The Landfall Campaign (The Nameless War) by Edmond Barrett Page A

already stated he will place in the guardhouse any individual who has signed a 266B and refuses to obey instructions. I also feel I should inform you that the guardhouse in Douglas Base is located on the surface and is not hardened against weapon strikes. You are in essence being drafted. Now, the only question is, are you going to obey instructions? ”
     
    It was a sullen group of draftees that two hours later stood in front of Major Hillaby. En route to the surface they had been issued with jackets, boots and, more ominously, helmets. They had been joined by a number of other groups of equally upset looking civilians. There were now somewhere between thirty and forty people, all clustered in front of the boxes and weatherproof sheeting that served as the Major’s office. Looking around at the people surrounding her, Alice could see some defiance, some anger, but mostly fear in their faces.
    “ Sergeant! ” the Major bellowed, making everyone jump.
    “ Sir? ” the NCO replied, pushing through the crowd.
    “ Sergeant, I was promised a hundred, ” he snapped waving his hand vaguely towards them all. “ This does not look like a hundred people. ”
    “ Yes sir, ” the sergeant replied in a calm voice. “ Them downstairs are having trouble finding the right people. People were thrown willy-nilly into shelters. These are the ones they’ve found so far. ”
    “ Wonderful. Just wonderful! ”
    “ They are starting to ask for volunteers from general population, sir. They reckon they will have another fifty up here in about an hour, ” the sergeant continued in the same calm voice.
    The Major glared at him for a moment, his fingers drumming furiously on his desk. “ Alright Cecil, ” he replied eventually with a sigh. “ Split them in half and send them east and west. North and South will have to wait their turn. ”
    “ Yes sir. ” the sergeant turned and started to roughly shove people into two clusters. Alice standing on the extreme left of her group was shoved one way, as the rest of them were pushed the other.
    “ But …” she objected stepping forward.
    “ Damn it woman! ” the Major shouted at her. “ Would you stay where you ’ re put! You’re only being put into today’s work party, not separated for life! ”
    On the other side of widening gap between the two subgroups, Leah gave an encouraging smile before being bundled into a truck.
     
    As she sat on the truck ’ s hard bench, Alice was struck by a terrible sense of loneliness. Ever since she’d first been contracted to the fleet, she ’ d spent almost every moment, awake or asleep, in or around the same group of people. They’d gone through the same basic training course together, and on board Harbinger the civilians had kept mostly to themselves. She didn’t know them all equally. Leah she’d known from university and Professor Bhaile was generally benign and banal. Others, like Steward Gore the diplomat, she hardly knew at all, plus there was Malcolm the geologist, a man convinced of his own greatness, that she tried to avoid. But they were all familiar faces. Their leave on Landfall had been the first time in months that she hadn’t been within a few metres of at least half of them. As they all returned for their flight back to Harbinger , she’d been glad to see them. Now she was on her own, surrounded by strangers.
    They got to the edge of the plateau and turned off road before coming to a halt. Jumping out of the truck, the first thing Alice saw was a machine digging out a deep narrow hole.
    “ We’re digging graves? ” she blurted before she could stop herself. The closest marine heard her.
    “ Not just yet luv, ” he replied. “ Trench digging - graves for the living. Hey Rob, give Happy here a spade. ”
    “ Right’o Corp, ” another marine replied. He hesitated as he passed her a shovel. “ Hello Doc, ” he said to her after a moment. “ Glad to see you hadn’t got to Baden when it all went runny. ”
    It took