I tested my muscles quickly within the confines of the OP, resting and contracting them several times. Then, slowly and deliberately, I activated my datapad once more, and my finger came to rest back over the power up button on my rifle. I lifted myself slightly from the ground, pressing my body up against the roof. The logs and branches that held it above us flexed slightly, indicating that nothing was directly above me, and that the roof would move if I pushed against it. I braced my body, as did the rest of my fire team. They waited, and the atmosphere inside the OP became thick with their anticipation. My heart thumped hard, beating against my ribcage as my body prepared itself for action, pumping adrenalin through my veins until my muscles shook with nervous energy.
I was ready as I would ever be, and it was now or never. I stood.
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Extraction
The man encased within his powered suit might have survived a dart from a distance, in fact its automated ballistic defence system might have allowed him to avoid the dart before he even knew it was coming, but there was no hope for him at such short range.
I exploded out from the ground like a creature from the underworld, aiming for the centre of the ape-like machine as I pulled the trigger.
Sharpened to a molecular level and accelerated well beyond the speed of sound, the dart punched through his armour with such ease it might as well have been made of cardboard. The suit stumbled backward, its motors desperately trying to keep it upright, but there was little point, the man inside was already dead. The dart had pierced one side of the armour, but not the other. Instead it had ricocheted inside, striking him several more times.
I fired another two shots into the suit as it fell for good measure.
Magnets screamed like banshees as my fire team, now emerged from their hole, engaged targets all around them. I looked around me to watch as several Loyalists fell, including the commander who had been crouched next to the suit. Myers had swiftly dispatched him with a pair of darts to the chest, and he collapsed into the undergrowth with a startled yelp.
As one we scrambled out of the OP, tossing aside the logs and clods of earth that we had used to build our roof. I tapped my datapad, reactivating the section net and instantly sending our series of messages back to brigade. There was no turning back.
I took cover behind the fallen suit whilst the other three troopers spread themselves out into the forest, keen not to make the fire team an easy target.
‘One-One-Charlie, contact!’ I announced on the section net, informing my second OP that the game was up and we were compromised.
Somebody swore to my right and I saw that Gritt had spotted two more Loyalists emerging from cover to the north, presumably two more of the fire support group trying to work out what was going on. Without a seconds thought he lifted his rifle to a high angle and fired a grenade from its under-slung launcher. The miniature guided missile weaved its way through the trees, detonating between the two soldiers in a plume of dirt and vegetation.
‘One-One-Charlie, this is One-One-Delta,’ my second in command replied to me on the net. ‘My call-sign has broken out of cover, no resistance. We are in baseline, awaiting instructions!’
There was urgency in his voice, and rightly so. He too would have seen my string of commands sent up to brigade, and he knew that we didn’t have much time to get away.
‘Roger! Remain firm!’
I scanned around me, quickly taking in the battlefield as I considered my options. Several hundred metres to my rear was the second OP, now formed-up into a baseline that could provide us with fire support as we extracted. To my front were potentially more Loyalist soldiers, strung out along the valley slope, and there was definitely more between us and delta fire team, judging by the conversation we had listened to. To my right the ground sloped away into the valley, and between the trees I could clearly make out the village - an unruly cluster of buildings beneath an atmospheric dome, built beside a river. Flames and billowing smoke told of the attack that was already underway, and I wondered if the Loyalist platoon commander even knew that his fire support group had been attacked, so focused he would be on his quarry.
Suddenly the air cracked and hissed as enemy darts passed just over my head, causing me to duck instinctively behind the hard cover provided by the suit. Sparks flew as a round struck its armour, missing me by millimetres.
‘Contact front!’ Skelton screamed, and the fire team unleashed fury onto my assailants. Skelton’s mammoth gun roared as it spat death into the forest and the earth shook as grenades detonated in clouds of smoke and dust. Every rifleman in my section carried an under-slung grenade launcher, providing us with overwhelming firepower. We needed it, because the nearest friendly call-sign was far too distant to be any help.
I looked up to catch a fleeting glance of enemy soldiers moving through the trees no more than a hundred metres away. Darts whizzed past us as they tried to return fire and regain the initiative.
They were either attempting to manoeuvre or counterattack, I guessed, but either way the surprise had been lost. There was no more time to weigh up options, I had to make a quick decision and commit myself to it. Better to do something wrong than do nothing at all.
‘Charlie fire team will peel left!’ I ordered over the intercom, ignoring the enemy darts that passed close over my head.
The fire team automatically repeated the message to each other so that nobody failed to hear it: ‘Charlie will peel left!’
I pointed to my front. ‘Myers, Gritt, give me smoke!’
The two troopers responded instantly, selecting smoke and firing their launchers toward the enemy. An instant later the grenades exploded in a shower of smoking phosphor, creating an instant wall of hot smoke that obscured the enemy from us, and burned anyone unfortunate enough to be too close.
I screamed, ‘Peel left!’
The men needed no encouragement. Gritt was first to move, darting from his cover on my far right and running behind me, kicking the foot of the next man as he went. Once he had finally taken up a position to the far left of the fire team and had started firing, then the next man moved and repeated the process.
We moved rapidly, continuing to fire into the smoke as we went, each man running from the far right of the fire team to the far left. Wet plants quickly soaked my combats as I tore through the undergrowth, keeping my head as low as I could every time it was my turn to move. With every peel the fire team drew further up the slope and further away from the village, and more importantly, out of the way so that delta could fire.
After no more than a hundred metres of peeling, and as the smoke began to clear, I gave my orders to my second in command - ‘One-one-delta, rapid fire on my mark, enemy dismounted infantry in the open!’
With an outstretched finger I ‘marked’ the enemy with a red crosshair, visible only to the visor displays of my section.
His response was instant - ‘Roger, mate!’
A series of thumps sounded from behind me, and seconds later a salvo of grenades detonated around my mark. The plants in the undergrowth danced as delta fire-team’s weapons opened fire from out of sight, firing blindly, but safe in the knowledge that there would be no friendly troops between them and their target.
That was all I needed. I couldn’t see if the enemy were correctly suppressed or not, all I knew was that we were no longer taking fire from them and they would be distracted by the sudden hail of darts.
‘Break contact!’ I stopped firing, picked myself up and ran.
Understanding the order and seeing me bolt through the trees, my fire team followed, abandoning the fire fight to flee for safety.
Breaking contact was exactly that - you were simply ending the contact by running away, dropping out of view behind cover, or using any means necessary to get away from a battle you either couldn’t win, or simply didn’t want to take part in.
I led my team in a sprint, ducking and weaving through the trees as I sought to gain maximum distance
from the Loyalists, whilst my delta fire team gave cover. Although I couldn’t see the second OP, it was marked by a blue crosshair on my display, and I used the crosshair to guide me as we arced around toward them, avoiding their line of fire.
‘Keep going!’ I panted over the intercom, constantly checking behind me to see that my fire team were following. I was far fitter than most of them, and didn’t want to leave anyone behind.
We were no more than fifty metres from Delta fire team, when a series of red crosshairs flickered on the left hand edge of my visor. My targeting system had identified enemy amongst the trees, and they were almost directly between us and delta.
The first Loyalist soldier to see me cried out in alarm, spinning to bring his weapon to bear upon the trooper storming out of the undergrowth.
My eyes widened. ‘Contact front!’
Some people might say that moments such as this could cause time to change pace, as if everything were in slow motion. Perhaps that’s how they might recall it, but not me. Everything happened so quickly I could barely remember it.
My rifle was already raised to fire, and with it pointed toward the man’s chest I pulled the trigger. The array of magnets along the barrel screamed, accelerating the steel dart toward him with such power that it snatched him backward, punching straight through his armour like paper.
I didn’t wait to see him land, for I had already thrown myself to the ground, crashing amongst the ferns and long grass.
Just as I landed, the air above me exploded with noise as several enemy weapons opened fire at once, hacking chips of wood out of a tree that stood beside me.
I quickly wriggled my body behind the tree, clutching at the earth as I desperately tried to make myself as low as possible.
‘Hold fire!’ I yelled back to my men, still hugging the ground. Ferns danced around me as the enemy fire intensified.
Christ, there had to be at least two to three guns out there to create such a devastating barrage, and to make it worse they were directly between us and Delta, so neither team could return fire. Like before, I had to move out of the way.
I looked behind me, only to see Gritt lying unnaturally on his back; he’d been hit.
‘Man down!’ I shouted, and then I swore. There was no way we could extract from such an onslaught, not with a casualty as well. How could we possibly escape from this situation?
It was then that I regained my senses, shaking my head angrily. What was I thinking? It didn’t have to be me who moved! My own adrenalin had prevented me from thinking straight.
‘One-One-Delta,’ I ordered. ‘Push round for a frontal assault onto enemy on my mark! I’m marking my location as well!’
Keeping as low as I could, I quickly used my finger to drop crosshairs onto our virtual overlay, marking the enemy position in red, and my own in blue.
Delta responded seconds later … ‘Moving now!’
‘Roger!’
Uttering a string of curses, I drew a smoke grenade from one of my ammunition pouches, careful not to lift my head. Pieces of wood struck my back as the enemy weapons continued to cut into the tree just above me.
‘Grenade!’ I warned, and tossed it toward the enemy. My headset bleeped in warning just before it exploded in a puff of smoke, scattering burning phosphor around me.
The Loyalist fire stopped, but I remained fixed to the ground. They would be surprised or confused by the smoke grenade, but I knew it would only be for a second. They weren’t idiots.
I had done the best I could by blinding them with smoke. I needed to buy some time for delta to hook around and assault from the flank, freeing me to collect Gritt and extract the section. I prayed that he was the only casualty, because if we had more we would struggle to get away. I hadn’t seen anyone else behind me.
The Loyalist fire resumed, and I forced my body ever lower, gritting my teeth as more chips of wood landed on my helmet.
‘You’ve got to move quick, Puppy!’ I urged. ‘We don’t have time to mess about!’
‘I’m on it!’ Puppy, my 2ic, replied angrily.
I ignored his rude reply, understanding his frustration. No commander liked to be rushed, especially when he was probably already rushing.
Suddenly a blue crosshair popped up on my display to the right of the enemy, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn’t think I had ever felt such elation at the sight of a net crosshair before.
‘That’s my location,’ Puppy panted. Clearly he had been running to get into position. ‘Give me some fire support if you can!’
‘Roger!’ I replied, rolling to one side and lifting my rifle to fire. There was no way I was going to lift my head and have it blown off, so I used my rifle camera to aim instead. It wouldn’t be as accurate, but it had to do.
‘Charlie, prepare to give rapid fire!’
‘Prepare for rapid!’ two voices repeated.
Thank God, I thought, only one man was down.
‘Rapid … FIRE!’
Somehow, despite being suppressed by such a massive weight of firepower, the three of us managed to re-join the battle. It wasn’t enough - we were unable to take up proper fire positions to see the enemy - but at least we were doing something.
Suddenly another burst of gunfire joined the noise, and somebody shouted out in surprise as delta launched their attack, breaking out of the vegetation all at once.
The enemy gunfire stopped instantly, and I leapt from the ground as if I had been released from a spell.
Delta rapidly swept through the trees, two men bounding forward, while the other two covered. As I watched, an enemy soldier writhed amongst the ferns and was quickly despatched with the steel blade of a Union bayonet. The trooper used his boot to withdraw the blade, before taking a knee beside the body to cover. Another Loyalist emerged from hiding, sprinting for dear life to escape the advancing troopers. He didn’t get far. A massive bang sounded from delta’s Orion sniper rifle, and the fleeing soldier’s head flew clean off his shoulders in a spray of crimson, his body disappearing into the undergrowth.
There was no time to hang about and give praise, instead I hollered out to my section, ‘Prepare to withdraw!’
The message repeated, and I looked across to the remainder of my fire team. ‘Get that casualty …’
There was no need to say another word; the lads were already on top of him. Myers ripped open the stricken trooper’s medical pouch, whilst Skelton searched his body for injuries.
‘He’s taken a dart to the shoulder,’ Myers shouted, reading straight from Gritt’s datapad. ‘It looks like it’s passed through his left lung and part of his gut. Came out just above his arse!’
I stooped over the casualty, pulling his gel armour aside to inspect the wound. The entry hole was tiny, but there was a lot of blood. It frothed with little bubbles as air escaped from his chest cavity. His breathing was laboured, as though his body was fighting to get air into it. I knew that every time Gritt tried to breath, he was simply sucking air through the hole into his chest cavity, rather than through his windpipe and into his one good lung - he was suffocating.
‘Chest seal on his shoulder,’ I ordered. ‘Skelton, plug his arse! I want him ready to move in one minute!’
‘Roger!’
I looked across at Puppy. Now in line with my fire team, his men scanned their arcs for enemy.
‘Ready to move in one minute!’ I repeated.
He gave a thumbs-up. ‘OK, mate!’
I noticed that the sound of battle continued in the valley, as the platoon of Loyalists assaulted the village unabated.
It was highly unlikely that the platoon commander would ignore the new threat on the high ground, I thought. For all he knew, we could be preparing to set up our own fire support location, with him as the target. He also wouldn’t commit another section to attack us, leaving him no reserve and thus no freedom to manoeuvre during his attack on the village. Mirroring our own rifle platoons and dismounted tactics, Loyalist platoons came with only three fight
ing sections. If the Loyalist platoon was on its own, then our presence would cause their platoon commander to stop his attack. There were far more of them out there, I deduced with a chill, probably a company, or at least another platoon, and no doubt they were coming for us.
‘How you getting on?’ I demanded, my impatience growing. We needed to move.
‘Almost there!’
Myers had just finished wiping blood away from the wound on Gritt’s shoulder. He ripped a chest seal from its packaging and pressed it hard against the wound to ensure that it stuck, taking care to locate the valve just over the hole. It allowed air to escape, but not to enter, so that air could only be breathed into the lung and not the chest cavity. Skelton had finished plugging the wound on Gritt’s back with clotting foam, and was busy wrapping a large abdominal bandage about his body, having to lift him every time he passed it under his waist.
‘Good to go?’ I asked again.
‘Yeah, good to go!’
‘Right,’ I announced, ‘let’s get the fuck out of here!’
Before I could give the order to move, there was a sudden explosion a hundred metres away from us, rocking the ground beneath our feet and causing several troopers to fall backward in surprise.
‘Hurry up, lads, let’s go!’ I hollered urgently, as Myers helped Skelton to lift the casualty onto his back, the trooper grunting as the weight bore onto his shoulders. There was no time to mess around setting up the lightweight stretcher - we would have to do that later.
I looked across to Puppy, who waited anxiously for my command. ‘Follow me!’ I shouted.
‘Roger!’
I turned to the southwest and ran, just as another explosion echoed through the forest, closer this time. The soft earth must have absorbed some of the blast, because a quick glance over my shoulder revealed no further casualties.
The section quickly followed as I bounded uphill away from the village and the enemy platoon, forming into single file with Myers and Skelton behind me, followed by delta fire team. I knew that Skelton would be having a hard time keeping up with Gritt on his shoulder, but I had to create distance from our last position, as clearly our enemy knew roughly where that was.
EDEN (The Union Series) Page 3
