EDEN (The Union Series) (14 page)

The platoon commander
pointed at a location between the river and Dakar. ‘He’s presently around here,
having located several Loyalist artillery batteries. He plans to call in our
own artillery shortly.’

Slowly and
methodically the sergeant majors sections would be probing the Loyalist
batteries, making sure they had the location of every gun before they ordered for
them to be destroyed. I expected the platoon commander would have preferred the
task for his own multiple, but he needed to be back with the FEA in order to
understand what they were doing.

I looked down at the
hologram, at the site where he believed the Loyalists wanted to cross. ‘What
units do the FEA have to defend here?’

The platoon commander
explained the battlefield layout, describing the strengths and capabilities of
each FEA battalion, as well as their missions and tasks. 

‘It looks like they have
several regular infantry battalions holding along the length of the river,’ he
summarised, ‘but many of these have taken severe losses. Battalions like this
one are preparing to go back on the offensive, but even they have suffered
crippling casualties during their withdrawal from Dakar, so most of their
soldiers are battlefield replacements, drafted in from the remaining Edo
population.’

‘So who are all these
officers?’ I asked.

Mr Barkley looked
around at the arguing officers. ‘These are their company commanders and their
Guard advisors. They’re all receiving orders from the CO to relieve a battalion
holding on the river, so another battalion can punch across to set up a
bridgehead on the far bank.’

Myers raised an
eyebrow. ‘Orders? It looks like the beginning of a punch up!’

The platoon commander
gave us a thin smile, ‘I don’t think the FEA and the Guard are in full
agreement. The commanding officer is FEA, but he has several Presidential Guard
advisors telling him what to do and he doesn’t like it.’

‘Are the Guard
right?’

‘Probably. They have
the experience. Apparently the CO used to be a school teacher, so he’s hardly a
master tactician. It doesn’t make a difference, though, if both sides keep
arguing. They could both be right, but at the rate they’re going the Loyalists
will be across the river before they make their minds up.’

I imagined the army
of Loyalist fanatics charging over the river in their dropships. They might
take heavy losses - dropships were vulnerable to dismounted infantry armed with
smart missiles - but they outnumbered the FEA and had artillery on their side.

‘What fire support
assets do I have?’ I asked.

‘Saucers and guns,’
Mr Barkley replied. ‘You’ve got a single battery of railguns set up about
thirty kilometres to our rear, and at the moment they are working directly to
us. That may change, however, since they may get re-tasked if a more important
target comes up elsewhere. As for the saucers, they are on stand-by - so just
ask when you want them and I will hand them to you.’

I nodded. ‘Understood.
What about orbital assets?’

He took a deep
breath, ‘there’s one ship,
Warrior
, which EJOC has agreed to task to us
for the entire operation. I’ve got it stood by to fire smoke bombs to cover the
relief along the river, but that’s about it. Don’t expect much more than that,
EJOC won’t allow orbital artillery to be fired into Edo, no matter what it’s
for. Unless you expect to die, don’t even ask.’

‘Fair enough.’

I looked around the
tent, seeing that Yulia had removed her respirator and was having a quiet
conversation with one of the Presidential Guard officers on the opposite end of
the hologram. I watched her for a second, wondering what they were talking
about.

‘I don’t trust these
people,’ I said quietly.

‘I don’t trust them
either,’ the platoon commander agreed. He tilted his head toward Yulia. ‘She’s
your liaison officer, I take it?’

‘Yeah.’

He grinned. ‘Christ, I
wouldn’t want to meet her in a dark alley!’

‘No shit.’

Yulia wasn’t ugly,
but the hard look on her face and the coldness in her dark brown eyes told a
story. She was a nasty piece of work, of that I had no doubt. I made a mental
note to keep a close eye on her, and ensure she was never able to move freely
about my section without being watched.

Yulia nodded slowly
as the other Guard officer gave her instructions, her eyes briefly flicking
over to us.

‘Just remember you
need her,’ the platoon commander reminded me. ‘She is your link to the FEA
command.’

‘So are you – you are
staying with the CO aren’t you?’

‘Yes, but I won’t be
as good a link as her. She will know intuitively what her comrades are doing.’

I nodded, watching as
Yulia ended her conversation and began to make her way around the hologram
toward us. ‘Fair enough.’

Yulia stopped in
front of us, regarding us both as if she were sizing us up for a fight. ‘You
have been briefed on the situation?’

‘Near enough,’ I
replied.

She turned to me. ‘We
are trying to get a dropship to take you forward to the front line. You can
wait outside until it is ready.’

She was effectively telling
me to go away. I looked up, listening to the rain that was still hammering
against the tent, then glanced briefly at Mr Barkley. He gave a slight shrug.
Put
up with it, Andy, you need her.

‘Fine,’ I said
brusquely, ‘I’ll wait outside.’

Back to the contents page

The Marsh

The section huddled
around me outside the tent, ignoring the rain and listening intently while I
explained to them the Loyalist situation, and what the FEA were up to, as well
as the sergeant major in the north. It was important that everyone understood
exactly what was going on around them, especially in our situation. The average
drop trooper might get away with only a basic understanding of the battalion
plan, so long as he knew his own part within it, but we couldn't afford such
ignorance. Every recce trooper needed to know as much as possible about the
wider battle and how he could influence it, especially when we were working
around a unit we didn't fully understand, or trust.

'The battalion appear
to be approximately five kilometres behind the front line,' I explained. 'Up
until now they have been kept in reserve in order to regain their combat
effectiveness. It seems they took far heavier losses than we had expected …'

'Yeah, we noticed,’
Wildgoose commented. ‘Half their soldiers are kids straight out of school. They
look like they’re bricking it!’

I glanced up at the
young FEA soldiers, packing their equipment away as they prepared themselves
for action. Wildgoose was right, they were far from the steely-eyed veterans I
had expected to see; they looked instead as though they had only just arrived.
In truth they probably had, drafted in by Edo in its final act of desperation
before the Loyalist horde spilled into their heartland. Some of them looked
terrified.

'Fair one,’ I agreed.
‘We need to remember to give these kids a wide berth. They’ll be nervous and
confused - not a good combination when you’re armed with darts and grenades.’

‘Shouldn’t you be
over there with them, Myers?’ Puppy asked with a mischievous grin.

‘Nice one,’ Myers
replied sarcastically. ‘Maybe you should cut over there, mate. They might be
able to teach you some stuff …’

I held a hand up to
silence them. ‘Alright, that’ll do. Anyway- there are several FEA battalions
currently trying to hold the river to the north of us, though they can’t hold
on for much longer. Their plan is to launch this battalion forward, conducting
a forward passage of lines, smashing through the FEA front line and back into
the offensive with the mind to throw the Loyalists off balance.’

The battalion had two
objectives, delegated down to them by the Presidential Guard, who appeared to
be in charge of the overall battle. Initially they had orders to push forward
on foot, conducting a relief of one of the embattled battalions holding along
the river. Once it had done so, another battalion was going to break through
the Loyalist line, using dropships to cross the river at speed. With the far
bank secured the army would then continue its drive northwards, pushing the
Loyalists back toward Dakar. It all sounded simple when I said it, but we all
knew that no plan survived contact with the enemy.

'So where do we fit
in?' Puppy asked, once I finished explaining the plan.

'We will provide the
big guns,' I replied. 'The Boss has lined up close-air support from the saucers,
as well as railgun artillery. We might get help from orbit as well, but I
wouldn’t count on it.'

'Why's that?'

'The Alliance will be
watching, and if they get the wrong idea and think we're bombing the FEA
they'll get excited. The main thing is providing them with regular support
assets like the guns and the saucers. It’s something these guys haven’t had for
some time, and the reason why the Loyalists have managed to push them back so
quickly. So far, Loyalist artillery have been winning the war.’

'Sounds like you’ll
be doing most of the work, then,’ Wildgoose said, sounding almost disappointed.

The corner of my
mouth twitched - I wouldn’t have expected much else from a trained sniper. He
itched to do his job, and it was his job to hunt and kill men. Of all the
troopers under my command, I found Wildgoose to be one of the easiest to
understand.

I held up a warning
finger. ‘Don’t count on it, mate. This is all-out war, not a small-scale
contact, and to make it worse neither side are likely to be following a field
manual. Anticipate pure chaos. One minute you’ll be sat around doing nothing,
then the next minute it’ll all kick off. Stay alert, and be prepared for
anything.’

As I spoke, I noticed
the gaze of the section turn to regard somebody approaching from behind, and
the atmosphere suddenly turned icy. I looked over my shoulder to see that Yulia
had returned from headquarters, dressed for battle, along with another random Guardsman.
Through his rain-soaked visor the Guardsman looked me up and down, as if he was
working out if he could take me on. He wasn’t as young as the boy-soldiers in
the FEA, but he was still little more than a teenager. His eyes burned with the
hatred of a young man ripped from his innocence by war.

‘Are you ready to go,
Andy?’ Yulia asked. ‘The dropship is waiting.’

My eyes narrowed as I
noticed the newcomer was still glaring at me. ‘Who’s he?’

Yulia looked at the Guardsman.
‘This is Makito. He will be my bodyguard.’

I shook my head. ‘There’s
no need. I doubt he’ll be much use to us.’

Somebody sniggered at
my blunt assessment of Makito’s ability. He could pull off a nasty facial
expression, but it didn’t detract from the fact that he was little more than a
teenager.

‘He’s not here for
you, Andy. He is here to protect me
from
you
.
’

I shot her a wry smile.
‘Clearly if the guard could only spare you Makito here, then they don’t value
you very highly. He wouldn’t last five minutes - against us or the Loyalists.’

Makito scowled at me
as my words were translated by his headset.

‘These are times of
war,’ she said angrily, ‘everybody must fight, even our young. Nobody is a non-combatant
anymore.’

I remembered the
Loyalist slaughter of the villagers of Aasha, and my face darkened. ‘Don’t I
know it! The point is that I don’t want random people thrown into my section,
especially teenagers. He’ll get in the way. There is no requirement for a
“bodyguard”.’

‘Makito
will
come
with me,’ Yulia insisted. ‘My people do not trust you. I do not trust you. If I
had my way then you would be escorted by an entire platoon, not just two of
us.’

We glared at each
other for several seconds, until finally I gave in. ‘Fine. But he is
your
responsibility, not mine. Understood?’

‘Understood.’

I waved my hand
irritably. ‘Go on, then. Lead the way.’

I heard the distant
chatter of gunfire as Yulia led us away from the FEA headquarters toward the
dropship that would take us into battle. A few years ago the sound of battle would
have sent a chill of dread down my spine, but now I was virtually indifferent
to it. The only important thing was to complete my mission, and to hopefully
keep my men alive in the process.

I watched Yulia as
she and her bodyguard snaked through the trees. It doesn’t matter what my
opinion is of her and the Presidential Guard, I thought begrudgingly, this
liaison officer is critical to my mission. I would provide the vital communication
link between the FEA and the offensive support assets that the Union had
provided to them, but Yulia provided me the link to the FEA command itself.
Without her, I wouldn’t know what they were doing, or how they wanted me to
support them. Like her or not, I would have to work with her.

‘Blackjack-One-One-Charlie,
this is Blackjack-One-Zero …’ Mr Barkley was calling me over the platoon net.

‘Blackjack-One-One-Charlie,
send,’ I replied.

‘Roger, be aware that
Blackjack-Two-Zero has called in fire onto the Loyalist artillery.’

That was good news,
even if the sergeant major or sixth battalion recce didn’t manage to find every
position, the Loyalists would still flap and move their guns somewhere safe,
removing a major weapon in their arsenal.

‘Further to that,’
the platoon commander added, ‘Blackjack-One-Two-Charlie has now arrived with
his liaison officer, and I am tasking him off to the western end of the river.
You are to move to the east, to the location where I believe the Loyalists
intend to cross.’

‘Understood.’

Corporal Abdi had
arrived then, probably as frustrated as I was with the new addition to his
section. I wondered if his liaison officer also demanded a bodyguard. 

Suddenly there was a
mighty boom over our heads, causing all of us, including Yulia, to duck. This
time it was me who didn’t go for cover, motioning for my men to stand.

‘Railgun shells,’ I
explained to them. ‘The sergeant major is calling in fire.’

More shells passed
overhead, each one giving off a sonic boom as it travelled at terrific speed
toward its target. I imagined them detonating above the Loyalist artillery,
giving them a taste of their own medicine.

‘Your guns are firing
now?’ Yulia asked, as she returned to her feet.

‘Yeah.’

I didn’t know what I
expected her to do - hug me, say thank you, or even simply say ‘it was about
time’ - but instead she simply turned and carried on walking, seemingly unimpressed
by our sergeant major’s efforts.

‘Ungrateful bitch,’
Myers muttered as we followed on after her.

The dropship was
being prepared just as we arrived. Sitting idle on the ground within a tiny
clearing, it had been concealed beneath a massive thermal sheet, then covered
in mud and vegetation for extra camouflage. I remembered what I had been told
about the shortage of high-tech equipment in Edo and how far the FEA would go
to protect it. Presumably there were several more dropships, all spread out and
hidden across the forest until they were needed, so that no two could be
destroyed by Loyalist artillery at once.

Such a shortage, and
the strength of the Loyalist anti-aircraft screen, meant that the FEA couldn’t
move its soldiers fast, not in great numbers anyway. Instead the dropships
could only be used to perform short, sudden strikes into the Loyalists, before
rapidly withdrawing again. Much of their campaign had been conducted on foot.

We watched as the
dropship was prepared by several FEA soldiers, rain water pouring from the
thermal sheet as they pulled it back to expose the hull of the craft. It was an
Alliance dropship, I noticed, most likely left behind after the war. Most of
the FEA equipment was old Alliance stock left behind in the warrens when they
withdrew, augmented by new equipment bought from the Russians.

I had never seen an
Alliance dropship. It appeared to follow a similar design principle to ours,
with short, stubby wings that contained its weapons, and a ramp that led into
the crew compartment at the back. The hull was low profile, so that it could
hug the ground as it made its final approach, protecting itself from
anti-aircraft weapons as much as it could. The major difference from our own
design was that it also sported a turret on top, fitted with what appeared to
be a railgun. It was like an odd crossover between a Union dropship and a gravtank.

‘We have many of
these dropships,’ Yulia told us as we followed her around to the rear ramp, ‘but
we do not wish for the Loyalists to know we have so many, not until the right
moment.’

‘I see,’ I replied,
humouring her as I took a look inside the compartment.

She was lying, of
course. According to recent intelligence, the regular FEA and the Guard had no
more than fifty dropships and fewer gravtanks - if they had any at all - and they
simply didn’t have the infrastructure or the knowledge to build more of them.
Edo had found its place amongst the planetary provinces as an exporter of raw
materials - when it wasn’t under sanction. It barely made anything, and instead
imported all of its military hardware. Unfortunately dropships weren’t cheap.

Yulia believed that
any information she miss-fed to me would somehow end up reaching the Loyalists,
I presumed. Fine, I thought, if she wants to believe that then I’ll let her.