City of McNair, Commitment Planet
“The Feds have done what?” Merrick roared. “Put a ship into orbit around one of our planets? And sent a lander dirtside? I don’t fucking believe it! What in Kraa’s name do those stupid bastards think they are doing? I want a full report together with your recommended response within the hour!”
Merrick slammed the phone down on his long-suffering councillor for war and external security. As if he didn’t already have enough to worry about.
Kraa-dammed Feds. The bastards had put an Abydos class deepspace heavy patrol ship in orbit around Hammer 14-1. It was way too big for a genuine survey operation, as the Feds claimed it was, but not small enough to be pushed around.
Why, for Kraa’s sake, why? What were the Feds up to now?
Maybe he’d missed something. Merrick grunted as he pulled up the file on the planet 14-1. He snorted derisively as he quickly scanned the data. No, he hadn’t missed anything. It was a miserable apology for a planet. Thanks to a severely elliptical orbit, it was a frozen inhospitable waste most of the time, scoured by endless storms that ripped its methane/ nitrogen atmosphere apart, the sky thick with the sulfurous smoke and dust belched out from the thousands of active volcanoes that punctuated a planetary surface wracked with endless earthquakes triggered by two massive moons orbiting far too close for comfort. A worthless piece of dirt.
And yet, and yet. Slow down, Merrick, and think this through, he told himself.
It was becoming harder and harder for him to ignore the possibility that somehow the Feds had found out about the Mumtaz and were about to do something about it. In fact, that was the only scenario that made sense. The problem was that all he knew for a fact was that the Feds were mounting an operation code-named Corona under the command of a Vice Admiral Jaruzelska. Exactly what Corona was, nobody could tell him. But if Corona really was about the Mumtaz, he was stuck. The mountain of deceit he had erected around the whole affair had trapped him. To admit that he knew what the Feds might be up to would be to put a bullet in his head.
Polk and his gang would see to that.
So why should he take the chance unless he had to? There was always the possibility that the Feds were simply trying it on. They had been known to put pressure on the Hammer for no good reason at all. No, he had no choice. He had to keep quiet and try to hold things together until the time was right to announce the success of the Eternity project and reap the enormous political and social rewards that would follow. In fact, maybe it was time to call Digby back to start constructing the elaborate cover story that would be needed if he was to be able to claim that it was the Hammer and the Hammer alone that was responsible for the successful and speedy terraforming of Eternity. And if word had leaked…
The more Merrick thought it through, the clearer the way forward became. Get something heavy to Hammer-14 to make it clear to the damn Feds that they’d be blown to hell if they didn’t withdraw. In the meantime, get the usual pointless exchange of protest notes going and use the incident to take people’s minds off what was going on in Kantzina. But stretch things out. Kraa’s blood. He needed as much time as he could get.
The necessary calls having been made to put the wheels in motion, Merrick turned his attention back to the unhappy subject of the civil unrest on Faith. Despite its impressive bulk, the report from Major General Barbosa, COMGEN-MARFOR-3, was unable to conceal the simple fact that even with the dispatch of an additional battalion of marines, the situation on Faith was slowly but surely sliding out of control. Resistance was hardening as the locals began to realize that although marines were tough, very well trained, and very dangerous, they were not invincible. With thorough preparation, good leadership, and a bit of luck, all underwritten by a willingness to accept heavy casualties, they could be taken on with some success.
The previous week had seen a major heretic assault in Kantzina’s eastern suburbs, the first attack that showed signs of careful planning based on accurate intelligence supported by good staff work. Even though the attack had had no chance against the well-dug-in marines of 5 Brigade, for once prepared with their own accurate and timely intelligence, the butcher’s bill had been too high, with the heretics leaving no fewer than 245 marine casualties behind them as they were finally thrown back in bloody confusion. That had happened only because 5 Brigade’s reserve armor had sliced deep into the northern flank of the attack to leave the heretics, cut off and isolated, to be pounded into dust by the marines’ ground attack fliers.
But 5 Brigade’s casualties in that particular encounter weren’t the end of it. They were on top of mounting DocSec casualties in Ksedicja and, worst of all, in Cascadia, home of the Great Schism. Merrick knew it would get worse before it got better. He suspected that whoever was behind the latest Kantzina assault wouldn’t make the same mistakes the second time around, and that meant many more marines shipped home in body bags. But 5 Brigade’s commander seemed to have his shit together, so maybe he was being too pessimistic. Even so, it was damn hard to be anything else.
Not for the first time he cursed Polk and his willful stupidity. “Chief Councillor Herris is a trusted servant of Kraa, and he would not tolerate corruption and cronyism.” Polk’s words came back to him as though they had been spoken only yesterday. “Well, they’ll see,” Merrick muttered savagely. Herris had rightly paid the ultimate price, and maybe Polk would, too. All he had to do was somehow keep a lid on Faith and on the Mumtaz affair and hope to Kraa that the Feds hadn’t found out, and maybe, just maybe, he’d get through things.
Maybe more marines was the only answer, short of walking away, that was. He had to bring the unrest to an end. He turned his attention back to the mound of papers on his desk, his decision to recall Digby forgotten for the moment.