RECCE (The Union Series Book 4) Read online

  Each of the pairs was already preparing themselves to move as Puppy and I picked ourselves up. I signalled for Myers to close in.

  ‘You happy with the next rendezvous?’ I asked, as we took a knee side by side on the northern edge of the island. I gestured toward the next green crosshair. Myers was my point man, so it was he who would lead us there, under my direction.

  He sighed. ‘Not happy, but I can see it.’

  I felt his pain. The crosshair was another four kilometres away, and the ground didn’t look any better - if I took another two steps off the island, I’d be back in muddy water.

  I thought of something positive to say, and then thought better of it. This wasn’t the time or the place for cheesy motivation speeches, and I was no good at it anyway.

  Puppy took a knee next to us, having finished alerting the section to our departure.

  ‘I hope you’ve brought your armbands,’ he said to Myers, a mischievous grin just visible through his darkened visor. Any sign of fatigue or doubt was completely wiped from his face.

  The young trooper blinked. ‘Nice one,’ he said sarcastically. ‘Do you need stilts to get through this?’

  Puppy laughed quietly. Despite the thrown insults, there was no animosity between them - the two troopers shared an almost brotherly relationship, as did many of the troopers in my section. It was a level of friendship that I found difficult to become involved in at the same time as being section commander. Perhaps that was why Puppy was happy to let me stay in charge, despite us both being of the same rank.

  The section 2ic turned to me and gave a thumbs-up: we were good to go.

  ‘Come on, then,’ I said to Myers. ‘Let’s do this.’

  With a tired groan, the young trooper stood and slowly waded out into the murky water, taking care not cause a splash.

  ‘Till next time, then,’ Puppy said to me.

  I briefly regarded my 2ic and nodded. ‘See you at the next RV.’

  I brushed through the reeds after Myers, cold water instantly pouring into my boots as I stepped off the island, soaking my feet as the level rose up to my knees.

  Puppy waited at the edge of the island, counting each trooper as he passed, just in case one of the pairs had somehow managed to fall asleep. With our net deactivated, a separated trooper wouldn’t be able to find his comrades other than by attempting to move to the next rendezvous on his own.

  My headset magnified the sound of him exchanging light-hearted banter with the passing troopers, making fun of their tired faces and reminding them that they only had another sixteen or so kilometres of punishing marshland to go.

  I was glad that I had Puppy with me, I thought, as we patrolled on through the marsh. He displayed a level of compassion and camaraderie to the men that I couldn’t, lifting their morale when they needed it most … if they spent all their time just with me, somebody probably would have killed himself, especially with the low morale across the platoon. I still believed that Puppy could do my job as well, if not better, than me, but at least he seemed happy to work under my command. After my recent episode in Dakar, I had half expected him to run a hundred kilometres rather than work for me, but if anything, he appeared friendlier.

  We patrolled on through the night, slowly cutting our way through the marsh. A blanket of mist rose around us as morning drew near, so that we were forced to close the gaps between us to less than five metres. I constantly swung around to check for the man behind, as did Myers ahead of me - becoming separated now was a terrifying prospect.

  With our net deactivated and everything but our section scanners powered down, I felt an almost unnerving sense of isolation. It was a strange feeling moving through enemy territory with little more than the knowledge that the remainder of our platoon should be nearby. We had no proof that they were there; it was simply a matter of trust.

  One of the major difficulties posed to reconnaissance units in modern warfare was the effectiveness of network detection and position triangulation. Even the isolated rogue provinces, like Europa and Edo, had access to technology that allowed them to locate us and to gain masses of information through little more than a single net transmission.

  I had only realised in my short time in Recce just how vulnerable units were to detection by enemy electronic warfare equipment. The regular fighting platoons that made up the three main companies in our battalion gave off a massive electronic signature as their networks constantly exchanged information, both in the form of verbal data from regular messages, and battle-space management data such as ammunition counts, automated casualty alerts and unit locations.

  As a recce platoon we couldn’t afford the luxury of exchanging such a vast amount of data over a live net during patrols such as this one. Instead we exchanged data during short, pre-planned transmissions - extremely short blips of information that confirmed everyone was OK and where they were meant to be. For larger transmissions we had to rely upon the tight beams carried by signallers in the two command groups - advanced pieces of equipment that fired messages up to ships in orbit before they could be relayed back down to us by regular transmission. The message could only be detected as it was repeated from orbit, but if it was coming from a ship in orbit then it didn’t matter if somebody picked it up. Nobody would know where it originated from.

  The problem with tight beam was that it was a highly technical piece of equipment that only a well-trained signaller could operate. Unlike our traditional communication equipment, it transmitted data by line of sight, effectively ‘shooting’ the recipient with a directed beam of data that only it could detect and read. This meant that nobody other than the ship could pick up the transmission, but it also meant that the beam had to be fired in precisely the correct direction. Nobody in my section carried one, so if I needed to send a message outside our pre-planned transmission, then I would need to have a very good reason for it.

  I reminded myself that it was stupid to worry over the silence on the net. In an operation such as this one, no news was good news. It was highly unlikely for an entire section to be killed without a sound or net transmission, not even an automated casualty alert. If nobody spoke on the net, then everyone was fine. Nevertheless, I found myself longing for some form of reassurance … something to let me know that I wasn’t leading my men toward the enemy on our own.

  We were less than a kilometre from our next checkpoint when Myers held up an arm, indicating for us all to stop. My heart skipped a beat as I snatched up my rifle and froze.

  The young trooper waved his hand downward and we slowly dropped to our knees amongst the reeds, instantly forgetting the cold water.

  Myers carried one of the two scanners in our section - highly advanced pieces of equipment that could detect electronic activity from virtually anything manmade. I knew that he had picked something up. Sometimes our scanners were known to pick up false readings, but ours hadn’t been wrong yet. My finger crept toward the power-up button on my rifle as I scanned the marsh for targets.

  The marsh was deathly silent. Even the wind had died.

  After a moment’s silence I decided to move up to Myers, figuring it was worth the risk of moving in order to know what he had picked up; forewarned was forearmed, after all. I carefully slipped through the water, moving as slowly as possible so that I made no more noise than that of the water dripping from my soaking kit.

  ‘You got something on the scanner?’ I whispered, as I joined the young trooper, my eyes searching the green wall of plant life ahead of us.

  ‘Yeah,’ he replied, quietly, sweeping his arms through menus that only he could see on his visor display, ‘but this is a proper signal.’

  I frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Its strong and constant,’ he said, squinting as he tried to decipher whatever the high-tech device he carried in his daysack was showing him. ‘Several different signals, all in a line … it’s a patrol … three hundred metres ahead of us.’

  ‘Which way are they moving?’

&n
bsp; Myers swept with his arm.

  ‘Across our frontage toward the northwest, moving at quite a pace. They’re not running, but they’re marching hard.’

  I turned around to look at Skelton, my fire team’s mammoth gunner, who crouched ten metres behind, almost fully submerged but for his head, shoulders and weapon. With a single finger I tapped my upper arm, emphasising the movement so that he could see the message: Section 2ic. I tapped my helmet: close in.

  It didn’t take long for the message to get back to Puppy, who promptly closed in to Myers and me whilst we listened out for the enemy patrol. I could just about make out the rustling of leaves and splashing water as they marched at speed through the undergrowth, hastened by something unknown.

  ‘I could swear we were doing this only last week …’ Puppy hissed, as he arrived.

  ‘This time our enemy doesn’t seem so bothered about being detected,’ I answered.

  We fell silent for a moment, listening to the sounds of the patrol fighting their way through the marsh. Somebody spoke, their voice just loud enough for my headset to amplify. It was too quiet and distant to be intelligible, but it sounded like someone giving instructions or telling the others to hurry up.

  ‘They don’t know we’re here,’ I said. ‘Nobody moves through a marsh like that … not unless he’s running for dear life.’

  ‘Or running into battle …’ Myers suggested.

  ‘Well, if they are then they’re running the wrong way,’ Puppy argued, nodding off to the northwest. ‘There’s nothing out that way of any interest to anyone except an old chemical plant on the coast.’

  ‘Could be a come on …’

  I considered the possibility. A “come-on” was a ruse to draw us in to attack or pursue a small force, only to be hit by an ambush or something similar. It was unlikely the enemy knew we were in the marsh, though, and if they did, then there would be no need for trickery - we were on their turf.

  I finally shook my head. ‘No, I don’t think so, but they’re trying to get somewhere fast, whoever they are.’

  ‘Even if they don’t know we’re here, there’s a risk they might compromise one of the other sections,’ Puppy warned.

  He was right. The enemy patrol was moving directly across the lane our platoon had been tasked to clear. Given that I had no idea exactly where any of the other sections were, there was a slim but dangerous chance they could bump into one another.

  On the other hand, there was also the risk of me becoming compromised by breaking net silence. I could keep the power of my transmission low, reducing its range and therefore the ability of nearby units to detect it, but the enemy patrol was less than a few hundred metres away. They only needed a basic scanner to pick us up. There was a good chance they didn’t have one, but was it really worth the risk?

  After taking a couple a seconds to weigh up the pros and cons, I made my decision.

  ‘We’ll stay silent,’ I said. ‘Every section has scanners as good as ours, and the enemy patrol can be heard long before they’re seen anyway.’

  The two troopers nodded, agreeing with my thought process. If we were contacted and all hell broke loose, then we would have no choice but to call B Company out of Helsinki in order to extract us. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

  We waited for a while, listening to the sound of the patrol slowly subside. My breathing became shallow as I strained to hear them, willing for them to pass the remainder of the platoon without incident. I was confident that I had made the right call, but I doubted that would be much consolation if somebody was shot and the mission aborted. Even though I didn’t fully understand why we were helping the Guard, I somehow knew that what we were doing was important … I didn’t want to be the reason it all went wrong.

  Suddenly a blue crosshair appeared on my visor display, hovering in the trees in the direction of the enemy patrol. All three of us jumped at the sight of it, half expecting a spray of darts to cut through the reeds.

  Mr Barkley spoke calmly over the net, his message relaying by tight beam up to Richelieu before being transmitted back down to us: ‘All call signs, this is One-Zero-Alpha. We have detected an enemy patrol moving across our frontage from east to west. I have provided you with their location in this message, though I’m pretty confident you will have already heard them. Well done for maintaining your restraint on the net. We will allow a fifteen-minute soak period before moving again.’

  A wave of relief passed over me at the sound of our platoon commander’s voice, and the confirmation that I had indeed made the correct decision.

  ‘Where are they going?’ Myers wondered aloud.

  I shrugged. ‘Who knows? All we need to know is that they’re not hanging around here - which is good news for us.’

  The sun was beginning to rise when our gruelling march brought us to an old pipeline that cut across the marsh, disappearing amongst the foliage in either direction. We approached the structure cautiously, treating it as we would any other obstacle. Though inactive and serving no useful purpose, the pipeline could possibly be used for navigation by units not as well equipped as we were.

  I studied the pipeline as we moved closer. Large enough to fit a man inside it, the pipe was held aloft by supporting struts - though those appeared to have sunken in places, causing a wave effect along the length of the pipe. It was ancient, well over a hundred years old, and I wondered when it had last been used, and what chemicals or gasses it had transported.

  There was something sorry about the disused pipeline. It was a legacy of a whole industry that had once existed on Eden, with the sole purpose of cleansing the atmosphere of toxins so that humans could breathe it unaided. It wasn’t built for money, or for political power, it was built by the original colonists, the ancestors of the warring factions today, who shared a vision to make their world a better place for their children. It was hard to comprehend the way those people had lived. They were selfless pioneers, and there was a certain innocence to them which I found difficult to understand. Now the pipeline was only another reminder of how war had taken their dream and turned it into a nightmare.

  It took us a while to negotiate the pipeline, having to use ropes to clamber over the top of it. Nobody fancied the idea of trying to go underneath, requiring them to dive under the murky water and crawl through the silt, praying they wouldn’t get stuck. There were no dangers posed by crawling over the top, other than the brief period each trooper spent exposed to the rest of the marsh. The metallic pipe was solid, barely making a sound as we climbed onto it one at a time and then slid down the rope on the other side.

  Finally, once we had all finished our crossing, Puppy confirmed that everyone was accounted for and that the rope had been recovered.

  ‘Where does this pipe go, anyway?’ Myers asked, as we prepared to move again.

  I consulted the map on my datapad.

  ‘It goes off to the east, hits a pumping station, and then turns north toward the village.’

  ‘We should just walk along the pipe instead …’ Griffiths grumbled.

  I shook my head. ‘I think we’d be spotted pretty quick.’

  ‘At least we’d be dry.’

  5

  FUP

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  The remainder of our march was uneventful, with no sign of any human activity at all, either enemy or civilian. A dull grey blanket of cloud now stretched across the sky, but thankfully there was no rain - not that the additional water would have made much of a difference.

  Every time we stopped, I found somewhere dry to allow my section to administrate themselves, drying their feet and getting air to them before they moved off again.

  Eventually, after several hours of wading through water, the ground began to rise and we found ourselves in a thick forest. The undergrowth was far thicker than we were used to, with densely packed bushes and low branches that snagged against our kit, and vines that wrapped around our boots and threatened to trip us. The ground beneath our feet was
still very wet and boggy, but it was a welcome break from the marsh we had left behind.

  The platoon exchanged two pre-planned transmissions throughout the day, providing us with the reassurance that we weren’t walking through the forest on our own. It seemed that all of the sections were advancing at a similar pace, maintaining a near perfect line as they swept up the attack lane. The ground had been hard going for all of us, it seemed.

  We finally converged together at the FRV, sited at the edge of a large, overgrown crater. The four sections spread out in the undergrowth, keeping watch under the command of the 2ics, whilst the section commanders closed in together for a quick set of confirmatory orders with Mr Barkley and the sergeant major.

  I looked across the command group as we huddled together in a small circle. Everyone was soaked, and caked in mud up to their waists. Corporal Kamara was completely covered in it, suggesting that he had had fallen over at some point during his patrol.

  ‘That was rats,’ Corporal Abdi commented, and a couple of us chuckled at his honest assessment of our route in.

  ‘It might be “rats”,’ the sergeant major responded testily, ‘but it’s clear of enemy presence - which is good news for us. If the route in was easy, it would have been badly chosen.’

  Nobody had an answer to that. The sergeant major had made a fair point and we all knew it. There was still the unanswered question about the patrol that had crossed our path, though.

  ‘Where do you think those enemy were headed?’ I asked the platoon commander.

  Mr Barkley shook his head, replying, ‘I’m not sure. They could simply be a routine patrol, or they could be a team armed with smart missiles to defend against operations like the one we’re preparing for. We’re not interested in small groups like that, though. The Guard know that they have to accept some risk.’

  He paused thoughtfully, and then moved on: ‘No change to the plan. You all know where your respective areas of interest are, and what is expected of you. Remember your proximity to the objective when conducting your recces, and stay off the net unless you have critical information.