'Hatchet Two Four, roger. Chopping now. Two Four out.'
'Command, tac,' Ferreira said. 'Perdan command, call sign Grapple Three Three, has tactical control.'
It was a short ride. Swinging to starboard in a max-g turn that had the status board lighting up in protest, Mother chopped the power, easing the lander's nose skyward to let the speed bleed off, the foamalloy wings biting deep into the rushing air.
'One minute,' Michael said. 'Tac, confirm clear to land.'
'Grapple Three Three confirms landing zone is clear,' Ferreira said.
'Command approved to land,' Michael said.
He peered at the holovid feed from the forward-facing holocams, eyes flicking to and from the threat plot while he waited for any response from the Hammers. There was nothing to see: the thick cloud over Perdan, the gray- black murk turning to white when Mother fired the belly thrusters, the lander easing down, breaking through the cloud seconds before it thumped down onto Perdan's municipal airport, the brakes screaming in protest while Mother brought the lander to walking speed before turning to follow Alley Kat and Hell Bent, shapeless black masses in the darkness.
'Where the fu-' Michael flinched when a stream of yellow-gold tracer fire wound its way lazily out of the darkness before whipping past Widowmaker's nose, the insult silenced with brutal ferocity by the lander's lasers. 'Like I was saying,' Michael continued, 'where the hell is the NRA? Petty Officer Morozov.'
'Sir?'
'Go take a look and make sure we keep the ramp up until I'm happy the area is secure.'
Michael was beginning to worry. Widowmaker was not the lander it once had been: an elusive, fleeting shadow cloaked by its chromaflage skin and active stealth systems, flanked by decoys to confuse and mislead, orchestrating swarms of attack drones in an orgy of death and destruction across tens of square kilometers. The relentless pace of operations, a desperate shortage of spares to repair battle damage from too many near misses, and an increasing reliance on whatever ordnance the NRA could steal from the Hammers had seen to that. Now Widowmaker fought its battles the way ground-attack landers used to fight: up close and in person.
Michael's concern was well founded; the Kingfishers' targeting information came from the battlesat radars overhead, radars the AI controlling Widowmaker's stealth system was struggling to defeat. By now the Hammer commanders would know that there were three Fed landers squatting on Perdan airport's apron like big, fat sitting ducks. He shivered; Kingfishers were the least of his problems. The Hammers might be tempted to ignore the prohibition on using orbital kinetics to attack targets in towns and cities. Three Fed landers might be a target too tempting to resist even if it meant destroying much of Perdan, the enormous political cost a price worth paying. The thought that Hammer kinetics were being retasked to take the landers out chased yet more shivers across his skin. Come on, come on, he urged the absent NRAs.
He commed Sedova in Alley Kat. 'Any luck?'
'No, sir,' Sedova said. 'How long do we wait?'
Michael blew out hard in frustration. 'One more minute… no, wait.' Nothing ventured, nothing gained, he decided. 'We have to assume they're on their way,' he said, 'so ramps down. Start off-loading.'
'You sure, sir?'
'No, but do it anyway. Widowmaker, out. Loadmaster, ramp down, start off-loading. Jayla?'
'Sir?'
'You, Bienefelt, Fodor, and Carmellini. Get out on the apron. I don't want us getting surprised.'
'Sir.'
A moment later, Widowmaker's flight deck was deserted. His anxiety growing by the second, Michael kept his eyes on the threat plot; still nothing new and no sign of any Hammer Kingfishers. Their time on the ground was-
'Command, tac. Our friends are here.'
'Authenticated okay?'
'They have. A Colonel Nussli, like we were briefed. I'm glad we started off-loading early.'
'Me, too,' Michael said, relief flooding through him. 'Matti, get your team back onboard.'
Off-loading was a quick business. Widowmaker's AI-controlled cargo handlers rammed the containers out onto the apron, and each was hustled away into the rain-drenched darkness by a small army of NRA troopers.
'Command, loadmaster. We're done. Closing up. We can go.'
'Roger, sir. Flight deck crew's on their way back.'
Michael wasted no time waiting for them to take their seats. With a quick check to make sure Widowmaker's main engines would not incinerate anyone, he commed Mother to take control; seconds later they were rolling back onto the runway and into the air, followed by Alley Kat and Hell Bent.
'Welcome back,' he said to Ferreira when she dropped into her seat alongside him, spraying raindrops in all directions. 'The forward controller's given us our first target, so let's do it. Weaps?'
'Ready,' Bienefelt said. 'Grapple Three Three has downloaded targeting.'
'Roger. Sensors, where the hell are those Kingfishers?'
'Don't know, sir,' Carmellini said. 'Every other time they've been on us like a rash.'
'Keep looking. Bastards are out there somewhere.'
With one eye on the threat plot, Michael watched while Mother rolled the lander into the attack, the target obvious when Widowmaker burst into clear air: a cluster of plascrete government buildings in the center of Perdan that were home to those Hammer defenders too dumb to stop fighting. In quick succession, the three landers unloaded their ordnance across the area, fin-retarded iron bombs, old-fashioned but nonetheless ideal for the job and fused to explode after penetration. Clusterbots followed bombs, a lethal swarm of black shapes guided by sensors to take out any soft targets: people, vehicles, light armor, missile launchers.
Not that the Fed landers had things all their own way. The instant they appeared, the sky erupted into a maelstrom of defensive fire, cannon shells stitching wavering lines through the air before locking on to Widowmaker, its hull racketing with the pock pock pock of hits before defensive lasers were able to respond. Then came the missiles, a mix of shoulder-launched Goombahs and the heavier, vehicle-mounted Gondors, silver-white streaks appearing out of the darkness, lethal fingers of light reaching for the lander. Faster than Michael could think, Widowmaker's lasers hacked the missiles out of the attack… all but one. A single Gondor survived, smashing into Widowmaker, hitting on the port side well aft, the lander sagging and wallowing as systems alarms told Michael the bad news.
'Command, systems,' Chief Fodor said. 'Port cooling pump offline; not recoverable. Executing emergency shutdown of Fusion A.'
'Command, roger,' Michael said, ignoring a sudden stab of fear. Without Fusion A, the lander was down to one power plant, slow and vulnerable; he had to hope the missing Kingfishers stayed away.
Ferreira asked the obvious question. 'Abort?'
For a moment, Michael hesitated. Aborting meant leaving the NRA attack unsupported. Staying risked the precious lander. Screw it, he decided; they were there to fight. 'Negative, tac. Stay with it.'
'Tac, roger.'
Michael took a quick look at the holovid feed from Widowmaker's aft holocams as she climbed away, sluggish and unresponsive. Not a building was intact; some still had walls, but most were smoking ruins. Good one, he said to himself before looking at Widowmaker's next target: a cluster of armored vehicles trying to break through an NRA blocking force straddling the northern approaches to the town. Antiarmor clusterbots made short work of them, the Hammer armor vanishing underneath a rolling cloud of smoke and flame.
'Tac, tell our controller we have ordnance for one more run, so make it a good one.'
'Stand by… on the plot… target confirmed and accepted.'
Michael grunted when Mother reefed the lander around hard. Then the last target for the day was past and gone, a Hammer defensive position constructed around a cluster of wrecked storage silos disappearing behind boiling clouds of plascrete, torn apart by Widowmaker's cannons and lasers before iron bombs finished the job.
'Command, tac. Grapple Three Three says thanks. We can go home. Alley Kat and Hell Bent remaining on task.'
'Command, roger,' Michael said. 'Go!' he snapped, and Mother pushed the lander's remaining fusion plant to emergency power, pulling the lander around until Widowmaker ran south toward safety, the icons littering the threat plot turning a comforting orange as Mother eased the lander down, the ground below a chaotic mat of gray-
