'What do you think?' Anna whispered.
'Something's happening. I think they've been retasked.'
'Looks like it. Another intercept, I'd say. Must have been a big one to get that lot off their fat useless asses.'
In front of them, the Hammers were breaking camp in a flurry of activity leavened with liberal doses of invective from unhappy corporals, the platoon's recon drones bursting into noisy life before climbing away into the sky. Michael smiled to himself while he watched. The platoon commander, a tall man with an accent that marked him as a native of Faith planet, sat with his NCOs around him, clearly planning whatever came next. Michael ached to blow his head off, the man's shock of red hair a target even he could not miss.
Ten minutes later and the patrol was on the move, this time in a column and moving fast, their screen of recon drones pushed out ahead of them in a loose line abreast. No need to worry about losing contact, Michael realized as they fell in behind. A herd of blind buffalo made less noise than these Hammers. Their casual indifference to their surroundings spoke volumes for their confidence; these men had no doubt they were in safe territory. To some extent, Michael had discounted the NRA assessments of the Hammer's planetary defense force-poorly led and badly trained and with rock-bottom morale was the NRA's view-but now that he had seen it for himself, he knew they were on the money. Even so, he reminded himself, the PGDF outnumbered the NRA, and they had more artillery, better communications, and an air force, not to mention marine armor and ground-attack landers to back them up when things turned bad. So, substandard or not, the PGDF was still a serious threat.
Two hours later, the patrol disappeared over the crest of a ridge, a broken line of rock 10 or so meters high. Crawling forward, Anna and Michael peered down into the valley beyond, which was lightly wooded and thickly studded with boulders tossed down from the ridgelines. The cause of the patrol's abrupt redeployment was obvious. A kilometer or so upstream from their position, the Hammers were setting up for a major operation; the valley floor was a hive of activity, swarming with soldiers, the air overhead full of recon and attack drones.
'That's their rally point,' Anna said. 'They're pulling in all the patrols they've had looking for people like us.'
'Oh, for an attack lander or two,' Michael breathed.
'Amen to that,' Anna whispered back. 'Shit, they're slack. Unbelievable. No air defense, pickets in way too close, no remote sensor chain that I can detect. Seems they are happy to rely on the feeds from their recon drones.'
'So what do we do?'
'Wait and watch. All this effort means there must be a target somewhere close, one they don't want to spook; otherwise we'd be seeing landers landing and taking off. So, what? Five klicks away? Something like that. When they start to move, we'll get an idea of the direction. We need to try to get ahead of them and warn the good guys.'
'Sounds like a plan.' Thursday, November 29, 2401, UD Branxton Ranges, south of Perdan, Commitment
Chest heaving and lungs burning, Michael ran hard after Anna, her chromaflaged form all but invisible in the darkness while it ducked and weaved through the thin, woody scrub, his optronics-boosted eyes scanning for any sign of life. Be damn stupid, he said to himself, to come all this way and get shot by an NRA trooper.
That was the flaw in the plan. They knew where the Hammers were. They knew roughly in what direction they were heading, but they had no idea where the NRA was, their only clue a wild-assed guess how far less-than- motivated planetary defense soldiers could be persuaded to walk to their start line. So now, rather than tailing the Hammers, they were trying to stay ahead of them but not so far ahead that they blundered into the waiting NRA, a process a hundred times more difficult.
Confident that they were clear, Anna stopped. 'Over here,' she whispered, pointing to a clump of bushes.
They waited until the unmistakable sound of Hammer recon drones on the move broke the silence. 'Moving more south, I think.'
'They are. Let's go.'
They were off again, the stop-and-go process repeated until the group Michael and Anna had been tracking-an entire battalion, he reckoned-dropped down to take up positions in a line across what was, according to Michael's map, the valley of the River Kendozo, here little more than a stream.
Michael watched the Hammers start to organize themselves, a large number of crew-served weapons-mortars, missile launchers, heavy machine guns-setting up under chromaflage netting, all pointing upstream. 'They're a blocking force,' he said.
'Yup, which means the good guys are that way,' Anna said, pointing up the valley. 'Looks to me like the Hammers are going to try to drive our guys downstream onto this lot's guns; anyone who tries to break out of the valley will get picked off by attack drones and landers. Simple.'
'So what do we do?' Michael said.
'We can keep heading south, or we can try to screw the Hammers' operation. Which?'
Everything told Michael, 'Go south, go south.' How were two people to change the outcome of this battle? The NRA had been harassed and hounded every step of the way back from Perdan by landers. Its troopers must be exhausted, many wounded; they had few, if any, heavy weapons; and the Hammers outnumbered them by a huge margin. This was one battle the NRA could never win.
'Easy,' Michael said, all of a sudden sick of the endless running. 'We screw the Hammers.'
'Knew that's what you'd say, you sonofabitch,' Anna said with a grin. 'So how do we do that and live long enough to tell people what heroes we are?'
'Hell, I don't know. You're the closest thing to a marine around here. You tell me.'
'Hmmm… there's only one thing we can do: force the Hammers to go early, before they are ready. That should buy the good guys enough time to disperse before those goddamned landers turn up. You have any microgrenades?'
Michael checked his pouches. 'Two magazines of ten.'
'Same. That should be enough. Let me see… yes. Okay, here's the plan…'
With a flat crack, the microgrenade arced away into space, a blurred black dot plummeting into the valley, with four more following in quick succession. Michael did not wait to see what happened next; clawing his way across the scree, he threw himself under cover as a storm of mortar fire dropped onto the outcrop he had been hiding behind, rock splinters plucking at his body armor as he dived for cover. 'You sonsofbitches,' he shouted, flinching when another salvo smashed home. The Hammers might be second-rate, but there was nothing wrong with their counterbattery systems.
The instant Anna opened fire, Michael was on the move again to a new firing position on the ridge, the air torn apart by the sound of more counterbattery fire. Trying not to think what a single mortar shell could do to Anna's body, he settled himself and aimed carefully. This time he could not help himself. He watched the second salvo of microgrenades climb into the sky before dropping among the Hammers, the valley walls echoing with the flat, slapping crack of grenades exploding, screams of pain rewarding the wait.
'Suck that, you fuckers,' he whispered, hurling himself downslope out of his firing position in a mad tumbling slide to the safety of a large outcrop of rock an instant before the ridgeline erupted, his hands clawing at the ground when a second salvo arrived. At least their mortars were accurate, he muttered under his breath, climbing to his feet when Anna fired her last salvo. He would not have been around if they had not been. Cursing his own stupidity-though it felt good to see Hammers die-he raced on to the rendezvous point, the hillside behind him erupting when more mortar shells ravaged the mountainside. Morons, Michael thought, stunned by the incompetence of Hammer commanders. They must have assumed there were no NRA elements behind them; why else would they have the northern flank screened only by recon drones, and precious few of them?
Breathing hard, his adrenaline-charged body made short work of the 500 meters to a gully that cut down to the valley floor downstream of the Hammers. Anna was already there, holed up under cover of the stream bank, safely out of sight of the drones overhead, the flat crack of laser fire splitting the air as they fired on anything their optronics thought might be a worthwhile target.
'What kept you?' Anna snapped.
Michael knew better than to answer; wordlessly he slapped his last microgrenade magazine into his rifle.
'Let's go,' Anna said, and they were off again, easing their way down the gully to the valley floor, stopping only
