The minutes dragged by until Michael began to think Mokhine would never give the word. Then an unseen hand tapped his heel. Michael turned, the colonel's face an ethereal speckled gray in the gloom.
"Brigade's given the word," Mokhine hissed. "There's a Hammer battalion moving up the line, so let's go."
"Sir."
Michael steeled himself; much as he hated the darkness of the cave, it was a safer place than the cavern up ahead. Part of a much larger complex of caves, Karavakis-2 looked to be an awful place, a nightmarish jumble of rocks through which Hammer reinforcements moved up in a steady stream while casualties flowed back for evacuation. Flicking on a tiny helmet-mounted infrared beacon for Mokhine's troopers to follow and powering up his rifle's optronics, he took a deep breath and started to slide forward.
A sustained burst of heavy machine gun fire triggered the ambush, and Michael exploded into action.
His neuronics found the first target, dropping a red target indicator icon onto a startled Hammer marine. The man turned toward him, moving in slow motion, his mouth widening into an O of surprise. A double tap took the man in the neck; he dropped, mouth still open in bewilderment and confusion. Michael wanted to tell the man it was nothing personal, but the indicator was shifting target. Burying all emotion, Michael followed the red lozenge and dropped the next marine, then the next, and the next, never looking at their faces, his focus locked on to the target indicator.
He was not human anymore; he was a machine, a killing machine, an automaton armed with a stolen Hammer assault rifle doing what killing machines were supposed to do: crush the life out of the enemy. The flat metallic racket of heavy machine guns and the crash-bang of microgrenades were all ignored, and Michael followed the rest of the battalion when they broke cover and charged toward the Hammers, their bulky, body-armored shapes black in the firefly lights the Hammers had rigged to mark the way up to the front line.
Hit broadside on, the Hammers wilted in the face of an unstoppable wave of hate-fed anger. Confident the NRA had been forced back, they had not taken the trouble to secure their flanks. Now they paid for that mistake, the NRA attack forcing the marine column to break apart into small groups fighting in a frenzied, scrambling race to escape the blizzard of death the NRA poured out of the darkness. The Hammer battalion disintegrated, its ranks shredded by rifle and machine gun fire, every attempt to regroup or take cover smashed apart by salvos of microgrenades that tossed bodies across the ground.
The Hammers had nowhere to run, and one by one the marines died amid the jumble of broken rocks and boulders that ran back to cavern walls invisible in the darkness. Taken by surprise, they were overwhelmed by the shocking brutality of the NRA attack. Finally, only a handful were left. Trapped, they fought hard until overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers, and then they, too, died.
Mokhine wasted no time celebrating victory.
Splitting his force in three, he positioned a heavy weapons platoon to secure the narrow exit from the cavern that led deeper into the NRA base, their positions protected by rows of claymores. A second platoon moved through the Hammer casualties; methodically they started to strip weapons and ammunition off the marines, anyone still alive unceremoniously rolled over and-to Michael's surprise; he had expected any Hammer survivors to be shot out of hand-plasticuffed, those still able to talk dragged to one side for interrogation. The rest of the battalion set off toward the tunnel that led to the outside world and the Hammer support areas.
Michael found Anna amid the throng. "Officially, we're done," he said. "What now? Go with Mokhine or stay?"
"We go," Anna said, her face glistening in the faint light. "It'll take us hours to find the 120th, and I'm sure Mokhine will find something for us to do. You okay with that?"
"Sure am," Michael said, adrenaline-charged excitement and blood lust still running hot and strong.
"Let's go, then."
Together they ran after Mokhine's troopers. The NRA colonel's plan was simple: Keep going, don't stop, shoot anything that moves, use heavy weapons to deal with any Hammer light armor, and move on. Not much of a plan, Michael reckoned, but good enough since the Hammers would still not know what the hell was going on, their fiber-optic comms lines having been cut moments before the attack started.
Ahead of them, Mokhine's troopers were disappearing into a tunnel that did not appear on Michael's maps. "What the hell?" he said.
"The Hammers must have burned their way in," Anna said, shaking her head in disbelief. "They worked out where the rock was thinnest and just burned their way through."
"Mining lasers?"
"Big ones, I reckon. Unbelievable. Come on."
As Michael followed her, the answer to the question that had been troubling him ever since the attack started-how the Hammers had bypassed the NRA's outer defenses-was all too clear.
It was a stunning achievement, and the Hammers had done it by brute force. Parallel to the access tunnel destroyed by ENCOMM to keep the Hammer attack out of Karavakis-2, they had simply driven an entirely new tunnel, the limestone no match for pulsed hard-rock mining lasers, their enormous power vaporizing the stone into an incandescent mix of carbon dioxide and superheated calcium oxide blasting back down the tunnel and out into the valley beyond, a caustic plume of death that would have scoured the ground clean of all life for kilometers around, covering the area in a thin gray blanket of dust. Michael shook his head at the Hammers' ingenuity. It was brilliant, and it had taken ENCOMM completely by surprise, its failure to understand how fast the Hammers could burn their way through virgin limestone costing it dearly as it scrambled to stem the Hammer attacks.
But not everything had worked so well. To maximize the element of surprise, the Hammers had opted to blast their way through the last few meters of rock into Karavakis-2. That had left the mouth of their new tunnel carpeted with an ugly mass of sharp-edged boulders that were easily negotiated by soldiers on foot but a big problem for tracked vehicles and impossible for ground drones. Now Michael understood why the Hammers' light armor had been so slow to appear; good thing, too, he thought as he hurdled his way into the tunnel.
By the time Anna and Michael made it through, the battalion had brushed aside the Hammers defending Karavakis-1, the cavern that had formed the NRA's first line of defense, the Hammer marines simply overwhelmed by the unexpected speed and mindless ferocity of Mokhine's attack. The colonel was not holding back; leaving the rest of the battalion to reestablish defenses destroyed in the Hammer's initial attack, he had thrown a platoon into the Hammer tunnel that accessed Juliet-24, a massive portal that opened onto one of the karst's many slab-sided valleys. Heedless of stiffening resistance, the NRA troopers had driven down the tunnel, moving fast, firing blindly into the darkness, advancing behind a barrage of microgrenades. Any Hammer attack drones lucky enough to make it through were hacked out of the air by furious bursts of rifle fire.
Michael's heart sank; this battle showed all the signs of degenerating into a primitive hand-to-hand struggle. His heart sank even farther when Mokhine waved him and Anna over. What now? he wondered.
"Okay, you two," he said. "Our move toward Juliet-24 is a feint. I want to hold the Hammers, to keep them occupied while our combat engineers mine the Hammer tunnel. Meanwhile, we'll do something they won't be expecting." Mokhine paused as a disheveled trooper ran up, the dust on her left cheek scarred by a savage gash that dripped blood in a slow, sticky stream. If the wound bothered the woman, she did not let it show. "Ah, good," he said. "This is Lieutenant Tek. Maggie, these are the Helforts. They're going to take you and your platoon through the old tunnel."
"Sir," was all Tek said.
"The old tunnel?" Michael said with a puzzled frown. "The one ENCOMM blew in?"
"The very same," Mokhine said. "I'm sure there'll be enough room above the rockfall for us to get through. It won't be fast, but we can do it. That means we can infiltrate an attack into Juliet-24 to take the Hammers from behind. If it all gets too hot, there is a cross-tunnel 75 mete
rs back from the portal you can use to get away. All understood?"
Michael's heart sank, but he nodded.
"Go on, then," Mokhine said.
While he and Anna scrambled up the rocks to the mouth of the old tunnel, Tek's platoon close behind, Michael commed Anna. "This is getting hairy, Anna," he said, "so for chrissakes, be careful. There'll be ten million of those Hammer fuckers on the other end of this tunnel."
"I know that," Anna replied, "so don't worry. No heroics from this little brown bear."
"Yeah, right," Michael said. "Neuronics off?"
"Neuronics off." Anna turned. "Ready?" she said to Tek.
"We'll be right behind you," Tek replied.
Together Anna and Michael plunged into the cramped space between the rockfall and the new blast-shattered roof of the tunnel. Mokhine had been right; there was enough room to crawl through… just. It was a miserable business, in places so tight that Michael had to squeeze his body between roof and rock, every meter a fight to overcome a growing certainty that the ceiling of the damaged tunnel would collapse onto him. He could not remember being so terrified ever. Even the undamaged sections of the tunnel were difficult, the floor littered with razor-edged boulders shock-blasted from the walls and roof. Were it not for the fact that Anna was alongside, shaming him to keep him moving, Michael could not have gone on into that terrible darkness.
On and on they went, Michael's neuronics counting off the meters with agonizing slowness, past the cross-tunnel, its mouth all but invisible behind a huge boulder-the temptation to turn away from the Hammers and into the sanctuary it offered was almost irresistible-until the absolute darkness ahead started to break up into tiny patches of gray light. About time, he said to himself, squeezing himself through the last few meters until he could move forward no more. No wonder the damn Hammers weren't paying this tunnel any attention, he thought. A mouse would have trouble getting through.
He tried to pull back but could not. He was jammed tight, and no matter how hard he pushed, he could not move. For one awful moment, he knew with heart-pounding certainty that he was never going to get out. Near panic, he wriggled and squirmed until the rock relented and allowed him to pull back.
"Holy shit," he hissed, chest heaving as the panic subsided. "I hate this place."
"You okay?" Anna said, easing her way alongside him.
"Yeah," he said, even though he was far from okay. "Bastard tunnel closes in. We're maybe 3 meters short. We need cameras."
"Let me talk to Tek."
"Do it and tell her we need people to start clearing this rock away."
"Okay."
Michael lay facedown and tried not to think too much about the millions of tons of blast-fractured rock hanging only a few centimeters over his head. To his relief, Anna was back quickly, Tek close behind. "Here you are," she said, pushing a pair of holocam wands into his hand. "Off you go."
"Mind the damn cables," Tek hissed. "Those holocams are the only ones I've got."
"Okay." Michael wanted more than anything to ask Anna to place the holocams, but he did not; the last vestiges of pride and self-respect forced him back the way he had come. He stripped down to his T-shirt and took a deep breath to steady jangling nerves and trembling muscles; then he set off toward the gray patches that marked where the cave debouched into Juliet-24. This time, he was in and out in no time at all, the two wands jammed forward into clefts so that their wide-angle lenses could see all of the portal.
By the time he made it back, the cameras were online, Anna and Tek huddled over holovid screens that painted the tunnel a ghostly blue and the troopers beyond them an anonymous black as they struggled in complete silence to clear away the rockfall. Peering over Anna's shoulder, Michael did not like what he saw. The portal was a heart-stopping sight. He watched in shocked silence, the scale of the Hammers' commitment to taking the NRA's Branxton Base obvious. Jammed with marines, the place was a hive of activity as the Hammers prepared their counterattack, the sound of rifle fire punctuated by grenade explosions clearly audible.
Michael watched an Anvil armored vehicle move up to the mouth of the Hammer's tunnel, twin cannon mounted in blister turrets pouring sustained bursts of fire at the oncoming NRA attack. How were Mokhine's troopers ever going to withstand-
In a shocking blast that shivered the rocks Michael was lying on, the Hammer vehicle exploded.
"Yes!" Tek whispered, punching the air.
"Stabbers?" Anna asked.
"Yup. The frontal armor on an Anvil is no match for them. Just wish the colonel had a few more of them. Lot more Anvils where those came from."
And there you have it, Michael thought, the NRA's problem summed up in a few short sentences.
The loss of the vehicle kicked the Hammers into frantic activity bordering on pandemonium; combat engineers worked frantically in the face of renewed NRA fire to move the blazing wrecks out of the way, and the medics dragged away the casualties from around the cave mouth. The NRA fire never slackened, and soon Hammer marines were in place returning the compliment as fresh armor-a light tank this time, an Akkad, judging from its low-profile main turret-moved into place, its gun adding to the appalling racket that had the walls of Juliet-24 shaking.
"Dickheads," Tek said dismissively. "That Akkad is wasting its time."
"Only if Mokhine's pulled his people back," Michael muttered.
"He will have."
"Stalemate," Anna whispered. "An Akkad's too damn fat to fit down that tunnel of theirs. I think they're just there to make sure we don't break through. The Hammers aren't going anywhere for a while."
Anna was dead right. The Hammers had been thrown back on the defensive, their attack had stalled, and the frustration showed in the body language of marine NCOs and officers. This was not the way they expected things to turn out, that much was obvious.
Across the valley floor outside the portal, more heavy ordnance waited: Anvil cannon-armed urban attack vehicles with a scattering of Akkad light tanks and drone launchers. Beyond them, Michael could see yet more marines and more armor, a lot more. How the NRA was ever going to defeat them he could not even begin to imagine. He flicked a glance at Anna; she stared unmoving at the holovids. Michael wondered what she was thinking.
"Shit," Tek murmured. "That's a lot of Hammers. Just what we want. Okay, I've seen enough." She slid back and turned to her comms man, a lance corporal responsible for laying the single stand of plasfiber-armored optical fiber that connected her platoon to the outside world. "Comms," she whispered.
Without a word, the trooper passed Tek the connector. Try as he might, Michael could not hear what she was muttering into her whisper mike. Whatever the reply, Tek seemed happy with it. She passed the connector back and waved Michael and Anna in close.
"Much as I'd like to kick those assholes back where they came from, we don't have what it takes. So here's the plan. You"-she tapped Michael on the arm-"stay here with Lance Corporal Chengkiz. Your job is to keep an eye on our Hammer friends, and for Kraa's sake, make sure they don't hear you."
"Roger that."
Tek turned to Anna. "Sergeant, you're going to lead the rest of us back the way we came, but only as far as that access tunnel. Brigade is sending up combat engineers with fuel-air guns"-barbecues, Michael reminded himself; that was what the NRA called them-"and it'll be up to us to clear as much of this damn rock as we can so we can get the guns up easily."
"And this rockfall while you're at it," Michael said. "Otherwise the charges won't work so well."
"You're right," Tek said. "I'll ask the colonel to send up a second platoon. Anyway, once the barbecues are in position, ENCOMM will fire them. All being well, they should clean out the portal."
"What about the marines outside, in the valley?" Anna asked.
"Thank Kraa for caves and sinkholes. We're infiltrating barbecues into position below the cliff top overlooking the valley. They'll drop a pattern onto the portal approaches. Should make our lives a bit easier."
&n
bsp; "Shit. Those Hammers aren't going to know what hit them."
"No, they're not. Anyway, once the barbecues have thinned the Hammers out a bit, ENCOMM will send in 5 and 12 Brigades to take out what's left. It seems this is one of their main lines of attack. They look committed, so ENCOMM wants to persuade them they are wasting their time. We'll wait in the access tunnel and then go once the charges are fired."
Michael could not help himself. "There are thousands of Hammers out there. How's ENCOMM going to get the 5th and 12th out there?"
Tek shook her head. "You Feds," she said softly. "Questions, questions, always questions. Let's just say we have tunnels accessing the valley that the Hammers don't know about, sally ports we call them. Nice old-fashioned touch, I've always thought. There'll be NRA troopers appearing out of the rock in the thousands, coming from nowhere far as the Hammers are concerned. Not that there'll be many left to see them coming."
"Let me guess," Michael said. "More barbecues?"
"Oh, yeah. Every last one we can lay our hands on."
"What about the Hammer's tunnel?"
Tek grinned, teeth flaring white in the backlight from the holovids. "What about the-"
A bone-jarring crunch cut her short, then another. Michael flinched as broken rock rained down from the tunnel roof. "Ah," he said when it stopped. "Is that my answer?"
"Sure is. No Hammers will be using that tunnel for a while, and it'll be a while before they bring their hard-rock laser cutters back into play. We've blown the tunnel leading back to the front line as well. It'll be a bloody business mopping up the Hammers, and there are plenty of them, but it's just a matter of time. They've got nowhere to run, and they don't seem to enjoy our tunnels. Wonder why. Right, Sergeant. Move out."
"Watch yourself, Michael," Anna said. Without another word, she turned and left.
Tek patted Michael's arm. "Good luck," she said before following Anna's dusty shape into the darkness.
Michael leaned across to Chengkiz. "Lieutenant Michael Helfort, Corp," he said.
"Good to meet you, sir. Heard a lot about you."
The battle for Commitment planet hw-4 Page 33