Graham Paul - The battle for Commitment planet

"I think I get it now," he said at last. "Perdan is seeded with the nasty little fuckers, especially around the airport. Meanwhile, convinced that the NRA will fight to the death, the Hammers scrape together all the troops and armor they can lay their hands on. Just before they attack, the NRA sneaks away, leaving behind some brave sucker to fire the ADWs. The Hammers discover Perdan is theirs, walk in, put landers down after their combat engineers have made sure the city isn't littered with claymores-nobody would think to worry about old mortar boxes-and then, while they are all standing around scratching their nuts, wondering what the hell the NRA was playing at… bingo. Up go the ADWs, taking with them the best part of the Perdan relief force."

"There you are," Anna said. "I keep telling everyone you're not as dumb as you look!"

"You are a heartless bitch, Lieutenant Anna Helfort."

"Respect, flyboy, respect. Trooper Anna Cheung Helfort, please."

"Sorry," Michael said.

"Come on, help me up here. Once I've checked in with the medics, I need to get back. Don't want my section leader thinking I'm loafing."

Late that night, Michael lay alongside Anna, the pair of them curled under her chromaflage cape, incessant rain driving cold out of an overcast sky, fingers of water worming their way past his defenses to soak into his clothes. It was miserable, and Michael would not have swapped it for anything.

For the umpteenth time, he wondered about ENCOMM's plan for Perdan. If the deception held, the NRA was going to hand the Hammers their bloodiest defeat ever. It was a breath-takingly ambitious plan, and Michael prayed with every fiber of his body that it worked.

But…

For all its ingenuity, for all the damage it would do, for all the lives it would snuff out, the victory ENCOMM hoped to achieve at Perdan spoke volumes for the fundamental weaknesses of the NRA, weaknesses that condemned them never to be able to hold their battlefield gains outside the Branxtons. That was what troubled Michael to the point where a corrosive mix of self-doubt and guilt was beginning to eat away at him.

Even if the Hammers recaptured Perdan, even if its recapture cost the Hammers thousands of PGDF and marine lives, ENCOMM's victory would be a hollow one; it would contribute nothing to ending the war. Tuesday, November 20, 2401, UD Perdan, Commitment

A shape slithered out of the darkness. "Helfort," it whispered.

Michael started to reply before realizing belatedly that he was not the only Helfort around.

"Yes, Corp?" Anna said.

"Pull back to Papa Golf in five minutes," the shape said softly. "You're the last to leave in this sector, so for Kraa's sake, keep quiet. The Hammers have settled down for the night, and we want it to stay that way. Trip wires and claymores set?"

"Yes, Corp. All armed."

"Good. Five minutes."

"Roger that." The figure slithered away. "Michael," Anna said. "You ready?"

"Yes," Michael said, trying not to think about the fact that less than 500 meters separated where he and Anna were holed up and the Hammer's forward defenses-a shifting chain of slugs backed up by sensors linked to fixed defenses: mines, claymores, autofiring cannon, and microgrenade launchers all programmed to scour the ground clean of anything that moved. Behind them, dug in along the banks of a small stream, was a battalion of PGDF soldiers, and farther back was what ENCOMM intelligence reports said was a company of heavy artillery. It was a terrifying proposition to be so close to such overwhelming force, to be so alone, with only a handful of slugs for support if the Hammers tried anything.

The seconds ticked away, one eternity at a time. "Time," Anna hissed at last. "You go first."

Michael started to protest, then decided not to. Anna was ten times the foot soldier he would ever be. Taking firm hold of his rifle, he adjusted his chromaflage cape and backed out of the foxhole on his belly, eyes scanning the ground toward the Hammer front line for the slightest movement. There was none, and Anna followed, a shapeless blur of black oozing its way backward.

It was a long, painful crawl; finally, Anna signaled Michael to stop. "That's enough. We can walk out from here but stay low. Come on."

With that, she was off, leaving Michael to wonder how she kept going. Jeez! She had been wounded only days before, and here she was, acting like nothing had happened. Anna might look like a china doll, but underneath she was pure unalloyed steel, and he should never forget it.

Papa Golf was the section rally point, a small rock outcrop thrusting up out of the forest 100 meters from the Manivi River, an exit route cut through the encircling Hammers and kept open only after a series of bloody engagements had persuaded the Hammers they had better things to do than worry about a few NRA troopers getting away from certain defeat. Anna and Michael were the last to arrive, her section corporal waving her on.

"Where the hell have you been, Helfort? Come on, for Kraa's sake!"

"Yes, Corp."

With that, the last of the NRA slipped south and away into the night. Behind them, Perdan was empty save for a few brave souls waiting for the Hammers to arrive.

"What the hell do you want?" the Hammer general charged with retaking Perdan growled, glaring from sleep-gummed eyes at the man standing over his cot. "Kraa's blood! What time is it?"

"It's 00:15, sir," the young officer said, nervously. Major General Horovitz, Hammer Planetary Ground Defense Force, was a man who held the unshakable view that military operations should not get in the way of a good night's sleep.

"This better be good."

"Chief of staff's compliments, sir, and would you please come to the operations center?"

"If I must."

"This seems too good to be true, General. I think we need to be careful."

General Horovitz snorted in derision. Kraa! Why was his chief of staff so damn cautious? "It's obvious, man. Those NRA scum know they can't hold on to to Perdan, so they've done what they do every time. Run away like the gutless cowards they are. Get things moving. I want to tell the chief councillor that Perdan is back in our hands before daybreak."

"Sir," Horovitz's chief of staff said.

An hour later, Hammer kinetics fell on Perdan's outer defenses, a storm of high-velocity tungsten-carbide slugs that reduced earth and equipment to a rolling cloud of ionized gas and dust. Before it had even cleared, Hammer forward elements moved into the outer suburbs, the air ripped apart by ground-attack landers orbiting overhead. Screened by marine heavy armor, they moved along the main highway heading for the center of town. The city was deserted. Not a soul moved amid the debris of war, the only sounds the periodic flat crack as a main battle tank's hypervelocity gun replied to some imagined threat and the occasional crackle of rifle fire from nervous patrols flanking the main advance, both underscored by the never-ending howl of patrolling marine landers.

It was hours before General Horovitz allowed himself to be convinced that Perdan was his. Now he was. The NRA had gone, every last one of them. Satisfied, he called Chief Councillor Polk to give him the good news.

Call over and basking in Polk's approval, Horovitz waved his chief of staff over. "Colonel Madani. You said General Baxter wanted to speak to me?"

"Yes, sir. He does," Madani said.

"Fucking marines," Horovitz said, his good humor evaporating fast. "What in Kraa's name does he want?"

"I don't know for sure, sir," Madani said. "He refuses to talk to me. I suspect he wants his marines back."

"Oh, he does, does he? Didn't think he wanted to congratulate me. Well, he can have them back. Get onto it. I want orders cut withdrawing them back to the airport. They can damn well wait there until their landers arrive to take them home."