Graham Paul - The battle for Commitment planet

"Fine," Polk said with a dismissive wave of the hand. "Keep me informed."

"One more thing, sir," de Mel said with a small shake of his head, openly puzzled by Polk's lack of interest.

"What?"

"Like I said, sir, DocSec thinks we're in for a bad forty-eight hours, and I agree. They've asked for marine backup, but General Baxter is refusing to move even a single marine without an operational directive from the Defense Council."

Polk almost shrugged his shoulders-right now, he could not care less what Baxter might or might not be doing-but thought better of it. He had to act his part in the elaborate charade that was Hammer politics even if all that mattered to him right now was the undeniable fact that Helfort had rubbed his face in dog shit again. "I'll convene an emergency meeting of the Council," he said. "You'll get your marines."

"Thank you, sir," de Mel said, the relief obvious.

"Anything else?"

"No, sir. I'll keep you posted."

"You do that, Councillor. You do that."

Why do I bother? Polk asked himself. Not even twenty-four hours earlier, he had the Hammer Worlds and its tangled affairs as much under control as any one human being could. Now one man, one small, insignificant man, had thrown a huge monkey wrench into the works, leaving him thrashing around in a vain attempt to stay on top of things.

Was this his fate, he asked, doomed to reach out for the things that mattered to him, to the Worlds, only to have lowlife scum like Helfort rip them from his grasp? If it was, he said to himself, what in Kraa's name was the point of being chief councillor? Friday, September 21, 2401, UD Branxton Ranges, Commitment

It had been an hour since they broke camp, and Michael's left leg was letting him know it resented the punishing pace. Uphill or down, nothing seemed to bother Farsi and his patrol; the pace was the same: fast, relentless, a five-minute break every hour the only respite. Still Farsi refused to say how much farther they had to go: "You'll know when we get there" was all he ever said, every other question treated the same way, with a silent shrug of the shoulders. Michael had tried to get Farsi's second in command, T'chavliki, to talk, but she was just as uncommunicative. The rest of the patrol was no better; all day they marched in complete silence.

"So be it," Michael muttered while he followed Adrissa through trees filling the bottom of a narrow gully that climbed to a small crest before, presumably, it dropped away into yet another valley. Of the Hammers there had been no sign; judging by Farsi's relaxed attitude to patrol discipline-all he seemed to care about was maintaining the pace-there would not be. Kallewi had asked Farsi about the Hammers; true to form, Farsi's reply had been yet another shrug of the shoulders.

So the day wore on, the routine unfaltering, the pace unyielding, until only the fast-fading dregs of willpower kept Michael moving, hoping against hope that the day might finish and soon. His left leg had long since dissolved into a molten mass of white-hot pain, and it demanded every gram of willpower he possessed to keep up, his eyes locked on Adrissa's back. She marched ahead of him, troubled by neither the pace nor the hours. How did she do it? he wondered. The bloody woman had been locked up in a prison camp for months, for chrissakes.

Farsi's fist lifted ten long, hard hours after they had set off but only minutes before Michael knew he would have to fall out. Without a word, the man turned and waved everyone off the path they had been following through scrubby, stunted trees. What now? Michael wondered. He followed T'chavliki down a gentle slope through trees thickening overhead until they came to a cluster of boulders tumbled together to form overhangs.

"We'll leave you here," Farsi said. "There's a stream thirty meters farther on, so water won't be a problem. You'll be safe if you keep those Kraa-damned neuronics of yours shut down, don't wander off, and don't light any fires."

"Yes," Adrissa said, "but when can we meet-"

"Kraa! You Feds are an impatient lot," Farsi said. "All in good time. Be ready to move out at first light tomorrow. Let me see… yes that'll be two days' time at 07:15 Universal. Understood?"

Adrissa nodded. "Understood. We'll be ready."

For a moment, Michael was confused before he remembered Commitment's forty-nine-hour days. He had not been dirtside a week, and already he hated them. The twenty-four-hour nights were bad enough, but what was worse was the locals' insistence on using Universal Time so that the arrival of daylight and the start of the working day coincided only once every forty-one days. It was a nightmare and confused the hell out of him.

"Right," said Kallewi as the NRA patrol disappeared into the scrub; like wraiths, they were there one minute, and then they weren't. The marine dumped his pack under an overhang. "I know we have to trust the NRA," he said, "but even so, we'll post a sentry. Four hours on, eight off. Happy with that, sir?"

"One person enough?" Adrissa said.

"Yes, sir, it is. Brought some remote movement sensors. They'll give us plenty of warning."

Adrissa nodded. "Okay."

"Just a few things to watch out for. Stay inside the movement sensors, keep your gun to hand all the time, keep quiet, and for chrissakes, do not take your chromaflage capes off unless you are under the trees. Hammer recon drones can pick up a human 10 klicks away, so be warned. Oh, yes, let the sentry know where you're headed and when you'll be back. I'll take the first watch. Michael and then you, sir. That okay with everyone?"

More nods. "Need a hand with the sensors, Janos?" Michael asked.

"That'd be good. Running fiber-optics is a pain. Come on, let's go."

Sighing with relief, Michael lowered his body into a small waterfall-splashed pool, the water tumbling down across granite rocks cool but not cold. The heat from his overworked legs leached away, and for the first time in hours, the pain in his bad leg started to fade to more manageable levels. He lay back and stared at the canopy of branches overhead. The last of the cloud from the tropical depression that had covered their attack on J-5209 was beginning to break, the sun now and again sneaking through to drive slivers of yellow-gold light down through tiny gaps in the canopy.

For a magical minute, tranquillity overwhelmed him, dragging him out of time and place to somewhere new, somewhere there were no Hammers, no Hartsprings, no death, no hurt, a place far from Commitment, a place where he and Anna might live out their days untroubled by all the stupidities that infected the rest of humankind.

The magic faded when a wandering recon drone passing to the south snapped him back to the present. "Urggh," he grunted, sitting up. Ignoring the protests from abused muscles, he started work on the muck accumulated over the days of hard marching. Job done, he lay back. Even though he missed Anna, he was surprised to find himself utterly content; for the moment at least, just knowing that she was safe was more than enough. Sunday, September 23, 2401, UD Branxton Ranges, Commitment

Michael had the watch, the minutes until Farsi's return dragging on and on. When one of the sensors reported movement, the shock jolted him upright.

"Stand to, folks. Company," he hissed, bringing his assault rifle to his shoulder, holding the sighting ring steady on the new arrival's head as he walked into view. "Stand down," he said. "It's Farsi. Welcome back, Sergeant Farsi."

"Thanks, but just so as you know, Lieutenant," Farsi said with a half smile, "we blew your head off long before your sensors picked us up."

"Eh?"

Farsi lifted his left hand; to Michael's horror, what looked for all the world like a bush slid out from behind a tree and stood up. It was T'chavliki, quite unable to conceal a huge grin as she stabbed her rifle in Michael's direction.