RECCE II (The Union Series Book 5)

by Phillip Richards

  ‘How did he end up in Copehill?’ I asked.

  ‘They say they found him after a battle,’ she said. ‘He is injured, but they have looked after him well. He is lucky they found him.’

  ‘No shit,’ Myers uttered.

  ‘Come,’ Yulia said, urging us to follow with a wave of her hand. ‘I will take you to Copehill.’

  Led by Yulia, and escorted by three other armed civilians who seemed to materialise amongst the trees, we made our way toward Copehill laboratory. I noted that our escort were similarly dressed to Yulia, with the same facemask respirator and visor. Their weapons were a mixture of Alliance and Russian issue, which was hardly surprising considering how close they lived to the border.

  It took us another hour to reach the laboratory, as our route snaked unpredictably through the forest in what was clearly an attempt to throw any would-be trackers from our trail. Once we neared our destination, the trees gave way to a vast open clearing, and we caught our first glimpse of Copehill.

  The laboratory was in fact a collection of large buildings snuggled into an impact crater a few hundred metres across, with a five-spoked roof similar to the one that had covered the city of Dakar. The roof no longer supported any glass or plastic sheeting, and several trees grew between the spokes, their branches reaching several metres above the lip of the crater. Lights shone from within the buildings, casting a warm glow across the basin. I could see various vehicles and pieces of machinery parked amongst them, suggesting that Copehill was more than just another deprived Bosque village - it was well equipped. A gentle slope spiralled around the crater’s edge, enabling vehicles to access the surface and a road that snaked away amongst the trees.

  ‘This is the Copehill laboratory,’ Yulia said, as she and her companions brought us the top of the slope. ‘It is the centre of the community, but there are many smaller farms all across this area.’

  From the vantage point at the edge of the crater, I peered down at the tranquil scene below, surprised by what I saw. I had grown accustomed to devastated population centres, smashed domes and buildings that had been reduced to rubble, but Copehill was quite the opposite. Even in the poor light I could see that the laboratory was well looked after. The roads that weaved between the buildings were clean and free from debris, and the buildings themselves appeared intact. Parked vehicles looked well cared for, and there even appeared to be carefully planned gardens. The roof covering had been removed, but somehow even that added to the pleasant, peaceful atmosphere of the laboratory, with each of the redundant spokes shimmering in the starlight as though they were made of silver. Rather than the skeletal remains of a grand old structure, they took the appearance of a massive, purpose-built work of art.

  ‘Woah!’ Wildgoose exclaimed, clearly as impressed by the view as I was. ‘Nice place.’

  ‘The people who live here are very fortunate,’ Yulia agreed.

  I looked back at Puppy, then discreetly held up my hand for him to halt. My 2ic nodded, knowing that I wanted him to stay outside the crater and take up a position of overwatch. There was no way I was taking my entire section into the crater without some form of fire support, just in case it turned out to be a trap – plus there was still the very real threat of us being followed.

  Yulia stopped on the road that ran down the slope, turning about to watch Puppy’s fire team spreading itself along the edge of the crater.

  ‘It is safe here,’ she assured me.

  ‘You can’t be too careful,’ I replied. ‘If anything, my men will make it safer.’

  She glanced at one of her companions, who simply shrugged in response. ‘Very well,’ she said.

  We left Puppy and his men in the clearing and then followed the road, winding our way down toward the base of the crater. As we did so I noticed two figures waiting there for us. They were both unarmed, dressed in plain-looking jumpsuits, but I instantly noticed they were wearing the same facemask respirators and visors as our escort.

  Once we reached the bottom of the crater one of the two figures stepped forward and extended a hand in greeting, and Yulia and her companions exchanged welcoming handshakes. He was a middle-aged man, perhaps in his fifties. The top of his head was completely bald, and he kept what remained of his hair short.

  My attention was drawn by the other figure, though. He was younger, around his mid- thirties, but there was something in his gait that raised my suspicion. He stood tall and proud, with his shoulders back and chest pushed outward like a trooper on parade. Exuding an air of physical and mental confidence, as well as an athletic build rarely seen amongst the war weary people living across the Bosque, he stood out against his older partner. It took me a moment to figure out what it was that drew my attention - he was military.

  After having shaken hands with the older man, Yulia gestured toward me. ‘This is my friend, Andy Moralee.’

  Acutely aware of our vulnerable position, I decided not to offend the older man by ignoring the introduction. I extended my hand, flashing the best smile I could manage as I tried to hide my interest in the younger of the two.

  The older man took my hand with a firm grip and we shook. ‘My name is Marcus.’ He introduced himself in English. ‘I am a councillor of Copehill.’

  ‘You’re in charge here?’ I asked Marcus, having to use all of my willpower not to look at the military man. I felt his eyes scanning over my kit and equipment intently, as if he were a sergeant major inspecting me on parade.

  Though I couldn’t see his mouth beneath his facemask, I could see that Marcus was smiling. His eyes twinkled humorously. ‘I am too foolish to be in charge here. I am a councillor. But I think that a fool is just what you need . . .’ He looked to his partner.

  The military man smiled warmly as my attention shifted to him. ‘First battalion?’

  I nodded, answering his question without thinking: ‘Recce platoon.’

  For a moment I questioned why I had relinquished information about my parent unit without a thought, until I realised what it was that made me trust him. He was military, and I was pretty sure he was Union military. Something about him, the way he stood, the way he spoke, told me that he was one of us.

  The man held out a hand. ‘I’m Aleksi. We’ve been waiting all night to bump into you guys.’

  Aleksi seemed to be Scandinavian. Though I had never worked with anyone from the Baltic Union state before, I recognised the accent from holograms back on Earth. No Eden accent sounded like it.

  ‘Who are you with?’ I asked as we shook hands. ‘Special Forces?’

  Aleksi gave me a slight nod. ‘We’re Einsatzgruppe-19. I doubt you’ll have ever heard of us.’

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘We?’

  ‘There are more of us here, right now,’ Aleksi said, then immediately held up a hand for calm. ‘Don’t worry, there are no weapons pointed at you or anything crazy like that. My men are resting. We are all perfectly safe here, thanks to Marcus and his men.’

  Marcus beamed magnanimously. ‘It is an honour to provide you refuge here. We will do whatever we can for those that fight the evil in the north.’

  I gave the councillor a respectful nod, deciding to avoid questioning his security measures straight away. Puppy and his fire team were already positioning themselves so that they could watch over us as well as out into the forest.

  My mind spun as I tried to formulate my next question. How could I fully trust Aleksi when I had never heard of the organisation he claimed to be a part of? We knew that Special Forces were operating in Europa, but we knew nothing else. The whole purpose of our ops box was to allow us the freedom to act on our own initiative, without accidentally bumping into our shady counterparts.

  In the end, one of my men broke the spell by doing what troopers did best - speaking their minds. ‘Who the fuck is “ein-zat-group nineteen”?’ Myers blurted behind me, causing me to flinch.

  ‘We’re a Bosque specific task force,’ Aleksi explained, seemingly unoffended. ‘We train, organise and equip Bos
kers to fight.’

  ‘Boskers?’ I asked.

  Aleksi held out his arms, encompassing Marcus, Yulia and her companions. ‘These people.’

  ‘So, you’ve been waiting for us?’

  ‘We came here to collect Butcher,’ Aleksi answered. He swept his arm across the crater. ‘We’ve been working with this community for months, then we were suddenly ordered to move our operation north to make way for your platoon. Marcus sent word to us that his people found a Union trooper, but we didn’t expect you to be set up any time soon so we decided to come down and fetch him ourselves. Then this young lady turns up.’ He nodded toward Yulia. ‘We decided to wait for you to turn up . . . through curiosity if anything.’

  I considered Aleksi’s story for a second. It made perfect sense, but that still didn’t mean that he was genuine. Apart from his gait and the way he spoke, there was no way of telling that he was Union at all. He had no uniform or equipment I recognised. His visor - identical to the ones being worn by the Boskers around him - was clearly some form of targeting system, but it was nothing like anything I had seen before. It was designed to be discrete, as well as easily removed and concealed.

  Even if he was telling the truth, there were still so many questions I wanted to ask Aleksi. After several years of service to the Union, this was the first time I had met anyone within its secretive Special Forces. Even though we had constantly heard Yulia and other members of Edo’s military referring to Union “spies”, we had no idea of what our true involvement was.

  There was still something even more important on my mind, though. I looked into the collection of buildings spread across the crater. ‘So where’s Butch? Is he alright?’

  Aleksi smiled. ‘He’s fine. He’s looking forward to seeing you.’

  ‘Come.’ Marcus took his cue and ushered us with an outstretched arm. ‘I will take you all to him.’

  We allowed Marcus to lead us along a stone pavement that meandered between the buildings and gardens. Aleksi walked beside me, hands tucked into his jumpsuit pockets like a man out on a leisurely stroll.

  ‘You must be questioning whether or not I am who I say I am,’ he observed.

  I regarded him carefully. ‘The thought had crossed my mind.’

  ‘We have a tight beam communicator within our team. As soon as I can I’ll get a message up to orbit so you can gain authentication.’

  ‘No worries,’ I said, satisfied by the offer. I looked around me at the armed men that had accompanied Yulia, who now flanked us along the path like prisoner escorts. ‘So . . . you train these guys to fight for us? Like a resistance?’

  The Scandinavian shrugged. ‘Well . . . yeah. Sort of. These guys are the key to success on the ground. It’s just a shame it’s taken us so long to realise. The Union doesn’t even have a word for Boskers, my men just made it up, but these people make up seventy percent of the population across the continent. You’ve got Europa’s Loyalists in the north, Edo and its president to the south, then Paraiso with all its money in the east, and the Boskers are just stuck in the middle, going with the flow. They’re an untapped resource.’

  I thought about all my experiences involving the civilians living within the vast forest region. We had always noticed how easily they changed sides, with no true allegiance to anyone. All they cared about was surviving.

  ‘Our war is all about persuasion,’ Aleksi went on. ‘It’s convincing these guys that it’s better to stand up and fight rather than allow themselves to be pushed around. Once we’ve got them going, we give them the training and the advice they need, all the way up to the frontline.’

  ‘You fight battles with them?’

  ‘Very small ones so far. Small raids and ambushes. Now that the bombing has begun, though, we’ll start to flex our muscles.’ He changed the subject. ‘Do you know much about this area?’

  ‘We’ve not even had time to properly study our orders,’ I replied. ‘We only just set up our harbour.’

  ‘I know. Your platoon commander sent the grid to EJOC early this morning.’

  I decided not to correct him. ‘We probably wouldn’t have known to come here, if it wasn’t for Yulia.’

  Aleksi glanced at the ex-Guard officer, who was walking beside Marcus, but said nothing.

  I scanned the crater, marvelling in my surroundings. Glass-walled buildings gleamed in the starlight, whilst other structures had been painted brilliant white, reminding me of the reverently preserved air factory that somehow stood untouched within the centre of Cellini. The crater was as quiet as the forest around it, but I felt no menace in the silence. Copehill felt relaxed, almost peaceful, as if the war hadn’t touched it at all . . . it was as though we had stepped into the eye of the storm.

  ‘What is this place?’ I asked in admiration.

  Marcus looked over his shoulder. ‘This is a biological engineering laboratory,’ he said proudly. ‘Where the Bosque was born. It is where our ancestors dreamed of paradise . . . and where we still do. All of the plants you see across the continent were created in places like this.’

  I suddenly remembered a similar place to what Marcus was describing, a beautiful garden that somehow stood against the lifeless, blood-red backdrop of New Earth. That place had been new, a fleeting glimpse of what could be done to make the dead planet into a paradise. In contrast, Copehill was ancient, and part of a grand venture of a scale I could barely comprehend. It hadn’t finished its task, though it had got close. Now, like the rest of the old terraforming infrastructure scattered across the planet surface, it had been preserved, as if everyone was waiting for the day that the project could continue.

  ‘And the Loyalists just left you alone like this?’

  ‘The Loyalists don’t like to destroy or damage places like Copehill,’ Yulia explained. ‘Just like they didn’t damage the air factory in Cellini. It is a place of hope. Even the Militia cannot bring themselves to attack here.’

  ‘Even though it stopped generations ago, terraforming is part of Eden culture,’ Aleksi added. ‘More so here than anywhere else. Understand the original terraforming project, and you’re halfway to understanding the Bosker way of thinking.’

  As I thought about what Aleksi had said, Marcus stopped at the airlock to a single-storey warehouse. Far less grand than any of its neighbours, it was tucked toward the northern wall of the crater, furthest away from the slope entrance.

  ‘We needed to keep your friend hidden,’ the councillor said as he opened the outer airlock door, bathing us in light from inside the building. He gestured for us to enter. ‘If the Militia found him here, then we would all hang for treason.’

  ‘Do the Militia come here?’ I hesitated at the door, suddenly alarmed.

  Marcus shrugged. ‘Yes. They come here to take our fish.’

  I raised an eyebrow dubiously, glancing between him and Aleksi. ‘Fish?’

  ‘We have fisheries,’ Marcus replied, as if it was perfectly normal. ‘Copehill runs many farms. There are few plants and animals we do not keep. The Militia enjoy the food we can provide them, especially the fish.’

  The unusual trade agreement between Copehill and the Militia was hardly reassuring.

  Aleksi must have sensed my unease. ‘Don’t underestimate these guys,’ he said. ‘They have an early warning system that will let you know the Militia are coming hours in advance. They could hide a dropship here and somehow no one would notice.’

  I remained still for a moment, weighing up my options before I stepped into the open airlock and potentially sealed my fate. I was pretty confident that I wasn’t being led into a trap, and if Aleksi was genuinely Special Forces then I could certainly trust his assessment of Copehill’s security.

  I looked back at my men, who waited anxiously for my decision. ‘Griffiths, you come with me.’

  The men of my fire team nodded. My carefully chosen instruction was meant to avoid offending anyone, whilst still conveying a hidden meaning - Griffiths would come with me, but more importantly, Myers and
Weatherall would stay outside, providing a link to the other half of the section as well as a quick reaction force that could come to our aid if something went wrong inside the building.

  Aleksi caught my eye and shot me a wink. He knew exactly what I was thinking.

  ‘Shall we?’ he asked with a disarming smile.

  I nodded. ‘Yeah.’

  Leaving Myers and Weatherall where they were, we squeezed into the tiny airlock. Marcus swung the outer door closed, then tapped a button fixed onto the wall beside the inner door. There was a loud whirr and a rush of air as the toxins were filtered out through a metal grille above our heads.

  I regarded Marcus warily. ‘So the Militia trade with you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘They don’t give us much in return, but they leave us in peace. We don’t argue.’

  There was no light or announcement that the cycle of air was complete. Instead, Marcus simply pulled off his respirator as soon as the grille stopped making a noise. I followed his lead, taking a moment to enjoy the kiss of cool air against my face.

  Yulia removed her visor and pulled her facemask away, catching my eye as she did so. Our eyes then locked for a moment as we saw each other’s faces for the first time since we had captured her in the tunnels beneath Cellini. There hadn’t been many times where I had seen her without her protective headgear, few enough for me to count them on only one hand. Despite her hardened expression, she was an attractive woman, more attractive than ever, in fact. I supposed it was because I now knew that there was a human being beneath that mask, a person with her own hopes and fears, and even though I barely knew her, I felt that I could relate to her.

  Aleksi was watching us both, I realised, his face suddenly impassive. I could sense him trying to figure out what was going through my mind, what my relationship was with Yulia, and how it might affect him and his operation. Suddenly self-conscious, I looked away from her.