Helfort’s War Book 4: The Battle for Commitment Planet Read online

  “I guess that answers the question,” Ferreira said quietly. “So why haven’t you told the brass? If you came clean, maybe they’d let you turn yourself over … if that’s what you want.”

  “Hell, yes. It’s exactly what I want, but there’s no point even asking. My security clearance is way too high. I know too much. I’d never get approval.”

  “Thought so,” Ferreira said with a frown. “What about neurowiping?”

  “Not an option. Apart from my neuronics, everything of value to the Hammers is in long-term memory, so I’d need a full neurowipe, which nobody in the Federated Worlds will give me. The law’s clear: Without a court order following a conviction for a criminal offense, full neurowiping is illegal.”

  Michael paused to rub eyes gritty with accumulated stress. “Chicken and egg. I need to get off the Worlds to find someone to neurowipe me so I’m no longer a security risk, but I can’t get off the Worlds because I’m a security risk.” He laughed, a short, bitter sound devoid of any humor. “Anyway, turning yourself over to the enemy in time of war is desertion. I don’t think the admirals will be too keen to agree with that. No, I’m screwed, Jayla, and because of me, Anna’s dead. The only woman I’ve ever loved, and she’s going to die because of me.”

  “Not sure that’s true, sir,” Ferreira said. “There may be another way.”

  “Another way?” Hope flared in Michael’s eyes for an instant, and just as quickly it died. “No, Jayla, there’s no other way. If I’m not at the Hammer embassy on Scobie’s by October 1, Anna’s dead. The problem is I cannot see how, and believe me when I say that not a minute goes by without me trying to find a way.”

  “Rescue?”

  “Fleet will never go for it even though we know where the Hammers are keeping Anna.”

  “You know that?”

  Michael nodded. “I do. Anna’s one smart woman. She encoded the information in her monthly vidmail. The survivors from Damishqui are in Camp J-5209, southeast of the Hammer capital, McNair, along with the crews of the rest of the task group destroyed in the Salvation operation. What’s left of them, that is. Know how many made it to the lifepods, Jayla?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Bit over four hundred spacers and marines. That’s all that’s left from eleven front-line ships thrown away in a pointless operation.”

  “That was a bad business,” Ferreira said. “My sister’s husband lost a cousin. He was an engineer on Unukalhai. Poor bastards never had a chance.”

  “No, they didn’t, Jayla, but that’s the price we pay for not standing up to our politicians. Anyway, we digress. Knowing where Anna is doesn’t help us much. Breaking her out of the camp is feasible, but getting her and the rescue force off-planet is not. It’s impossible. Anyway, it’s all academic. Fleet will never buy it, not with the pressure on them at the moment. They don’t have the ships to spare. Even if they had, why would they? In the end, Anna’s only another spacer. They wouldn’t care what happened to her. To be fair, they can’t.”

  “Umm,” Ferreira said, eyes half-closed, finger to lips tapping out her concentration. “Umm … let me see … yes, based on what you’ve told me, the only option is a one-way rescue mission.”

  “One-way?” Michael demanded. “What do you mean, one-way?”

  “The rescuers don’t try to get off-planet. You are dead right. A rescue operation might be able to get past the Hammers’ orbital defenses; it would never get back into space. Never. So they break Anna and everyone else out of J-5209 and head for the hills. The latest intelligence summaries say the Hammers’ disloyal opposition—the New Revolutionary Army and their political wing, the Nationalist Party—is beginning to have some success. I’m sure they’d be happy to look after the rescue force.”

  “I’m sure they would, Jayla,” Michael said. “They looked after me when I was on the run after Ishaq was destroyed. The NRA’s not the problem. The problem is how long the rescue force has to stay dirtside. Who knows how long this damn war will drag on? We’re stalemated, and that looks like how it’s going to stay. Fleet’s saying what, five more years? So who’d want to be trapped on Commitment with a bunch of raggedy-assed guerrillas for that long? Maybe even longer—who would know? I’ve been there once, and that was enough, I can tell you. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.”

  “Tell you what, sir. Leave it to me. There are things I need to do. Can we pick this up later?”

  “We can, Jayla, we can. Anything I need to do?” Michael asked, all too aware that he had in effect dumped command of Redwood and the rest of the Nyleth squadron onto Ferreira’s shoulders for the moment.

  “No, sir,” she said with a broad grin. “All under control. Redwood’s sweet, the troops aren’t bitching any more than usual, the Hammer guests are quiet, and the marines are happy doing whatever the hell it is marines do when there’s bugger all to do.”

  Michael laughed. Ferreira’s smile was infectious; knowing he was able to rely on her lifted his spirits. Sharing the burden of Colonel Hartspring’s horrific message lifted them even further even if, deep down inside, a tiny, stubborn kernel of despair reminded him that there was nothing Ferreira could do to help him out of the Hammers’ trap.

  “I’m pleased to hear it,” Michael said. “Now, enough of this lying around stuff. I’m declaring myself fit—no, don’t argue with me—so once I’m showered and changed, I’ll walk through the ship and then I’ll be in the CIC if you need me.”

  “Sir.”

  Watching her leave, Michael realized he had gotten something wrong. Even if there was something Ferreira could do to help him out of the Hammers’ trap, he could not allow it. The problem was his and his alone, and that was the way it had to stay. He either found a way to turn himself into Colonel Hartspring or he didn’t.

  But even though deep down he knew it would make no difference in the end, it still felt good to know that there was at least one person who understood the pain he was going through; the relief he had felt unburdening himself had been powerful and immediate.

  With the gnawing fear of what might happen to Anna buried for the moment, Michael felt better than he had for long time despite the fact that telling Ferreira about Anna had changed nothing. He set off to walk through Redwood even though his left leg had been painful all day. Walk! He smiled in spite of himself. The best he could manage was the awkward, stiff-legged limp he so hated, worried that people might think he was making more of the injury than it deserved.

  He did not have to do the walk-around. Mother—the ship’s primary AI, the AI that kept Redwood’s legion of AIs in line—kept him abreast of everything, but if he had learned anything during his time in the fleet, it was that a briefing from an AI was no substitute for seeing at first hand what was going on. He needed to; he had let his crew down badly. He—and they—had been lucky the Balawal-34 operation had not gone wrong.

  Stepping into a drop tube, Michael made his way down to Redwood’s main hangar, a huge compartment once home to the cruiser’s air group. The cavernous space held the ship’s two landers: the massive bulk of Alley Kat and its much smaller cousin, a light ground-attack lander nicknamed Widowmaker. Michael approved of the name; he hoped that one day the lander would send its fair share of Hammers to meet their precious god, Kraa. Beyond them sat the temporary accommodation modules housing Redwood’s marine detachment. Michael smiled when he saw what Kallewi and his marines were up to.

  Crash mats had been spread across the hangar deck. On them Redwood’s entire complement of marines, an overstrength platoon totaling fifty, was involved in what looked like a minor riot, bodies diving and tumbling every which way while Kallewi and his platoon NCO, Sergeant Tchiang, barked orders and insults in equal mea sure. Spotting Michael, Kallewi called a halt, marines collapsing exhausted to the deck. Michael made his way over.

  “Abusing the troops again, Janos?”

  “You know me, sir. Busy marines are happy marines, even if they are kicking the crap out of each other. Free play self-def
ense drills. Fighting in a crowd is an art.” Kallewi paused to look at Michael. “You okay, sir?”

  “Better, thanks. Your guys went well on Balawal-34. A good, tight operation. Well done.”

  Kallewi waved an arm as if to dismiss the compliment. “Routine stuff, sir. Thankfully, the Hammers didn’t think to reinforce their internal security force even though they seemed to have warning of the attack. Things would have been a lot harder if they had.”

  Michael nodded, conscious how cavalier he had been with the lives of the men and women under his command. “They still haven’t worked out dreadnoughts yet. Would have been a different story if we’d been conventional heavy cruisers. Anyway, how’s Lance Corporal Baader?”

  “Not a happy marine, sir, but he’ll be fine. Flesh wound to the upper arm. Nothing serious. He should be a hundred percent inside a week.”

  “Good. Anything else I need to know?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Okay. I’ll be in the CIC when I’ve done my walk-around.”

  “Sir.”

  Michael set off aft, making his way through the massive armored doors cut through the secondary armor protecting Redwood’s machinery spaces and into the ship’s starboard main engine and primary power compartment. There, according to Mother, he would find Redwood’s complement of engineers stripping out a shock-damaged pump, and find them he did, the four spacers struggling to move the mass, which was awkward and uncooperative even with the help of liftbots. Michael hung back; when they broke for a breather, he walked over.

  “Winning?” he asked Chief Fodor, Redwood’s senior engineer and the man responsible for the ship’s fusion reactors.

  “Think so, sir, though I’m too old for this shit,” Fodor said, giving the recalcitrant pump a kick. “I love dreadnoughts, but there are times when I miss having hundreds of junior spacers around to do the hard stuff. Like moving”—he gave the pump another kick—“this pigging piece of crap.”

  “Amen to that,” Chief Chua, Redwood’s propulsion tech, said with some feeling, mopping his sweat-beaded brow. “I’ll be glad to see the back of this sonofabitch. Tell you what, sir,” he added, “maybe Lieutenant Kallewi can lend us a few marines. There are plenty of them.”

  “They’re too busy on the mats killing each other at the moment, Chief, but if you’re stuck, just ask.”

  “I will, sir, though it goes against the grain, asking marines for help.”

  Michael grinned. Generally, spacers and marines rubbed along okay, but the relationship could be prickly at times. “Ask anyway, Chief. Now, Petty Officers Lim and Morozov. All well with the power and habitat departments?”

  “My part of ship’s sweet as a nut, sir,” Lim replied, brushing the hair out of her eyes. “Can’t speak for habitat, though.”

  “It’s fine, and well you know it, Petty Officer Lim,” Morozov said with a grin. “Well, this week, anyway.”

  Michael returned the smile. Morozov had a point. Redwood’s conversion from heavy cruiser to dreadnought had involved ripping out every piece of equipment not required for her new role, a task carried out in some cases with more enthusiasm than good sense. Morozov had been forced to spend hours keeping Redwood’s recycling systems online thanks to the yard’s carelessness.

  “Thanks for the update, team,” Michael said. “I will now exercise the privileges of rank and decline the opportunity to lend you guys a hand”—a muffled chorus of hrrmpphs greeted this statement—“and if anyone wants to moan about that, I’ll be in the CIC, where I will be happy to hear what you have to say.”

  “Don’t worry about it, sir,” Fodor said. “We need the exercise.”

  “No comment, Chief. See you later.”

  Returning forward, Michael had one more stop to make. Sedova had reported a defect on one of Alley Kat’s fusion plants, and although Mother had briefed him in detail on what the lander’s problem was, he wanted to hear it for himself. Returning to the hangar deck, he ignored the marines, their mock riot now back in full swing, and made his way across to the looming bulk of the heavy assault lander, its brutal, functional shape a stark reminder of its enormous power. Once inside the lander’s brilliantly lit cargo bay, he found Sedova talking to her loadmaster.

  “Petty Officer Trivedi,” he said. “Mind if I borrow your skipper for a moment?”

  “No problems, sir,” Trivedi said. “I’ll be on the flight deck if you need me.”

  “Kat,” he said when Petty Officer Trivedi had left. “How’s things?”

  “Good, sir,” Sedova said. “Florian thinks she’s found the problem with Alley Kat’s starboard fusion plant.”

  “Fixable?”

  “It is. One of the controllers is unstable. We have spares, so it’s only a matter of swapping it out.”

  “Pleased to hear it. Don’t like our backup ride home ending up defective on us.”

  Sedova grimaced. “Nor me, sir. I know Fleet’s pushed for ships, but not sending a casualty recovery ship along to provide backup seems to me to be … well, not a good thing,” she said.

  Michael nodded his agreement even though Sedova’s words contained more than a touch of implied criticism. “I agree, and my report on Balawal-34 will have a lot to say on that subject. I know we have to use Alley Kat for ground assaults, but I also know we shouldn’t, not if she’s our only one and only pinchspace-capable lander. I’ve spoken to Admiral Jaruzelska, and she agrees, so I’m hopeful we can get us another Block 6 lander. If Fleet won’t task a casualty recovery ship in support of our operations and we lose Alley Kat, we must have another way home.”

  “Pleased to hear you say that, sir. The admiral … I know she’s still Commander, Dreadnought Force, but does that mean anything? I mean, there are only three dreadnoughts left. Not much of a force.”

  “No, it’s not. As for the admiral, she has clout, probably more than she’s ever had, thanks to the Devastation Reef operation. Winning that one was a big feather in her cap. The politicians love her, so if she says she can swing it, yes, I think we’ll get what we want.”

  “Hope so.”

  Michael knew what Sedova was thinking. Fleet’s unwillingness to continue the dreadnought experiment despite the success the ships had achieved at Devastation Reef—against overwhelming odds, it had to be said—was inexplicable, not to mention a source of considerable frustration for all of Redwood’s crew. He broke the moment of silence that followed. “The rest of your team. All okay?”

  “Yes, all good.”

  “Fine. I’ll check on our guests, then I’ll be in the CIC.”

  “Sir.”

  Michael left the hangar and went forward to the drop tube. Stepping in, he dropped down to what had been the mine magazine when Redwood was a conventional heavy cruiser. Stripped back to bare metal, it housed over a hundred unhappy Hammer prisoners of war. Even with Kallewi’s marines, there were too many of them to take chances, so they had been locked in for the duration of the transit back to Nyleth, living off emergency rations and dependent on chemical toilets to meet the demands of nature. Michael hated to think what the magazine smelled like.

  The marines standing guard snapped to attention when Michael appeared.

  “At ease, Lance Corporal Karoly. How are our guests?”

  “Quiet, sir,” Karoly said, “and bored shitless. Lying around. Couple of hours ago, they tried the old fight routine, hoping we’d be dumb enough to come crashing in. Morons! We left them to it, and they gave up eventually. Apart from that, nothing much to report.”

  “Way I like it, Corp. Holocams still working?”

  Karoly smiled. “Didn’t take them long to find them, but even the most determined Hammer can’t get through armored plasglass. They spent ages trying, though. Slow learners, those Hammers. We’ve organized a temporary holovid if you’d like a look,” she said, waving a hand at a screen sitting on a battered old desk.

  Michael scanned the holovid with interest. Hammer prisoners littered the deck of the mine magazine, a scruffy bunch dress
ed in gray shipsuits and plasfiber boots churned out by Redwood’s overworked clothesbot. What made them stand out was the way they looked. Thanks to the Hammer’s blanket prohibition on cosmetic geneering, they were—Michael could not think of any other way to say it—an ugly bunch. By comparison, even the least attractive Fed had supermodel looks.

  “Look quiet enough to me, Corp.”

  “Well, sir, I hate tempting fate and all that, but unless there’s a thermic lance in there we don’t know about, they’re not going to cause us any problems.”

  “Let’s hope so. The good news is we’re on schedule, so we won’t have to tolerate them much longer. Anyway, looks like the green machine has things in hand, so I’m off to the CIC.”

  “Sir.”

  Back in Redwood’s combat information center, Michael settled himself into the command seat, his eyes instinctively scanning the holovids carrying the command and threat plots. Not that he needed to. There was nothing to see. Despite investing billions of FedMarks trying, nobody had been able to find a way to intercept starships in pinchspace, but the habit was deeply ingrained. Redwood’s coxswain, Chief Petty Officer Matti Bienefelt, had the watch. Michael waited until she finished talking to the ship’s navigation AI about a minor instability in the pinchspace generators.

  Satisfied that Redwood was not about to make an unscheduled drop into normalspace, Bienefelt turned to Michael. “Welcome back, sir,” she said, the concern on her face obvious. “You had me worried.”

  “I’ll be fine, Matti,” he said, ignoring yet another twinge of conscience. He and Bienefelt had been through a lot in a short space of time; Redwood was the sixth ship they had served on together: DLS-387, Eridani, Adamant, Tufayl, and Reckless were the others, and Redwood would not be the last. Bienefelt had volunteered to be his coxswain, and more than anyone else onboard, he owed it to the woman to keep her alive. It pained him to think how cavalier he had been about her welfare, so absorbed in problems that were his and his alone that he had forgotten that looking after the people entrusted to his care came second only to achieving the mission. One of the golden rules of command, his mother always said, and he had treated it with contempt.