Graham Paul - The battle for Commitment planet

He would soon find out, he thought as he climbed to his feet and looked around to see where Lance Corporal Sadotra had gotten.

"Confirm radio and tightbeam lasers set to receive only, infrared beacon off," Sadotra said. "And any transmitters connected to those damn neuronics of yours."

Michael fumbled with the unfamiliar controls on his tactical data unit, the thin box strapped to his left forearm one of thousands churned out by Chief Chua's microfabs to a Rogue Worlds design. Compared to a Fed marine's, it was primitive, but it was a huge advance on the disorganized grab bag of gear the NRA had been using. Even better, Chua's people had produced a version that connected with his neuronics, so he could dispense with the awkward microvid screen and earbud worn by NRA troopers.

"Confirmed," he said. "All set to stand by."

"Good. Not long now."

Michael nodded, his mouth and throat dust-dry, horribly aware of how unprepared he was. For the thousandth time he asked himself what he was doing there when all he had ever wanted to be was the command pilot of an assault lander. He had not joined Fleet to end up a grunt fighting in the mud and muck of ground combat, yet here he was, about to do just that. He scanned the operation order uploaded into his neuronics one last time; the tactical schematics showed the ground outside Juliet-24 in muted greens and browns, the whole place infested with red icons marking Hammer positions. He knew that the detached precision of the display did nothing to convey the horrors that awaited Second Platoon. With a quiet prayer that he would not let Anna and the rest of the platoon down, he reset the display to show only C Company's part in the overall operation; what Colonel Mokhine and the other two companies of the 2/83rd needed to do to capture their objective-the Hammer's headquarters-was none of his business.

The atmosphere was tense as the clock ran down. With seconds to go, Michael breathed in hard, his eyes locked on Anna, just another body-armored shape amid the packed ranks of NRA troopers waiting to go into action, her face invisible behind the plasglass faceplate of her helmet.

With a bang, the barbecues fired and their fuel-air charges exploded, the air filled with a thunderous whump whump followed an instant later by the shock wave, a giant fist smashing into the tunnel, its walls and roof shaken bodily, rock shards spinning down onto the waiting troopers.

"Holy crap," Michael muttered, shaking his head to try to clear his mind. It was going to be chaos out there, and the last thing he wanted was to be cut off from Anna and the rest of the platoon.

Hrelitz was on her feet. "Go, go, go," she shouted before turning and running into the dust-loaded air. As one, C Company pounded after her in a disciplined rush. With a silent prayer that Second Platoon's new commander would keep her pretty little head down when the shooting started, Michael followed Sadotra and the rest of Anna's troopers through the blast door and down the tunnel toward the portal, the air stinking with the acrid smell of burned fuel and something else he struggled to identify, sickly, sweet, like, like… His stomach heaved as he fought to keep his last meal down, mouth open to keep the smell of burned flesh out of his nostrils.

Emerging from the tunnel and into the portal was the work of moments. When he emerged, Michael stumbled to a stop, appalled by the sight that greeted him. "No time for sightseeing, trooper," Sadotra barked. "Keep moving!"

Michael did as he was told, running hard, doing his best not to stand on the flame-seared bodies of dead Hammers. They lay everywhere, more than he cared to count, still smoking and tossed into charred heaps by the force of the blast, armored vehicles thrown bodily back against the rock walls of the portal. It had been a massacre; Michael could see not one living Hammer marine among the hundreds carpeting the ground. If any of it bothered the NRA troopers around him, it did not show. Stopping short of the portal's mouth, Hrelitz and her squad leaders marshaled the platoon into formation.

Captain Hrelitz's head swung left and right; her hand dropped, and C Company was on the move, trailed by combat engineers heavily laden with demolition charges.

Emerging into the gloom of late evening, Michael was shocked to see how far the damage extended. Barbecues firing from the plateau above had dropped a fan-shaped wave of destruction onto the Hammers' beachhead; all human life for hundreds of meters had been obliterated. It was carnage, yet more bodies flung with careless abandon across the valley floor as far as the rock wall rising sheer on the other side. Wounded lay everywhere, untended, ignored, small islands of agony and suffering, the air filled with screams for help that rose and fell over a soft murmur of moans, sobs, prayers, and cries.

Michael had seen his share of death but had never seen anything like this. This was Armageddon writ small; for the first time he allowed himself to believe that Hrelitz's optimism was justified.

C Company pushed on into the night, moving fast. Reaching the dead ground leading up to the vehicle park's western perimeter, Hrelitz halted First and Second Platoons, the platoon commanders repositioning their troopers ready for the attack. Then Third Platoon peeled off and headed southeast to establish the initial base of fire, their chromaflaged shapes swallowed quickly by the night, a thin tendril of reinforced optical fiber their only link back to Hrelitz.

Staying close to Lance Corporal Sadotra, Michael threw himself down behind the shattered trunk of a tree only to come face to face with a dead Hammer marine, arms thrown out wide, head back, helmet ripped half-off, mouth open in a rictus of agony, empty black pits of eyes staring right into Michael's. On top of the stench in the air, it was too much, and his stomach rebelled, emptying itself in a series of convulsive heaves all over the ground.

"Oh, hell," he murmured. He wiped his mouth, ignoring the urge to take a swig from his canteen. Somehow he did not think Sadotra would approve. He shivered. Compared to the remote, clinical precision of space warfare, this was a waking nightmare.

Forcing a rebellious body back under control, Michael scanned the area around their position, looking for any Hammers who might have survived the fuel-air charges' appalling combination of heat and blast. But nothing moved on the shock-scoured killing ground.

A blurred shape appeared out of the gloom, whispered something to Sadotra, and then disappeared. Sadotra rolled toward Michael. "Stand by. Jump off at minute 25," she whispered. "Go pass the word to the section. Minute 25."

"Minute 25. Got it." Grateful that he had something better to do than lie around thinking about all the Hammers waiting to blow his head apart, Michael slithered around Yankee section before making his way back to Sadotra. "Yankee section's ready to go," he said.

"Any problems?"

"No. Everyone's good." Better than me, he wanted to say.

Sadotra nodded, her helmeted head blurred by its chromaflage skin into an elusive, shifting gray shape barely visible against the black background.

Minute 25 arrived at last. Without a single word being said, Sadotra and the rest of Second Platoon rose to their feet and moved up the slope toward the northwestern edge of the vehicle park. Then all hell broke loose; without thinking, Michael dived for the ground, scrabbling at the dirt in a frantic search for cover. Ahead and to the right of them, the searing flashes of microgrenades bleached black into white, and wandering lines of tracer fire and the streak of lasers slashed lines of white, gold, and red across the night sky, the racket of rifle and heavy machine gun fire broken by bone-jarring crump of mortars.

Michael had never experienced anything like it. His every sense was overwhelmed. Swamped by light and noise and shock and fear, his brain froze for an instant. Then a residual grain of common sense told him that nobody was shooting at him… yet. Belatedly, he realized that what he was seeing was 12 and 5 Brigades' attacks kicking off, and now it was C Company's turn. To Michael's right, Third Platoon opened up on the Hammer's left flank, a wall of tracer chewing away at the Hammer positions, golden lines interlaced with the red streaks of Stabber squad antiarmor missiles as they hunted out and destroyed a pair of Akkad light tanks. Embarrassed, he scrambled back to his feet and ran to catch up with Sadotra, praying she had not noticed his moment of weakness.