Skelton bent over to see the magazine for himself. ‘What does that mean?’
I tossed the magazine back to the ground. ‘Not much. Some Loyalist might have picked it up somewhere and left it here. But it might also be confirmation that the Presidential Guard did come through here.’
Myers was about to say something, when suddenly he froze, turning his head to look at something as though he had seen a ghost. My hair stood on end as Skelton and I instinctively spun to see what he was looking at, only to see nothing but a blank wall. There was nothing there, but within milliseconds I knew exactly what Myers could see, something far more worrying than any ghost. The scanner had spotted something.
He turned to me, blinking uncontrollably. ‘Someone’s coming into the village.’
The reading was coming from the opposite side to the maglev airlock. It was little more than a blip of energy, probably created by a datapad, or perhaps even another scanner less advanced than our own. It was impossible to tell who it was, or even what it was. It was entirely possible that the reading had been created by a piece of electrical equipment switching itself on - perhaps something that operated on a timer. I knew it wasn’t that, though … it was the same people who had been following us.
I moved up to the window, peering through the misted glass to see if I could spot the unwelcome arrivals. The plastic dome hung in front of me, making it impossible to see between the buildings.
Had Puppy picked them up too? I wondered. It was unlikely - his scanner probably wouldn’t have the range. If he did get a reading, though, he wouldn’t come charging into the village to get us - an act that might risk compromising us unnecessarily - instead he would watch and wait anxiously, knowing that if I was in trouble then I would break net silence in order to warn him if things went wrong.
We couldn’t wait to see what happened. For all we knew the Guard might be moving back into the village to set up a patrol base, a scenario that would result either in us being forced to hide for an indefinite period, or being captured. I had no idea of how the Presidential Guard would handle a captured Union trooper found snooping around behind their front line, but I doubted it would be pleasant.
‘We need to go,’ I said, turning away from the window.
The two troopers nodded furiously, relieved by my decision, but still pumped full of adrenalin. I didn’t blame them; a wave of fear swept over my body. Having my men killed or injured was awful, but seeing them captured was unthinkable.
We moved to the building entrance as fast as we could without making a racket, stacking beside the doorway in the same manner as we had when we entered.
I looked out into the street, seeing nothing. The rain continued to lash against the roof, but otherwise there wasn’t a sound.
I gripped Myers by the shoulder. ‘Still got that reading?’
‘Yeah,’ he whispered.
‘How far away?’
‘Forty metres, maybe less. It’s on the edge of the dome.’
They were probably cutting through the plastic - the same as I had done.
I licked my lips nervously. There was no point in waiting by the door. We either went for it, or moved back into the building to hide.
I squeezed Myers’s shoulder. ‘Let’s go!’
We moved swiftly out of the doorway, fanning outward to cover the entire street. I quickly scanned around me, my visor display quickly adapting to a flicker of lightning that lit the village in blinding white light.
‘Follow me,’ I hissed, just as the sky rumbled, and I ran back along the street toward the maglev station, turning my head to make sure my fire team were with me.
I turned into an alleyway, trying to remember the route I had taken as I ran. Speed was critical, and the best way to achieve it was to go the way I knew.
We sped through the maze of buildings, following an alleyway that opened up to the station. I slowed as I saw the maglev airlock in the open, and my spirits soaring as I prepared for our final burst for freedom. I crept up to the end of the alleyway, my rifle firmly into my shoulder.
Suddenly Myers gripped my arm, holding me in place. My heart skipped a beat. I knew exactly why he had stopped me.
Someone was out there.
Two figures were stood on the other side of a collapsed section of the dome, their feet just visible behind the water swollen bulge. An orange crosshair flickered over them as my visor display struggled to decide if they were targets or not, unable to see properly through the plastic, or the murky water weighting it down. At least that meant they probably couldn’t see us either, I thought, since I doubted their targeting systems were as good as ours.
I cursed silently as we slipped into the shadows, our eyes fixed on the two sets of boots. They were soldiers, of that I was certain. Myers’s scanner had picked up only one of them, but the others were clearly moving around with all of their equipment powered down as we were, making them almost impossible to spot with the scanner. That meant that there could be tens of them all around us.
One of the figures spoke. He was whispering, but his voice was magnified and then translated by my headset. They were speaking the language of Edo, a strange mixture of Indian, Japanese and Russian, which meant only one thing - Presidential Guard.
‘I don’t like it here,’ the first soldier said, ‘there has been too much death.’
‘The commander wants us to stay here tonight,’ the other soldier replied. ‘I think he believes the Union soldiers are near.’
We didn’t dare move, and clung to the shadows trying not to breathe as the two figures spoke.
So they were indeed the same patrol that we suspected had been following us.
‘Do you think they’re in the village?’
The translation didn’t convey emotion, but I sensed that one of the soldiers was worried. The Guard had faced troopers before, and no doubt they knew that we were a formidable force.
‘Maybe. They cannot be far from us. That is why we must be careful.’
‘I heard people say that their commanders can control ships in space with only their hands, and that they fight like demons.’
‘They fight like demons because they are demons, but they shall die like the traitors who lived here. They shall die like pigs.’
The conversation flowed from butchering my men, to the severity of the weather, and all the while my display clock slowly counted the seconds away. We had almost reached our cut-off time, and soon Puppy would begin to worry.
I stared at their feet, willing them to turn around and walk away.
‘Where is Oleg?’
‘I don’t know. He said he would be back soon.’
Come on, move! Stop talking shit and fuck off!
‘We should go,’ one of the two figures decided suddenly. ‘The commander will wonder where we are. Come on.’
‘He has been pushing us too hard,’ the other complained, as they turned and walked away. ‘We should have rested hours ago. How will we fight the Union soldiers if we are exhausted? I do not trust such a young commander.’
‘He is only following his orders from the major. The Union soldiers are trying to find our army. They must be killed before they can report back to their masters.’
‘And if they already have?’
‘We kill them anyway. The commander wants them dead.’
The voices slowly faded, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I reached out and patted Myers, and he returned the gesture to tell me that we were all ready to go.
I bolted across the open toward the maglev airlock, stealing a quick glance up the street. There was another lone figure some twenty or thirty metres away, but thankfully he had his back turned. I gestured to Skelton to cover the figure with his mammoth as I quickly scanned along the plastic airlock, searching for the hole I had cut through it.
I cursed myself for not having thought to mark the entry point with a crosshair. Such a simple error would now cost me critical seconds. My heart thumped against my ribs as I desperately searched
for the opening before somebody turned around and saw me.
I finally found the hole, pulling it apart and bounding through in a single movement. I waved my hand at the other two, hurrying them after me, before sprinting along the transparent tunnel toward the edge of the dome.
Quickly negotiating the first hole that I had cut, I emerged into the pouring rain. The blue crosshair that marked Puppy’s fire team glowed on my display, beckoning for me to run for safety. We had made it out of the village.
Something to my left caught my eye, and I spun around to come face to face with a Guardsman. He was stood right beside me, his body having been hidden by the metal supports that held up the airlock entrance. He gaped in surprise.
Instinctively I punched my rifle forward, driving my bayonet into the man’s chest.
The hapless soldier looked as though he was about to scream, but like a whirlwind Myers appeared from nowhere, ripping the respirator away from his face to remove any chance of him transmitting on his net. He clamped his hand around the soldier’s mouth, circling around behind him as he did so. Wicked metal glinted as he withdrew his bayonet and stabbed it into the man’s neck.
Killing a man silently is nothing like the holograms, it’s an awful act, and horrific to watch. The soldier’s eyes bulged as he squirmed, pinned between my bayonet and Myers’s body. The trooper sawed with his blade, blood pouring over his glove as he cut through the man’s windpipe, not stopping until there was no chance of him making a noise. Finally I withdrew my rifle with a squelch of released air, and the soldier fell to the ground in a crumpled heap. Myers stared down at the body as though he was horrified by what he had done.
I slapped at his arm. ‘Well done. Let’s go!’
A bolt of lightning arced across the sky, illuminating the village with blinding white light, and threatening to reveal us to the Guard.
We sprinted across the open, zigzagging in case the Guard patrol spotted us and opened fire. I expected to be cut down by darts at any second, and the anticipation spurred me on ever faster. We had obtained important information, and we needed to get it back to brigade.
Puppy and his men were already on their feet when we arrived.
‘We need to go now!’ I panted, checking to see that the other two had made it safely across the open ground.
‘Yeah, I saw,’ Puppy replied, glancing nervously over my shoulder. ‘Wildgoose was about to put him down before you got him! How many more are in there?’
I looked back at the village. ‘God knows, but it won’t take them long to notice their mate missing. Where the hell did that bloke come from? What was he doing out there?’
Puppy’s teeth gleamed wickedly through his visor. ‘He cut his own hole through the dome. I think he was taking a shit!’
I shook the thought from my head. ‘We need to move,’ I repeated.
Puppy turned to his men. ‘Prepare to move!’
We quickly slipped back into the forest, hurrying to get a good distance between us and the village before somebody found their butchered comrade. I didn’t run, conscious of the noise we would make crashing through the undergrowth; instead I strode right out, setting a fast marching pace that quickly caused our shins to burn. I avoided our original route – that would have made us vulnerable to an ambush - and headed directly north in an attempt to throw any pursuers off our trail.
I knew from my time in the OP that there was a shallow river running along the valley, slowly making its way out of the highlands before joining onto the Ghandi. I wondered if I could use it to move rapidly without leaving any ground sign, depending on the composition of the banks and the river bed. We could follow it, just as we had done with the maglev line, before selecting somewhere to carefully break off into the forest again. Any Presidential Guard trackers would then hopefully be thrown off our scent. Even if they weren’t, it would buy us a bit of time.
I slowed as I neared the river, noticing something lining its banks. It looked as though somebody had thrown out the village garbage along its length, piling it up in untidy heaps. Deciding to exercise caution, I zoomed in with my visor display into the piles, and my mouth hung open as I realised what I was looking at - they were bodies.
Stripped to their underwear, and tossed into piles like animals out of a slaughterhouse, their bodies were pale and soaked in the rain. They had been shot, every one of them, clean through the chest, the blood washed away to expose the gruesome wound. Men, women, children - even the old had been killed - and their corpses thrown together to slowly decompose in the elements.
‘Looks like we found the villagers,’ Myers said grimly as we all approached the terrible scene and looked down at the stacked bodies in disgust. ‘I guess the Loyalists didn’t keep them after all.’
‘No,’ I corrected after a pause. ‘The Loyalists kept them. It was the Guard that killed these people.’
Puppy shook his head. ‘They wouldn’t kill their own people. That’s ridiculous.’
I looked at one of the bodies - a young boy barely in his teens. His eyes were still open wide, and his mouth gaped as though in surprise. He wasn’t like Yulia or her friends in the Guard, I thought, whose faces were hard and cruel; he was innocent.
‘It’s a message to their own people,’ I said sadly, brushing the boy’s eyes shut with my fingers. ‘Don’t co-operate with the Loyalists.’
‘They were hardly co-operating,’ Myers argued. ‘They didn’t have a choice!’
I shook my head. ‘It doesn’t matter. Not to the Guard.’
His face screwed up in revulsion. ‘Those sick bastards.’
‘Yeah.’
Skelton frowned. ‘So who are the good guys here again?’
I smiled darkly, remembering being asked a similar question on New Earth, and knowing that the answer was the same. ‘Nobody,’ I said simply.
‘The people of this planet are totally messed up, aren’t they?’
I fixed the section with a hard stare. ‘Not all of them. These poor people weren’t. They let the Loyalists set up a base right under their village. They didn’t fight them, even though they were using their village against their own people, and do you know why?’
The section stared back at me blankly.
‘They just wanted to live.’
The river was fast-flowing and swollen by the rain collecting on the highlands, but its banks were shallow and rocky, allowing us to move along it with relative ease without leaving a trail behind. I pressed on, eager to make best use of the ground to increase our pace - and the distance between us and the Guard patrol.
I could swear I could hear shouting far behind us, though it was hard for my headset to identify such a distant sound in the pouring rain. It didn’t matter either way; I knew that as soon as the patrol found the body, then they would search the edge of the forest, finding the location where Puppy and his fire team had waited. It didn’t matter how good we were, the weight of our boots and our bodies would have crushed the undergrowth and the soil beneath it. All they then needed to do was pick up our trail and follow it. They might make the error of following the wrong trail, moving back the way we had originally taken, but that was unlikely. They managed to find us, even though we had thrown them off our trail once already, so they were unlikely to make such a foolish mistake. They would identify both trails, and then their commander would ask himself which way would I go? It didn’t take a genius to work out that I wouldn’t simply walk back the way I came, making a beeline straight back toward my platoon.
I increased my stride, taking care to keep my boots on the rocks and not leave a print in the mud. My shins began to burn again, but I ignored the pain, continuing to scan through the trees as I led my section away from the village.
Eventually I found a suitable location to break away from the river, and we carefully crept back into the forest, taking the time to ensure that we left no trail behind. I hoped that my route had worked, but only time would tell, in the meantime all we could do was march as fast as we cou
ld back toward the platoon, putting as great a distance as possible between us and our potential pursuers. I considered using the net, maybe even calling for a dropship to pick us up, but I decided against it. If it all went wrong then help wasn’t far away; I still had saucers and artillery if I needed them.
There was no time to rest, even though my men had been severely deprived of sleep, and our legs ached from the endless march that had taken us halfway across the Bosque. Not only were we pressured by the Guard patrol that might be hunting us, but we had the added pressure of the imminent attack on Dakar. If we didn’t get back on time, then the platoon commander would be forced to attack without us.
I chewed thoughtfully on my drinking straw as I marched. What were the Guard up to? If there was an entire army of Presidential Guard somewhere in the highlands, then it appeared to be acting separately from the ad-hoc army in the east, sweeping through the valleys with virtually no opposition. They were well-equipped, having no need to ransack supplies left in the village, and they had the free time to march tens of innocent civilians to the river before executing them as traitors.
It just didn’t make sense. The two armies should have been the other way around, with the Guard taking the brunt of the fighting. Arguably there was no point in having an army to the west at all, since the Loyalists would withdraw as ground was lost to the east anyway.
I cast a glance into the darkened forest. Was there really an army of Guardsmen out there? And what were they doing so far from the battlefield?
The rain finally began to subside, allowing our soaked combats the opportunity to dry. I thanked the heavens for giving us a break, but my relief was short-lived, as Skelton hissed at me from behind.
Our friends were back.
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Ambush
Without breaking my pace I turned around to face the section, slinging my rifle to my side, and placing both fists together as though I was holding a stick in my hands. I snapped the imaginary stick, exaggerating the action so that it could clearly be seen. Snap ambush.
EDEN (The Union Series) Page 20
