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

by Richards, Phillip

  Once we were satisfied we had done as much as time allowed, I hurried back to the room. I was anxious to get ready for PT in time so as not to infuriate the platoon sergeant, but when the door to my room slid away I stopped. My PT kit was no longer laid out ready on my bed as it had been, but instead it was laid out on the floor. It had been written on with shaving foam, ‘Happy birthday.’

  Brown and Woody were in the room and laughed as I crouched down beside my ruined PT kit in horror. Jamo would kill me! What would I do? The simple answer was nothing; we had so many PT sessions every day that most of my PT kit was constantly being laundered. All I could do was wipe away the excess foam and take Jamo’s wrath.

  ‘Happy birthday, crowbag,’ Woody sneered. I looked up at my tormentor. He knew what he had done; he knew that the consequences for me turning up in dirty PT kit would result in a punch to the gut or worse.

  My bottom lip trembled. What had I done to deserve such unprovoked cruelty? And then something changed in me.

  I felt the anger boiling up inside of me, surging like a storm of energy that raged across my body and caused my limbs to shake. I was angrier than I had ever been, angrier than I had been for the most brutal of bayonet training sessions. There stood before me was the man at the heart of all of my misery, he had almost single-handedly made my prison on board Challenger unbearable. He was a bully, a coward who used vulnerable people like me to feel powerful.

  ‘You gonna cry for mummy?’ Woody asked, and Brown laughed again.

  Every trooper was trained to have a safety catch in his mind, his rage needed to be controlled, directed, or else he was little more than a mindless thug. That day I released my safety catch.

  I screamed as I launched to my feet, throwing a punch straight toward Woody’s jaw. He was unprepared but his reactions were quick and he jerked his head back away from the punch enough to deny me a clean strike. My fist still clipped his chin and I threw a second punch into his stomach, knocking the air out of him.

  Woody staggered backwards in shock and made no attempt to block my third punch which struck him on the top of the head. I was no prize fighter; my unarmed combat training was only a few weeks long, but the furious speed of the blows I threw at him kept him stumbling backward. I hit him again on the head, and twice to the neck and shoulders. Woody withdrew himself into a blocking stance, his arms tight together in front of his head.

  My attack was stopped when Brown gripped me by the shoulders and threw me backward and I slid on my arse across the room. He strode confidently toward me with his fists raised, he was nowhere near as big as Woody but he was strong.

  ‘Come on, then, you little weasel,’ he beckoned as I stood.

  ‘Little bastard,’ Woody groaned, clutching at his head in the corner of the room.

  Woody would be fighting any second, I wasn’t much of a fighter but I knew my only hope was to take out Brown before he recovered and the two of them finished me off. I was committed.

  With a cry of anger, I charged back into Brown, my head lowered toward his waist. He punched out uselessly at my back as I connected with him, driving him into his bunk. This wasn’t a matter of honour; there were two of them and one of me. I punched him once in the balls and once in the gut and then stood, giving him a final punch into his nose. Blood exploded from his nostrils but he didn’t fall. Instead he hit me across the temple so hard that I saw stars and with a powerful swipe of his leg he kicked my left foot out from under me and I fell to the ground.

  ‘You’ll pay for that,’ Brown clutched at his groin as he stooped over me but Woody checked him.

  ‘He’s mine,’ Woody’s face was screwed up with rage, and he stalked toward me where I lay dazed. Brown stepped away.

  I stood, but too late. A mighty punch drove me back to the ground. Warm blood flowed from my nose and into my mouth and I spat it onto the deck.

  ‘Fuck you!’

  ‘Fuck me?’ Woody gripped me by the throat, ‘Fuck you, Moralee!’ His fingers closed around my windpipe, squeezing it closed. He leaned forward and whispered rasping threats into my ear as I fought for air, ‘Remember what I said, crow bag. Accidents happen all the time out here. People kill themselves. Jettison themselves out of airlocks. Then there’s New Earth. People get shot - in the back. Happens all the time.’

  I tried to speak but failed. I choked on my own blood and my eyes rolled back into my skull.

  ‘I’m gonna kill you, Moralee, you’re gonna die out here, do you..,’ he didn’t finish.

  A metal chair crashed down upon Woody’s head and he collapsed onto me under its weight. His hand remained around my throat but the fingers lost their grip and I gasped desperately for air.

  Brown watched frozen in horror as Climo struck Woody again with the chair, swinging it around with so much force that it knocked Woody clean away from me.

  ‘How do you like that?’ Climo taunted as Woody tried to lift his body up from the ground but the chair came down again and again. Woody lay still. Blood from his head ran onto the metal floor.

  ‘Christ…,’ Brown gasped as Climo stood with the chair poised over Woody, waiting for him to move again.

  Climo threw down the chair, ‘Want a go?’

  Brown went for Climo with a clumsy punch, but Climo blocked it with ease and struck him with a punch that connected with the base of his chin. Stepping forward in between Brown's flailing arms he clutched his collar to pull him close, swung an elbow into his nose, and then grasping the back of his head he thrust his face downwards onto his knee. Barely conscious, Brown fell to the ground at Climo's feet.

  ‘Fuck you, Brown,’ he spat at the unconscious trooper, and then at Woody, ‘And you too.’

  Slowly I sat myself up, there was blood everywhere, ‘Jesus Christ,’ I exclaimed.

  Climo kicked the chair across the room and then sat down on his bunk, ‘God that felt good.’

  I staggered toward the door and leant out into the corridor.

  ‘Man down!’

  Surprised troopers peered out from their rooms, but the message passed rapidly, as it would on New Earth.

  My anger forgotten, I ran back to Woody. He wasn’t moving. He had a deep gash across his skull but it didn’t look bad.

  ‘He’s stopped breathing,’ I told Climo, ‘Help me get him over!’

  Climo remained motionless, ‘Leave him, he’s better off dead,’ he said darkly.

  ‘Not if you get done for murder, give me a hand!’

  Climo came over just before Joe Mac arrived at the door.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ He shouted, and then his eyes widened at the sight of Woody and Brown on the floor, ‘Jesus!’

  ‘He’s been hit on the back of the head,’ I told him, ‘He’s stopped breathing,’ we rolled him over and I reached into his mouth with my fingers. There were a few pieces of broken teeth in his mouth which I tossed aside and then felt deeper, ‘He’s swallowed his tongue.’

  Troopers massed at the door and more NCOs were shouting to find out what was going on. Mac pointed at the nearest troopers to the door, ‘You two! Get on Brown over there. You, get the medics down here now! Moralee what the hell happened?’

  I looked at Climo as I pulled Woody’s tongue back from his throat with my fingers, ‘I hit him.’

  There was a gasp from behind Joe Mac, ‘You what?’

  ‘I hit him with the chair,’ I repeated.

  ‘Don’t be stupid, I did,’ Climo argued.

  ‘Right, you two,’ Mac beckoned more troopers, ‘Take over from these two idiots.’

  I felt for a pulse as two troopers came to replace me and Climo beside the casualty, but there was nothing, ‘His heart’s stopped!’

  ‘Get out of the way,’ Sam snapped, pushing me aside. He knelt beside Woody and began compressions onto his chest, trying to work his heart to force any air left in Woody’s lungs around his body. Me and Climo were roughly led out of the room and into the corridor where the whole platoon, its routine disturbed, crowded curi
ously.

  #

  I stood outside the Company Sergeant Major’s office, deep within the headquarter section of the ship. I had never been there before, nor did I want to be. The CSM was also known as the Company Scary Monster, the disciplinarian, the man you never wanted to meet. He was meant to be scary, and he fulfilled his role to the letter. He was like Sergeant James multiplied a thousand times.

  You never stood outside the Sergeant Major’s office unless you had messed up severely, and my God I had. Woody was in the ship’s infirmary under intensive care with several stitches to his scalp. Rumour would have it he died twice and had to be resuscitated, and that his scar was larger than it should have been because they had to operate on his brain. He was alive, as was Brown of course, but my God had he taken a beating off Climo.

  The bulkhead to the CSMs office barely muffled the sound of shouting, Climo was getting an earful. He would surely be locked in the brig and taken back to Earth to be court marshalled, with a hefty sentence. I wasn’t sure what was worse, being in that room or on New Earth.

  ‘Face your front,’ a naval NCO ordered. There were two of them, standing watch over me and Climo in case we did something stupid; ready to take us both to the brig once the CSM had his way with us.

  I waited for what seemed like hours, until the door to the CSMs office finally slid open and Climo emerged red faced and into the arms of the two naval NCOs.

  ‘Get that areole down to the brig!’ The CSM bellowed from inside and Climo was marched away leaving only me behind.

  I wondered if I should enter, hesitated, and then thought better of it.

  ‘Get in here, Moralee!’

  I marched into the CSMs office as smartly as I could. I had barely practiced any kind of drill since leaving Earth and the CSM winced as I halted awkwardly at his desk. He sat forward in his chair, tapping his fingers impatiently as if he were waiting for me to speak. I said nothing, facing my front with my chin held up high, not daring to look down and meet his gaze. I swallowed hard.

  ‘What do you have to say for yourself, Moralee?’ He asked finally. He seemed oddly subdued after having screamed the walls down at Climo; I braced myself for the worst.

  ‘I started it, Sir,’ I blurted, and the CSM raised an eyebrow, ‘I attacked Woody first.’

  That was the second time I had seen the CSM since arriving on Challenger, but it was the closest I had been to him, and alone in that room his presence was overwhelming. He was no bigger in size than the average trooper, but his face was hard as Jamo’s, and his gaze twice as penetrating. He had seen it all, like many of the older NCOs, from Eden to the Betrayal, and he had survived to make it all the way to the top of the food chain. Now he looked at me like he was about to explode.

  ‘Go on.’

  I told him about how I had found my PT kit ruined, about how I had constantly been at Woody’s mercy and how I had finally attacked him and Brown in a terrible outburst.

  ‘I just lost it, Sir. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry?’ The CSM picked up a tablet from his desk and frowned as he studied it, ‘I have two troopers in the infirmary, one of whom is critically injured and I’ve got another trooper in the brig. That’s half a section wiped out in five minutes. Do you understand the importance of our manpower right now?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘We have one hundred and nine troopers in this company, and every one of them is a rifle on the ground. Effectively we could have lost three rifles today, if you include that idiot Climpson, that’s half a section’s fire power wasted before we even hit the ground.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Are you on the Chinese side?’

  ‘No, Sir.’

  The CSM slapped the table so hard I jumped, ‘Then act like it, then! Every five minutes I’ve got troopers beating each other senseless, but this takes it to a whole new level!’

  I said nothing, and then the CSM sighed. He tapped away at his tablet, ‘I’m putting you on galley duty for the remainder of the jump.’

  Surprised, I glanced down at him, ‘You mean I’m not going to the brig, Sir?’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ the CSM tossed the tablet onto his desk, ‘You’re not the one who wrapped a chair around someone’s head, are you? If I put blokes in the brig for fighting it’d be overflowing in a few days. I’m sure the blokes in your platoon will punish you enough, anyway. It’s not looked upon well to attack your senior privates, believe me.’

  ‘No, Sir.’

  The side of the CSMs mouth twitched, ‘Even if they are arseholes.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Don’t think that this is the end of it,’ the CSM warned, jabbing a finger at me, ‘If I ever have you in my office again, for even as much as wasting a drop of water, I’ll have you in that brig without a seconds thought, is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  He waved a hand, ‘Go on, then. Get out.’

  I hesitated, ‘Sir? Will Climpson be in the brig until…?’

  The CSM looked up at me irritably, ‘I’m sorry, have we just become friends? What’s it got to do with you? Get out.’

  #

  I could only wish that Jamo could have been as lenient with me as the CSM had been, but then I guess the CSM knew that he would deal with me and so hadn’t bothered. There was only one thing you could do when a man like Jamo gave you a debriefing, stand there and take it. He sprayed me with saliva in an angry rant that told me all I needed to know of how little he thought of me, the rant ended with me on the deck of the platoon corridor clutching my gut. And that wasn’t the end of it. Jamo knew that the platoon were waiting in their rooms for him to leave.

  Half the platoon hated Woody, but for every man that hated him there was one who either liked him or at least knew that he was a senior private, not to be attacked by some jumped-up new lad. They came from their rooms, cautiously at first in case there were NCOs to see or hear, and then I got my punishment.

  ‘No head shots,’ Stevo ordered the ten or so troopers who had come to take their revenge upon me. Rawson was amongst them, I saw.

  It didn’t matter if I broke a bone; it was nothing the infirmary couldn’t fix rapidly for the invasion. I took the beating like I was in a dream, my mind shut off the pain and I allowed myself to be thrown around the corridor like a rag doll. I thought the NCOs might notice what was going on in their lines, but they weren’t there, or at least if they were then they were turning a blind eye to it. After all what goes on ship stays on ship.

  Happy birthday, Moralee. Not long now.

  11: Alpha Centauri

  Final preparations began several days prior to Challenger entering the Alpha Centauri system. We worked tirelessly; kit was packed, inspected and re-inspected. Ammunition was loaded onto the dropships along with our kit, so that all we had to do on the day was jump on board with the kit we were wearing. Then once everything was packed into the dropships we would have our kit checked all over again. Nothing could be left behind; once the dropships left the ship there was no going back, not because they weren’t physically capable of returning themselves to orbit, but because the Chinese anti-air defences would make it hard enough to land , let alone take off again. For at least the first few hours and most likely several days afterwards anything that dropped to the surface wasn’t going back up again.

  Climo was released from the brig after only a week of solitary confinement, we would need every man to fight and so his crime was overlooked. Brown stayed in the section, much to my dismay, though he was moved out of my room to prevent further bloodshed. He glared at me whenever we saw each other, but never went near me for fear of being punished. Woody was still in intensive care, though he was rumoured to be rapidly on the mend. Climo assured me that there was no chance he would be returned to one platoon, and I hoped to God he was right.

  Nobody touched Climo, though the NCOs made sure he spent most of his time on fatigues as punishment. It seemed none of the blokes wanted to take their chances with the man wh
o managed to put Woody in the infirmary, and Climo seemed to enjoy the notoriety. Unfortunately it was that very notoriety that earned him the MAM-G, which had been Woody’s weapon. The ‘mammoth gun’ as it was known was simply a larger version of the MSG-20 rifle, which was fed by a drum of three hundred rounds and was designed to be fired on fully automatic. We all knew how to use it but it was a heavy weapon, despite modern materials, and a pain to carry around.

  ‘There you go, tough boy,’ Joe Mac had sneered when he handed Climo the weapon at the armoury for the first time. He had never appeared to be best friends with Woody, but he clearly resented me and Climo remaining within the section while one of the senior bods was in the infirmary.

  Climo hefted the cumbersome weapon, ‘Bastard,’ he uttered, though whether the utter was directed at Joe or the weapon I didn’t know.

  Corporal Evans remained aloof over the whole situation which had unfolded within his section, and allowed Joe Mac to discipline us as he saw fit, and to be fair, between Jamo, Mac and the CSM’s galley duties, I don’t think I could have taken much more punishment anyway!

  ‘Ev saves his anger for when he needs it,’ Climo said, ‘And to be fair I don’t think he likes Woody, but when he does get mad, dash and get down!’

  Corporal Evans took one of the platoon’s three spare troopers from within headquarters. Jamo wasn’t happy, as he had planned to use the spare troopers as a work party to help him move casualties and ammunition, and he was quick to point it out to me and Climo.

  ‘If we run out of stretchers, blame these two,’ he said to the platoon.

  The new addition was pretty senior, but thankfully not of the Woody variety. Chase was a lean trooper with a chiselled jaw, who was often referred to as ‘chase the face’ for his good looks that supposedly left Uralian women weak at the knees.