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

by Richards, Phillip

  ‘Come on, mate, get up,’ Sam said, and his voice carried with it a sense of urgency. I activated my night vision, slid out of my bag and began to pack it away ready to go.

  ‘What’s going on, Brown?’

  ‘We’re going into the warrens. Just our platoon. Casualty replacements.’

  Now that was a wake-up call if ever I had one.

  15: Descent into the Warrens

  The sun rose slowly over the horizon as we patrolled down the northern slope of hill Bravo toward the grid we had been given for the entrance to the warrens. Small strips of cloud broke up the sky, glowing deep red and orange as the low angled sunlight struck them and began to turn the dark blue sky back into a brilliant turquoise. The air was a cool five degrees and slowly rising, feeling crisp against the exposed parts of my neck. On Earth it would have been a beautiful spring morning, with birds singing and people rising for another day at work. But on hill Bravo the silence was only broken by the crunching of the gravel and sand beneath our boots.

  We stuck to the ditches as much as possible in order to keep out of line of sight from any unfriendly observers. As long as the enemy held on to the tunnel systems beneath the hill it was still possible for him to find a way back to the surface without us knowing. Behind us the summit upon which the battalion maintained over watch dominated the horizon. I felt myself wishing I was back with them. Perhaps Woody was there somewhere, waiting for his moment to strike, but I felt safer on that hill with Woody than down in the depths of the warrens.

  Occasional aircraft passing overhead and the wind turbines that towered in the distance were the only sign of life on the barren, rocky world other than us. The three platoon sections were widely spread, we daren’t take the risk of bunching together, lest a saucer break through into our airspace, or worse the Chinese attack from orbit.

  Sometime overnight, Westy had told us on our brief, enemy warships had made another raid on the Union blockade over the northern hemisphere, succeeding in taking control of top cover over much of the northern continent for almost half an hour. Half an hour may not sound much, but it was enough to lay waste to entire battalions and see divisions run in retreat. We had been lucky; much of Jersey Island was just outside of their optimum bombardment trajectory. It could have just as easily been us had the Chinese warships entered orbit elsewhere. Fortunately the Union had regained orbital top cover, and its ships guarded us like unseen angels that watched us from the sky.

  I could have taken some small comfort knowing that there were ships high above us watching us and our surrounding area for the enemy, but the reality was that New Earth was a big place, and a ship would probably not notice an enemy platoon dug in and well hidden amongst the hills.

  Our section patrolled slowly and deliberately, scanning around ourselves for any approaching menace, in a single line of men spaced at least ten metres apart from each other. If one bloke set off a mine or took a burst of enemy fire, at least we all wouldn’t get some. Such thinking might shock somebody who had never served within the infantry, but to us it was simply good patrol discipline. A dead man is useless, and if half the section were to die in a single burst of fire because they were bunched together, that would be the section rendered combat ineffective in the blink of an eye. When I was in training I maintained patrol discipline because I was told to, but on New Earth I finally understood it. There if I got the simplest thing wrong, it could cost me my life.

  My visor marked the locations of the other two sections and platoon headquarters through the wilted crops and scorched greenhouses, and occasionally I would catch a glimpse of them. The platoon was very different to what it had been when it dropped to the surface, two of its sections were formed of troopers from elsewhere in the company, none of whom I really knew. The boss was patrolling just behind our newly formed One section who were somewhere ahead of us, along with his signaller. Our new platoon sergeant, Sergeant Evans, was off to our rear with his work party, which consisted of Mitch and one other, since Harmes had died along with Jamo. Sergeant Evans hadn’t spoken much since his promotion, except to hurry us out of our burrows that morning and assemble us ready to move. Once we were good to go the boss had asked him if he was happy for us to move off, but he had to repeat himself when the platoon sergeant didn’t respond.

  ‘Let’s go, then,’ he had said icily.

  Westy navigated the section using a map on his wristpad, weaving us in and out of the maze of ditches and greenhouses as if he knew the area like the back of his hand. Occasionally we would stop whilst he checked what he was doing against a paper map he kept in his pocket, just in case the wristpad let him down or became compromised by an electronic attack by the Chinese. We would sit and wait, straining our ears for the sound of a stalking section of pinkies that never came.

  The ditches still flowed with small streams of muddy water, making its way down from the high ground where rain had collected the day before. I looked into the deep red flowing water, and I remember thinking that it was like a river of blood.

  During our patrol we passed a battlefield where one of our companies must have fought as we had done the day before. The ground was scarred with blackened craters, some small, others almost a hundred metres across. Gravtanks with ruptured hulls still smouldered amongst chunks of earth, and great boulders that had been thrown into the air by artillery and orbital bombardment.

  As we approached the base of the hill we walked along a re-entrant with sheer rocky slopes that towered high above us. At its base a tiny river flowed, having cut its way down through the rock over millions of years. We weren’t the first humans ever to walk down that narrow re-entrant, though. Several Chinese soldiers, corpses now, lay around a crater a few metres across. They all lay facing away from the crater, most likely killed by the blast of a smart missile or something similar.

  Westy stooped over one of the soldiers, and we all forgot ourselves and gathered around him. The soldier’s black visor made him appear as menacing as the man who had tried to kill me, even though he was clearly dead.

  ‘Scary looking ain’t they,’ Sam said, ‘Considering they’re wearing pink.’

  ‘Might as well see what the bastards look like,’ Westy said and he pulled the soldier’s respirator away from his face. We gasped.

  ‘I told you, they’re Cyborgs,’ Stevo stepped back from the monstrosity before us. It was clearly a human, but with black devices covering its mouth, nose, eyes and ears.

  ‘Shit, man,’ Ray exclaimed, ‘Look at him!’

  Undeterred, Westy grabbed the device that covered the soldier’s mouth and pulled it away. It detached from the soldiers skin as if it had been stuck on with glue. Westy pulled more of the devices away and we looked down at what was finally revealed.

  ‘He’s just a boy,’ I said. He wasn’t a Cyborg at all, and he couldn’t have been any older than nineteen, like most of us.

  ‘I didn’t think they’d look like that,’ Ray said.

  ‘Well what did you expect them to look like?’ Sam asked.

  Ray shrugged, ‘I just didn’t think they’d look like us.’

  ‘They’re not aliens, mate.’

  ‘So what are all these things that were stuck to him?’ Brown picked up the device that had covered the Chinese soldier’s eyes and turned it over in his hands.

  ‘Who knows,’ Westy said, and he patrolled off again. One by one we followed on, and Brown threw the device over his shoulder.

  I spared a final glance at the face of our enemy.

  ‘Not so tough looking now, is he?’ Sam said.

  ‘He looks peaceful,’ I replied, not looking away from the boy’s face, ‘It’s almost like he’s asleep.’

  Sam nodded, ‘come on then, you’d better get going.’

  I followed on after Brown.

  ‘We’re approaching friendly forces,’ Westy announced over the section intercom after a few minutes, ‘Don’t shoot anyone unless he wears pink.’

  Sure enough, above us I noticed a Unio
n helmet pop up along the skyline. The trooper gave a thumbs up, which was returned in kind by Westy and then the helmet was gone again.

  Our patrol took us along the re-entrant until Westy turned a right and we climbed up a steep slope. As I crested the top of the slope I could see the extent of 4th battalion’s defensive position around the warren entrance. Amongst the farmland at the base of hill Bravo I caught glimpses of communication antennae, vehicles and troops arranged into a formation kilometres across with a flying Union flag at its centre. The dark blue flag and its golden stars were instantly recognisable against the red New Earth landscape as it flapped in the wind.

  I spotted the entrance to the warren a few hundred metres away. It was a large hole cut into the side of the hill surrounded by rubble from where the Chinese had blown it up to slow us down. Excavation equipment sat idle close by while engineers scurried about performing unknown tasks.

  I gulped as we approached the warren entrance. Down inside that dark gaping tunnel the battle for Jersey Island still raged beneath tonnes of earth and rock. A little voice at the back of my head screamed for me to do something to prevent my descent, shoot my foot, bluff a leg injury or try running away… But still my legs moved, ignoring that little voice with every step.

  The opening to the warren was as foreboding as the entrance to the lair of some alien beast. A perfectly round tunnel some ten metres in diameter had been bored into the ground with great precision, running at an angle downward for a few hundred metres before turning off to the right. I peered into the tunnel whilst the rest of the platoon patrolled in and crowded round to receive our brief by guides sent up by 4th battalion to lead the platoon below ground. It was bare, with ribbed walls created by the machine that had cut it out of the rock. A series of red fluorescent bulbs ran along its ceiling, bathing the tunnel in a red glow similar to that of a drop ship crew compartment which served only to enhance its menace.

  The guides were coated in red dust from head to toe, and their visors were smeared and scratched from where they had been constantly wiping it away in order to see. There were three of them, with a lance corporal in charge. Their eyes were sunken and weary from hours of fighting in the dark below and occasionally when they met the gaze of me and the other lads they would glare back with hatred. Regardless of what we had been through, we hadn’t experienced what they had, and they hated us for it. We were just replacements to them, filling dead men’s shoes.

  ‘The main tunnels are like this one,’ the lead guide explained to the boss in a thick northern accent, ‘They’re just large enough for vehicles, but there’s smaller tunnels down there big enough for two blokes to walk side by side. Most of the lighting is out too. Night vision all the way.’

  ‘What’s it like down there?’ the boss asked, meaning what was the fighting like. We listened anxiously, most of us had never experienced combat underground. Sergeant Evans flicked mud from his boots with his bayonet.

  The guide regarded the boss for several seconds, as if deciding whether or not he was worth sharing his experiences with, ‘Boss, I ain’t gonna lie to you, it’s pretty bad, like. Everything is booby trapped, the pinkies hear a peep and they blow out the tunnels. You’s’ll get more info off the OC.’

  Sergeant Evans didn’t seem bothered by the guide’s warning, or at least if he was he hid it well. Instead he thumbed nonchalantly toward the entrance, ‘Shall we get on with it, then?’

  ‘Yeah,’ the guide signalled toward his comrades to prepare to move. He then looked at each of us in turn as he gave us the score. ‘Fellas, when you’s follow me, make sure you keep a ten to fifteen metre space between you’s all. Don’t bunch up, coz if we get bumped and we’re bunched up like sardines everybody gets a bit. Keep checking behind for your mate coz if one of you’s takes a wrong turn it’s easy to get lost. We’ve marked the route down anyway, so you shouldn’t get lost. If you do, just stop and wait where you are, we’ll come back for you’s. Lastly fellas, keep the noise down and de-activate all electronic equipment you ain’t using, the pinkies pick you up through the walls and then we’re mince. Good to go?’

  The boss nodded, ‘Let’s do it.’

  One by one, with two guides at the front of the platoon and one at the rear we patrolled down into the gaping mouth of the warren, and as I walked down into the abyss I remember wondering if I would ever see daylight again.

  A few metres into the tunnel sat two metal signs, left by one of our engineers.

  The first read, ‘Welcome to the Hill Bravo Warrens, courtesy of 4th Battalion the English Dropship Regiment.’

  I read the second, and shivered, ‘As I walk into the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For God is with me.’

  ‘This is mental,’ I whispered to myself.

  We deactivated virtually all of our equipment. Rifles were powered down, so that the magnetic fields they generated could not be detected. The section intercom would be kept on standby, and would not be used except in emergencies. Chinese engineers, like ours, would be constantly scanning for their enemy in neighbouring tunnels. Even though I could be sure that the entrance tunnel had been secured, it felt as though the very walls around me were now the enemy, and in some ways they were.

  As I patrolled down a good ten metres behind the man in front, who was Brown, I turned one last time to look at the light of the surface. Behind me Sam walked, his face hidden behind his visor. He nodded at me in the dim light, and gave me a thumbs up. I turned the bend in the descending tunnel, and that was the last time I saw daylight.

  A walkway began a few metres beyond the bend, it felt slightly padded beneath my feet as I walked on it, almost like a gym matt. I knew from FIWAC lessons in training that it was a specially designed material laid by either our engineers or the Chinese before us to dampen the vibrations created by troops running or walking in the tunnels. The slightest vibration could easily be detected from hundreds of metres away by a keen listener with a few gadgets to hand, and the information could be used by the enemy to decipher troop movements.

  My respirator visor automatically switched to night vision as the light became too poor to distinguish my surroundings. Instead of the dim red glow of the tunnel lights, everything became a light green instead. Lights danced about the tunnel from the section’s rifle mounted infra-red torches, invisible to the naked eye. I activated the torch on my rifle, scanning my surroundings as I walked. The lights cast shadows across the tunnel, creating dark figures against the walls which would jump from one side to another and circle around us, like ghouls mocking us as we walked down toward hell itself. The ribbing on the tunnel walls was further exaggerated so that it took the appearance of the throat of some horrible creature.

  Ahead, the platoon halted. I took a knee on the walkway, and with my left hand signalled back to Sam with a downward gesture to do likewise. We sat in silence in the tunnel, alone to our thoughts.

  Brown looked back at me and tapped his helmet, which was a patrol signal that meant ‘Close in.’

  I looked back at Sam, repeating the hand signal, and then closed up toward Westy and the rest of the platoon.

  We bunched together as a platoon in a long line, our weapons in the aim and scanning the dark in all directions. Nothing was inconceivable in underground warfare; it was entirely possible for the Chinese to somehow find a way to attack from behind. We had to assume the enemy was capable of anything, and then just hope that he wasn’t.

  The rear guide was the last man to join our formation. The message was quietly passed up the line to announce his safe arrival, then Sergeant Evans quickly counted that the platoon was complete and nobody was missing. It wasn’t unheard of for troopers to end up walking kilometres into tunnels on their own before realising they had lost their platoon, particularly if they weren’t paying attention.

  ‘That’s everyone in,’ the platoon sergeant whispered to the boss at the front of the line.

  The boss acknowledged, ‘Roger.’

  ‘The tunnel z
igzags for another five hundred metres,’ the guide briefed the boss, pointing with an outstretched arm into the darkness, ‘Then there’s a separate tunnel leading off into a defence complex. Battalion headquarters is located there.’

  The boss nodded, ‘Okay.’

  The guide continued, ‘I’ll take you’s in as far as battalion, then you should get taken on from there to the relevant company.’

  ‘Roger.’

  The boss and all of the NCOs consulted their maps on their wristpads as we sat observing the dark tunnel, making sure that they understood the layout of the warren. I listened intently for sounds of the enemy, my headphones would amplify any sounds so that I would have heard a whisper hundreds of metres away, but I heard nothing. The tunnel was as silent as a tomb. Despite the relative inactivity, my heart was pumping like crazy, pounding against my rib cage.

  That wasn’t my first time underground. On Uralis the FIWAC training phase had been almost a month long, preparing us for a tactic that had become increasingly common in modern interstellar warfare. The warren complex we used to train on Uralis was almost identical, if perhaps a little smaller. Entire divisions could be hidden in the complex networks of tunnels that ran for kilometres in all directions. Normally the tunnel we were in would have been a major access tunnel, probably used very recently when the Chinese retreated underground and blew the entrance.

  ‘Just like Uralis, but twenty times as spooky,’ Sam sounded foreboding as he whispered close to my ear.

  ‘I don’t like it down here one bit,’ Brown said.

  One of the guides snorted, ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet.’

  My blood boiled. I thought to mention our battle on the surface and all of the friends and comrades we had lost, but bit my tongue. Arguing wasn’t going to achieve anything, except maybe earn me a punch from either Sam or Westy. Besides, how was I to rate what it was like down there? We hadn’t done anything yet, and I was already scared.