The Battle Ground Series: Books 1-3

by Rachel Churcher

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” I call out, explaining myself to Will as much as to the people on the bus. “These four soldiers are going to leave the bus with me. They’re coming in the trucks, and we’ll drop them off a mile down the road. You can come and fetch them. But you fire on us; you try to stop us; you do anything stupid; and we take them with us. Understood?”

  There’s a grunt from Ketty, next to my elbow, and silence from the back of the coach.

  “Am I understood?”

  “Understood, terrorist,” shouts Jackson, and Ketty swears.

  And then too many things happen at once.

  Ketty reaches over and pushes my elbow, hard. I lose my balance, and fall into the seat across the aisle. It’s an empty seat – Jackson’s? – and I struggle to get back on my feet. The second door of the coach hisses open, and someone fires two shots. I can hear the sounds of a struggle, then another shot. Someone runs up the steps, shouting, but I’m too busy pulling myself up to see who it is. Ketty is on her feet, turning towards me with her fists raised, aiming for the faceplate of my helmet. I’m trying to stand up and keep hold of my gun, and the first blow knocks my head back painfully. I brace for more. The radio is loud with shouting. There are voices coming from inside the bus, and I can’t understand what anyone is saying. I wait for the next punch to land, but instead there’s another gunshot and Ketty’s fists fall away. I drag myself up, my knee on the seat, and turn towards the back of the coach.

  “Dan!”

  He’s standing in the aisle, kicking the recruits I picked out and yelling at them to stand up. They do, and he grabs the shirt of the closest, and hurls him down the back steps.

  “Get out! Get down the steps!” He’s screaming at them, and they’re cowering, trying to move past him and out of the coach. I risk a glance out of the windows, and see two of the trainees, rifles up, outside the second door, directing the recruits to the front of the coach and out to the trucks. I step into the aisle, turning towards the front steps, gun in one hand, and find myself looking down the barrel of Ketty’s gun.

  She’s lying on her back next to the driver, a patch of red growing on the camouflage fabric around her knee. She’s biting her lip, and her leg is braced against the bottom step, but she’s picked up her gun and it’s pointing at my head.

  I have no idea what is going on behind me – where Jackson is, where Dan is – all I can see is the dark, rifled barrel, and Ketty’s hands, shaking, her finger on the trigger.

  Slowly, I raise my hands, clasping the barrel of my gun in one hand and opening the other to her, palm first. There are tears in her eyes, and I think she’s trying not to cry out. I brace for a shot that I’m not sure my helmet can handle.

  There’s the sound of smashing glass, and Ketty drops her gun, shielding her face with her arms. I look up, and realise that the windscreen has shattered, showering Ketty with sharp fragments. Someone grabs the back panel of my armour and drags me back down the coach, down the steps, and onto the road. Jackson is lying at the bottom of the steps, clutching at his chest. I can’t tell whether he’s breathing.

  Dan spins me round and lifts my visor.

  “Trucks. Now!” He shouts, and grabs my elbow, dragging me to the front of the coach and over to where Will and the others are waiting.

  The recruits I’ve picked out are already in the back seat of one of the trucks, crammed into a space for three. While our trainees divide themselves between the remaining seats, Will points us to the back of the pickups.

  “You’re on guard duty!”

  We climb up onto the backs of the trucks and sit on top of the canvas, guns pointing back at the coach. Will checks that everyone’s in, then climbs into the driving seat of one of the trucks and they both pull away, gently, along the road. Through my raised visor I watch as we drive away. The driver, sitting with his hands in the air. The back of the coach hanging over the ditch. No sign of Ketty or Jackson.

  The trucks turn a corner in the narrow road, and the coach is hidden behind the trees. I drop my gun onto my lap and wrench my helmet from my head, fighting for breath. I’m trying to pick apart what happened, to understand what we’ve just done. I close my eyes and hold tight as the truck swings round corners and the crates shift under me.

  When we stop, a mile down the road, I’m shaking. I let go of my gun and my helmet, and drop myself down over the side of the pickup. Will climbs down, opens the back door, and shouts at the recruits to get out. Two of them climb down, looking stunned, but I wave to Jake and Amy to stay put.

  “They’re coming with us,” I whisper to Will. He looks at me, clearly unhappy with the way things happened on the bus, but backs down when he sees my determination. He turns to the others.

  “Go back to the bus. Stay here. Whatever you want. You’re safe now.”

  They look around at us, confused, recognising me and Dan and trying to put the pieces together.

  “Go on,” I shout at them. “Go!” And they set off back along the road, glancing nervously at us and our guns.

  I pick up my helmet and gun, and climb into the back seat with Jake and Amy. Dan climbs into the other truck, and we set off again, keeping to quiet roads, taking off-road detours along forest tracks, and turning back onto country lanes.

  I lean back, as much as I can in my armour, and rest my head against the top of the seat.

  “I assume you want to come with us?” I ask, not looking at Jake and Amy. I’m staring at the ceiling, too exhausted to lift my head and talk to them directly. “Jake?”

  “What are you doing here, Bex?” Amy sounds as drained as I am, the adrenaline wearing off.

  “Coming back for you.” I manage to turn my head towards them. “And I’m very relieved to see you both alive. We weren’t sure, after …”

  Jake cuts in. “You left us there, Bex! You drove away and you left us. Commander Bracken held –“

  “I know. I saw.”

  “You saw the gun and you drove away?”

  “There wasn’t anything they could have done.” I sit up, surprised to hear Will defending me.

  “You could have come back. Later. Broken us out.”

  I spread my hands in a frustrated gesture, indicating me, them, the truck.

  “Thanks, Bex,” whispers Amy. “I knew you wouldn’t leave us there.”

  Jake stares stubbornly out of the window, too angry with me to speak.

  Reckoning

  Will is furious. I’m sitting at the table in the meeting room with Dan and the trainees, and Will is standing at the end of the table, shouting. We’ve made it back to the base, and we’ve unloaded the crates – into the bunker, this time. Jake and Amy have been assigned bunks in our rooms, and they’re off somewhere with Jo and a delighted Saunders, settling in.

  And this is where I answer for my actions.

  I’ve tried to explain the training, the expectation that while I’m wearing that uniform, I solve my own problems. Dan has backed me up, and been shouted at as well. I’m not going to apologise for rescuing Jake and Amy, so I sit and listen while Will tells me all the things I did wrong.

  “You put all of us in danger. All of us. You took the fight onto the coach. You escalated the situation, and you gave the government even more reasons to come after us. You showed them, clearly, that you’re one of them, working for us. You engaged directly with our targets, and you humiliated people who you know will not take that lightly. And, worse – the government thinks we’re holding two hostages, thanks to you.

  “What were you thinking? What insanity forced you to do those things? You shot two Senior Recruits …”

  Dan speaks up. “Actually, I did …”

  “I’m not interested! Why do you think that’s any better?” Will’s face is red with anger, and he’s pacing up and down across the table from us. I’ve never seen him angry before, and I don’t know how this will end. I try to stay calm. I know I did the right thing, and I know I used a language the government will understand. Be publ
ic, be seen, and show them what you can do.

  Will throws his hands in the air in frustration, and sits down at the head of the table. He beckons to someone behind me, and I realise that Dr Richards has slipped into the room during the shouting. She steps up to the table, and stands between us and Will.

  “Dan. Bex. It’s good to have you back. I’m glad no one got hurt.” She pulls out a chair and sits down. Her voice is measured and calm, and it’s a shock to be treated so gently after Will’s outburst.

  “I understand why you did what you did, and I gather that the two of you make a formidable team on the front line. So thank you. We have the armour, and we have the guns. We even found two crates of ammunition, so we’re well supplied for now.

  “Will’s concern,” she glances at Will, who nods, “is that this will provoke the government into some extreme actions against us. They are likely to stage more terrorist attacks, and blame them on us. They’ll use the public outrage to prioritise finding us and shutting us down. We’re are in very real danger now, and the bloodshed has hardly started.

  “So the plan is to hit them first, and hit them hard. With the armour and the guns, we have some limited ability to infiltrate government buildings and events. We need to use that ability fast, before they tighten their security.

  “You’ll be training more of us to use the guns and the armour. All of you.” She indicates our existing trainees around the table. “We need as many people as possible trained in armed response, and you’re our best tutors.”

  Dan and I nod, surprised that we’re not being dismissed for our actions.

  Will puts his hands on the table and leans towards us. “If you two ever put us in danger again,” he looks us both in the eyes, deliberate and angry. “Ever – I will leave you behind. I will leave you to be picked up by them, and you can take your chances with the people you deserted, stole from, and shot.

  “Is that clear?”

  I nod, and clasp my hands together to stop them from shaking.

  “Clear.”

  “Good.”

  Consequences

  The training continues. We start the next day, with ten new trainees. We show them how to put on the armour, how to handle the guns, and we take them to the barn for target practice with Will’s rifles. We have to find suits that fit the trainees, but thanks to the raid on the bus, we have plenty to choose from. We took plenty of ammunition from the bus, but it’s all training bullets. We can’t pierce armour with it, but we can still fight, and we can still train.

  We train for two days, then Will sends us ten more volunteers, and we start again.

  Will sources more paint for us, and we spray the first group’s armour black, laying it out in the barn after a training session and checking each other’s work, making sure it looks perfect. Jake and Amy bring their armour to the barn, and we spray that as well. We pack everything away in the morning, and spray another ten suits the next day. It’s thrilling to be defacing so many of Commander Bracken’s precious uniforms, and erasing the names from the front panels and helmets. Every time I paint over someone’s name, it feels as if I am setting a recruit free. It feels good.

  By the sixth day of training, I’m feeling triumphant. Including ourselves, we’ve got thirty people fitted with armour and trained to fire guns. We’ve disguised all the armour, and we’ve checked the radios and the contamination panels. We’re building ourselves an army, and I’m excited to think that we might be able to make a difference.

  Dan and I tidy the barn and follow the recruits back to the bunker. I have time to take a shower and change into clean clothes before dinner, and I find myself singing under the stream of hot water, and as I head back to my room. Charlie comes in while I’m tying my boots, and closes the door behind her.

  “How are you doing?”

  I laugh. “I’m great! I’m making a difference, I’m training people to fight the government. We stole all those crates of armour, and now we’re making sure they get used. We’ve just bought ourselves a huge advantage, and now we can actually do something!”

  Charlie looks concerned. She opens her mouth to speak, but there’s a knock on the door, and Dan shouts about going to dinner. I straighten my T-shirt, open the door, and dance down the corridor, Dan and Charlie trailing behind me.

  The dining room is quiet, and I wonder whether we’re early for the meal, but Jo waves to us to sit down while she brings the food to our table. Amy and Saunders arrive with Jake, and Dr Richards comes in with Margie. We sit together and pass the food round the table, helping ourselves and catching up with what everyone has been doing. Jake and Amy have been filling Will in on the changes to procedures at camp after our escape. Jake still isn’t speaking to me, but he’s talkative enough with everyone else, and clearly happy to be here. Saunders has just woken up, and he’s looking forward to his first night shift with the security guard. Dr Richards and Margie have been in the meeting room for most of the day, and they’re happy to relax and laugh with the rest of us.

  It is wonderful to feel safe and accepted by people who all want the same thing I do. I glance around the dining room, looking for our trainees, and feeling excited again about what we’ve managed to do.

  But there’s hardly anyone here. Jo and a few other people are at the table near the stove, and the other tables are empty. I can’t see Will, or my trainees, anywhere. My happy mood starts to fade, and I feel my stomach dropping.

  “Where is everyone?”

  My question interrupts the laughter and the chatter. Dr Richards and Margie exchange a look.

  “Where’s Will?”

  “He’s taken them on a mission,” Dr Richards begins. “They’re following some good intelligence, and they’re going to disrupt a supply convoy.”

  I’m on my feet before I can think. “Why aren’t we there? Why hasn’t he taken us?”

  Charlie puts her hand on my arm, but I shrug her off.

  “I don’t think he trusts us, Bex. Not after what we did on the coach.” Dan sounds resigned, as if he agrees with Will.

  “Did you know?” I’m angry now. He shakes his head.

  “How are we supposed to fight back? How are we supposed to make a difference, if we can’t fight?”

  And everyone is talking at once, telling me I have made a difference, that I trained the fighters, that they couldn’t do this without the armour. I push my plate away, throw my hands in the air, and walk out.

  There’s nowhere to go. I run up the stairs and pace the corridors until I’ve calmed down, then walk back down to my room and sit on my bed, my head in my hands.

  There’s a gentle knock on the door, and Charlie comes in. She sits on her bed, and waits for me to look at her. When I do, it’s through tears.

  “You know Will’s right.”

  I shake my head. “You don’t understand.”

  “Oh, I do. He’s turned you into another front-line doll. You’re allowed to go with him when the stakes are low, or when he doesn’t have a choice, but you’re not allowed to join his real army. You’re not allowed to actually fight.”

  She’s right. I got Will his armour, I took it from Ketty and Jackson. I got him the guns and the ammunition, and I trained his soldiers. I did all the things he asked me to do, and now I’m stuck in the bunker and he doesn’t want me with him when the fighting gets real. It doesn’t matter what I do – I’m always the PR exercise. I’m always the front-line doll.

  None of this is real. The City Killers were real, the government power-grab is real. But the rebels? The fight-back? We’re just scratching the surface. We can’t make a difference – not in the numbers we have here.

  “I don’t think we can do this,” I whisper. “I don’t think we have enough people. I don’t think we can fight them.” I lie back, my head on my pillow, and stare at the ceiling.

  Charlie takes a deep breath. “That might be true. And maybe you’re always going to be a front-line doll. But I thought the point was that you’re a front-line doll for t
he good guys.”

  I can’t help laughing. “I guess that is better.”

  “You can’t do everything. You can’t win this war by yourself. You need to trust Will, and you need to do the things you’re good at. You’re really good at teaching people, Bex. You’re really good at caring about people, and making sure the ones who are behind keep up with everyone else.”

  “I’ve got the bruises to show for it.”

  “I know you have. And that’s one more reason to be working for the good guys. They value your input.”

  “I don’t feel valued.” But I know that isn’t true. I know I’m playing an important role here. I just want the chance to show the people who killed a town that I know what they did. That I saw it, and that I won’t let it stand.

  “Come on, Bex. You know Will needs you. You just scared him, on the coach. You’re a wild card, and he doesn’t know you well enough to trust you yet.”

  There’s another tap on the door, and Dan rushes in, followed by Margie. He’s holding four cans of beer, and he hands them round as Margie sits on the end of my bed and Dan sits next to Charlie. He holds up his drink.

  “To the mission.”

  “To the mission!”

  Everyone else drinks, but I stay lying on my bed, holding my beer in one hand.

  “They couldn’t do this without you,” says Margie, shaking my leg, “so cheer up, soldier!”

  I prop myself up on one elbow, lifting my beer can. “How did you get these?”

  Dan grins. “I told Jo it was an emergency. She made us the official rescue party! We can’t lose you, Bex.”

  “So drink up!” Margie slaps my knee, and glares at me until I take a drink.

  It’s good to be back with my friends.

  Silence

  We talk for what seems like hours. I take off my boots and curl up under my blanket, and we tell Charlie stories about school. She tells us stories about Commander Bracken, and she laughs until she cries when we tell her about calling him Batman, and his assistant, Robin. Amy comes in, surprised to find us all here, and listens while we talk. I’m drifting in and out of the conversation, and I hardly notice when Margie stands up, picks up my beer can from the floor, and pulls the blanket up round my shoulders. I must have fallen asleep before everyone else went to bed.