I took my seat at the back of the room, just as the lights dimmed in preparation for our first hologram. The holographic title of the first presentation appeared in front of us, and there were several groans across the room as we all recognised it.
‘Put something else on …’ someone moaned, but the hologram started anyway.
‘Welcome to Paraiso,’ the hologram began, displaying a massive image of the city as though we were flying high above it. ‘A paradise far away from Earth. Some of you may have been here before, while others …’
I looked up toward the ceiling and sighed.
‘You just got called in from the OP screen?’ an accented voice whispered beside me.
A recce trooper was leaning over to me from his chair, and a quick glance to his rank insignia told me that he was a full ‘screw’; a corporal, from the Sixth Battalion Welsh Dropship Infantry.
‘Yeah.’
‘Who’s your commander?’ he asked, his eyes darting across the room.
‘I am,’ I replied.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ve done the recce commanders course?’
‘Yeah.’
He nodded respectfully. Although he outranked me as a lowly lancejack, we both did the same job commanding a recce section. My recce commander’s course qualified me as a full corporal, even though I was still too junior to promote. The only way to accelerate the process would be to return to normal soldiering within the rifle companies, and hope to be sent on the Junior Commanders Course, the follow-up to the course that qualified me as a Lance Corporal. Even if I didn’t do that and remained in recce, I was likely to do well - that is if the sergeant major didn’t decide to throw me out.
‘The whole OP screen has been withdrawn,’ the corporal said, ‘all the way across the forest. Only a few of our boys are still out there, just to keep track of the Loyalist advance.’
‘Yeah,’ I agreed awkwardly, wanting to avoid the topic. I didn’t want the man to know that it probably had something to do with me.
‘Our boss is back here,’ he continued, lowering his voice even more. ‘What about yours?’
‘He’s back here as well.’
‘All the recce bosses are back here, apparently,’ he whispered. ‘Something’s going on.’
I frowned. ‘Like what?’
He pointed between his legs. ‘Gristle, not crystal, mate! But if I was to place a bet down, I’d say we’re getting ready to go in.’
‘Go in?’
‘I reckon we’re gonna punch into Edo, to try to stop the Loyalists before this whole thing boils over.’
‘No, I don’t think so … Brigade won’t even send a single company of troopers into Edo for fear of pissing off the Alliance. There’s no way they’ll get involved in this. Besides, we were fighting Free Edo Army guerrillas only months ago.’
He smiled knowingly. ‘Don’t be so sure, lad. You’re right - we’re worried about pissing off the Alliance. There’s a whole fleet waiting just on the edge of the system, and a whole garrison poised to load up on the outer planets. But what do you think will piss them off more - us getting involved, or us letting the Loyalists slaughter half the people in the Bosque? It’s a bloodbath in there. You’ve probably seen it yourself.’
‘Yeah,’ I replied grimly, ‘I’ve seen.’
‘That’s the problem. The Alliance can’t see the difference between us and the Loyalists. Europa is a Union province to them, even if it is a rogue state run by a bunch of mentalists. We might as well be doing all of the killing ourselves.’
‘So you reckon they’ll risk an all-out war and send us all in?’
‘I’d put money on it, mate. Why break the habit of a lifetime?’
Weary eyes glazed over as we were subjected to endless mandatory presentations, all of which were repeats. I was pretty sure that I could recite them all word for word. The theme was mostly the same: dos and don’ts in Paraiso; the importance of safe sex; the fact that the fighting was in the Bosque and not in the local bars and nightclubs.
Sat in the dark at the back of the room, I took little interest in the presentation, or the battle my men were clearly fighting to stay awake, their heads lolling from side to side.
Instead I mentally prepared myself for what I knew was coming after our briefings - trauma counselling. I dreaded it, because the trauma counsellor wielded a weapon I feared more than any saucer or powered suit: the ability to send me packing back to Earth. There was no way anybody was sending me back, not if we were about to go to war.
I lied to the counsellor, telling him what I knew he wanted to hear. Over time I had shared my experiences with others, talking through what had happened during the war and during my second short tour of New Earth. The nightmares had become less frequent, as I had been told they would, and I had come to terms with my grief. War was hell, but I had found my peace with God.
But the nightmares hadn’t stopped completely, and if anything the ones I did have had got worse. The mutilated corpses of my friends tormented me through the night, now joined by my old platoon sergeant, Ev, whose wife I had ordered killed by his own best friend. Black, accusing eyes stared coldly into my soul, searing my insides. How could you, Andy? How could you?
Sometimes I would wake up with a jolt, my heart pounding and my body soaked in sweat, the images of my bloody past still burnt into the back of my retinas. For me life was a misery, but the nights were always the worst. Whoever said that you had to die to go to hell was wrong, because I was already there, with nothing left to do but crack on with it in the hope that eventually things might get better, or I would die in the process. I surrounded myself with my work, obsessing over it, because the busier I kept my mind, the less my past could haunt me.
My biggest problem was that fear of the nightmares could prevent me from sleeping at all, and I needed rest in order to do my job effectively. In order to maintain a reasonable sleep pattern I knew that I needed to be tired, and by tired, I mean exhausted. I would go to the gym right before bed, thrashing my body so that I would drop into deep sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Some might say that late gym sessions were unhealthy, others might not, but it worked for me.
Fortunately the containment centre had its own gym. That night I worked out long into the evening, my body drenched in sweat as I attacked punch bags and exercised my muscles, until every last fibre screamed for me to stop.
Utterly focused, I ignored the interest that my workout drew from around the gym. Every punch and every kick was a vent for the pain that burned inside of me, like a valve releasing pressure. It was how I got by.
Finally, completely exhausted, I collapsed onto the gym mats, my chest heaving as my body fought to return oxygen into my muscles.
‘Corporal Moralee,’ a familiar voice greeted me, and I lifted my head. It was Mr Barkley, the recce platoon commander and my old boss from the invasion of New Earth.
‘Alright, Boss?’
Mr Barkley smirked. ‘Relaxing on the first day back, I see?’
I grunted. ‘This is how I relax, Boss.’
He gave a small nod. ‘Fair enough. How are the lads?’
With the last remaining strength I had, I picked myself up from the mats, wiping the sweat away from my brow.
I considered the question. ‘They’re fine. I think Gritt was a bit of a shock, but they know he’s alive. I think they’re just looking forward to getting out of here and seeing him in hospital.’
‘Yes, they’ll have plenty of time to do that. Gritt was in a bad way initially, the dart that went through his shoulder did a lot of damage, especially to his lower intestine. He’s lucky he’s not shitting out of a bag!’
‘The lads took good care of him,’ I agreed, glad to hear that he would survive. I had no doubt that the doctors and medics did a fine job putting my trooper back together, but it was the lads in the section who had kept him alive long enough to get that far.
The young officer nodded. ‘Yes, they did, of that I have no doubt.’ He re
garded me for a second, and then his eyes narrowed inquisitively. ‘How are you, Andy?’
It always felt strange when the platoon commander addressed me by my first name. Mr Barkley had warmed to me as soon as I arrived in the platoon, I guess because he felt some connection with me after serving together during the war. He commanded a platoon that was known to operate in a more relaxed manner than the traditional rifle platoon, but I still found it awkward, preferring the sergeant major’s no nonsense attitude.
I shrugged, ‘I’m alright, Sir.’
‘You made a call on the ground,’ he said, his voice hardening. ‘You had nobody else to turn to, so you made a call, right or wrong?’
‘The sergeant major thinks it was wrong.’
Mr Barkley laughed. ‘The sergeant major hasn’t sat in an OP with a suit firing next to it. You made a call, and deep down he knows that. Who’s to say what might have happened if you simply sat there. Would you be here right now? Who knows? What I need to know, is whether or not you feel that you’re OK to crack on …?’
My stomach twisted. ‘Sir?’
He raised his hands defensively. ‘Relax, I’m not about to get rid of you! Not if you don’t want me to. Look, Andy, I don’t care why the fourth battalion sent you away. All I know is that you were one of the top students on the Recce Course, and subsequently the Recce Commanders Course as well. You were sent here because you’re the cream of the crop, and we need only the best because of the nature of the theatre we’re working in. But I don’t want to push you over the edge …’
‘You won’t, Sir.’ I jabbed a thumb over my shoulder. ‘I want to be out there, doing my job. I’d rather be there than here.’
He stared at me for a moment, as if considering my response, then finally his smile returned. ‘I thought you’d say that. Just remember, any dramas, any issues you want to talk about, my door is always open.’
I wondered who the boss had been speaking to. Had the counsellors told him that I was one to watch, or was he unhappy with my performance on the ground? I decided not to ask, in case I didn’t like the answer.
‘I’m alright, Boss,’ I insisted, forcing a smile. ‘Honestly.’
‘Good. Because we have something big coming our way.’
My body stiffened. ‘Big?’
‘Very big,’ he replied. ‘Big enough that I want all of my commanders ready to go.’
I realised that he wasn’t going to give me any more information, not now anyway. The gym was no place to discuss future recce tasks, and I doubted the boss would want to share information until after our short break in the city. Alcohol loosened tongues, and although Paraiso was safe to walk at night, people were always listening. Alliance spies lurked everywhere, or so we were told, preying upon drunken troopers in the hope they might let slip valuable information.
‘We’ll talk about it soon,’ Mr Barkley said. ‘But for now, all I want you to do is rest, and unwind. Relax for a bit, Andy.’
‘I will, Sir,’ I replied. I planned to spend the next two days training and preparing my kit for redeployment.
Appearing unconvinced, the boss looked me up and down. ‘My God, you’ve turned into a mean looking bastard.’
‘New Earth makes you grow up quick,’ I said gloomily.
He gave a sad sigh. ‘Yes. Yes, it does.’
Sometimes I sensed that Mr Barker suffered as I did as a result of the war, and like me he had nobody he felt he could talk to. It was a lonely life being a section commander, but being an officer must have been worse. Recce or not, there was a line drawn between the two of us that couldn’t be crossed.
I waited while the boss stared blankly down at my feet. ‘Anything else, Sir?’
He took the hint, jolting out of his trance. ‘No, no, that’s it, Andy. I will leave you be. Have a good two days, and I will see you when you report back.’
‘I look forward to it, Boss.’
With that, the platoon commander turned and made his way out of the gym. I watched him negotiating his way around the equipment, thinking about what had been said between us. Obviously the boss was concerned about my mental well-being, enough to want to bring it up in conversation, but at least he wasn’t angry about my decision to abandon my OP.
But what was the ‘something big’? I remembered my conversation with the Welsh recce commander during the holograms. Maybe he was right, and we really were going in. My patrol had witnessed the Loyalists carrying out an action against a civilian target. If the rogue army had turned upon the civilian population of the Bosque, how would the Alliance respond, watching from the shadows? The Union couldn’t allow genocide to occur on Eden - the global and even galactic implications could be catastrophic.
The Loyalists were a dogmatic military and political machine, so transfixed upon the ‘superiority’ of their Union heritage that they refused to even listen to the Union itself. They had transformed the northern province of Europa from a peaceful Union province into a rogue state that fuelled their hate filled crusade into the Bosque. Talk wasn’t an option. Sanctions didn’t work either, for although tough trade restrictions were already imposed it was well known that the Russians allowed materials and goods to freely out of the province, and probably sold Europa produced goods back on to the Union anyway. The rhetoric was there, but the reality was very different. Money was money.
The only tool the Union had left to wield was military might.
That was it, I thought, we were going in, and this time we were going the whole way. Once again, the Union was going to war, and I was going with them.
We were released from the containment facility early in the morning, handed back our equipment, and allowed to check ourselves into the local barracks. The section rapidly spilled out into the city, disappearing in the time it took me to change out of my combats and into my fatigues.
I spent much of the day wandering the streets of the various city domes, marvelling at the magnificent display of wealth and power. It hurt my neck to look up at the tips of some of the buildings, standing several kilometres high, each one home to countless interplanetary corporations.
There was no doubt in my mind that Paraiso had profited from the decades of fighting to the west. While Edo and Europa bickered over scraps in the Bosque, the rich Union province traded freely with the neighbouring continents and Earth, protected by its colonial masters. It sat atop vast mineral deposits, since its borders had been altered at Edo’s expense after the Alliance was forced off the planet.
It was stupid, really. In stripping Edo of its mineral wealth, Paraiso had made its hostile neighbour weak, making it an easy target for the Loyalists in the north. The Loyalists, having been allied to the Union during the war years ago, believed that Edo had been let off too easily, staking a claim on the Bosque. Now the two provinces were at war, and eventually Paraiso would be sucked in as well. Perhaps their greed would be their undoing, I thought.
Eventually, after several hours of wandering, I found a quiet park on the edge of the giant crater, and a solitary bench that overlooked the entire city.
Birds chirped from within the tree branches, singing sweet songs that reminded me of home. Paraiso had imported them from Earth, of course, since no creature could survive outside the atmospheric domes. Only the plants could thrive in the harsh toxic atmosphere, and even they had been genetically altered centuries ago. The birds were just another display of the provincial wealth.
It was peaceful there in the park, sat overlooking the awesome metropolis that sprang out of the crater, but there was something sinister about it that turned my stomach. How could these people live like this, when others were dying less than a hundred kilometres away?
I don’t belong here, I thought, I belong in the Bosque. Wherever there was fighting, that was where I was meant to be.
I suddenly felt a presence beside me, and spun around to see a young girl standing next to the bench. She took a step back in surprise at my sudden movement.
Recovering her composure qu
ickly, she smiled at me sweetly. ‘Hi.’
I frowned at the disturbance to my solitude. ‘Can I help you?’
She held her smile, despite my brusque response, one hand fiddling with the golden hair that flowed over her shoulders. She was pretty - I would have to have been blind not to notice - and probably in her early twenties, not that it was relevant. I wanted a rare moment of peace and quiet, and she was ruining it.
‘I saw you walking around the city,’ she continued in a strong Paraiso accent, ‘and just wondered if you’d like for someone to show you around?’
There was no way the girl had followed me all over the city on her own, I thought, her friends were probably nearby. Where were we? At school?
‘No, thanks,’ I replied, ‘I’d rather be left alone.’
The smile faded. ‘Are you sure? I know …’
‘I’m pretty sure,’ I cut in, shocking her into silence. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t have said it.’
With that I stood, walking across the grass to make a quick exit. I had been with women before, it wasn’t that I didn’t know what to do, but I just wanted to be left alone.
‘Andy, you unsociable bastard!’
I cringed, coming to a halt just outside the gate to the barracks. I recognised the voice shouting out from behind me - it was Myers, his confidence fuelled by alcohol. I could almost touch the gate, I was so close, and I could see the whites in the conscript guard’s eyes. I was tempted to simply keep walking, but I knew that I had to respond, I couldn’t be seen to run away from my own section.
I turned, seeing both Myers and Skelton clutching takeaway food they had found somewhere nearby.
EDEN (The Union Series) Page 6
