Graham Paul - The battle for Commitment planet

"Fine. Get the things moving. I'd like to see a formal submission to the Defense Council before the end of this month. Can you do that?"

"We can, sir. We've been working on this since early March."

"Good. When you brief Admiral Belasz, don't let him know we've had this little chat. I don't want to compromise the chain of command."

"Of course not, sir. I'll brief the admiral next week. We are very well prepared for this, so I'm confident he will approve."

"I am, too. Keep me posted. Anything else?"

"No, sir."

"In that case, I'll wish you a good evening."

"Sir."

Polk watched General Baxter walk away. He had always known the commanding general of marines to be a rank opportunist, but the man had outdone himself this time. Polk was no fool. Without a word being said, he understood fully the deal Baxter offered: The marines would destroy the NRA; in exchange, the corps would swallow the PGDF. Not that it would be easy giving Baxter the payoff he sought. Polk's last attempt to create a common command structure to control operations against the NRA had been an ignominious failure, torpedoed by the PGDF's political supporters, wrecked on the rocks of the Constitution, a ship lost with all hands. It still rankled.

But if the marines were able to do what the PGDF had so signally failed to do, if they were able to crush the NRA, Polk was confident he could marshal enough support to bury the PGDF. Then the Hammer Worlds could turn its attention to those Kraa-damned Feds. Not that they would be much of a problem; the Pascanicians would help make sure of that.

With the Feds out of the way, all of humanspace would be at the feet of the Hammer of Kraa. What a glorious prospect, Polk thought. With a grateful General Baxter and the Hammer of Kraa Corps of Marines backing him every step of the way, he would become humanspace's first-

"Chief Councillor, sir?"

The diffident words of his personal assistant splintered Polk's dreams of imperial greatness into a thousand shards. "What?" he demanded.

"Mister van Luderen is here, sir."

"Oh, right. Send him out."

Sweating heavily, van Luderen slouched across the sun-beaten patio, a shambling giant of a man: florid of face, flabby of body, heavy of jaw.

"Hello, Jeremiah," van Luderen said.

"Have a seat, Marten," Chief Councillor Polk said. He ignored van Luderen's outstretched hand, instead waving at one of the well-cushioned cane chairs arranged in the shade of a huge, spreading fig tree. "Drink?"

"Beer, make it two, and make it quick," the man said, easing himself into a chair with a grunt of relief, fleshy fingers wiping away the sweat beaded under black-bagged eyes. "Jeez, Jeremiah, this town of yours is hot. Can't understand why anybody would want to live here."

Polk's eyes narrowed. He did not like the Kallian one bit. The man was rude, intemperate, interested only in money, and happy to tell anyone who cared to listen that the Hammer of Kraa was a crock of shit. Worst of all, he was not frightened by Polk and they both knew it.

If van Luderen had not been one of only two men he trusted to keep the far-flung pieces of what he called his retirement fund connected, Polk would have had him shot, off-worlder or not. He waited in silence until the drinkbot delivered the man's beers.

The first beer was gone in seconds; picking up the second, van Luderen belched softly as he smacked the empty bottle down onto the table. "That's better. You wanted to see me?"

"I did," Polk said. "I have a consignment for you."

"Oh? Wondered why you'd dragged me all this way. Still, it's your money."

"Yes, Marten," Polk said through gritted teeth. "It is my money." He pushed a battered briefcase over to van Luderen. "Here's 250 million dollars in stored-value cards."

"Ah," van Luderen said, eyes lighting up, "now I see why you wanted me to come to this asshole of a planet."

"Watch it, Marten," Polk growled.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," van Luderen said. "Why so much?"

"Insurance."

"Insurance?" van Luderen said with a skeptical frown. "Things not going so well, eh?"

"No, the exact opposite. Things are going extremely well."

"That's not what I hear, Jeremiah. Those Feds have been giving your people a lot of grief, the NRA's doing well, and most of those poor suckers you call your loyal citizens want the Nationalists to take over. Doesn't sound to me like things are going well at all."

"You are misinformed, Marten," Polk said. "A few minor setbacks, that's all. Trust me. Things are going well."

"You think so?" van Luderen said. "I have very good sources. They don't think things are so good. The way I see it, there's something you're not telling me."

"Maybe, maybe not," Polk said. "If you need to know something, I'll tell you."

"Okay," van Luderen said with a shrug. "I think you've just given me millions of reasons for thinking things are not going well, but maybe I'm wrong."

"You are, Marten, you are. Like I said, it's just insurance. Now, I want that money working for me, not sitting in some trust account. Any ideas?"

"Oh, yes," van Luderen said, throwing off the mantle of indifference and disinterest, his eyes sparkling into sudden life. "Oh, yes."

"So tell me."

"Get me another beer and I'll tell you about the Buranan Federation and a cozy little cartel that's making so much money, it's indecent. I think with 250 million to play with, we can make them an offer they won't refuse even if they are not going to like it very much."

"One beer coming up."

"Make it two, Jeremiah, make it two. Fuck, this poxy place is hot!" Wednesday, November 14, 2401, UD Sector Oscar, Branxton Base, Commitment

The final briefing for the crews of the three Fed landers broke up in the usual welter of conversation. Sedova leaned over. "Hope this one gets a better result than the last time the NRA visited Perdan."

Michael nodded. "Let's hope so."

He wanted desperately for Operation Tappet to be a success, if only to douse the smoldering embers of doubt that so troubled him. Had the whole Commitment business been the biggest mistake of his life? He hoped not. Not that Sedova and Acharya seemed to share his doubts; few of the Feds did. If the two command pilots were any guide, most had seized the chance to inflict some serious damage on the Hammers with both hands, any doubts they might have had had been swamped by the relentless pace of operations. True, the Fed landers had had a golden run. They had completed almost fifty operations, destroying targets right across the hinterland around McNair in slashing hit-and-run operations that minimized the risks they faced from the Hammer's air-defense Kingfishers and their Alaric missiles.

There was a problem, though, a problem that the Feds, absorbed in the business of killing Hammers, were happy to ignore. Hit-and-run operations were fine, but only up to a point; they had their limitations, too.

They made the Hammer's lives miserable. They encouraged the never-ending plague of civil disobedience all across the Hammer Worlds. They eroded morale in the Hammer military. They sapped DocSec's confidence.

But hit-and-run operations could never end this war. That happy day would come only when the NRA broke out of the Branxtons and took McNair. In theory at least, today's operation was the next step in that long and bloody process. This time, for the first time, the Fed landers were not running diversionary attacks; ENCOMM intended them to be an integral part of the operation to take Perdan from the Hammers and keep hold of it in the face of a furious and sustained Hammer counterattack.

Privately, Michael was increasingly persuaded that the NRA had little chance of succeeding. Yes, they would take Perdan. It was garrisoned by planetary defense troops, and they had no stomach for the NRA's shock tactics. So Perdan would fall to the NRA; Michael was sure of it. Great propaganda for the NRA and the Nationalists but a military dead end. To cap it all, Anna and the 120th would be in the thick of it, which was fine, but this operation, like all the others, would end the same way: The Hammers would send in reinforcements, backed up by ground-attack fliers, and take it back.