EDEN (The Union Series)

by Richards, Phillip

  The civilians on the bridge began to panic, and despite the FEA soldier’s best efforts to calm them down, several of them fell from the girders, hurtling into the river below. I watched as they were swept away by the rushing water, their heads appearing and disappearing as they fought to stay afloat. Most civilian respirators weren’t meant to be submerged, and I knew that they were almost certainly doomed to die long before the river threw them onto the bank kilometres downstream.

  ‘We need to move now, Boss,’ the sergeant major shouted, wrenching us all back to the reality of our own situation with a jolt.

  ‘Roger! Prepare to move!’

  ‘Prepare to move!’ the platoon chorused in response.

  Mr Barkley pointed southward. ‘Corporal Stanton, head off! Bounding overwatch!’

  Corporal Stanton stood, grabbing his section and running between the trains toward the safety of the Bosque. Once there, he would provide cover for the next section to move, and one by one we would make our final extraction from the battlefield.

  The sergeant major pointed. ‘Onto the stretcher, Moralee!’

  I obeyed, sitting back down onto the stretcher ready for it to be lifted by my section.

  I watched as more civilians crushed onto the bridge in a desperate frenzy, and more of them plummeted from the edge. A child screamed as she was washed away, and her mother leapt after her.

  ‘Lie down, Andy,’ Puppy ordered.

  I ignored him, mesmerised by the horror on the bridge and the roar of gunfire to my west. There were more explosions, sending great plumes of earth and rubble soaring above the depot.

  ‘Next section!’ Mr Barker yelled over the noise. ‘GO!’

  Corporal Tamara’s section hurried away.

  ‘Andy,’ Puppy said again, ‘lay down.’

  My head lowered as I looked at my torn combats, and the dried blood where frag had broken through my armour. What was I now, but skin and flesh and bone? The remnants of my soul had long since left me, replaced only by misery and despair. What would I do when I returned to Paraiso, my heart mortally scarred by what I had seen in the Bosque? What would I do when I finally returned to my family, and what would I tell them? That I had sat back and watched while innocent men, women and children were killed?

  I suddenly remembered Yulia’s words, when she had spoken to me beside the bunkers. I remembered them as vividly as though she were standing right next to me ... ‘No life is ever worthless. We all have an important part to play in this world.’

  ‘No!’ I blurted.

  Puppy frowned, while the rest of the section looked at me in alarm. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m going back.’

  Before anybody could stop me I lifted myself from the stretcher.

  Puppy placed a restraining hand on my shoulder, and several troopers moved as though to help him. ‘Andy, what the fuck are you doing?’

  ‘This is wrong, Puppy,’ I said, shrugging their hands away. ‘You go. I’m going back there.’

  Puppy followed my outstretched arm toward the fire fight raging on the far side of the depot. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

  I broke into a run, and there was a sudden commotion behind me as several troopers tried to reach out and grab at my daysack.

  ‘Where’s he going?’ the sergeant major bellowed. ‘Stop him!’

  Puppy somehow managed to catch up with me, grasping me firmly by the arm, just before I rounded the nearest carriage.

  ‘Let me go, Puppy!’

  ‘No, Andy! We know you’ve had a hard ride, but please don’t do anything stupid!’

  I kept pulling, dragging him with me. Even with my injuries, I was far stronger than Puppy was. The battle nearby intensified.

  My eyes became wet. ‘You get the section home, mate. They don’t need me.’

  ‘Of course they do! They love you, Andy!’

  I shook my head, disbelieving. ‘I have to do this, Puppy. Let me go.’ My eyes glared into his with a passion that caused him to let go of my combats as if burnt.

  I ran toward the battlefield, not once looking back. I weaved through the carriages, ducking as stray darts punched through the metal, ricocheting across the depot. The FEA were nearby, I could hear their shouts and the wails of their injured.

  A fresh wave of pain shot across my body, and my visor flashed at me, warning me that I was losing blood again. I knew without checking my datapad that the clotting chemical injected into my body had loosened, and I didn’t have long. It didn’t matter anymore. I might die, but at least I would die doing something good.

  At last I found the FEA fighting along the length of a train on the edge of the depot, exchanging fire with Guard soldiers in the forest. Many of them cowered, terrified at the ferocity of their new enemy. Like the Loyalists, the Guard were a well-trained and determined force, far outmatching the child soldiers of the FEA.

  Keeping my head as low as possible, I bounded toward the train.

  ‘Get up and fight!’ I bellowed at them. Suddenly absorbed with rage, I stalked along the length of the train like an instructor on Uralis, gripping cowering soldiers by the collar and lifting them up to the carriage windows.

  I fired a volley of guided grenades over the top of the train, watching as they screamed into the forest.

  Without waiting for the grenades to detonate, I continued my march along the carriages. Keep firing! Show these bastards what you’re made of! Give them everything!’

  A voice called out from behind me. ‘What are you doing here, Andy?’ Yulia was crouched behind me, staring at me as though I was mad.

  ‘If I’m going to die,’ I said, ‘it may as well be here!’

  She flinched as a spray of darts strafed along the length of the train. ‘There are better places to die!’

  ‘Are there?’ I laughed bitterly. ‘I thought you sent Makito to kill me!’

  Yulia looked at me in surprise. ‘He tried to kill you?’

  ‘He followed me on my patrol with a section of Guardsmen.’

  She nodded slowly, ignoring a spray of sparks nearby. ‘Bhasin will have sent him.’

  She looked around at her comrades as they fought, then into the forest beyond. My visor identified scores of targets, flickering as the guardsmen moved from cover to cover. They were less than twenty metres away.

  ‘We cannot hold for long,’ she said gloomily.

  I nodded. ‘They’ll attempt to attack from either end of the train.’

  ‘I know. I have sent some of my men to either end, but I do not have enough soldiers to do anything else.’

  ‘Then you cannot hold the line here,’ I decided. ‘There’s only one thing left to do …’

  Yulia knew where I was going. ‘We must attack.’

  I gave her a grim smile. ‘It’s the best form of defence.’

  I quickly rummaged through my pouches, spilling all of my grenades onto the floor. There were five in all, and I gave Yulia two of them.

  ‘Shall we?’

  The corner of her mouth twitched. ‘Why not?’

  There was no time to properly organise the FEA platoon into teams or sections, they were an assortment of soldiers who Yulia had collected from across the city - defectors who disagreed with killing the civilians in Dakar.

  ‘Listen in!’ I shouted over the roar of battle, hoping that the soldier’s headsets would translate for me. ‘You will all have a number! You on the far left - you will be number one! Do you understand?’

  The furthest soldier to my left nodded, before continuing to fire into the trees.

  ‘You will be two!’

  Another nod.

  I carried on, ‘One, two, one, two, one, two …’

  Yulia watched as I gave every soldier a number, walking along the length of the train as darts continued to whizz overhead. As I did so something exploded against one of the carriages, and I ignored the cloud of dust that passed over me.

  ‘Ones will move first on my command! They will move through the windows into the next train,
and then they will shoot! Then twos will move on my order! Then ones, then twos! Are there any questions?’

  There were none. Many of the soldiers were engrossed in the fire fight, and I wondered if they even understood what I was saying. There was no time to double-check, though - I had given them the simplest method of fire and manoeuvre, and I could only hope that it would work.

  I set my first grenade and threw it over the top of the train.

  ‘Grenade!’

  Without waiting for it to detonate, I threw another at a different angle, then another, and Yulia copied. They exploded inside the forest in quick succession, throwing up clouds of smoke.

  ‘Ones, move!’

  There was a moment’s hesitation.

  ‘Ones, fucking move, you idiots! Move! Move!’

  Spurred into action, the soldiers scrambled through smashed out windows and barged through carriage doors, quickly taking up fire positions and opening fire once more.

  ‘Twos!’ I hollered. ‘Move!’

  They bounded forward, leaving one or two stragglers behind.

  I saw red, charging toward them like a raging bull. ‘Move, you fucking arseholes, move!’

  I fired one more volley of guided grenades over the train, watching as they hurtled toward targets identified in the undergrowth beyond. That was the last of my grenades. All I had left was my rifle, my bayonet, and my fists.

  Yulia and I leapt into the train.

  ‘Ones, move!’

  Another bound, and the makeshift platoon achieved its first foothold into the forest. Reeling from the sudden and unexpected barrage of grenades, the Guards couldn’t stop us from breaking out from the train and into the undergrowth.

  ‘Twos, move!’

  Yulia and I were amongst the soldiers now, our rifles screaming as we fired dart after dart into the enemy. I shot a Guardsman hiding amongst a clump of ferns, and he was snatched backward like a ragdoll by the supersonic dart.

  The forest roared with gunfire as we continued our advance for another few bounds, taking advantage of the initial shock delivered by my grenades. The initial organisation of the platoon quickly broke down as we engaged the enemy at close quarters, and some soldiers took to fighting with knives and bayonets as we drew to within metres of our opponent.

  I stabbed at a bleeding Guardsman on the ground, just as he reached for a grenade attached to his belt. He squealed like a pig, silenced only when I stabbed at him again, the wicked blade of my bayonet puncturing his lung.

  All around me FEA soldiers were falling, but despite the heavy casualties, the undergrowth ahead of me danced with an overwhelming barrage of darts, ripping guardsmen to shreds as they tried to run away from the terrifying onslaught. I couldn’t believe that so few untrained soldiers could have such an effect, so powerful was their determination to protect their fellow countrymen.

  I heard a massive bang and a sudden clap beside my head, and I ducked instinctively. A Guardsman collapsed to the ground ahead of me, a massive hole blown straight through his chest - so wide that I could see through it. He dropped to the ground in a spray of crimson.

  ‘Jesus,’ I gasped, shocked by the gruesome spectacle. What FEA weapon could have done something like that?

  Just then a sharp pain suddenly shot across my chest, causing me to drop to my knees. My visor display flashed red, indicating my time was finally up. I clenched my teeth in agony, and with a groan I fell forward into the undergrowth.

  ‘Andy!’ Yulia shouted in alarm, but her voice was quickly drowned out by a massive hail of darts.

  This is it, I thought, as the pain stabbed at me on the ground. The Guard had finally managed to beat us. There was no way the small platoon of FEA could possibly hold them off forever.

  ‘Get him! Quick!’ a voice shouted.

  Somebody gripped me by the armpits, pulling me onto my back, and Myers blinked down at me with a smile.

  ‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’ he asked, grinning wildly.

  In an awesome display of firepower, my platoon let rip from the train with every weapon system left at their disposal, as Skelton and Myers dragged me backward into cover.

  ‘Fall back!’ I shouted at the remaining FEA soldiers, and they paused, looking around the forest in confusion.

  ‘Listen to him,’ Yulia yelled, running alongside me. ‘Fall back to the train!’

  As the FEA soldiers retreated back toward the train, I saw more guardsmen moving in the forest a few hundred metres away, disgorging from their dropships and into the undergrowth.

  ‘It is Major Bhasin,’ Yulia cried, as I was pulled up to an open carriage doorway. ‘He is controlling the Guard companies here. We will not be able to stop them.’

  I glanced at the few surviving FEA soldiers as they clambered back into the train, helped up by Union troopers who leant out of the windows. There was no hope for them now. Soon the platoon would withdraw, once again leaving them to die, and there was no longer anything I could do to help. I had used whatever strength I had left - I could no longer fight.

  ‘Help me get him up,’ Myers shouted, and hands reached down to grab me. Puppy was on the ground nearby, getting his fire team to bundle back into the train. Wildgoose looked across at me, and winked.

  I did have one last weapon in my arsenal, I realised as I was heaved upwards. I tapped my datapad, activating my wizard kit. Blue menus flashed across my blurred vision, and with a few lazy sweeps and a point of my hand, I directed everything the Union had nearby to engage the dismounting guardsmen in the forest.

  The reply to my message was instant: ‘Thunder-God, roger, fire mission received! Wait!’

  Mr Barker was in the carriage, and he raised his eyebrows in alarm. ‘Lance Corporal Moralee, what the hell are you doing?’

  Yulia leapt to my defence as I was dragged onto the carriage. ‘Trying to save people’s lives!’

  ‘Blackjack-One-One-Charlie, this is Thunder-God, I will calculate that mission, but I need Blackjack-One-Zero to confirm that grid. It’s pretty close to the city …’

  Mr Barker stared down at me angrily, ignoring the noise of Corporal Abdi’s section as they fired into the forest. He knew that he had time to extract, but something was causing him to pause.

  Sometimes during a battle, you can have odd moments when everything else seems to become background noise, like the sound of heavy traffic passing you by in the street. This was one of those moments, as all eyes fell onto him.

  Mr Barkley looked around at the other troopers in the carriage. Not a word was uttered for several moments, though far more words were conveyed by their eyes than could ever be spoken.

  Finally he spoke. ‘Thunder-God, this is Blackjack-One-Zero-Alpha, that grid is confirmed! Loyalist dropships dismounting troops in the open. Neutralise now!’

  ‘Thunder-God, roger! Neutralise now!’ There was a seconds pause, and then, ‘Shot three-five!’

  The platoon commander looked up from me, his face contorting into a snarl. ‘RAPID FIRE! All natures! Fix them in position!’

  Missiles and grenades fired, and darts cracked through the trees as the platoon unleashed hell, aiming to hold the guardsmen where they were until the first bombs landed.

  Puppy came running through the train, with Wildgoose just behind, ripping open his team medic pouch. I watched as he drew the massive needle that he would use to reseal my internal bleeding, hooking it up to his datapad so he could use the tiny camera on the end.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come back for me,’ I said to Puppy, as Wildgoose ripped my armour away to expose my chest.

  The section 2ic smiled. ‘We never left you, mate.’

  ‘No, mate.’ Wildgoose said. ‘We just can’t run as fast as you!’ He carefully inserted the needle into me, but I hardly flinched – I was already in too much pain to even notice the needle.

  Suddenly the train flickered with blinding flashes of white light, followed milliseconds afterward by a series of almighty explosions that rocked the carriag
es on their rails. A cheer rang out along the length of the train as trooper and soldier alike celebrated together, watching as shell after shell detonated on top of the guardsmen, engulfing them with flames and shrapnel. Mixing incendiaries with high explosive rounds, the railgun battery far behind us delivered a bombardment so devastating that nothing could survive it, flattening an area several hundred metres across.

  I felt somebody gripping my hand, and realised it was Yulia. She nodded respectfully at me, and then she shook my hand.

  ‘Now,’ Mr Barkley looked back down at me. ‘Can we go, please?’

  Wildgoose injected the last of the clotting chemical into my body. I looked up. ‘OK.’

  My stretcher was placed into the middle of a clearing while we waited for the dropships to land. Thanks to the clotting chemical inside of me, as well as the drip fed into my arm and various other drugs, I would live. Anybody going into Paraiso hospital with a pulse came out alive - as Gritt could testify.

  My section kept me awake during the move through the forest, laughing and joking as they told me how Wildgoose had saved my life twice in ten minutes, first killing a Guardsman with his sniper rifle before he managed to shoot me, then fixing my internal bleed.

  ‘Technically you died three times over the last few days,’ Myers pointed out with a chuckle. I hadn’t the energy to argue with him. But I apologised about running away to fight with the FEA, but nobody in the section was angry, in fact they surprised me with their response.

  ‘You only did what you thought was right,’ Puppy said, ‘and you simply did what everyone else wanted to do.’

  ‘Those FEA lads think you’re a hero,’ Wildgoose added, ‘but we know you just love a good scrap!’

  Left in the middle of the clearing as the platoon was arranged to provide protection to the landing zone, I waited for the inevitable screaming rant from the sergeant major. Would he wait until we got back into Paraiso, or would he unleash his rage onto me now? I watched as he paced through the ferns nearby, looking as though he was trying to come to terms with what had happened.

  I would be charged, of that I had no doubt, though how serious the charge would be would depend on him and Mr Barkley. My actions risked darkening our relations with the Alliance - dropping Union shells onto the Presidential Guard. To be fair, the massacre in Dakar had risked that anyway, which was probably what the Guard wanted all along. EJOC was almost certainly trying to calm down tension already, using footage and information gathered by us to explain the events of the past few days.