Helfort's War Book 4: The Battle for Commitment Planet (48 page)

A second missile followed, then a third and a fourth; two made it past the trailing tank’s defenses, and a second Aqaba died. Michael flinched as the tank’s fusion plant lost containment, the sky overhead scoured clean of Hammer drones by the hellish blast of energy. Breaking cover, the Sampan crew ran hard, but they were too exposed. One by one, they died, picked off by laser fire from a pair of newly arrived attack drones.

“Any minute now,” Sadotra said as the first of the 201st crested the slope and into view, a trickle of troopers that fast turned into a disorganized flood pouring downhill in a frantic race to safety. “Any minute now.”

Only a few minutes after the last of the 201st cleared the ridgeline overlooking the battalion’s positions, the first Aqaba appeared, its bulk a black cutout against a flame-lit sky. It eased its way forward cautiously, thumping down onto its tracks as it cleared the ridge. It paused, turret swinging as it hunted its next target before moving again, off the ridge and down toward the killing zone. Two more tanks followed; behind them came the blurred shapes of dismounted infantry screened by light armor, then yet more tanks, halting hull-down short of the ridge.

Michael gripped his rifle, waiting until his neuronics found a target. A red icon popped into view, but still he waited. Mokhine’s orders had been emphatic: Wait! Engaging at long
range only invited the Hammer’s ground-attack landers to join the fight. The battalion had to hold fire until the Hammers were too close for the landers to operate without taking out their own people, so Michael waited.

Cautiously, the trio of Hammer tanks moved down the slope, the air overhead filled with the whine of recon drones scouring the ground ahead for mines. Michael knew they were wasting their time; the mines were too well concealed by radar-absorbent matting. But if he knew that, so did the Hammer commander.

“Incoming!” Sadotra shouted as attack drones screamed over the killing zone, unloading patterns of bomblets to clear the tanks’ path. An instant later Michael’s world turned inside out, shock waves in a rippling wave tearing the air apart and shaking the ground, mines exploding in sympathy, plumes of dirt climbing skyward before raining down on the 2/83rd’s positions.

Still nobody fired.

The Hammers ignored the 201st now, almost as if they sensed the greater threat ahead. Michael could hardly breathe as the nearest Hammer tank crept forward until it was so close that he could see every dent, every scrape, every blemish on its ceramsteel armor. The red target icon picked one marine out of a group following in the tank’s tracks, his neuronics steadying on the vulnerable gap between the man’s helmet and body armor, a pale gray line, clearly visible, opened up by sloppy chromaflage discipline. Michael’s finger twitched on the trigger of his assault rifle.

“For chrissakes,” he muttered. “Get on with it.”

Nobody fired.

The lead tank paused as if sniffing the air for the scent of danger, then moved off. It advanced a hundred meters down the slope before it hit one of the mines that had survived the drones’ clearance run. An instant later, two more mines took out the lead tank’s flankers, the Aqabas thrown up and back with casual ease, pillars of smoke climbing into the night from their flaming corpses.

“You morons, you should know by now,” Sadotra said to the unseen Hammers, her voice withering with scorn, “that it takes more than a few bomblets to clear a minefield.”

“Hey, Corp,” Michael said, “how much—”

“Now!” Anna’s voice cut him off, and Michael opened fire. As he dropped his first target, Stabber missiles lanced out to smash into the next two tanks to cross the ridgeline. It was a wasted effort; the Aqabas’ defensive lasers hacked the missiles out of the air, but the tanks had had enough. Accelerating hard back over the ridge, they retreated to safety. Michael paid them no attention, his neuronics probing in a systematic hunt for any marine careless or moving fast enough to show himself, the crack … crack … crack of his rifle punching through the tearing rip of machine guns as they fired on the advancing enemy.

The Hammers started to fight back. The Aqabas that had stopped short of the ridgeline joined the battle in earnest, their guns pounding the battalion’s positions, 95-millimeter hypervelocity rounds chewing away at the battalion’s positions with murderous, clinical efficiency. Their assault was backed up by laser fire and fuel-air bomblets from attack drones and cannon fire from light armor, all overlaid by rifle fire and microgrenades from the advancing marines.

It was the most brutal display of military power Michael had ever seen. These Hammers were not to be stopped.

Despite the fear grabbing at his chest and churning his bowels, he kept shooting. Alongside him Sadotra did the same, their firing position filled with the racket of assault rifle fire punctuated now and again with a flat crack as a microgrenade arched away into the night before exploding with a bang, shrapnel and blast tearing at any Hammer unlucky enough to be caught too close. Effortlessly, Michael’s neuronics pulled targets out of the dust and chaos of battle, marine after marine reeling back out of sight. When the marines paused, Michael’s attention shifted to the attack drones. They were no match for neuronics-assisted marksmanship, and his rounds ripped through their thinly armored skins, the stubby, slow-moving shapes exploding in huge balls of fire and smoke when their microfusion plants blew.

One of the tanks had found their position. Michael cringed as the turret pointed right at him; the gun fired, and the round slashed through the air centimeters over his head to smash into
the ground behind his position, blasting broken rock and earth onto the chromaflage netting.

Ears ringing with the shock of the impact, Michael struggled to regain his composure. As he brought his rifle to bear on his next target, a voice on battalion net broke his concentration.

“Mendel One Six, this is Memphis Four.” The battalion headquarters’ radio operator sounded calm, untroubled. “Withdraw.”

“Memphis, Mendel One Six, roger,” the sergeant in charge of the battalion’s antitank missile squads replied. “Withdrawing now.”

Michael swore softly even though Mokhine’s order made sense. Stabber missiles were precious, and there was no point wasting them; the Hammer tanks were far enough away for their defenses to make short work of any that tried their luck. Michael swore some more. If Mokhine had had the heavier, faster Sampans—not to mention tanks, heavy mortars, attack drones, and ground-attack landers—it would have been a different story.

The Hammer commander’s plan emerged slowly out of the chaos. Supported by tanks firing relentlessly to break up the 2/83rd’s fixed positions and heavy mortars walking a creeping barrage forward to clear the killing zone of mines, it would be up to the Hammer infantry to open a way through. Time to go, Michael thought as he destroyed another Hammer drone before a near miss blew a huge hole in the ground in front of his position, the back blast throwing him off his feet, showering his body in dirt.

“Mosaic Seven Two, this is Mosaic Four One.” Hrelitz’s voice betrayed none of the stress of combat. “Immediate. Withdraw to rally point and initiate Kilo-6.”

Anna acknowledged the order. “Mosaic Seven Two, roger, immediate withdraw to rally point, initiate Kilo-6.”

“What the fuck are you waiting for?” Sadotra snapped when Michael did not move, more interested in yet another Hammer drone. “Mosaic Seven Two, that’s us. Go! Now!”

Michael did as he was told. Scrambling out of the trench he had spent so much time and effort constructing, he followed the rest of Second Platoon, a mass of chromaflaged blurs fleeing
back through the gap in the razor wire, through the vehicle park’s main entrance, running hard for the rally point. Orders snapped out, and Michael threw himself belly down in the dirt under an earth mover, safe for the moment behind the machine’s massive tracks, happy to see that the Hammers were showing little interest in following them into the cluttered vehicle park. Instead, they had dropped to the ground and were subjecting the heavy equipment around his position to a sustained rifle and machine gun barrage that made a lot of noise but did no damage. The Hammers seemed reluctant to destroy their own heavy equipment; slowly the tank and mortar fire dwindled away to nothing, leaving the battle in the hands of the marines. So why have the marines gone to ground? he wondered, scanning the area for targets.

Anna reported back to Hrelitz. “Mosaic Four One, this is Mosaic Seven Two. Engineers have initiated Kilo-6. Vehicle power plants are online, charges set to blow at minute 55. I say again, minute 55.”

“Mosaic Seven Two, Mosaic Four One. Understood, charges set to blow at minute 55. Withdraw to Juliet-24 Alfa.”

“Mosaic Seven Two, roger. Withdrawing to Juliet-24 Alfa, out … Sadotra!” Anna had to shout to make herself heard over the racket.

“Yes, Sarge?”

“I want Yankee section to lay down cover while the rest of the platoon withdraws to Juliet-24 Alfa. Hold for two minutes if you can, then you follow. Just make sure you’re back inside before minute 55, understood?”

“Cover, hold for two, back inside Juliet-24 Alfa before minute 55. Got it,” Sadotra said.

Michael’s chest tightened as he realized how exposed they would be, then tightened some more when he spotted a trio of tanks accelerating hard off the ridgeline and down the slope toward Yankee section’s position. Now he knew what the Hammer infantry had been waiting for; sure enough, the marines broke cover and started to move toward the vehicle park the instant the Aqabas pushed through their lines.

Michael was no foot soldier, but he was smart enough to know a bad tactical situation when he saw one. When the
marines and their tanks arrived, Yankee section would be in trouble. So be it, he thought, forcing himself not to think what that meant. Instead he narrowed his focus back onto the familiar routine. His neuronics were spoiled for targets, the Hammer marines moving fast now, more concerned with closing than with staying concealed. Someone’s lit a fire under their asses, he thought as the red target icon settled on a Hammer marine moving out of cover. He squeezed the trigger, the marine dropped, and he was a machine again: icon, shift aim, fire, icon, shift aim, fire, the process repeated over and over until the marines’ advance stalled. Then the Hammer commander lost patience; no longer concerned about the collateral damage to their equipment park, the tanks rejoined the battle in earnest, autoloaded cannons pumping 95-mm round after round at Yankee section.

It took another near miss to bring Michael back to his senses, the back blast from a tank round smashing into the earth mover over his head hard enough to pick him up and throw him bodily to one side, ears ringing, blood from his nose a metallic trickle down the back of his throat, pain skewering his right arm. This is madness, he thought. If the Hammers didn’t get him, a fusion power plant losing containment would. Why was Sadotra waiting? Surely the two minutes was up.

“Corp,” he hissed. “Corp. Time to go, I reckon. Corp!”

There was no answer.

Michael crawled over to where Sadotra had taken up position behind the massive tracks of an armored bulldozer. “Time to go, Corp,” he said to Sadotra, shaking her leg. “Corp! Time to go!”

When Sadotra did not respond, Michael slithered alongside her. His chest tightened when he saw the shattered plasglass visor of her helmet, the lower half of her face opened up side to side by a single savage slash of shrapnel, eyes wide open, staring at something Michael knew she would never see. “Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered.

For an instant, he lay there paralyzed. Then, from somewhere deep down, a desperate urge to survive galvanized him into action.

“Yankee section,” he barked, his voice barely audible over the racket of incoming Hammer fire. “Juliet-24 Alfa now! Move! For chrissakes, move!”

The surviving members of Yankee section needed no encouragement. After a final volley, they slid back, turned, and were on their feet, running hard for Juliet-24 Alfa. With a last check that he was not leaving any wounded behind, Michael followed, weaving his way through the lines of heavy equipment, heedless of the destruction around him as every piece of Hammer ordnance joined the fight. He tried not to flinch when one burst close, shrapnel tearing the air apart around his fleeing body, a few wayward splinters plucking at his armor. Behind him, the Hammer marines were on their feet and moving forward, the tanks pushing into the vehicle park before halting, their guns firing down the gaps between the lines of equipment and into the valley wall, blasting chunks of rock into the air. The noise was incredible, mind-numbing in its savage intensity, yet Michael managed to keep going, his entire focus on gaining the sanctuary of Juliet-24 Alfa.

Michael rounded an untidy stack of plasfiber crates, and there they were, a series of meter-square holes blown out of the rock wall, one of hundreds prepared for use as sally ports or emergency accesses, the last half meter of rock blasted out only when they were needed. Behind the holes ran the tunnels that would take him and the rest of Yankee section to safety. He did not stop, hurling himself through the hole and crashing to the ground in an awkward tangle of arms and legs, the air rammed out of his lungs with a
whoof
.

Anna was waiting for him. Grabbing his arm, she dragged him to his feet. “Any more to come? Where’s Sadotra?”

“Dead,” Michael croaked, fighting for breath. “I’m the last.”

“Right, go! The vehicle park’s going to blow in less than a minute, and the engineers have to bring this tunnel down before it does.”

Michael needed no encouragement, taking off as fast as he could with Anna close behind, twisting past the security point and the squad of engineers waiting to blow the tunnel in. On and on they ran, ignoring the sudden
whump
when the tunnel blew behind them. The vehicle park’s demise was another matter;
nobody could ignore the bone-shattering crack when the demolition charges laid with such care by the combat engineers ripped apart the fusion plants used to power the laser rock cutters and other heavy equipment. The shock knocked the pair off their feet, and Michael knew with a terrible certainty that the whole tunnel was going to cave in. Eyes screwed shut, heart racing, mouth dry with fear, his left arm thrown across Anna’s back, he waited for the awful pain that tons of rock would inflict when it smashed into his back.