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

by Richards, Phillip

  Westy took a knee twenty metres from the top of the slope and we formed up behind him in a straight line. Brown and Stevo were with the section commander in Charlie, and I took my place with my Delta fire team behind them. I motioned with my palm for Daniels and Brooks to spread out, they seemed to be drawn close to me and each other like they were magnetised. Bunching together just made you a tasty target for smart missiles and risked the destruction of an entire section, instead of one or two individuals, but those two just didn’t seem to get it. To be honest I didn’t care much for their love affair with each other, they were just two more troopers I expected to die very soon, but I had to try to keep them alive for as long as I could. The burden of responsibility for their safety hung heavily upon my shoulders.

  I adjusted my knee position away from a rock that was digging into the bone through my armour, having to put my hand down to the hard, stony ground to stop me from toppling over. My kit was light as it ever was, but my tired, aching muscles protested with every movement I made, even something as simple as balancing in the kneeling position had become an effort. My arm, slowly healing under a fresh dressing, throbbed more than ever. I was tired, as we all were, perhaps because we sensed that it was almost all over, one way or another.

  A cold, fresh wind breezed against my neck; it was minus one that night, an improvement on the previous night but still enough to cut into my skin through my damaged armour. I shivered.

  Twenty metres to our front the slope crested and the ground disappeared beyond it. Above us the clouded sky occasionally flickered with light as unmanned aircraft duelled out of sight and well out of range. I knew from our orders that the ground beyond to the east dropped gently away down toward the city, with a few small hills and streams that offered very little, if any cover at all. To our north was a large high feature which had been appropriately named Table-top Hill for its rectangular plateau. Fire support had been located upon the hill and was largely composed of gravtanks and a few infantry based artillery platforms including. To our west rolling hills and deep valleys had allowed us to approach out of sight in the dead ground, but once we moved over the slope that cover would be no more and we would be at the mercy of the Chinese.

  ‘Westy, in position,’ Westy announced over the platoon net. As the section 2ic now, I could listen in to platoon net chatter at the same time as the section intercom.

  The other two section commanders reported that they too were ready. They crouched in lines parallel to ours that ran back down the slope.

  ‘Roger that,’ the boss answered rather un-enthusiastically, ‘H-Hour-plus-five in thirty seconds.’

  I glanced briefly at the digital clock on my visor display. ‘H’ hour had been when the fire support had moved into position to engage and we had begun to form up on the slope. At H-plus-five minutes, the hulking battleship Hamburg would begin its barrage from high in orbit down onto the battlefield. It had two tasks, one of which played its part within the brigadier’s deception plan. Its primary target would be the Chinese anti-air defences and other key positions within and around the city, but it would also drop a few bombs short into the open ground between them and us. The resulting craters would create a route for us to use to push across to the city without being cut to ribbons. The pinkies, whose attention would be diverted to the dropships forming up around the city, would never notice the dismounted troops creeping forward through the smouldering craters until it was too late - in theory.

  We waited in silence. My heart pumped against my ribcage and tendons tensed across my body in anticipation. Explosions from within the city thumped like the beating of drums.

  ‘Five seconds,’ the boss said.

  I looked back at Daniels and Brooks; they were both staring toward the sky. The silly bastards should have been observing outwards for enemy infiltration, and I thought to give them a shout to pay attention to the task at hand, but instead I turned my head up to the sky to watch the initiation of our assault onto Jersey City.

  ‘Rounds in the air, rounds in the air!’ The boss warned. We watched on.

  The clouds flashed brightly as the first round broke through into the atmosphere, burning at temperatures as hot as a sun as it streaked toward the ground like a meteor. It disappeared behind the top of the slope just as another dropped from the sky.

  The flash from the impact was not as spectacular as that of the round’s entry to the atmosphere, but it was the sound of the explosion that followed seconds later that told of its power.

  The blast knocked several troopers over, and caused me to have to put my hand down again to steady myself from falling too. A layer of New Earth dust leapt a few centimetres off the ground and then carried away with the wind.

  Whump! Another round. Whump! Whump!

  I placed both hands down and knelt on both of my knees as the barrage continued.

  Daniels cursed from behind me off the section intercom. I guessed he had fallen over, but didn’t look. Clouds of smoke and ash billowed into the sky.

  You have to see and feel an orbital bombardment at close range to believe how truly awesome it is. I had seen it before, but never so close. I stared in fascination at the spectacle, forgetting myself.

  The bombardment went on for several minutes until the order to prepare to move was given by the platoon commander.

  ‘Prepare to move,’ Westy copied onto the section intercom. I pulled myself together; taking a grip of my rifle again with both hands and looking to check my fire team were okay. We checked our safety catches and pouches instinctively.

  ‘We will move off behind two platoon,’ the boss ordered, ‘Jonesy, acknowledge.’

  One section’s section commander answered, ‘Roger.’

  ‘Two platoon are moving off now.’

  Sure enough a line of troopers were running up between the dropships and over the slope a hundred metres to my right.

  For a few seconds I felt a wave of fear as I realised I was going back into harm’s way again. I fought it away, reminding myself that I had lost so many of my nine lives already; I was probably a dead man anyway. After what I had been through it was probably better that way. How could I go home to Earth, to Portsmouth and my family having seen and done what I had done? I was a million miles from home, both physically and in my mind. That horrible world of pain and misery was where I belonged, and it was where I believed I would die.

  ‘That’s One section moving off now, Two section follow on!’

  We picked ourselves up and ran after our lead section in single file, passing more waiting troopers and cresting the top of the slope.

  On that dark night Jersey City appeared menacing. As it came into view I saw great black pillars of smoke that drifted slowly off into the wind. From amongst black silhouetted buildings small fires burned and sparks showered from the impact of rail gun shells.

  The dark shadows of troopers dropped away from me in a straight line into the low ground that separated us from the city. In my image intensified view I could identify the craters created by Hamburg. There were loads of them, and we were dropping down into them for cover.

  The warship’s bombardment had finished, I noticed. She had completed her task over the city, but there were many other tasks for her elsewhere, as the remaining brigades of the division pushed north to force the enemy off of Jersey Island completely. We just weren’t high enough a priority for her to stay. The thought left a bitter taste, so I pushed it to the back of my mind as I ran.

  ‘Stay close, lads,’ the platoon commander was panting from up front with the lead section, ‘Make sure your boys don’t drop back, I can’t afford a split platoon!’

  I wondered when to expect the first round of incoming; surely the pinkies had noticed the company coming over the slope? I sped up as I approached the first crater, eager to get myself out of line of sight from the city. It was a good twenty or so metres across and five deep, I estimated, smouldering and glowing in places. I leapt down into the crater, skidding on loose rocks when
I landed. I was very conscious that if I was to fall on my arse it wouldn’t kill me, but the glowing hot rocks would really hurt, and probably damage my armour.

  ‘Close up!’ Westy ordered from the far side of the crater. My visor indicated him for me and I headed straight for him, my boots crunching the churned earth.

  I moved right up behind Brown and then counted Daniels and Brooks as they came in, ‘All here, Westy.’

  ‘Okay, cheers,’ he replied, ‘Boss, this is Westy, that’s my lads in.’

  ‘Roger,’ the boss was right up on the edge of the crater, presumably watching two platoon bound forward into their next piece of cover as quickly as they could. The ground was flat as a pancake on the approach to the city and Hamburg didn’t have enough shells to make us a trench out of craters that ran all the way into the city.

  ‘Close right up, lads, stay low,’ Westy ordered, ‘Better down here than up there.’

  I wasn’t so sure I agreed, on the one side we were exposed and easy targets in the open ground, but on the other we were bunched together like sardines in the crater. One smart missile would have us all going home in boxes.

  ‘I can’t believe the pinkies haven’t worked out what we’re doing,’ Brown said to nobody in particular.

  ‘Fire support must have them distracted,’ I said. The Chinese should easily have been able to spot us, but they had been hacked at by rail guns and vulcan, and then battered by an orbital barrage. All of their attention was diverted away from us, or at least that was what we were hoping.

  ‘We will bound forward through two platoon to the next bit of cover, One, Two, Three section acknowledge,’ the boss looked down into the crater and waited for the commanders to answer up over the intercom.

  ‘One, roger.’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  We scrabbled up the side of the crater using our rifles like walking sticks so as not to put our hands on the scorched earth. On Uralis some of our instructors would probably have had a fit over such a terrible misuse of our rifles, but if one of us had a negligent discharge and shot himself, he would probably have done himself a favour anyway.

  ‘This is pump,’ I heard somebody say as we ran across the open ground toward two platoon’s crater a hundred metres ahead, and I smiled grimly. The universal phrase of the English speaking armies was never so much of an understatement as it was on New Earth!

  As if to show us all that things could always get worse, it began to rain. Droplets of water bounced off my visor as I ran behind Brown and the rest of the platoon.

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ I cursed at the rain as we went firm in another crater. The boss put One section up on the forward edge to observe, as our sister platoon leap-frogged past us.

  ‘Wouldn’t have it any other way,’ Brown replied sarcastically, quoting a phrase loved by drop trooper instructors, ‘If it ain’t raining it ain’t training.’

  ‘Well it ain’t training is it?’ I retorted, but Brown’s sarcasm cheered me.

  We continued to move across the open ground taking turns to move as platoons, with the third platoon that made up the company bringing up the rear a bound behind us. Sometimes we would find natural cover to occupy, like a small hill or river bank, sometimes we would use the craters, and other times we would be forced to spread ourselves out in the open and just hope for the best.

  As we drew closer the buildings at the western edge of the city became distinguishable. It was still half a kilometre away, but nevertheless I thanked God for every ten metres we covered without drawing enemy fire, the closer we were, the less ground we would have to cover when it all went noisy.

  We were a good three hundred metres away from the city when it went noisy - and God did it do just that.

  Two platoon came under contact from only a hundred metres to their front. I heard the crack of gunfire, and my visor marked the passage of enemy darts with red lines that streaked between the advancing troopers and through the bodies of others, their shadowy figures crumpling to the ground. It was hard to tell though who had been hit and who was simply taking cover.

  We were exposed and in the open, and two platoon, who were to our forward left, were directly between us and the contact point. Even with our modern targeting systems the risk of blue-on-blue was too great to risk. We hugged the ground as Westy cursed over the roar of the rain and gunfire. Little rocks dug into my ribs and belly where I lay, but I ignored them, my eyes fixed on the unfortunate platoon as they reacted to the contact.

  However unfortunate they were, they had obviously anticipated and prepared for contact on the route in as we had, and they reacted fast. As soon as the troopers were down the wind carried the sound of a section commander giving his fire control order, his bellowing voice focusing his trooper’s fire where he wanted it and taking control of the fire fight.

  The battlefield erupted with gunfire as two platoon’s lead section began to suppress their enemy, but we still could not assist them. Unable to give fire support we could only watch and listen whilst Westy swore. He shouted at nobody in particular, not in fear but dismay at the situation we had found ourselves in, ‘Boss, it’s Westy, I can’t engage from here, we need to move!’

  The Welshman’s voice was urgent and almost an order, but the boss was having none of it. His response was abrupt and left no room for argument, ‘No, wait.’

  To the right of where me and the rest of the section lay in cover, the boss was watching the contact unfold intently. He would be listening to the contact report sent by two platoon’s commander on the company net, a communication channel even higher than the one I was now able to listen to, and planning how best to assault if needed. I was beginning to trust our platoon commander, and I was beginning to realise that he was making decisions that many of us would be too afraid to make. I sometimes wonder what might have happened had he sent Two section to Corporal Evans’ aid before his section was wiped out, would the entire platoon have been destroyed before the gravtank reached us? I think Westy trusted the boss too, because he stopped cursing after that.

  ‘There is a trench and burrow system a hundred metres to our front,’ the boss announced across the section intercoms, ‘Two platoon are going to affect the…,’ an almighty explosion cut him short. Sparks flew from the direction of the enemy trenches, and I could swear I heard the scream of a Chinese soldier. Vulcan raked the ground in front of us.

  ‘Two platoon are going to affect the break in with fire support from the gravtanks,’ he continued as we were showered in tiny stones blown into the air by the blast, ‘We will then echelon through them and assault onto depth positions.’

  I could already make out two platoon fire and manoeuvring forward toward the trenches, each trooper zigzagging as he ran before taking cover again and firing. Grenades and smart missiles were fired into the trenches as the platoon bounded forward, steeling whatever initiative the enemy had.

  The pinkies had been caught off guard, upon being bombarded from orbit they had retreated into their burrows for safety and had only just returned to their positions by the time we were upon them. Instead of giving them a position to fight us from, they had instead given us some cover to occupy, so long as we could get into the trench system and clear it.

  The break in was announced by a string of grenades detonating from within the trenches. I could tell they were hand thrown grenades by the sound they made, much louder than their rifle launched counterpart. They were shortly followed by rapid gunfire, as the troopers who had thrown the grenades stormed into the trench and laid waste to any stunned or wounded enemy they came across.

  Unable to help our comrades in their assault we lay motionless, looking into the dark city skyline for enemy depth positions, or worse an attack from the flanks.

  I looked across at Brown to the right of where I lay. He gave me a thumbs up, which I returned. A glance back at Daniels and Brooks, who lay in fire positions to my left, confirmed that they were
n’t dead.

  We were in a terrible position as a platoon, completely exposed in open ground with nowhere to go. I felt very vulnerable, keeping my body as low as I could get it, however little good it might do me.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ Stevo warned, ‘We should withdraw and come in a different way.’

  ‘Shut up, Stevo,’ me and Westy chorused almost comically. I understood and shared his fear, but his constant whining had become irritating.

  It didn’t take long before the boss was back on the intercom, ‘Right lads, listen in. Two platoon have made their break in and are now clearing through the trench system. Fire support has eyes onto the trench system now.’

  I was shocked that the fire support group, what with all their optical equipment and vantage point, hadn’t had eyes on earlier. We already knew of trench systems and warrens off to the north and east of the city, but how we hadn’t noticed a trench system on our route of approach, considering we had orbital top cover and aircraft operating overhead, was a mystery. Somebody somewhere had clearly made a mistake, I thought.

  ‘There are more trenches to our front, so we are going to crawl toward them until we’re either contacted or we are close enough to assault. One, Two, Three acknowledge.’

  ‘One.’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘The enemy are either too distracted by two platoon or simply haven’t seen us. Either way we will take advantage of the situation. Enforce battlefield discipline, not a peep from the blokes and they stay flat to the deck, Ev acknowledge.’

  ‘Roger,’ Sergeant Evans answered from somewhere at the back of the platoon, ‘You take a casualty, leave them to me and the reserve to pick up. Don’t throw away momentum if a bloke goes man down, lads, or you’ll get spanked in the open.’