'Yes, sir,' Michael muttered; at times Anna was more marine than the marines were.
He moved until he had an uninterrupted view of his half of the clearing. Then, with excruciating care, he scanned the area, his optronics hunting for the telltale shape and faint infrared signature of a microsensor. There was nothing, so he repeated the process a second and third time until he was certain the area was clear. Edging back under the vine, he waited until Anna had finished.
'I've seen nothing,' he said. 'You?'
'Not a damn thing,' Anna replied. 'No sensors here.'
'Problem is, the Hammers know we're around.'
'Yes, they do,' Anna said, 'but they will also know that there are only a few of us, a section at most.'
'So, the question is this,' Michael said. 'Are a few NRA troopers worth bothering about?'
'Knowing the Hammers, yes, they are,' Anna said. 'They are going to bomb the crap out of every last square centimeter of the Branxtons if they have to. Not that it matters. We can't go on like this. If they're seeding this area with sensors, we can run all we like; they'll get us in the end, most likely with one of those fuel-air bombs they love so much. We're safe here, so we can just drop out of sight to hide out until the Hammers lose interest. If they find us…' Anna's voice trailed off into silence.
Michael nodded. He knew what Anna was trying to say. 'I checked on the way in. If we're flushed out, there's a small bluff upstream. If the Hammers look like finding us, we'll fall back to that. They'll have trouble getting at us, and with a bit of luck we'll take…'
It was Michael's turn to choke. Wordlessly, he reached over to take Anna in his arms. He held her tight for a long time. 'Not quite what I planned, Anna,' he said, pushing her back to look her right in the face.
'What do you mean?'
'This.' Michael waved a hand around their hideout. 'Hiding from the Hammers. Knowing that we're dead if they catch us. I'm sorry, Anna,' he said, his voice cracking under the guilt. 'I'm so sorry I dragged you into this. I-'
'Shut up! Shut up!' Anna hissed, her eyes filling with tears. 'At least we're together. Better one day with you than a lifetime without.'
'You mean that?' Michael said, stunned by the raw emotion in her voice.
'Yes, Michael Helfort, I do.' Tuesday, November 27, 2401, UD Branxton Ranges, south of Perdan, Commitment
Michael awoke with a start, utterly lost. 'What the mmmp-phhh!' he spluttered when Anna clamped her hand over his mouth.
'Stand to,' she whispered. 'Company.'
Michael stifled a curse. Save for a single Hammer foot patrol that had crossed the stream a good 300 meters above their lay-up position without stopping, they had not seen a soul. Before he turned in, Michael had allowed himself to hope that they would soon be able to resume their march back to the Branxtons and safety. Moving carefully, he eased into position alongside Anna.
'What's up?'
'Hammer recon drones. I'd say they're screening a ground unit doing a sweep upstream.'
'Why? Why now?' he muttered, squinting hard into the gloom. Michael heard the drones passing overhead and then the Hammer grunts before he saw them. His heart sank when he spotted their blurred, chromaflaged shapes working their way slowly through the trees toward them in a loose arrowhead formation, the line pausing as possible hiding places were searched.
'Platoon strength,' he said. He did not fancy his and Anna's chances; the vine-covered tree was too obvious a hideout. The Hammers were sure to search it, and if they did, they would have to be blind to miss them; Hammer optronics were not that bad. All of a sudden, their original plan-to head for the bluff and die fighting-did not seem so attractive. 'Anna,' he hissed. 'We need to go before they get too close.'
'Agreed. Go!'
Michael and Anna slithered out of the scrape, working their way through the brush in an awkward, scrambling crawl in a frantic race to get clear and still stay undetected. Throwing a glance over his shoulder, Michael saw the Hammers had closed the gap; even taking his time, a man on foot was faster than one on his belly. This was one race they were not going to win. If they kept crawling, he and Anna had maybe ten minutes before the Hammers overran them. If they made a run for it, the firepower of a platoon of Hammers would make short work of them. They would not get 20 meters before the drones picked them up.
'Anna,' Michael said. 'We have to think of something. This won't work.'
'Working on it. Keep going.'
Michael was out of ideas, so he did the only thing he could: He had to trust Anna and keep moving. She had been angling uphill; they had gone perhaps 50 meters when she pointed at a thin cleft between two rocks among a large outcrop of boulders.
'You're kidding, Anna,' he muttered. Her choice was a good one, though. The Hammer search line would split to flow around the outcrop; provided that they did not look back, they might get away with it.
'We're not going to do any better than this, so you first, then me on top. If we're lucky, the chromaflage should do the job. They won't think of looking in there.'
'We hope,' Michael said as he backed himself in between the boulders. Adjusting his chromaflage and settling his helmet down to leave only the tiniest gap to keep an eye on things, he tried not to wince while Anna, getting herself into position fast clearly uppermost in her mind, not his well-being, squirmed over him. Anna's hand found his; she squeezed hard. Squeezing back before putting their wrists together, he made sure his rifle was to hand and resigned himself to his fate. He commed Anna. 'I love you,' he said.
'Love you, too,' she replied, 'but it's time to concentrate.'
Chastened, Michael shut up. Soon it became obvious that the Hammers were less than enamored with their mission. The company NCOs maintained a steady stream of sotto voce orders: speed up, slow down, keep spacing, check this, check that, and so on. No way to run a sweep, Michael reckoned. A couple of well-positioned platoons could inflict terrible damage on the Hammers before they could react. They must be confident that there were no NRA units around to be so careless. Much encouraged, Michael allowed himself to hope.
Then the first Hammers were on them. They walked past, heads swinging from side to side as they scanned the ground, the nearest so close that Michael imagined he could smell the man's sweat. He held his breath, willing them on, his heart pounding so hard that he had trouble believing the nearest rifleman could not hear it. Slowly, ever so slowly, they moved past.
An eon later, the last of the Hammers had vanished, and Michael allowed himself to believe that they had gotten away with it. 'Let's go,' he said.
Anna scrambled out, and Michael followed, stretching hard to get the blood flowing into cramped limbs. 'Now what?' he said.
'We follow them.' Anna pointed upstream.
'What?'
'Sounds crazy, but-'
'Sounds crazy? For chrissakes, Anna! It is crazy.'
Anna shook her head. 'No, it's not. The Hammers have been dropping sensors by the landerload. If we trigger any and as long as they can't see us, they'll think what they are hearing is part of that patrol. They're noisy enough. More to the point, they are heading the way we want to go.'
'Okay,' Michael said, face creased with concern. 'If you're sure.'
Anna's mouth tightened into a thin line, what Michael liked to call her 'why are you arguing with me' look. 'I'm sure,' she said. 'Provided we stay close but not too close, this'll work.' Without another word she settled her pack, adjusted her chromaflage cape, and set off.
With a sigh, Michael followed.
Long hours later, Michael had to concede that Anna had been right. His neuronics had repeatedly picked up the characteristic warbling of microsensor radios reporting activity back to whoever was controlling the Hammer ground operation. They would have been dead meat blundering around the forest had they not been following what had to be the noisiest soldiers ever. Patrol discipline was non ex is tent; Michael and Anna had been able to tuck themselves in close behind. There they stayed while the patrol worked its way south, every kilometer taking them a kilometer closer to safety, climbing steadily out of the foothills and into the Branxtons proper, the forest broken open by a mixture of grassy glades interspersed with clumps of scrubby trees and granite outcrops.
