EDEN (The Union Series)

by Richards, Phillip

  I tried to breathe slowly, willing my respirator motors to be as quiet as possible. The Loyalists were right on top of us. I could hear the sound of boots trampling through the undergrowth and then held my breath, hoping that the logs we had used to support the roof would hold the weight of anyone who might walk straight over it. It was unlikely for somebody to fall through; we had tested the strength of the roof ourselves during our construction of the OP. It was possible to walk right over the top of us without ever even knowing that we were there. But it wasn’t the Loyalist soldiers that worried me, it was the suit. The thing had to weigh in well over a tonne - far more weight than the OP roof could take. If it stepped on us, not only would we be compromised, we’d also be squashed into a bloody mess in the process.

  I tried to count each Loyalist soldier as he passed within metres of the OP, my spirits slowly building as I realised that they hadn’t noticed us. It didn’t necessarily mean that we were safe, though, I reminded myself. Even if we weren’t found, there was still the rear OP that housed the remainder of my eight-man patrol. I desperately wanted to contact them in order to send warning, but knew that as soon as I activated the section net to communicate, then the game would be up.

  They’re as well concealed as us, I reassured myself, and if I can’t trust them to know what to do, then I can’t trust anyone.

  The ground began to vibrate rhythmically, and soon the vibrations were accompanied by dull thumps. The suit was nearby, Christ it must have been no more than a couple of metres away! I clenched my teeth as I waited for the OP walls to subside and our roof to collapse.

  The suit appeared to pass us, and I breathed out a sigh of relief as I saw that our roof had held.

  But then it stopped.

  My mind screamed just as my hand shot toward my rifle lying beside me. Shit! It’s fucking seen us! My fingers closed around the pistol grip, my finger hovering over the power up button as I prepared to fight for my life.

  But there was silence.

  What were they doing? I strained to hear even the slightest noise from my headset. I imagined the suit, having detected our electronic equipment or having seen through our camouflage, lining up its weapons to fire. Perhaps it was waiting for the remainder of the patrol to take cover before it opened fire, or maybe the commander was considering the possibility of more OPs. It wasn’t normal to have two so close together, but my orders had stated that I should retain an offensive capability, one which I would lose if I split my eight-man section too far apart.

  There was the sound of more footsteps, and the ground thumped as the suit moved slightly. I flinched as a piece of earth dropped down and struck the back of my helmet.

  Still nothing happened.

  I braced myself. If I was about to be compromised, there was nothing else that I could do. Strong as it was, our roof allowed for us to break through it in order to stand - bursting out from the ground like zombies out of an unmarked grave. I would have milliseconds to power up my rifle, take aim and shoot before the suit responded, then seconds more before the enemy patrol realised what was happening and opened fire. That was if they didn’t already have all of their weapons trained upon us.

  There was no choice. This wasn’t going well at all. I reached out my hand and grasped Myers by the shoulder. I then jabbed my thumb upwards and then opened my palm to show five fingers. We’re going up, five seconds. He nodded grimly, then kicked the two troopers lying behind us to pass the message.

  My finger moved over the button to my rifle mounted torch, and I flashed it on and off as I counted down the seconds.

  Five … four … three … two …

  ‘This looks like a good spot, eh?’ a voice with a very strange, but distinctive accent called out, interrupting my countdown. The voice was a whisper, though my headset magnified the sound for me to hear it as a shout.

  Myers turned to look at me, and I turned my palm downward in a calming gesture. Clearly we hadn’t been found, so there was no need to go loud. Not yet.

  Another voice sounded from above, with the same odd accent. ‘Yeah, that’ll do. I’ll get the guys set up.’

  There was no mistaking the Europa accent. It was different from other European accents on Eden, possibly due to their proximity to Alliance provinces, or perhaps the original colonists were the descendants of a different mix of nations. The Loyalists would vehemently deny the first possibility, they were so obsessed with their ‘pure’ descent that it was often said they believed they were more European than people actually born in Europe.

  I instantly recognised the potential for such a close encounter, wondering if perhaps our seemingly dire situation was in fact a great opportunity to gain intelligence. My OP was able to listen to the Loyalist patrol, passively scanning their communications and patrol net as well as gauging their morale and future intentions. It was priceless.

  But my morale didn’t rise, and the sense of foreboding didn’t pass over me. Something was wrong, alarm bells were ringing in the back of my head, because there was something altogether sinister about the patrol.

  What were they up to? Why had the enemy pushed up so far from the low ground? They didn’t need to be so high to bypass the village, and why had their detour brought them directly to this spot if it hadn’t been to find us? What was so special about my position that led them to it and caused them to choose to stop on top of it?

  I replayed the words of the Loyalist voice in my head … ‘Yeah, that’ll do. I’ll get the guys set up.’

  Suddenly I realised what they had found. It was the same thing that I had found when I located the OP in the first place: level ground and a clear view onto the village. There had been a reason why the patrol was so heavily armed, and a reason why they had brought the suit - a weapon that the Loyalists prized and would never risk sending on a regular patrol - they were fire support, I realised in horror, and they were setting up to fire onto the village.

  I had known from the day I arrived on the southern Eden hemisphere that the Loyalists were racists. They were determined to rid the huge and rolling expanse of forest, known as the Bosque region, of what they called the ‘infection’ of non-European colonists, even though most of those people had lived there for generations. Dissected through its middle by the Edo-Europa border it had been long disputed, even before the war between the Union and the Alliance.

  Having seen enough hatred in the worlds that I had visited to know that it was within mankind’s nature, I hadn’t been surprised to learn that Eden was a brutal and deeply divided planet, but even I couldn’t believe what was happening above us.

  ‘I want four of the guns moved further along the valley,’ the Loyalist commander ordered, and my visor display alerted me to a close proximity transmission, picked up by our scanner. The small device, plugged into my datapad by optic cable to minimise the chances of being detected itself, had picked up an invaluable piece of information. Coupled with the voice heard over my headset, we could easily work out how the enemy network scrambled transmissions, making them far easier to decode. It was pure gold dust, but I couldn’t feel any sense of joy - instead I felt revulsion as the commander continued to give his instructions.

  ‘I want your gun group to have wide arcs along the base of the valley,’ he explained with a coolness that sent a chill down my spine. ‘You’re to act as cut-offs; anybody leaving the village to the south is fair game. Use the southern edge of the village as your left of arc - we will deal with that. Save your ammunition.’

  The scanner informed me that somebody had responded over the net, but it was unable to attempt to decipher the code. It wouldn’t even attempt it unless told to do so - the sudden spike of electrical activity, however small, risked giving the game away.

  ‘Francis, use the heavy weapons against the village, strike at these three locations,’ the commander continued, this time to someone nearby. I presumed that he was pointing something out.

  ‘No problem,’ an inhuman voice responded. I realised that it was
the wearer of the suit, responding by some kind of speaker module. I heard the whirr of motors as the machine orientated itself to engage the targets assigned to it.

  Heavy weapons? I asked myself, my stomach boiling with anger. What possible use did these people have for heavy weapons? It was unlikely that the poor bastards in the village below us had more than a couple of rifles at best. They weren’t soldiers - they were civilians caught up in a war that made absolutely no sense. The people of New Earth spilt blood to rid themselves of the Union, the Russians and the Chinese before them, but these people were more than happy to slaughter each other as well.

  Brushing my emotions aside, I thought back to our orders, trying to fit the scenario into them. The detailed instructions given to me by my platoon commander had covered every phase of the operation, from our insertion, the move to, recce of, and the establishment of our OP. Every eventuality was considered: what to do if we encountered enemy during our route between the drop zone and the OP location; what to do if one of our sister patrols were contacted; or what to do if we were spotted by the villagers. But this was different.

  The Loyalists had been expected to bypass the village in pursuit of the fleeing Free Edo Army, more interested in forcing them out of the Bosque. They might use the valley to locate their headquarters briefly as they advanced ever-south, inadvertently providing us with vital intelligence that we would pass back to brigade.

  Nobody had told me what to do if they decided to attack the village, home to hundreds of civilians. Should I respond, or simply lie there while the Loyalists laid waste to them in their twisted quest to ‘liberate’ the Bosque?

  ‘They have no idea what’s about to come their way,’ the voice said, and there was laughter.

  I gritted my teeth. Fucking bastards! They were actually laughing about it!

  ‘The platoon is moving into position now,’ the commander informed his men. ‘You should see the forward line a few hundred metres to the north.’

  ‘I see them,’ the suit replied.

  ‘Just remember, don’t do too much damage, we need the village intact. The commander wants there to be some survivors, they will be useful.’

  So there was at least a platoon of Loyalist soldiers somewhere in the valley, I thought. They were forming up, somewhere in the low ground, preparing to attack the village at a time decided by their platoon commander. I imagined soldiers creeping through the undergrowth, scanning for obstacles and defences constructed by the villagers.

  If I were their boss, I decided, I would hold firm a good three to four hundred metres north of the village, not wanting to spoil my attack by being detected on the approach. The surprise would be initiated by overwhelming fire support from the mass of weapons I had placed halfway up the valley, allowing me to move the rest of the way into a decent forming up point. Only once I had closed right up to the village would I unleash my sections. As my sections broke into the village, then I would ensure that my fire support group switched fire, so that they continued to suppress further south without shooting my own men. It was a simple plan, but simple plans were often the best ones. I doubted the villagers would put up much of a fight anyway.

  ‘H-hour in three minutes,’ the voice said, passing on a transmission from his platoon commander, who I guessed was somewhere in the low ground with his assaulting sections. They were getting ready to attack.

  As the clock in the corner of my visor display counted down the seconds, I thought again about the suit. It had to be right next to us, and the fact that the weight of it hadn’t caused the walls of earth around us to collapse was nothing short of a miracle. What would happen when it fired? The thing was carrying weapons similar to those mounted on a gravtank, and the recoil would be devastating. Would the OP collapse?

  My section was more than just a recce patrol. There was a reason why we had two OPs and not one: we were organised to possess an offensive capability. We had a magnetic machine gun, known as the MAM-G or ‘mammoth’, in both fire teams, and a smart launcher in each as well. Two troopers in the rear OP were trained snipers, one of whom carried the Orion-125 sniper rifle, and we had enough grenades and ammunition to take on a company of Loyalists all on our own. Our greatest weapon of all, though, was wired into my datapad and my visor display. So-called for the way a trooper appeared when he used it, my ‘wizard’ kit gave me full and immediate access to whatever happened to be above me at the time - from warships and orbital platforms capable of pounding mountains into rubble, to unmanned attack aircraft like the saucer. If we were going to be compromised, and it was looking like we were, I wanted it to be on our terms and not those of the Loyalists. We would need to strike hard, fast and aggressively, before running up into the hills for dear life.

  I looked across at Myers. Our thermal vision didn’t allow for us to identify each other’s expressions through our visors, but I could tell he knew what was going through my mind. He shrugged.

  It was a tough call. There really wasn’t a right or wrong answer, not tactically anyway, which made the decision even harder.

  I made my decision. If the ground showed any sign of subsidence when the suit fired, then I would be forced to unleash everything, but until then I couldn’t simply abandon my OP, risking the lives of my men and the success of my mission. Our scanner had already recorded critical data which could be sent back to brigade as soon as the Loyalists left us - data which could allow our EW teams to hack into their communication network.

  There was one risk that I was going to have to take though, I decided. If we were compromised then I didn’t want to be fighting out of the valley with just a section of men, however much firepower we possessed. I decided to queue up a series of messages onto my datapad, all of which I could send to brigade instantly at the touch of a button. The only danger was that somebody might detect my datapad as soon as I activated it, but under the circumstances it was probably the right thing to do.

  I activated the datapad, and its screen bathed our underground lair in light. I waited the sound of alarm, but nothing happened. After a few tense moments I breathed out a quiet sigh of relief; it had gone undetected.

  There were three separate messages that I quickly queued up, all directed to brigade command in Paraiso. The first demanded extraction from our pre-designated emergency rendezvous, a location several kilometres to the south that I had conducted a recce onto during my route into the valley several days ago. The second message called for immediate close-air support to aid our extraction, as well as to engage any enemy attacking the village. The third was for orbital bombardment, consisting of two salvos. One was directed onto a position four hundred metres to the north of the village. It would be near to the Loyalist platoon, but far enough from the village to minimise the risk of civilian casualties - or so I hoped. The second salvo was to be directed onto our position, five minutes after the message was received. We would have to run fast.

  Myers watched over my shoulder as I entered the last few commands and deactivated my datapad. He could see what I was doing, though there was no way for me to convey my entire plan to him. But in truth, I didn’t really have much of a plan anyway.

  ‘Another minute,’ the commander above me warned his comrades, totally unaware of what was lurking beneath his feet.

  We waited, the muscles in our bodies tense as we prepared ourselves for whatever might happen next. I wondered if I was able to stand, let alone run, if the need called for it. My muscles were weakened from days of inactivity, and I knew that the other men in my section would be the same. None of us had walked further than twenty metres since our arrival, and even that was only for a night time ‘walk around’ inspection for damage to the OP camouflage, dropping back into the shallow pit and replacing the roof once we were happy. I wondered if we could fight effectively against the heavily armed soldiers above us, or if they might cut us down before we even fired a single dart.

  I shook the thought from my head. Of course we could take them on - we were recce troopers - amo
ngst the best the Union army had to offer. I just hoped that we would all be alive by the end of it.

  My display clock continued to count away the seconds, time seeming to slow down as we waited anxiously to find out our fate, and those of the villagers below us.

  The commander finally gave his order, ‘Go on, then, guys, give it to them.’

  The suit’s motors whirred as it replied, ‘No problem!’

  I jolted in surprise as the suit opened fire, shaking the earth around me. Firing both of its weapons at once it created a terrible noise, so loud that it vibrated through the ground. Even though my headphones protected my ears from the ear-splitting sound, it still caused my bones to judder and my stomach to churn.

  I flinched as tiny pieces of soil rained down upon my helmet and armour, and I expected the roof to collapse any moment. Christ, my mind screamed, this is madness! I resisted the natural urge to wail or moan as the terrible weapon above us unleashed its devastating arsenal into the village below. My hand gripped my rifle tightly, longing to use it against the machine.

  A voice laughed over the noise - ‘Get those guys there, with the rifles! Yeah!’

  Servos whined, and the noise intensified.

  ‘Ha!’ the suit replied. ‘Did you see that?’

  ‘Yeah! Ha, these guys never saw us coming!’

  The OP was vibrating so hard my limbs were almost leaving the ground. It was giving me a headache, and I imagined it was because my brain was probably being rattled around inside my skull. We couldn’t take much more of this, I thought, it was only a matter of time before the roof caved in.

  Suddenly a large chunk of earth struck my helmet, knocking my face down into the mud with the force of its impact. I growled softly in response to the blow. Enough was enough; we couldn’t carry on like this.

  I reached out and squeezed Skelton by the shoulder, and he nodded in the dark. It was time. He kicked out at the other troopers’ feet once more to inform them that we were about to break cover. They didn’t need a proper message passed back to them; it was obvious what needed to happen next.