Graham Paul - The battle for Commitment planet

"Christ, another closet marine," Michael said, rolling his eyes. "What with you and Anna, I'm having trouble keeping up. Promise me that there'll be no charging the Hammers, rifle in one hand, crowbar in the other."

"Shit, no," Bienefelt said. "Well, not until I get enough time in a regen tank to grow this damn hand back. I'll be a one-armed wonder for a long time yet."

"Yeah, it'll be a while." Michael frowned. "Too many casualties, too few tanks."

"Yeah. Listen, sir. I've got to go; the 246th waits for nobody. We're moving out in a couple of hours. I just wanted to say… you know, take care and all that. I'll be seriously pissed if you…"

"I'll be back, Matti," Michael said softly. "I'll be back. Promise."

"You better be or I'll hunt you down and kick your bony little ass."

"Bye, Matti," Michael said, praying that the one-armed Bienefelt would still be around when he returned to Commitment.

Sedova walked over with her crew. "See you in the morning, Michael," she said, looking as she did before every mission: indecently cheerful. He swore she did it to irritate him. She knew he suffered badly from premission nerves.

"You will," Michael replied. "Thanks," he said, shaking hands with the crew of the now-defunct Alley Kat.

Michael watched the rest of the Gladiator Survivors Club trickle out of the FLTDETCOMM canteen. It had been an emotional meeting. The club had started with sixty-one spacers and marines; its numbers were down to forty-six now. He wondered how many would be left by the time he got back. He snorted softly, a sharp, bitter intake of breath. Get back! If he ever did.

Chief Chua and the rest of what had once-a lifetime ago, it seemed-been the engineering department of Federated Worlds Starship Redwood were the last to leave.

"Good luck, sir," Petty Officer Morozov said. "After all we've been through, I feel bad we won't be there."

"Don't," Michael said firmly. "I've asked far too much of you guys already. It's up to me now."

"That's a crock, sir," Chief Chua said, "an absolute crock."

"And you know it," Chief Fodor and Petty Officer Lim added, as one.

Michael could not suppress a grin. These four senior spacers had every right to take him to task for the fact they were now trapped on the Hammer's home planet with only the slenderest chance of ever getting back to the Federated Worlds. But not once had there been even the slightest hint of criticism. The opposite: Without exception, the attitude of the Gladiator Survivors Club was one of acceptance underpinned by a dogged determination to see things through.

"Insubordinate rabble," he said. "Anyway, it's a fact. Lieutenant Sedova assures me that Hell Bent can manage without your services, so here you'll stay, and I can't say I'm sorry about that."

"Only to save weight," Fodor said. "Our competence had nothing to do with it. Though what I know about lander systems is not worth knowing."

"Speak for yourself, Chief," Morozov said. "I made a damn good loadmaster."

"Enough, people," Chief Chua said firmly. "We have microfabs to look after; the little bastards do not like being left to their own devices. Good luck, sir."

"Thanks, everyone."

With a chorus of "good lucks" the engineers left, and then the canteen was empty. Michael was alone for the first time in weeks. Tired to the point of exhaustion, he was happy not to have to talk to anyone; truth be told, he was talked out.

He sat back, rubbing eyes gritty with fatigue; if he thought he could sleep, he'd find an empty bunk and crash. But he knew sleep would not come, so instead he sat, staring at the rock wall in front of him, the months since Hartspring's message had torn his world apart racing through his mind: people, events, decisions, consequences, all tearing past in a jumbled, rushing procession.

Suddenly it struck him, and hard, just how much things had changed. True, some things hadn't: his love for Anna and his deep and bitter hatred of DocSec, to mention only two. But most of all, he had changed; he was no longer the man who had been appointed in command of Redwood. That man was long gone, ground into dust by the endless struggle to defeat the Hammers, recycled into somebody new.

He sighed, wondering if the new Michael Helfort was any better than the old. He was not at all sure he was.

But one thing had improved. He had always known there were good and bad people, with everything in between. But he had not understood what made people truly good.

He thought he did now.

Good people were those he could trust with his life, who meant what they said, who did not try to blame others for the consequences of their decisions, not even with so much as a careless word or sideways glance, who never made promises they could not keep, who never allowed self-interest to overrule the common good.

Anna was one of those, his parents, Jaruzelska, and Bienefelt, too, of course, and there were many more, some of whom, surprisingly, he disliked so much that he could not imagine sharing a beer with them. Vaas's intelligence chief, Colonel Pedersen, came to mind. She was good people even though she had the social skills of a DocSec trooper.

And good people did what no material thing ever could: provide the foundation for his life, a foundation infinitely more solid and more lasting than the hundreds of meters of limestone that lay beneath his feet.

Getting to his feet, he smiled to himself, struck by the absurdity of it all. The material world sustained him and every other human alive, but it and all its works were less important than the good people he knew. They were the ones who had shaped his life, and they would go on shaping it until the day he died.

Which day, he reminded himself with a shiver of fear, might come rather sooner than he wanted. Sunday, March 24, 2402, UD Portal Whiskey-45, Branxton Base, Commitment

Michael walked into Hell Bent's cargo bay. It was a shell; the lander was a shell. Everything Sedova deemed non-mission-critical had gone in a ruthless drive to reduce the lander's takeoff weight, tons and tons of redundant mass torn from every corner of the lander and dumped.

Hell Bent was ready: The heavy lander would accelerate faster and turn more quickly than any lander in history. It was just a pity, Michael thought as he made his way over to where Sedova stood, that Hell Bent might also die faster than any lander in history.

Sedova's eyes sparkled, her weight shifting from foot to foot in excited anticipation. Some things never change, he thought. "Find anything?" Sedova asked.

"Of course not," Michael said. "This lander is good to go."

"Well, in that case, I think it's time for coffee."

Michael groaned. Much as he loved coffee, its cult status in Hammer society was beginning to wear thin. Without a precursory mug, nothing happened, and Sedova had become an enthusiastic convert to the coffee obsession thanks to Trooper Zhu. "If we must," Michael said begrudgingly.

"Yes," Sedova said, heading for the drinkbot. "You know the rules. We must."

Sedova handed Michael his mug, steam spiraling up in lazy curls heavy with the fragrance of perfectly roasted beans, and sat down alongside him. There was silence, a moment of simple plea sure, a moment to be enjoyed, a moment out of the insane pressure getting ready for Long Shot had created.

"You know something, Kat?" Michael said finally.

"What?"

"I look back at all the big decisions I've had to make-telling Admiral Jaruzelska not to risk her ships trying to protect DLS-387 after the Battle of Hell's Moons, ignoring Admiral Perkins's orders to turn the dreadnoughts back during the Battle of Devastation Reef, Operation Gladiator-and at the time, each one was the biggest decision I'd ever made. Now Long Shot comes along, and everything's on the line, everything. My life, Anna's life, your life, the lives of all the other Feds who are here because of me"-he put his hand up to forestall Sedova, whose mouth already was opening in protest-"the NRA, the Nationalist cadres and all the rest of those poor bastards out there having the shit kicked out of them by DocSec day in and day out, the Federated Worlds, and as if all of that's not enough, the rest of humanspace if Emperor Jeremiah Polk the First has his way. Now ENCOMM tells us the Pascanicians have started to deliver-"