Nerves jangling, Michael slid backward with infinite care, his every movement slow and deliberate, paced to ensure that he never overtaxed his chromaflage, that nothing except the sounds and sights of the forest reached the line of holocams and acoustic sensors the Hammers had strung across their path.
Once out of sight of the boulders and well clear of the sensor line, he and Anna turned. Moving fast now, they made their way to the end of the line of Hammer sensors before turning south again.
Finally clear, Anna stopped and waved Michael forward. "Okay?" she whispered.
"Yup."
"I think we're clear. Your neuronics picking up any radio transmissions?"
"No, still nothing."
"Good. That means the Hammers haven't air-dropped any remote sensors. Let's go."
With that, she was on her feet, moving quietly through the trees, the need for speed tempered by the need to stay quiet. The NRA knew the locations of the Hammers' fixed sensor lines; where they might have dropped thousands of short-lived microsensors to try to pick up the retreating NRA was another matter. Scattered at random in the thousands in the aftermath of any big NRA operation, the microsensors were card-sized boxes packed with a wide-angle holocam and microphone, an optical and acoustic signal processor, a power supply good for a week's operation, and a simple radio transmitter, all attached to a cable and cross-frame aerial designed to snag in the trees. Simple, cheap, and crude-just like the Hammers, Michael always thought-the microsensors would hang in the trees waiting to shout for help if something out of the ordinary walked past.
All Michael could hope was that they never ran into one; the Branxton Ranges was a big place, and even the Hammers could not cover every square meter of it with microsensors.
For hour after hour they did not stop, crossing a series of valleys and ridges until Anna declared herself satisfied they were clear and called a halt. Michael was beginning not to care much; his left leg was mounting its usual protest. Dropping to the ground, he fumbled around in a pocket until he found his supply of painkillers-his drugbots had run out long since-swallowing a couple with a welcome drink from his canteen.
"What a life," he muttered. "Wha-"
Michael's neuronics screamed a sudden warning, and without thinking, he was on his feet, dragging Anna with him. "You get that?" he said as they started to run.
"Yup. Bastards have pinged us," Anna said while they plunged through the undergrowth away from the radio transmissions detected by their neuronics. "Those sensors were real close. All we can do is go like hell and hope they're slow to turn up. They'll be getting a lot of these intercepts."
"Optimist," Michael said, beginning to breathe hard.
"Come on, faster," was Anna's response.
Michael ran as he had never run before, launching himself into a pounding, driving relentless plunge through the tangled undergrowth and down into the valley bottom, slipping and sliding across water-slicked rocks, forcing a path back up to the ridge, cursing when roots snagged boots, when branches slashed savage welts into exposed skin, when tanglevine snagged rifle or helmet or backpack, heart hammering, chest heaving, legs dissolving into molten rivers of white-hot agony. All pain was ignored in a desperate race to get over the ridge and into the valley beyond, then the next, and the next, pushed on by willpower alone, on, on, on, until his willpower ran out and his body crashed to the ground in a sobbing heap, lungs fighting to drag air in to feed muscles screaming for oxygen, legs locked, unable to take him another meter.
"Stop," he whispered, straining to make himself heard. "Stop." It was all his tortured lungs would allow.
Anna did stop; she turned back and slid to the ground alongside him, breathing hard. "Take five," she said. "Then we need to get into clear ground. We'll go one more klick that way, but low and slow this time. Okay?"
Michael nodded; he could not speak. Facedown in the dirt of the forest floor, he waited. Slowly the pain from legs and lungs abated. "I'm ready," he said at last. "Let's go."
"Okay," Anna said.
Staying on her stomach, she was off, easing her way smoothly over the ground. With an effort, Michael made himself follow, even though all he wanted was to find a cool, dark, safe place to rest up. But giving up was not an option. He hated the thought that he might be the one who called it quits first. He would stop when Anna said stop, so he kept going, though for how long, he did not know.
An age later, Michael was close to collapse, exhausted, in pain, hungry, thirsty. Toward the end, the only thing that sustained him was Anna's relentless ability to keep moving, her body sliding ahead of him in complete silence over rock, through water and undergrowth, the pace set to allow her chromaflage to blend her shape into the background, invisible to any Hammer holocam. No matter how bad he felt, he always had just enough left to follow her, his eyes locked with manic determination on the tiny ID patch on the back of her helmet.
Crossing a small ridge, they slithered down to a thin trickle of a stream where a sizable clearing opened up by a fallen tree long covered by a sprawling mass of vine dominated the gully. Michael followed Anna under the tangled mess, overwhelmed with relief when she signaled a stop. Please let that be it for today, he prayed.
"I'm not picking up any radio transmissions," Anna whispered, "but I want a thorough check. If there are sensors around us, we need to know. If the area's clear, we'll lie up here while we work out what to do next. You take west through south to east. I'll do north. Okay?"
"Yes, sir," Michael muttered; at times Anna was more marine than the marines were.
He moved until he had an uninterrupted view of his half of the clearing. Then, with excruciating care, he scanned the area, his optronics hunting for the telltale shape and faint infrared signature of a microsensor. There was nothing, so he repeated the process a second and third time until he was certain the area was clear. Edging back under the vine, he waited until Anna had finished.
"I've seen nothing," he said. "You?"
"Not a damn thing," Anna replied. "No sensors here."
"Problem is, the Hammers know we're around."
"Yes, they do," Anna said, "but they will also know that there are only a few of us, a section at most."
"So, the question is this," Michael said. "Are a few NRA troopers worth bothering about?"
"Knowing the Hammers, yes, they are," Anna said. "They are going to bomb the crap out of every last square centimeter of the Branxtons if they have to. Not that it matters. We can't go on like this. If they're seeding this area with sensors, we can run all we like; they'll get us in the end, most likely with one of those fuel-air bombs they love so much. We're safe here, so we can just drop out of sight to hide out until the Hammers lose interest. If they find us…" Anna's voice trailed off into silence.
Michael nodded. He knew what Anna was trying to say. "I checked on the way in. If we're flushed out, there's a small bluff upstream. If the Hammers look like finding us, we'll fall back to that. They'll have trouble getting at us, and with a bit of luck we'll take…"
It was Michael's turn to choke. Wordlessly, he reached over to take Anna in his arms. He held her tight for a long time. "Not quite what I planned, Anna," he said, pushing her back to look her right in the face.
"What do you mean?"
"This." Michael waved a hand around their hideout. "Hiding from the Hammers. Knowing that we're dead if they catch us. I'm sorry, Anna," he said, his voice cracking under the guilt. "I'm so sorry I dragged you into this. I-"
"Shut up! Shut up!" Anna hissed, her eyes filling with tears. "At least we're together. Better one day with you than a lifetime without."
"You mean that?" Michael said, stunned by the raw emotion in her voice.
"Yes, Michael Helfort, I do." Tuesday, November 27, 2401, UD Branxton Ranges, south of Perdan, Commitment
Michael awoke with a start, utterly lost. "What the mmmp-phhh!" he spluttered when Anna clamped her hand over his mouth.
"Stand to," she whispered. "Company."
Michael stifled a curse. Save for a single Hammer foot patrol that had crossed the stream a good 300 meters above their lay-up position without stopping, they had not seen a soul. Before he turned in, Michael had allowed himself to hope that they would soon be able to resume their march back to the Branxtons and safety. Moving carefully, he eased into position alongside Anna.
"What's up?"
"Hammer recon drones. I'd say they're screening a ground unit doing a sweep upstream."
"Why? Why now?" he muttered, squinting hard into the gloom. Michael heard the drones passing overhead and then the Hammer grunts before he saw them. His heart sank when he spotted their blurred, chromaflaged shapes working their way slowly through the trees toward them in a loose arrowhead formation, the line pausing as possible hiding places were searched.
"Platoon strength," he said. He did not fancy his and Anna's chances; the vine-covered tree was too obvious a hideout. The Hammers were sure to search it, and if they did, they would have to be blind to miss them; Hammer optronics were not that bad. All of a sudden, their original plan-to head for the bluff and die fighting-did not seem so attractive. "Anna," he hissed. "We need to go before they get too close."
"Agreed. Go!"
Michael and Anna slithered out of the scrape, working their way through the brush in an awkward, scrambling crawl in a frantic race to get clear and still stay undetected. Throwing a glance over his shoulder, Michael saw the Hammers had closed the gap; even taking his time, a man on foot was faster than one on his belly. This was one race they were not going to win. If they kept crawling, he and Anna had maybe ten minutes before the Hammers overran them. If they made a run for it, the firepower of a platoon of Hammers would make short work of them. They would not get 20 meters before the drones picked them up.
"Anna," Michael said. "We have to think of something. This won't work."