C.R.O.W. (The Union Series)

by Richards, Phillip

  #

  When the ship’s lockdown was finally lifted, we were once again called into the corridor outside our rooms to be briefed by the platoon commander on what we already knew was going on. We looked on sullenly while the young officer explained to us the information he had received from the OC: that we were indeed on our way to the Centauri system and that our objective would indeed be Jersey Island, securing landing zones so that other battalions could echelon through and continue the attack. Nobody raised an eyebrow as he covered the overall plan, and we looked like men who had been charged to be put to death; perhaps we were.

  As the boss had predicted, the first fleet would secure two of the system’s three stars, Centauri Bravo and Proxima Centauri, whilst leaving the much larger 3rd fleet, which included us, to secure Centauri Alpha and New Earth itself. A total of thirty squadrons would battle to seize orbital power from the Chinese as we - the dropship battalions - would make the drop to seize the surface. We would be one of the very first battalions to drop.

  ‘There are a total of three DZs on the Island allocated to the English dropship battalions,’ the boss explained, ‘Each Drop Zone one is a hundred kilometres across. Ours is located ten kilometres to the north of Jersey City, and we have been tasked with securing it and thus allowing other dropship battalions to echelon through. The intent is to create a ring of steel around the garrison there, and provide an interlocking air defence matrix that will deny enemy artillery from engaging the second echelon as it drops.’ The platoon commander’s military terminology made the whole thing sound like something clean and clinical, but I doubted that it would be. We would deny enemy artillery the ability to fire missiles up against the second wave of dropships sent to move through us, but nobody would do that for us if we were first to drop. ‘The forlorn hope’, I had once heard first drops being called - a name taken from days of old used to describe first assaults - where the risk of casualties was outrageously high. If you survived the drop you had a chance, but entire platoons could be wiped out by a single volley of missiles if the crews weren’t on their game. The jacks had trained long through the days and into the nights since I had arrived on Challenger, no doubt for that very reason.

  ‘We will have thirty-one days to prepare ourselves for the operation to come,’ the platoon commander said, ‘And we will use that time to train. We will train hard, because if we train hard then we fight easy and I can assure you thirty-two days from now we will all be fighting. Myself and the other platoon commanders will spend much of the following few days piecing together our plan for this operation and you can expect a detailed set of preliminary orders to be delivered after that. A final set of orders will then be given at D-minus-one so that the plan is fresh in your minds. Are there any questions?’

  The platoon commander looked across the platoon, but nobody said anything. We knew what we needed to know for now; we were going. We would be the first down, bearing the brunt of all that the Chinese could throw at us. It was a brutal task however you explained it and there was no doubt that many within the battalion would die before they even reached the ground. ‘One in three dropships didn’t make it…’

  ‘Mission specific training will begin almost straight away,’ the boss continued after pausing to allow the new information to sink in, ‘Starting with a detailed planetary briefing at eighteen-hundred-hours. Gents,’ the boss relaxed his gait with a sigh as he levelled with us, ‘I know this has been a turbulent few days, and I know that it isn’t going to get any better for a long time. Some of you may be afraid, and that’s fine. But remember that there are European citizens trapped on that planet. Europeans,’ he repeated the word to stress the point, ‘We owe it to them. We will free them from the Chinese,’ Jamo spat at the floor as if the word caused him great displeasure.

  ‘We have the simulators booked for the rest of the morning, Sergeant?’

  Jamo nodded, ‘Sir.’

  ‘Then let’s not waste any more time.’

  The platoon sergeant nodded again and then looked to us, ‘Get to the simulators.’ So much for breakfast.

  10: Happy Birthday

  We hurtled towards New Earth, and we trained hard, my God we trained hard. Since receiving confirmation of the invasion Jamo was like a dog unleashed, terrorizing us day in and day out, from six in the morning until twelve at night. We ran around the ship until we were giddy, did strength exercises until we puked and used the simulators until we struggled to work out which was a dream and which was reality. Sometimes I would wake up in my bed and think I was still in the simulator room.

  Sometimes we drew weapons and bayonets from the ships armoury and practiced on stuffed bags dressed in pink painted ships fatigues. Pink was the colour of the Chinese uniforms, supposedly, and Jamo had given them the nickname ‘Pinkies’.

  ‘What’s the bayonet made of?!’ Jamo would scream at us as we stamped our feet on the spot in the galley, clutching our rifles close to our chests and panting hard.

  ‘COLD, HARD STEEL!’ We would scream back, enraged after the typical thrashing that always preceded bayonet training. The ship echoed with our chants - once the ship’s captain complained about the noise from the bridge!

  ‘What’s the bayonet made for?!’ Jamo would walk amongst us spraying spittle at our faces as he screamed, his face contorted into a hatred of all things living.

  ‘KILL, KILL, KILL!’ Was the reply. Bayonet training hadn’t changed for hundreds of years, and neither had the bayonet. It was hard to think that with the modern weapons deployed by the colonial powers that such a barbaric weapon was still employed.

  ‘On guard!’

  We would advance forward onto our left feet, lowering our rifles until they were level with the ground, the vicious, sharpened blades of our bayonets reflecting the galley lights, ‘ON GUARD!’

  The dummies would be suspended to the ceiling, or placed on the floor to simulate the different types of enemy we might face, wounded soldiers on the ground or soldiers stunned by grenades or shell shock. Others might be armed with fake ‘weapons’ for us to parry away before we made our final thrust for the chest cavity.

  ‘One thrust at the lying enemy, front rank, advance!’

  We would scream, and we would charge at our dummies with a rage we were taught to summon from deep within our souls, stabbing at our foes like wild animals possessed by hate. But to me that dummy wasn’t a Chinaman, it was Woody, smiling at me with that awful smile, mocking my family and my youth! The galley floor would be scarred by a hundred blades a hundred times before we would arrive at New Earth to use them for real.

  ‘When your rifle stops,’ Jamo roared once, ‘Stab with your bayonet! When the bayonet breaks, strike with the stock! When the stock breaks punch with your fists! When your fists hurt bite with your teeth!’

  ‘YES SERGEANT!’ We cried, and our bayonet training would continue.

  Tensions rose among the lads in the company as the days passed and our fate drew ever nearer. Tempers were lost easily and there were even fights in the galley over minor arguments.

  Each of the troopers in the platoon dealt with the situation differently, some grew quiet and attempted to isolate themselves, others became loud and boisterous as if they were trying to hide that they were afraid - from themselves as well as the rest of us.

  The NCOs watched us closely, seeking signs that people were cracking, and Corporal Evans even approached me on one occasion to ask how I was.

  ‘Fine, Corporal,’ I told him, but I was lying of course. I was as terrified as any other trooper, and what made it worse was that Woody was using me as some kind of emotional punch bag to abuse whenever he felt low, ridiculing me in my room and in front of others.

  ‘I’m gonna make New Earth a hell for you,’ he had threatened me randomly one evening when he had caught me alone. I doubted that would be difficult.

  Corporal Evans nodded slowly, disbelieving, ‘Right. Any issues with your training, any dramas in the section I need to know about?’ />
  Yes, one of your senior blokes is bullying me, I thought. ‘No, Corporal.’

  Another slow nod, ‘Okay, Moralee,’ he made to leave and I fidgeted, ‘What?’

  I stammered, the man was like a god, exactly what the Union wanted you to believe a drop trooper looked like, and now he looked down at me with inquisitive eyes, ‘W-w-what was it like on New Earth? And Eden?’

  His face hardened, ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ and he was gone.

  #

  We received our orders two days into our final voyage toward New Earth. We drew close around the hologram of Jersey Island as the platoon commander tapped through pages on his tablet. Jamo stood off to his rear, eyeballing each of us, willing us to do something stupid that might allow him to issue swift justice.

  The hologram displayed an image of the Drop Zone we had been tasked with securing in order to play our part within the invasion. We had already received numerous familiarization briefings on the ground we would be covering using the simulators; the very next best thing to being there. I knew that Jersey Island sat in a deep valley than ran from south to north away from the Southern Ocean. It was dominated by two large hills to its west and east known for the operation as Hill Alpha and Hill Bravo respectively, both of which stood a good five hundred metres above sea level. Most of the land was farmland, producing huge yields of crops that would feed the island inhabitants and be shipped across the planet from the city’s small space port. The farmland was contained within endless rows of greenhouses that sustained atmospheres for the plants to thrive, irrigated by a network of ditches and pipelines.

  Both of the two hills were originally used as defensive positions by the Union two years ago, and were each garrisoned by an entire battalion, dug deep into the rock for protection from orbital barrages. Warrens, as they were called, were a common feature on the modern battlefield. Weapons dropped from orbit could punch deep into the ground, taking only minutes from drop to impact, so armies had to move faster, or dig deeper. There was only one way to prise infantry out of a warren, and that was with more infantry.

  ‘Situation enemy,’ the boss began, pointing his laser pen toward the two hills which lanced light across the hologram, ‘The enemy positions are not fully known, although what little information we have suggests that the enemy have occupied the two warrens, Alpha and Bravo, and repaired damages caused during their own invasion, which was minimal.’

  The Chinese barely had to fire a shot to take Jersey Island, it had been overlooked during their invasion, and most of the Union garrison had withdrawn long before they arrived.

  ‘The warren systems run deep into the hills and connect together beneath Jersey Island, which enables the enemy to move troops and vehicles across the battlefield rapidly without fear of orbital bombardment. The warren systems have probably been extended significantly by the enemy, and will most likely form part of a complex air defence matrix.’

  The hologram moved as though we were flying across the landscape, with the suspected tunnel locations highlighted blue, deep below the surface.

  ‘Obviously,’ the boss went on, ‘The warren network is a delaying feature designed to harass us on landing and then as we try to consolidate on the ground. It will be connected to trench systems and burrows in order to confuse us or even attack us from behind. It is believed that the enemy’s intent will be to delay us from securing the DZ, to give him enough time to counter attack. He will hold onto the warrens in the hills at all costs in order to achieve this. His morale will be high, having held the planet for so long, and it is doubtful that he will surrender, but will instead only withdraw deeper into the warrens with the intent to draw out the battle until the cavalry come or we lose orbital cover.’

  Orbital ‘top cover’ as we called it was the name of the game in modern interstellar warfare. If one side held command of orbit then the other side had better start digging or running. Even relatively small ships like Challenger carried enough payload to pulverise entire battalions from orbit. As battles raged in space and top cover was gained and lost, so the battlefield below would be almost directly affected.

  The boss went on to describe the friendly forces involved in the operation. Two battalions would drop first onto the Island to secure the Drop Zone by capturing the two hills, the 3rd Battalion English Dropship Infantry - us - and the 1st Battalion Scottish Dropship Infantry. We would be supported by two whole regiments of Danish gravtanks in addition to our own, who would form a ring of steel around the hills whilst unmanned aircraft would dominate the skies throughout. Our squadron of ships would remain in top cover, whilst the others would seek to dominate orbit above the rest of the Southern Continent. A further two battalions of dropship infantry would be waiting to drop once the DZ was secure, and even more conscripts would be waiting on troopships to mop up the mess once we were done.

  ‘It’s unknown what the Chinese may have done with the civilian population, and how they might handle them upon our entry into the Centauri system. It’s likely that they will take refuge on the outskirts of the city, or possibly be hidden underground. The Chinese won’t want refugees around their positions getting in the way. Be sure to identify your targets before you engage them, however. The civvies are believed to be on-side, but if you start shooting them all up, they’ll soon switch sides and remember, you will have to live with them for a while afterwards.

  ‘One platoons mission,’ the boss recited, and he repeated it twice for good measure, ‘Destroy. Destroy all enemy encountered on Hill Bravo, in order to secure the Drop Zone.’

  The plan itself was a simple one. The battalion would drop at a location that would be decided only a few minutes before we entered orbit, which the boss thought was likely to be over the sea. We would then carry out what was known as the ‘run in’, a charge along the planet surface toward the enemy. Staying low on the approach made us less of a target for the enemy’s anti-aircraft defences, which would have already caused us great damage.

  The tanks would push forward of us, bypassing smaller enemy positions and cutting the city off from reinforcement. They were vulnerable to massed infantry, using warrens and trenches for cover, and so would initially avoid the hills whilst we cleared them. A Company was the lead company of the battalion, and of that company we were to be the front left platoon with two platoon to our right. We would be the knife edge, charging across the battlefield toward Hill Bravo until either we reached the summit or we made contact with the enemy. If we did make contact, and we surely would, we would attack the enemy and destroy him whilst the company would continue its advance, attacking position after position until it became bogged down by the enemy and would need to be replaced by another company from the battalion. We would roll over position after position in a massed orgy of death until we reached the summit of Hill Bravo, and then once our fight was seemingly over, we would send the next battalion into the warrens to prize the Chinese out with Union steel.

  ‘Will we go into the warrens with them, Sir?’ A trooper asked what we had all been thinking. We were all trained in tunnel warfare; I had spent months in the purpose built Uralian tunnel systems fighting imaginary enemies in the darkness. The real thing could only be bloody, and terrifying.

  The boss shrugged, ‘Hard to say since we know so little about the ground and how it might affect us on the run in. We might sit pretty on top of the hill and rain hell on the valley, or we might all be going underground. You need to prepare yourselves for the worst, and then you can only be pleasantly surprised.’ We laughed nervously.

  ‘It’s important that you all remember the platoon mission, and you play back and study these orders in great depth until you can recite them back to me.’

  #

  Halfway into the voyage we were offered a chance to write our ‘last letters’ which would go with us to our families if we returned to Earth in a box. I had never hand-written a letter before, and the grim purpose for doing so was unnerving. We handed them into the ship’s captain during
a special morning service to commemorate those who had fallen in the vain attempt to save New Earth from the Chinese invasion. Sergeant James had demanded that all of us write one, even if it we didn’t have anybody to write to.

  ‘Address it to ‘The President’,’ he had said bitterly, ‘Then the bastard can read it at bedtime.’

  The letters were taken during the service whilst we stood on parade with our heads bowed, and the captain prayed for our safety and victory for the Union. I wasn’t a religious man, but I listened and prayed with the captain anyway, just in case.

  But the captain wasn’t finished after the service, ‘I have one last thing to announce,’ she said with a smile, and then looked down at her tablet.

  ‘Lieutenant Reed, Seaman Tamba, Corporal Jones…,’ She read out a long list of names and ranks from across the entire ship’s crew, from the naval personnel to the jacks and drop troopers, ‘….Private Moralee, Private Rix….’

  Why had she called out my name? Fixed to the spot in the position of at ease, my mind raced for an answer to her needing to mention me in front of the entire crew.

  ‘You have been very busy, and I wouldn’t want you to forget…. Happy birthday to you all.’

  I felt relief mixed with surprise when I realised that according to ship’s time, my birthday had indeed been two days ago. I had been so busy, so detached from my old life on Earth that I had forgotten my own birthday! I was nineteen years old… and on my way to war.

  ‘Don’t forget to clean the toilets, birthday boy,’ Woody said upon our return to the accommodation after the service. We didn’t have much time, fitness would be at half-seven, which only really left me with enough time to get changed. I knew that I would be crucified by Jamo if I was late for PT, but if I argued with Woody he would take pleasure in making an example of me.

  ‘I’m going now,’ I said, and joined the rest of the new lads cleaning the accommodation. Climo and a few others came to help us, but a lot of the platoon were still reluctant to help, enjoying having us to do it all for them. I didn’t care anymore, I was used to it. Cleaning the ablutions and mopping floors in the morning had become part of my routine.