‘On route,’ the sniper said finally.
We were now in a battle against time. With the north-eastern sangar locked into battle, and with us occupying the south-eastern sangar compound, we had cut off the slave camp and provided a safe approach route for the main Bosker force. Not only that, we allowed the original force involved in the attack on the slave camp to complete their clearance and then join in with the attack on Trondheim itself, increasing our numbers significantly. The problem was that the Militia knew this. They knew that the only way to stop the Boskers from breaking into the barracks was to recapture our sangar and turn it into a firebase. In order to do so, they would continue to fix us in place with the remaining automated guns, weapons which we had no current answer to. Even our smart missiles wouldn’t get anywhere near either of the two guns before they were shot out of the sky, since the element of surprise was lost. Wildgoose might be on his way, but until then we were on our own with limited means to defend ourselves.
I found the ladder lying beside the mouse hole, thankfully intact. I presumed that somebody outside had been made aware of the detonation and had moved it out of the way.
Troopers from Three Section were nearby, creeping around the sangar wall to try to get into position to observe the open ground to the north without becoming targets themselves. I assumed a similar number were headed in the opposite direction.
Ignoring their part of the battle, I took up the ladder and dragged it through the mouse hole. Once back inside the compound, I carried it toward the western wall, finding Puppy stood near to Leaman with a pile of grenades at his feet. As I approached, he tossed one over the wall and it exploded moments later in a flash of light. So far our grenades appeared to have held back the Militia, but I doubted our ploy would last long. Our opponents would soon work out a way to get through.
My 2ic nodded at the ladder once I reached him. ‘What are you gonna do with that?’
‘Look over the top,’ I said.
His mouth fell open in surprise. ‘Are you insane?’
‘In case you hadn’t realised, we’re about to get fucked up!’ I snapped. ‘I only need a second . . .’
‘I’ll do it, then!’ Puppy argued.
‘No!’ I replied abruptly, slamming down the legs and then swinging the ladder up against the wall. ‘I need you to throw a grenade over on my call. Leaman, hold the base.’
Leaman moved around the back of the ladder and gripped the legs, steadying it for me to climb, whilst Puppy reluctantly prepared another grenade.
I climbed the ladder, only hesitating once I reached the top. I took a moment to consider how I was going to get the best view with my rifle camera in the shortest time. The period between the automated gun spotting my weapon, working out that it was a target and its rounds actually reaching me was less than a second, so I needed to be lightning-fast.
I activated my rifle camera, then paused, knowing that if I was too slow then the sangar gun would tear my arms right out from my shoulders. The danger was real, but the risk was worthwhile. If we couldn’t see our enemy, then we couldn’t react to them.
After several deep breaths, I looked down at Puppy. ‘Throw!’
Puppy tossed his grenade over the wall.
Using the detonation as cover, I lifted my rifle above the wall, then snatched it back down instantly. No volley of darts blasted my arms away, or passed overhead immediately after I pulled my rifle back down. Perhaps I had been too quick for the guns to switch their fire, or perhaps they had been momentarily thrown off by Puppy’s grenade, but I saw what I needed to see. A platoon of Militia was running diagonally toward our compound, avoiding the western wall where our grenades were falling and heading straight for the holes through which Corporal Kamara’s men were firing . . . they were less than ten metres away.
‘Two Section!’ I bellowed, spittle spraying over my visor. I pointed toward the northern wall. ‘They’re coming for you!’
Two Section all looked up at me in alarm, and then braced themselves as they prepared to repel the Militia. Unlike our conventional enemies, we knew that Helstrom was happy to sacrifice manpower to achieve his aims, and his men were prone to conducting human wave style attacks.
‘Grenades!’ I shouted.
Remaining at the top of the ladder, I drew my own grenade from its pouch and set the timer. I then turned and tossed it across the courtyard, sending it tumbling over the other side of the northern wall and into the Militiamen’s path.
Somebody shouted, but too late. The grenade shook the wall visibly, sending sparks spraying into the air.
Having seen what I was doing, Corporal Kamara tossed another grenade over the wall, adding to the chaos on the other side.
‘Watch out for Militia running away from the wall!’ the section commander shouted at his men inside the mouse holes, just as his grenade exploded.
Corporal Kamara’s men switched their fire away from the group they had pinned to the north, searching for any survivors fleeing from our grenades.
For a moment there was deathly silence. And there was something unnerving in that silence. Up until then we had heard nothing but the continuous barrage from the automated gun on the south-western sangar.
It took me less than a second to realise that the sangar gun had stopped firing against the western wall, and another fraction of a second to realise why. The robotic weapon was programmed to recognise its own forces and to check its fire accordingly. Someone had crossed into its arcs . . . on the western wall.
‘They’ve changed direction!’ I screamed, sliding back down the ladder in my haste to defend against the upcoming attack.
Puppy and I left the ladder to clatter to the ground as we bounded toward the two mouse holes on the western wall. Both of us knowing what was coming.
The first Militiaman stumbled through the nearest mouse hole, his combats ripped and torn. In the dark I saw that his visor was completely missing, and his face glistened wet with blood in the flickering light like a zombie from a bad hologram. He had taken the full force of one of our grenades on the northern wall, but had somehow survived, and now he planned to exact his revenge.
Myers opened fire from the outbuilding airlock, catching the Militiaman square in the chest. Rather than fall backward, though, the man fell forward, pushed out of the way by a press of men behind him. I had no idea how many more Militiamen had survived, but there was no time to plan how to respond. I knew that I had to prevent the breech, or the entire mission could fail.
My rifle magnets screamed in fury as I closed the gap between me and the assaulting Militia. Then I thrust my rifle forward, stabbing my bayonet into the nearest Militiaman. The thrust was poorly aimed, catching the man just below the armpit, but it was still enough to send him reeling backward into his comrades, blood squirting as the blade withdrew.
I can barely describe what happened next. It felt as though all of my anger and all of my hatred was suddenly released onto the Militiamen packed into that hole. I stabbed and I hacked at them like a man possessed, the sheer rage flowing out from me like a torrent.
‘Fucking bastards!’ I cried, stabbing and shooting at the screaming mass of flesh and gore. Blood spattered across my visor, obscuring part of my vision.
One of the Militiamen managed to get free from the melee, long enough to raise his rifle, but Puppy cracked him around the side of the head with his rifle butt, sending him crashing to the ground. Leaman suddenly appeared, setting upon the fallen Militiaman with his mammoth. Though the weapon was too cumbersome to use with a bayonet, Leaman made use of it as a brutal club, cracking his victim’s visor with his first blow.
Gunfire erupted to our left as more Militiamen attempted to enter through the second mouse hole. Fortunately, Weatherall and Myers were still in a position to cover the hole, and quickly cut the attackers down. Then something exploded above our heads, causing everyone to duck except for those of us locked into the hand-to-hand melee. We were lost in battle, utterly engrossed in our orgy o
f violence.
‘Push them back!’ I snarled through my blood spattered visor, firing two darts into another Militiaman just as he fired close to my head.
With a powerful bayonet thrust into the man’s abdomen, Puppy forced him backward into the mouse hole, his helmet striking the wall as he staggered over the bodies of his fallen comrades. The Militiaman squirmed and convulsed at the end of Puppy’s blade, but his body effectively plugged the hole, sealing it off from those trying to push their way into the compound.
Leaman stuck his mammoth under the man’s armpit and fired a burst into the Militia behind him, cutting several more of them down. Light flashed against their stricken bodies and sparks showered over them as more grenades detonated outside the compound, presumably thrown over the wall by our comrades in order to stall the human wave bearing down upon us. There was no doubting the Militia’s determination to seize the sangar compound. They were throwing absolutely everything at it.
The man speared upon Puppy’s bayonet was about to fall backward, but I grabbed him by the collar, suddenly gripped by a plan I knew would work.
‘Hold onto him!’ I shouted, my face contorted with fury. ‘Use his body as a shield!’
As if from nowhere, Corporal Kamara appeared behind us, reaching over Puppy’s shoulder and gripping the Militiaman, holding him onto Puppy’s bayonet. Our victim let out a sickening wheeze as he attempted to breathe, despite the blade that now pierced his thorax.
‘Push him through!’ I ordered. ‘Give me space to fire!’
The two troopers pushed the injured Militiaman through the hole like rag doll, using him as a shield against the automated gun. Knowing that its programming wouldn’t allow it to kill a soldier on its own side, I leant in after them, firing wildly into the barracks beyond. Several of my darts punched through the hapless Militiaman’s arm, ripping out chunks of flesh and flicking them toward his comrades.
Once the dying Militiaman was almost clear of the mouse hole, I squeezed my rifle through the gap between him and the wall. Without waiting to study my visor display, I held my rifle horizontally out to the right and fired my grenade launcher.
There was no way the sangar gun could respond to a guided grenade fired directly toward its target rather than lobbed upward. There simply wasn’t enough time. The grenade must have travelled no further than twenty metres, its minimum arming range, before detonating.
Slightly taken aback by the sight of one of their own comrades emerging back through the mouse hole on the end of a bayonet, and then having seen a rifle grenade pass right beside them, several Militiamen paused no further than a metre away along the compound wall. They fired in my direction, but somehow missed me completely. I snapped my rifle across and returned fire, cutting them down.
‘Push back!’ I shouted, swinging my rifle out of the way and then using both hands to drag the dying Militiaman backward, plugging the hole once more.
Puppy withdrew his bayonet and we stepped out of the way just before the automated gun opened fire, causing our hapless victim to disintegrate as he was struck by a hundred darts. Just as I had expected, a human operator had stepped in to override the defensive network, instructing the automated gun to engage a man who was clearly going to die anyway.
Troopers were hurrying across the courtyard, and I realised that it was Weatherall and Myers helping Leaman to limp back to the outbuilding. He was flashing yellow on my visor display, having taken an injury to the leg. Weatherall was also flashing, though his injuries clearly allowed him to move.
‘You alright?’ Corporal Kamara panted, my headset magnifying his voice above the din of the automated gun.
I looked down at myself, feeling slightly unsteady as unspent adrenalin flowed through my shaking limbs. I was slick with blood, but I was pretty sure none of it was mine.
‘I think so . . .’ I said.
The sergeant major was stood nearby. As I watched, he picked up one of the grenades that Puppy had piled up close to the wall and tossed it over. I realised that he had been throwing them throughout, having seen that my section had become sucked into the fight around the mouse hole. Everyone was now involved in the desperate fight to hold onto the compound, a fight which we couldn’t afford to lose.
‘What’s happening, Moralee?’ he asked as the grenade exploded outside the compound.
‘I’ve taken two casualties!’ I said, suddenly aware of the exertion it had taken to prevent the Militia breech. It felt as though I had been running flat out for an hour.
‘We’re not going to be able to hold this wall!’ Corporal Kamara added, gesturing out to the west. ‘Not with that fucking sangar shooting at us!’
As if to prove the point, another burst of darts peppered the two mouse holes, ripping through the bodies left behind by the Militia.
The sergeant major scowled, then surprised us both with his response. ‘Corporal Kamara, why are you here and not with your own section?’
‘I saw one of Andy’s men went down, and–’
‘Then send one of your troopers!’ the sergeant major scalded, gesturing for him to return to his section. ‘Why are there only NCOs here? Get a grip of your men, the pair of you!’
He was right. The only people in any position to defend the western wall were me, Puppy, Corporal Kamara and the sergeant major, whilst my three remaining troopers were all back at the outbuilding nursing their wounds. Such a collection of rank on the battlefield, though understandable given the situation, was tactically unsound.
‘Myers!’ Puppy shouted, snapping into action. ‘Come back and cover the mouse holes! I need to look at the casualties!’
The trooper obeyed, sprinting into the courtyard and taking up Weatherall’s previous position at the corner of the sangar. Puppy then hurried back to the outbuilding, ready to begin the thankless task of re-organising my section.
Corporal Kamara ran back to the northern wall, unwilling to argue with the sergeant major. I decided not to point out that Two Section’s commander had come to us at just the right time, remembering that the sergeant major never saw anything outside of a tactical viewpoint. In a way it was reassuring to know that he would always impose order even when chaos ought to reign. He never allowed his emotions to get in the way of battlefield discipline.
More weapons fired, causing me to jump. This time the sound was coming from outside the sangar compound, and thankfully it wasn’t directed at us.
‘One-Zero, this is One-Three!’ Stan shouted over the net, forgetting himself. ‘We’re engaging a platoon of Militiamen attempting to encircle the compound from the south!’
The sergeant major cursed loudly before answering, ‘Keep them fixed!’
Far from deterred by the punishment we had dealt them from the compound walls, the Militia were now attempting to surround us. Fortunately, the sergeant major had correctly anticipated the threat and had sited Stan’s section accordingly. The question was, how long could Stan hold out? His section was already split, and in the open.
As if in answer to our developing predicament, Wildgoose’s hushed voice sounded in my headset. ‘One-Zero, this is One-Four. I am in position to engage the south-western sangar, however, I will require some form of distraction whilst I set up to fire . . .’
‘One-Zero, roger,’ the sergeant major replied, briefly looking at me. I knew what he was thinking - my section would be the ones to provide that distraction. ‘What do you need?’
‘Anything to keep the gun firing at the wall for a couple of seconds.’
For a moment, my mind spun as I tried to think of how we could distract the automated gun that watched over us. Though it still occasionally fired bursts of darts onto the mouse holes, I knew that the only way to fully distract it was to provide it with a target. Asking somebody to expose himself for longer than a few seconds was as good as handing out a death sentence, so if anybody was going to do it, I decided, it needed to be me . . . Not only would it be morally wrong to get anyone else to do it, I didn’t have any free m
en to use anyway.
Just before I offered my life to the sergeant major, though, an idea occurred to me. ‘Puppy!’ I called back to my 2ic, who was tending to Weatherall within the outbuilding airlock. ‘Grab me the dead lad’s coat and helmet!’
The squat NCO wasted no time, running inside the building in search of our comrade’s body.
‘Fieldy!’ Corporal Kamara corrected me from the northern wall, sounding hurt. ‘His name was Fieldy!’
‘Get Fieldy’s coat and helmet!’ I repeated the correction, though I doubted that Puppy heard me anyway.
It didn’t take my 2ic long to return with the two items. Everyone across the courtyard watched as I draped the coat over the top of the ladder, then placed the helmet on top of that.
‘That’ll never work,’ Myers said, shaking his head at the poor attempt at a fake trooper.
I frowned. ‘Why won’t it?’
The sergeant major obviously thought the idea was worth a try, and leant down and grasped the ladder by the legs. ‘Come on, let’s get it up!’
I took my own grip of the ladder, and the two of us swung it upwards.
‘Looks like a fucking scarecrow,’ Myers commented as the sergeant major and I held the ladder so that the helmet and coat remained slightly below the top of the wall.
‘One-Four, this is One-Zero,’ the sergeant major announced. ‘We have your distraction ready. Are you good to go?’
‘Ready when you are, sir,’ Wildgoose replied, forgetting to use the sergeant major’s call sign. The sniper was so relaxed whilst fulfilling his true role, I doubt he even cared.
‘Lift!’ the sergeant major ordered, and we pushed the ladder up against the wall and then heaved it upward, exposing the helmet and jacket above the compound.
Automated guns were surprisingly intelligent, but they could be tricked as easily as any human once you understood how they worked. Having seen two of the sangar guns destroyed by oddly shaped men wearing coats and helmets, the automated gun saw all that it needed to see . . . It opened fire, causing the ladder to judder in our hands as thousands of darts struck it at once, punching through the metal like a needles through cloth. The trench coat flapped as though it was caught in the wind, and the helmet spun around on the top of the ladder for a second before being thrown across the courtyard in several pieces.
RECCE II (The Union Series Book 5) Page 28