I looked at the pile of kit. ‘B Company can always get more when they go back to Helsinki, I guess. How long until you’re ready?’
‘About five minutes,’ he replied. ‘I just need to do a final check to make sure we’ve got everything.’
‘No worries.’
Puppy gestured back to the pile of ammunition. ‘I never got the chance to ask you what ammo you needed, so I just used the section net to work out your totals. There should be enough ammo there to put you back up to pre-deployment levels. If not just let me know.’
‘Cheers,’ I said with a nod.
‘What did the sergeant major have to say?’
I shrugged. ‘Not much at the moment. Nobody’s had a chance to read our orders yet. I’ll brief you what I can on the dropship.’
‘What’s the score with Weatherall?’
I frowned, glancing at the newest addition to our section. The B Company trooper looked up from his daysack, knowing that he was being discussed.
‘What about him?’ I repeated.
‘Are we taking him with us, or giving him back to B Company?’
Puppy had a fair point. Weatherall wasn’t one of ours. He had been given to us temporarily to replace a previous casualty. There was every chance that B Company would want him back.
I nodded toward Weatherall, directing the question to him. ‘What do you want to do?’
The trooper shrugged. ‘I’m happy to stay.’
He didn’t want to stay, and he certainly wasn’t any “happier” than the rest of us. Weatherall had endured a particularly bloody introduction to our platoon, but he felt duty-bound to remain with us.
‘Stay then,’ I decided. ‘If B Company ask, though, you’re going back to them.’
The trooper nodded, knowing that his fate was sealed. ‘Roger.’
Of course B Company would never ask for him back. There was no way they’d take manpower from us just before we went back behind enemy lines. Though inexperienced, Weatherall was still a trained drop trooper, and we were better with him than without.
‘I’ll keep him in my fire team, Puppy.’ I said. ‘He’ll bolster my protection when I go in for recces.’
Puppy nodded. ‘Understood.’
As I turned to walk away, Puppy reached out and patted my arm. ‘You OK, mate?’
I looked back at my 2ic, considering whether or not to lie and say everything was fine. It wasn’t though. Everything was far from fine.
I let out a deep, sorrowful sigh. ‘No, mate. I’m not OK . . .’
He looked concerned. ‘You wanna talk about it?’
‘No. Not now.’
He searched my eyes for a moment. Finally, he nodded, realising there was nothing else to be said. There was no time.
‘OK,’ he said.
I stepped over to where the pile of kit perched on the edge of the trench, then set my daysack down next to Myers. The young trooper busied himself swapping his scanner battery with a fresh one, kissing his teeth as it refused to detach without a fight.
Busying myself with my own equipment, I kept my mind focussed on preparing for my upcoming mission. Puppy was more than capable of administrating the section on his own, which gave me the time to quickly sort myself out and then study our orders as much as I could before the call came to mount up.
Myers grew angrier as the battery still refused to come away from his scanner. His fingers clawed at the catches that held the device together, the movements becoming less co-ordinated as his frustration peaked.
‘Myers!’ Puppy called, having noticed the young trooper’s struggle. He crouched beside him and reached out to help.
Without warning, Myers threw the scanner to the ground. ‘Fuck it!’
‘Oi!’ I snapped at him. ‘If you break that we’re not getting another one! Get a grip, you tube!’
‘Who gives a shit if I break it?’ Myers shouted, throwing his arms up in the air. ‘What’s the point? What’s the point in any of this?’
‘I don’t fucking know!’ I seethed through bared teeth, my hands clenching into fists. ‘But if you break that kit, I’ll fucking beat you to death with it!’
Myers rose to the threat. ‘Yeah? Why should I care? You’d be doing me a favour!’
‘Alright, Myers!’ Puppy moved between us, raising his voice as he realised that our argument was about to turn violent. ‘Calm down! That scanner’s a life-saver. If you break it then we’ve lost it for good!’
I glared fiercely at the young trooper, willing for him to give me good cause to follow through with my threat.
Myers uttered something unintelligible, then sobbed. Responding instantly to his comrade’s distress, Puppy placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.
‘Come on, mate,’ Puppy said soothingly, as Myers lowered his head, placing his visor into the 2ic’s shoulder. ‘It’s alright.’
‘It’s not alright, though, is it?’ Myers cried. ‘It never will be.’
I watched my 2ic embrace the sobbing trooper, my body still shaking as adrenalin pumped through my veins, urging me to take action. After a moment I realised that the rest of the platoon were watching, having ceased their frantic packing to see what the commotion was about. Ignoring their curiosity, and the trooper crying beside me, I began replacing my expended magazines with fresh ones.
Puppy tended to Myers, telling him that we were all feeling the same way, and that the boss wouldn’t want us to fall apart in his absence. It was all pretty standard, but it was enough to calm the young trooper down.
Nobody was going to comfort me, though. I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve anything.
I had killed a child. And worse, I was going to be promoted for it. Just like Bhasin.
9
Europa
To contents page
The previously sporadic firing intensified across the plateau as B Company’s dropships approached. Realising that the Union troopers were leaving, the Militia knew that the FEA would soon be on their own and had taken the opportunity to deliver one final blow. Soon they too would need to withdraw, retreating from Cellini village in order to help protect their province from the upcoming invasion.
Their attempts to disrupt our extraction were outmatched instantly. Vulcan cannon spraying the village below with ruthless abandon, our fleet of dropships quickly overwhelmed their opponents as they descended onto the hill, lowering their ramps to receive their human cargo. Hot smoke billowed from the dischargers mounted on their stubby wings, screening the entire hill and obscuring them from the Militia. It didn’t matter that the dropships themselves couldn’t see into the village, the four gravtanks which complimented the company were somewhere nearby, using vantage points to pick out targets for everyone else to engage in a similar manner to the crosshairs we created on our net.
There were eighteen dropships in total, four for each of the three rifle platoons, two for B Company’s headquarters, and a further four empty dropships provided for our platoon. As they came in to land, the combined noise of their weapons became deafening, merging together to form a single roar that shook the world around us.
‘Stand by!’ the sergeant major warned above the din as he spied the dropships meant for us.
Braced against the trench walls, each section stood poised to break cover, all of us knowing that our extraction needed to be rapid. I placed my boot onto an exposed rock just above knee height, ready to use it as a foothold to speed my exit from the trench.
Despite the enormous firepower of the dropships, we knew we were particularly vulnerable, with no idea of how the Militia might react to their sudden arrival. We suspected that they had virtually no anti-aircraft capability, but none of us wanted to hang around to find out.
Looking over the lip of our trench, I saw troopers running through the smoke that drifted across the plateau, rapidly extracting from the hill as one. There was no fire support coming from any of the three platoons, instead they were using the dropships to cover their escape. It was time for us to
do the same.
The sergeant major swept with his arm toward where our dropships waited. ‘Let’s go!’
‘Puppy, lead off!’ I called.
‘Moving!’ My 2ic scrambled out from the trench, leading his fire team toward the waiting dropships. It was important that he led the extraction, since it was his fire team that needed to load into the crew compartment first. My fire team would load last because we needed to be first out.
One by one the section extracted from the trench in a single file, each man stopping only to help his comrade climb out.
Griffiths gripped Myers by the hand and dragged him upward, turning to run once he was sure his comrade was on his feet.
Myers then reached out to help me.
‘I’m fine,’ I said gruffly, ignoring his hand. I thrust against my rocky foothold, and exploded out of the trench in one fluid movement.
Seeing that I didn’t want his help, the young trooper turned after the rest of the section, and I followed close behind.
Leaping over the tops of trenches and weaving through scattered craters and debris, we sprinted toward the four aircraft. Though none of the nearby gunfire was directed at us, it spurred us to run faster, desperate to escape the seemingly hopeless battlefield. Puppy had already identified our own dropship and headed straight for it, bounding through the smoke ahead of me.
The ramp hadn’t even touched the ground before my 2ic reached our dropship. He leapt onto it and then stood at the mouth of the crew compartment, hurrying the men inside. Boots slammed against metal as the section bounded up the ramp, piling into the compartment beyond.
‘All in!’ Puppy informed me as I reached him. He then pushed his way into the compartment and found his seat at the back.
I took his place on the ramp, ignoring the commotion inside as I turned to check that the other sections had loaded safely onto their own dropships.
I spoke over the platoon net. ‘One-Zero, this is One-One. That’s my section loaded.’
‘One-Zero, roger.’
As soon as the sergeant major responded, I stepped into the compartment, quickly taking my seat closest the ramp. My headset automatically connected to the dropship intercom, signalling its success with a beep and a flashing green icon on my visor display.
‘Last man in!’ I announced to the dropship crew, reaching for my straps.
‘Roger!’ was the reply, and the craft instantly began to rise from the ground.
Myers took my rifle from me, stowing it in its rack whilst I finished connecting my straps.
‘Cheers.’ My thanks were icy.
We all leant forward to catch a final glimpse of Cellini village before the ramp closed. FEA soldiers scurried across the hill beneath us like angry ants over a disturbed nest, hastily preparing to defend themselves against the Militia. They had always known that we were going to leave them, but I doubted they expected such a sudden departure.
‘Do you think they’ll hold on?’ Wildgoose asked, just before the ramp closed with a dull thud.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied gloomily. ‘Cellini’s not important anymore, so maybe the Militia will just walk away . . .’
The dropship lurched forward suddenly, banking hard as it accelerated away from the hill.
‘We’ll be throwing this thing about a little,’ our dropship commander warned in his thick Dutch accent. ‘Don’t be alarmed, we’re just trying to shake off any launchers on the ground.’
He wasn’t joking. It certainly wasn’t my worst dropship ride, but it definitely wasn’t pleasant. The pilot threw the aircraft one way and then the other, rocking us like the helpless passengers of a tiny boat in a storm.
‘Is this guy taking the piss?’ somebody complained as we were tossed against our straps.
‘I’d rather feel sick than get shot down!’ Puppy replied.
‘Speak for yourself!’
None of us handled the ride well. I could tell by the strained expressions that were visible through the visors of the troopers sat across from me. There was no shame in feeling queasy, though. I don’t think anybody could handle such g-forces with any form of grace, but as long as a trooper wasn’t sick, didn’t shit himself, piss himself or cry, then he was considered to have kept his composure.
My visor flashed, alerting me to fresh information sent over the platoon net. A quick glance at my datapad revealed a series of grid locations marked by the sergeant major, including our drop off point a few kilometres south of the border and a potential harbour a similar distance to the north.
‘All call signs, this is One-Zero.’ The sergeant major’s voice spoke into my headset. ‘I’ve just sent a series of grids relevant to our insertion. On my call you will move immediately from the drop off point as individual sections. I’ve provided you with three separate routes, along with a rendezvous point where we will meet again prior to occupying our patrol harbour.’
I studied the information on my datapad, trying to ignore the erratic manoeuvring of the dropship. Staring into the eyes of the trooper across from me was bad enough, but trying to stare at a datapad screen with the contents of my stomach being thrown in every direction was something else.
Sure enough, there were several waypoints sited between the drop off point and the potential harbour, marking three different routes. Rather than patrolling across the border as one large body of men we would separate, each section finding its own way. Infiltrating in such a way decreased our chances of being detected, but only by a small degree. Much more importantly, it gave us a greater chance of finding a safe way through, which could be communicated to the rest of the platoon if necessary.
‘I will attach my headquarters onto One-One throughout the infiltration,’ the sergeant major continued. ‘One-Zero-Bravo will attach himself to One-Three. One-One and One-Three, acknowledge.’
‘One-One,’ I answered, causing a few of my men to glance at me inquisitively. They knew I was receiving orders that almost certainly affected them.
‘Net silence is to be maintained throughout. You are only to break net silence if you believe you are already compromised, or about to be. I will use tight beam relay to communicate any changes to our final rendezvous or the harbour location itself. One-Two, acknowledge.’
‘One-Two.’
I looked up from my datapad, unable to look at the screen any longer for fear that I might be sick.
‘What’s the plan?’ Puppy asked from the far side of the compartment.
I realised that all eyes were on me. Everyone was anxious to find out what was happening, especially since the situation seemed to be changing so rapidly.
I relayed the sergeant major’s plan to my section, forwarding the grids to them. There weren’t any questions, but then I was hardly surprised given the constant g-forces.
‘We’ve got eyes onto the drop zone,’ the dropship commander announced after a few minutes. The dropship began to slow, circling in a wide arc. ‘You’ll be pleased to hear it’s very quiet here. We’re not picking up anything.’
‘I’ll believe that when we’re on the ground,’ I said harshly, causing everyone to look at me. I then remembered that they couldn’t hear our conversation. ‘They’re saying the drop zone looks quiet.’
Puppy laughed bitterly. ‘Here’s hoping!’
‘I can’t see any way of dropping you directly onto the ground,’ the commander warned. ‘You’ll need to use ropes, I think.’
‘Roger.’ I looked at my men. ‘We’ll need to descend by rope.’
‘Get the rope out!’ Puppy ordered.
Myers obeyed, reaching up to detach a coiled rope that was fastened to a metal arm on the compartment roof. He passed it to me, double-checking that one end remained securely fastened onto the arm above our heads.
‘Rope’s secure,’ he confirmed.
We suddenly lurched toward the front of the dropship, our straps straining to hold us in place as the aircraft decelerated rapidly. Wind gusted through the compartment as the ramp lowered, revealing
a spectacular view of the forest canopy in the late evening sun. Clouds on the horizon glowed blood-red, contrasting starkly against the dark greens of the canopy. Like a shower of meteors, another salvo of bombs streaked across the sky.
‘Prepare to dismount!’ I shouted, releasing the straps from my shoulders. I retrieved my rifle from its rack and slung it to my back, making sure it was well out of the way so it wouldn’t hit me on my way down.
Whilst the rest of the section followed suit, the dropship fell toward the canopy, only arresting its descent once its ramp brushed against the highest branches.
‘That’s you good to go!’ the commander said. ‘Good luck!’
‘Let’s go!’ I ordered.
Myers swung the arm out so that it held the end of the rope away from the ramp, and as he did so I stood up with the coil in one hand, leaning out to make sure I had a clear descent. Sure enough, the dropship pilot had managed to manoeuvre himself above a gap in the canopy. Satisfied that the way down was safe, I cast the coiled rope toward the forest floor.
As soon as I saw it strike the ground, I grasped the rope and then leapt out into the air. Controlling my descent with my gloves and boots, I slid down through the canopy, reaching the ground in seconds. Knowing that the rest of my section would be following close behind, I quickly stepped out of the way moments before Myers landed.
My section automatically spread outward in a circular formation, assuming all around defence. Each trooper took whatever cover was available, taking up aim into the forest. There was no need to get comfortable, however, for we weren’t going to wait any longer than we needed to. As soon as the sergeant major was with us we would move off, quickly distancing ourselves from our dropship escort.
The sergeant major arrived beside me, along with his signaller and Yulia. They crouched in the undergrowth, joining me in watching the last of our platoon descend to the ground.
RECCE II (The Union Series Book 5) Page 17