Yulia knew - she had to. Not only was she with the Guard herself, but she had been working in close proximity to Makito right up until I had left to conduct my recce. I was near certain that she must have given him the order to do so, but did that mean that she had also given the order to have me and my men killed? And what would she do when we returned to the platoon? She would quickly discover that we had killed Makito, if she hadn’t found out already, but she would also know that any information I had collected would already have been passed back to brigade. Killing us all wouldn’t achieve anything, not when we were still providing a valuable service to the FEA on the ground, multiplying their strength with the support assets we had at our disposal. Why kill us when we were helping them do their dirty work?
The memory of the piled up bodies made me sick to the stomach. The Guard were using us to free up a sizable force, all of which they were holding to the west to pursue their own agenda.
My jaw clenched with revulsion, and a fresh wave of despair surged across my body.
We were helping them kill their own people.
Back to the contents page
The Hidden Army
It was past midday when I found Mr Barkley sat with the sergeant major at the bottom of a small, ancient crater, studying their datapads whilst the platoon signaller stood watch beside them. The troopers that made up their small protection groups lay on the lip of the crater, bathing in patches of sunlight that broke through the canopy as they observed for enemy patrols. A hundred metres away the remaining sections rested, providing additional protection, but catching up on sleep while they waited for fresh orders.
They were on ‘hard routine’ - no food was to be heated, equipment use was minimised, and only half of our manpower was to rest at any time. Dakar was only a couple of kilometres away, and the nearest FEA unit was several kilometres to the south, so the risk of us coming under attack was great.
I ordered Puppy to take the section away to rest. They had been marching for days with virtually no sleep, and I knew that they were exhausted. I was too.
The platoon commander heard me slide into the crater and looked up, his concerned expression melting into a thin smile. ‘Ah … Lance Corporal Moralee. Just in time.’
‘You know me, Boss,’ I said darkly, ‘I wouldn’t want to miss a good scrap.’
His eyes searched into mine for a second. ‘No, I don’t suppose you would. I’m glad to see you’re back in one piece.’
I saw that the platoon commander was sincere, but the sergeant major eyed me sternly, unimpressed by my statement. ‘So … what happened this time?’ he asked.
I knew by the fury in his eyes that he was talking about my ambush. If we weren’t so close to the Loyalists, he probably would have been shouting at me by now.
‘Sir, I was being followed,’ I explained, ‘and I had good reason to believe that the patrol’s intentions were hostile.’
He wasn’t satisfied by my answer. ‘Compromise appears to be a common word with you, Moralee.’
‘I wasn’t compromised, Sir,’ I argued, ‘I was followed from the beginning. The patrol commander was Makito …’
The sergeant major frowned. ‘Who’s Makito?’
I opened my mouth to answer, but before I could say anything the boss began to nod his head. ‘One of our liaison officers. So …’ he said, ‘… our friends in the Presidential Guard begin to show their true colours. Do you think Captain Kristov sent him?’
‘I’m not sure, Sir,’ I replied. ‘He had an entire section of guardsmen with him, though. He was carrying this.’
I removed the datapad from my daysack, handing it over to the platoon commander. He took it from me and turned it over in his hands.
‘Mathews, take a look at this, would you?’
The platoon signaller, a trained electronic warfare expert, took the datapad and began fiddling with it, prizing open a panel and attaching a device to the circuit board beneath.
While the signaller went about his work, I told the two commanders about our findings in the highlands, the hurried Loyalist withdrawal, and the massacre in the village.
‘I suppose that might point to the presence of a large army,’ Mr Barkley said thoughtfully, ‘but the Loyalists might have withdrawn simply because of FEA successes over the river. As for the massacre, well, the Loyalists could have done that.’
‘I don’t think so, Sir,’ I said. ‘I think the Guard did it. We heard their patrol calling the people traitors. They killed them because they didn’t fight back against the Loyalists.’
‘How many did they kill?’
‘In the village?’ I shrugged. ‘Perhaps a hundred, a few more on the maglev. I don’t think this was an isolated incident. They’ve been conducting mass executions all across the western region, targeting civilians who have co-operated with the Loyalists.’
The platoon commander closed his eyes as though my words dealt him pain. ‘We would be naïve to presume that these people are squeaky clean. God - child soldiers, killing civilians … What the hell is wrong with these people? How can such a beautiful place be filled by so much misery?’
I said nothing, and for a few moments we sat in silence, contemplating the true horrors of the war we had become involved in.
The signaller broke our silence, having managed to connect Makito’s datapad to his own by optic cable. ‘I’m in.’
‘What’s it got on it?’ the sergeant major asked.
The signaller scrolled through the data displayed on his screen. ‘Mostly pretty standard stuff - ammunition states, casualty states …’
‘Any orders or maps?’
‘There aren’t any notes - it’s all wiped clean. I’ve got his map up now though …’ He frowned as he tried to decipher what he was looking at.
‘Well?’
‘There are a lot of grids marked around the highlands,’ the signaller said, using his finger to navigate across Makito’s map. ‘It doesn’t say what they are, though. Villages?’
‘Let me have a look,’ Mr Barkley said, and he moved around to lean over the signaller’s shoulder. He studied the map, adjusting the image to show all of the marked grids.
We waited for several minutes while the platoon commander stared at the map. He finally spoke, ‘It’s not the villages, it’s the locations of a brigade level force. You can tell from the way it’s laid out. Looks like we’ve found the rest of the Guard.’
‘It could be the Loyalists,’ the sergeant major argued. ‘Maybe the Guard have managed to map out their positions.’
Mr Barkley shook his head, still looking down at the map. ‘No, it’s the Guard. The force is laid out for an advance, and it’s orientated toward Dakar.’
‘The Loyalists could be preparing a counterattack. They know the FEA are going for the city.’
‘There’s another thing that gives it away,’ Mr Barkley added. ‘There are more of these grids, marked behind the FEA. We know that there are still some Guard companies located behind the regular soldiers in reserve, so I expect that’s what we can see. What we have here is a complete layout of all the Presidential Guard units, up until the point that Makito was killed and his transmission cut.’
That explained the occasional blip of electronic activity that allowed our scanners to track the patrol, I figured. Makito had left his datapad active, allowing it to update him on the battle, and the locations of his comrades by periodically exchanging a stream of data with nearby units. Against regular troopers he might have gotten away with such an error, but Makito’s folly had cost him his life.
‘This is a good find,’ Mr Barkley said finally. ‘I’m sure brigade would be interested to see this.’ His brow furrowed. ‘They could have dropships, artillery, even gravtanks out there, but as yet they don’t seem to have used it for anything other than killing civilians. You say they appear to have no supply chain, and no support from the FEA?’
I shook my head. ‘None that I could see, Sir. If they had any support at the rear then
they could have simply cut me off, rather than try to chase me out of the highlands.’
Mr Barkley paused thoughtfully, before saying, ‘It’s clear that the Guard don’t want us to know the full extent of their genocide in the west for fear of a withdrawal of Union support. As long as they have us doing their work for them here, they get to keep their best soldiers fresh and ready for action …’
I butted in, ‘I disagree, Sir.’
He regarded me quizzically. ‘Oh? What are your thoughts, Lance Corporal Moralee?’
My face hardened. ‘We all know the Union won’t care that the Guard are killing civilians - they probably expected it,’ I said coldly. ‘The people here have no true allegiance, they only understand fear. That’s how Edo and Europa control the people in the Bosque, by inflicting misery, and the Union knows it. Our main effort here is to restore the original border between the two provinces and nobody cares how it’s done. We won’t drop bombs in case somebody thinks we’re attacking civilians, but we’re happy to let the Guard massacre their own people, so long as nobody knows it’s happening. ’
The two commanders appeared momentarily stunned by my harsh words.
‘What’s your point?’ The sergeant major asked.
‘The Guard know this too. They don’t need to hide the killing from us; they probably don’t even need to hide it from the Alliance. Their secrecy serves some other purpose.’
‘I think you might be right,’ the boss said, frowning deeply as he tried to think. ‘But what?’
‘I think they intend to attack Dakar.’
‘Why? The FEA will soon be doing the same, I’m sure the two units would work better together?’
‘Two reasons,’ I said. ‘Firstly they probably didn’t expect the FEA to be as successful as they have been. Without support from the Union I don’t think they could have turned the tide.’
The boss nodded slowly. ‘That’s true. Even ignoring us on the front line, our logistical support at the rear has given them the resources to push forward again. What’s the other reason?’
‘A far more sinister one. They regard the FEA as soft, and I doubt they see them as capable of seeing the job through …’
The boss stared back at me blankly, then his lips tightened as he began to realise what I was talking about. ‘They’re going to kill more civilians.’
‘Not just kill them, Sir. Wipe them out. They’re going to make Dakar an example to all the people of Edo. Fight the Loyalists - or die.’
A mixture of realisation and horror spread across Mr Barkley’s face. ‘I think I’m going to need to get a message back to brigade. Is Warrior still above us?’
The platoon signaller tapped at his datapad, studying the flight path of the ship far above us. Although its orbit was geosynchronous, there were occasions when it might be forced to alter its position.
‘It should be, Sir.’
‘I’ll prepare a message to fire up in a second,’ the platoon commander said. ‘Stand by.’
‘Roger.’ The signaller removed a large piece of equipment from his daysack - a box-shaped machine with a gun-shaped appendage attached to one side - which he unfolded. He connected the device to his datapad, tapped the screen several times and then waited while the appendage rotated with a whir, aiming itself into the sky. He then cast a glance into the canopy, checking that the appendage had a clear line of sight.
Designed to be almost impossible to detect by net scanners, the ‘tight beam’ orbital communicator needed to know exactly where the ship was above it to within less than a kilometre. There was still always the chance that the power surge would be picked up by nearby Loyalist patrols, but we needed to take the risk, since the situation on the ground had now changed dramatically.
‘What about our liaison officers?’ I asked while the signaller worked.
‘We act as though nothing has happened,’ Mr Barkley replied. ‘We don’t know what the other liaison officers know. They might be as oblivious as the FEA themselves.’
‘And do you think the operation will be affected?’
He thought for a second and sighed. ‘I don’t know. This is all getting very messy. EJOC may not care what methods Edo uses to control its people, but the Alliance might get jumpy again if they see images of slaughtered civilians, no matter how they died. Maybe that’s what the Guard want …’
Whilst the platoon commander sent his message to brigade via Warrior, Sergeant Major Davies took me to one side of the crater so that we wouldn’t disturb him.
‘How are the men?’ he asked, as we removed our daysacks and sat on them.
I regarded the sergeant major cautiously, but saw that his face was one of genuine concern.
‘They’re OK, Sir,’ I answered, pausing for a moment. ‘But they’re angry.’
‘It’s not the first time civvies have died in a conflict. We’re hardly saints.’
‘I know that, Sir.’ I had watched Union bombs dropped onto a city from orbit during the New Earth invasion, so I had seen first-hand what we as an army were capable of. Any civilians caught up in the battle were seen as collateral damage, but I had never seen a human tragedy like the butchered people of Aasha village. ‘But we don’t actually aim at them,’ I added.
‘No. Just make sure you keep a check of your section morale. We will still be working with the FEA - and the Guard - despite the information you’ve provided. You do realise that?’
I realised that the sergeant major wasn’t just checking to see if my men were OK, he was more concerned about me. I looked down at the ground. ‘I know,’ I said sadly.
‘The Union doesn’t care about Dakar,’ he continued, ‘it’s just another town in a rogue state. You must try to think about the bigger picture. Our objective is to end this war before another much larger war begins.’
I sighed deeply before lifting my head again. ‘I know. It just seems that we’re getting involved in something very dirty just to appease a fleet hanging around in space somewhere.’
He stared at me for a while. ‘The world we live in is cold, hard and cruel.’ He turned his head up to the sky. ‘Sometimes I look around me and I wonder, with a universe of unlimited bounty, what it is that we are fighting each other for?’
He reached for his rifle and patted his bayonet. ‘Look at this blade. It hasn’t changed for hundreds of years. It might be made of lighter materials, but the functions are the same - the blood channels prevent suction from making it stick, and the curve on the end parts the ribs. It’s an evil-looking weapon, but it serves a purpose - it’s designed to kill. You have a purpose, Corporal Moralee, but killing is such a small part of your job. You are a leader, placed in this platoon to lead those men - your men - in their most difficult hour.’
I studied the blade on my rifle, its surface glinting in the shafts of sunlight that broke through the canopy. ‘My men think I’m mad,’ I said quietly.
He laughed as if what I had said was absurd. ‘Your men worship you like a hero. Lance Corporal Moralee, Union Star, they’ve all heard your citation.’
‘What about Gritt?’
‘He’d probably be dead if it wasn’t for you.’
I looked at the sergeant major. ‘I thought you disagreed with my decision to extract?’
‘Maybe I do, but I wasn’t there. Only you can say that you made the right decision.’ He paused, ‘Did you?’
I thought about it, and then finally nodded.
The sergeant major held up his hands. ‘Then there is your answer. It doesn’t matter what I think. The point is you made a call, and you got everyone out alive. Do you know why I gave you a section right away?’
I shook my head. ‘Why?’
‘Your report from New Earth. I read it - ‘Tough, intelligent, a natural leader with the courage of a lion’ - it was me who put you in charge of your section. I choose who commands the sections in my platoon, and if I thought you weren’t up for the job, even for a second, I’d sack you on the spot.’ He studied me for a minute, before
he continued, ‘I sense so much pain in you, Moralee, like you carry the weight of the world upon your shoulders. But now I sense that pain has turned into despair. I’m worried about you.’
‘I’m alright, Sir.’
He didn’t look convinced. ‘The world is full of suffering, Andy. It’s up to you to find a meaning within the suffering.’
Our conversation was cut short by the boss, walking over to us with a face like thunder. ‘I’ve just had our answer back from brigade: no change to the plan. Close in the commanders, we’re going into Dakar.’
We crowded around the holographic image of Dakar that hovered above the platoon signaller’s portable projector, just as Mr Barkley prepared to deliver his orders. He had gathered us while the rest of the platoon slept, including Yulia and the other liaison officers. They had found somewhere to rest away from us - and probably to discuss their plans in secret. We used the opportunity to do the same.
There was an exchanged look of alarm when Mr Barkley explained what had happened during my patrol, and about how one of our liaison officers had picked up a group of guardsmen to track down and kill my section.
‘Dakar is a city built inside a particularly large asteroid crater,’ he began, ‘and is one of the oldest cities on the planet. By building inside the crater, the original settlers created a large breathable atmosphere, stretching a sheet of plastic across it, and installing large filters similar to those used in our own respirators. Since then the city has evolved, and now the roof is suspended by a series of metal struts, which are the connected to a central hub.’
The rotating city took the appearance of a gigantic wheel, with four large white spokes that spanned the crater, connecting to the hub at its centre. The hub itself was a wide circular structure, held aloft by a single metal spire that pierced through the roof and towered several hundred metres above the city. A wide road encircled the crater, and a network of roads and maglev rails entered the crater through tunnels cut into the ground. To the south of the city, a wide river cut through the hills, headed southeast as it made its way to join onto the Ghandi tens of kilometres away. Several bridges had been built over the river, designed to carry vehicles, trains and pedestrians. Beside one of the maglev bridges, a large train depot stored hundreds of carriages, ready to transport people and supplies across the Bosque. The surrounding hills were dotted by windmills, factories and farms that supplied its inhabitants with all they needed to survive. It was an impressive sight - a modern, advanced city that had been built long before the population of Eden had turned upon one another, somehow surviving the endless war that had raged across the planet ever since. I wondered if it would survive the coming battle.
EDEN (The Union Series) Page 22
