Free LANCEJACK (The Union Series) by Phillip Richards

its ramp was closed, it and two other
vehicles promptly left for Eindhoven. The remaining conscripts busied
themselves loading their vehicles with what appeared to be evidence bags and
telling curious civilians to stay inside their homes.
    ‘Well,
there goes our lift,’ Geany moaned as the bulky vehicles rumbled away into the
dark.
    Irritating
though he was, I couldn’t help but agree with Geany, what the hell were the
conscripts thinking? What would we do now, just sit around and wait? Ten
minutes was an awfully long time to sit around in a city where we had just
arrested tens of potentially innocent civilians.
    ‘Would
we not just fit in the other wagons?’ Jackson asked.
    To
be fair, he had a good point. It would be cramped, but we were troopers. We
were used to being cramped into tiny compartments.
    ‘Konny?’
I looked to our section commander, who looked as though he were considering the
suggestion.
    He
nodded slightly, ‘We’ll go back and see what the boss says.’
    ‘Roger,’
I answered then spoke to the section, ‘Prepare to move, lads.’
    Konny
picked himself up and ordered his point man to move off back toward the
platoon, ‘Keep your spacing, lads.’
    The
section didn’t need to be told. They had seen what had happened to Gaz, and
they knew that troopers bunched together made a juicy target for any
opportunist in the area.
    As
the last of Konny’s fire team passed me and Okonkwo prepared himself to move
off, I decided to have a look on my datapad to see how far our LSV had
travelled. I wanted to guess the length of time it would take to return.
    Something
was wrong with the map, though. There was nothing on it. I cursed myself, I
must have accidentally zoomed it in so much that it couldn’t even show me the
edge of the street I was on.
    ‘Moving,’
Okonkwo, who was point man for my fire team, began to follow on after Konny’s
half of the section.
    I
gave a thumbs up to Okonkwo, then looked back to Patterson and Jackson, ‘Moving.’
    As
I followed on behind I looked back to my datapad and tapped angrily at the
screen in an attempt to zoom the map out. It didn’t seem to matter how far out
I zoomed, there was still no map on display. A terrible realisation crept over
me; I hadn’t downloaded the map correctly. How could I be so stupid ?
    I
looked around me at the section, patrolling silently along the empty street
back toward our platoon a few hundred metres away. What would they all think of
me if they found out about my folly? It seemed that there were already plenty
of troopers in the platoon searching for proof of my unworthiness to command,
the boss included. Perhaps I really was unworthy , I thought to myself. ‘ You’re
only as good as your next contact,’ they used to say on Junior Leaders, ‘ Nobody
gives a fuck about your past.’ It didn’t matter what I did or didn’t do
during the invasion, what mattered was what I was doing now; screwing up.
    Still
mentally beating myself into a pulp, I flicked my datapad over to my ammo state
and trooper info to search for any other errors, and I couldn’t believe my
eyes. I had lost all of it - the entire section ammo state and all of my troopers’
vital readings. What on earth had I done? Reset the whole thing somehow?
    Then
the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. What if it hadn’t been me who had
reset the datapad?
    ‘Lads,’
I spoke into the intercom quietly, trying to remain calm, ‘Go firm, something’s
wrong.’
    The
message wasn’t sent, instead a red message flashed at the top of my visor, a
message that glared at me with terrifying intensity: ‘FAIL NET.’
    ‘Shit!’
I exclaimed, ‘Okonkwo!’
    Okonkwo
heard my shout and turned, ‘What?’
    ‘Comms
are down, we’re being hacked!’
    It
took a couple of seconds for what I was saying to register in Okonkwo’s head,
but once it did he knew instantly what it meant, and hurriedly passed the
message forward with a hiss to the man in front.
    ‘What’s
going