Graham Paul - The battle for Commitment planet

Reenergized by the drugbots, he had his neuronics scan for the rest of Widowmaker's crew. To his intense relief, first one, then another and another beacon came online until the whole crew had been accounted for. Comming the rendezvous point to them, he set off.

By the time everyone turned up, Michael did not know whether to laugh or cry. A sorrier bunch he had never seen, his crew sporting an impressive collection of cuts and fast-blossoming bruises. With a silent "thank you" to the unknown engineers who had designed and built Widowmaker's crew escape system, Michael asked the question on his and everyone else's mind.

"Where to from here?"

Wincing as she lifted her arm, Ferreira pointed in the general direction of Perdan. "That way. Closest friendlies. Our bases in the Branxtons are too far away."

"Anyone disagree?" he asked. "No? Okay, Perdan it is. Anyone having trouble walking, for chrissakes let me know. Matti, take point. Single file and make sure your chromaflage capes are working and neuronics are off. I don't think the Hammers will come looking for us, but you never know. Let's go."

In silence, Widowmaker's crew set off after Chief Bienefelt. Limping along behind them, Michael knew how lucky they had been. They had been ambushed with the lander Widowmaker running slowly; if both fusion plants had been online, it would have been moving at full speed. Then no crew escape system could have saved them, ejection into the fast-moving airstream more than enough to tear capsule and occupants apart.

Bienefelt's hand went up. The small column stopped while she scanned the ground ahead. Perdan was visible beyond under a thick pall of smoke. "I think we're there. Hard to tell, but I think I saw NRA pickets up ahead, which means their outer sensor line can't be far away. According to the ops plan, the 48th has this sector. I'll go and make sure they don't start shooting at us."

"Watch out for the slugs, Matti," Michael said. Fitted with optical sensors feeding a simple fire-control system linked to a pulsed laser, the ground-attack drones the NRA called slugs were deployed to secure the outer approaches to a fixed position. The size and shape of a large tortoise, slugs were cheap and nasty. The average grunt hated them. Occasionally, slugs would ignore the IFF-identification friend or foe-patches worn by every trooper in combat; they might be cheap and nasty, but they were still lethally dangerous.

"I will," Bienefelt said, dropping to her stomach and crawling forward. "I don't trust the bloody things, either. I'll be back, so don't go anywhere."

"We won't." Too tired to care much anymore, his body racked by pain, Michael slumped to the ground.

"You okay, skipper?" Ferreira asked, frowning with concern.

"Yeah, Jayla. Everything hurts like fury, but unless my neuronics are lying, it's nothing serious. Just aches, strains, and sprains, How about you?"

"Same. That was one hell of a ride."

"Those Hammers were waiting for us," Michael said with a grimace. "That was planned."

"That idea had occurred to me. Wondered why we hadn't seen them."

"Interesting, though," Michael said. "They didn't give a shit how much damage we inflicted on Perdan's defenders. All they cared about was getting us. Cold-blooded but smart, damn smart… bastards," he added with feeling.

It hit him. "Shit," he said. "What about Alley Kat and Hell Bent? You heard anything?"

Ferreira shook her head. "Nothing. I'm hoping they're okay. We'd have heard their beacons if they ejected, but there's nothing. I think we triggered the ambush too early."

"I hope so. Losing Widowmaker's bad enough, but one of our heavies? What a disaster. Losing two doesn't even bear thinking about."

The uncomfortable silence was broken by Bienefelt's return. "Come on, you lot," she said with a beaming smile. "It is the 48th NRA, and they've put the coffee on for us."

Much cheered by the prospect of one of the NRA's trademark brews, hot and aromatic, Michael climbed to his feet and trudged off after Bienefelt.

"I've spoken to brigade," the colonel commanding the 48th said. "They want you to make your way to the 120th to link up with the rest of the Feds."

Michael's heart soared, buoyed by the prospect of seeing Anna again after so many weeks apart. "Any idea what happens after that, Colonel?" he asked.

"No, sorry. Just that I'm to provide you with an escort and guide to make sure you get there okay. There are still a few Hammers we haven't accounted for. I can't spare any recon drones to watch your flanks, so keep your eyes open."

"Fine, sir. When do we go?"

"Now… Fenech!"

"Sir," a corporal standing off to one side said, stepping forward smartly.

"Off you go. Don't lose any."

"Sir."

The colonel turned to Michael. "Good luck," he said, shaking his hand.

"Thanks. You, too."

Michael started to salute, catching himself just in time. Not a good idea on the battlefield, he reminded himself. Pausing to draw assault rifles, power packs, and ammunition, they set off, Corporal Fenech's section in a loose screen around them as they moved past the blackened shells of the firebases and defensive positions the Hammers had thrown up in a ring to secure Perdan's perimeter and entered the outer suburbs proper.

To Michael's surprise, the first few kilometers showed few signs that a major battle had been fought for Perdan that day. The roads were clear of debris, and there were no barricades or any other sign of organized resistance, the only evidence of combat the odd broken window and occasionally a mobibot damaged by rifle fire. The city was eerily empty, not a single Perdan local in sight, the neat houses that flanked the road silent and dark, not a light visible in the gloom. Where the hell is everybody? Michael wondered.

Fenech pushed on fast-Michael was relieved to see that his patrol was alert, heads swiveling all the time like they were on sticks-and soon proof of the day's fighting became all too obvious. Must have been when the defenders worked out that they could no longer escape Perdan to the west, toward McNair and safety, Michael realized. The streets were filled with the remains of makeshift barricades, the bodies of dead PGDF troopers and smoke-blackened wrecks of their light armor speaking volumes about the ferocious fighting that must have taken place. Michael's heart sank when he saw the problem the NRA faced firsthand. Perdan's suburbs were indefensible: gently rolling terrain, untroubled by creeks or rivers, with broad streets flanked by low buildings set well back. Once Hammer kinetics had reduced Perdan's outer ring of defenses to smoking ruins, marine heavy armor would roll into town along the highway from Bretonville in the west and Daleel in the east, unstoppable, any serious NRA resistance blown out of the way by marine ground-attack landers. With marine support, even the PGDF would have little trouble retaking the town, its NRA defenders pushed back and back until they could retreat no more; they would die where they fought.

What the hell were ENCOMM and Vaas thinking?

By the time Fenech led them to the 120th's positions around Perdan's southeastern flanks, Michael had seen enough. Without close air support and heavy artillery, Perdan was a lost cause, an objective no guerrilla army could ever hope to hold in the face of conventional forces. Worse, even though the center of Perdan, with its narrower streets and substantial buildings, was a much harder proposition for any attacker, it was far from a natural fortress. Defended by well-motivated troops, it was a tough proposition-all urban warfare was-but not impossible. All it needed was time and an endless, relentless application of Hammer airpower supported by the marines' heavy armor, and it was all over. To add to the NRA commander's problems, there was only one way out: back into the Branxtons as they climbed steeply toward the karst plateau to the south. The problem was that when the Hammers launched their final assault on Perdan, even the dumbest Hammer commander would know he had to drop blocking forces to keep the NRA bottled up inside Perdan and where: astride the network of small rivers that cut paths through the densely wooded foothills.