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

by Richards, Phillip

  Westy stood, ‘Roger. Browner, let’s go.’

  Browner ran toward the door, drawing a sledgehammer he had taken out of the dropship hours before from his daysack like a man might draw a sword and at the same time Westy took a grenade from his pouch and turned the dial. They stacked up together by the door, weapons at the ready whilst the rest of us closed in behind them.

  Internal doors in the majority of New Earth dwellings, we had been told, were air tight but simple in their construction, since they were not competing against a vacuum. They often swung on hinges and looked like a hybrid between a normal everyday Earth door and that of a fridge. Because of this it was relatively easy to take a locked one down with a sledgehammer - even in this day and age, it’s amazing what you can do when you hit things!

  As Browner raised the sledgehammer, Westy poised to throw his grenade. The section commander tapped him on the shoulder, ‘Do it.’

  Browner swung the sledge with all his might against the door with an almighty crash, but the door barely budged. He hesitated, surprised that the door had withstood the impact.

  ‘Swing it again! Again!’

  Browner struck the door a second time, and again. On the second swing the door seal broke fractionally and on the third a gap just large enough to fit a grenade was formed. Something was propped against the door on the other side. There were beams of light flashing around behind the door and I recognised them instantly- infra-red torches.

  I think the Chinese opened fire slightly before Westy pushed the grenade through the gap, but I couldn’t be sure because everything happened so fast. They sprayed automatic fire into the wall to the wrong side of the door in the mistaken belief that that was where we stood. Fifty-fifty chance - left of the door or right of the door - but they chose wrong. Darts punched holes through the wall as if it was made of paper, and we dove for the ground before they could hit any of us.

  A Chinese voice screamed from through the door.

  Westy had only dropped the grenade on the other side of the door. This wasn’t ideal because it would be possible for the pinkies to throw it back, if it didn’t frag us through the door anyway.

  Realising the danger, Browner quickly grabbed the handle to the door and pulled it shut.

  ‘Browner, no!’ I shouted at my comrade as the rest of the section hugged the ground, but he wasn’t listening, he was too busy fighting a tug of war with somebody on the opposite side.

  The grenade detonated after three seconds, sending the door and Browner crashing to the ground in a cloud of smoke and dust.

  ‘Man down!’ The dreaded words were repeated by every man.

  Immediately after the grenade detonated Westy charged into the room, kicking away the remains of a piece of furniture that must have been used to block the door, firing as he went. Stevo paused, so I shoved him forward after the section commander and then followed as well. I was desperately worried that Browner had been hurt, but my training took over and I knew we had to clear the room or lose the initiative over our enemy.

  The room was as dark as a warren tunnel, forcing us to scan rapidly with our infra-red torches. It was a large lounge-type room that had clearly been used to sleep maybe ten to twenty Chinese soldiers. Thermal bags were strewn across the carpeted floor as well as random items of personal equipment.

  I fired into an upturned table and couch in the centre of the room, possibly used to hide behind as protection from the blast. Splinters and bits of stuffing flew across the room like confetti.

  A Chinaman emerged from a doorway to our left, strafing holes along the southern wall and barely missing me. If I hadn’t been in a half crouch I reckon I would have got one straight in the head. Instinctively I span to face my foe and fired two shots back at him, only I didn’t miss. The two rounds hit him square in the chest, punching straight through his body armour, and he dropped like a stone.

  Brooks entered the room behind me, bringing his mammoth gun to bear on the doorway I had fired into.

  The mammoth spat death, its magnets screaming like banshees as it ate into its ammunition drum. Thankfully my earphones filtered out the terrible noise as he sprayed along the wall with hundreds of supersonic darts. The high velocity nature of our weapons meant that they penetrated walls with ease, but the Chinese shared the ability. Nowhere in the house was safe.

  I checked around the room as Brooks closed on the doorway. Two pinkies had died behind the couch, but by the state of them I figured it had probably been the grenade that had killed them, and not me. Another had died by the door where he had fought against Browner to return the grenade. Only a gory mess remained of him, barely distinguishable as a man. There were two windows on the eastern wall, but both were smashed out and sealed with sandbags.

  ‘Room clear,’ Westy hissed over the intercom, he didn’t want the enemy to know where he was, ‘One enemy dead. One doorway to the north, two blocked windows to the east!’ Westy described to the boss what he needed to know over the platoon intercom.

  The boss was in a squat, leaning around the smashed doorframe we had entered by. If what had happened at the door fazed him, he didn’t show it. Behind him I could see one of the lads in one section lifting the smoking door away from Browner. I spotted movement; he was alive, thank God. The relief was overwhelming.

  The boss nodded, ‘Westy, go again. No engagements to the west. Jonesy, get your boys in cover in-case Westy throws a grenade in there. Ev, have Three section ready to clear onto the top floor. There must be a stairwell here somewhere.’

  ‘Roger that, Boss, they’re at the entry point with me now.’

  We were to assault again into the room to the north, but we had to be careful where we fired, because One section would be in the adjacent room as we entered, and if we weren’t careful we could potentially shoot them through the walls.

  ‘Andy, stay here with Brooks,’ Westy ordered. He crept toward the open doorway with Daniels, ushering Stevo to follow him.

  Westy looked over his shoulder at Brooks and pumped his fist up and down. Brooks recognised the message for rapid fire and instantly responded with another sustained burst, spraying the wall to the left of the doorway where the Chinaman had died by my rifle.

  Using the distraction Westy bounded toward the doorway and lobbed a grenade into the room, throwing it as hard as he could so that it would bounce against the walls and would be impossible to pick up quick enough to throw it back.

  ‘Grenade!’ We collapsed to the ground.

  Boom!

  The grenade exploded, sending a shockwave through the building so powerful that plaster fell from the ceiling and clattered off our helmets. Westy and Brooks were through the door seconds later, followed by Stevo.

  ‘Room clear,’ Westy called over the platoon intercom, ‘One room to the west, plus one stairwell and a window to the east!’

  ‘Roger, the room to your west is occupied by Jonesy’s section so do not engage. Cover the stairwell and the windows.’

  ‘Okay,’ Westy said quietly. The boss’s voice seemed to calm him, as it did me. He was a smooth operator, he rarely seemed to flap.

  ‘Three section move up. Westy keep your blokes spread out and low, remember those walls won’t give you much protection.’

  As Three section filed past with the boss in tow, I took the opportunity to go back to check on Browner. It was one of my many jobs as 2ic to manage my section’s casualties, after all.

  ‘Is Browner okay?’ I asked from the doorway, dreading the answer.

  ‘Yeah,’ one of the one section lads answered from where he continued to cover the hole in the roof, he daren’t not look away even for a split second, ‘Platoon sergeant is having a look at him at the entry point, mate, but he looks fine. The door saved his life.’

  ‘Cheers, mate.’

  I ran back to the entry point looking for Browner, to see him being shaken about like a rag doll on the ground by the platoon sergeant. Initially I feared the worst, but only for few seconds.

&nbs
p; ‘I’m okay, Sergeant,’ he insisted as Sergeant Evans ran his hands over Browner’s limbs and then felt with his fingers under the edges of his armour and around his respirator.

  ‘Not taking any chances,’ he said, and slapped Browner’s helmet a couple of times, ‘Yep, heads still there. Alright, go on, then.’

  I helped Browner to his feet, ‘You lucky bastard!’

  Browner shook himself off in a cloud of dust, ‘That was one tough door!’ He laughed.

  Gunfire rattled overhead, Three section were upstairs.

  ‘Come on, you two,’ Sergeant Evans pointed the way we came, ‘Get back to your section, we’re not finished!’

  We ran back to the section to find the lads attacking the sandbagging that covered the windows with rifle butts and fists.

  ‘Use your bayonets, lads, cut the bags open!’ Westy hacked and slashed at one of the windows with his bayonet, and coarse sand spilt to the ground. Something exploded somewhere outside the building, far away enough for us to be safe, but close enough for us to be alarmed.

  ‘Let’s get some fire going out of this building!’ Sergeant Evans bellowed, stalking the rooms of the lower floor like a caged animal with the taste of blood in its mouth.

  A hole large enough to get a weapon through was created in one of the windows, and glowing orange light flooded into the room. Something outside was burning fiercely.

  ‘Westy! Get a mammoth in that hole!’

  ‘Brooks! Get in there!’

  Brooks set up his MAM-G in the freshly made hole in the sandbags and no sooner had he taken up a fire position when he then opened fire.

  ‘Enemy moving left to right!’ He warned.

  The whole building erupted into noise as more and more of us managed to get through the sandbags to fire into the city. The Chinese were attempting to set up a fire support base amongst the rubble, and brief glimpses of soldiers running across our frontage suggested that they were going to try to attack from the southern flank, which would mean our platoon would be hit from the side while we were still in the process of securing the building.

  ‘They’re coming round to the south!’ I hollered.

  Sergeant Evans peered through the hole I had made and instantly saw the danger, ‘Jonesy! Jonesy!’

  Jonesy answered on the intercom, ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Secure the southern flank!’

  ‘There’s no windows there, mate!’

  ‘I don’t care how you do it,’ Sergeant Evans rebuked angrily, ‘Just get it done!’

  ‘Roger,’ Jonesy knew not to argue, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  Jonesy had acknowledged, but didn’t sound sure of himself. Sensing this, Sergeant Evans swore and made his way round to him.

  Daniels pointed frantically, ‘Missile!’

  There was no missile that I could see, the only thing that lit up the dark were the sparks from ricocheting darts and the fires that burnt from within the city.

  It seemed such a stupid question, since any smart missile would have hit us before I could even open my mouth, ‘Where?’

  ‘Launcher,’ Daniels corrected himself, ‘There!’ He pointed uselessly. How was I to see it?

  He must have seen a Chinese smart launcher, I figured. Chances were that the brick buildings would withstand or at least reduce the effect of a smart missile, but they were so called for a reason - they were smart. If one managed to get through one of the holes we had made and detonated then we were done for. I resisted the urge to run into a room to the back of the house.

  ‘For God’s sake, mark it, then, you stroker!’ Westy shouted, and seconds later a red crosshair flashed on my visor, a marker placed by Daniels. Just behind the marker and in the dark something moved.

  ‘Grenade!’ Westy fired his grenade launcher, and the round landed right on top of the crosshair. Nobody could have survived the explosion, and we whooped with delight.

  Browner shook a fist jubilantly, ‘Have it, you pink bastard!’

  Enraged by the death of one or more of their smart launchers, the enemy seemed to open fire with everything they had, hacking at the house with supersonic darts and causing many of us to take cover. I ducked as a round struck a sandbag next to my head and ricocheted.

  ‘Building clear,’ the boss was on the platoon net, three section had finished the job upstairs, ‘Keep a watch on the southern flank, Ev!’

  ‘Already got Jonesy on it, Boss,’ Sergeant Evans answered, sounding slightly out of breath after placing out One section somewhere just outside the house. Whatever had happened before in the ditches was forgotten, Mr Barkley and Sergeant Evans had become so slick working with each other that they were almost a joy to watch and listen to. I had no doubt that there was no one better for either job.

  Sergeant Evans strode back into our room, where we continued to exchange fire with the Chinese, ‘Do you want the launchers up there, Boss? They’re useless down here,’ the two smart launcher crew, who had tucked themselves safely into the corner of the room, glanced up at him nervously in the dim light.

  ‘Yeah, get them up.’

  Sergeant Evans turned to them, ‘Get up there, boys.’

  As soon as the smart gunners left the room a trooper crashed through the western doorway, bouncing clumsily off an overturned piece of furniture. His helmet had tilted to one side and his kit looked like it was about to fall off him.

  ‘Where’s your lieutenant?’ He demanded in the most well-spoken officer’s accent, which might have commanded respect if he hadn’t turned up looking like a trooper on day one, week one, on Uralis! I was shocked when my visor identified him as the OC of B Company.

  Sergeant Evans flicked his head upwards, ‘Up there, Sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ the officer said, and disappeared into the next room, uttering, ‘What a mess. A bloody mess.’

  ‘What’s he talking about,’ Browner asked with a hint of humour, ‘The battle or his kit?’

  Sergeant Evans did a rare thing and laughed - only briefly - before turning serious again, ‘Observe your arcs, Brown. And you, Moralee.’

  ‘Firing!’ Somebody shouted from upstairs, and the first smart missile screamed into the city where it detonated in a flash and a shower of sparks. I marvelled that a smart missile by night was not entirely unlike a firework.

  ‘Just like new year’s day!’ I shouted.

  Several targets were indicated on my visor a few hundred metres away, it looked like the pinkies were withdrawing deeper into the city through the rubble and burning homes, and I took a couple of shots at them. My rifle corrected my aim if it was slightly off, and I was always a good shot even without the visor display. At least one of the Chinamen went down, and was dragged off by another. We let them go, even though any of us could easily have hit the slow moving target, we couldn’t shoot a man helping a casualty, there was something just not right about it. Most of us knew what it felt like to drag a mate who had been injured, because we had done it ourselves.

  ‘Contact!’ My heart skipped a beat, it was Jonesy on the intercom, ‘Contact to the south!’

  ‘Hold your position!’ Sergeant Evans ordered, then looked up toward the ceiling as if he could see through it, ‘Boss!’

  ‘Wait,’ the boss snapped, and our platoon sergeant growled in annoyance.

  He shook his head, ‘What the hell is that stupid major up to?’ I understood his frustration. Any time wasted was a loss of initiative, allowing the Chinese to re-group and counter attack. B Company should have launched through us without hesitation, because we were only the very tip of the blade, and if we lost our hold on the city fringe that blade would be blunted.

  ‘There’s loads of them!’ Jonesy sounded desperate.

  ‘Boss!’ There was no reply, ‘Fuck it,’ Sergeant Evans scanned across us impatiently, ‘Moralee, Brown, come with me!’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant,’ we obeyed instantly, moving away from the windows.

  ‘Westy, hold here, mate.’

  Westy was through o
ne of the holes, firing a grenade at something, ‘Roger, mate!’

  We ran back through the building to the hole that had been blown out with the charge, and as soon as we emerged into the cold night air Sergeant Evans swore. The whole of B Company were waiting in the darkness, in the middle of the open doing nothing. I gaped. Our attack was stalling.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Sergeant Evans ran around the southern side of the building and I saw that Jonesy and his four men were in cover behind a low wall, locked into a fierce fire fight with enemy in and around a building one hundred metres away to the south. Darts peppered the wall to our house, and we all dove for cover.

  ‘Jonesy, what’s going on, mate?’ Sergeant Evans crawled up alongside the embattled section commander, while me and Browner crawled up to the wall and joined in with the fire fight. Multiple targets were identified by my visor, some within the windows of the two-level house and others amongst the rubble in front of it.

  ‘There must be a whole platoon of them,’ Jonesy said nervously, ‘They just went for it - full frontal! We shot loads, but…, that was mental!’

  ‘What’s your grenade state?’

  Jonesy shook his head, ‘Nothing for the grenade launchers, I used the last one just then.’

  ‘Jonesy, your 2ic needs to tell me stuff like that,’ Sergeant Evans scorned, and switched himself onto a channel reserved for his launchers, ‘Mitch, I need missiles to the south, I will mark the target.’

  I couldn’t hear the reply, I wasn’t on that channel and I didn’t have time to be curious. It didn’t matter anyway because seconds after Sergeant Evans sent the message I suddenly had much more pressing matters on my mind, because the Chinese fired three smart missiles at once.

  ‘Incoming!’ We flattened ourselves behind the wall, clutching at the earth with our fingers, but it made little difference. The first two missiles struck the wall a few metres to my left, their detonations blasting a chunk from it and hurling troopers to the ground. The third struck the ground just in front of where Browner lay dazed, and his body was thrown like a toy to land in a heap against the house.