Graham Paul - The battle for Commitment planet

With a quiet prayer that he would be proved wrong, that Operation Tappet-the most complex, far-ranging, and ambitious operation ENCOMM had ever planned-would deliver and that Anna would come back alive, Michael followed the rest of the Fed lander crews out of the briefing room.

Widowmaker sat waiting for him, its massive brooding shape filling the tunnel. Michael patted it affectionately before he started his preflight walk-around. Strictly speaking, the whole business was unnecessary-Widowmaker's AIs had already told him everything worth knowing about the lander's flight status-but he was old-fashioned. He liked to see things for himself, so he walked around, checking everything he could see and touch.

The lander-brand new when delivered to Redwood-was fast losing its pristine good looks, the ceramsteel armor scarred by shrapnel from Hammer missiles that had come too close. They had been lucky; none had made it past the lander's defenses, thankfully, but for how much longer? The Hammers must be getting very pissed by now, and in Michael's experience, pissed people could be very creative. Somebody out there would be spending a great deal of time and effort trying to work out a way to hack the Fed landers out of the sky.

Michael worked his way methodically around and underneath the lander before climbing the ladder to check the upper hull. It was a tight squeeze, the armored blisters housing Widowmaker's electronic warfare equipment and defensive lasers close to scraping the roof of the limestone tunnel. A quick scan confirmed that nothing was untoward. Widowmaker was in good shape: not the 100 percent he wanted, more like 95 percent, but with the nearest Fed heavy maintenance team hundreds of light-years away, that had to suffice. A final check confirmed that the tug assigned to drag the lander to its new launch position was hooked up and ready to go. Michael commed Ferreira.

"Sir?" she replied.

"My walk-around's done," he said. "No surprises. Okay to confirm we're ready to go?"

"Affirmative. All systems are nominal except the port cooling pump. It's holding up, but Chief Fodor says don't be surprised if it blows."

"Roger, that. I think we'll have to strip it out after this mission. I don't fancy flying ops on one engine. Call us in when ready to launch," he said. "And while you're at it, download any crew mail."

"Uh, ENCOMM won't like that, sir," Ferreira said. "We're only authorized to access operations bandwidth."

"Screw it," Michael said; the NRA's rules were too petty for him to worry about. "Just do it. Who knows," he added, "you might have something from that ugly NRA captain who's been stalking you."

Ferreira face creased into an indignant scowl. "Sir!" she spluttered. "Captain N'duma isn't ugly. Well, yes he is… but only by Fed standards. Anyway, I like him, and he isn't stalking me… sir!"

"Yeah, yeah," Michael said with a grin. Ferreira's blossoming love affair with one of ENCOMM's operations staff was a soft target he and the rest of Widowmaker's crew enjoyed taking potshots at. "Just call us in and get the mail."

"Sir."

Michael climbed Widowmaker's ramp to where Petty Officer Morozov was waiting. "All set?"

"Yes, sir. It's one hell of a tight squeeze."

Michael looked around Widowmaker's cargo bay; the brilliantly lit space had been stripped back to bare metal to accommodate its load: a containerized Hammer mobile air-defense battery. Michael shook his head in wonderment at the sight. Reportedly, the whole lot had been handed over to the NRA by a PGDF air-defense battalion when it deserted en masse to the NRA: radar, fire control and missile guidance computers, launchers, Gordian missiles, everything. He shook his head again, marveling at the NRA's ingenuity… and luck.

"It sure is," he said, "though I'll be glad to see the last of all this mass"-he patted one of the battery's scarred matte-green containers-"not to mention all those war-shot missiles. Makes me nervous, having all that Hammer ordnance onboard."

"Shit, me, too, sir. Hope the buggers work the way they're supposed to."

"They should. If there's one thing the Hammers are good at, it's building missiles. Close her up, Chief. We'll be moving in five minutes. Don't want to keep ENCOMM waiting."

"Sir."

Michael walked through the cargo bay and climbed the ladder to the flight deck. That was as far as he got, any further progress blocked by the enormous bulk of Chief Bienefelt engaged in what looked like a life-and-death struggle with a combat space suit, a struggle made harder by the cramped space. Assault lander flight decks were never designed with spacers as large as Bienefelt in mind.

"Jeez, Matti," Michael said, hands up in a theatrical display of despair. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I won't… bother to… get on, you sonofabitch, not you, sir, the suit… bother to answer that question, sir," she muttered. "Bloody thing… ah, that's it," she said as her suit gave up the fight and flowed into place. "Why the hell didn't it do that the first time?"

"I know the answer to that one, Chief, but-"

"A burning desire to live long enough to see retirement persuades you to silence?" Bienefelt said, grabbing her helmet from an overhead rack.

"About sums it up, yeah. Now, to be serious. The new cannon shells. I've seen the results from the test firings. What do you think?"

"Well, sir. In the end, one 30-mm cannon shell is much like any other."

"That's true, but only because the Hammers stole the design from the same place we did, Matti."

Bienefelt laughed. "Please!" she said. "We licensed it. The Hammers stole it, and why wouldn't they? When it comes to cannon, the Henschel HKS-30 is one of the all-time classics. The big problem's the propellant; the one the Hammers use is not as good as ours-it burns too slow-but it'll do. We've adjusted the fire-control system to compensate, so we'll be fine."

"I agree. The Hammers are good at dumb ordnance. Right, time to go, I think."

Suiting up, Michael squeezed his way past the seats of his crew and climbed into his seat. He crammed his helmet over his head and dropped it onto its neck ring, where it sealed with a soft ffffttt, and strapped in. Wriggling around in a futile attempt to get comfortable, he allowed the seat AI to flow crash-resistant foam around his combat space suit. He was ready; a quick scan of the system status boards confirmed that Widowmaker was, too.

"All stations, command. Suit integrity checks. Okay, let's go. Mother, clear to start the tow when ready."

"Ready."

With a series of shuddering lurches, Widowmaker started on its way down the tunnel. Michael turned to Ferreira. "So, Lieutenant, your man get in touch?"

"Yes, sir," Ferreira said, a touch tartly. "He has. He's well, thanks for asking. So did one Trooper Anna Cheung Helfort, 120th NRA."

"Well?" Michael demanded.

"Well what?" Ferreira asked, eyes wide open in innocent inquiry.

"You know what. Will you comm me her message or do I have to throw you off this lander?"

"And miss all the fun? Hell, no! Comming it to you."

Michael scanned the vidmail, uncomfortably aware that this was not the time to think about Anna. He was relieved to discover nothing new, struck again by the look of grim determination on her face. That was a worry. With the 120th Regiment an integral part of Operation Tappet, it was clear that she had no intention of sitting back while others worked their butts off; Michael had spent a great deal of time and energy trying not to think what that might mean. He cursed under his breath and closed the message. Why, he wondered, was life so damn complicated? More to the point, why was Anna so damn stubborn?

Putting Anna out of his mind, he turned his focus back to the command plot. Tappet might have been the most complex operation ever put together by ENCOMM, but Widowmaker's part in it was straightforward: deliver the Gordian battery to the landing zone, take off, and provide air support for the NRA assault before making a fast run for home before the Kingfishers and their Alaric missiles arrived. Simple, straightforward, and he hated it because the Fed landers were leaving the field before the battle was over, leaving Anna and the rest of the NRA to hold Perdan against the inevitable-and always ferocious-Hammer counterattack.