C.R.O.W. (The Union Series) Read Online Free

that to your kids? If you
make it that far that is?
    My elation
was all but gone, and for the first time in my life I made a prayer to God.
    ‘Twenty
seconds!’
    Dear Lord,
please don’t let me die .
    ‘Okay, okay!’
Corporal Evans hurriedly answered to the pilot on the intercom, then turned to
us, ‘Lads, when you exit, you go left! There’s a ditch you can get in. Left,
Berezynsky you got me?’
    Tony would be
the first man out, ‘Yeah I got you!’
    If you let
me live I promise Ill change .
    ‘Ten
seconds!’
    I’ll
believe in you. I’ll go to church. I’ll never pick up a weapon again .
    ‘Five! This
is it, lads!’
    My stomach
lurched for the last time as the dropship  came to an abrupt standstill. My
straps disengaged automatically and I reached for my rifle by instinct. Light
poured in as the rear ramp began to fall.
    It was
raining on the surface of New Earth.
    The noise
outside was deafening even with my earphones on. The  dropship was unleashing
everything it had to cover our exit.
    ‘GO, GO, GO!’
Corporal Evans screamed, but Tony hesitated.
    ‘GO, you
knob!’ Climo shoved him out the door, and I followed.

 
     
    2: One month Ago: New Arrivals
     
    I probably
wouldn’t have felt the gradual return of gravity and the gentle thud of the
shuttle mating with Challenger’s airlock had I been asleep like the others. I
had been comfortable enough, the shuttle was far less cramped than a dropship compartment
and the zero-G was quite relaxing once you got used to it. But I hadn’t found
myself able to fall asleep during our ten hour voyage into deep space, instead
I had passed the time staring at a tiny green computer screen at the far end of
the compartment, our only illumination since the pilot had turned off the
internal lighting. For the best part of the journey it had flashed on and off,
with a single message, ‘NO INTERFACE.’ At times during the journey I had
pondered over its meaning, but coming up with no answers I had long since given
up and simply watched it blinking on and off. Like a clock ticking, it counted
the seconds to our arrival.
    I never could
sleep during shuttle journeys, not necessarily through fear or excitement, but
rather through anticipation of whatever I might encounter at my destination. My
mind raced through scenarios of what might happen when we stepped aboard Challenger
for the first time, wondering if the reception would be frosty or friendly and
if the ship would be vast and awesome like the troopship that had taken me to
Uralis for my training, or cramped and uncomfortable like the warrens of Fort
Abu Naji, deep beneath the Uralian surface.
    It would be
my second time aboard a ship of the Union Navy. Well, it would be my third, but
the second time didn’t really count - we had flown up from the surface of
Uralis by dropship, docked with an old decommissioned warship and then dropped
only fifteen minutes later - we never even left the crew compartment. The thing
that made Challenger different was not to do with the ship itself, it was who
was on it. Challenger was a troopship with a formidable cargo, it was home to A
Company of the 3 rd Battalion English Dropship Infantry, a company of
fully-trained and combat-hardened drop troopers and it was preparing for war.
Onboard the comparatively tiny transport shuttle there were only fifteen of us,
the rest of the platoon I had trained with had been split up into the flotilla
of troopships that orbited silently, high above the brown and white surface of
Uralis. Soon we - the fresh meat - would be the minority, instead of the
majority as we had been in training. Challenger carried two hundred and fifty
men, a hundred of whom were drop troopers.
    I remembered
the final words of wisdom from my section commander, the man who had trained
me, before we nervously boarded the shuttle to leave Uralis for the last time,
‘Be the grey man. Do what you’re told and never answer back. Keep your head
down and eventually you will be