I scrambled down the tunnel, half-running, half-sliding, my head lowered so that I didn’t hit my helmet on the roof.
Visibility in the burrow was less than five metres. Glowing ashes floated through the smoke, settling onto the scorched ground like a carpet of lava. The soil beneath my boots cracked like glass as my fire team fanned out of the tunnel entrance, weapons raised to finish off anybody who had somehow survived the inferno.
Skelton stopped close to the entrance, so as not to break our intercom relay to the surface. Underneath the ground our net would struggle to pass messages without line of sight.
I could make out the shape of the launcher in the middle of the burrow, or at least what was left of it. The remains of the tracked weapon platform burned, but the missile tubes were missing, blown into chunks of twisted metal that lay scattered across the ground around it. Wires dangled from the ceiling, dripping with blobs of molten insulation.
Without lowering my rifle from my shoulder, I gestured to Myers to take the left side of the cavern. We passed rapidly either side of the launcher, both disappearing into the smoke. Thankfully my visor could identify his location now that the section net was back online, removing the danger of me shooting him by accident.
‘Puppy’s coming down,’ Skelton informed me. I heard the sound of boots sliding down the steep entrance slope, but didn’t turn to look.
Just as I passed the launcher, a terrible scream echoed about the cavern as Skelton opened fire at something obscured by the smoke. Surprised, I took aim and fired in the same direction, adding to the din.
‘What are you shooting at?’ I yelled, as the cavern continued to echo. My question was answered as I advanced along down the tunnel. A hideously burnt man was propped against a wall, his equipment fused into glistening red skin.
I ignored the sound of Myers retching.‘Skelton, Yulia, close in!’
The man, I noticed, had died beside another tunnel - one which undoubtedly linked the burrow together with another.
‘One-One-Charlie, room clear,’ I passed across the platoon net. ‘One tunnel.’
I took a knee at the entrance to the tunnel, just as Yulia and Skelton closed in behind me. Myers looked a little dazed, and I realised that he probably hadn’t seen many dead men so close up, especially not one so gruesome.
I grabbed the young trooper by the arm and yanked him into position in front of me, ready to assault.
‘Get a grip,’ I scolded as I drew another grenade. I chose fragmentation this time, deciding that any more smoke would leave us completely blind.
‘Shit the bed, that’s minging …’ Skelton breathed from behind me.
Even I had to admit it was a pretty horrible sight. My eyes flicked to the mouth of the burnt corpse, where skin had melted away to expose his jaw. Loyalist or Guardsman, I thanked God that he wasn’t alive.
‘Send a mark on the tunnel,’ the platoon commander ordered over the net. He needed to know where the tunnel went, just in case we accidentally attacked another of our own sections. With a battle on the surface as well as underground, it was easy to become disorientated.
I reached my hand around the corner of the tunnel just far enough to point my finger, managing to place a crosshair further up the tunnel. The information was passed to Mr Barkley via the platoon net, relaying from headset to headset until it was out of the burrow.
Managing the battle that still raged on the surface, the platoon commander responded almost instantly. ‘Roger, happy with that, your Delta fired a missile into the same location. I have eyes onto the entrance.’
I barely heard the end of his sentence. Without warning, a hail of darts punched through the smoke, striking the ruined launcher in a shower of sparks. Enemy were firing from further up the tunnel.
‘Shit!’ Myers stumbled as the rounds passed millimetres from his visor. Instinctively I gripped the fabric of his daysack, yanking him back from the tunnel just as a chunk of earth was hacked away from where his head would have been.
‘Delta, move into cover!’ Puppy yelled, as he tried to get his fire team out of harm’s way somewhere behind me.
‘Fucking hell,’ Myers exclaimed over the noise.
‘Shut up,’ I yelled angrily. ‘Get down!’
I crouched as low as I could, pulling Myers down with me. If a dart struck the walls of the burrow it would simply embed itself, but every time they struck the metal launcher they ricocheted in random directions.
The roar of enemy fire suddenly intensified, but just over the noise I heard something solid rolling along the ground in front of us. I strained to see what it was through the thick smoke, before finally recognising the familiar shape. My eyes widened.
‘Grenade!’
Myers saw the grenade lying virtually at his feet, and with a surprised yelp he kicked it away from him, sending it bouncing across the burrow - but still in line of sight to us. There was nowhere to go ...
‘Get down!’ I hollered, and with my hand still grasping at Myer’s daysack, I drove him to the floor with all my strength, pinning him to the ground just milliseconds before the grenade detonated. I knew that the lower I got him the safer he was, because the detonation would send most of the fragments upward at an angle. There was no time to worry about myself.
The shockwave hit me like a brick wall, rattling every bone in my body. My head snapped backward with the sudden blast of dust and debris that instantly blackened my vision. My headset bleeped frantically, and red icons flashed on my display in warning, but I had no time to read what they said. I knew what was coming next.
How I managed to lift my battered body away from Myers I don’t know, but I shuddered at the flashbacks of my battle through the warrens of New Earth, as I gritted my teeth and prepared for my last stand.
Two Loyalists stormed through the tunnel beside us, their weapons spraying wildly into the smoke as they sought to kill any survivors of the blast, but they hadn’t expected me to be right next to them.
I thrust upward with my bayonet, the evil blade piercing through the nearest man’s flank and driving into his diaphragm. His momentum took him onward, tugging at my rifle before the blade came free with a sickly squelch. Continuing his charge into the burrow, the second soldier didn’t even realise his comrade had been stabbed before I shot him square in the back, sending him tumbling to the ground.
A third soldier stumbled into view, probably trying to stop himself having realised that the counterattack wasn’t going to plan - too late - he met the same fate as his friends as I fired another two rounds into him.
I poked my rifle around the corner into the tunnel, and using its camera to aim, I fired a long burst of automatic, hoping to drive away anymore Loyalists attempting to attack.
‘Myers!’ I hollered. ‘Get here, now!’
There was no response. I looked behind me, only to see the trooper staring at me from where he lay on the ground. His mouth opened, and then closed again.
‘Don’t just lie there fucking staring at me! Get up!’
‘You’ve taken frag, Andy!’ he shouted.
I fired another burst and stepped into the tunnel, smoke and dust swirling about me, ‘I don’t give a fuck!’
Red warnings still flashed in the corner of my visor display, and suddenly I realised what they were saying: my respirator seal was broken. I coughed, as if my body suddenly realised that it was breathing nothing but toxic smoke.
Myers arrived beside me. ‘Andy, you …’
My temper boiled over. ‘Attack, you fool! Go! Go!’
I propelled the young trooper up the tunnel, then gripped Skelton by the arm and drove him afterwards.
I dropped to one knee, coughing as I fumbled with my respirator. Something waswrong with it; smoke was quickly filling behind my visor, stinging my eyes.
I heard Yulia’s voice. ‘Andy, are you OK?’
'I’m fine,' I growled, managing to stand with my free hand steadying myself against the burrow wall. 'Let’s go!'
Hands gripped at me, stopping me from moving.
'He's not fine,' I heard Puppy say. 'He's taken frag!'
My clouded mind couldn't understand why Puppy wasn’t attacking. We had repelled the enemy counterattack and now we needed to maintain the momentum - we needed to attack! Why didn't they understand?
'Go!' I urged, but it came as little more than a whisper as I collapsed, my visor smashing against the ground.
'Man down!'
I had heard those two words so many times. They filled me with dread every time, waking me from my sleep as they echoed through my nightmares. This time it was different - the man who was down was me …
'Who is it?' A voice demanded as hands rolled me over onto my back. I blinked in confusion, unable to comprehend what was happening around me. Ghostly figures glided past me through the clouds of smoke.
'Let’s go! Charlie, get back here and stay with him!'
'Roger!' I recognised Myers’s voice as he leant over me, his hands running over my body, 'Andy, stay with us, mate! I'm just checking you over!'
I couldn't read the red warnings that still flashed on my smashed visor, but it suddenly occurred to me that something was really wrong. By pushing Skelton to the ground I had somehow spared him from the shower of grenade fragments, but I hadn't been so lucky.
More figures drifted in and out of my vision, most likely another section sent down by the boss to keep the underground offensive going, I presumed.
'He's got a crack in his visor!' Yulia said suddenly in alarm.
'Yeah, I see it.'
Hands ran over my head, pushing it to and fro as my vision dimmed.
'Don't patch it, it's too big! Here ...'
Somebody removed the visor screen from my respirator.
'Search for bleeding while I do this.'
It suddenly occurred to me that I was probably going to die, but instead of fear I felt almost relieved. I remembered a few of my old platoon sergeant's last words before he died on New Earth: I’m tired, Andy. Let me go ... I was tired, I realised, so very tired. For me, living meant suffering, and that was it.
'Let me go,' I said, but it came out as a slur. My vision was virtually gone. Not long now, I thought, and I relaxed my muscles, embracing the end. My men were well trained. Some were young and naive, but they could handle themselves, and they had a strong leader left behind. They would get by without me.
'What did he say?’
'God knows.’
'He's got so many wounds, mostly around his shoulders. Minor lacerations. Looks like his armour stopped most of it.’
'Patch him, don't forget to check his back. Come on, Andy, not here. Stay awake!'
Something clicked, and there was a loud whirr from my respirator motors. Cool air breezed against my face.
A hand shook me roughly. 'I've changed your visor, Andy. I'm just going to inject you with antidote - you've been exposed to the atmosphere for a good minute or so.'
I felt something touch against my leg, and then I heard a click and a hiss as the auto injector stabbed into my flesh, administering antidote to counter the effects of the Eden’s atmosphere.
'Shit the bed, he's taken a lot of frag, none of it bad, though.'
'He's a proper hard bastard, ain't he?'
A hand patted my shoulder, just before I lost consciousness. 'Don't worry, mate, you'll be fine. We've got you.'
A wave of sadness passed over me as I realised that my suffering would not be coming to an end so soon. Quick to identify and treat my wounds, my fire team had managed to save my life. Not today, Andy, not today.
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