Helfort's War Book 4: The Battle for Commitment Planet (31 page)

“Sure. Like I was saying, the diversions worked well. Your other landers made quick work of the bases around Perdan.
Have to tell you, the general was happy to see them get back safely. They make a difference.”

“How did the Daleel diversion go?”

Hok sighed deeply. “I never knew two NRA companies could make so much ruckus. Act like a half brigade, the general said, and that’s what they did. We know the Hammers have long been worried about an attack on Daleel, and our guys were so convincing, they forced the Hammers to commit the PGDF quick reaction force from Ojan. Our guys didn’t stand much of a chance, but they did the job. Those poor, brave bastards kept the Hammers busy.”

Hok was silent for a long time, her head turned away, but not before Michael saw the tears running down her face. His heart went out to her. The troopers tasked with the diversionary attack on Daleel had known their chances of getting out alive were not good. “How many made it back?” he asked finally.

“One,” Hok said bitterly.

“One?” Michael said, voice rising in shock.

“One. Only one trooper made it back. A and B Companies, third Battalion, 45th Regiment, no longer exist. Give or take a few, that’s two hundred troopers lost.”

“Shit,” Michael whispered.

“Shit is right. Those Kraa-damned Hammers captured forty-six troopers alive, all wounded … They shot them. Lined them up and shot them,” Hok said flatly. “Forty-six troopers. We won’t forget them. I sometimes wonder why the Hammers think they can beat us.”

Hok was silent for a minute. “Anyway,” she continued, “the attack on Perdan’s firebases kicked off on schedule. At first …”

   Michael lay on his bunk, his mind churning through the events of the day. With the Hammers distracted by the Daleel diversion and the threat of an immediate PGDF counterattack gone, the NRA had overrun the firebases that ringed Perdan without difficulty, their PGDF defenders falling back in the face of an attack relentless in its ferocity, the NRA attackers’ bravery almost suicidal. In less than thirty minutes of desperate fighting, five of the firebases had fallen. Ground-attack flyers diverted from the Daleel operation were left circling,
unable to assist, the tactical situation on the ground so chaotic that they were unable to separate friend from foe. Destroying what they were not able to steal, the NRA had slipped away south into the protective cover of the forests that surrounded Perdan, hounded and harassed all the way but too spread out to suffer heavy casualties.

That was the good news.

Firebase Merino, occupied by an artillery battalion, was a different matter. In a major intelligence failure, the NRA had failed to spot the arrival of two companies of Hammer marines airlifted in from Beslan to stiffen its PGDF defenders, who were on the brink of falling apart thanks to the battalion’s cadre of corrupt and in effective officers. In three hours of bloody hand-to-hand fighting, the marines, aided by their reluctant planetary defense comrades, had fought the NRA’s 111th Regiment to a standstill before pushing them back.

The NRA commander in charge of Pendulum’s ground forces had made a bad problem worse: slow to understand what was happening to the 111th, she had thrown her reserves to support the attack instead of disengaging. It was too little, too late; any chance the NRA had of withdrawing was blown away by the belated arrival of more marines from Amokran.

Hounded out of Firebase Merino by marine counterattacks, their retreat cut off by air-dropped blocking forces, the NRA troopers had been sliced to pieces, troopers dying as they made desperate attempts to get clear. In the end, only a handful survived the Hammer marines’ savage response.

Michael despaired. The Perdan operation was a crucial part of the NRA’s strategy. The Branxton Ranges dropped sharply down to meet the floodplains of the Oxus River in the west and the Krommer River in the east. Three sizable towns anchored the Hammer’s line of defense protecting the approaches to McNair—Bretonville in the west, Daleel in the east, and Perdan in the center, a small town sprawled across a low saddle—and the NRA was compelled to take them all if it was ever to break out of the Branxtons and drive north to threaten McNair. Judging by the outcome of that day’s bloody fighting, its chances of doing that were not good.

That meant—Michael’s heart fluttered as the implications hit
home—that this damn war was doomed to drag on and on. It meant that all his romantic ideas of helping the NRA liberate their worlds from Hammer oppression were pure fantasy. It meant that he had condemned the spacers and marines who had helped him hijack
Redwood, Red River
, and
Redress
to an uncertain future trapped on Commitment. It meant he had destroyed any chance the Fed prisoners might have had of getting home.

And now Anna, the only reason he had come to Commitment, was in the front line fighting alongside the rest of the NRA’s 120th. Shit, he swore despairingly, if her regiment was thrown into another Perdan fiasco, if they suffered the way the 111th had, he might never see her again. Nothing could help her—and him—if the Hammers captured her. One thing was for certain.

If that happened, Colonel Hartspring would make sure they both died slow and painful deaths.

“The idea has great merit, General Baxter, great merit.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“But,” Chief Councillor Polk said, raising a cautionary finger, “will it work? That is the question.”

“My staff believes it will, sir, and so do I. We have a solid plan: realistic, conservative, a plan that learns from the mistakes of the past.”

“Fine. Get the things moving. I’d like to see a formal submission to the Defense Council before the end of this month. Can you do that?”

“We can, sir. We’ve been working on this since early March.”

“Good. When you brief Admiral Belasz, don’t let him know we’ve had this little chat. I don’t want to compromise the chain of command.”

“Of course not, sir. I’ll brief the admiral next week. We are very well prepared for this, so I’m confident he will approve.”

“I am, too. Keep me posted. Anything else?”

“No, sir.”

“In that case, I’ll wish you a good evening.”

“Sir.”

Polk watched General Baxter walk away. He had always known the commanding general of marines to be a rank opportunist, but the man had outdone himself this time. Polk was no fool. Without a word being said, he understood fully the deal Baxter offered: The marines would destroy the NRA; in exchange, the corps would swallow the PGDF. Not that it would be easy giving Baxter the payoff he sought. Polk’s last attempt to create a common command structure to control operations against the NRA had been an ignominious failure, torpedoed by the PGDF’s political supporters, wrecked on the rocks of the Constitution, a ship lost with all hands. It still rankled.

But if the marines were able to do what the PGDF had so signally failed to do, if they were able to crush the NRA, Polk was confident he could marshal enough support to bury the PGDF. Then the Hammer Worlds could turn its attention to those Kraa-damned Feds. Not that they would be much of a problem; the Pascanicians would help make sure of that.

With the Feds out of the way, all of humanspace would be at the feet of the Hammer of Kraa. What a glorious prospect, Polk thought. With a grateful General Baxter and the Hammer of Kraa Corps of Marines backing him every step of the way, he would become humanspace’s first—

“Chief Councillor, sir?”

The diffident words of his personal assistant splintered Polk’s dreams of imperial greatness into a thousand shards. “What?” he demanded.

“Mister van Luderen is here, sir.”

“Oh, right. Send him out.”

Sweating heavily, van Luderen slouched across the sun-beaten patio, a shambling giant of a man: florid of face, flabby of body, heavy of jaw.

“Hello, Jeremiah,” van Luderen said.

“Have a seat, Marten,” Chief Councillor Polk said. He ignored
van Luderen’s outstretched hand, instead waving at one of the well-cushioned cane chairs arranged in the shade of a huge, spreading fig tree. “Drink?”

“Beer, make it two, and make it quick,” the man said, easing himself into a chair with a grunt of relief, fleshy fingers wiping away the sweat beaded under black-bagged eyes. “Jeez, Jeremiah, this town of yours is hot. Can’t understand why anybody would want to live here.”

Polk’s eyes narrowed. He did not like the Kallian one bit. The man was rude, intemperate, interested only in money, and happy to tell anyone who cared to listen that the Hammer of Kraa was a crock of shit. Worst of all, he was not frightened by Polk and they both knew it.

If van Luderen had not been one of only two men he trusted to keep the far-flung pieces of what he called his retirement fund connected, Polk would have had him shot, off-worlder or not. He waited in silence until the drinkbot delivered the man’s beers.

The first beer was gone in seconds; picking up the second, van Luderen belched softly as he smacked the empty bottle down onto the table. “That’s better. You wanted to see me?”

“I did,” Polk said. “I have a consignment for you.”

“Oh? Wondered why you’d dragged me all this way. Still, it’s your money.”

“Yes, Marten,” Polk said through gritted teeth. “It is my money.” He pushed a battered briefcase over to van Luderen. “Here’s 250 million dollars in stored-value cards.”

“Ah,” van Luderen said, eyes lighting up, “now I see why you wanted me to come to this asshole of a planet.”

“Watch it, Marten,” Polk growled.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” van Luderen said. “Why so much?”

“Insurance.”

“Insurance?” van Luderen said with a skeptical frown. “Things not going so well, eh?”

“No, the exact opposite. Things are going extremely well.”

“That’s not what I hear, Jeremiah. Those Feds have been giving your people a lot of grief, the NRA’s doing well, and most of those poor suckers you call your loyal citizens want the Nationalists to take over. Doesn’t sound to me like things are going well at all.”

“You are misinformed, Marten,” Polk said. “A few minor setbacks, that’s all. Trust me. Things are going well.”

“You think so?” van Luderen said. “I have very good sources. They don’t think things are so good. The way I see it, there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Polk said. “If you need to know something, I’ll tell you.”

“Okay,” van Luderen said with a shrug. “I think you’ve just given me millions of reasons for thinking things are not going well, but maybe I’m wrong.”

“You are, Marten, you are. Like I said, it’s just insurance. Now, I want that money working for me, not sitting in some trust account. Any ideas?”

“Oh, yes,” van Luderen said, throwing off the mantle of indifference and disinterest, his eyes sparkling into sudden life. “Oh, yes.”

“So tell me.”

“Get me another beer and I’ll tell you about the Buranan Federation and a cozy little cartel that’s making so much money, it’s indecent. I think with 250 million to play with, we can make them an offer they won’t refuse even if they are not going to like it very much.”

“One beer coming up.”

“Make it two, Jeremiah, make it two. Fuck, this poxy place is hot!”

The final briefing for the crews of the three Fed landers broke up in the usual welter of conversation. Sedova leaned over. “Hope this one gets a better result than the last time the NRA visited Perdan.”

Michael nodded. “Let’s hope so.”

He wanted desperately for Operation Tappet to be a success, if only to douse the smoldering embers of doubt that so troubled him. Had the whole Commitment business been the biggest mistake of his life? He hoped not. Not that Sedova and Acharya seemed to share his doubts; few of the Feds did. If the two command pilots were any guide, most had seized the chance to inflict some serious damage on the Hammers with both hands, any doubts they might have had had been swamped by the relentless pace of operations. True, the Fed landers had had a golden run. They had completed almost fifty operations, destroying targets right across the hinterland around McNair in slashing hit-and-run operations that minimized the risks they faced from the Hammer’s air-defense Kingfishers and their Alaric missiles.

There was a problem, though, a problem that the Feds, absorbed in the business of killing Hammers, were happy to ignore. Hit-and-run operations were fine, but only up to a point; they had their limitations, too.

They made the Hammer’s lives miserable. They encouraged the never-ending plague of civil disobedience all across the Hammer Worlds. They eroded morale in the Hammer military. They sapped DocSec’s confidence.

But hit-and-run operations could never end this war. That happy day would come only when the NRA broke out of the Branxtons and took McNair. In theory at least, today’s operation was the next step in that long and bloody process. This time, for the first time, the Fed landers were not running diversionary attacks; ENCOMM intended them to be an integral part of the operation to take Perdan from the Hammers and keep hold of it in the face of a furious and sustained Hammer counterattack.

Privately, Michael was increasingly persuaded that the NRA had little chance of succeeding. Yes, they would take Perdan. It was garrisoned by planetary defense troops, and they had no stomach for the NRA’s shock tactics. So Perdan would fall to the NRA; Michael was sure of it. Great propaganda for the NRA and the Nationalists but a military dead end. To cap it all, Anna and the 120th would be in the thick of it, which was fine, but this operation, like all the others, would end the same
way: The Hammers would send in reinforcements, backed up by ground-attack fliers, and take it back.

With a quiet prayer that he would be proved wrong, that Operation Tappet—the most complex, far-ranging, and ambitious operation ENCOMM had ever planned—would deliver and that Anna would come back alive, Michael followed the rest of the Fed lander crews out of the briefing room.