RECCE (The Union Series Book 4)

by Phillip Richards

  ‘FEA, you happy you have all your men?’ he asked, addressing them as he would any Union trooper. I supposed the FEA had sergeant majors, like we had, so they probably weren’t surprised or bothered by the way he was taking charge. Sergeant Major Davies was a forceful character indeed.

  ‘They are all here,’ one of the FEA soldiers replied.

  I had no idea if he had actually bothered to count; the FEA were clearly anxious to blow their second round of charges.

  The sergeant major shrugged. ‘Good enough for me. Do it.’

  ‘Fire in the hole!’

  The next batch of explosives detonated along the tunnel, causing another cloud to wash over us.

  We waited in silence, holding our breath, listening whilst the dust slowly settled upon our combats. There was nothing to hear, though. The tunnel was as silent as a tomb.

  The sergeant major stood up and addressed all of us: ‘Stay motivated. We now need to get to the boss, and then get to the surface. Keep your spacing tight, and look out for your mates. Be vigilant. There’s no telling what’s happening in this warren, especially since communications have been cut. Corporal Moralee, your section will take the lead. Questions?’

  I imagined that the men were brimming with questions, but they weren’t going to ask them now. They just wanted to get moving as soon as possible.

  We rushed along the tunnel, rifle torches dancing across the walls as we made our way down into the depths of the warren complex. There was no longer a need for light discipline, and the poor condition of the tunnel meant that we were better off being able to see the ground at our feet. The tunnel was old - how old I didn’t know - but old enough to have ruts created by the countless vehicles using it over the years.

  ‘Stay with it, lads!’ the sergeant major ordered from behind my section, as the tunnel began to echo with our panting.

  My section was setting the pace, but I knew that we couldn’t move too fast. According to the warren map on my datapad, our extraction route was over three kilometres long, meaning that a full-on sprint couldn’t be maintained, not whilst maintaining any form of order. Instead we jogged the route, ensuring that the platoon could stay together.

  We passed several more section-sized groups of FEA soldiers during our descent - presumably part of a platoon ordered to hold the tunnel - and despite the two rounds of explosives already detonated by their comrades, they weren’t taking any chances. Fortunately for us, their comrades – the ones who had defended the warren entrance - had told them that we were coming, otherwise there was every chance they might have opened fire on us, such was the sense of fear we felt from them as we passed.

  I began to hear the faint sound of fretful voices chattering in the dark, and guessed that I was hearing the civilians who had fled from the village, hiding out in the warren somewhere ahead of us.

  As the noise became louder, we came across a civilian lying dead on the ground, but we didn’t stop to inspect the body - it was obvious how he had died - he had fallen over and been unwittingly trampled to death by his fellow villagers.

  The tunnel eventually opened up into a vast, cavernous chamber, barely lit by a couple of light sticks discarded on the ground. We flashed our torches across the chamber, our visor displays flickering orange as they identified the civilian refugees.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ Myers exclaimed at the sight.

  There were hundreds of refugees, far more than we had seen enter the entrance. Every square metre of floor was occupied by sobbing adults and screaming children. They were terrified, having barely escaped the wave of Militia that had surged across the village. Many of them had left friends and family behind, perhaps never to be seen again.

  Puppy shook his head at the scene. ‘God, this shit is awfully familiar …’

  ‘It’s not another Dakar,’ I assured everyone. ‘These refugees have been given the best possible chance to survive, unlike last time ...’

  The villagers must have fled from all over Cellini and then been directed into the chamber, I realised. The FEA guarding the entrance hadn’t been overwhelmed at all, but had instead been acting on instruction from their battalion to accept the villagers into the warren. Perhaps they believed the merciful act could save the villagers, or perhaps they thought they might as well try to do something right before they all died anyway.

  A quick check of my map told me which way to go next, and I led the platoon through the chamber, weaving through the terrible scene of human misery toward a connecting tunnel that would take us back toward the surface. Women clutched fearfully at their children as we passed, and new-born babies screamed inconsolably. Some of the villagers had simply curled up amongst the military waste, rocking silently as they tried to comfort themselves. I ignored the desperate pleas from refugees, and the hands reaching toward me - there was nothing I could do for them, not now.

  FEA soldiers were stood by every tunnel entrance, preventing the civilians from bolting into the warren. I supposed it was for their own good; the chamber was the best place for them, being right at the bottom of the underground fortress and out of the way. I doubted the Militia had the equipment or the know-how to dig through the collapsed tunnels that led into the village, so there was only one viable route from which they could attack - from the top of Hill Kilo.

  ‘What’s going on up there?’ I asked one of the FEA soldiers, flicking my head toward the surface.

  The soldier stared blankly at me in the dim light whilst his headset translated the question for him. He was barely a teenager, I noticed, and he looked terrified.

  His eventual response was barely a whisper, the obviously worried tone in his voice removed by my own headset as it translated back into English: ‘Nobody knows. We have not heard anything from our headquarters. The communication network that runs through the tunnels has stopped working.’

  I looked back along the platoon line and raised my voice for the sergeant major to hear: ‘Their comms network has been cut off.’

  ‘That’ll explain why we can’t hear from the boss,’ he replied. ‘Let’s hurry up and get to him.’

  I passed the FEA soldier and began to navigate through the complex honeycomb of tunnels that formed the warren. They were packed with FEA soldiers, all fidgeting nervously as they waited for instructions that clearly weren’t coming. None of them had the experience or the training to know what they were doing - they were totally dependent upon their command structure. With communications cut across the warren they had been rendered virtually impotent, isolated and afraid.

  A sense of dread hung in the air, as if everyone was simply waiting to find out their fate. I shared the fear felt by the young FEA soldiers, but not only because the Militia were outside. There was something deeply worrying about the failure of the warren communication network. It was no accident. I found myself yearning to find Yulia, and to find out what she knew of the conspiracy that had virtually destroyed the Guard operation.

  I didn’t just want to find out what she knew, though. Yulia was now being held captive somewhere within the warren, and I realised that I wanted to save her from the Guard’s clutches before they did something terrible to her. I wondered if she might be somewhere within the Guard headquarters, and in my mind I created an impossible scenario where I stormed into their stronghold to rescue her, like a damsel in distress.

  I shook the thought from my mind. It was little more than fantasy. There was plenty of suffering across Cellini, and there was little I could do for Yulia in the maze of the warrens. What really mattered was for us to find Mr Barkley and make our escape before anything else happened.

  20

  Separated

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  We had almost reached the Guard headquarters when a rifle torch activated ahead of us, bathing us all in light. We froze just as someone yelled angrily from further up the tunnel.

  ‘Stay where you are! Do not come any closer!’

  My headset translated, the calm, robotic voice failing to ca
pture the aggression in the man’s voice.

  My visor quickly adapted to the light, allowing me to see the Guardsman shining it in my direction. There were several more Guardsmen behind him, perhaps an entire section of them, all spread along the tunnel ahead of us with their weapons raised to fire.

  ‘We’re here to collect our platoon commander!’ I shouted back.

  There was a commotion amongst the Guardsmen. Several of them exchanged glances, and I could hear faint whispers as they argued over my request. I couldn’t work out what they were saying, despite my headset. Unlike the FEA, they were smart enough to know how easily they could be overheard.

  ‘Your captain is not here,’ one of the Guardsmen replied - presumably the section commander - ‘We have sent him back to the surface.’

  I stared at the Guardsmen dubiously. There was no way of seeing their faces at such a distance in the dark, so I had no way of reading their expressions.

  ‘How do I know you’re not lying?’ I replied.

  ‘I am not lying,’ the Guardsman answered firmly. ‘We have sent your captain to the surface because his services are no longer required. Your services are no longer required either. Leave. You are no longer welcome here.’

  The sergeant major arrived at my side, glaring into the light.

  ‘Why have you cut off the warren communication network?’ he asked. ‘Do you realise the Loyalist Militia have overrun the village?’

  There was more whispering, but no answer.

  ‘I’m picking up a net transmission,’ Myers said quietly, not taking his eyes off the Guardsmen.

  ‘Roger,’ I whispered.

  Though a net transmission couldn’t travel all the way through a warren, it still could be relayed between soldiers so long as they were close together. There was something menacing about the transmission, though … the Guard were asking their commanders what to do with us.

  ‘They’re pretty agitated,’ I observed, under my breath.

  The sergeant major nodded slowly. ‘We need to assume they’re telling the truth and head for the surface. It’s unlikely that they’ll keep Mr Barkley with them - they just want us gone.’

  ‘And if they’re not telling the truth?’

  He exhaled a sigh. ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Come on. Get your section turned around. Let’s go.’

  I hesitated for a moment, wondering what was going on inside the Guard headquarters. They appeared to have sealed themselves off from the rest of the warren, possibly in a misguided attempt to protect themselves from the Militia. Was Yulia in there somewhere? Was the platoon commander?

  After several seconds, I accepted the sergeant major’s decision. We had to move to the surface - if anything to meet up with the other half of the platoon. We had no idea what was happening up there, and we were in uncharted territory, blundering our way through a scenario that none of us could ever have planned for.

  ‘Move back slowly,’ I told Myers, and the two of us crept rearward, keeping our eyes fixed onto the Guardsmen as we did so. The rest of my section did likewise, until eventually we rounded a corner in the tunnel and the Guard torch extinguished.

  It was then that I heard a faint sound echo through the tunnel. It was a long, drawn out sound, only just loud enough for my headset to detect it.

  ‘What was that?’ I whispered. I strained to hear the sound again, but it never repeated.

  Myers shook his head. ‘I dunno, mate. Sounded like a moan.’

  We hadn’t moved far from the Guard headquarters when the ground shook with a mighty thump, causing several of us to stagger. Somebody swore behind me, presumably having fallen over.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Myers whispered, looking around the tunnel as if he expected it to collapse at any moment.

  There was another thump, and I placed my hand against the wall to keep my footing. ‘I think the Militia are in the tunnels …’

  ‘Shit …’ he breathed.

  ‘Keep calm, mate,’ I soothed. ‘There’s a whole battalion of FEA between us and them.’

  ‘We’re still gonna have to get through them, though, aren’t we?’

  ‘Let’s pick up the pace, Corporal Moralee!’ the sergeant major shouted from behind, bringing our conversation to an abrupt end.

  Our steady trot turned into a dash for the surface. There was no need for further encouragement from the sergeant major - we all knew what it meant for us if the Militia broke into the warren from above: we would all be trapped, cut off from our comrades on the surface.

  The tunnels echoed with shouts and the screams of magnetic weapons, announcing that the Militia had indeed made entry to at least part of the warren.

  The situation seemed to be getting dramatically worse by the minute. The remaining two Guard companies must have withdrawn, I assumed, for there was no way that the Militia could have managed to gain a foothold onto Hill Kilo so quickly - not unless they’d managed to find more LSV’s out in the forest.

  The upper tunnels were crowded with FEA soldiers, all crouching against the walls whilst they waited for instructions. The constant exchange of gunfire and the occasional thump of explosives suggested that they were doing their best to repel the Militia, fighting like caged animals.

  I looked at the FEA soldiers as we passed them, unable to see their faces in the dark. They had originally battled to clear the warren, and now they were defending against an enemy on the outside. I tried to imagine the sense of betrayal they must have felt at the Guard withdrawal. How could an entire battalion of young soldiers be left to die at the hands of the Militia?

  I noticed that amongst the FEA soldiers were a couple of Guardsmen, clearly “defectors” who had chosen to remain with their countrymen to fend off Helstrom’s army. Even they knew it was wrong to leave the FEA to die.

  The sound of battle became much louder as we reached the last few hundred metres of our route to the surface. The shouts and screams of embattled soldiers pierced through the dark, causing all of our hearts to race as we drew near.

  I mouthed a string of silent curses as Myers and I slowed our pace, moving cautiously past the scores of wary FEA soldiers toward the sound of battle.

  The Militia had clearly broken into the same tunnel that we had sought to escape from. The only alternative routes that hadn’t been destroyed by the FEA required for us to double-back on ourselves for almost another kilometre, and by the time we did that there was every chance the Militia would have gotten there too. There was no choice. We had to join the fight, or die.

  It was obvious that we had reached the frontline by the way the attitude in the FEA had changed. They were no longer crouching in wait to be called forward in their platoons, but stood up, facing forward in woeful silence, as if forming an orderly queue to die. None of them thought they were going to survive their encounter with the Militia, but they were too frightened to run away. Even though they had been abandoned, they still feared being punished for cowardice - such was their fear of their Guard masters.

  One of the Guard defectors was stood at a bend in the tunnel ahead, barking orders at a group of FEA soldiers. He pointed around the corner, giving them instructions on where to attack. The FEA nodded and then charged into the smoke, rifle magnets screaming as they met resistance straight away.

  ‘The Militia are right around the corner!’ I shouted back over the noise, allowing the message to be passed to the sergeant major whilst Myers and I closed up to the Guardsman, rifles raised just in case the enemy emerged.

  The Guardsman turned around, reaching out with his arm to beckon the next group of FEA soldiers before he saw us approaching. I suddenly realised it was Rusakov, the same burley Guns NCO I had met during our first assault onto Hill Kilo.

  Rusakov paused for a moment, surprised at our appearance.

  ‘How did you get here?’ he asked. ‘I thought that you had moved to the western side of the hill when the Militia came?’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘That must be the rest of my
platoon. We came from the village!’

  He jabbered something in his language, my headset quickly translating: ‘I understand. The village is gone, now. Helstrom has many men, and the FEA were no match for him on their own.’

  The next group of FEA soldiers moved up to Rusakov, and he promptly launched them into the attack with a wave of his hand. There was a long exchange of rifle fire around the corner, and the tunnels flashed with orange light as darts struck the walls nearby.

  The enemy couldn’t have been further than twenty metres away, judging by the noise. It sounded as though the Militia advance had stalled, and instead both sides were exchanging grenades and rifle fire whilst gaining little ground.

  Perhaps they’ve lost their stomach for casualties, I wondered. It could be pretty unnerving stepping over tens of bodies whilst advancing through tunnels, knowing that you were next. Even the bloodthirsty Militia would be frightened.

  I waited for the soldiers to disappear around the corner before speaking again, raising my voice over the sound of battle. ‘Are my platoon still on the surface?’

  He shook his head. ‘I do not know. They moved to the west of the hill when the Militia attacked from the village, and the rest of my battalion abandoned us.’

  So the Guard had abandoned the hill entirely. With their communications cut, and their support company having fled, the remaining companies had decided that the operation was unsalvageable. It was almost unthinkable that a battalion of relatively good quality soldiers could be defeated by an unruly horde of fascist madmen, but that was exactly what had happened. The shame for many of the Guardsmen must have been overwhelming, so I wasn’t surprised that some of them had chosen to stay behind.

  I indicated toward the bend in the tunnel. ‘How far away are the Militia?’

  ‘They are not far.’ Rusakov answered. ‘Perhaps twenty metres. They control the entrance. If you wish to get out of this place, then you will need to fight with us.’