'Dead,' Michael croaked, fighting for breath. 'I'm the last.'
'Right, go! The vehicle park's going to blow in less than a minute, and the engineers have to bring this tunnel down before it does.'
Michael needed no encouragement, taking off as fast as he could with Anna close behind, twisting past the security point and the squad of engineers waiting to blow the tunnel in. On and on they ran, ignoring the sudden whump when the tunnel blew behind them. The vehicle park's demise was another matter; nobody could ignore the bone-shattering crack when the demolition charges laid with such care by the combat engineers ripped apart the fusion plants used to power the laser rock cutters and other heavy equipment. The shock knocked the pair off their feet, and Michael knew with a terrible certainty that the whole tunnel was going to cave in. Eyes screwed shut, heart racing, mouth dry with fear, his left arm thrown across Anna's back, he waited for the awful pain that tons of rock would inflict when it smashed into his back.
The rocks never came.
An age after the ground stopped shaking, Anna rolled away from Michael and sat up. Trembling with shock, he stared at her, wondering why his right arm hurt all of a sudden. Anna was a mess: chromaflage cape a tattered wreck, assault rifle held in a bloody hand, face streaked with grime, a thick slash of dried blood drawing a black line down her left cheek to where a second gash along her jaw line had splashed blood into her combat overalls, the plasfiber fabric ripped and torn.
'Well,' Anna said. 'I think that's us done for the day, don't you?'
'There you go, Lieutenant,' the medic said.
'Thanks,' Michael said, still astounded that shrapnel fragments could slice so many gashes into his arm and inflict such little pain when they did; at the time, the wound had barely even registered, the pain lost in the frantic race to survive. It looked a lot worse than it was, and the medics said he would have full use of the arm again inside a month. He knew how lucky he had been. A few centimeters to the left and the shrapnel would have slipped past his combat armor and down into his chest, a wound he could never have survived.
Far too many had not been so lucky. He had not seen the final casualty reports, but from what he had seen with his own eyes during the Juliet-24 operation, they were sure to make grim reading. Getting to see a medic had been a long process thanks to the flood of wounded returning from the NRA's counterattacks on the Hammer's three major beachheads, not to mention those caught up in a host of minor operations, what Anna liked to call 'harass and run' attacks.
She was waiting for him outside, the gashes on her face freshly dressed. 'Okay?'
'Flesh wound. I'll live.'
'Glad to hear it. I have some bad news.'
Michael grimaced. How much worse could things get, for chrissakes? 'Go on.'
'The Hammer attack on Mike sector hit the 120th hard and D Company worst of all. Of all their attacks, it came the closest to breaking through, and the 120th did a great job throwing them back, but at one hell of a cost. I'm sorry, Michael… Janos Kallewi did not make it.'
Michael sagged back against the tunnel wall as though kicked in the stomach. He stared at Anna. 'What do you mean he didn't make it?'
'He was killed this morning during the Hammer's initial assault.'
'How? How could that be?' Michael shook his head; what Anna said made no sense. 'He wasn't fit for combat. Last time I saw him he was in a damn wheelchair! How could he-' Michael stopped, choked by emotion, unable to speak, eyes flooding with tears. 'Are you sure?' he whispered.
'Yes, I'm sure, and I know he wasn't fit,' Anna said, her voice gentle. 'Seems he refused to sit around while the 120th fought for its life. Janos told the rehab staff to get out of his way, and somehow he made his way to the front line, who knows how, but he did. He was killed leading a counterattack. It was quick, Michael, and Janos died doing what he believed in.'
Numbed by the news, Michael shook his head. 'No,' he whispered. 'He died because of me… someone else whose death is my fault,' he added, voice hoarse with grief. 'I was his captain. I promised I'd get him home. I promised! How many more, Anna? How many?'
'For chrissakes, Michael! No, you can't think like that. We've been over this a hundred times. Kallewi was his own man, and he made his own decisions. That's all there is to say.'
Michael shook his head again. 'No, it's not.' There was a long pause. 'Who else, Anna?' he said.
'I'll comm you the full list. Altogether the 120th lost nine from Redwood's marine detachment and eighteen POWs from J-5209. Two of Hell Bent's crew, including Dev Acharya, and thirteen from FLTDETCOMM didn't make it.'
'Dev Acharya? Oh, no,' Michael muttered, misery and guilt crumpling his face into a tortured mask. 'That's forty-two Feds, all dead because of me.'
'Not true!' Anna snapped. 'The Hammers killed them, not you. Now listen, Michael, enough of the self-pity shit. There's a fucking war on here, and whether we fight and die out in space or fight and die down here in the dirt alongside the NRA makes no difference. None! Not one of those forty-two joined up to sit on their asses while the Hammers destroy the Federated Worlds. Our duty is to fight the Hammers, and that's what we've been doing, even if it took a mutiny to make it happen this way. That's it, Michael; that's it, for chrissakes. Our duty is to fight; that's what we have to do, and that's what we've been doing. Sadly, that means…' Her voice trailed away into silence.
Michael stood silent for a long time. 'I know all that, Anna,' he said eventually, his voice steady. 'I know what our duty is, and you're right. Doesn't matter where we fight-'
'As long as we fight, Michael. It doesn't matter where we fight the Hammers as long as we fight. Say it!'
Michael nodded. 'As long as we fight.'
'So believe it, Michael,' Anna said. 'And you know what?'
'No, what?'
'Your mutiny was wrong in so many ways-'
'Shit, you can say that again!' Michael said, wiping the tears from his eyes.
'-but it was right in one way, maybe the only way that matters. If our gutless politicians won't take the fight to the Hammers, then someone has to, and that someone happens to be us. There's nobody else, Michael. So accept responsibility for what's happened and move on. We have a war to win, and sitting around wallowing in self-pity and guilt is not going to help us do that.'
'Hey,' Michael protested. 'Don't hold back, Anna. Tell me straight, why don't you.'
'Somebody has to, Michael Helfort, somebody has to.' Her face softened. 'Come on. Coffee and something to eat, then I need to report back to the 120th. Even though we've given the Hammers one hell of a kicking, something tells me we're not out of the woods yet.'
Michael sighed. 'Okay. Lead on,' he said. Monday, January 14, 2402, UD FLTDETCOMM administrative center, Branxton Base, Commitment
Michael closed Anna's latest vidcomm, more relieved than he liked to admit to hear that her regiment had been pulled out of the line at long last, the 120th reduced by a week's bitter fighting to a shattered shell of its former self, every last trooper left alive wounded, Anna included. Michael winced when he saw the impressive bandage she sported across the right side of her face; more dramatic than it looked, she had assured him, and nothing to worry about, though she might be left with a tiny scar.
Of course, Anna being Anna, he had not believed any of her assurances, not for one second. Still, she looked okay, and she had been promoted to lieutenant; Third Platoon, C Company, First Battalion, 120th NRA was her new command. Not bad, thought Michael, considering she had been a trooper only weeks before.
It had been a harrowing week for the NRA, operation following operation as ENCOMM fought to persuade the Hammers that any hope they might have had of destroying the NRA's heartland was gone, drowned in an ocean of blood. After the brutally successful, if costly, attacks on the Hammer's three beachheads, ENCOMM had returned the NRA to doing what the NRA did best: hit and run. Exploiting the fact that the Hammers' forces were bogged down around their beachheads, it had launched a relentless succession of operations, small unit attacks mounted from sally ports that appeared from walls of limestone rock, attacks that came and went before the Hammers could mount an effective response. The attacks had been devastating: Hammer units were decimated, then decimated again and again, their casualties measured by the thousand, access routes mined, infrastructure blown apart, equipment and supplies destroyed. One operation mounted by the 185th at night in the middle of a torrential storm
