turn our minds to part three: how the NRA gets what it needs. Okay?'
'Yes, sir,' Michael replied.
'Well?' she demanded. 'What are you waiting for?'
'Sorry, sir. Permission to carry on?'
'Go.'
'Sir,' Michael said.
He made his way back to his desk. Knowing that Adrissa had no magic wand to wave was frustrating, but at least she was not sitting on her ass moaning about being trapped on Commitment thanks to the actions of a mutinous young officer. Who knows, he decided, there might just be a way forward. As the man responsible for the Feds' current predicaments, who better than he to work out what that way forward was?
Energized and excited, he sat down. Closing his eyes, he started work. Friday, December 21, 2401, UD FLTDETCOMM, Branxton Base, Commitment
'… and that concludes my presentation,' Michael said. He scanned the faces of Adrissa and her staff. 'Are there any questions?'
'I have a couple, but I'll ask them at the end,' Adrissa said. 'Anyone else?'
'I have,' Commander Rasmussen, Adrissa's chief of staff, said.
'Go ahead, Commander.'
'Thank you, sir. Before I get to that, let me just say that I have no argument with the first part of your report. I think your analysis of the NRA's strategic and tactical situation is one hundred percent right. I also endorse your views on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Hammers and NRA. That said, let me focus on what I think is the single most important conclusion you have reached. From the day I was dumped on this asshole of a planet, I always assumed the one thing the NRA needed more than anything was ground-attack landers and air-superiority fighters. Give the NRA enough of them and they'd be on their way. Since then, I've seen nothing to change my mind. Bear with me a moment, but'-Rasmussen paused to look around-'can I just ask if that's how the rest of you see things?'
Heads nodded in unanimous agreement.
'Thought that was the case. So, Lieutenant Helfort, what makes you so sure that we were… are wrong?'
Michael's heart sank when he looked at Rasmussen's grim face, the set of his jaw uncompromising.
'Well, sir,' Michael said with more confidence than he felt his argument merited. 'It's because we were phrasing the question badly. The question is not, 'What's the best way to help the NRA win?' No, the question is, 'What can they procure and we supply that will enable them to win?' Sorry, I know it looks like semantics, but it's not. You are right, sir. I saw things the same way. If we could give the NRA landers and fliers, game over, but-'
'The problem is,' Rasmussen said, cutting Michael off, 'that there is no way to get the NRA the landers and fliers they need short of persuading a reluctant Fed government to send an invasion force complete with five marine air wings. That's the point, am I right?'
'Yes, sir. If landers and fliers are the only answer, I'm afraid this war will never end. The NRA will still be launching hit-and-run attacks on soft Hammer targets when we're all long gone. Assuming they last, which history shows they won't, of course. I'm no expert, but everything I've read on asymmetric warfare reinforces the same point. All the support the NRA receives from those poor bastards out there'-Michael hooked a thumb at a distant McNair-'is because they are successful, because success offers the promise of victory. But there comes a point where they have to deliver on that promise, when they have to win the war; otherwise, they lose that support. Then it's all over.'
'Stick to the point, Lieutenant,' Adrissa growled.
'Sorry, sir. You're right, Commander. Landers and fliers are one answer, the best answer. Sadly, it's not the right answer because we can never get them.'
'So that begs the next question, which is this,' Adrissa said. 'Why are surface-to-air missiles the right answer? Surely they are no easier to get hold of.'
'The NRA needs just one thing: to get into McNair,' Michael said, choosing his words with care; this was not the time to lose his audience. 'If they can achieve that, everything tells us that the Hammer government's power is so centralized in McNair that it collapses. We know that the clans controlling the other Hammer planets are already positioning themselves in anticipation of that day. Not that we care, because the Federation can easily deal with three independent Hammer worlds. So that tells us the question we should be trying to answer.'
Michael halted for a second, conscious that he had the undivided attention of everyone in the room. 'The real question is this: What can we do to enable the NRA to cross the Oxus floodplain and get to McNair with sufficient forces left intact to allow them to take the city? General Vaas's strategy has been right all along. Once the NRA is inside McNair, it's just a matter of time before it's game over. The Hammers' landers, fliers, and orbital kinetics are no good to them anymore. General Vaas says there are things that even the Hammer military won't do, and trashing their foundation city is one of them. Polk might give the order, but none of his people will obey him. Get the NRA into McNair and the Hammer's military advantage vanishes.'
'So what they need,' Rasmussen said, 'is a mobile air-defense shield to cover their advance out of the Branxtons, across the Oxus floodplain, and on into McNair.'
'Exactly, sir,' Michael replied. 'That's the good news, because missile batteries are easier to steal than landers, and Chief Chua tells me he can reverse engineer manufacturing templates for all the Hammer missiles in service. It would take time and effort, but microfabs can manufacture everything except the warheads and propellant. The bad news is this slide here… my modeling shows the NRA will need at a minimum five battalions of Gordians and fifteen of short-range Gondors to cover an NRA attack on McNair, not to mention Goombahs, Sampans, and Stabbers for local air and antiarmor defense. We can't ignore the marines' heavy armor, and any move on McNair will expose the NRA's flanks.'
A leaden quiet fell over the room. Michael was not surprised; that was a lot of ordnance. He glanced at Adrissa. 'You had some questions, sir?'
Adrissa shook her head. 'No, you've covered them. Comm your report to everyone in the room but make sure to put FedEyesOnly on it before you do. This is not the time to share this with General Vaas and his staff.'
'Hold on… right, that's done, sir.'
'Good. Right. We need to move on this fast. I want comments and criticisms back to Helfort within forty-eight hours. We'll reconvene, work our way through them, and have the report completed before this week's out. That's all, folks. Carry on, please.'
While the meeting broke up in a welter of subdued conversation, Adrissa beckoned Michael over.
'Sir?' he said.
'Well done, Michael,' Adrissa said. 'That was good work, very good.'
'Thank you, sir.'
'Don't thank me,' Adrissa said. 'Parts one and two were the easy bits. So get started on part three. Now that we understand the problem we're trying to solve, maybe we'll find a solution that works.'
'Sir.' Thursday, January 3, 2402, UD FLTDETCOMM, Branxton Base, Commitment
The rest of Adrissa's staff had long gone, but still Michael sat at his workstation, his mind worrying away at the challenge Adrissa had dumped in his lap. Exhaustion washed through him, a gray fog that blurred the problem into a chaotic mass of unrelated issues until he no longer knew what he was supposed to be looking at, until lines of analysis fell apart, until the faint voice of common sense told him he was wasting his time.
Not that he would anymore. He had wrestled with what Adrissa liked to call part three for the best part of two weeks, deep inside sure he was not close to finding the answer. Hell, he did not even know what the answer looked like. Problem was, Adrissa was not going to buy that; she was unhappy enough as it was with the time he was taking.
Michael rubbed eyes gritty from too many hours spent laboring in front of a holovid screen. Enough was enough, he decided. He still did not have the answer, and if Adrissa did not like that simple fact, so be it.
He closed his progress report. He snorted softly: lack-of-progress report more accurately. Stamping it for Adrissa's eyes only, he commed it to FLTDETCOMM's mailbox with strict instructions that it be delivered no earlier than 08:00 the next day. He was leaving for a badly needed weekend off with Anna in an hour, and the last thing he wanted was Adrissa dragging him back into the office to tear strips off him.
'Wake up, Lieutenant. We're coming up to Mike-44.'
'Uh, what?' Michael mumbled, for a moment totally disoriented. 'Oh, thanks,' he said to the corporal responsible
