RECCE II
PHILLIP RICHARDS
Book Five of The Union Series
The Electronic Book Company
A New York Times Best-seller
Listed Publisher
www.theelectronicbookcompany.com
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This ebook contains detailed research material, combined with the author's own subjective opinions, which are open to debate. Any offence caused to persons either living or dead is purely unintentional. Factual references may include or present the author's own interpretation, based on research and study.
Copyright © 2016 by Phillip Richards
All Rights Reserved
CONTENTS:
Title Page
Author Bio
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1 – Return to the Warren
Chapter 2 – The Guard Headquarters
Chapter 3 – Explosive Entry
Chapter 4 – Tactical Questioning
Chapter 5 – The Sewers
Chapter 6 – Advance to Contact
Chapter 7 – Collateral Damage
Chapter 8 – New Mission
Chapter 9 – Europa
Chapter 10 – Copehill
Chapter 11 – Agent Handling
Chapter 12 – Enforced Rest
Chapter 13 – Camp Assault
Chapter 14 – Compound Defence
Chapter 15 – The Barracks
Chapter 16 – The Shuttle Port
Chapter 17 – Strike Op
Author’s Notes
Books In The Union Series
Author Bio
To contents page
Phillip Richards was born and raised in Chichester, south England. He joined the Infantry at the age of seventeen, and he still serves today. During his service he has taken part in two operational tours in Kosovo, four in Iraq and a further two in Afghanistan. He is now a Platoon Sergeant, and he uses what little spare time he has to pursue his hobby, writing science fiction. This is the fifth science fiction novel that he has written, which has been influenced by his service within the British Army. The story and all of the characters within it are entirely fictional, however, so if you know him and think that you recognise yourself for good or bad reasons, you are mistaken!
Link to my blog site:
http://militarysciencefictionblog.blogspot.co.uk
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/phill.richards.1238#
Acknowledgements
To contents page
To start off, no doubt you will have noticed that Steven has once again produced a fantastic book cover for my latest novel. Thanks, mate! To see more of Stevo's work, visit him on the following link: http://steve-o-o-c.deviantart.com.
Thank you, of course, to my wife and son, for providing me with the motivation I needed to keep going. Though you might not know it, I would never have finished this book without you.
Thank you, readers, for waiting as long as you have without complaint. I’m afraid my job won’t always allow me to produce my books on time, but I hope they’re still worth it!
Thank you to the instructors of my training team, for your friendship, constant enthusiasm and inspirational leadership over the past year. I never thought I could take so much enjoyment from training young recruits, but it turned out to be one of the most rewarding and satisfying things I have done in my career. I hope we have all learned something from one another, and that the wider army will be a better place as a result of our labour. Of course promoting beyond Sergeant has been an honour, but I am genuinely sad to leave my days of managing platoons behind. I now realise that it was far from a stepping stone to better things- it was the pinnacle of my service. I will miss you all.
To those I have trained, I wish you all the very best of luck wherever you might go. Stay low, move fast, and remember everything I taught you!
Finally, as ever, thank you to all the men and women who serve their nation’s armed forces across the world. I wish you all a safe return to your loved ones, and I hope that one day you may all find peace.
Introduction
To contents page
Morale is low in Recce Platoon, lower than it's ever been.
The Platoon Commander and his men are missing in action, Yulia is a prisoner of the Presidential Guard, and a bloodthirsty horde of Militia threatens to overwhelm the scattered remnants of the FEA at any moment. Andy Moralee and his men have failed their mission- spectacularly- but just when it seems that nothing could get any worse, the conflict in the Bosque reaches a new low. As Union and Alliance warships threaten to unleash their bombs at any moment, and unseen enemies lurk within the shadows, a new weapon is brought to bear- the civilian population itself.
Taunted by the faintest glimmer of hope and tormented by the nightmares that plague his sleep, Andy Moralee must do what he can to hold his battered section together, and have his revenge. War is looming...
Note from the author: Recce II was written, produced and edited in the UK where spellings and word usage can vary from U.S. English. The use of quotes in dialogue and other punctuation can also differ.
1
Return to the Warren
To contents page
I was sure there were Militiamen somewhere within the warren. The dark, narrow tunnels still echoed with shouts and sporadic gunfire. Perhaps there were only a couple of them, trapped underground with nothing left to do but stand and fight. It was possible that there were hardly any of them at all, and that the gunfire was actually the result of nervous FEA conscripts with shaky trigger fingers. Warrens were frightening, even for trained troopers like ourselves, so the effect on our untrained allies must have been even more profound.
Using my datapad map to navigate through the network of tunnels and chambers, I led the platoon back into the bowels of Hill Kilo, toward the Guard headquarters where our platoon commander had been located before he went silent. We didn’t know what had happened to him, or his command group of three troopers, but we were fairly certain that he was being held hostage by a rogue group of Guardsmen who had sealed their underground headquarters from the outside world.
The intention of those rogue Guardsmen was vague. All we knew was that they were to be loyal to their president’s “inner circle”, a shady group of military leaders who planned to scupper our joint mission to hold Cellini village. Cutting off the Guard headquarters and capturing our platoon commander had certainly done that: the remaining Guard and FEA units were now in total disarray. Even our own platoon would have perished on the hill had a company of Union dropship infantry not come to our rescue.
A dark cloud now hung over my mind, dark as the narrow, winding labyrinth we stalked through. There was a terrible sense of futility that taunted me, threatening to consume what remained of my shattered morale. All of our efforts to hold onto Cellini village had been in vain. We had taken heavy casualties, seen one of our comrades brutally murdered by Helstrom, the Militia’s leader, and now we had lost our own platoon commander. I hoped that he and his men were OK, that we could find them somewhere within the warren, but I knew in my heart that the odds were against us.
Our return to the tunnels under Hill Kilo wasn’t simply a rescue mission. There was still the hope that we might find the anti-orbital missiles that were stockpiled underground,
missiles that the inner circle perversely wanted the Militia to capture. They were the reason why so many people wanted our mission to fail – even people within our own government – and if we found those missiles, then we might at least be able to console ourselves with a small piece of success.
Then there was Yulia; I couldn’t help wondering if she was OK, and if she too was being held hostage in the Guard headquarters. Our sergeant major – arrogant as he was – had handed her over to the Guard, despite my protest, because he saw her as a political prisoner who we couldn’t afford to keep. In my opinion, she was the opposite. As our only friend with connections within the Guard, I was certain that she was our best hope of finding the missiles, as well as our comrades.
Myers stopped at a junction a few hundred metres away from the headquarters, his sudden halt snapping me back from my darkened thoughts.
I moved up to him and glanced down at my datapad, tapping the screen to check my three-dimensional map of the warren. We were close to the Guard headquarters – barely a few hundred metres away – and now was a good time to go firm in order to make sure everyone was together, as well as allow the sergeant major to give any final orders before we met the rogue Guardsmen.
Sergeant Major Davies was effectively the platoon commander now, having stepped up to take command in Mr Barkley’s absence. In his place, Corporal Abdi – or Abs as he was known – had assumed the role of Recce 2ic, and his section had been cannibalised to replace the casualties we had taken in our recent battle. The term “Recce 2ic” was hardly even relevant anymore as our high casualty rate had transformed us from a recce platoon formed of six independent groups into a much smaller regular rifle platoon, with only three sections and a small command group that depended on us for protection. Only once had I seen a worse attrition rate, when my old platoon had been nearly wiped out on the frontlines during our invasion of New Earth. Mr Barkley had been my platoon commander back then, and had somehow survived the campaign as I had. Unfortunately, this time he might not have been so lucky.
I gripped Myers by the shoulder to prevent him from stepping off again, before waving my hand downward in front of his visor. Understanding the gesture, the young trooper dropped to one knee, leaning slightly around the bend in the tunnel so that he could see any approaching threats. I took a knee next to him and signalled for the remainder of my section to close up.
Without a word, my men closed right in so that we were shoulder to shoulder, packing tightly together so that messages could be passed without the need for net transmissions.
We all waited in woeful silence whilst the platoon closed up behind us, listening to the distant echoes of gunfire. Although I couldn’t see my comrades’ expressions in the dark, I knew that the despairing pessimism I felt was mutual. They were all exhausted, confused and afraid. Confused at the apparent inability to stop the advancing Militia, and afraid for their missing comrades as much as for themselves. None of them would have refused to return into the hellish tunnels, of course, even if the sergeant major had presented them with the option. They were troopers. Not just troopers, but recce troopers, often seen as the special forces of the dropship battalions, and their friends needed them; but that didn’t mean their minds weren’t in a bad place.
I felt as if all of my demons had been awoken, free once again to torment my mind. The thought of losing yet more of my comrades was unbearable. So many had gone, but I had somehow managed to put them to the back of my mind over the past few days, as if I had reinvented myself and started anew. Now the shield I had built around me had collapsed like a stack of cards, as people I cared for were placed in terrible danger against a backdrop of utter chaos and human desperation.
I cared for Mr Barkley. He was one of the few surviving members of my old platoon - and one of the few of them who could still bear to talk to me. He might not have liked the way I did things, and he might even have been rude to me on occasion, but we still shared a bond that couldn’t be broken, a bond formed on the cold forge of war.
Did I care for Yulia? Yes, I guess I did. I didn’t know what it was that made her matter to me. If it was because I felt we were kindred spirits, or if it was simply the misplaced lust of a trooper who had denied himself the company of a woman for too long. Either way, I found myself fearing for her safety as much as for my comrades.
The tunnel was barely wide enough to allow the sergeant major to squeeze past my section, trying not to scrape his equipment against walls of bare rock. He quietly crouched beside me as he studied the junction and the gloom beyond it.
Distant screaming broke the silence, echoing from somewhere behind us. There was no telling who it was that screamed, or where they were. The warren communication network was controlled from the Guard headquarters and had gone dead at the same time as the boss having disappeared. Without it chaos reigned, as scattered FEA units lost their ability to communicate.
‘Do you think the Militia have found another way into the warren?’ Myers whispered nervously.
The sergeant major considered the possibility. ‘Maybe.’
Nothing seemed to be beyond the Militia’s capability. What they couldn’t achieve by wit and cunning, they still managed through dogged determination and seemingly inexhaustible manpower. The FEA had blown all of the access tunnels that allowed the wave of Militiamen to enter the warren from the village itself, but there might have been other tunnels that we weren’t aware of. We had caught Yulia using a tunnel that wasn’t on the maps our allies had provided us with, and the warren had exchanged hands so many times during its existence that nobody could be certain of its layout.
Myers fidgeted, glancing around as if he expected Militiamen to jump out from the walls of the tunnel. ‘What the hell do we do if they overrun this place?’ he asked me under his breath.
‘Run for our lives,’ I answered grimly.
We all knew that our grip on the warren was fragile and time was against us. Above us, B Company of the 1st Battalion English Dropship Infantry held a hasty defensive position on Hill Bravo’s windswept plateau, holding back the horde of Militia that had flooded into Cellini village. The company of Union troopers were far better trained and equipped than the Guard battalion that had abandoned us, but they were still horrendously outnumbered by Helstrom’s bloodthirsty Militia. If the two remaining FEA battalions didn’t pull themselves together and retake the village, then B Company would have no choice but to withdraw and leave them to their fate. There was no way that we could stay if B Company pulled out. This wasn’t our war – half of the Union army didn’t even know we were operating in the Edo province at all – so our options were rather limited. Our return to the warren was a risky gambit, but one we had no choice to take.
The sergeant major looked over his shoulder. ‘Rusakov, do you know any of the people in the Guard headquarters?’
Rusakov, a Guard NCO who had refused to leave his countrymen behind, was close behind the sergeant major, sandwiched between him and his signaller. We had managed to persuade him to come along with us to advise how to deal with the rogue Guardsmen who held control of their headquarters. He knew the importance of restoring the warren communication network as we did, and how crucial it was to the FEA defenders.
‘I know some of the prisoners,’ Rusakov replied with his thick Edo accent, ‘but not those who captured them. They are zombies. I have never seen them before.’
‘What are zombies?’ I asked with a raised eyebrow.
I’d heard the expression before, but never asked the real meaning of the word. It would have been far easier for us to communicate if he simply spoke his own language and allowed our headsets to translate, but I decided against making such a suggestion; now wasn’t a time to risk insulting such a useful ally.
‘They are not from my battalion,’ the burley NCO explained. ‘They joined us just before we came to capture Cellini. They are orphans from the war, from when the Union took our lands from the Alliance. Their brains are made empty. They are alive, but their
souls are dead . . .’
I nodded slowly, vaguely interpreting his meaning. The zombies, rather than monsters from a hologram, were young orphans who had been brainwashed and then indoctrinated to the president’s cause. I had heard that both Edo and Europa did similar things to their young, creating soldiers who knew nothing other than combat and utter obedience. I imagined that they were fiercely loyal to their commanders, carrying out whatever orders they were given no matter what the cost.
‘The president’s inner circle,’ I concluded. ‘Or at least, soldiers controlled by his inner circle.’
‘Sounds like it,’ the sergeant major agreed.
The Guard were formed of the remnants of the Alliance military, those who hadn’t managed to escape when the colonial power withdrew from planet Eden. Their goal was to resist all attempts to bring their province into line with their new colonial masters in the hope that one day the Alliance would return. The inner circle was different. Their goal was to protect their own interests, and that of the president himself. In order to do so they had spawned their own private army within the Guard, loyal only to them.
‘The same fucking bastards that killed all those people at Dakar,’ Myers realised aloud.
I nodded slowly. Myers was right. Of course he was. Who else could have killed so many innocent civilians but the president’s right hand men?
‘You were at Dakar?’ Rusakov asked me, sounding surprised.
‘Yes,’ I replied.
‘Then you will know what the zombies can do.’
I remembered the horror of the massacre. I remembered women and children falling to their deaths as they tried to cross a narrow bridge in a desperate bid to escape the slaughter. And I remembered the stacks of naked corpses we had found near to another “liberated” village.
RECCE II (The Union Series Book 5) Page 1