"No need to ask the rest of you, I know, but I want to be clear. Never mind the legalities. Are you all in because it is the right thing to do?"
The answers came one after another. When the last of the nine had spoken, Michael sat back and shook his head. "Okay, that's clear," he said. "I guess it's decision time for me. No surprises, team. I accept the offer. Let's do it."
The conference room erupted in a storm of cheers. Michael waited patiently until things quieted down.
"One question, though. The troops. How about them? It's fine for us to sit here in furious agreement with each other, but what about them? Janos, you have the largest number of junior people. They want any part of this?"
Kallewi grinned, a hungry, wolfish grin, a grin of feral anticipation. "Well, sir. We won't know until we ask, but Sergeant Tchiang and I think we'll have no shortage of takers. Marines are born to fight, after all. They don't like this stalemate any more than we do. There will be a few who say no, all married with young families. Gavaskar, Park, Mortenson, Nikola, Barret." Kallewi looked at Tchiang. "Have I missed anyone, Sergeant?"
Tchiang shook his head. "No, sir. They're the ones. I'd bet my pension that the rest will say yes. They hate deadlock, too."
"Thanks, Janos. Kat. What about your team?"
"Don't think any of mine will say no. Can't be sure until we put the hard word on them, of course. Jackson, maybe. He's a 'by the book' man. This might be too much for him."
"Jayla?"
"I think all the Redwoods will say yes apart from Lomidze and Faris, sir. Both married, young kids. Don't blame them. Renegade missions aren't what they signed on for."
"So having the people to do this won't be a problem," Michael said, "but I have to insist on one thing. Nothing is said to Mother, and nothing to anyone outside this room. That way, when it comes to decision time, our people can see what we want to do, how we'll do it, and what our chances of success are. That way, they can make what I think the lawyers call an informed decision. Agreed?"
Again heads nodded in assent.
"Fine," Michael said. "That leaves the detailed planning. We know what we want to achieve. Now we need to work out how to do it. We have a lot to think about and not that much time to do it in. So here's how we'll do it. Jayla, you take…"
***
Michael sat back while the meeting broke up and waved Bienefelt to stay behind. He was still struggling to come to terms with the enormity of the crime they hoped to execute. He had checked; no one in Fed history had planned and executed anything quite so extreme. He smiled. It would be a long time before the name Michael Helfort faded into history, that much was for sure.
Not that he was happy about what he was getting himself, not to mention the rest of the Redwoods, into. It would be dangerous, and success was far from assured. Even if they managed to rescue Anna, they needed to get away from the Hammers, then persuade the NRA and the Nationalists to take them in, not to mention survive long enough to see them topple the Hammer government. Only then would they all be able to go home.
Bienefelt coughed softly. Michael started. He had clean forgotten about her. "Shit, sorry, Matti."
"No problem, sir."
"Just wanted to… you know…"
"Check that what you're doing is the right thing?"
Michael smiled, a rueful half smile of uncertainty tinged with fear. "Am I that obvious?"
"Know you well enough by now, sir."
"You do. Well?"
"Legally, no, it's the wrong thing. Morally? It's arguable, but on balance I think we're on the side of the angels."
"That's where I get to, Matti. Like most things in life, I guess, if it all works out the way we hope it will, it will have been the right thing. If it doesn't…"
"Well, then, we'll just have to make sure it does work out, won't we?"
"We will. One other thing, though. You know now how I feel about the way this war is managed. How are the troops taking things?"
Bienefelt sat back in her chair. "You really want to know, sir?"
"Yes, Matti. I really want to know."
"Well, I shouldn't say this 'cause it's all scuttlebutt, but things are not good out there in the fleet. The kicking we received at Comdur started the rot. I know the Hammers pulled that one out of the hat, I know nobody had any idea they'd found a way to weaponize antimatter, I know there was nothing that anyone in Fleet could have done to avoid the disaster. Even so, being beaten so badly is hard for your average spacer to take, and it does nothing to inspire confidence in the brass. Whether that's right or wrong doesn't matter. It's a fact. Then the Salvation operation followed. I know we won that one, but at what cost? Eleven ships sacrificed by Fleet, including your Anna's Damishqui, because Fleet was too gutless to stand up to the politicians. Eleven ships! All those spacers, all those marines, and for what? For what?"
Bienefelt sighed and rubbed her face with hands the size of hams.
"For nothing," she continued, "all for nothing. We were always going to kick the Hammers' asses. So no wonder spacers began to worry where the hell this war was going to end up. After that came Devastation Reef. I know we won that one big time, but even the dumbest spacer was able to work out that was only because the dreadnoughts saved Fleet's backside… no, not the dreadnoughts, you, sir. You saved Fleet," Bienefelt said fiercely. "And the troops know it. The fact that most Fleet officers feel you did it the wrong way has pissed them off big time. Every spacer I speak to thinks the decision to stop the dreadnought project is madness, total madness. So what do they have to look forward to now? Five more years of war, at least. Jeez, that's if they're lucky. Plenty of spacers think this war will never end. Never! Even if it is only five more years, like Chief Fodor said, five years for what? We can't win this war until every ship carries antimatter weapons, which won't happen inside ten years no matter how much money we throw at it, and why are we surprised? Took the Hammers the best part of fifty years to work out how to make enough of the damn stuff to be useful. That means the Hammers can build a new antimatter plant to replace the one we destroyed at Devastation Reef, then do another Comdur on us." Bienefelt paused for a moment. "Though there's another possibility," she continued.
"Which is?"
"That the war will end sooner than we think."
"How?" Michael said with a puzzled frown.
"When the Hammers beat us. Fleet says five years. Who says that's right? The Hammers must know that the sooner they restore their antimatter capability, the sooner they can destroy our fleet. Then it's game over. I wouldn't bet my life on us having that long."
"Shit! There's a cheery thought," Michael muttered.
"There's worse."
"Jeezus!" Michael said. "What could be worse?"
"Fleet. Never mind the Hammers; they have their own problems," Bienefelt said. "You heard the latest rumor?"
Michael shook his head. "Rumor? What rumor?"
"More than a rumor. Palmyra's crew mutinied."
Michael's eyes opened wide with shock. "Shit! I didn't know that."
"That's because nobody's supposed to. Fleet's trying to keep it real tight." She sniffed, a sharp sound of utter disdain. "As if they could keep a lid on something that big. Anyway, it seems half the spacers refused to let the ship deploy on combat operations. Palmyra's marines managed to keep a lid on it until reinforcements arrived, but things turned ugly."
"Casualties?"
"Don't know for sure," Bienefelt said, shaking her head. "You know the rumor mill, but word is there were some."
Michael sat, stunned into silence. There had not been a fullblown mutiny on a Federated Worlds warship in living memory; the last one was on the old Fortress back in '32, and that was a very minor affair involving only a handful of spacers.
"There's more, sir."
Michael flinched. "More?" he said.
"Afraid so. There was a riot in the Comdur Fleet canteen, a bad one. Big bunch of spacers trashed the joint, barricaded themselves in. Needed the marines bac
ked up by naval police to retake the joint. Lot of spacers hurt, some badly-"
"Holy shit!"
"And there's been an increase in unexplained defects according to a friend of mine in one of the heavy maintenance units. Fleet canceled an operation last week because so many ships went unserviceable at the last minute. Too much of a coincidence to be anything but sabotage."
"Bloody hell, why am I the last one to find out?" Michael said, voice taut with anger; Fleet's summary of operation had said only that Palmyra was being pulled out of the line because of main engine problems. "So what's it all mean, Matti?"
"What it means is this. Fleet spacers are pissed: pissed at the Hammers, pissed at the politicians, pissed at the admirals, pissed at the way Fleet's conducting this war, pissed because there's no way out of the mess we've landed ourselves in."
"And you can't fight a war if the troops are pissed," Michael said.
"No, you can't. And don't be surprised if there's more of the same. Palmyra might not be the last. I'd lay good money down that it's just the first."
Michael half smiled. "Given what we just talked about, I think we can be sure of that, Matti."
Bienefelt smiled back. "You know what I mean, sir. What we're planning is different. More to the point, it's what we should do. Sure as hell better than doing nothing, hoping things get better."
"Maybe. Doesn't matter. Decision's made. Anyway, thanks for your faith in me, Matti. Let's hope it's not misplaced."
"I don't think it is. Permission to carry on, sir?"
"Please."
Michael watched with mixed feelings as Matti's hulking mass squeezed through the door. Even though she had told him a lot he had not known-the Palmyra mutiny was a huge shock-none of it changed what he already knew: Fleet was in trouble, and if Fleet was in trouble, then so were the Federated Worlds.
So what the hell are you doing, Michael Wallace Helfort? What are you doing making Fleet's job of holding back the Hammers harder by taking Redwood, and maybe Red River and Redress as well, out of the line of battle? It was crazy, diverting three operational dreadnoughts to solve the personal problems of one lovesick captain. No, it was beyond crazy; it was the stuff of the worst trashvids ever made. He shook his head, cringing as he imagined how the rest of humanspace would react when they were told that the Federated Worlds, fighting for its very existence against a rampaging Hammer of Kraa, had been deserted by one of its heroes to save one woman's life.
Except, except…
The brutal truth was that diverting the three dreadnoughts would make no difference to anything. For reasons that made no sense, in the face of everything the dreadnoughts had achieved against appalling odds, Fleet had decided they would play no significant part in the war. That was why they had been sent to Nyleth, their war reduced to pointless attacks on soft Hammer targets in an unimportant sector of space. Like children given a tool they did not understand and could not use, Fleet first mocked it as useless and then discarded it.
Michael gave a snort of disgust. Who were the fools? Not he and the crew of Redwood. Yes, nobody would think what he was about to do made any sense. He would be branded a traitor and a fool. He would be a pariah for as long as he lived. He would never be forgiven. But as long as there was a chance that helping Anna also would help the poor bastards fighting the Hammers on the ground-and they were the only ones capable of toppling the Hammers-then it was the right thing to do.
Because one thing was for sure. Nothing Fleet was doing right now was going to win this war. Thursday, August 9, 2401, UD West coast of central Maranzika, Commitment
The heavily wooded foothills of the Branxton Ranges sprawled away from the coast, shrouded in mist. Thin tendrils of moisture twisted their way through the predawn gloom, gray wraiths pushed by a gentle westerly breeze down the valleys toward the coastal highway linking Daleel to the north and Besud to the south. Ghostlike, chromaflaged shapes had come out of the mountains. Now they slipped through the trees, easing into position around the kill zone, a sweeping bend in the highway cut into the shallow hillside and flanked by sharp outcropping headlands that dropped sheer into the sea below.
Major Chiaou, the assault commander, pronounced himself satisfied, pleased that his troopers had followed the plan as briefed though still concerned at what his force was being asked to do. He settled down to wait.
A long hour dragged past, and Chiaou began to worry in earnest. He had much to worry about: that the convoy taking the best part of a marine battalion and its equipment to the Besud marine base might be a figment of some intel spook's overheated imagination, that the arrival of daylight might expose his painfully small force, that the endless succession of Hammer recon drones scanning the highway for anything unusual might detect a momentary lapse of chromaflage discipline by one of his troopers, and, worst of all, that marine landers might already be on their way to turn the hillside into a shock-ravaged and flame-blasted wasteland scoured clean of all life by the Hammers' favorite weapon, the simple but cruelly effective fuel-air bomb, engineered to give an explosive yield greater than battlefield tacnukes without the political cost that bedeviled all nuclear weapons.
Thirty minutes, Chiaou decided, another thirty minutes, and then he would order the withdrawal. He could not risk his troopers any longer than that.
With less than ten of those thirty minutes left, the waiting ended. Word arrived that the targets were on their way, and Chiaou passed the order to stand to. It seemed a lifetime before the convoy swung into view around the headland to the north, preceded by a pair of recon drones zigzagging through the air overhead, searching for anything unusual with mindless diligence. Chiaou breathed in sharply, air hissing in through clenched teeth to fill his lungs. This was no ordinary convoy. No, this was a Hammer marine convoy, a succession of soft-skinned cargobots protected by light tanks front and rear, with a command half-track and more tanks in the convoy's center.
Chiaou did not like what he saw. Marines made him nervous; marine armor, even light armor, terrified him. It had been long-standing NRA policy to leave the marines well alone, and for good reason. So why me? he asked himself. Why was his company the one selected for the dubious honor of being the first to take out a marine convoy?
The convoy was in no hurry. The long line of vehicles ground its way nose to tail around the headland and into view until they were arrayed in a long, shallow arc in front of Chiaou, and still the lead tank had not reached the southern headland.
"Now!" he hissed. "No-"
With a flat, slapping crack, claymores fired to initiate the ambush, and the leading cargobots disintegrated as walls of shrapnel scythed through their soft skins. The tanks slammed to a halt, turrets turning to face the attack, hypervelocity auto-cannon and lasers firing blindly at an unseen enemy. Too little, too late; the tanks died, overwhelmed by antiarmor missiles fired from positions well back from the road and upslope, the missiles climbing steeply before dropping in a plunging attack under full power directly into the tanks' vulnerable upper armor. Then it was the recon drones' turn, man-portable air-defense missiles streaking skyward on flame-topped needles of white smoke to hack them out of the air.
"Suck that, you Hammer bastards," Chiaou muttered as he watched the drones plummet to earth. "What did you think we'd do with all those missiles we stole last month, you dumb shitheads?"
He watched the armored vehicles spin out of control, death pyres of dirty black smoke shot through with scarlet tongues of flame climbing hungrily into the sky, pillars of death quickly overwhelmed as one after another, fusion power plants lost containment, blasting blinding white balls of pure energy across the convoy. The shock wave smashed into Chiaou's helmet with such force that he grayed out for second. There was silence, then the morning filled with an appalling racket as every weapon Bravo Company possessed opened up on the surviving cargobots and their hapless marines, the thin-skinned vehicles no match for the short-range missiles carried by every trooper in Chiaou's force. Trapped front and rear by burning
armor, flanked by a wall of death on one side and a sheer drop into the sea on the other, the marines had nowhere to run. Those who survived the brutal assault long enough to reach what little cover there was were quickly overwhelmed. Soon the air was filled with the bone-crunching crack of cargobot fusion power plants losing containment, savage white flares of pure energy bleaching the muted greens and browns of the landscape to pale gray.
Chiaou gave the order to withdraw. Time was not on his side, and he knew from bitter experience that the ambush was the easiest part of the operation. What came next was what worried him: surviving the Hammer's response. Warned by the recon drones in the instant before they died, Hammer commanders would have heavy ground-attack landers loaded with fuel-air bombs on their way from the marine bases at Besud and Amokran; assuming the intel brief was right, B Company had enough time to reach the dubious safety of caves to the southwest of the ambush site before the Hammers turned up. If he and his troopers were not tucked away safely by the time the landers started to carpet bomb the area, they would not live to see another day.
Leaving behind a scene of utter carnage, the bones of the convoy and its missile-shattered escort strewn across the highway in an arc of smoldering, blast-ripped metal, Chiaou's company pulled back into the woods. Running hard now, they did not stop even when the distant grumble of heavy engines announced the landers' arrival. Legs burning and lungs afire, Chiaou pounded along, the withdrawal disintegrating into a loose melee as B Company fled for its life, the already headlong pace picking up when the whump whump of the first pattern of bombs shook the forest, shock waves showering the ground with leaves and twigs.
The lay-up point was a chaotic fall of rocks at the head of a thickly wooded dry valley, one of thousands incised into the foothills of the Branxton Ranges. Behind the boulder fall lay a small complex of caves, smaller than Chiaou would have wanted but the best for many kilometers around and proof against all but a direct hit, which was an unlikely event; for all their overwhelming numbers, not even the Hammers could carpet bomb every square centimeter of the Branxtons, though they seemed intent on trying.
The battle for Commitment planet hw-4 Page 6
