RECCE II (The Union Series Book 5)

by Phillip Richards

  I looked down at my datapad map. ‘You haven’t left us much to do.’

  ‘No,’ the Scandinavian admitted. ‘No offense, but you’ve probably been given this area to keep you out of harm’s way, and to give us freedom to move further north. It’s pretty dead here now, when you consider the bigger picture. All low priority targets. When the ground campaign starts, our dropships would never come down here, it’s too close to Edo and too far from Europa’s capitol. The Loyalists know this, and so they have drawn their forces away. Whatever remains is intended purely to maintain their border against possible retaliation from the south. Given the political instability and the relative impotence of Edo’s military, however, I don’t think that’s a likely scenario.’

  It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. All I wanted to do was attack, even if my method was simply identifying targets and calling in fire from the heavens. I just wanted to hurt the Militia, but it seemed that most of the real damage had already been done. We were simply being used to inspect the wreckage Aleksi’s team had left behind. It felt as though somebody had tied our hands behind our backs.

  Sensing my frustration, Aleksi stood up and moved around to look at my datapad. He traced a few areas on my map with his finger. ‘If I were you, I would focus my attention along the roads close to the border. The Loyalists know that we’re looking for their anti-orbital missiles, so whatever remains here will be kept moving.’

  I sighed gloomily. ‘Not much to give my sergeant major . . .’

  ‘Sorry, I wish I could be more help.’ He then steered the conversation in a different direction, asking, ‘Do you need to go back straight away?’

  ‘No. We’re going to lie up for a while, then move off again tonight.’

  ‘Stay here, then. . .’ Aleksi insisted. He flicked his head upward. ‘Get your men down from their position outside the crater and make use of this place.’

  I gave him a doubtful grimace. ‘I’m not sure. I was planning to move out and find somewhere in the forest.’

  Aleksi smiled, then rolled his eyes in mock irritation. ‘Trust me, Andy, for goodness sake! You’re safer here than in your own harbour. Marcus will more than happily provide you with access to his security network if that makes you feel better, won’t you, Marcus?’

  The councillor nodded. ‘Absolutely. All I would ask is that you stay here and not wander around the laboratory. You have no enemies here, but there are many of us who do not want to be involved at all in this war. They may be frightened by your presence.’

  I glanced between the two of them. There was no doubt in my mind that Aleksi was genuine, and therefore I needed to take his advice seriously. My men were exhausted, after all, and Copehill offered an excellent opportunity to recover somewhere out of the elements.

  ‘OK,’ I relented. ‘I’ll call them in.’

  My section enjoyed a few minutes of elation as they greeted Butcher at the airlock, suddenly animated as they threw insults at the inured trooper in true dropship infantry fashion. Rather than being shown sympathy for his injuries, he was instead mocked for “getting his head down” and told to “stop being weak!” Some people might have been deeply offended, but Butch took the banter as it was intended. It was clear that everyone was thrilled to see one of our missing troopers in one piece.

  I stood back from the commotion, instead noting that Aleksi was pulling on his facemask, preparing to go.

  ‘We’re going to take Butch away now,’ he announced. ‘He’s in good hands. I’ll get our warships to relay a confirmatory message once he reaches Paraiso.’

  ‘Thanks, Aleksi.’

  Aleksi shook my hand with a firm grip. ‘Remember, you can trust Marcus. Make sure you get some rest, Andy, and good luck. Who knows, perhaps our paths will cross again . . .’ He shot me a mischievous wink.

  With that, the Scandinavian strode over to Butch and gave him a gentle tap on the shoulder. The injured trooper nodded, then pulled on his own respirator.

  ‘Well, boys . . .’ Butch said with a grin, ‘that’s me out of here!’

  Wildgoose laughed. ‘Oh yeah, that’s it. Off again already! No wonder your old platoon sent you to us!’

  Butch let out a fake laugh. ‘Nice one.’

  I shook the injured trooper’s his hand. ‘Take it easy, mate,’ I said with feeling; at least we knew that one of us would make it out alive.

  ‘You too,’ Butch replied. ‘Make them pay, mate.’

  I paused for a moment. ‘We’ll try.’

  His eyes took on a sudden intensity. ‘Don’t try. Do it.’

  Aleksi ushered Butch toward the airlock, followed by Marcus. The councillor turned to me just before he closed the inner airlock door, gesturing back into the storeroom.

  ‘Make yourselves comfortable,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back soon.’

  With that he closed the inner door, leaving me my section bunched up around the airlock, suddenly alone in our new shelter. There was a stunned silence amongst my men as their brief meeting with Butch, Aleksi and Marcus came to an abrupt end.

  ‘Nice in here, isn’t it?’ Wildgoose said finally.

  I looked around the storeroom again. To us, having spent most of the past twenty-four hours either exposed to the elements, wading through water, or fighting through smoke-filled warrens, it was like a palace. I suddenly became aware of the warmth of the room slowly seeping into my aching muscles and joints. Even if our visit to Copehill didn’t provide us with the intelligence goldmine we were looking for, at least it would give us the chance to properly recuperate.

  ‘Let’s have a proper look around,’ I told everyone. ‘Don’t start ripping the place up or knocking down doors. These people are friendly and I don’t want to annoy them. All I want is an idea of the building layout, and somewhere for us all to sleep.’

  Sleep was the magic word, and the prospect of a comfortable stay indoors was enough to send my section scattering.

  As the section dispersed, Puppy remained behind. ‘Any joy on the intelligence side of life?’

  I looked at my 2ic and sighed. ‘I guess that depends on your definition of joy. It’s no wonder we’ve been able to cross the border so easily. This place is dead.’

  Puppy looked surprised. ‘They gave you no intelligence at all?’

  ‘They gave us loads of it, but nothing we can really work with. We’ll end up conducting recces onto border defence positions that nobody’s really interested in.’

  ‘Right. Well, at least we can get some rest now, then.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said glumly.

  Our inspection of the building layout was relatively quick. All of the rooms were nondescript, and the storage items were nothing more than pieces of high and low-tech farm equipment that were of little interest to us. The room that we had found Butch in was clearly not intended as accommodation, as his bed was merely a rapid assemble cot bed with a mattress thrown on top.

  What did excite my men, though, was the discovery of a purpose-built washroom, complete with its own shower, sink and toilet. Cheers erupted as they realised that the shower actually worked and produced hot water on demand.

  Ignoring the childish whoops from within the washroom, presumably as someone was pushed under the water, Puppy and I discussed how we would occupy our new shelter. I decided to spread everyone into multiple rooms to mitigate against the risk of an insider attack, with a sentry posted within the main storeroom to watch the airlock. The airlock was the only way in and out, so as long as we kept that covered then we were relatively safe. In addition, that sentry would be connected to Marcus’ security network, once he returned to set it up for us. If for some reason he didn’t return, then we would be forced to find him or leave. With or without Aleksi’s assurance I wasn’t going to stay in the crater without a view into the outside world.

  ‘Do you want the room with the bed?’ Puppy offered. ‘You must be fucked.’

  I dismissed the offer with a wave of my hand. ‘No, I’m alright. I need to compile all this intelligenc
e ready for the sergeant major.’

  ‘You need to sleep, Andy,’ Puppy insisted. ‘God knows what you’re running on right now. I’m tired and I’ve had several hours more than you have.’

  ‘I’ll wait until Marcus returns.’

  ‘Andy, I’ll deal with Marcus, and I’ll let you know if he doesn’t return. Go to sleep. Honestly, I’ve got this. I’m your 2ic, remember?’

  I thought of arguing again, then realised it was futile. Section commander or not, it didn’t matter. Puppy wasn’t going to back down because he and I both knew he was right.

  ‘Fine,’ I said, ‘but I want a wake-up call in six hours.’

  ‘Six hours?’ Puppy blurted in mock dismay. ‘I was offering you some sleep, not the week off!’

  I bristled visibly.

  Puppy laughed. ‘I’m joking, mate! Go to sleep, you’re making me tired just looking at you. Why not take the room over there?’ He pointed to an open door nearby.

  ‘OK,’ I surrendered. ‘I’m going.’

  ‘Good. Go.’

  After having shut myself within the tiny room which was to be my accommodation for the remainder of the day, I wasted as much time as possible performing minor administrative tasks. I double-checked all my batteries, checked the serviceability of all my equipment, before finally inspecting the contents of my daysack just to make sure nothing had fallen out of place.

  Eventually I stopped, realising what I was doing. I wasn’t just unwilling to go to sleep, I was frightened of it. I was afraid of what would happen when my mind began to wander, afraid of the faces that would return to haunt me the moment I shut my eyes.

  Ordering myself to take the rest I needed, I dragged my thermal bag out from the bottom of my daysack and laid it out on the ground. Then I removed my gel armour and slid into the bag, using my folded armour as a headrest. Though it turned hard as steel when struck by a dart, the gel inside the armour made a comfortable pillow.

  Falling asleep was the easy part, but sleep itself was exactly what I expected it to be - a nightmare. I can’t even remember what I saw, but I woke with a start, coated in sweat and panting heavily as if I’d been running from something. Perhaps in my mind I had been.

  I lifted my arm and checked my datapad. I’d been asleep for less than two hours. Presumably I’d managed to stay under for that length of time due to physical exhaustion. Once I’d managed to calm my breathing, I laid my head back down and repeated the process.

  This time I remembered the nightmare after it woke me. It was the same nightmare I had been suffering ever since the war on New Earth, a grim, never ending slide show of past visions, from my old friend Climo with his face caved in, to Ev’s fatally injured wife who I had killed with a painkiller overdose, to the recent image of the dead child who I had shot. Then, in a new and horrifying twist, I suddenly found myself floating in the water of the pipeline, surrounded by bodies, their cold, wet and lifeless flesh pressing against mine as the current sucked us all into oblivion. It was awful, so awful I’m pretty sure I cried out before I woke less than half an hour later.

  I persisted in my effort to sleep, but each time I tried my sleeps grew shorter, until eventually the line between nightmare and reality became blurred, threatening my sanity. Less than four hours had passed when I gave up, pulled my boots back on and returned to the storeroom.

  I found Puppy sat on a crate close to the airlock, facing the inner door with his rifle close by. He was wearing his armour, but not his helmet or respirator, which were placed on the ground beside him. The rifle would still work without his targeting system, and he was close enough to the door to remain relatively accurate if he needed to use it. He was looking down at his datapad, totally engrossed in it.

  My 2ic looked up as I approached. ‘Alright, mate? I wasn’t expecting you up so soon.’

  ‘I didn’t sleep so well,’ I said gruffly.

  ‘Myers is having a bit of trouble as well,’ Puppy said. ‘You wanna talk about it?’

  ‘No.’ My reply was sharp, causing him to lean back slightly. Sensing that my reply had been overly hostile, I nodded down at Puppy’s datapad. ‘Are you hooked up to their network?’

  My 2ic seemed happy to change the subject. ‘Yeah. Pass me your datapad and I’ll sync you.’

  Once Puppy had connected my datapad to the laboratory security network, I took the time to study it, tapping and swiping at the screen as I navigated through countless maps, displays and images.

  Butch hadn’t been wrong about the people at Copehill, there was very little they didn’t know. I could see now that their extended community, a cluster of farms and villages tens of kilometres across, was interwoven with an intricate network of sensors that gave them near total coverage of their local area. Though it had plenty of holes in it, it was still better established than the defensive perimeters we expected to come up against when taking on the Loyalists, and it was almost entirely passive, making it near impossible to detect.

  ‘It’s no wonder they found Butch,’ Puppy said whilst I stared at the maps and diagrams. ‘He wandered into the best security net on the planet.’

  I frowned at my datapad, scarcely believing what I was seeing. ‘How the hell do these people have this kind of coverage? I mean, this is genuinely amazing . . . Aleksi?’

  ‘I chatted with Marcus for a bit,’ Puppy said. ‘The people here already had an optical line comms network dug in here anyway, and the sensor network was already established. Aleksi and his team simply helped them fix it up a bit.’

  ‘That’s an understatement,’ I said. ‘I think Aleksi and his organisation are far more powerful than any of us can imagine.’

  ‘Well, they’ve effectively got these guys doing our job for us, so yeah . . . pretty powerful.’ Puppy jerked a thumb toward the airlock, and the laboratory complex beyond it. ‘Did you notice those visors they’re all wearing? Aleksi gave them those. They can connect wirelessly to almost any weapon, so these guys have a targeting system almost as good as ours. Apparently they’ve given out over a thousand of them. They’re been raising an army in secret, ready to overthrow the Loyalists all across the region.’

  ‘If only we could get them to pull some strings for us,’ I said wistfully.

  Puppy frowned. ‘Why?’

  I told him about Helstrom’s base just outside our ops box. The second I mentioned it being within Aleksi’s area of operations, Puppy shook his head vigorously. ‘Forget about it, mate,’ he said, a hint of warning in his voice.

  ‘How can we forget about it?’

  The squat trooper sighed sadly. ‘You know we did everything we could to get to the boss. Look where it got us . . .’

  His final words hit me like a hammer, causing me to turn my head down to the ground. It was me who pushed the sergeant major to take us below ground in pursuit of the boss. All the resulting bloodshed was on my hands.

  Suddenly I heard a door swing open behind me, and turned my head to the sound. It was Yulia, emerging from the washroom wrapped up in a large towel. She walked briskly across the storeroom to another one of the many rooms, disappearing inside.

  ‘What’s she doing here?’ I asked as the door shut behind her. I had expected Yulia to leave after realising she had nothing more to gain from us.

  Puppy shrugged. ‘She came back with Marcus and picked a room to sleep in. She asked for us to tell her before we leave so that she can come too.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Do you think we still need her?’ he asked.

  ‘Probably not,’ I replied gloomily.

  ‘Why’s she still hanging around?’

  I shrugged. ‘I guess she believes we’re still going for Helstrom.’

  Puppy seemed to accept the answer. ‘What did Aleksi make of her?’

  There was no sense in hiding anything from my 2ic. I told Puppy all about my conversation with the Scandinavian, and the reservations he held for Yulia.

  Once I had finished, Puppy looked back to Yulia’s room. ‘It’s funny,’ he
observed, ‘a few days ago I would have agreed with him. I would have said we were mad to trust her.’

  ‘Do you trust her now?’

  My 2ic considered the question. ‘It’s hard not to have faith in her after what she’s done for us. I seriously doubt she’ll do us any harm anyway . . . not as long as you’re around.’

  It was my turn to frown. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I’m just saying you’ve got a good rapport with her . . .’ he said with a mischievous grin. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  Puppy laughed. ‘Of course you do! She’s kind of hot . . . in a hard-nosed “I’ll snap your neck if you piss me off” kind of way!’

  ‘If you’re into that sort of thing.’

  Puppy remembered his datapad and switched it off, before changing the subject. ‘So, when are you thinking about pushing off? You never said.’

  ‘Straight after last light,’ I replied. ‘There’s no rush, but I’m sure the sergeant major will want a face-to-face sooner rather than later.’

  ‘Fair one.’

  We both fell silent for several seconds.

  ‘Everyone’s hurting, mate,’ Puppy started. ‘Maybe you–’

  ‘Why don’t you get some sleep, mate?’ I interrupted. ‘I’ll finish your stag. I need to go through the data Marcus gave me, anyway.’

  Puppy looked as though he wanted to say something, then surrendered with a big sigh. ‘OK, Andy. I’ll make sure Wildgoose comes out to relieve you.’

  I went back to my room and fetched my kit, laying it out on the ground before sitting on the crate next to Puppy with my rifle across my lap.

  ‘I’m sorted,’ I told him. ‘Go get some sleep.’

  My section 2ic stood, then scooped up his helmet and respirator. ‘Don’t beat yourself up, mate. You made an honest mistake.’

  I glanced up at him. ‘That doesn’t make it any easier.’

  ‘I know.’ Puppy hesitated for a moment, then walked away.

  I sat on my own for what felt like ages, no longer interested in my visor display clock. Normally I would find myself staring at the seconds, willing for them to accelerate as if I could somehow alter time itself, but it didn’t matter when Wildgoose came to take over from me anymore, not when I couldn’t sleep anyway. I didn’t want to be relieved, I just wanted to be left alone.