EDEN (The Union Series) (9 page)

My muscles tensed, I
was within striking distance.

‘Let’s calm down,
lads,’ Puppy soothed, placing a hand onto my shoulder. ‘We’re all just having a
quiet drink, no need to fight.’

I hesitated, and then
nodded reluctantly, relaxing my muscles again and unclenching my fists. Puppy
was right. I couldn’t be drawn into a fight, even if the antagonist was making
such awful accusations. I needed to be the bigger man.

‘Stroker …’ Stevo
hissed from behind the bigger trooper.

I looked down at the
floor, totally humiliated, as the section looked on in dismay. Puppy had been
right to stop us fighting, but their section commander had still lost face in
front of them by standing down.

I shook my head
angrily, before looking back up at the small crowd of troopers building around
us.

I licked my lips, and
cursed under my breath. ‘To hell with it!’

Without warning I
struck out with my fist, connecting with the big trooper’s eye socket and
sending him sprawling backwards. Before anybody could stop me I pushed past him
and lunged toward Stevo.

The bar exploded into
violence as the section joined in, piling into the fight.

Everyone sees a fight
at least once in their life, but no fight compared to one fought between groups
of trained dropship troopers. Even the youngest trooper, fresh from Uralis, had
received hand-to-hand combat classes, and they were actively encouraged to
participate in various martial arts when they arrived in battalion. Fists and
elbows flew as the section clashed against Stevo’s gang.

I caught Stevo by the
collar just as he attempted to make a break for it, snatching him back toward
me. Ignored the fighting around me as I pulled him in, catching the wide-eyed
look of surprise on his face when I snapped my head forward and head-butted him
square on the nose.

‘You bastard!’ I
roared as the hapless trooper went limp in my arms, and I threw him backward.
Barely conscious, Stevo collapsed onto a table as its occupants scattered.
Glasses smashed on the floor as he fell to the ground.

Something glinted out
of the corner of my eye, and I instinctively dodged backward to avoid a bottle
being swung at my face. It missed me by centimetres, brushing against my chest
as the would-be assailant continued his swing without connecting.

It was a stupid,
drunken move. The trooper had swung overarm, and having failed to hit me over
the head with his bottle his arm passed directly in front of me. I gripped the
arm, holding him in place as I struck once at his gut and then at his face.
Dazed, the trooper dropped his weapon, and I grasped him by the head and
slammed it onto the bar with all my might. He dropped to the ground
unconscious.   

The entire section
were locked in combat. I turned to see Wildgoose take on several troopers at
once, his huge frame and long reach putting himself at a distinct advantage
over the smaller attackers. It was like watching hyenas trying to attack a
lion.

‘Andy, watch out!’
Myers screamed.

His warning came too
late, for this time I never saw the bottle as it crashed down onto my head, the
blow driving me to the floor. Shards of glass scattered around me, and cold
liquid poured down my neck and soaked into my fatigues.

‘Andy’s down!’ somebody
hollered.

‘Somebody get that
belter!’

My mind fuzzy, I
crawled away from the fight that raged around me, struggling to get back onto
my feet. A bar stool crashed against the wall beside me as I stumbled out of
the bar, clutching at my throbbing head. Blood oozed from a gash from the
bottle, enough of it for my hand to come away wet.

‘Oh God, are you OK?’

I swore as I realised
I had been followed out of the bar by the girl. ‘What do you want?’ I snarled.

The girl flinched as
something smashed inside the bar, and a woman screamed. I would have gone back
inside, but I was in no condition to fight, there was barely anything left in
me.

‘Let me help you,’
she offered.

I waved her away. ‘No.
I told you once, leave me alone. Find some other trooper to bother. You don’t
want to waste your time with me.’

‘Please. You really
look like you could use a friend right now. Let me get you away from here …’

‘Are you even
listening to me? I don’t want any fucking friends!’ The vehemence in my words
caused her to take a step back, but I wasn’t finished. ‘Do you think you’re
gonna take a poor, messed-up trooper and set him right? This isn’t a hologram,
this is real life! Do yourself a favour, and fuck off!’

Visibly shocked by my
unexpected tirade, the girl sobbed and then ran, disappearing up the street.

Well done, Andy, I
thought sarcastically as I watched her go, she won’t be coming back any time
soon.
You’re a real hero.
 

I slipped around the
corner of the bar, disappearing into an alleyway, whilst taking a look over my
shoulder to check that I wasn't being followed. The city of Paraiso glittered,
every dome bathed in light as its people enjoyed their lives of luxury.

Like every other
peacetime city, I realised Paraiso was alien to me. This provincial capital, my
home town of Portsmouth … I didn't belong in any civilised place, not anymore.
I didn’t even belong in my own battalion.

I turned away from
the cityscape and staggered further along the alleyway, weaving blindly between
goods trolleys and other machinery, before finally coming to a halt and sitting
myself on the ground with my legs out in front of me.

I stared blankly at
the wall across from me, utterly absorbed by my misery. The last time I had
been like this, I remembered that Westy had found me, and offered me comfort and
friendship during my darkest hour. Now there was nobody. Westy was gone, locked
in a Union jail that I was only spared from by my stupid medal. Ev was dead, as
we're most of my friends. All that was left was the darkness that shrouded my
every waking moment, that and the ghosts that terrorised me throughout the
night.

I couldn't cry. I was
far beyond that. My mind had become too numbed by the pain, and I could bear it
no longer.

The shard of broken
glass flickered as I drew it from my pocket, like a bayonet blade catching the
light of the sun. I had taken it from the floor during the fight, stuffing it
into my pocket as I crawled to make my escape from the bar. I looked down at
the makeshift weapon.

I could end it, I
thought. Nobody would find me down this alley, not before I bleed out and die.
A few minutes of pain, then finally I would be free of my nightmare.

I clutched the shard
firmly in one hand, extending my arm to expose my wrist. I can do it, I told
myself, I was no stranger to pain.

But I couldn't do it.
It was as though my muscles refused to move, denying me the right to end my
life. The hand holding the piece of glass shook as anger welled up within me.
Why couldn't I do it?
Why?

I swore, tossing the
glass across the alley. It struck the wall with such force it fractured into
tiny pieces, rendered useless.

I knew why I couldn't
do it. The act of suicide went against my natural survival instincts; instincts
that were too strong to break. My mind must be weak, I told myself, and because
it was weak I was forced to continue the torture that was my life. Only the
enemy could kill me. I thumped my fist against the ground in despair.

'Andy?' a voice
called, snapping me back to reality with a jolt. Somebody had followed me up
the alley. I realised that I had left a trail of blood that had dripped from
the wound on my head.

'Lance Corporal
Moralee?' the voice called again, cautiously. It was Myers.

'I’m here,' I replied
finally, heaving myself up from the ground. I couldn't appear weak in front of
my men, even though I knew that I was. 'What do you want?'

As I reached Myers,
he instantly noticed the wound on my head. 'We need to get you to a medic,
mate.'

'I'll be alright,' I
replied gruffly, but he shook his head.

'You could be
concussed. You might not make it through the night.'

I don't have a
problem with that
. 'I'll get in the
shit for fighting,' I muttered.

He laughed. 'Troopers
against troopers? Nah, nobody would report it, and the medics won't care. The
bars don't want us to go away - they make too much money out of us! Everybody
turns a blind eye so long as no one gets too badly hurt.'

I thought to argue,
but then decided against it. He wasn't going to take ‘no’ from me. Even if he left,
he'd only come back with Puppy.

‘Fine,’ I agreed
reluctantly.

‘Can you walk
alright?’

‘Of course I can,’ I
snapped.

Myers blinked,
looking hurt for a second. ‘OK. Follow me.’

As the young recce
trooper led me back out of the alley, he glanced across at me one last time. ‘Andy,
what were you doing …?’ he started to ask.

‘None of your damned
business.’ I silenced him with my reply.

I thought about where
Myers had found me for a second; it must have seemed strange to him that I had
found somewhere so secluded.

They already think
you’re a nut job
,
don’t give them
more ammunition.

‘I thought the
security forces would be called,’ I lied. ‘I was just trying to find somewhere
to lie low.’

Myers seemed to accept
my excuse, nodding slowly. ‘Fair one. I wouldn’t worry, though. The others have
all done a runner and the bar staff won’t say a word. If the police turn up now
you could just say you were attacked from behind and that was it. They never
bother to look at the cameras if there weren’t any civilians involved.’

Sure enough, as we
emerged back onto the promenade I could see that music was still playing once
more inside the bar, and its patrons had resumed drinking and chatting as
though the fight had never occurred.

Puppy and the rest of
the section were nearby, waiting anxiously.

‘Is he alright?’ the
section 2ic asked.

Myers patted my back.
‘Yeah, he’s alright. He just took a bit of a bang on the head. He’ll need to
see a medic.’

‘No m-medics,’ I
argued, my speech slightly slurred. I couldn’t be left behind when the section
deployed back into the Bosque with nothing but my own mind to do battle with -
that and the troopers of the battalion.

Puppy laughed. ‘Don’t
worry, mate, it’s not the dark ages! They’ll have you on the road before our
rest period is up!’

I nodded slowly, the
muscles in my neck beginning to protest as they recovered from the impact of my
head butt. ‘Thanks.’

‘What for?’

‘Sticking up for me.’

He smiled. ‘You’re
recce, mate. We don’t leave one of our own behind.’

‘I can’t believe you
went in like that,’ Myers commented in awe. ‘That was awesome!’

I groaned. ‘It
doesn’t feel awesome …’

‘Fair one,’ Puppy agreed,
his face flashing concern. ‘We’d better get you away and looked at.’

With that, they led
me away from the bar and back to the barracks. Away from where I had sat alone
with my desperate thoughts and the will to kill myself.

Back to the contents page

Intervention

My head was still sore
when we flew back to the patrol warren, even after a further day spent recovering
in the barracks. The medics had carried out a fine job, closing and sealing the
fracture on my skull, and repairing the wound so that nobody could tell I had
been struck. It made little difference, though, the bruise on my forehead had
already caused a couple of raised eyebrows, including from Mr Barkley who joined
us on our return to the Bosque.

‘Don’t ask,’ I told
him when he saw me at the shuttle port, and he simply shrugged. There were some
things that platoon commanders didn’t need to know - like what their troopers
got up to when they were out in town. As long as no charge was raised, then
there was nothing to worry about.

We unloaded into the
Bosque a few kilometres away from the warren, trampling through the undergrowth
to form a defensive formation around the two dropships as they hovered in a
clearing.

I stood beside the
open ramp to my dropship, counting my men as they quickly dismounted, whilst
the platoon commander did the same for his own. There were thirteen of us in
total, including my section of seven, and Mr Barkley with various attachments
he had brought back from Paraiso.

I watched Mr
Barkley’s dropship unload. Amongst its passengers were electronic warfare operators,
signallers and medics - all attached personnel who had to return to the capital
frequently.

There was nothing out
of the ordinary about our return flight, apart from the presence of the platoon
commander. Mr Barkley shouldn’t have been in Paraiso at all. He wasn’t due any
rest, and he hadn’t sneaked off to the city to enjoy the nightlife. He had
received orders, of that I was certain, but for what for I didn’t know. 

The two of us
exchanged thumbs-up to confirm that our dropships were clear of personnel, and
then we both ran outward to join the circle of troopers forming in the trees
around us. As we did so the two aircraft rose away from the ground and shot
over the canopy with a sudden blast of air.

‘Myers, Wildgoose,’ I
whispered over the net, as the sound of the dropships faded, ‘switch the
scanners on.’

The two troopers
tapped a couple of times against their datapads, activating the scanners they
carried in their daysacks. More advanced than anything carried by our battalion
back in Paraiso, our scanners could detect nearby electronic activity,
depending on how strong the reading was. Net transmissions could be detected
from up to a kilometre, but smaller devices like datapads, magnetic weapons and
other scanners needed to be much closer. Either way, they were priceless pieces
of equipment that aided us in moving undetected through the Bosque, avoiding or
following potential enemy patrols. They also complimented any OP, giving it the
ability to scan and record any kind of electronic activity, which could then be
deciphered by electronic warfare teams back in the warren.

Myers and Wildgoose
waved their arms in front of them, navigating through menus that their scanners
superimposed onto their visor displays.

‘Anything?’ I asked.

Myers shook his head.
‘No.’

It didn’t necessarily
mean that no one was nearby. A hostile patrol could have switched off their
equipment to make themselves invisible to our scanners, waiting for the perfect
moment to strike. It was unlikely, though. Our drop-off points were random,
following no obvious pattern. It would be impossible to accurately guess where
we were going to land, or where we would go after that. Besides, Edo had ended
its terrorist campaign against Paraiso; its attention had now turned to face
the new threat from the north. They might hate the rich province and its Union
masters, but the Loyalist army driving down from Europa was far more dangerous
to them.

The Bosque was
silent, and not a sound was carried in the still air. A faint veil of mist hung
just under the canopy, threatening to block out the light from the setting sun.
With much of its surface covered by water; Eden was a very wet planet. It
rained often, far more so than it did on New Earth, and the surface was often
coated by a blanket of mist.

There was something
about the vast forest that spooked the hell of me. Nothing lived in the Bosque
- no animals anyway. They couldn’t breathe the toxins carried in the air. Only
the plants, genetically engineered and then introduced by mankind, could thrive
on the planet surface - the legacy of a long-lost dream to turn Eden into a
garden paradise.  On New Earth I had accepted the absence of all life, but in
the Bosque there was something unsettling about the silence, as though the
world was holding its breath to see what happened next.

Five minutes passed,
and the boss signalled for me to close in to him by tapping on his helmet. I
weaved through the trees and the undergrowth, finally taking a knee beside him.

‘Nothing on the
scanners, Sir,’ I said quietly. ‘We’re on our own.’

Mr Barkley nodded. ‘Good.
Split your section in two, and I’ll sandwich my attachments in the middle. Lead
the way back to the warren.’

‘No worries.’ I
paused thoughtfully. ‘So can you tell me what’s going on now?’

The platoon commander
smiled mischievously. ‘Ah, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?’

I stared back,
looking him straight in the eye, and his smile faded.

‘You’ll find out soon
enough,’ he said. ‘I’ll get the platoon together as soon as we arrive, then
I’ll go through our orders.’

‘We’re going into
Edo, aren’t we?’

Mr Barkley regarded
me for a second. ‘Yes … yes, we are.’

Huddled around the platoon
commander in the burrow briefing chamber, we listened as he described the
situation that had unfolded across the continent.

As we all suspected,
the attack on the village was not an isolated incident. Reports of atrocities
were flooding across the border into Paraiso, brought by hundreds of thousands
of refugees. Entire battalions of conscripts had become committed to rounding
them up as they poured through the Bosque and into the Union province, and
millions of euros were being spent providing them with shelter and food.
Refugee camps lined the border, and preventing the refugees from spilling over
into the wealthy Union state was becoming almost impossible.

‘This is no longer a
petty land dispute,’ Mr Barkley explained, his voice turning severe. ‘The Loyalist
army is engaged in a full-on military campaign against the Edo province, with
little sign of stopping their advance.’

What madness, I
thought. On New Earth the population could fight to the bloody death to break free
of the Union, yet here an entire army was hell-bent on attacking a neighbouring
province for no reason other than that they weren’t European. What exactly was
European
anyway, and what did it really mean to the people of Eden? The Union was a
federation of over forty different countries, with more languages spoken and
more cultural backgrounds than any other colonial power. Not only that, but
centuries of uncontrolled immigration and porous borders meant that no Eden
province could truly call itself European, Russian, Indian or Japanese anyway.

‘Ignoring the rights
and wrongs of the situation, there are many reasons why the Union has decided
to act,’ Mr Barkley went on. ‘Firstly there is the local situation. Paraiso is
dependent upon the other continental states for trade and resources. The local
economy has nose-dived as a result of the military action in the Bosque, with
supplies of raw materials, foodstuffs and goods being choked off. Several
larger corporations have threatened to axe their operations in Paraiso if the
Union can’t return stability to the region. Secondly, there is the far more
serious threat posed by the Indo-Japanese Alliance. It is almost impossible for
us to prevent news of the Loyalist offensive getting out to them, and anger is
brewing.’

After the war on Eden
the Alliance was kept relatively happy by the Union and Russia’s decision to
allow their states to run themselves, and even trade with their old masters
within certain restrictions. They spouted the usual rhetoric about building
their forces and never allowing Eden to remain in our hands, but behind the
scenes they were happy to remain at a distance. Another war would be costly,
and neither side could afford to take part in a planetary campaign, when China
loomed on the horizon like a dark cloud, waiting for that moment of weakness.

‘Accusations are
flying, amongst them the suggestion that the Union is orchestrating the Loyalists,
allowing them to annex the Edo province. It’s a tall accusation, but not at all
unbelievable to an outside observer. The Alliance fleet is stationed just on
the outer fringes of the system, and their finger is hovering over the button
to go to war. The Union must be seen to act, and soon, if it is to convince the
Alliance not to start a bloody war that neither side stands a good chance of
winning.’

‘So …’ Skelton
summarised, ‘we need to go to war … to stop a war?’

‘What Eden Joint
Command is proposing is an intervention operation, rather than a full blown
war,’ the platoon commander corrected. ‘Our ultimate objective is to end
hostilities between the two sides in order to return stability to the region.
Clearly that will require a degree of force, most of which will be applied
against the Loyalist side.’

‘And what about the
Edo army?’ I asked dubiously. ‘What’s to stop them turning about and attacking
us?’

‘Stability can only
be restored by restoring Edo’s borders,’ the boss explained. ‘We are already in
communication with the Free Edo Army, making our intentions clear. There is
serious scope for this operation to be conducted alongside their forces, and in
fact we are actually encouraging it.’

‘Well, that’s a new
one,’ a trooper grumbled.

A wave of murmurs
passed over the platoon. There was once a time when the Union had been engaged
in counter-insurgency campaigns
against
the Edo army. Edo, like the
Loyalist province of Europa, was a rogue state that refused to obey the federal
system imposed upon the planet by the Union and Russia. Unable to accept that
the Alliance weren’t coming back to save them, they often attempted to grab
land from neighbouring Paraiso, only to be beaten back shortly after.

‘We can’t simply drop
bombs on Edo,’ the platoon commander argued, waving away the murmurs, ‘and
there aren’t enough troops to commit into this operation. We still have the
rest of the planet to secure, as well as several other localised conflicts
across the globe. As I’m sure you know by now, Eden is a very messy conflict
indeed.’

I remembered on my
last tour of New Earth, when we had faced a rebel uprising that threatened to
consume an entire province, how only the minimum of resources were spared to
combat the threat, at the risk of men’s lives. It was a standard scenario, I
realised, where generals kept the bulk of their forces as a reserve to combat
the unexpected, rather than committing everything to a single military action.
I supposed it made sense, even though sometimes it could leave a bitter taste
in my mouth.

'EJOC has given the
go ahead for a military intervention into Edo,’ the commander continued, ‘in
order to return stability to the region. The most important thing to remember
here is that we cannot be seen at the lead of any military campaign into Edo.
This is a support operation, with the Union forces working to assist the Free
Edo Army in repelling the Loyalists.'

There was a murmur of
surprise. Working hand in hand with the FEA? Had the Union lost its mind?
Although Edo hadn’t attacked Paraiso for a while, it was hardly a secret that
they would turn against us at the first sign of an Alliance invasion. The Union
had starved them of trade, stunting their development, while their own province
prospered. Like the Alliance themselves, they often accused the Union of working
hand in hand with the Loyalists, even though that was far from the truth.

The boss held up a
hand for quiet. 'I understand and share the sentiment. But if you look at the
situation then you can understand the logic. As I have said, we cannot be seen
leading any campaign into Edo. It will appear to be a land-grab, which risks
tipping the Alliance into war. But at the same time we must push the Loyalists
back, or face a similar situation. Let’s be clear, here, the FEA are hardly our
friends, but neither are the Loyalists.'