Helfort's War Book 4: The Battle for Commitment Planet (25 page)

That was where it all began to fall apart. The NRA’s nascent air force totaled two heavy landers, four ground-attack Klaxons, and a single air-superiority Kingfisher fighter, all suffering from an acute shortage of spares and ordnance. With limited air support and protected only by Goombah light surface-to-air missiles, NRA forces that tried to stand and fight were easy meat for planetary defense fliers and Hammer marine ground-attack landers. That, of course, was where his three landers came into the picture; it was no wonder Vaas was keen to work with the Feds.

Three fully operational landers were not much, but they were a start. If the NRA was able to lay its hands on some more, maybe they had a chance.

Buoyed by that prospect, Michael allowed himself to slip away into sleep.

Fleet Admiral Belasz cleared his throat before continuing. For once, Polk sympathized with the man. It had been a long Defense Council meeting. For most of it, Belasz had been on his feet talking, and no doubt he wanted it to be over. By Kraa, Polk did. He had had enough for one day; convincing the council to do what had to be done was never easy, with every issue ending up trapped in one of the many fault lines that scarred the political landscape, lines that marked the endless
struggle between power, duty, privilege, corruption, obligation, clan, not to mention—this was the Hammer Worlds, after all—blackmail and threats of violence. It was a nightmarish business, and he hated it because it reminded all present of the limits to the chief councillor’s powers.

“Let me now sum up,” Belasz went on. “The attacks on the three PGDF bases were the action of a small group of rogue personnel led by Lieutenant Michael Helfort, captain in command of the heavy cruiser
Redwood
. I will not comment on the man’s motivations; that is for others to do. Thus far, we have no evidence that any of the Fed landers involved in the subsequent attack on J-5209 have survived, but the search of the crash datum continues, and I will report any results. Suffice it to say, the attack has reduced our ability to support operations against the NRA, thanks to the loss of three entire air wings along with all of their supporting infrastructure and personnel. The latest estimates I have suggest that it will be two years before Gwalia, Yallan, and Perkins PGDF bases are operational again, which will of course limit our ability to contain the NRA. That concludes my report. Are there any questions?”

Councillor de Mel was the first to speak. “Yes, Admiral. The marine bases at Besud, Serkovitch, and Beslan were untouched. Why can’t they make up for the loss of PGDF capability?”

Belasz tried to suppress a frown; he failed. “That is a good question, Councillor,” he said warily, aware that at least half the councillors at the table enjoyed the support of the Hammer Corps of Marines and its legions of allies. “The problem is the Constitution. The marines are to be used for internal security purposes only and, I quote, in ‘the exceptional and rare event of Planetary Ground Defense’s inability to contain a serious internal threat to the integrity of the Hammer of Kraa Worlds,’ a form of words which successive commanding generals of marines had always interpreted literally … as General Baxter is doing now.”

“For Kraa’s sake!” de Mel protested. “Like we don’t have a serious threat to the integrity of the Hammer of Kraa Worlds? What is the NRA if not a serious threat? Schoolkids just messing around? I think not.” He turned to Polk. “Chief Councillor,”
he said. “You know how often I have to come to this council to ask for marine backup for DocSec operations. PGDF has to do the same any time they need heavy armored support. Far, far too often. I think it is time to bring the marines face to face with the cold, hard realities of life.”

Hand grenade thrown, Polk watched de Mel sit back as the meeting dissolved, as it always did, into a heated debate between supporters of the marines’ hard-line position and their opponents. Polk had no illusions that anything would change; it never had before and never would, forcing DocSec and PGDF to come cap in hand to the Defense Council each and every time they needed support from the marines, an ever more frequent occurrence as the NRA became increasingly aggressive.

What a way to run a war, Polk thought despairingly. What a way to run a war.

Adrissa’s voice cut through the usual premission chatter that filled
Widowmaker
’s flight deck. “All landers, this is command. We are good to go. When the NRA confirms the Hammers are responding to the attack on the ordnance depot at Chalidze, we’ll launch. Good luck. Command, out.”

Michael turned to look over his shoulder at Anna. “Set?”

“Yes, skipper,” she said with a smile from the comms station. “We’re online with the NRA.”

“Good.” He turned back to look at Ferreira. “Okay?’

“Yes, sir. I swore that I’d never set foot on the flight deck of this thing after the last time, but here I am. Slow learner, me. How come there’s not one lander tactical officer out of all those prisoners of war?” She shook her head in disbelief.

Michael grinned. “Bad break, though let me tell you, walking
out of here is no fun, so let’s hope the NRA keeps the Hammers occupied. Chief Bienefelt?”

“Ready, sir,”
Widowmaker
’s latest crew member replied from the weapons systems station. “Let’s hope we meet a few Hammers. I’m in the mood to dispatch a few to meet that damn Kraa of theirs.”

“Amen,” Chief Fodor muttered, his body, awkward in the bulky combat space suit, hunched forward over his holovid screen, eyes locked on the screen, watching to make sure
Widowmaker
behaved itself.

“Ferrite Four, this is Fractal Six,” Adrissa said. “Stand by.”

“Here we go, folks,” Michael said.

“Ferrite Four, this is Fractal Six. Immediate execute Bravo-1, stand by … execute!”

Michael fed power to
Widowmaker
’s belly thrusters; slowly, reluctantly the lander lifted off and he started to ease it out of the ravine, its holocams tracking
Alley Kat
and
Hell Bent
as they followed suit, their huge bulk emerging like alien machines from enormous clouds of steam boiled off the ravine floor by the white-hot plasma from landers’ engines.

“That’ll get someone’s attention,” Ferreira muttered when
Widowmaker
cleared the ravine and started to accelerate hard away to the east.

Michael nodded. “Sure will,” he said. The weather was far from perfect. Unlike the week before, there was no convenient layer of cloud to protect the landers from wandering battlesats, only a thin layer of high altocumulus, enough to take the edge off the Hammers’ lasers but not enough to shut them out.

Proof of which arrived seconds later. “We’ve been locked up,” Carmellini shouted over the screeching of alarms, the threat plot erupting as space-based radars illuminated the lander.

Michael did not need to think; he reacted. He rammed the engines to full power and slammed the lander hard over to one side and an instant later back again just before the air outside was torn apart by a burst from the battlesat’s pulsed ultraviolet laser. “Close,” someone said.

“Have faith, folks,” Michael said. “The armor on these—”

A sharp crack ran through the lander. “For chrissakes, shut
those damn alarms off,” he shouted, and threw the lander left and right, zigzagging in a frantic race for safety, running hard for the protection of a thicker patch of clouds a few kilometers ahead. “Damage?” he snapped, handing the lander over to Mother; he was a good pilot, but the AI would do a better job of keeping the lander under what little cloud there was.

“Minor. Atmospheric attenuation’s doing a good job for us,” Chief Fodor said. He flinched when another flat chattering crack resonated through the lander, a long one this time, while the battlesat kept the laser on target.

“Roger,” Michael said. “Sensors. Any air activity?”

“Yes, but not directed at us. I have multiple ground-attack landers from”—Carmellini stopped when yet another stream of laser pulses hit
Widowmaker
—“from Amokran marine base inbound on track for Chalidze.”

“Roger,” Michael said, allowing himself to relax a touch; the NRA’s diversionary attack was having the desired effect. “Nothing from Besud or O’Connor?”

“Nothing yet, sir.”

“Anna. Sitrep.”

“NRA confirms the assault on Chalidze is under way. Initial reports confirm little organized resistance. Hammer air from Amokran will be on task over Chalidze in thirty minutes. NRA confirms multiple Locusts.”

“Roger.” He hoped the NRA withdrew before the Hammers arrived. The Locust ground-attack lander was big, fast, and tough. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the NRA’s shoulder-launched Goombah missiles would bounce off the Hammer landers—they might as well throw pebbles at them—and the one Klaxon ground-attack lander they’d managed to get airborne would not be much help, either. Their best chance was to get the hell away. He scanned the plots and eased back on the throttles; screaming along at full power was all very well, but they would soon have to start decelerating. Thus far, their frantic run to safety was going to plan. Behind
Widowmaker, Alley Kat
and
Hell Bent
ducked and weaved to avoid the incoming battlesat lasers but with less success, their greater mass making them easier targets. Not that the lasers bothered
the heavy landers. Their armor made
Widowmaker
’s look like tissue paper.

“Command, tac. Four minutes to run. The NRA has confirmed we are cleared in.”

“Roger, tac. What—”

Alarms screamed. “Oh, shit,” Michael hissed as the AI slammed
Widowmaker
over onto its back in a desperate dive to earth. Missiles! Where the fu—

Widowmaker
’s flight deck filled with the racket of cannons and lasers, her automated defenses letting go with everything in a frantic effort to destroy the pair of missiles streaking toward them. Michael had enough time to register that fact before, with a sickening, shuddering crunch, the lander was thrown bodily upward.

No sooner had it started than it was over. Feverishly Michael checked
Widowmaker
’s status boards. To his shock, the lander was untouched, its systems nominal, the good news confirmed by a thumbs-up from Chief Fodor.

“What the hell happened there?” he asked, unable to keep the shock out of his voice.

“Hold on, sir,” Ferreira said, a tremor in her voice. “Yes. Looks like we ran into a trap. Bastard Hammers knew we were coming. Ground-launched missiles; sensor AI says Gordians. I have absolutely no idea how we kept them out.”

“Luck,” Michael said, grim-faced. “Pure, blind luck … and a weapons AI paying attention.
Alley Kat
and
Hell Bent
?”

“Stand by,” Ferreira hissed in shock. “
Alley Kat
’s damaged. Airburst off its stern damaged the port main engine. Hold on … yes, power’s down, but it’ll make it.
Hell Bent
’s undamaged. Looks like the Hammers didn’t have much time to set up, and they were too far off our track to get a good shot at us. Those Gordians are hopeless at high crossing rates, and we were moving very low and fast. Otherwise …”

Anna shook her head. “Doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Why wait? Why didn’t they take us on the ground?”

“Don’t know,” Michael said, shaking his head. “Okay, folks, we’ll worry about that later. Let’s get dirtside. Tac, we good to land?”

“Affirmative. NRA approach control has cleared
Alley Kat
in first, followed by
Hell Bent
, then us.”

“Roger that. All stations, get your neuronics back online. The Hammers know where we are.”

Shaken by the Hammer ambush, Michael had the common sense to let Mother bring the lander in; AI or not, she was ten times the pilot he was. He watched the forward holocams track
Alley Kat
and
Hell Bent
while they reduced speed, their noses rising for landing. Ahead, the gaping mouth of a cave loomed; Michael knew it was big enough to take the landers, but it would be a squeeze. More unsettling was the ground around the cave entrance. It looked like it had been worked over by a giant earth-bot, the ground scarred by countless craters and littered with the shattered remnants of trees, soil, and small debris scoured away by lander blasts. The cliff into which the cave entrance was cut was just as battered, whole slabs of limestone blasted off to leave pale scars hundreds of square meters in size.

“Command, sensors. NRA reports kinetic weapons inbound, time of flight forty-five seconds. They suggest we expedite.”

Michael swore. The Hammer’s command of space exposed every square centimeter of the planet to the threat of having tungsten-carbide slugs the mass of a small crowbar dropped on one’s head. The best defense was to move fast, to be somewhere else when the slug arrived. Silently he urged
Alley Kat
and
Hell Bent
on. They were now hovering, the ground underneath the landers erupting into a thick, roiling cloud of ionized driver mass, dust, and dirt that swallowed them altogether before they entered the cave mouth.
Widowmaker
wasted no time; it moved through the cloud and into the cave, sudden darkness the only indication that they were inside.

The landers taxied on into the darkness, twisting and turning to follow the laser-smoothed floor of an ancient cave. Michael tried not to flinch when the tunnel walls shook from the kinetic slug strike; large lumps of limestone broken free by the impact shock wave crashed onto the lander’s armor, a stark reminder of just how vulnerable the tunnels were to kinetic weapons and tacnuke bunker busters.

On and on they went until they were deep underground. Michael allowed himself to relax only when Mother brought
the lander to a halt and started to shut down its systems, the hundreds of meters of limestone overhead more than enough to keep out the most determined Hammer attack.