The Final Battle (31 page)

“Kraa!” Ho hissed through pursed lips when Michael had finished. “That’s a big ask.”

“It’s important. You must know that.”

“I was a planetary defense officer once.” Ho looked away. “I spent most of my time on oceangoing missile defense platforms, so I never saw combat against the
NRA
, though I knew plenty of people who did. Some were friends of mine. Quite a few of them are dead now …”

Michael’s spirits sank.

“… killed in action, so there’s no way I’d do anything to help the
NRA
…”

Michael’s spirits fell through the floor and kept on going.

“… but on the other hand, a lot more have been killed over the years by DocSec, so I don’t owe them any loyalty either, and I hate all that Word of Kraa bullshit. No, I owe all my loyalty to myself, not to anything or anybody else. Just me. This might be my home,” he said, waving a hand around the bridge, “but I don’t own the
Merrioneth Star
, and I don’t have any family here. Ten years ago my whore of a wife buggered off with a DocSec major, and my kids had the gumption to get the hell out of the Hammer Worlds the first chance they could.”

Michael had been biting his lip to keep from interrupting. Would the damn man cooperate or not? Ho seemed to have stopped, so Michael took his chance. “Does that mean you’ll help us?” he asked.

“Depends on how much you’ve got left on that card of yours.”

“A bit over fifteen grand. If you want it, it’s all yours.”

Another wave of the hand. “It’ll be the end of this, you know,” Ho said.

“Your call. But you need to make a decision soon. It won’t be long before we reach the Ahenkro Junction wharf.”

Ho nodded. “I know,” he said. The seconds dragged past before Ho spoke again. “One condition.”

“Name it.”

“I need to be on my way downriver before you make any move. If I’m alongside when the shit hits the fan, I’m dead meat.”

“How much lead time do you need?”

“An hour.”

“Okay, but it all depends on how the unloading works. Tell me how the Hammers do that.”

“Well, first …”

Wednesday, October 6, 2404, UD
Ahenkro Junction, Commitment

A series of gentle bumps told Michael that the
Merrioneth Star
finally had berthed. He had been going quietly mad waiting. They had fallen badly behind schedule, and Ho had not seen fit to tell them why.

Ho’s voice was crackled and tinny in the earpiece of Michael’s headset. “Sorry about the delay,” he said. “The convoy before us was attacked by the
NRA
.”

“We wondered what was happening. Did they have any luck?” Even as he spoke, Michael cursed his stupidity. Ho would know the captains in the convoy.

“Not if you were the poor buggers on the three barges they sank,” Ho said. If Michael’s insensitivity had bothered the man, he wasn’t letting it show. “You ready?”

“We are. Just let us know when the driver comes aboard.”

“Will do.”

Time crawled. Michael wondered why the Hammers were taking so long. A barge load of Aqabas was a sitting duck. He tried not to think what would happen if the Fed ground-attack landers came back.

“They’ve got the tarps off,” Ho said twenty long minutes later, “and now they’re putting the ramps in place, so stand by.”

“Roger. Okay, folks. Any minute now.”

“I’ve been ready for the last four hours,” Shinoda muttered from where she and Kleber waited by the hatch, looks of anticipation on their faces.

“Here he comes,” Ho said. A few minutes later, the hatch eased back out of its frame. A pair of legs swung in, followed by the body and then the head of one very shocked Hammer. Shinoda and Kleber dragged him in, one of Kleber’s meaty hands clamped down across the man’s mouth. It was only work of seconds before the Hammer had been cable tied into the commander’s seat. His eyes bulged in terror.

“Now, sonny boy,” Shinoda said, putting the tip of an enormous knife to the end of the man’s nose, “I’m going to tell my friend here to take his hand away. When he does, you keep your mouth shut and you listen carefully to what we have to say because—” She pushed the knife in a fraction; a tiny jewel of blood oozed out from the tip. “—we don’t want you to make any mistakes. Understood?”

Shinoda pulled the knife back. The man nodded, his face white with terror. He looked young and afraid.

Kleber pulled his hand away. Michael leaned forward. “Okay,” he said, “do what we want and you’ll be fine. That’s my promise. Now, take a deep breath and tell me your name.”

“Jo-jo-jonah Patel,” the man stammered. “Marine Jonah Patel.”

“That’s good, Jonah; that’s really good,” Michael said, keeping his voice calm, soothing. He was relieved to see the man relax a fraction. “Now, what’s the first thing you have to do?”

“Power up all six tanks.” Patel’s voice shook.

“Okay, then that’s what we want you to do, but remember, we do know how Aqabas work, so no mistakes, okay?”

Patel nodded his head hard. “Go on, then,” Michael prompted.

Patel’s fingers flashed across the tank commander’s master control panel. The Aqaba’s massive bulk trembled as the main fusion plant powered up. Michael left him to it. He wanted to check what was happening outside. Nothing to worry them, he was happy to see. He flicked the holocam down into the infrared. The heat signatures of two men appeared, stark patches of white in the cool of early morning.

“All six tanks are online and nominal,” Patel said. “I need to call that in.”

“Go on.”

“Okay. Wharf, this is Tank 1; we are ready to move.”

“Patel, you worm,” an angry voice barked. “Where the hell have you been? You think I’ve got all day?”

“Sorry, sarge. Tank 3 had a transient on her auxiliary power control module.”

Michael held his breath. Did an Aqaba even have such a thing? He glanced at Mallory, not at all happy when she shrugged her shoulders.

“Is it stable now?” the supervisor said a lifetime later.

“Affirmative.’

“Then what are you waiting for?” the man roared. “Get those fucking tanks off that fucking barge now! Take them to Golf-8.”

“Golf-8, roger that, sarge.”

“Do it,” Michael whispered. He watched as the young marine fed power to the drive train. He spun the tank on the spot, then eased its huge bulk down the ceramsteel ramp onto the wharf. His hand was soft on the sidestick controller.
You’ve done this before
, Michael thought. He admired the man’s effortless precision.

Patel soon had the Aqaba off the barge. It moved steadily up a muddy track. Michael watched the holovid screens with interest.
The Hammers are not messing around
, he thought.
I’ve never seen so much ordnance in one place
.

“This is where I park it,” Patel said. He spun the tank around and reversed into a wide gap between yet more Aqabas.

Michael wondered many of the damn things they had. “Now what?” he asked Patel.

“I bring the rest ashore and park them.”

“Okay. Do it.”

Patel did just that. “Wharf, this is Tank 1,” he said when he’d parked the last Aqaba. “All done, sarge.”

“Roger,” the supervisor said.

“What will he want you to do next?”

Patel shook his head. “I don’t know who you are,” he said, the tremble back in his voice, “but I’ve done what you want, so let me go and I won’t say anything to anybody.”

“I don’t think so,” Michael said. “Answer my question. What will the supervisor want you to do next?”

Patel just stared at him, mouth clamped shut, face set in an obstinate scowl. Michael sighed. “You’re not being smart. You help me, I’ll let you go. How about it?”

The Hammer marine shook his head. “No,” he whispered.

“Jonah, my man,” Michael sighed, his hand reaching out to take him by the throat. “Screw me around anymore and I will kill you.” His grip tightened, crushing Patel’s windpipe until he had to struggle to breathe. “Now, which is it to be?” Michael went on, letting go. “And make up your mind quickly. I’ve got better things to do.”

Patel’s face crumpled in defeat as he dragged air back into his lungs. “Okay, okay,” he croaked, his newfound courage gone. “I’ve got to run systems tests on all six tanks. We have to make sure the depot hasn’t sent us any duds. Once that’s done, I shut them down and go back to the wharf for the next load.”

“How long?”

“The testing’s automated, so a couple of minutes each.”

Michael swore. He’d promised Ho he would give him an hour; he still had a good thirty minutes left.

“Do the tests but call in a defect. Make it one that’ll take at least half an hour to fix. Understood?”

“Sergeant Miyashita won’t be happy.”

“A defect’s a defect. It’s not your fault.”

“Maybe not, but he’ll still kick my ass.”

“That can’t be helped.”

Patel sighed a sigh of resignation. “I don’t think I’ve got much choice,” he said.

“Not if you want to stay alive, no, you don’t.”

“Okay … Wharf, Tank One.”

“Where the fuck are you, Patel? I need you down here now!”

“Sorry, sarge
.
Tank Three’s still showing problems on its auxiliary power control module. I’ll have to replace it.”

“You useless dipstick,” Miyashita shouted. There was a moment’s silence, and Michael held his breath, praying that Patel wasn’t told to leave it for later. “Fix it,” the man said finally, “but fast, understood?”

“Yes, sarge.”

“Why do you put up with it?” Michael asked when the circuit went dead.

Patel shrugged. “It’s the way things are.”

“They don’t have to be. Come with us.”

Patel stared at Michael. “You’re
NRA
, right?”

“We are.”

“My corporal says the
NRA
is winning this war.”

Michael’s eyes opened in astonishment. “He said that?”

“He did. Haven’t seen him since. He did a runner. He was the tenth this week. So is it true … that we’re losing, I mean?”

“You want an honest answer to that?”

“Hah!” the man snorted. “That’d be a change.”

“I think we’ll win, but it’s still too early to be sure.”

“That’s what I think.”

“So come with us.”

“No,” Patel said, shaking his head. “I can’t do that. My two brothers are in the marines. DocSec would shoot them.”

Michael didn’t doubt it. DocSec was big on guilt by association. “We’ll have to tie you up and dump you, then,” he said.

Patel managed a lopsided grin. “Just don’t hit me too hard.”

Michael grinned back. “No more than we have to, Marine Jonah Patel. And you can tell them that we belted you the moment you got into this thing.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I will. Just let me wipe the holovid records before you do.”

• • •

Kleber and Delabi climbed back into the Aqaba. “The poor bastard’s sleeping like a baby,” Delabi said. “His head will hurt like hell when he wakes up.”

“Better that way than having it kicked in by DocSec,” Michael said. “Positions everyone. Last questions … no? Right, report when ready to roll.”

One by one, Michael’s team brought their tanks online and reported in. “Right, folks,” Michael said. “We need mayhem and lots of it. Wait until I give the word, then shoot at anything that crosses your path, but air-defense assets are a priority, so go for them if you can. Let’s go.”

Michael took a deep breath to quell an attack of nerves. He had a right to be nervous; they were surrounded by thousands of Hammers. He gripped the sidestick controller in his left hand and eased it forward. The Aqaba lurched ahead, forcing him to push the stick left. The tank swung around, narrowly missing a startled marine who appeared from nowhere. It was harder in real life than on the simulator, Michael realized. He sent the tank zigzagging through the packed ranks of Hammer heavy ordnance. His erratic steering produced a great deal of shouting and fist waving. He ignored it and brushed the Hammers aside. The rest of the tanks followed behind, a crazy conga line of heavy armor.

“Sorry about that,” Shinoda said. She’d overcontrolled and driven her tank over the back end of a mobile missile battery. The maneuver sent a passing officer into paroxysms of rage. Assault rifle in hand, he ran alongside the tank, shouting at it to stop. External hull-mounted microphones picked up his voice. The torrent of abuse racketed around the inside of the tank.

“Tank Three,” Michael said to Kleber. Even if the Hammers hadn’t woken up to the fact that five of their Aqabas were being stolen, they soon would. “Shoot that mouthy asshole.”

“Three, roger.”

Michael watched as Kleber fired a short burst from one of his tank’s machine guns. The rounds picked the man up and tossed him away to one side.

“Nice shooting, Kleber,” Michael said. “All tanks, fire at will.”

There was only the briefest of pauses before the 95-millimeter autoloading gun on Michael’s tank crashed into life. It sent a hypervelocity round ripping effortlessly through a cluster of thin-skinned mobile air-defense batteries, then another and another before one got lucky and smashed into a missile warhead. The explosion that followed was close, violent. The Aqaba was punched bodily to one side. Not even bothering to select a target, Michael traversed the gun, firing as he went. Its rhythmic metallic crash was joined now by machine guns flaying the air around any Hammer stupid enough to stick his head up while grenade launchers dropped infrared absorbing smoke to protect their flanks. The column roared through the ordnance park and smashed through the perimeter wire. They turned hard right and accelerated in a headlong rush for the bridge across the Oxus River. Behind them, tumbling columns of smoke climbed away from the blazing wreckage of
MARFOR 21
’s heavy ordnance reserves.

Still the Hammers seemed paralyzed by events. Nobody tried to stop the tanks. They kept moving and smashed aside anything that got in their way. They let 95-millimeter guns loose at anything even remotely like a worthwhile target, right down to a small all-terrain vehicle full of what Michael hoped was Hammer brass. The furious barrage of fire scattered marines in all directions; only a handful had the presence of mind to fire back, an exercise in futility.