EDEN (The Union Series) (12 page)

Six heads nodded, they
all knew what needed to be done. Every recce trooper had completed parachute
jumps during his Recce Course on Uralis, the only difference this time was that
we would be jumping out of a stripped-out saucer instead of a dropship. The
idea was that the enemy would fail to detect us falling from the robotic
aircraft, with no reason to suspect it was conducting anything other than a
routine patrol. A dropship might attract attention, because dropships meant
troops, but saucers were never designed to carry humans. They were engineered
to be able to change direction and accelerate so quickly that they could turn
any hapless passenger into a messy pulp. Fortunately ours knew not to do that!

I felt the saucer
begin to decelerate, and I looked down to check my datapad. ‘We’re in position,
lads! Standby!’

My datapad,
wirelessly connected to the saucer computer, flashed red at me, and I grasped
the door latch. A shrill whistle filled the compartment as I slid the door
open, cutting out the internal lighting and plunging us in darkness. Cold wind
blasted against my visor and bit at my neck as I was instantly exposed to the
high altitude weather. Eden wasn’t known for having particularly pleasant
weather, made worse by the large oceans and the effects of rapid terraforming,
and at this height it was made even worse. I checked that my rifle was strapped
tightly to my body, and that all of my kit was secure. Not only would it be extremely
embarrassing to lose an item of kit on the way down, it risked compromise if it
was found by the enemy, and the loss could potentially cost my life.

With Myers pushing
against my backside to help me up, I clambered into the doorframe, my hands
braced against the lip as I leant out into the open. I ignored the wind that
threatened to toss me from the saucer, observing the night sky before I jumped.
Dark clouds loomed over the tiny aircraft, like great black mountains towering
tens of kilometres high. Turning my gaze downward, I saw that they blotted out
the planet’s surface far below, obscuring our drop zone several kilometres
ahead of the saucer - although it was still marked on my visor display. For a
split second, I admired the beauty of the scene before me, a magnificent
spectacle that reminded me that a man was insignificant against the full power
of nature.

It was time to go. I
leant my body forward so that I was nearly clear of the door. All I had to do
was let go. I looked back into the compartment at the rest of the section, all sat
poised to follow me into the void.

‘See you down there!’
I shouted. I fell.

The wind battered me
as I plummeted away from the hovering saucer, spreading my arms and legs to
unfurl my glide suit wings. I was still falling, but the suit allowed me to steer
myself toward the drop zone several kilometres away, without the need to open
my main chute until the last safe moment. As I fell, I took several gentle
turns to ensure that my trajectory would land me as close as possible to the
drop zone.

It wasn’t long before
I entered the black carpet of cloud that hid the ground from view, and droplets
of rain streaked across my visor as the altitude on my display decreased
rapidly.

I was fast
approaching the ground, my descent angled so that I looked as though I would
overshoot the drop zone, before smacking into the ground beyond it. My
trajectory was perfect though, the result of endless training jumps both in and
out of simulators. I knew that as soon as I opened my main chute my speed would
reduce dramatically, and I would come in close, if not right on top of the
green crosshair that told me where to land.

I couldn’t see the
ground beneath me, as my view was restricted to less than fifty metres by the
thick cloud, but I knew not to take interest in the view. All that mattered was
my altitude and trajectory. Having studied my map in detail, I knew that the
ground beneath me was relatively flat, interspersed by impact craters of
various sizes. The only issue was the trees, which I might not see until the
last minute. The area chosen by the boss had only a few small woods and forests
for us to worry about, but nevertheless I had instructed my men to open their
chutes slightly early to allow time to avoid a painful landing.  I didn’t much
like the idea of hanging from a tree by my chute, trying to cut myself down!

Visibility didn’t
improve as I readied myself to deploy my chute, and I supposed that the cloud
had become mist on the ground as well. I cursed as I closed my arms and legs together
in order to collapse the glide suit wings, before tugging at the cord on my main
chute.

With a violent jolt
my shoulders were wrenched backward, leaving my legs to shoot out in front of
me. I quickly looked upward to check that my chute had deployed correctly,
making sure that nothing was twisted or damaged. If that was the case then I
only had seconds to cut it and deploy my reserve chute before I dropped like a
stone, splatting against the ground like a bug on a windshield.

Happy that the chute
was fine, I turned my attention back to the landing crosshair. I didn’t want to
land on top of it directly, but within a few hundred metres. There was nothing
wrong with that, since if all seven of us messed about trying to land on it,
we’d end up crashing into each other.

As I approached the
crosshair I took a look around, checking that there were no other chutes nearby
before turning into the wind. Catching in the canopy, the wind acted as a
brake, slowing me down for my final descent. If my ground speed was too high
when I landed I risked breaking a bone, or worse, regardless of my rate of
descent.

Perfect, I thought,
all I need now is to be able to see the ground!

There was no such
luck, my altitude was still decreasing rapidly and I had no visibility at all.
Nobody outside of the army would ever dream of parachuting in such ghastly
weather, but we didn’t have the luxury of choosing when we jumped.

I watched my altitude
closely, making gentle turns in an attempt to slow myself down further. Soon I
was under a hundred metres, and I prepared to flare my chute, effectively applying
the brakes on my descent before I landed.

Suddenly something
loomed out of the dark just in front of me.

‘Shit!’ I swore as my
legs clipped the branches of the tree, almost sending me into a spin that
risked twisting my chute.

At least I had prior
warning that I was approaching the ground. There were a few more trees around
me, I realised, but none close enough to get in my way. I waited until the last
moment, then flared my chute.

I struck a bush as I
came down, knocking me sideways. The chute carried me on, dragging me through
the branches, until I finally landed beyond the bush in a crumpled heap.

Dazed, I rolled onto
my back and stared at the sky for a few seconds.

Nice landing, Andy
, I told myself sarcastically.

I picked myself up,
quickly disconnecting my chute before it caught the wind and dragged me along
with it. I then removed my glide suit and stuffed both items into the bottom of
my daysack. We couldn’t leave our chutes lying around, not yet anyway. I decided
we should keep them until we met the FEA, perhaps even asking them to dispose
of them for us. We didn’t want the Loyalists knowing that we were actually on
the ground helping the FEA, especially not in such small numbers, otherwise
they might focus all of their military might onto killing or capturing us.

As soon as all of my
equipment was packed, I slung my daysack back onto my shoulders and took the
time to scan my surroundings. Despite a strong breeze, the mist hung in the
air, swirling around me and denying me any view beyond twenty metres.

There was nothing
wrong with that, though, I was more than happy with the weather now that I had
managed to land. The Eden mist was a double-edged weapon, making it as
difficult for us to be detected as it was the other way around.

I headed toward the
landing crosshair, keeping one eye out for anybody accidentally coming in to
land on top of me. With the section net deactivated, nobody could know where
anybody else was, all we had to work with was the single green symbol hovering
in the mist.

One by one the
section formed-up in a tight circular formation beneath the crosshair, and
Puppy counted each trooper as they emerged out of the inky void. Myers and
Wildgoose switched on their scanners, beginning their check of the surrounding
area.

Satisfied that all of
us had made it safely, Puppy patted my shoulder gently. ‘All in, mate.’

‘Roger,’ I whispered.
‘We’ll have a soak period here for five minutes, then we’ll move off.’

Whilst we listened
and waited, I began to notice a distant thumping sound, like a drum beating
rhythmically. I turned my head, intrigued by the noise. It was coming from our
north.

‘What’s that?’ Myers
asked me quietly, following my gaze.

‘Artillery,’ I answered.

‘Loyalist?’

‘Yeah.’

The thumping continued
ominously whilst I checked my map, making sure that my bearings were right. As
an extra precaution I used a paper map that I kept in my pocket, never fully
relying upon an electronic version. I knew too well how easily they could be
taken away from me, having had my datapad scrambled by New Earth hackers, and
in the middle of the Bosque, not knowing where you were was a major issue.
Puppy checked his own maps concurrently, in order to double-check that I wasn’t
making an error. It was important that we were both involved in the navigation
process, not only because I was only human and capable of making mistakes, but
because Puppy was only one dart away from taking command.

With a few taps
against my datapad I created a new crosshair, this time marking the FEA
rendezvous in the distance. The platoon commander had given a grid for each
section to meet with its liaison officer, the idea being that both sections within
the multiple would act independently, marrying up with the FEA on their own.
That way if one section failed to find their liaison officer then the other
could still be successful. Our drop zones were all nearby, with no more than
five kilometres between us, so if we came under attack then all we had to do
was reactivate our net and go noisy, knowing that help wasn’t too far away.

I glanced at my visor
clock; it was gone zero-four-hundred hours. We had two hours to reach our
rendezvous eight kilometres away, and time was ticking.

‘Prepare to move,’ I
hissed, allowing time for the message to pass around the circular formation,
before patting Myers on the shoulder. ‘You know where you’re going, mate, lead
the way.’

The young trooper
picked himself up, and headed toward the rendezvous, and one by one we followed
behind him into the gloom.

My visor clock slowly
counted the seconds away. I tried to ignore it as I stared out into the
darkness from where I crouched, hidden among the ferns. I knew all too well
that time slowed down when I stared at the clock, and the only way to speed it
up was to snuggle up in my thermal bag. Unfortunately the latter wasn't an
option, we were behind the FEA front line, waiting for them to come and find
us.

You will be met by
an FEA escort, commanded by an officer from the Presidential Guard
, the boss had told us in his orders.
They will
then lead you to their company command.

There was also the
possibility that they might simply blow us to pieces with a smart missile
instead, I thought anxiously. I found it strange that I had become worried for
my survival suddenly, but then I realised that it wasn't death I feared at that
moment, it was the thought of failure that frightened me. I smiled to myself -
what a disturbed individual I had become.

'They're an hour
late,' Puppy whispered, his voice amplified by my headphones.

I nodded, still
scanning the forest for signs of movement. Our visor targeting system didn't
always spot everything, often confused by the mist and vegetation as it blew in
the breeze. Sometimes you still had to make use of the traditional mark-one eyeball.

'Think they're
coming?'

Another nod. 'Yeah, I
think so. Hopefully not to kill us ...'

In the eyes of the
FEA, we were the enemy, though not perhaps as dangerous to them as the
Loyalists. ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’ - I remembered the old saying.
One way or the other, though, I knew that they would come. The FEA wouldn't
leave a Union recce patrol sitting around behind them, on-side or not.

I wondered if I had
made a mistake by not placing out sensors or defences. The sensors would have
provided us with an early warning, but then if the FEA detected them it would
damage trust between us straight away, and if they detected defences they might
even assume a trap and attack.

After another hour of
waiting in silence, an orange crosshair flickered on my visor display. As one,
we slowly raised our rifles into the aim, watching the new target as it drifted
through the darkness.

'Halt,' I called,
quietly, but it didn't stop. I raised my voice slightly. 'Halt!'