EDEN (The Union Series) Read Free Page A

the enemy patrol realised what was
happening and opened fire. That was if they didn’t already have all of their
weapons trained upon us.
    There was no choice.
This wasn’t going well at all. I reached out my hand and grasped Myers by the
shoulder. I then jabbed my thumb upwards and then opened my palm to show five
fingers. We’re going up, five seconds. He nodded grimly, then kicked the
two troopers lying behind us to pass the message.
    My finger moved over
the button to my rifle mounted torch, and I flashed it on and off as I counted
down the seconds.
    Five … four …
three … two …
    ‘This looks like a
good spot, eh?’ a voice with a very strange, but distinctive accent called out,
interrupting my countdown. The voice was a whisper, though my headset magnified
the sound for me to hear it as a shout.
    Myers turned to look
at me, and I turned my palm downward in a calming gesture. Clearly we hadn’t
been found, so there was no need to go loud. Not yet.
    Another voice sounded
from above, with the same odd accent. ‘Yeah, that’ll do. I’ll get the guys set
up.’
    There was no
mistaking the Europa accent. It was different from other European accents on
Eden, possibly due to their proximity to Alliance provinces, or perhaps the
original colonists were the descendants of a different mix of nations. The
Loyalists would vehemently deny the first possibility, they were so obsessed
with their ‘pure’ descent that it was often said they believed they were more
European than people actually born in Europe.
    I instantly
recognised the potential for such a close encounter, wondering if perhaps our
seemingly dire situation was in fact a great opportunity to gain intelligence.
My OP was able to listen to the Loyalist patrol, passively scanning their
communications and patrol net as well as gauging their morale and future
intentions. It was priceless.
    But my morale didn’t
rise, and the sense of foreboding didn’t pass over me. Something was wrong,
alarm bells were ringing in the back of my head, because there was something
altogether sinister about the patrol.
    What were they up to?
Why had the enemy pushed up so far from the low ground? They didn’t need to be
so high to bypass the village, and why had their detour brought them directly
to this spot if it hadn’t been to find us? What was so special about my
position that led them to it and caused them to choose to stop on top of it?
     I replayed the words
of the Loyalist voice in my head … ‘ Yeah, that’ll do. I’ll get the guys set
up.’
    Suddenly I realised
what they had found. It was the same thing that I had found when I located the
OP in the first place: level ground and a clear view onto the village. There had
been a reason why the patrol was so heavily armed, and a reason why they had
brought the suit - a weapon that the Loyalists prized and would never risk
sending on a regular patrol - they were fire support, I realised in horror, and
they were setting up to fire onto the village.
     
    I had known from the
day I arrived on the southern Eden hemisphere that the Loyalists were racists.
They were determined to rid the huge and rolling expanse of forest, known as
the Bosque region, of what they called the ‘infection’ of non-European
colonists, even though most of those people had lived there for generations. Dissected
through its middle by the Edo-Europa border it had been long disputed, even
before the war between the Union and the Alliance.
    Having seen enough
hatred in the worlds that I had visited to know that it was within mankind’s
nature, I hadn’t been surprised to learn that Eden was a brutal and deeply
divided planet, but even I couldn’t believe what was happening above us.
    ‘I want four of the
guns moved further along the valley,’ the Loyalist commander ordered, and my
visor display alerted me to a close proximity transmission, picked up by our
scanner. The small device, plugged into my datapad by optic cable to minimise
the