'When you're done, I'll be in the NRA command center-sorry, ENCOMM-or back onboard Widowmaker.'
'Okay.'
After wrestling with two heavy and uncooperative blast doors, Michael found the station down a narrow tunnel. A westbound sled waited. He tried not to let the state of the machine-a double car capable of carrying ten people- concern him as he climbed in and pushed the button. With a screech, the battered antique started off, accelerating at an impressive rate, racketing down the laser-cut tunnel. According to Michael's neuronics, the sled traveled 25 kilometers before it slowed, emerging into a small lobby before decelerating to a halt in front of an NRA trooper who, like all of them, was dressed in faded combat overalls and carried a well-worn assault rifle in immaculate condition.
'Lieutenant Helfort?' the man said.
'That's me.' Michael replied, climbing out of the sled.
'This way.'
Michael followed the man out into a concourse so large that the cave roof was lost in the darkness; it was busy with NRA troopers in well-worn combat overalls. The command center was right ahead of him, guarded by four heavily armed troopers behind a crude security desk.
Even though they must have been briefed to expect him, the mouths of all four troopers were half-open in amazement as he approached. He was probably the first real, live spawn-of-the-devil Fed they had ever seen, Michael realized.
'Lieutenant Helfort, here to see General Vaas,' his escort said.
'Ah, yes,' one of the troopers said, recovering himself with an effort. 'If you'd please carry this with you at all times'-the trooper handed Michael a small card on a neck lanyard-'that'll identify you. Please go in. Ask for Major Hok.'
'Thank you…?'
'Corporal Vasili Banic, sir. 556th Regiment, NRA.'
'Thank you, Corporal Banic.'
'Sir.'
ENCOMM took Michael by surprise. He expected the operations room from which all NRA operations were planned and controlled to be something out of ancient history: state boards covered in handwritten information, maps, telephones, paper, all the things he remembered from his one and only visit to the Museum of Twentieth- Century Warfare. How wrong could he be? He stared at the tidy arrays of holovids, wall-mounted in front of neat ranks of workstations, the room filled with the susurrus of quiet conversation underscored by the hiss of air- conditioning. Apart from the telephone handsets scattered everywhere-neuronics were proscribed by Hammer of Kraa doctrine, and head-mounted microvid comm sets were obviously scarce-it might have been an old, battered, and well-worn Fed command post.
A woman spotted him and waved him over. Save for a pair of embroidered rank badges, she was indistinguishable from all the other NRA troopers he had seen: the same buzz cut, the same worn combat overalls, the same lean and hungry look on a face stretched tight by privation and hard work.
'Major Hok, sir?' he said.
'That's me,' she said, shaking Michael's outstretched hand. 'I'm on General Vaas's personal staff. Welcome.'
'This is impressive, sir.'
Hok's eyes narrowed; Michael cursed under his breath when he realized how patronizing he must have sounded. 'Sorry,' he said. 'I didn't mean, you know…'
Hok's face cracked into a broad smile before she surprised him by laughing out loud. 'Relax,' she said. 'We're not that precious, you know.' She led him by the arm to a group of empty workstations set into a large recess complete with its own suite of wall-mounted holovids.
'This'll be your space. Take a seat, we'll get your authorizations organized, and then I'll show you how the system works.'
'Okay, but one question.'
'Shoot.'
'The Chalidze operation. How'd it go?'
'Okay, let's do that first. Hold on… right, here we are.'
Michael watched while Hok brought one of the holovids online and a three-dimensional representation of the Chalidze ordnance depot popped into view.
'Things went to plan,' Hok said. 'Supported up by an air-defense company and combat engineers, we infiltrated the 22nd's Fourth Battalion into position over a forty-eight-hour period before the attack. They hid up here'-she stabbed a marker at a cluster of heavily wooded ravines a kilometer south of the depot-'and moved up to the start line two hours before the operation kicked off. One klick to the east, and close to the main access road into the depot, were the transport elements… that's code for NRA troopers, by the way.' She threw a grin at Michael. 'We may not have many trucks,' she continued, 'but by Kraa, we've got plenty of troopers, and it's amazing how much they can carry.'
Hok jumped the holovid forward. 'The operation was simple. The Hammers' security was piss-poor, and they don't like patrolling in the dark. So when our guys hit them, they were tucked up in bed here'-another stab at a long building close to the southern perimeter of the factory-'and in the security strongpoints around the perimeter. One razor-wire fence, no mines, no remotely operated lasers, no chain guns. Their perimeter sensors are the usual mix of acoustic sensors and holocams. Give our engineers enough time and they don't trouble us much,' she added, flicking a dismissive hand.
'When the engineers blew the wire here and here, our guys went in. One company took down the security force-not that that was hard-while the rest moved into the depot, some to take out the strongpoints, some to blow the ware houses open. By the time the transport arrived'-another grin-'all three hundred of them, the whole joint was wide open. We grabbed what we could and pulled out. By the time planetary defense turned up, we were gone. They put two heavy landers down on the depot's main landing site. That was a big mistake. Arrogant pigs! They still take us for granted. Our combat engineers had rigged claymores down one side, and we reckon that we wasted most of them when they debarked. After that, it was the usual: us running like hell while Hammer landers beat the crap out of anything they could see. Cost us about forty dead and maybe the same too badly wounded to move. They will have sold themselves dearly.'
Michael must have looked surprised as Hok stopped. 'That shock you, Lieutenant?'
'Yes. Yes, it does.'
'Get used to it. All that Geneva Convention stuff doesn't apply, not to this war. Being captured by PGDF is a bad way to die. If you're lucky, they question you for a few minutes, then shoot you. If you're not lucky or if you're taken by DocSec…' Hok's voice trailed away. 'The marines aren't so bad,' she continued. 'They don't make a habit of shooting prisoners, but since they always hand them over to DocSec, it's all the same in the end. So you kill as many of them as you can before turning the gun on yourself.'
Michael nodded. If Hok was right, this was not war the way the Federated Worlds understood it. 'I've been in DocSec's hands, Major,' he said softly. 'I have some idea what you mean.'
'I've heard,' Hok said. 'You're one of the lucky ones. No NRA trooper has ever survived capture by DocSec. Not one, and DocSec made sure every last one was a long time dying. They like to send us holovids so we know exactly how long. I hope your people know that.'
'Not yet, but they will. Sorry, go on.'
'That's about it. We pulled back into the forests to the south of the depot. The Hammers dropped blocking forces along the obvious escape routes back to the Branxton Ranges, and all but one company managed to get around them. We think they killed their share of Hammers before they were overrun. We expect survivors back within the next week, hopefully bringing lots of goodies with them. So that's about it. Any questions?'
'Just one.'
'Okay.'
'Our landers were bushwhacked by the Hammers on our way in.'
'We know. Seems we're not the only ones harboring Hammer spies.'
'No,' Michael said with a scowl. 'Anyway, why just a single missile battery? Why didn't the Hammers mount a bigger operation? After all, three Fed landers are high-value targets. Why didn't they divert the marine landers from
