C.R.O.W. (The Union Series) (22 page)

A walkway
began a few metres beyond the bend, it felt slightly padded beneath my feet as
I walked on it, almost like a gym matt. I knew from FIWAC lessons in training
that it was a specially designed material laid by either our engineers or the
Chinese before us to dampen the vibrations created by troops running or walking
in the tunnels. The slightest vibration could easily be detected from hundreds
of metres away by a keen listener with a few gadgets to hand, and the
information could be used by the enemy to decipher troop movements.

My respirator
visor automatically switched to night vision as the light became too poor to
distinguish my surroundings. Instead of the dim red glow of the tunnel lights,
everything became a light green instead. Lights danced about the tunnel from
the section’s rifle mounted infra-red torches, invisible to the naked eye. I
activated the torch on my rifle, scanning my surroundings as I walked. The
lights cast shadows across the tunnel, creating dark figures against the walls
which would jump from one side to another and circle around us, like ghouls
mocking us as we walked down toward hell itself. The ribbing on the tunnel
walls was further exaggerated so that it took the appearance of the throat of
some horrible creature.

Ahead, the
platoon halted. I took a knee on the walkway, and with my left hand signalled
back to Sam with a downward gesture to do likewise. We sat in silence in the
tunnel, alone to our thoughts.

Brown looked
back at me and tapped his helmet, which was a patrol signal that meant ‘Close
in.’

I looked back
at Sam, repeating the hand signal, and then closed up toward Westy and the rest
of the platoon.

We bunched
together as a platoon in a long line, our weapons in the aim and scanning the
dark in all directions. Nothing was inconceivable in underground warfare; it
was entirely possible for the Chinese to somehow find a way to attack from
behind. We had to assume the enemy was capable of anything, and then just hope
that he wasn’t.

The rear
guide was the last man to join our formation. The message was quietly passed up
the line to announce his safe arrival, then Sergeant Evans quickly counted that
the platoon was complete and nobody was missing. It wasn’t unheard of for
troopers to end up walking kilometres into tunnels on their own before
realising they had lost their platoon, particularly if they weren’t paying
attention.

‘That’s
everyone in,’ the platoon sergeant whispered to the boss at the front of the
line.

The boss
acknowledged, ‘Roger.’

‘The tunnel
zigzags for another five hundred metres,’ the guide briefed the boss, pointing
with an outstretched arm into the darkness, ‘Then there’s a separate tunnel
leading off into a defence complex. Battalion headquarters is located there.’

The boss
nodded, ‘Okay.’

The guide
continued, ‘I’ll take you’s in as far as battalion, then you should get taken
on from there to the relevant company.’

‘Roger.’

The boss and
all of the NCOs consulted their maps on their wristpads as we sat observing the
dark tunnel, making sure that they understood the layout of the warren. I
listened intently for sounds of the enemy, my headphones would amplify any
sounds so that I would have heard a whisper hundreds of metres away, but I
heard nothing. The tunnel was as silent as a tomb. Despite the relative
inactivity, my heart was pumping like crazy, pounding against my rib cage.

That wasn’t
my first time underground. On Uralis the FIWAC training phase had been almost a
month long, preparing us for a tactic that had become increasingly common in
modern interstellar warfare. The warren complex we used to train on Uralis was
almost identical, if perhaps a little smaller. Entire divisions could be hidden
in the complex networks of tunnels that ran for kilometres in all directions.
Normally the tunnel we were in would have been a major access tunnel, probably
used very recently when the Chinese retreated underground and blew the
entrance.

‘Just like
Uralis, but twenty times as spooky,’ Sam sounded foreboding as he whispered
close to my ear.

‘I don’t like
it down here one bit,’ Brown said.

One of the
guides snorted, ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet.’

My blood
boiled. I thought to mention our battle on the surface and all of the friends
and comrades we had lost, but bit my tongue. Arguing wasn’t going to achieve
anything, except maybe earn me a punch from either Sam or Westy. Besides, how
was I to rate what it was like down there? We hadn’t done anything yet, and I
was already scared.

‘Prepare to move,’
the boss whispered.

We carried
out the drill without thinking; safety catch, pouch.

The boss
patted the guide to tell him we were ready and then one by one we moved off
again into the darkness.

We continued
down the tunnel for a few hundred metres, which snaked to the left and right
several times at sharp angles.  This was in order to confuse any munitions sent
into the tunnel, which was large enough to fit aircraft, let alone smart
missiles and smaller drones. Occasionally I noticed damaged machinery and small
craters that identified where the tunnel’s defences and booby traps would have
been destroyed by our engineers.

A smaller
tunnel opened up to our right, marked by red light sticks which had been
crudely hung around it on nails. One by one the men in front of me disappeared
into the tunnel, briefly turning to check that they were visible to the man
behind so that he didn’t keep walking into the dark.

Brown turned
to face me before he disappeared into the smaller tunnel, giving me an ‘okay’
sign with his forefinger and thumb. In trooper speak this didn’t actually mean
‘okay’, it meant ‘this is pump’. I chuckled quietly to myself, which didn’t
make any sense to me because I disliked Brown and I was in one of the most
terrifying places in the universe. Perhaps it was the simple way we drop
troopers would describe such a complex and terrible situation that made me
chuckle. After all, it was pretty ‘pump’.

The smaller
tunnel was no more than two metres across, again perfectly cylindrical and with
a similar ribbed surface. The walkway was somehow raised so that the ground was
flat and there was no lighting except that from our rifle torches. Without
using our visors, we would be walking in absolute pitch-black.

My pulse
raced as my mind cooked up visions of nightmarish aliens and monsters that
lurked in the tiny man-sized tunnel. Brown and Sam seemed so far away from me
and I felt isolated and vulnerable. I gripped my rifle tightly, my finger
hovering over the power up button; the weight of the weapon feeling reassuring
in my hands.

There are
far worse things lurking in these tunnels than aliens and monsters
, I told
myself. If a monster grabbed me at least I could fight it. If the Chinese in
some tunnel nearby picked up our vibrations they could detonate bombs that
would pulverize us into the rock, just by pressing a button. Even though the
walls of the tunnel were no more than a metre from me in any direction, I felt
more exposed than if I patrolled across an open desert.

We came to
junctions and turns, all of which were marked by light sticks artfully arranged
into arrows that pointed us in the right direction. The tunnels had become a
maze; we were in some form of defensive complex, a collection of tunnels
designed to be near impossible to clear without severe casualties, many of
which would be connected with trenches and bunker positions on the hill
surface. Often tunnels would open into large caves strewn with boulders and
debris where bombs had been blown, either by the Chinese or the Union. The
trail of light sticks led us through the caves so that we didn’t trip and fall
on the rubble.

We began to
pass troopers of the 4
^th
battalion, many of whom rested in the
caves, some in thermal bags, others huddled in groups around torchlight like
the homeless might huddle around a fire on Earth. Engineers worked along the
walls installing listening devices, laying walking mats or working with other
fancy bits of equipment I couldn’t recognise.

We were
regarded with indifference by many of the troopers we passed; they were far
more interested in whatever it was they were doing, which generally appeared to
be recovering from their battle to secure the complex.

Eventually we
arrived inside a chamber lit by light sticks, large enough to house a gravtank.
It was lined with computer monitors, with cables and pipes hanging from the
ceiling like the roots of a plant growing above us. Virtually all of the wires
had been cut, the console screens were smashed and pipes burst. The Chinese had
made a good job of destroying everything they left for us, no sense letting us
have their equipment intact. I assumed the room had been some form of control
room, from which the enemy would have monitored the array of sensors, cameras
and defence equipment that helped them to slow us down.
A lot of our
comrades would have been killed by men in that room,
I thought.

‘Wait here,
fellas, I’ll let them know you’s’re here,’ the lead guide disappeared into
another tunnel, followed by the others.

Happy we were
in a relatively secure location; our sections huddled together while we waited
for the guides to return. I felt safe knowing that all the tunnels around us
would be occupied by friendly forces, and welcomed the sight of troopers
occasionally passing through the chamber going about their business.

‘I don’t know
about you but that was one of the spookiest patrols I’ve ever done,’ Sam said
to Westy.

Westy nodded,
‘I’ve never been in an enemy warren before, not even on Eden.’

‘They must
have had it bad down here,’ Stevo said gloomily, sliding down to the ground
against a wall.

Westy didn’t
acknowledge Stevo, ‘We keep it together down here, boys, we stay alive. I don’t
want to lose any more blokes in this hole, alright?’

We nodded
assent.

‘What do you
think they’ll have us doing?’ Brown asked.

‘I don’t
know, do I?’ Westy snapped, surprising all of us, ‘Don’t worry about that just
yet.’

We stood in
silence. I noticed that both the boss and Sergeant Evans had found two separate
corners of the chamber to sit alone, and I wondered if the latter would ever
forgive the boss - or me.

‘You alright,
mate?’ Ray nudged me, and I realised I had been staring into space. My head was
awash with fear and misery.

I shook it
off and lied, ‘Yeah, mate, you?’

‘I wouldn’t
worry about me, man’ he laughed, ‘I’m not the one staring into space like a
shuttle crash victim!’

Ray was a
friendly lad, and he had not meant to offend me, so I laughed with him, ‘Alright,
mate! This is just a lot to take in, that’s all.’

‘What is?’
Ray mocked, ‘You’re a trooper, in a cave. That’s some pretty simple stuff.’

I threw up my
arms defensively, ‘Look at this place. This is mental! It’s like a vision of
hell!’

‘Could be
worse, mate…’ Sam answered.

‘How,
exactly?’ I demanded, ‘How could this be worse?’

‘Well… We
could be in Pompey, couldn’t we?’

‘Oh that’s
right, bring Pompey into it, why don’t you,’ Ray retorted, ‘Where are you from
again?’

‘Chichester,’
Sam replied.

‘Well, that
answers a few questions, then, doesn’t it?’

‘Where is
Chichester, Ray?’

‘How the hell
should I know, you wand?’

Sam snorted,
‘Brilliant, I’m stuck in a section of morons.’

It’s amazing
how a bit of banter with your mates can take your mind off things, Ray and Sam
seemed to thrive off it. Brown on the other hand, stayed quiet, not wanting to
be join in any conversation that I was involved in, I figured. He hadn’t really
said much at all since the landing. I didn’t care, he hated me and I hated him
in equal measure. The less he spoke the better.

A man walked
into the chamber with his rifle held low at his side. Despite his visor hiding
the details of his face in the low light I could clearly make out his insignia
on his chest; a major.

Westy almost
snapped to attention, but thought better of it, ‘Alright, Sir,’ he said
instead.

‘Almost, Corporal,
almost,’ the major warned light heartedly as he exchanged handshakes with the
boss. You didn’t salute or brace up to an officer in the field, lest you made
him a target, apart from to call him ‘Sir’ and show him the respect that his
rank earned him.

A smile was
just about visible on the major’s face as he pointed through the solid wall
that Stevo had slouched against, and where he now stood bolt upright, ‘Chill
out, fellas, the enemy is out there, not in this room.’

The major
looked at each of us and nodded approvingly, ‘Good to see you boys, very good
indeed. We need every bit of manpower we can get, and I make no apologies for
having you pulled down here. I’m the battalion second-in-command, as you can
imagine the Commanding Officer himself is pretty busy,’ he shook the boss’s
hand, ‘How many more platoons do I have coming down from your battalion, Lieutenant,
do you know?’

I had never
met anybody from my own battalion’s headquarters, since they had come to New
Earth on a completely different ship to ours. The major looked tired, and maybe
even a little edgy, but he still maintained a level of haughtiness that was
often expected of the officers in the higher ranks.

‘We’re it,
Sir,’ the boss told him, ‘The battalion has no more to spare.’

‘Oh.’ The
major shook his head sadly when he realised what that meant, ‘I’m sorry to hear
that. But at least you’re here, because mark my words we need you. So, one
platoon…’ The major was clearly doing some form of calculations in his head.
Battlefield replacements would be steadily moving in to bolster his battalion
for its next move. The main effort for the brigade was to secure the warrens
before Jersey City could be taken, therefore all the battalions that made up
the brigade would be sending down troops to support that effort. More platoons
from elsewhere on the surface would be following our route down the same
tunnels, one by one, as they would be in many other tunnels leading into the
warrens. I wondered if somewhere else in a separate tunnel casualties were
coming out at the same rate.