RECCE (The Union Series Book 4)

by Phillip Richards

  He was right. There was no way to get to the surface without going through the Militia.

  ‘What’s going on?’ the sergeant major asked impatiently, indifferent to the sound of battle as he stalked toward us like a creature from the underworld, smoke swirling around him.

  I repeated everything the Guns NCO had said.

  ‘So are you running this show?’ the sergeant major asked him.

  ‘Yes.’ Rusakov replied. ‘I am helping the FEA. Many of my comrades are helping as well. The Guard are not cowards, but they have made a great mistake. It is as if all of our commanders have gone mad, and the zombies have followed them.’

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘Zombies?’ Rusakov had used the same term before, when complaining about the new members of his company.

  ‘They are people in the Guard who follow instructions even when they make no sense.’ Rusakov explained. ‘They are young and easy to control. They are the ones who killed in Dakar…’

  I frowned as I began to realise what he was saying. The young Guardsmen that had been implanted into the Guard support company were the same men that had massacred civilians after the fall of Dakar. They were Bhasin’s men.

  ‘We have stayed behind.’ Rusakov said. ‘It is not right to leave.’

  I nodded at the NCO respectfully, seeing a new side to the Guard for the first time- a human side. Rusakov and the other defectors were brave men - brave enough to willingly stay behind with the FEA and fight the Militia.

  ‘How do we get out?’ the sergeant major asked him.

  He pointed along the tunnel. ‘This is the only way.’

  ‘The only way, eh?’ the sergeant major replied dubiously. He looked down at his datapad, studying the map of the warren. ‘Do you have plasma charges?’

  Rusakov waited for his headset to explain what a plasma charge was, before replying, ‘There are probably some in the warren armoury, but I do not think anyone here knows how to use them.’

  That was hardly surprising - I didn’t know how to use one either. Drop troopers weren’t taught how to use high-tech digging equipment such as plasma charges and laser drills - they were weapons employed by engineers. Tunnel warfare was an engineer’s battle, after all, where troopers were nothing more than pawns on a three-dimensional chessboard.

  ‘I can use them,’ somebody said from over my shoulder.

  We all looked around, eyebrows raised. It was Griffiths who had spoken up, having heard our conversation.

  ‘You can operate a plasma charge?’ I asked with a raised eyebrow.

  ‘My Battalion spent six months clearing Chinese warrens on New Earth,’ he said. ‘Even when the war was supposed to be finished, we were still fighting underground. We had to know how to use the kit for when the engineers got killed.’

  ‘It won’t be a standard-issue Union charge,’ the sergeant major pointed out.

  Griffiths shrugged. ‘They all work the same. We even used Chinese charges once or twice.’

  ‘That’ll do for me,’ the sergeant major answered. He proffered his datapad to Rusakov, showing him the map of the warren. ‘There is a fighting tunnel that runs parallel to this one. Do you see it?’

  The Guardsman looked down at the map, and then nodded. ‘I see it.’

  I studied my own map, seeing what the sergeant major was showing him. Sure enough, there was a tunnel running alongside ours - one which came to a dead end before it reached the surface. Fighting tunnels, as they were called, were a common feature of warrens such as this one. They were often dug so that explosives could be placed close to nearby tunnels, with the intention of either collapsing them using regular explosives, or creating a new access point using directional devices such as plasma charges.

  ‘Give me one of those plasma charges,’ the sergeant major urged, ‘and I’ll take it into that fighting tunnel. I will then use it to blow my way back into the tunnel we’re in now, but closer to the surface. I get what I want - which is to get out of this warren with minimum casualties - and you get the shock factor of my platoon opening up a new front. Deal?’

  Rusakov didn’t take long to think about it. He had a platoon of highly-trained Union troopers offering to make an explosive entry to the Militia’s end of the tunnel. He knew that we would make our break for the surface and attempt to extract, but he also knew that we would make a mess of the Militia in the process. Considering the dire situation he was already in, it was a pretty good deal.

  ‘I accept your plan,’ he said.

  He motioned for an FEA soldier to approach.

  ‘This is Captain Ferrugia,’ he introduced. ‘His OC has died, so he is in command of the FEA company here.’

  We all nodded in greeting, and I studied the man in the flickering light. He wasn’t as young as the FEA soldiers around him, but the captain still couldn’t have been older than twenty. It was hard to imagine a man so young shouldering the responsibility of commanding an entire company, especially with barely any military experience.

  We waited whilst Rusakov explained our plan to the captain. He looked nervous, though not through fear of death. He had the look of a young man terrified by the burden of command, knowing that he had the lives of countless FEA soldiers in his hands. Even the most high-ranking of FEA officers had little training, and so they were nothing when compared against the Guard. I expected he was happy to let the Guns NCO control the battle, but now he had to step up to command once more.

  ‘I have told Captain Ferrugia to hold this position,’ Rusakov explained to us. ‘Once we have used our explosives then he will direct his men to attack toward the surface until they meet with us.’

  I glanced back at the young officer. ‘How do we stop his men shooting us as they come up?’

  ‘I have told him we will mark our position with green light sticks. You have those?’

  The sergeant major nodded. ‘We do.’

  Rusakov held up a finger in warning. ‘There is a chance that they will forget about the light sticks, but there is not much that can be done about that.’

  The sergeant major showed no sign of concern. We all knew the risks involved in working with the FEA. They were poorly trained and absolutely terrified. There might have been a better option than breaking into the tunnel ahead of them, but we didn’t have the time to think of one.

  ‘Shall we get going?’ he said impatiently.

  ‘Yes. Let’s go.’

  Rusakov led us back away from the embattled FEA, leaving Captain Ferrugia to take command of his company. I hoped that the captain managed to hold the Militia at bay until we made our counterattack, but ultimately it didn’t really matter to us. All we wanted to do was get back to the surface, find our platoon, and hopefully extract.

  Rusakov took us deeper into the warren until he found a group of soldiers waiting at a junction. My headset struggled to translate as he jabbered orders at them, but I gathered that he was telling them to collect the charges from somewhere. The soldiers scurried away, hurrying to complete the task given to them.

  ‘They will not be long,’ he announced. ‘Five minutes, maybe.’

  Whilst we waited, the platoon formed up into an orderly line, listening anxiously to the continuing battle above.

  ‘Right,’ the sergeant major started, pacing along the line as he addressed us all once again. ‘Here’s the score. The other half of our platoon is on the surface, and for those of you that haven’t already noticed, the Militia are now in between them and us. The Guard have gloriously withdrawn from the top of Hill Kilo, and all we have left on our side are the FEA here in the warren, and a few odd Guardsmen with a shred of pride remaining.’

  My eyes flicked to Rusakov - who stood close enough to hear the sergeant major’s brief. He stared impassively, not even flinching as his headset translated the words. He was as sickened by the retreat of his comrades as we were.

  The sergeant major quickly explained his plan to all of us, detailing how he intended to follow the fighting tunnel to its end - where we would p
lace out a plasma charge and blast our way back into the tunnel where the Militia were pouring in from the surface. They would never expect the FEA to have any tunnel fighting capability, so the shock would enable us to quickly sweep to the surface. The Militia trapped between us and the FEA would then be quickly picked off by Captain Ferrugia’s men as they closed the gap.

  Once finished, he swept his gaze across us. ‘Questions?’

  ‘Yeah, I have one,’ a trooper asked. It was H, one of Corporal Stanton’s original troopers from before the ambush. ‘What the fuck is going on?’

  The sergeant major glared at the trooper for a moment, and then held up his hands in surrender. There was no longer any need to protect the men by withholding information - we were in enough trouble already. He quickly explained to them the existence of the STORM missiles somewhere within the warren, and the Guard conspiracy to hand them over to the Militia.

  I noticed that Rusakov was now staring at the sergeant major in surprise, having never known about the missiles. His total bewilderment was proof that the majority of the Guard had no willing part in the conspiracy … though the same couldn’t be said for their officers. The support company hierarchy had done all they could to render their men ineffective, knowing that fire support on the hill was crucial to mission success. I realised that was why they had swapped experienced men for young “Zombies” before the operation began. Clearly that hadn’t worked, so the final option was to withdraw the company entirely.

  There was a disgruntled murmur across the men as they tried to understand the dirty politics lurking beneath our operation, and why their own commanders had chosen to keep it a secret.

  ‘Nobody had ever expected any kind of sabotage on this scale,’ the sergeant major explained, containing his irritation. ‘We hadn’t expected the president’s inner circle to be as influential as they have been, we hadn’t expected them to be rubbing up with the Militia, and we certainly hadn’t expected the Militia to respond with so much force. If we had done, then you would all have been made aware. As it was, you were kept in the dark because you didn’t need to know. Simple as that.’

  Myers shook his head. ‘So everything we’ve been doing here has been because we want the Alliance to invade, and Edo doesn’t?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  Footsteps echoed up the tunnel as the FEA soldiers returned, followed by at least another platoon. Clearly they wanted to take full advantage of our counterattack, sending their own men up with us.

  ‘This is crazy,’ Myers said angrily. ‘We’ve been fighting in the Bosque all this time to stop the Alliance kicking off, and now we’re just letting them in? Gritt got shot, Skelton got hit, Sanneh had his throat cut open … all that for nothing?’

  ‘None of our work in the Bosque has been to defeat the Alliance,’ I replied, ‘it’s about trying to bring back stability. The return of the Alliance - on our terms - will do just that. We’re wasting too much of our own resources here while the other colonial powers expand outwards, China included. They’ve been laughing at us ever since war broke out on Eden –’

  The sergeant major cut short the conversation, his tone turning acid: ‘Shall we have a debate about the morality of this operation later? I don’t know about you cretins, but I quite fancy surviving this fucking circus!’

  Even I was stunned by the sudden outburst from the sergeant major, but the sheer force of his personality stopped our argument dead.

  ‘Don’t just stare at me, Corporal Moralee,’ Sergeant Major Davies seethed through gritted teeth, pointing at the newly arrived FEA soldiers. ‘Our charges are here. Now let’s get going and do our fucking jobs! You know where you’re going. Lead off!’

  I took a quick check of my map to confirm I knew the route into the fighting tunnel, and then ran off, beckoning my men to follow. Behind me I heard the sergeant major barking orders and hurling insults at anybody who showed the slightest hint of weariness or self-pity.

  ‘Don’t look at me like you think you’ve seen some shit!’ he scalded. ‘I dropped into Eden when you dropped out of your mummy’s guts! Stop feeling sorry for yourself! You knew what you were in for when you joined the platoon!’

  A small smile crept across my face as I heard him ranting, driving us all onward in the face of adversity. It was amazing how effective a good senior NCO was when the going got tough. No army of bloodthirsty Militia were as scary, or as forceful, as the wrath of an angry sergeant major.

  21

  Fall Back

  Back to the contents page

  We waited in silence as Griffiths prepared the plasma charge at the end of the fighting tunnel. Keeping my section tucked around the last bend, I leaned forward so that I could watch him do his work, growing increasingly anxious as the seconds on my visor clock ticked away.

  I knew that the Militia were in the tunnel running parallel to our own, trying to push the FEA deeper into the warren. As long as our enemy remained confined to a single tunnel, then their options were severely limited, but if they managed to secure one of the junctions, then they would spill out into the warren network, quickly overwhelming the defenders.

  ‘I hope Griffiths knows what he’s doing,’ Myers whispered under his breath.

  I nodded, not taking my eyes off the Welsh trooper as he gently fixed the device onto the wall of the tunnel.

  I hoped he knew what he was doing, too. Plasma charges were powerful weapons, designed to cut new tunnels with a directed blast of super-high energy particles. They were nothing like the simple mouse hole charges we used to blow holes in walls, they were high-tech explosives used by engineers who had spent years learning to burrow and fight underground - an art which had become essential in order to counter the threat of orbital bombardment. Plasma charges were not meant to be used by regular troopers, no matter how much experience they had of fighting in warrens.

  ‘I thought you said we wouldn’t end up fighting in the warrens?’ He said, a hint of humour in his voice.

  I smiled darkly. ‘I lied.’

  He fell silent for a moment. ‘There’s been too much lying on this op.’

  ‘I know.’

  The young trooper sighed. ‘Sorry for being a dick.’

  Ordinarily I might have told Myers to be quiet, but I forgave him for his lapse of noise discipline. Myers knew as I did that the odds were stacking against us, and he wanted to make amends. He had been difficult throughout the operation, I recalled, but perhaps I hadn’t been as understanding as I could have been. He was a junior trooper, by Recce standards, but he had already witnessed the slaughter in Dakar and lost several of his friends. His innocence had been snatched away from him all too early, just as it had been from me.

  ‘Me too,’ I replied.

  Myers and I never did get the chance to talk about his bitterness toward our co-operation with the Guard - we had all been too preoccupied trying to stay alive. It didn’t matter, though. More was said between us in those few words than could ever be said anywhere else. Whatever our opinions, whatever our backgrounds, we were all just troopers fighting to survive. That was all that mattered now.

  Griffiths began to fiddle with something on the back of the charge, and I braced myself, expecting him to suddenly disappear in a cloud of rock and dust, as I had seen once before in the hellish tunnels beneath New Earth.

  Thankfully nothing happened. The Welsh trooper eventually turned away from the device and made his way back toward us, giving me the thumbs-up as he drew near.

  He leant down to me so that our visors gently tapped against each other. ‘It’s done,’ he whispered.

  ‘Well done, mate,’ I replied, impressed by Griffith’s ability. I had no idea that 6th Battalion had so much experience fighting underground. It was no wonder that Griffiths was such an unfriendly trooper - he had probably experienced hardships far worse than anything most of us could imagine.

  ‘No worries,’ the Welsh trooper said gruffly, his kit brushing against mine as he squeezed past me to tak
e up his position amongst the section.

  I looked back at Weatherall - who crouched just behind me. ‘Charge set.’

  He nodded and passed the message rearwards, so that everybody knew that we were ready to begin our attack. There was a short wait whilst the message travelled to the sergeant major and he sent back his reply.

  Weatherall tapped me gently on the shoulder once the reply reached him. ‘Fire the charge on the third flash,’ he whispered. ‘Launch on detonation.’

  I leant over to Myers, tapping our visors. ‘Fire the charge on the third flash. Launch on detonation.’

  The young trooper parroted my words to confirm that he had understood, and I then did the same to Weatherall. The message then travelled back to the sergeant major, confirming that it had reached the men at the front. It was a simple method of confirmation, and hardly infallible, but in the tight confines of the tunnels it ensured that everybody knew what was about to happen without making any noise. I doubted the Militia in the nearby tunnel would hear us – they were far too unprofessional to bother placing out sensors – but we weren’t taking chances.

  I tucked myself in around the corner, double-checking that my body was completely out of the line of sight to the plasma charge. Then I reached forward and gripped my bayonet with a gloved hand, checking that it was correctly attached and hadn’t worked its way loose. I then checked that my magazine was full so that I didn’t need to reload too soon. My section did the same, silently preparing themselves for the assault. On the battlefield, warrens in particular, such checks were what kept a man alive. One single error made by a tired or forgetful trooper could cost him his life.

  I braced myself, lowering my head to look at the ground. I then wrapped one arm around my respirator in order to prevent it from being knocked out of place by the pressure wave created by the charge - it was a lesson I had been taught years ago on Uralis, but one which I had to learn the hard way in battle.

  I focused on my breathing, slow and steady, willing myself to remain calm. The explosion would be powerful, and Myers and I were closest to it, but it was the explosion that would set us free - like a starter pistol releasing runners from the block.