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

by Richards, Phillip

  ‘You!’ Westy jabbed a finger at him.

  Stevo started, ‘Westy I…,’

  The Welshman launched at him, throwing a powerful punch that connected with his respirator mouth piece and sent him sprawling to the ground. Everyone, even the sergeant major stepped back in surprise as Stevo desperately tried to correct the broken seal to his respirator.

  ‘You fucking coward!’ Westy gripped Stevo by the collar and lifted him, his biceps bulging through the remaining material of his sleeves as he brought the stunned trooper close to his face.

  ‘You fucking ran, don’t you dare fucking lie to me! You fucking ran and you left us to die!’

  ‘That’s enough, Corporal,’ the sergeant major warned, but Westy ignored him, shaking Stevo furiously like a child would shake a toy.

  ‘Jimmy died because of you! You left him to die, you bastard!’ His voice was breaking.

  Gingerly I stepped closer and placed a hand on my section commander’s shoulder, ‘Westy, come on mate, it’s not worth it.’

  As if suddenly broken from a spell, Westy seemed to become conscious of us all watching him, as well as the disapproving gaze of the sergeant major. He let go of Stevo like his hands had been burnt, allowing the trooper to collapse to the ground in a crumpled heap clutching at his throat.

  ‘They’re all dead. All of them,’ Westy dropped to his knees and sobbed.

  The platoon began to move off again into the night, as we stared at our section commander in disbelief.

  I had never had a chance to get to know Westy properly before I was thrust into his section by the sudden and brutal destruction of my own. The men he had commanded and worked with loved him because he loved them back in equal measure. That was his greatest strength, and it seemed, his greatest weakness. I always saw our section commanders to be invincible, gods amongst men. But finally I saw Westy for what he really was, a scared young man who had lost all of his friends.

  ‘Westy, what’s going on, mate?’ Sergeant Evans emerged from the dark. He was following up the rear of the platoon, in case anybody became separated.

  Westy caught his sobs and sniffed, ‘Nothing.’

  Sergeant Evans knew that Westy was lying, ‘Well get up, then, mate. We haven’t got the time.’

  Westy picked himself up, ‘Prepare to move, boys.’

  We were still in shock, and murmured the command back to nobody in particular as a natural reflex. Brown helped Stevo up from the ground as we prepared to patrol off again, picking up the rear of the platoon.

  ‘I’ll speak to you later, Stevo,’ Sergeant Evans said darkly, then, to the sergeant major, ‘Last man, one platoon.’

  ‘Good, thank you Sergeant,’ the sergeant major replied, then turned to Westy. He spoke three words that carried with them the experience of a man who had seen it all before, ‘Carry on, Corporal.’

  Westy straightened, ‘Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir.’

  ‘You don’t need to be sorry, son, get your men moving.’

  ‘You’ve got two new blokes,’ Sergeant Evans said, pointing toward two troopers who waited amongst the company rendezvous. My visor identified them as Brooks and Daniels, two troopers whose sections hadn’t taken casualties and so had men to spare. The company was forming into lines so that it could be re-organised for battle. Troopers chatted quietly in the dark while they waited, and others stared blankly into space, perhaps reliving some moment within the depths of the warrens. Somewhere on the horizon something big was burning and the glow flickered against the clouds.

  Westy tapped the details of the two new attachments into his wristpad, ‘That puts me up to six,’ he said flatly.

  Sergeant Evans nodded, ‘I also need you to nominate a new 2ic, mate, the ammo’s here and I’ll need help to sort it.’

  Brown was the only obvious choice for Westy to take. He certainly couldn’t chose Stevo to be his 2ic, who had run from the Chinese in the tunnels, not stopping until he was collared trying to escape through one of the warrens many openings to the surface. He couldn’t choose Brooks or Daniels, who he didn’t even know and who I suspected weren’t senior to Brown anyway.

  ‘Moralee,’ Westy pointed to me, and my jaw dropped. Instantly I looked across to Brown, expecting him to explode, but the darkness hid his expression beneath his visor, and he said nothing.

  I made to protest, but was abruptly cut short by Sergeant Evans, ‘Come on, then, Moralee. Let’s get your ammo.’

  I followed him gloomily into the centre of the rendezvous, where the CSM and his work party were unloading ammunition from a buggy and placing it into three distinctive piles, one for each platoon. Troopers scurried about the piles taking ammo away and returning the empty crates under the supervision of their platoon sergeants.

  ‘Westy will keep a close eye on you,’ Sergeant Evans said, counting out the crates and separating the different ammunition types, ‘Any dramas or questions, you ask him, or me.’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant,’ I said, withering under his gaze. He hated me, and probably wondered why on earth Westy had chosen me to be his 2ic. I was wondering the same thing.

  The tall platoon sergeant held up two fingers, ‘Two things I want you to be all over, ammunition and casualties,’ he stressed each word, ‘Make sure you’re constantly checking and updating your ammo state so I have a constant feed. Ensure that casualties are reported up the chain instantly, the more information you get up the better. Don’t rely on the casualty information passed up automatically by their wristpads, physically check.’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant,’ I said grimly.

  He dropped several crates at my feet, ‘That’s your lot. There’s a salvaged mammoth on the buggy too, so you’ll have two guns again.’ He paused, remembering something, and took a commander’s wristpad out from his daysack, ‘I almost forgot, you’ll need this.’

  I took the wristpad and carefully turned it over in my hands as if I had never seen one before. It was the same as the one that I wore, but had many other functions tailored specifically to commanders. It was Sam’s, and Chammy’s before that.

  ‘Upload me your ammo state when you know it,’ he said, and he was gone, in search of the other two section 2ics.

  I realised that Brown was behind me, watching me blankly. I wasn’t sure if I should expect to fight, and when Brown made no move I threw up my arms, ‘Why me?’

  Brown shrugged, ‘Why not you?’

  ‘I’m a crow!’ I hissed, ‘Nobody’s been in as short a time as me!’ I pointed a finger at Stevo, who was sat on his daysack staring at the ground, ‘Stevo’s senior to me by four years!’

  ‘He’s also a coward,’ Brown retorted, ‘God only knows what he did to get Jimmy killed.’

  ‘You’re senior to me.’

  Brown sighed, ‘By what, a few months?’

  ‘But you’re still senior,’ I insisted, ‘Who’s gonna do what I tell them? I’m no good.’

  ‘What about what happened in the tunnels?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘When we got hit and you charged the pinkies? Then when you lead that attack in the hanger? Have you not seen how the lads look at you now?’

  I shook my head, not sure where Brown was going with it.

  ‘They’re in awe of you. They’re saying that the darts parted around you like you were being protected by God or something. They say you charged the pinkies with so much rage that they broke and run.’

  I sneered, ‘That’s a load of shit and you know it. What about what happened on Challenger, doesn’t that bother you? What about Woody?’

  Brown laughed harshly, ‘Who cares about Woody, anymore? What happened on Challenger is history. We’re in a war zone, Moralee.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to climb up the ranks. Wasn’t that what being mates with Woody was all about?’ I almost flinched, expecting for Brown to lash out.

  Brown simply sighed, ‘Maybe. Look, I’m a follower, not a leader,’ Brown said, ‘And God knows my moral compass leads me off course. Maybe you aren’t the best ch
oice for 2ic, but if it’s out of the five of us it has to be you.’

  Defeated, I sighed, ‘Fuck.’

  Brown grinned, his teeth just visible in the dark, ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well,’ I paused, thinking, ‘Give me a hand with the ammo?’ I half expected him to walk off.

  ‘No problem,’ he said, and he began to strip open the crates that lay at our feet, ‘You know I heard the boss was talking about writing you and Sam up? You may get medals for that charge you did.’

  This time it was me who laughed harshly, ‘Who cares about medals? We’ll be lucky if we get off this rock, and I certainly don’t deserve any medals.’

  ‘Does anybody deserve a medal for this war? Better you than someone else.’

  We worked for at least an hour, re-distributing ammunition and equipment. The replacement mammoth gun was given to Brooks, with Brown still carrying the other, but there was no grenade launcher other than the one carried by Westy. Sam had the other, but through the chaos he had been evacuated with it and there was little chance or time for us to get it back.

  I had a chance to see a medic for my arm, which was just as well as he told me I was risking blood poisoning from not cleaning it properly.

  ‘You’ve got to clean the clotting agent out or it won’t heal,’ the medic told me sternly. I winced as he cleaned out the wound with a white gloved hand, ‘We’ve got enough to deal with without you lot not looking after yourselves.’

  ‘I was kind of busy,’ I replied curtly, but the medic only laughed.

  ‘Haven’t we all, mate, haven’t we all.’

  I was about to tell him where to go, until I noticed the blood that coated his combats.

  ‘What’s it like in the aid post?’ I asked, wondering what conditions my wounded comrades had to endure. I hoped that Peters had survived, along with Greggerson and Sam. Supposedly the aid post, once fully established, was as good as any medical facility on our ships, since it remained too dangerous to attempt to leave the atmosphere with casualties. If troopers knew they would be cared for if they were injured, they would fight better, and so medical treatment was a high priority.

  The medic shook his head as he finished packing the gouge in my arm and began to wrap it with a bandage, ‘I don’t know, mate. I’m a combat medic, I hand the casualties over before I get anywhere near that far back.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The medic smiled, ‘You’re new, right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ was it that obvious?

  ‘And carrying a commander’s wristpad already?’ He nodded at my forearm, ‘Either you’re awesome, or things aren’t going so well.’

  I bristled, who was he to talk like it was all some big cosmic joke? Friends of mine had died.

  The medic noticed my annoyance and patted my good arm, ‘I meant no harm, mate,’ he smiled.

  I let the medic finish wrapping my arm without a word. When he was finished he patted my shoulder gently.

  ‘There you are, mate, good as new.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Hopefully I won’t see you again.’

  It took me a second to understand what he meant, ‘Yeah, hopefully,’ I hesitated, ‘What’s it like, being a medic?’

  ‘Like dying a little bit every hour,’ he said sadly, and then he was gone to his next patient. I watched as the blood-soaked medic changed his gloves and got back to his work.

  18: The Trenches

  When you have a digital clock in the corner of your vision it can be hard not to find yourself just staring at it slowly ticking the seconds away into minutes and then hours. We were sat in our dropship for a long time, having loaded not long after my arm was bandaged. We were thrown about as it rapidly and unpredictably manoeuvred itself across the surface of New Earth.

  Westy kept us briefed on what the dropship crew were doing, moving to the rear of the 2nd Danish Gravtank Battalion as they swept across the rolling hills of Jersey Island’s coast, probing forward, waiting, probing again. Although we could have probably covered the length of the island in only a couple of minutes we were taking hours to cover only a couple of kilometres. Occasionally the company would stop and dismount into the dark on some lonely hillside only to scan with our smart launchers and visors for what seemed like hours on end, watching grey clouds slowly drift across the ink black sky.

  ‘How long do you think this will go on for?’ I asked Westy as we loaded back into the dropship for the umpteenth time.

  ‘I dunno,’ Westy replied flatly, ‘It’s only a few kilometres between Hill Bravo and the city, but we’re sort of hooking around to the western flank in a big circle.’

  ‘It’s doing my head in,’ I complained to nobody in particular, ‘Let’s just get on with it.’

  ‘No point in rushing death, mate,’ Westy said ominously, and Brooks gulped. Apparently Brooks and Daniels had been very lucky up until then, their sections had - through nobody’s fault - avoided most of the combat in the tunnels and they appeared nervous.

  Every now and then the dropship vibrated as it fired a burst of vulcan at something. Westy would warn us of incoming missiles, but there’s little you can do about it except pray to your God and hope for the best.

  Westy had become quiet since his outburst, barely speaking unless to tell us what was going on. He wouldn’t even make eye contact with us if he could help it, and we respected his need for space. Stevo did his best to pretend not to exist, so as not to further enrage the Welshman. I wondered what he had done to cause the death of the section’s old MAM-G gunner Jimmy, and decided that when the time was right I would ask Westy.

  ‘Are you Moralee?’ Brooks asked after a prolonged period during which we sat in the crew compartment in silence. I nodded, slightly irritated by the question. Surely he knew my name from his visor display.

  ‘The Moralee?’ Daniels’ eyes widened.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied curtly, beginning to become annoyed. Brown grinned.

  ‘We’ve heard about you,’ Brooks said, ‘You saved the company.’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far, there were others with me.’

  ‘Who were they?’ They were eager for a story. Troopers were obsessed with rumours and tall tales. They thrived upon it.

  ‘Sam Wakefield,’ I said, remembering my old section 2ic. I wished he was in the dropship with us, so that the responsibility no longer rested on my shoulders. He could have done the job with his eyes closed, but instead he was somewhere in the medical chain, along with Greggerson, Peters and many, many others.

  ‘What happened to him, then?’

  Westy bristled, ‘Shut up, Brooks.’

  Brooks looked down to the ground like a scolded child and the crew compartment fell back into silence. I went back to watching the clock on my visor display ticking the seconds away until battle would resume.

  Finally, after what seemed like an age, the dropship came to a halt and its door lowered for the last time.

  ‘That’s us at the drop-off point,’ Westy told us all as we dismounted into the dark, our visors instantly flicking to night vision as we did so. We weren’t to dismount straight into the battle this time. Jersey City was just shy of five kilometres away to our East and we would make the rest of the journey on foot. In the darkness I could see the three platoons that formed the company all exiting their dropships and preparing to move off.

  ‘Happy, Moralee?’ I realised Westy had taken a knee beside me in the gloom.

  ‘Yeah,’ I lied. Why couldn’t Brown be 2ic?

  ‘I need you to bring up the rear of the section, just to make sure nobody wanders off,’ he said. It was often standard procedure at night for 2ics to be at or near the rear of their sections just in case the unthinkable happened and somebody somehow disappeared, but I was pretty sure he was talking about Stevo.

  ‘No worries,’ I replied.

  Westy nodded toward the first platoon of the company to move off into the night, ‘That’s us off, then.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  �
�What’s your first name, Moralee?’

  Nobody had wanted to know my first name since Climo, and I was honoured that a section commander would want to know it, ‘Andy.’

  ‘You’ve had a shit time here, Andy,’ Westy said, and waited for my reply, but I said nothing, ‘You did well in the tunnels. It was noticed.’

  So many had died or been wounded, it felt criminal to accept any form of praise. I said nothing and finally Westy nodded, accepting that silence was my reply. He clapped a hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Let’s get this done, then, Andy.’

  We patrolled into the night, toward Jersey City.

  #

  We patrolled for over an hour in pitch darkness until we reached a forward slope that covered us from the last kilometre of open ground to Jersey City. In the green image created by my visor’s night vision I could see the other platoons forming up on the slope.

  I could hear the sound of our fire support from somewhere off to our northern flank, and a quick glance over to my left allowed my visor to mark the fire support location with a hollow blue square and a number to indicate the range, two kilometres. The fire support was too far away for me to make it out, or for my target computer to bother marking the passage of any ammunition, but I knew which weapons were being used by their sound. Vulcan from a distance could be mistaken for the sound of a power drill cutting through a wall, as it fired so rapidly. Rail guns would make a thumping sound from far away, caused by overpressure created by the magnetised round as it exited the barrel, and would then be followed not long after by a whump noise that announced its impact upon its intended target.

  We were part of a great deception plan cooked up by the brigade commander, we had been told. Several battalions of dropships and squadrons of gravtanks had encircled the city and had begun pounding it with everything they had, softening the enemy ready for the dropships to charge in with their troopers to finish the job. The Chinese, who would have monitored our movements, would be ready for us. But the dropship charge was never going to come, because the 4th battalion - us - were coming in on foot. We had been dropped off by the dropships as they moved to surround the city. The enemy had no reason to suspect that the dropships would unload their troops several kilometres away, instead they would have seen a unit taking a tactical pause to consider its next move for no more than a few minutes.