Free LANCEJACK (The Union Series) by Phillip Richards Page A

on, Corporal?’ Patterson asked from behind me, but I didn’t have the time
to answer. Suddenly and without warning, the street exploded.

 
    6
    Contact
     
    The
force of the explosion threw me backward so violently that I rolled over my
helmet and daysack and ended up lying face down on the concrete. For a second I
lay there dazed, until a warning tone in my headset brought me back to my
senses. The seal to my respirator was broken, but I didn’t need to be told -
the acrid stench of smoke already stung my nostrils. I ignored the alarm, the
air was safe, or at least I hoped it was.
    ‘Contact
IED!’ Somebody screamed from the other end of the section, concealed by a thick
blanket of dust. Something had exploded from across the street, not far from
where I had been stood.
    ‘Get
into cover!’ I shouted back, and then looked to Patterson to pass the message
along to Jackson. Patterson was on the floor, and he wasn’t moving.
    ‘Shit,’
I exclaimed, ‘Man down! Man down!’
    The
message repeated through the smoke as I ran toward the unmoving trooper – ‘ Man
down’ - a terrible pair of words that assaulted the very soul. I remembered
my friend Browner, and how tiny his body had been without the limbs attached
and the thought spurred me to run ever faster.
    Patterson
lay motionless on his back, there were several puncture holes across his
armour. Gel armour was a good piece of kit, but Patterson had been right next
to the blast and it hadn’t managed to stop all of the razor sharp fragments.
How his limbs remained attached was beyond me.
    ‘Patterson,
can you hear me?’ I shook him by the shoulders, but there was no response. His
visor was completely shattered and there appeared to be blood around his mouth.
A dark puddle was forming beneath him.
    Jackson
skidded beside us, ‘He okay?’
    In
a normal situation I might tell Jackson not to ask stupid questions, but
instead I grabbed Patterson by one of his daysack straps, ‘I don’t know, but we
can’t treat him here. Give me a hand!’
    We
were still in the open when the section came under fire. Darts punched through
the swirling smoke, striking at the concrete and ricocheting in showers of
sparks.
    ‘Run!’
I shouted to Jackson, and we dragged him as fast as we could across the street
in search of cover. Nobody was shooting at us, they couldn’t have been, for
there was no way we would have survived in the open.
    ‘Contact!’
I heard Konny scream as we pulled Patterson down into a cellar stairwell. We
dragged him down the stairs, far enough for him to be out of harm’s way.
    ‘Treat
him,’ I told Jackson, who nodded hurriedly and then I returned to the top of
the stairwell, peering over the concrete banister at the battle.
    The
enemy were firing down upon the section from within the buildings that lined
the street. Fleeting targets were marked by my visor display as they emerged to
fire from the windows and then took cover again. I looked for the section, and
saw that they were taking cover from the withering onslaught raining down from
above. Nobody was firing.
    I
gaped at the sight of an entire section of troopers in hiding. What the hell
were they doing? Waiting to die?
    ‘Okonwko!’
I called toward the nearest trooper. He was tucked in behind a pillar outside a
building entrance, trying to make himself as small a target as he could. He
caught my eye, ducking as something exploded near to him. The enemy were either
throwing grenades or firing missiles, in the chaos and smoke I couldn’t tell
which.
    ‘What
the hell are you doing?’ I ignored a burst of darts that peppered the ground a
few metres in front of me. Instead of fighting back, the section were doing
exactly what the enemy wanted them to do; nothing. The enemy were using
overwhelming firepower to fix us in position, so that they could finish us off.
I had seen it before, and I would be damned if it happened again.
    ‘What
does it look like I’m doing?’ Okonkwo screamed.
    I
shook