‘I have told you about your spies,’ she said. ‘We knew they were amongst us . . . as they are now. Surely you know this?’
‘Nobody’s going to tell us about what our special forces are up to,’ Myers replied. ‘We don’t get paid enough to know stuff like that.’
Yulia continued. ‘We kept the missiles sealed in special bags to protect them from the water, then used weights to keep them to the bottom of the reservoir. If we needed them, they could be brought back up and used as if they were new.’
‘How many were down there?’ I asked.
‘Several thousand.’
I raised an eyebrow. ‘Several thousand?’
‘Yes. Many of them are probably still there. Bhasin would not have taken that many. He would not have enough men to carry them, and Helstrom would not have the launchers to fire them.’
I puffed my cheeks. ‘So . . . where did they take them?’
‘I will show you.’
The platform turned out to be a natural feature, a shelf of rock a hundred metres across that appeared to have been smoothed by water that once flowed over it. It was several metres above the water level, and given the recent heavy rain I assumed that meant it never became submerged. At its far end, I noticed a series of pipes that emerged from the water, snaking over the lip of the platform before disappearing into a piece of machinery that was easily the size of a dropship. On the other side of the machinery the pipes appeared again, running into a wide horizontal crack in the rocky wall little more than a metre high.
As I stepped out onto the platform, I quickly moved to the right side of Myers, ordering him to go firm with a downward wave of my arm. I then took a knee five metres to his right before holding my arms out either side of me. Extended line.
I waited and listened whilst the section formed up either side of me, my Charlie fire team taking up positions on my left and Delta on my right. Once everyone was in place, we stretched all the way across the platform, from the cavern wall on my right to the reservoir on my left.
‘Nothing on the scanner,’ Myers assured me quietly.
Satisfied that we were capable of defending ourselves against any rear guard Bhasin might have left within the chamber, I crossed over to Yulia and gently placed my hand on her shoulder, careful not to startle her as I spoke. ‘I see a piece of machinery on the far side of this platform–’
‘There should be pipes coming out of it,’ she interrupted. ‘They go into a wide tunnel with a low ceiling.’
I looked back at the horizontal crack into which the pipes all disappeared. ‘I see it.’
‘You must go that way.’
The sergeant major emerged from the mesh tunnel, and I quickly briefed him on what Yulia had told me, and the route I was about to take.
He nodded. ‘OK. I’m happy to push on.’
‘Do we still have comms?’
‘No. Three Section have closed up and are following behind.’
I regarded him quizzically for a moment.
‘I didn’t get to be a sergeant major without taking the odd gamble here and there, Moralee. The difference between you and me is that I wait until the odds are at least slightly in my favour. We have recently spoken to B Company, and know that the situation is under control. We know that the FEA are now able to consolidate their position within the warren now that they have their network up and running. Proceed with caution. If this goes wrong, then we’re heading back to the surface best speed.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I acknowledged, then drew a circle with my hand, telling the section to prepare to move. Then, with a sweep of both my arms, we moved off toward the far end of the platform.
The horizontal crack was at least ten metres across, but too narrow for us to enter it in extended line. Instead I had my section form into two files, so that at least two of us could fire if needed. Myers kept to one side, careful to avoid banging Yulia’s head on the low ceiling, whilst I kept to the other, with everyone else following on behind. I could only just adopt a decent aim as I moved, the rock scraping against my helmet if I didn’t keep my knees well bent and my back arched. My thighs burned through the effort of keeping my body so low, but I ignored the pain, sensing that the distance between us and our quarry was closing. They, unlike us, had a rather heavy burden to carry, as well as several prisoners to slow them down.
The crack meandered like a river, which presumably it had once been, before suddenly opening into another, much smaller cavern, containing yet another reservoir. Water poured from the pipes into the reservoir, siphoned across from its far larger neighbour. We found ourselves stood on another natural shelf, looking into the reservoir.
Suddenly I noticed irregular shapes sprawled out across the shelf, and my heart skipped a beat. They were bodies.
‘Myers, stay there,’ I ordered, then carefully stepped up to one of the figures laying lifeless on the ground.
It was difficult to see how the man had died without using any form of torchlight, but I could see by the lack of heat coming from his body that he had been dead for a long time. I checked his equipment, lifting his head and moving his limbs to identify his uniform. He was a Loyalist. Not a Militiaman, but a professional Loyalist soldier. Most of his kit had been stripped - though I could recognise his uniform anywhere, even in the dark. I figured he and his comrades must have been tasked to guard the pipeline prior to our attack. Obviously they hadn’t done a very good job.
Whilst I inspected the body, the remainder of my section had formed up on the shelf, each taking up fire positions that overlooked the reservoir in front of us.
‘Andy . . .’ Puppy whispered from the lip of the shelf, beckoning me toward him. I left the dead Loyalist and made my way over to my second in command, who promptly pointed out across the reservoir. ‘Look.’
I followed his gaze to the far side of the reservoir, where I could just make out the outline of a perfectly circular tunnel entrance. Not a tunnel, a pipe . . . large enough for a man to walk through.
I studied the pipe entrance for a moment. It was half submerged in the water, which appeared to be flowing into it.
‘This is the pipeline Yulia was talking about,’ Puppy said, sounding relieved as well as surprised to discover that her story was true. ‘The one that we saw before we captured Cellini.’
‘Leading straight out of the warren . . .’ I said thoughtfully.
Puppy let out a quiet chuckle. ‘Quite a serious design flaw, don’t you think?’
‘Yeah,’ I agreed, glancing over my shoulder to check that Yulia wasn’t close enough to hear me. ‘And they wonder why the Alliance lost . . .’
Somebody tapped his rifle gently to grab my attention, and I turned to see Wildgoose stood over another one of the bodies.
‘They’re all Loyalists,’ he confirmed. ‘Looks like they were all shot or stabbed, but they’ve been dead for ages.’
I waved for Myers to close in, and waited whilst he led Yulia across to me.
‘There’s a load of bodies here,’ I said once they both arrived. ‘Your handwork?’
‘These soldiers were killed by villagers who worked down here, just before we emerged from the pipeline,’ Yulia replied. ‘We have many friends in Cellini. They knew that we were coming.’
‘And I’m guessing the pipeline I can see at the bottom of the reservoir is the one you were talking about.’
She nodded. ‘Yes. It was built to provide water to the air factory and its fusion reactor not long after they were built, when the colonists discovered that the reservoir levels beneath Cellini weren’t sustainable enough to support their great project–’
‘And then it started raining,’ I finished.
She nodded. ‘The pipeline was no longer useful when the rain increased, so it was deactivated long before any of the provinces were formed.’
The sergeant major arrived next to us once more, and I pointed out the pipeline to him. ‘That’s the way out.’
‘So that pipe runs all the way out to sea?�
� he asked.
‘That is correct,’ Yulia replied. ‘It heads to a pumping station and then out to a chemical plant on the western coast of Edo, which is being held by FEA soldiers loyal to us. It is the route we used to enter the tunnels beneath the village.’
The sergeant major raised his eyebrows disbelievingly. ‘And the Loyalists never even thought to defend it properly?’
‘We never thought to use it,’ I said.
‘I did,’ Myers mumbled.
‘Myers . . .’ The sergeant major lowered his head and gripped his visor irritably. ‘Go away for a moment, would you?’
‘Yes, sir,’ the trooper replied sulkily. Puppy quickly wrapped an arm over his shoulder and led him away.
Yulia waited a moment before continuing. ‘The way through this pipeline is very dangerous. The water is very cold, and often very deep. The Loyalists kept a small guard force here, and decided that would be enough.’
I looked at the dead, looted Loyalist soldiers scattered across the rocky shelf. ‘Clearly it wasn’t.’ I considered asking her for more information, but now wasn’t the time. We still needed to catch up with Bhasin, before he made off with the missiles, and our friends. ‘How deep is it?’ I asked, changing the subject.
Yulia pointed to the pipe entrance. ‘If you can see the top of the pipeline, then you can stand in the water.’
‘And is there a way down?’ I asked. I didn’t fancy wasting more time with ropes.
‘There is a ladder.’
I swept my gaze across the edge of the shelf, finally spotting a metal ladder on the edge of the reservoir. Not wanting to spend any more time talking, I trotted over to it and then climbed down into the water below. It was just as cold as the water in the drainage tunnels, but this time my body adapted much more quickly. I reached the bottom of the reservoir just as the water reached my chest, and gently stepped away from the ladder. A current tugged at my body, pulling me toward the pipeline entrance. It wasn’t strong enough to take me off my feet, but enough for me to have to lean slightly against it.
‘The water is flowing out pretty steadily,’ I warned as Yulia followed me down into the water, having been guided onto the ladder by Myers.
Yulia took a couple of steps away from the ladder. I remembered that she couldn’t see a thing, so reached out and gripped her shoulder before guiding her away from my descending section. Using my remaining arm, I kept my rifle trained onto the pipeline and slowly waded toward it, making room for my men whilst moving to cover the direction of enemy threat.
Once I reached the pipeline, the flow of water became almost as powerful as it had been before the waterfall, trying to suck me in. I propped myself against the pipe entrance, making sure that Yulia was safely behind me before peering into the gloom, expecting a target to appear at any moment, but there was nothing.
The remainder of my section swiftly formed up behind us, lining up along the reservoir wall either side of the pipeline. They closed up together, expecting a brief before I moved off again. They all knew that somewhere along the tunnel was Bhasin’s extraction point, and a potential battle to follow.
‘The water does not usually flow like this . . .’ Yulia observed, sounding puzzled.
‘Could be the rain?’ Wildgoose suggested. He flicked his head upward. ‘There must be a huge amount of water soaked up inside this hill.’
‘It would have been raining when Yulia and her men came up here,’ I replied.
‘It would,’ he agreed, ‘but the rainwater wouldn’t flow down here instantly. Think how big Hill Kilo is. The water soaks into the mud, then travels hundreds of metres through rock and whatever else before it gets here. It probably takes a day or two.’
‘Who made you the rock expert?’ Myers asked.
The older trooper smiled. ‘Nobody. Just guessing.’
I noticed Yulia shiver involuntarily, probably hoping that no one would notice. A Guardsman through and through, she didn’t like to admit weakness in front of her old enemies.
‘How the hell did you travel so far in freezing cold water?’ I asked her.
‘Rafts,’ she answered.
‘Rafts?’
‘We made inflatable rafts using materials we found in the pumping station. We floated on the water. Sometimes we were wet, but not often.’
I nodded respectfully. ‘Good idea.’
‘I know a good idea,’ Myers suggested with a touch of sarcasm. ‘Why don’t we use those same rafts now, instead of freezing our balls off?’
‘The rafts are hidden in another tunnel,’ Yulia answered, ‘but I do not think they would be there anyway. If Bhasin made my men talk, then he will know where the rafts are. He would use them to help his men move the missiles along the pipeline.’
The sergeant major had me wait until all three sections were in the water, choosing to close the other commanders up to my section for one final brief before we set off.
He flicked his head toward the pipe entrance. ‘For those of you who don’t recognise what they’re looking at, that’s the pipeline that we saw during our first recce of the area several days ago. Yulia claims it’s the exfiltration route being used by the rogue Guardsmen - which makes sense considering the information provided from the captured personnel in the Guard headquarters.
‘I believe they’ve followed this pipeline for a reasonable distance, before detonating explosives somewhere around where it enters the forest so they can escape and rendezvous with their new Militia friends. They’ve had a head start on us, but don’t forget that anti-orbital missiles are heavy bits of kit that aren’t designed to be carried by hand. They must be having a nightmare getting them out of the pipeline, and it’ll only get worse for them amongst the trees. To that end, I’d anticipate a cluster of rogue Guardsmen - and Militia - either inside or outside the pipe. Maintain strict noise and light discipline, and nobody is to use the net unless I say so.
‘We’ve been off the net for twenty minutes,’ he added, ‘but our silence won’t last much longer. We’ll be able to transmit through the pipe walls as soon as it breaks the surface. When we get eyes onto the extraction point then I will break net silence and attempt to contact B Company so that we can have fire support on call.’
He lowered his voice as he gave a final warning. ‘Everybody wants to rescue the boss and his lads, but remember the threat we face. Don’t be reluctant to fire at targets within the forest just because you’re afraid of hitting your mates. It’s a cruel world, but I’m sure they’d rather die in the crossfire than meet whatever fate that bunch of fucked-up weirdos have in store for them. See this as a regular, hasty platoon attack, as you did when you were fighting for the headquarters. Maximum speed, maximum aggression, maximum firepower. If we find our comrades, then that’s a bonus. Understand?’
‘Yes, sir,’ we chorused. Everyone was anxious to get going now, sensing that our quarry was close.
‘Good. Corporal Moralee, let’s go.’
6
Advance to Contact
To contents page
We patrolled along the pipeline, each trooper maintaining a five-metre gap between him and the next man so that we could communicate easily. The threat of falling into a hidden drain was gone, but we still needed to be as quiet as possible. Even the slightest sound seemed to echo along the pipe, magnified by its shape and the metal from which it was constructed, so we had to maintain a steady speed to avoid too much splashing. This time I had Yulia hang onto my daysack instead of following on with Myers, making sure that he could react to any threat without having to worry about her.
I barely paid attention to the water sloshing around my waist, or the occasional tug from Yulia’s grip on my daysack. All of my senses were tuned to the endless stretch of pipeline ahead of me. I knew that my visor and headset would detect anything untoward long before my eyes and ears did, yet still I strained, almost willing for our enemy to appear.
My heart thumped as adrenalin began to seep into my blood, preparing my body for comb
at. They were close, I knew they were. It was as if I could feel their presence, or perhaps it was wishful thinking by a trooper desperately anxious to rescue his comrades, and hungry for revenge.
We had moved almost a kilometre into the pipeline when Myers suddenly froze, lifting his rifle slightly to scan something in the gloom. A few hundred metres ahead there was a faint greyish glow, as if something was lighting the pipe walls.
‘What is that?’ Myers breathed, his words barely audible even with my headset magnifying them.
I zoomed my visor display toward the light, trying to identify its source, but to no avail. If there was anything to see, then my visor would have allowed me to see it.
Yulia brushed against my daysack as she leant around to see for herself. ‘It is daylight,’ she whispered.
I nodded. ‘That must be Bhasin’s escape route.’
‘I think so.’
I looked back and whispered to Weatherall, ‘Pass back to the sergeant major I’ve found a potential extraction route, possibly a hole in the pipe wall. I’m going to move up to investigate.’
Weatherall responded with a slow nod to confirm that the message had been understood. He then turned and passed it back to the rear of the section.
Not wanting to wait for the sergeant major’s response, which I knew would be an affirmation, I patted Myers on his daysack. ‘Let’s crack on, mate.’
We moved as fast as we could through the water, taking care not to create a splash that might give us away. The going was pretty easy now, since the current was pulling us toward the light with increasing strength. I had no doubt that the flow of water had been caused by the hole created along the pipeline, and that we had found the exit point for the stolen missiles.
The grey glow became brighter as we moved along the pipeline, until I finally caught a glimpse of daylight bursting through a large hole in the eastern wall about four hundred metres away. Water frothed and churned, hissing as it poured through the hole and onto the ground below.
I stopped a hundred metres back from the hole, gently tapping my rifle to grab Myers’ attention before indicating for him to go firm. The water level was slightly lower now, so we both took a knee, allowing it to flow around our chests. Oblivious to the cold, we scanned through our sights and listened for signs of enemy.
RECCE II (The Union Series Book 5) Page 10