Graham Paul - The battle for Commitment planet

"I have no idea, Anna. Honestly."

"Like you just said, dumbo. It's you and me, and the rest of humanspace can go fuck itself."

"You mean that?" Michael said, trying not to let a rush of euphoria overwhelm him.

"Sure do, spacer," she said. "Now, even though the rest of humanspace should go screw itself, you have work to do."

Michael's euphoria vanished. "Ah, damn. Duty, duty, always duty. Yes, Captain Adrissa and I are off to see the Nationalists. Don't how long we'll be gone."

"I'll be here when you get back, Michael," Anna said softly. "I'll be here."

"Okay," Farsi said, "here are the rules, and they are not open for debate."

Off to a promising start, Michael said to himself while the NRA sergeant looked at everyone in turn.

"Rule one," Farsi continued. "I'm in charge. Any time I'm not around, Corporal T'chavliki"-he pointed to a scrappy, underweight woman standing off to one side-"is the boss. What either one of us says goes. If one of you steps out of line, I'll blow your Kraa-damned head off. I don't have the time to argue.

"Rule two. For Kraa's sake, maintain chromaflage discipline, so capes on all the time. Since we laid our hands on Goombah shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, those Hammer fuckpigs don't send drones across our patch like they used to, but they're around. So are the battlesats; if the cloud cover clears, their damn lasers will fry you in a heartbeat. They might even drop kinetics on us, so don't give them a target.

"Rule three. Keep up. If you can't keep up, tough. Make your way back here as best you can.

"Rule four. If you look like you're getting captured, kill as many of the Hammers as you can before you kill yourself. Trust me; you should never, ever allow yourself to be taken alive."

Michael shivered, an image of Erwin Hartspring popping unbidden into his mind's eye, the black uniform and pale, washed-out eyes every bit as vivid as the last time he had seen the DocSec colonel.

"Rule five. There is no rule five, so that's it. Any questions?" Farsi looked around again. He nodded. "Good. Let's go."

Without another word, Farsi waved them to move out, a trooper and Farsi up front, Adrissa, Kallewi, and Michael behind them, with T'chavliki and the rest of the patrol bringing up the rear. Tuesday, September 18, 2401, UD Gwalia Planetary Ground Defense Force base, Commitment

Mouth open, Chief Councillor Polk gaped at the appalling sight sprawled out in front of him. Two weeks earlier, he had presided over a medals ceremony at this very base. It had been flawless. Air-superiority fighters and ground-attack fliers had been arrayed in precise lines, their crews and the base's support personnel drawn up immaculate in their dress blacks, hundreds upon hundreds of them, all proof positive that not every part of the Hammer Worlds was a corrupt, decaying farce.

Now the place was a wasteland, a blast-smashed expanse of ceramcrete littered with the shattered wrecks of fighters, the base's elaborate infrastructure reduced to blackened piles of rubble through which casualty recovery teams picked their way with painstaking care, a red flag appearing every time a new body was located. There were hundreds of red flags already, Polk noted, and the teams had covered only a fraction of the base.

With a start, Polk realized how dumb he must look. He turned to the latest in a long line of commanders in chief standing alongside him, his face drawn tight with shock.

"How, Admiral Belasz? How could this have happened?"

Belasz licked his lips; Polk could see a small tic working under the man's left eye. Given that his predecessor had been consigned to a DocSec lime pit for the last disaster, he had every right to be nervous.

"Well, sir," Belasz said, choosing his words with great care, "overwhelming force directed with great precision is how. If the Feds choose to drop hundreds of thousands of tons of armored heavy cruiser onto us, I'm afraid there's very little we can do to stop them. That much mass moving that fast…" Balasz shrugged his shoulders. "It's unstoppable."

Polk resisted the urge to have the man arrested on the spot. "They'd waste ships doing that?" he demanded. "Why? It makes no sense, especially given they are so short of frontline units."

"We don't know the answer to that, sir," Belasz said, "and I agree it doesn't make sense. Yes, they've caused us great damage, but it's all to the PGDF. They haven't reduced Fleet's capacity to wage war on them in any way. I'm sorry, sir. I wish we knew, but it's a mystery, and without the crews of the three ships to tell us, we may never work it out."

"Do we know the names of the ships?"

"Yes, sir. We do. They were three R-Class heavy cruisers: Redwood, Red River, and Redress."

Polk swung around. "Redwood!" he barked. "Did you say Redwood?"

The raw ferocity in Polk's voice made Belasz flinch. "Yes, sir," he stammered. "Redwood was one the ships destroyed in the attack. It hit Perkins."

Redwood, Kraa damn it! With a terrible, cold certainly it all made sense to Polk. "Admiral, get your people to confirm the status of J-5209."

"J-5209?" Belasz said with a frown. "The prisoner of war camp? I don't under-"

"Yes, you imbecile. J-5209, the Fed prisoner-of-war camp. Now!"

"Yes, sir."

Belasz returned a minute later. "J-5209 was attacked shortly after the three PGDF bases were hit. Fed landers took out the defenses before leaving with all the Fed prisoners. Kingfisher fighters from Ojan took them out off the coast southwest of McNair. We found no survivors."

Polk was silent. Redwood meant Helfort; it had to be him. Who else would have staged such an elaborate diversionary attack? Who else had enough of a motive? So why would he go to all that trouble only to die in the storm-wracked seas, victim of the Kingfishers' Alaric missiles and of a complete lack of fallback planning? It was not like Helfort at all; that meant…

"Admiral."

"Yes, sir?"

"Humor me," Polk said. "I'm not convinced. When the weather allows, I want the crash site checked again, including a seabed survey this time. I want concrete proof those landers were shot down, and I want it soon."

Belasz's eyes opened wide in surprise. "Yes, sir. Will be done."

"Good. Keep me informed." Polk waved his chief of staff over. "I've seen enough."

"Yes, sir."

As his flier climbed away, leaving behind a scene of utter desolation, Polk patched through a call to Viktor Solomatin.

"Anything from the Feds?" he asked when the unlovely face of his councillor for foreign relations appeared in his personal holovid.

"Yes, sir. In short, they are claiming that rogue elements acting outside the Federated Worlds' chain of command were responsible for the attack. Details to follow."

"I take it, Councillor, that you are not convinced?"

"Me?" Solomatin said with a scowl. "No, I'm not. I think it's the usual Fed bullshit. They planned it, they executed it, and in some way they intend to profit from it. How, we have no idea, but rogue elements? The Feds? Never!"

"Okay, Councillor. Let's wait for their full response before we do anything. That's all."

Polk cut the call, Solomatin's openmouthed surprise at Polk's evenhanded reaction fading away into nothingness. He stared out of the window as the flier approached McNair, the city's ugly sprawl reaching out to meet them.

"Chief Councillor?" his chief of staff said.

"Yes?"

"Councillor de Mel for you, sir."

"Okay. Yes, Councillor, what can I do for you?"

"Word of the attack on the PGDF bases is out, sir. The NRA is claiming responsibility, of course, so the mobs have hit the streets. Faith's particularly bad. DocSec's gone to red alert for all cities and towns across all three systems. I think it's going to be a bad forty-eight hours, Chief Councillor."