gratifyingly short space of time he was making his way down tumbled rocks. A small team of engineers was putting a blast door in place across the entrance; C Company was waiting in a cave down the cross-tunnel, they said.
The company was a sobering sight, the walls of the cave lined with troopers, most slumped asleep, those still awake staring grim-faced at nothing. Nobody talked. Michael felt for them; the coming battle was one the NRA had to win. Problem was, its chances of defeating all those Hammer marines with only two brigades could not be good; all military logic said so. He found Anna talking to C Company's commander.
'Lieutenant Helfort, sir,' he said.
'Welcome to C Company, Lieutenant. I'm Captain Hrelitz.'
If Hrelitz shared Michael's doubts, she was not letting it show. 'Not long now,' she continued, a woman undaunted by the day's terrible events. 'ENCOMM says we'll have the charges placed inside the hour, and then I think we'll be showing the Hammers why taking us on on our home turf was a bad idea.'
'Can't wait, sir,' Michael said.
Hrelitz laughed and slapped him on the back. 'You worry too much, Lieutenant.'
Michael shook his head. 'Not sure I do. There's a shitload of Hammers out there.'
'What are we looking at, sir?' Anna asked. 'When the 120th was briefed, ENCOMM said we'd be facing a hundred thousand of them.'
'Intel says that's about right. That's the bad news.'
'There's good news?' Anna said, face tightened into a skeptical frown.
'Oh, yes. ENCOMM says our Gordians hacked at least twenty of those damn landers of theirs out of the attack. That the bastards did not expect.'
'Shit,' Michael hissed. 'Twenty landers? That's a lot of dead Hammer marines.'
'Yup, it sure is,' Hrelitz said with a savage grin. 'Thousands. When will they ever learn not to take us for granted? The other good news is that the Hammers launched three major and five diversionary attacks. We've stopped every one of them, but ENCOMM has just confirmed that the Hammers put something like twenty-five thousand of them into the attack on this sector.'
Michael and Anna exchanged glances.
'Sounds like a lot, eh?' Hrelitz said.
'Twenty-five thousand is a lot,' Anna said firmly, 'especially as we can only muster, what? Eight thousand?'
'No, no,' Hrelitz said, shaking her head. 'We'll have more than that. ENCOMM's scraped the barrel big-time. The 176th, 44th, and 13th are being transferred from Echo and Kilo sectors.'
'Hey, outnumbered less than three to one,' Michael said. 'What a relief. Why was I worried?'
'My sort of odds,' Hrelitz said with a huge grin.
When Anna and Michael responded with halfhearted smiles, the grin faded to a look of grim determination. 'Look, guys,' Hrelitz said. 'I know what you're thinking, but there's more to this than you realize. We're not facing twenty-five thousand marines, not directly, anyway. About twenty percent are rear echelon. Kraa! Maybe even thirty percent. Lander crews, logistics, intelligence, technicians, c-cubed staff, the combat engineers they used to break through our defenses… Shit, the list is endless. One more thing. Most of these Hammer marines haven't seen serious action in twenty years. They've left those poor bastards in the PGDF to do almost all the fighting, and yes, the average marine is tough and well trained, but let me tell you, they are nothing like as tough as an NRA trooper.'
'Fair point, sir,' Anna said, 'but… yes, that still leaves what? More than seventeen thousand of the sonsofbitches waiting for us, not to mention all their armor, artillery, drones, and landers.'
'Well, then, we'll just have to see, won't we?' Hrelitz said. 'I'm not much of a betting woman, Sergeant, but my money's on the NRA. We need this. The Hammers don't. Remember that. Now, enough talk. Anna, I want you to take over Second Platoon. You'll find them down the back somewhere. Ask for Corporal Gur. He knows you're coming.'
'Sir.'
'You might as well go along, Lieutenant,' Hrelitz said, turning to Michael. 'I know you can handle an assault rifle, and the Second has taken a bit of a beating.'
'Fine by me, sir,' Michael said, feeling anything but fine. After the transcendent peace of his and Anna's weekend escape, the day had turned into the stuff of his worst nightmares. It was not going to get any better. Screw it, he thought, too drained to worry about what might happen. Shouldering his rifle, he set off after Anna.
'Right, any questions?' Anna paused, looking at each of her subordinates in turn. 'No? Okay, good. Right, we jump off in sixty minutes, so section commanders, make sure everyone's fed, canteens topped up, gear checked, and ready to go. You know the drill. And one more thing. The Hammers' tunneling machines have dumped loads of caustic dust outside the portal, and the barbecues won't have burned it all off. So watch out for any white stuff lying around and make sure your masks are secure; trust me when I say you don't want any in your lungs. Okay, that's it.'
Michael watched Anna's platoon break up in subdued confusion; they were the roughest collection of soldiers he had ever seen, combat overalls tattered, faces streaked with dirt, hair tangled with sweat and dust. Rough, maybe, Michael thought, but the burning intensity in their eyes more than made up for it. Anna waved one of them over, a tall woman with eyes so dark that they were almost black, her body, like that of most NRA troopers, painfully thin.
'Michael, meet Lance Corporal Ketaki Sadotra. She has Yankee section.'
'Corporal Sadotra,' Michael said as he and Sadotra shook hands.
'Welcome to Second Platoon, C Company, sir,' Sadotra said. 'The sergeant says I'm to keep an eye on you.'
'Oh, right,' Michael said, acutely aware of how inexperienced he must seem.
'You have three things to remember, Michael,' Anna said. 'Just three things, okay?'
'Three things. Got it.'
'One, stay close to this woman. Two, do what she says, no arguments. Three, shoot as many Hammers as you can, and if you can't find one of them to shoot, shoot down a drone instead. Is that understood?'
'Yes, Sarge,' Michael said.
'Good. Do that and we'll all be happy,' Anna said. 'All right, Corp, I want to borrow your rookie for a while. You'll get him back by 21:30. Sorry to turn you into a baby-sitter, Corporal, but he can at least shoot.'
'Roger that, Sergeant. Anyone who can kill Hammers is fine by me. See you later, sir,' Sadotra said to Michael with a grin. With a casual wave of the hand, she turned and followed the rest of the platoon.
'Gee, thanks for that,' Michael said with a scowl. 'Bit old for a baby-sitter, don't you think?'
'No, I don't,' Anna said with a firm shake of the head. 'Trust me. What comes next is like nothing you've ever been through before. You'll be scared witless, you'll be confused, and all your experience captaining dreadnoughts will not count for a pinch of shit out there. Don't think I'm saying this because I love you and all that romantic bull dust.'
'Hey,' Michael protested.
'Well, maybe partly,' Anna conceded, 'but it's more because I need everyone in Two Platoon to do their bit, and as long as Lance Corporal Sadotra keeps you pointed in the right direction, I know you won't let me down.'
'I'm not sure whether you've just insulted or praised me,' Michael said, 'but in the interests of our long-term happiness I'll assume the latter.'
'Good call. Right, Michael, chow time,' Anna said, pointing down the tunnel toward the mobile canteen, the NRA's term for a ramshackle cart carrying a vat of gruel and a coffeebot.
'Not for me, thanks.'
'Listen up, soldier,' Anna said. 'It might be a long time before we get to eat, and a smart trooper never argues with his platoon commander.'
Michael was about to do just that when the determined set of Anna's jaw changed his mind. She might be the love of his life, but right now she was Sergeant Helfort and he was a no-account trooper.
'Yes, Sarge,' he said, face creased into a frown of resignation.
'That's better. Come on.'
Collecting a bowl of gruel-garlic chicken, according to the skinny kid in charge of the canteen-and a large mug
