Puppy at his end of the trench, back where we had been before we left to Three Section’s aid. Without a word we gazed out to the north, where the first shimmer of light was appearing on the horizon. I half expected a wave of red crosshairs to surge out from the trees at any moment, resuming the battle now that our air support had gone, but nothing happened. I think almost ten minutes passed before anyone said anything, each one of those minutes feeling like an hour.
‘Where do you think those two lads are?’ Puppy asked, breaking the silence.
I shrugged. ‘Who knows? If I was them I’d be heading east or west to get away from the Militia, and then I’d hook around and try to link back up with us.’
The squat NCO sighed. ‘I’d be shitting my pants out there.’
I nodded slowly. ‘Me too.’
We fell silent again for a few moments, imagining the ordeal that our comrades were going through - if they were still alive. I remembered the gruesome sight of the civilians hanging from the buildings in Cellini, and wondered what might happen to a Union trooper caught by the Militia. Would they meet a similar fate, or would they be subjected to something far worse?
‘I hope they’re OK,’ Puppy said. ‘We’ve lost enough troopers today.’
I looked down at my combats and the blood that was spattered up my sleeves. None of it was mine. Most, if not all, of it belonged to Skelton, the latest casualty that my section had suffered under my command. Skelton wouldn’t die from his injury, but that didn’t make losing him from my section any easier. I cared for the men under my command. Perhaps I avoided getting to know them … but that was only b
ecause I found losing the people close to me almost unbearable. I remembered the sight of Skelton’s eyes glistening in the dim glow of the dropship compartment, and I felt his pain as if it was my own.
‘How’s Myers?’ Puppy asked.
I remembered my 2ic’s fondness of the younger trooper, despite the difference in rank and seniority. Puppy had taken Myers under his wing, and the two of them often exchanged boisterous banter like a pair of brothers.
‘He’s pretty upset,’ I said after a moment - Myers appeared to have taken a turn for the worst, looking close to tears.
Puppy nodded. ‘I think he’s finding it hard to cope with all this. He’s a young lad, probably too young to be fair. Morale was bad enough before, but now we’re losing our mates and the lads don’t even know why.’
‘I know.’
‘Maybe you should go and talk to him?’
‘Me?’ I asked, surprised. ‘I was about to suggest that you did! You’re mates, aren’t you?’
‘Yeah, we are, and I’ll talk to him when I get a chance. He looks up to you, though. A word from you would do him good.’
I raised an eyebrow. ‘You think?’
‘Definitely. The lad idolises you, mate, trust me. He hangs on every word you say.’
I thought about what Puppy was suggesting for a moment. I realised that I desperately didn’t want to talk to Myers about his experience, preferring to pretend that everything was OK. Perhaps that was the way that I had learned to deal with the emotional trauma that was inflicted upon me in combat - by bottling it up and pretending that it wasn’t there. Where had that gotten me, though? I had attempted suicide on numerous occasions, and a week ago I had almost been successful.
‘I’ll talk with him,’ I agreed reluctantly, ‘… when I get a chance.’
Puppy gave a small smile. ‘OK.’ He sighed deeply, looking back into the trees.
I followed his gaze. Dawn was almost upon us, the sky turning a dim blue as the sun approached the horizon. Clouds gathered ominously to the north, threatening a return of the dismal weather that had made our first two days on-task virtually unbearable.
RECCE (The Union Series Book 4) Page 24