ARISEN_Book Thirteen_The Siege Read online

  He flailed and screamed as the Foxtrot ripped through the fabric of his uniform right at the crotch, bit into his flesh – and then didn’t even swallow, but spit the mouthful back in his lap. Blind with pain, he struggled to get away, but he didn’t need to. The creature from Hell was already turning, heading straight for the second man, who was desperate to help his friend, and who had forgotten the whole point of Foxtrots – which was to infect and move on, to tear into someone new, anyone – and had also moved in too close.

  He fired frantically down at the eel-like creature as it reached him, finally making a flurry of headshots. But by that time a fat chunk of his calf had been bitten out – covered in slime and gunk even as it bled freely. Limping, he ran to his worse-wounded friend, knelt down…

  And cradled his head in his arms.

  * * *

  No one else in the trench with Bhardwaj spoke. Those nearby all had their rifles trained on the two wounded men, as they knelt and lay out in the middle of all that terrible shit.

  Bhardwaj hit his radio. “What’s your status?”

  The voice that came back was thin and strained with fear, pain, regret – and remorse. “We’re both bit, Staff. It’s bad.”

  “I got ’em,” the man beside Bhardwaj said quietly, peering through his SUSAT optical scope in the darkness.

  But Bhardwaj gently pushed the man’s barrel down. This was his job to do – no one else should have to do it. He hit his radio even as he raised his own rifle. “You’re good lads,” he said. “And you’re our brothers, and we love you.”

  And then he shot them both dead.

  * * *

  Elliot watched all this, and followed along on the radio, his breath stolen away. Two more losses, stupid pointless ones, and which they could ill afford. But then he steadied his breathing, steeled himself, and decided to use this. To use it – as motivation. He vowed that the men in his section were not going to end up like that.

  It was no way for a soldier to go.

  When he switched his radio back to the command net, the Staff Sergeant was back on it, finishing up what he had been trying to tell Elliot only sixty seconds ago:

  “—ll platoon and section leaders: drone coverage says the next wave is nineteen – no, eighteen minutes out. So you’ve got that long to rest, reload, and reset. Then they’re on us again. Make it count.”

  * * *

  The glare of sodium work lights, the sparkle and hiss of acetylene torches. The grinding crunch of stone, and the patient whine of powered construction equipment, cranes and dump trucks, occasionally punctuated by the sharp shouts of building foremen. All of this had been impossible to hear over the battle, and very easy to forget about. But a mere 200 meters behind the Paras, a small army of engineers, builders, soldiers, and random shanghaied civilians was working flat-out.

  Trying to rebuild the Wall.

  Elliot took a sip of water and looked out upon the lunar wastescape that lay to the rear of their line of trenches. Immediately behind them was what remained of this section of their formerly insurmountable defense wall: hundreds of tons of fallen and half-splintered stones in hulking and canted piles, some of them rising to twenty feet in places; giant sheets of steel plating warped with stress and trauma; miles of twisted rebar; and whole Saharas of shifting gravel and dust. Basically, it was a lethal combat environment, not to mention unworldly and forbidding, particularly with the sparse and glaring work lights, which created deep and impenetrable shadows everywhere.

  It was the last place any of the Paras wanted to fight – which is why they had occupied the most forward remaining trenches, out beyond the rubble field, and then dug others to support them.

  Granted, the great heaping piles of debris would have provided some cover – but there was no one shooting at them, so it was of little value. It also had elevated positions, so they could in theory have fired over the heads of men in the front – but they didn’t have enough manpower for two ranks, and anyway the rubble piles were shifting and unstable. Finally, it had been decided they needed to be out front, to see the dead coming, to engage them in the open, and not let them disperse into complex terrain, where they would be impossible to stop.

  Elliot shook his head – if and when they were forced back into the lunar terrain of that rubble field, they were in big trouble. And if closely engaged, trying to fight inside it, they would probably all be dead in minutes.

  Then again, Elliot thought, it’s actually only the SECOND-to-last place any of us want to fight. Because all that lay behind the rubble field was the gap in the Wall itself. And behind that – the world’s last standing capital, London.

  The gap, the collapsed section of ZPW, was fully fifty meters wide, and only twenty feet or so of wall remained at the bottom after the collapse. Now, with the nonstop efforts of the builders and engineers, it had risen back up to around thirty feet in most places, forty in some. But, in any case, and in all places, it was a sheer wall at ground level. And when the Paras had their backs up against it, there would be nowhere else to retreat to.

  It would just be stand, fight, and die.

  The battalion had already been whittled down to half-strength, about 220 men, when they arrived here – assigned to this northernmost sector ostensibly to rest, refit, and try to aid or perhaps even evacuate their wounded. But there had been no evacuation flights, and damned little rest – barely two hours before the Wall came down on their heads, and only about another hour before the tide of dead followed the earth-shaking sound. And after that they’d been fighting balls-out all night.

  But not quite nonstop. Mercifully, there had been lulls, intervals between the waves of runner packs who were the first to reach them. But however many they put down, there were always more behind. The lulls never lasted long.

  Elliot had been there when Staff Sergeant Bhardwaj, realizing he was the most senior man left alive and now in charge of the battalion, had got their orders – to hold in place, no matter what. And at that point, they had both believed two things. One, that the defense of the south must have totally collapsed. And, two, that the dead had heard the Wall come down. Now, it had been hours since there could be any doubt of either fact. The entire former population of southern England and the Home Counties was coming straight for them. They were now the focal point for the entire breach of Fortress Britain.

  And the last chokepoint in the whole ZA.

  There was no one else standing in the way of the massive outbreak – nothing but a couple hundred exhausted paratroopers, who were being ground down, one or two taken with every wave, fewer remaining all the time. Fewer men. Less ammo. Less energy, less strength or resolve to carry on.

  And less hope – not so much dwindling as vanishing.

  * * *

  But at least there were the lulls between waves – tiny stretches of time, of peace, of safety – perhaps the only thing keeping them sane, and combat effective. Elliot checked his watch, tried to breathe, and steadied his nerves. A voice spoke from behind and above him.

  “Abandoning the lines to the rear, then, eh, Guv?”

  Elliot came out of his reverie and looked up to see Private Craddock towering over him in the darkness, standing out of the trench himself now, stretching and yawning, his big chest expanded. Elliot started to open his mouth to object – he’d only left the trench to go around and help Beevor, and of course he had jumped out on the safe side. To do otherwise would have been stupid. But he shut his mouth again without a word. If the men he led didn’t respect him, arguing with them would only make it worse.

  “I’m off for a shit,” Craddock said. “While I may.” He checked his own watch, then disappeared into the shifting shadows of the debris piles to their rear.

  “Don’t worry about him,” a quiet voice sounded from Elliot’s side. It was Beevor, eyes shining in the darkness. “He’s just annoyed ’cause he thinks he should be section leader.”

  Elliot nodded. He understood the dynamic. “How old is Craddock, anyway?”


  “Summint like thirty, I reckon,” Beevor said. “Been in twelve years. Got busted down from corporal twice, for fighting. Bhardwaj doesn’t like him.”

  Now Elliot knew why he had this job. And he knew he had his work cut out for him.

  “Don’t worry,” Beevor said again. “He’ll come ’round.”

  Elliot smiled and squeezed the young man’s arm – truly grateful for the support and kind words. Any iota of warmth, of human kindness, was like a bright ember one huddled over to keep off the chill of death, as it tried to dig in from every other direction. Elliot steeled himself before tears formed at the corners of his eyes. There was gratitude, and then there was being a soppy git.

  “When are we being relieved?” Beevor asked.

  That sobered Elliot. Soon, he desperately wanted to tell the young soldier. But he couldn’t break faith with his men – even to keep their flickering faith alive. “I don’t know,” he said. He did refrain from telling him that relief – having another unit take their place so they could get off the line – was never going to happen. Reinforcements were the best they could hope for.

  “I’ll go see the Staff Sergeant and find out.”

  * * *

  “No, not those ones, mate,” Bhardwaj said, as another man started to tear into an ammo can. “They’re bloody simunitions.”

  “Bloody what?”

  “Training ammo, man-markers.”

  The other man twisted his face in sheer disgust and disbelief. “They aidropped us glorified fucking paintballs?”

  Bhardwaj managed a smile. “Hey, they shoot pretty fast, and might be all we’ve got before this is done.”

  The other man shook his hook. “Fucking useless Loggies…” He meant the Royal Logistics Corps. “Biggest and dumbest formation in the British Army.” Their other nickname was the Really Large Corps.

  Elliot waited for the two of them to finish griping before he spoke. He knew the Paras sometimes used simunitions – rounds that fed into their regular rifles and pistols, but loaded with little paint pellets instead of bullets – when they cross-trained in CQB with 22 Reg, the SAS. But he hadn’t yet received a coveted invited to one of those training days. He squinted in the dark at the markings on the ammo can, but then Bhardwaj finally noticed him.

  “What do you need, Walker?” He looked down to check his watch. It occurred to Elliot this was like that first episode of Battlestar Galactica, where the Cylons came back every 33 minutes. Except the Paras never got as long as that.

  Elliot stepped in closer. “Sergeant, the men are asking about reinforcements. Any joy?”

  Bhardwaj exhaled and gestured vaguely at the set radio on the lip of the trench, then lowered his voice. “Just about every regular formation in London was pushed out into the fight in the south. Now they’re all destroyed, or else cut off and abandoned… combat ineffective, out of communications… or else just can’t fight their way here through the tide of dead mobbing the Wall and heading toward our exposed arses.”

  Elliot swallowed. “There’s got to be someone left inside the Wall to come help. Reservists. Something.”

  “A few. They’re mostly fighting chaos, civil disorder, and mini-outbreaks in the city.” Bhardwaj lowered his voice further. “Look, they’re mustering two companies for us, from Fourth Battalion in White City.”

  Elliot’s face lit up. “Four PARA – get in!” They were reservists, but they were Paras. They wore the maroon beret. It was the best news he’d heard in what felt like years.

  “Yeah, and even helos from 16 Air Assault to get ’em here. But I tell you now – I’ll work them into the defense when they get here. Not before.”

  Elliot understood. They’d been disappointed too many times – and lied to more than once. “Can I tell my section?”

  Bhardwaj saw the unaccustomed hope on his junior section leader’s face. And he remembered that hope was their most precious resource now, one they couldn’t afford not to renew.

  “Go on, then.”

  Elliot hesitated. “And there’s still the Support Company, right?”

  Bhardwaj nodded noncommittally.

  “Where are they, actually?”

  “Tucked away safe. Don’t you worry, mate – when we need ’em, they’ll be here.”

  Elliot bit his tongue. He couldn’t help but feel they already needed them. But he knew the Support Company’s heavy machine guns, rockets, and mortars were being kept in reserve – for when things got really bad. And maybe he had no idea how bad things were going to get before this was all over.

  With that, the first firing sounded again – troopers out at the edges of the formation, engaging the front edges of the next waves of runners. Elliot turned to go back to his men, but Bhardwaj stopped him.

  “Make sure your section is ready to withdraw, yeah?”

  Elliot squinted in the dark. “We’re not going to be overrun.”

  Bhardwaj shrugged. “Eventually every besieged position is overrun.” Left unsaid was: Especially when there are infinite numbers of besiegers. “And, Elliot – these lulls we’re getting between waves?”

  “Yes, Sergeant?”

  “Don’t count on too many more of those.”

  * * *

  Boom.

  Headshot.

  Boom. A miss. Boom. Another miss.

  Fuck.

  Lines of frenzied figures emerged from out of the dark treeline or over low rises, sluicing out of the pitch black of the very early morning and into the penumbral glare of the working lights mounted on the construction site behind them. But, for the Paras, the top of the Wall back there was a whole other world – safe and up above it all. Whereas they were down on the ground, in the thick of the fight. And they needed every iota of focus and skill and courage to hold this line.

  But at least, Elliot noted with relief, the runner packs were still going down. The Paras were fewer, and more exhausted, and lower on ammo, with every replay of this drama. But they were holding their positions, their lines intact. And the killzone they had created for the dead worked.

  Until, in an instant, suddenly it didn’t – and everything changed, once again. This wave was different. Now bearing down on them through the glare and shadows were three or four packs of runners, with a dozen or more fast dead each. But leaping around from behind, and over, and breaking through their ranks were perhaps as many as a half-dozen Foxtrots.

  Amid the unceasing din of the firing, huddling down in the rain of hot shell casings, Elliot squinted to make out this threat, and to keep his courage from abandoning him. But it only took him seconds to reach an impossible yet inevitable conclusion.

  It was too many. Too many targets, too impossible to hit, too terrifying and implacable and relentless – and, very quickly, also too close. And so now a new enemy infiltrated the Para lines, and wrapped its fingers around the throats of the survivors in the battalion. Not the Foxtrots.

  But panic.

  Out at the front edges of the V, men started to leap out of their trenches and retreat. And Elliot also suddenly realized that hitting Foxtrots was no longer a luxury. It had become a necessity of survival.

  Boom. A miss. Boom. Another miss. Boom – worse miss, much worse.

  Fuck! Fuck!!

  And then – he actually hit one. Perhaps because he had no choice. It was right on them, and he shot it in the face, and the frenzied maniacal creature skidded into the dirt inches from Elliot’s position. He looked into its dead, blue-tinted, twisted, inhuman face for two seconds. But it was only one, and it didn’t even make a dent, and all the others were still coming in right behind it. And then Elliot heard:

  “Withdraw, everyone withdraw – now! Displace two zero zero meters to the rear! Two PARA withdraws – everyone leg it!”

  It was Staff Sergeant Bhardwaj, shouting in his ear.

  This was it. They were being overrun.

  Elliot heaved himself out of the trench, and shouted at his men to follow, windmilling his arm while hyperventilating�
��

  As out to their front, the whole world started exploding.

  * * *

  The Support Company, Elliot thought, running and trying to breathe.

  Those were 81mm mortar rounds landing out in their killzone, along with the odd LAW anti-tank rocket. In and around that, he could hear GPMG medium machine-guns chattering throatily. The battalion had been out on the ground for days without vehicles, so the really heavy weapons – Javelin missiles, 50-cal machine guns, and grenade machine guns – had been abandoned. But the poor bastards in the Support Company had been humping a lot of heavy metal, most of it halfway around the perimeter of Greater London.

  And now it was saving their asses.

  It was also nearly killing them. They’d been overrun too quickly – clearly faster than anyone expected. And now the barrage meant to help them break contact was in danger of taking them out. Elliot could feel the burning heat of mortar and rocket explosions on his skin, and hear shrapnel whistling through the air inches away – a terrifying flashback from running through that artillery barrage in Kent.

  But he didn’t take a single step to the rear until the last of his men was out of the trench and running and bouncing and lurching away toward the Wall. And then he turned, put his head down, and tried to keep up – his rubbery, adrenaline-weakened legs threatening to collapse out from under him.

  As he worked to keep his feet, he managed a glance ahead and up – and there they were. Of course they were. The Support Company were emplaced up on the giant hunks of stone and towering piles of rubble ahead – two-man machine-gun crews, as well as rocketeers. Hearing the whistling mortars sailing overhead, Elliot figured they had been emplaced beyond, in the open area between the rubble and the Wall, their target coords in the killzone – and in the Paras’ trenches – dialed in beforehand.

  But even as his bouncing vision was hijacked by the percussive crack and billowing white smoke of a discharging rocket above… the man firing it dropped the tube, rose to his feet, windmilled his arms, and fell over backward, his mate reaching out with both hands to stop him, but only going over with him. The twenty-foot pile of boulders and rubble they stood atop had shifted and was rolling out from under them – probably destabilized by the force of the rocket launch.