Michael nodded. Missiles warheads in particular had shrunk dramatically thanks to the ever more powerful explosives packed inside them. The stuff the NRA produced was good for blowing DocSec trucks off the road, but that was about all, though he had to admit their fuel-air weapons were as good as anything the Hammers deployed.
"That's the problem," he continued. "Before we committed to Gladiator, we asked ourselves if we could make a difference. We decided we could, and we have. The microfabs are making a huge contribution. The NRA is starting to get decent comms gear, we have upgraded their squad and crew-served weapons, their chromaflage is better than the Hammers', their body armor and helmets are almost as good as ours, they have proper medibots. I could go on and on. The problem is-"
"The problem is," Sedova said, cutting him off, her finger stabbing out to make the point, "that the small stuff might help, and it does. It makes a big difference, but the small stuff does not win wars. Big stuff wins wars, and that we cannot make: battlesats, kinetics, landers, air-superiority fighters, large-caliber artillery, decoys, drones, and heavy armor. Christ! The list is endless. If the NRA had enough big stuff, this war would be all but over. They have enough people, they have the will, they hold the moral high ground, they have the support of close to 80 percent of those poor bastards out there in Kraa land, but they don't have the big guns. You can't win a war with an assault rifle, even if it's a Fed assault rifle."
"So tell me, Kat, was it a mistake?" Michael's face was grim.
"Coming here, you mean? Being part of Gladiator?"
Michael nodded.
Sedova looked at Acharya for a moment, then shook her head. "No, I don't think so," she said. "Like you said, we asked ourselves if we could make a difference, and we have. The landers, the microfabs, Kallewi's marines, they all help. It's just not enough. But that's the rational view, and my decision never was all logic; emotion played a big part, a very big part, if I'm honest. A large part of me wanted to kick the shit out of the Hammers, and now that I can, I'm happy… very happy doing what I spent so much time and effort training for. Otherwise?" She shrugged her shoulders. "Otherwise, I'd be sitting around while Fleet and the politicians wrung their hands and prevaricated. Wait for another five years until the Hammers rebuilt that antimatter plant of theirs and blow us all to hell? Not bloody likely! Anyway, I have my own reasons for wanting to make a go of Commitment."
"Let me guess," Michael said smiling broadly. "Trooper Zhu?"
"Yes, Trooper Zhu, and don't you say another word! My love life's my own business."
"Okay, okay," Michael said, putting his hand up to fend Sedova off. "What about you, Dev?"
"We've talked a lot about this, obviously," Acharya said, "and I agree with Kat. Doing what I became a Fleet officer to do-killing Hammers-is better than waiting to be slaughtered like some damn sheep. I worry about one thing, though."
"What?"
Acharya's face creased with concern. "Whether I'll feel the same way in a year's time, especially if there's no end in sight. I don't want to die here. I want to go home sometime," he added softly.
Don't we all, Michael said to himself. Don't we all. "I'd better go," he said, climbing to his feet. "Adrissa has a project for me. No idea what it is, but I'd better start off looking keen. When are you guys flying next?"
"Tomorrow," Sedova said. "The Hammers might be taking a break, but the NRA isn't."
"Anything interesting?"
Sedova shook her head. "Nah," she said, "the usual. Hammer forward operating bases. Hit and run. Get in quick, dodge the surface-to-air, beat the crap out of the Hammers, and head for home before the Kingfishers and their Alarics turn up. One day the buggers are going to wake up and mount standing air patrols over the Bretonville-Daleel front, and then we're in trouble. Until then…"
"Take care," Michael said, shaking hands with both of them.
"We will."
Back at his desk, Adrissa commed him to come to her office.
"Take a seat," she said when he entered what was little more than an alcove laser-cut out of the limestone and screened off by a flimsy plasfiber partition.
Michael sat. "Yes, sir?" he said.
"First, I know perfectly well that you'd rather be with the 120th, but trust me when I say that there are more important things for you to be doing right now. So please spare me an endless succession of transfer requests. I'll let you go when we're finished. Is that understood?"
Michael nodded. "Sir."
"Good," Adrissa said. "Now that's out of the way, let me talk about what I need. If you look at the holovid, you'll see that…"
"So that's the background. Here's what I want, Michael. I won't set a deadline because I want it done right. That doesn't mean you can loaf around daydreaming. Ideally, no longer than two weeks, but if you need more time, you can have it."
"Understood, sir," Michael replied.
"Good. There are two parts to the assignment. Part one: a detailed strategic assessment of the NRA's prospects of defeating the Hammers."
"No problems there, sir. I spend most of my waking hours thinking about that."
"I suspected as much. You have reason."
"Yes, sir. I have. Part two?"
"Part two is the bit you may not have spent so much time thinking about. If part one confirms what I think we already know-that the NRA cannot win unless things change-I want to know what they need to defeat the Hammers."
"Okay, Captain, but isn't that… isn't that, you know, just…"
"A meaningless exercise," Adrissa said with a faint smile. "Is that what you were trying to say?"
Michael's face reddened. "No, sir. That wasn't quite what I meant."
"Pleased to hear it, Lieutenant Helfort. Officers of my rank and experience are not in the habit of conducting meaningless exercises."
"No, sir. I know that, but even if we work out what the NRA needs, where does that get us? They are the best scroungers in humanspace. If they can steal something from the Hammers, they will. We know that."
"Yes, they are," Adrissa said, shaking her head. "They've turned it into a fine art. That operation last week was a killer. Eight complete Gordian surface-to-air missile batteries complete with reloads out of Kortenaer Defense Systems' plant. What a gem." She shook her head again, eyes wide in open disbelief. "And what about the convoy of trucks? Not once were they checked, not once. Hundreds of kilometers they covered, trundling along through the countryside cool as you like all the way to the NRA's front door. Unbelievable."
"Wonderful what corruption can do for you," Michael said. "I liked the way the duty manager was bribed with stored-value cards stolen from the Hammer of Kraa Bank. Just a pity DocSec caught up with him before he could spend any of it. It was a great operation, but the problem is this. The NRA needs Gordian batteries to keep marine landers away from their troops on the ground, lots of them. Eight systems is great, but that only brings their total inventory up to… let me see, yes, forty-one, and most of those can only fire one salvo."
Adrissa nodded. "True enough. Doesn't alter the fact that I want to know what they need. When we understand that, we can look at the next question."
"How to get it for them," Michael said, a tiny flame of hope flickering into life. Had Adrissa found a way out of the mess she-and the rest of the Feds-were in? Please let it be so, he said to himself.
"Exactly so. How we get it for them. General Vaas and the NRA are doing their best, so I think it is going to be up to us, and before you ask, because I can see it in your eyes, no, I don't have any solutions to that nasty little problem."
"Oh," Michael said, masking his disappointment.
"One thing at a time, Michael, one thing at a time. Let's get parts one and two finished. When they are, we'll turn our minds to part three: how the NRA gets what it needs. Okay?"
"Yes, sir," Michael replied.
"Well?" she demanded. "What are you waiting for?"
"Sorry, sir. Permission to carry on?"
"Go."
>
"Sir," Michael said.
He made his way back to his desk. Knowing that Adrissa had no magic wand to wave was frustrating, but at least she was not sitting on her ass moaning about being trapped on Commitment thanks to the actions of a mutinous young officer. Who knows, he decided, there might just be a way forward. As the man responsible for the Feds' current predicaments, who better than he to work out what that way forward was?
Energized and excited, he sat down. Closing his eyes, he started work. Friday, December 21, 2401, UD FLTDETCOMM, Branxton Base, Commitment
"… and that concludes my presentation," Michael said. He scanned the faces of Adrissa and her staff. "Are there any questions?"
"I have a couple, but I'll ask them at the end," Adrissa said. "Anyone else?"
"I have," Commander Rasmussen, Adrissa's chief of staff, said.
"Go ahead, Commander."
"Thank you, sir. Before I get to that, let me just say that I have no argument with the first part of your report. I think your analysis of the NRA's strategic and tactical situation is one hundred percent right. I also endorse your views on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Hammers and NRA. That said, let me focus on what I think is the single most important conclusion you have reached. From the day I was dumped on this asshole of a planet, I always assumed the one thing the NRA needed more than anything was ground-attack landers and air-superiority fighters. Give the NRA enough of them and they'd be on their way. Since then, I've seen nothing to change my mind. Bear with me a moment, but"-Rasmussen paused to look around-"can I just ask if that's how the rest of you see things?"
Heads nodded in unanimous agreement.
"Thought that was the case. So, Lieutenant Helfort, what makes you so sure that we were… are wrong?"
Michael's heart sank when he looked at Rasmussen's grim face, the set of his jaw uncompromising.
"Well, sir," Michael said with more confidence than he felt his argument merited. "It's because we were phrasing the question badly. The question is not, 'What's the best way to help the NRA win?' No, the question is, 'What can they procure and we supply that will enable them to win?' Sorry, I know it looks like semantics, but it's not. You are right, sir. I saw things the same way. If we could give the NRA landers and fliers, game over, but-"
"The problem is," Rasmussen said, cutting Michael off, "that there is no way to get the NRA the landers and fliers they need short of persuading a reluctant Fed government to send an invasion force complete with five marine air wings. That's the point, am I right?"
"Yes, sir. If landers and fliers are the only answer, I'm afraid this war will never end. The NRA will still be launching hit-and-run attacks on soft Hammer targets when we're all long gone. Assuming they last, which history shows they won't, of course. I'm no expert, but everything I've read on asymmetric warfare reinforces the same point. All the support the NRA receives from those poor bastards out there"-Michael hooked a thumb at a distant McNair-"is because they are successful, because success offers the promise of victory. But there comes a point where they have to deliver on that promise, when they have to win the war; otherwise, they lose that support. Then it's all over."
"Stick to the point, Lieutenant," Adrissa growled.
"Sorry, sir. You're right, Commander. Landers and fliers are one answer, the best answer. Sadly, it's not the right answer because we can never get them."
"So that begs the next question, which is this," Adrissa said. "Why are surface-to-air missiles the right answer? Surely they are no easier to get hold of."
"The NRA needs just one thing: to get into McNair," Michael said, choosing his words with care; this was not the time to lose his audience. "If they can achieve that, everything tells us that the Hammer government's power is so centralized in McNair that it collapses. We know that the clans controlling the other Hammer planets are already positioning themselves in anticipation of that day. Not that we care, because the Federation can easily deal with three independent Hammer worlds. So that tells us the question we should be trying to answer."
Michael halted for a second, conscious that he had the undivided attention of everyone in the room. "The real question is this: What can we do to enable the NRA to cross the Oxus floodplain and get to McNair with sufficient forces left intact to allow them to take the city? General Vaas's strategy has been right all along. Once the NRA is inside McNair, it's just a matter of time before it's game over. The Hammers' landers, fliers, and orbital kinetics are no good to them anymore. General Vaas says there are things that even the Hammer military won't do, and trashing their foundation city is one of them. Polk might give the order, but none of his people will obey him. Get the NRA into McNair and the Hammer's military advantage vanishes."
"So what they need," Rasmussen said, "is a mobile air-defense shield to cover their advance out of the Branxtons, across the Oxus floodplain, and on into McNair."
"Exactly, sir," Michael replied. "That's the good news, because missile batteries are easier to steal than landers, and Chief Chua tells me he can reverse engineer manufacturing templates for all the Hammer missiles in service. It would take time and effort, but microfabs can manufacture everything except the warheads and propellant. The bad news is this slide here… my modeling shows the NRA will need at a minimum five battalions of Gordians and fifteen of short-range Gondors to cover an NRA attack on McNair, not to mention Goombahs, Sampans, and Stabbers for local air and antiarmor defense. We can't ignore the marines' heavy armor, and any move on McNair will expose the NRA's flanks."
A leaden quiet fell over the room. Michael was not surprised; that was a lot of ordnance. He glanced at Adrissa. "You had some questions, sir?"
Adrissa shook her head. "No, you've covered them. Comm your report to everyone in the room but make sure to put FedEyesOnly on it before you do. This is not the time to share this with General Vaas and his staff."
"Hold on… right, that's done, sir."
"Good. Right. We need to move on this fast. I want comments and criticisms back to Helfort within forty-eight hours. We'll reconvene, work our way through them, and have the report completed before this week's out. That's all, folks. Carry on, please."
While the meeting broke up in a welter of subdued conversation, Adrissa beckoned Michael over.
"Sir?" he said.
"Well done, Michael," Adrissa said. "That was good work, very good."
"Thank you, sir."
"Don't thank me," Adrissa said. "Parts one and two were the easy bits. So get started on part three. Now that we understand the problem we're trying to solve, maybe we'll find a solution that works."
"Sir." Thursday, January 3, 2402, UD FLTDETCOMM, Branxton Base, Commitment
The rest of Adrissa's staff had long gone, but still Michael sat at his workstation, his mind worrying away at the challenge Adrissa had dumped in his lap. Exhaustion washed through him, a gray fog that blurred the problem into a chaotic mass of unrelated issues until he no longer knew what he was supposed to be looking at, until lines of analysis fell apart, until the faint voice of common sense told him he was wasting his time.
Not that he would anymore. He had wrestled with what Adrissa liked to call part three for the best part of two weeks, deep inside sure he was not close to finding the answer. Hell, he did not even know what the answer looked like. Problem was, Adrissa was not going to buy that; she was unhappy enough as it was with the time he was taking.
Michael rubbed eyes gritty from too many hours spent laboring in front of a holovid screen. Enough was enough, he decided. He still did not have the answer, and if Adrissa did not like that simple fact, so be it.
He closed his progress report. He snorted softly: lack-of-progress report more accurately. Stamping it for Adrissa's eyes only, he commed it to FLTDETCOMM's mailbox with strict instructions that it be delivered no earlier than 08:00 the next day. He was leaving for a badly needed weekend off with Anna in an hour, and the last thing he wanted was Adrissa dragging him back into the office to tear str
ips off him.
"Wake up, Lieutenant. We're coming up to Mike-44."
"Uh, what?" Michael mumbled, for a moment totally disoriented. "Oh, thanks," he said to the corporal responsible for maglev security, belatedly working out where he was and why.
Michael had slept the whole way jammed into a corner on the overcrowded maglev, and his left leg was stiff and uncooperative. Under protest, it allowed him to stand up. Grabbing his pack and rifle, he wriggled his way through the car, which was jammed with NRA troopers going wherever NRA troopers went for the weekend. He did not care; all he did care about was that Anna and the 120th had been pulled back out of the line for a week, and unless things had changed in the hours it had taken him to get from FLTDETCOMM to Mike-44, she would be waiting for him a ten-minute walk from the maglev station.
With a soft hiss, the maglev eased to a stop, and Michael pushed his way through the doors before they opened fully. Grateful for the exercise, he limped off, all fatigue banished by the prospect of meeting up with Anna again. It had been too long, and he missed her.
Turning a corner, he made his way down a laser-cut tunnel toward the 120th's billet, a water-carved complex of caves opening out from an enormous cavern. Emerging, he presented himself to the security post controlling access.
"Welcome, Lieutenant," the young corporal said, handing Michael his identity card back. "I was at the River Kendozo breakout, so it's good to see you. You'll find Sergeant Helfort second on the right. She said to go on through and not to wake her or she'd kick your ass."
Michael grinned. "Okay… Hey, wait, Corp. You said Sergeant Helfort?"
"Yes, sir. I did. Fastest promotion in NRA history," the corporal said, returning the grin, "and well deserved."
"Shit, she never said anything about it."
"The colonel paraded the whole regiment yesterday, called her out of line, and pinned the chevrons on himself."
"Well, I'll be," Michael said. "Talk about hidden talents. I'd best go and congratulate her."
The battle for Commitment planet hw-4 Page 31
