"A week, maybe. Can't wait. I have a few accounts to settle." The look of hungry anticipation on Sedova's face was hard to miss.
"We all do. Look, I'd better go. Captain Adrissa gets grumpy if I'm not working twenty hours a day. Catch you sometime."
"Yup."
Michael made his way back to FLTDETCOMM; Adrissa was waiting for him.
"We leave in ten minutes," she said. "General Vaas wants to see us."
"Long Shot, sir?"
Adrissa smiled a tight half smile. "Getting him to back this lunatic plan of yours? Yes, it's a long shot. I'll meet you at the maglev."
"Sir."
Setting off, Michael tried to keep his mind focused on the upcoming meeting with Vaas but soon gave up. His frame of mind had been bad enough before Anna's latest vidcomm had trashed their plans for a two-day break. Now it was worse, and not just because Vaas's insistence that the NRA go back on the offensive meant Anna's regiment would be in action any day now.
The thought of Anna back in combat was hard to bear; coming on top of the unremitting pressure he was under to whip Operation Long Shot-Adrissa's feeble attempt at gallows humor-into something that might work made it even harder to bear. Not that he was not making progress; he was. The problem was the cost of failure. Michael had taken some terrible risks in his time but never anything on the scale of Long Shot.
It had to work.
If it did not, he would be dead, Anna's death was inevitable, another casualty of the NRA meat grinder, and when the Hammer's antimatter manufacturing plant started production, the Federated Worlds would follow. He had learned a lot about Hammers, and everything told him that this time they would not settle for anything less than absolute victory, even if they had to destroy a home planet or two to get it.
Arriving at the maglev station, he showed his pass and travel authority to the security detail. Waved through without a word, he found a seat on a makeshift bench bolted to the raw limestone walls and collapsed onto it to wait for Adrissa, happy to get the weight off his left leg.
Putting his head back, he tried to put Anna out of his mind while he waited for Adrissa to turn up.
"The general will see you now, Captain. Follow me, please."
"Thank you, Major Hok," Adrissa said.
Michael followed Hok and Adrissa into one of ENCOMM's small conference rooms; Vaas and his chief of staff were waiting. Vaas had changed, aging a good ten years since Michael had last seen him. Vaas waved the two Feds to take a seat, gazing at them from bloodshot eyes set deep in sockets puffy from lack of sleep.
"Captain, Lieutenant, welcome," Vaas said. "Good to see you both."
"Likewise. General Cortez."
Vaas's chief of staff, never one for small talk, acknowledged Adrissa with a nod of his bullnecked head.
After the obligatory coffee had arrived, Adrissa opened proceedings. "You've read my briefing note, sir?"
"I have. Remarkable is how I'd describe it. Something tells me your man had a lot to do with it." Vaas waved a hand at Michael. "By the way, Lieutenant," he said, "you and Mrs. Helfort did well. Colonel Mokhine was most complimentary. Quite a team."
Michael squirmed in embarrassment. "Uh, Anna more than me, sir. She's good at that sort of thing. I just did what I was told."
Vaas laughed. "Yes, well. Thanks, anyway. Give my regards to your wife. She deserves her promotion."
"I'll pass that on. Thank you, sir."
Vaas took a sip of coffee before continuing. "Now, Captain Adrissa, I've had a couple of my people look at your analysis. Put simply, they do not share your view that the NRA cannot win this war."
"Typical Fed arrogance is the consensus view," Cortez growled.
"Sir!" Adrissa protested, red anger spots coloring her cheeks. "I don't th-"
"Hold on, hold on," Vaas said. "That's what they think. Now, General Cortez, tell the captain what we think."
"We agree," Cortez said.
Adrissa's mouth sagged open. "You agree?"
"That's what I just said, Captain. After all we've been through, after all we've achieved, it hurts to say so, but facts are facts. As the last week has proved, we can hold Branxton Base until hell freezes over. What we can't do is cross the floodplain of the Oxus River and still have enough assets left to take McNair. We can't build fliers, so we can't win air superiority. We can't manufacture rocket motors and missile warheads, so we can't deploy an air-defense shield. Those are the facts. Ergo, we cannot take McNair. That is the inescapable conclusion."
"Thank you, General," Vaas said, nodding his agreement. "As you say, the facts are the facts. The important thing is what we do about them. Allowing Chief Councillor Polk to stalemate us while he pursues his insane war against the Feds is not an option, and don't think he'll stop when he has dealt with the Federated Worlds."
Adrissa started. "He wants to take on the rest of humanspace? Hasn't he got enough to worry about, what with the NRA and the Feds? No offense, General, but you have to be kidding."
"No, I'm not. One of our sources tells us Polk has commissioned a new strategic analysis that assumes the Federated Worlds will have been reduced to vassal status inside five years. The way Polk sees it, if he can defeat the Feds, he can defeat anyone in humanspace. The Sylvanians, the Frontier Planets, the Javitz Federation, even Old Earth."
"What are you saying?" Adrissa whispered.
"Tell me I'm wrong, Captain, but with the Feds defeated, what's to stop the Hammers? Chief Councillor Polk is attracted by the idea that the Hammer of Kraa might be reborn as, let me see, how did he put it… Oh, yes, as the Empire of the Hammer of Kraa."
"And there are no prizes for guessing who the first emperor will be," Cortez said softly into the shocked silence.
"Wait a minute," Michael said. "To do that, they have to defeat the Feds. What makes you think they can do that?"
"Good question," Vaas said. "Until a few weeks ago, I shared your view that it would be a close-run thing. If the Hammers finished that damned antimatter plant of theirs, they would win. If the Federation managed to rebuild its Fleet and put together an invasion force first, they would. All very simple, but we think things might have changed, and not for the better."
"Changed?" Adrissa demanded. "How? And if things have changed, why was FLTDETCOMM not told?"
"Steady, Captain, steady," Vaas said, his voice even and untroubled. "We have no obligation to tell you anything, please remember that, and in any case, I wanted to wait for confirmation. I don't like going off half-cocked."
Adrissa stared at Vaas before nodding. "My apologies, General," she said.
"Accepted. As I was saying, things have changed. We're not sure of this, but we believe the Pascanici League has signed a treaty with the Hammers, a treaty of mutual support."
Michael and Adrissa glanced at each other. "A treaty of mutual support," Michael asked. "What does that mean?"
"Simple. They provide the Hammer of Kraa with capital and technology in exchange for a share of future spoils, the enormous spoils which an all-powerful Empire of the Hammer of Kraa is sure to generate."
"Shit," Michael hissed softly as he connected the dots. "Antimatter."
"Oh, no," Adrissa said, blanching. "That's not good."
"No, sir," Michael said. "Apart from being mercenary scum, the Pascanicis have some of the best magnetic flux engineers in humanspace, and they are one of the wealthiest systems around. Which means-"