First To Fight (The Empire's Corps Book 11) (32 page)

Whisper leaned forward.  “Do they have a habit of getting close to the spaceport?”

“They fire off mortars every time a resupply ship arrives,” Singh grunted.  “No HVMs so far, although it’s only just a matter of time.  They have the local system command network thoroughly penetrated, even though it’s run by Hammersmith.  Many of the local bureaucrats are interested in keeping on the good side of the monarch and the rebels, so they kiss the ass of the former and slip information to the latter.  Expect them to know what we’re doing as soon as we do it.”

Joker had a different question.  “How reliable are the royal troopers?”

“Some units are good; mostly, the ones that have good reason to fear the worst if the rebels win,” Singh said.  “Others just crap their pants and run away when the shooting starts.  There isn't any sort of vetting procedure for recruits, so the rebels manage to slip quite a few moles into the forces.  They’re so desperate for manpower that they don’t even carry out basic checks.”

He refused to be drawn any further until we reached the FOB.  It had started life as a warehouse on the edge of Charlie City; now, it was surrounded by barbed wire, murder holes and prefabricated protective shields.  It looked flimsy, but I knew from training that the shields could soak up anything short of an HVM.  On the roof, there was a mounted radar set and a laser defence system, covered by a set of sniper hides.  The rebels might be able to storm the FOB and kill us all, but they could be sure we’d sell our lives dearly.  Like the spaceport, the ground around the FOB had been cleared; dozens of buildings had been knocked down, just to make it harder for anyone to sneak up on us.  I couldn't help wondering just how popular that had made us with the locals.

Probably not at all
, I thought.  I wouldn't have been too pleased if someone knocked down my home either. 
But what choice did we have
?

The FOB was far more secure than the spaceport, thankfully.  A guard checked our fingerprints before allowing us to enter; Singh ordered us out the vehicle and pointed us right into the warehouse.  Inside, the hard concrete floor was covered with sleeping pallets; dozens of marines, trying to catch a few hours of sleep, lay everywhere.  I couldn't help feeling as if I didn't belong, not really.  They had months, perhaps years, of experience, while I had almost none.

“The Rangers are to report to Corporal Little,” Singh said, gruffly.  He glanced at the sleeping marines, then nodded to himself.  “The rest of you, with me.”

Captain James Webb didn't look like someone who had stepped out of a recruitment poster, to my private disappointment.  He looked short, with brown hair an inch or two longer than the haircuts inflicted on us at regular intervals.  Indeed, I would have mistaken him for a doctor or a bureaucrat if he hadn't had a muscular body, sharp eyes and mannerisms I’d seen on several other senior marines.  Singh saluted - we copied him, quickly - and withdrew, leaving us alone with our new commanding officer.

“Welcome to the Weavers,” he said, without preamble.  His voice was warm, but there was no hint of weakness.  I’d read his record and it was clear he had over two decades of experience.  “You’re replacing popular men, I’m afraid; one dead, two badly wounded.  You won’t have an easy time of it.  However, we expect you to cope with it.  We’re going to be going back into the field in four days, unless we get called forward early.  You have that long to fit into your new platoons.

“You’ve had a chance to read the briefing notes, so you know what to expect.  The war is stalemated at the moment, without any real chance of either side making a breakthrough, but we will keep the pressure on until the enemy cracks.  Or until we get pulled out and sent elsewhere.”

He looked at each of us, one by one.  “Sergeant Singh will see to your combat assignments,” he concluded.  “Welcome to Moidart.”

And that was our introduction to our new commanding officer.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Moidart was, of course, a classic example of an ongoing problem.  The local forces couldn't take the burden of security from the outsiders, the outside forces didn't have the numbers to impose peace and the rebels didn't have the ability to actually win.  Absent something that changed the balance of power, the war was doomed to stalemate.  There was no hope of coming to an agreement to end the war because the different sides were simply too far apart; the royalists wanted a return to a monarchy, the corporations wanted to rape the land and the rebels wanted to destroy the monarchy and evict the corporations.  How could anyone propose a workable compromise?

-Professor Leo Caesius

Captain Webb had been correct, I discovered, as I worked to integrate myself into 3rd Platoon.  (Formally, 3rd Platoon, 453th Company.)  Rifleman Yates, who had been killed in an IED strike two months ago, had been popular, very popular.  I was a newcomer, a CROW; I knew it would take them time to warm to me, but it was still disheartening.  The week I spent prepping for operations with the platoon was, perhaps, the most depressing week of my life.

“You’re not too bad, for a cherry,” Singh conceded, after we ran through a series of exercises in teamwork.  “Could do with a little more refinement, but Moidart will knock the edges off you soon enough.”

I nodded.  I’d been in danger before, of course, but I’d always known it wasn't quite real, that precautions were taken to minimise the risks of serious injury.  Now, everyone pointing a gun at me would have murderous intentions ... and the bullets would be real, rather than pulses of laser light or deliberately aimed to miss (but only by a few inches).  The fire team - Singh had assigned me to his own team - was good, very good.  But Yates had been good too.

“Remember to watch for anything out of place,” Singh warned, as we marched out to the muster ground.  “The locals have bugger all in the way of services, so there are piles of rubbish everywhere.  Expect the rebels to use them to conceal IEDs.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” I said.  I’d called him ‘sir’ once and had been forcibly reminded not to do it again.  Sergeants were rarely addressed as anything other than ‘Sergeant’ outside Boot Camp or the Slaughterhouse, where there were few officers for us to practice on.  “Do they snipe at us on patrol?”

“Sometimes,” Singh warned.  “Charlie City is supposed to be secure, but there are gaps in the defences everywhere.  Watch your back.”

I nodded to myself as the gates opened, allowing us to march out and into Charlie City.  I’d seen some of the city when we’d been driven from the spaceport, but this was different; a number of buildings looked abandoned, while others were heavily guarded by private security forces.  The mercenaries looked tough, but nervous; they knew they were perhaps the most hated soldiers on the planet.  I’d heard that the rebels maintained a special hatred for them and any mercenary who fell into their hands could expect a slow and unpleasant death.

“They’re not good for anything, but defending their bases,” Rifleman Lewis told me, as the platoon spread out.  “Don’t expect them to come to your aid if we get into shit.”

“Understood,” I muttered.  Lewis hadn't been bad to me - none of them had been
bad
- but he hadn't warmed up to me yet.  I had a feeling I’d been assigned to Singh’s team to make sure the sergeant could step on me if I turned out to be a weak link.  “Is there any
good
news here?”

Lewis snorted.  “Not really, Stalker,” he said.  “The locals either hate us or are too scared to do anything to help us.  Either way, we're screwed.”

He had a point, I realised, as we walked onwards, into a housing estate.  The locals, many of them clearly too poor to buy new clothes, watched us warily, too listless even to get their women and children out of the line of fire.  I couldn't believe just how poor they were, not when they were surrounded by land and boundless opportunity.  But a combination of bad government and endless war had made investment impossible, trapping countless civilians before they could make something of themselves.  I found my heart going out to a handful of children who were kicking a tin can around, laughing in the midst of hell.  They didn't deserve to be caught up in a nightmare.

“That’s probably a good sign,” Lewis told me.  “If there was an ambush planned, they would have gotten the children out of the way.”

I nodded in agreement.  Terrorists - and insurgents - liked using women and children as human shields, but the locals tended to take a dim view of it.  Even the most listless population - the most
terrified
population - would turn on the terrorists if they weren't allowed to protect their young.  Smart terrorists gave them the chance to remove their children before the shooting started.

A young man - probably around fifteen, although it was hard to be sure - glowered at me as we passed, his dark eyes challenging me.  Judging from his skin colour, he was probably a bastard son, perhaps the child of a miner and a local woman.  I’d never quite understood the point of racism - in the Undercity, there are all shapes and colours - but I had a feeling the locals probably treated him as a pariah.  Someone like that would have a burning urge to prove himself.  No doubt, if things had been different, he would have made an excellent marine.  Instead, he was probably trying to decide if he could get away with shouting insults or squeezing off a few rounds at us.   The pistol concealed under his shirt wasn't invisible to me, not after months at the Slaughterhouse.  I’d seen people conceal weapons in far more awkward places.

It was his lucky day.  He lowered his eyes, then turned and walked away.  I knew from the notes that turning one’s back was regarded as a local insult, but I didn’t feel offended.  The pistol he’d carried might not pack enough punch to break through our body armour, yet the shirt and jeans he’d worn wouldn't offer any resistance to our bullets.  He would have been killed before he could get off a second shot, throwing away his life for nothing.

“Move to the right,” Singh ordered, quietly.  “That pile of rubbish looks suspicious.”

I shook my head in disbelief as we gave the pile a wide berth.  It wouldn't have been hard to pick up the rubbish, transport it to a disposal centre and feed it into a disintegrator (if it couldn't be recycled) but the locals didn't seem interested in cleaning up their city.  The sheer number of shootings, bombings and kidnappings probably made it hard for them to do anything; the files had warned, in great detail, that civil servants - even garbagemen - were targeted for elimination. 

And besides, a pile of rubbish
was
an easy place to hide an IED.

I tightened my grip on my rifle as I heard an explosion in the distance, followed by a handful of shots.  The radio net buzzed with brief updates - a patrol on the other side of the city had been hit - but we weren't directed to go to their aid.  It was a relief, I felt; if we’d made a beeline there, we would probably have been sucked into a second ambush.  Even so ... I glanced around, watching the handful of visible locals.  One of them was quite probably a dicker, reporting our movements to his superiors.

We walked past the remains of a building - it looked as though someone had slammed an antitank rocket into it, blowing the interior into charred debris - and into the next housing estate.  It was like crossing an invisible line; I couldn't help thinking of the gang territories back in the Undercity and the places where one gang’s control was replaced by another’s, where few dared cross without permission from both sides.  But the locals looked as poor and hopeless as the first set of locals.  A handful of young women eyed us, their older mothers scowling at them fiercely.  Below them, sitting on the sidewalk, a number of young men glared.  It made no sense to me at all.

“They’re hoping for an Exit Permit,” Lewis commented, quietly.  “If they happen to marry one of us, an off-worlder, they can get permission to leave this shithole and set up a home somewhere else.  There isn't much for them here, beyond marrying an unemployed lout, bearing his children and turning into a carbon copy of their mothers.  The young men, of course, don’t like us threatening to take their women.”

I blinked.  “We don't ... do we?”

“
We
don't,” Lewis said.  “There are strict orders against fraternising with the local women - or men, if your tastes swing that way.  But the regulars often do start relationships, not all of which end well.  And the local men
hate
it.”

I remembered some of the lessons in applied psychology from the Slaughterhouse.  Sex is one of the driving urges of human civilisation; sex ... and the urge to procreate.  Men wanted to spread their genes as widely as possible, so they felt the urge to impregnate as many women as they could; women wanted a man who could protect them and, in exchange, offered themselves to one man.  But men also wanted to make sure the women
only
bore their children, hence the historical fact that female adultery was treated as more serious than male adultery.  It didn't seem fair, but it made a certain kind of sense.

“A person has a
rational
brain,” Professor Tomkins had said, “but he also has an
emotional
brain.  The average man is perfectly capable of adopting, and loving, a child ... provided that he understands,
rationally
, that the child isn't actually his.  However, discovering that he has been caring for a cuckoo in the nest, another man’s child, leads to outrage directed against the child, even though the child is obviously blameless.  The emotional brain overrides the rational brain.”

It wasn't a pleasant concept.  But it might explain why my mother, who had had four different children with four different men, had never found a husband.  And there had been no pressing
need
for her to find a husband either.  She’d been fed and watered by the state as she churned out children and waited to die.

I pushed the thought aside as we walked through the rest of the estate - it didn't look any better - and took a detour through what had once been a football pitch.  The grass had been removed, somehow; it didn't look as through anyone was trying to grow food, even though it would have helped solve the problem of feeding the city’s population.  We kept a wary eye on a pair of tall buildings, both easily capable of hiding snipers, as we walked past them, weapons at the ready.  And then a small child - a girl, wearing a frilly pink dress and carrying a knapsack - came into view.  She was running right towards us.

“Get down,” Singh snapped.

I hit the deck at once, training overriding the part of my mind that didn't see a real threat.  A girl barely old enough to walk couldn't threaten us, could she?  I was wrong.  Seconds later, there was an explosion ... it took me several seconds to realise that the girl had been carrying a bomb, which someone had detonated via remote control.  There was nothing left of her ... the sound of bullets cracking down around us snapped me out of my horrified trance as Singh barked orders, directing the fire team to lay down covering fire.

“There's a sniper up there,” Lewis snapped.

“Take him out,” Singh snapped back.

I covered Lewis as he snapped a grenade launcher into place on his rifle, then launched a contact grenade towards the sniper’s location.  There was a sharp explosion and the sniper fire stopped abruptly.  Pieces of debris crashed down around our position, but luckily none came within metres of actually hitting us.  I let out a sigh of relief as we searched for more targets, finding two more enemy fighters hidden within abandoned buildings.  Singh snapped orders; one fire team provided cover while our fire team inched forward, then crashed into the building.  Inside, three enemy fighters died before they recovered from the blast we’d used to blow down the door.

“Three tangos down,” Lewis reported.  There was a shot from overhead which narrowly missed Rifleman Atwell.  I snapped up my rifle and picked the terrorist off, sending his body crashing down to the concrete floor.  “Correction; four tangos down.”

We searched the building, but found nothing else.  The other fire team, which had attacked the other enemy position, reported that the terrorists had fled, leaving behind an IED which hadn’t been set up properly.  There didn't seem to be any point in taking it back to the FOB, so Singh ordered them to blow the IED in place and then leave the building alone.  The remaining bodies were left where they’d fallen.

I looked at Singh.  “Sergeant, shouldn't we be calling in an SSE team?  Or a WARCAT unit?”