Branxton Ranges, Commitment
Ripped from nightmare-riddled sleep by a callused hand clamped across his mouth, Michael started violently. The knife held to his throat was already drawing blood.
“Move and you die,” a voice hissed in his ear.
With an effort, Michael made himself relax.
“That’s much better,” the voice whispered, the hand lifting slightly. “Who are you?”
“Who’s asking?”
Michael winced as the point of the knife went in deeper.
“Smart-ass! Who are you?”
Suddenly Michael was too tired to care anymore. Whoever owned the voice, it did not sound like a DocSec trooper.
“Junior Lieutenant Helfort, FC0216885, Federated Worlds Space Fleet. And who the fuck are you?” he added belligerently.
The man laughed softly. “Aha!” he whispered. “Now, Junior Lieutenant Helfort, there’s a Hammer marine recon patrol due to walk right across you in about thirty minutes, and I strongly suggest you don’t want to be here when that happens. So get your stuff and follow me.”
“But who-”
“Later. Just call me Uzuma. Come on!”
Still groggy, Michael stumbled around, picking up the gear he had scattered around the small hollow the previous night; his gun had gone. He’d barely had time to eat the meager meal he’d allowed himself from his fast-dwindling reserves before passing out. The effort of a long forced march over broken hilly ground had been too much for his overworked, underfed, and badly abused body. He had started at last light and had kept going throughout a long Commitment night until he could walk no more. Even with some sleep, a desperate tiredness still threatened to overwhelm him, the grinding fatigue evidence of how hard he had pushed himself.
Moments later, they were off, and Michael had to struggle to keep up with the relentless pace set by the vague chromaflageshrouded shape ahead of him. With a shock, he realized as he looked around that the man was not alone. In the gloom, he could see more dark shapes, mostly armed with what looked like standard-issue Hammer assault rifles. But there was one with a heavy machine gun slung casually over one shoulder and another carrying what was unmistakably a small missile launcher with a four-round reload pack on his back.
Who in God’s name were these people?
Endless hours later, Michael collapsed onto the ground as his captors finally called a halt. The group holed up in a cave Michael had not spotted until they were right on top of it.
To Michael’s surprise, they had not stopped at dawn. They had marched on well into the day, seemingly unconcerned about being caught in the open in broad daylight. Apart from two brief halts, one to eat and one to wait as a wandering surveillance drone meandered slowly past overhead, they had not stopped. They did not stop even when a battlesat’s laser incinerated something high on the hillside above them, the splitting crack making Michael cringe; his captors’ confidence in the effectiveness of chromaflage capes was not something he shared.
Now, finally, they had stopped. Michael did not bother with food. A quick drink, and then, crushed by fatigue, he found a quiet spot at the back of the cave and without a word lay down. He was asleep in seconds.
Warily, Michael opened his eyes.
Without moving his head, he looked cautiously around. Except for a single dim chemstick, the cave was dark, its floor covered by huddled sleeping shapes. Michael got up slowly, trying to ignore the pain in overworked legs as he crept carefully down the cave. Ducking past a blanket screening the cave from the outside world, he almost fell over a man crouching over a small holovid linked to a couple of low-light holocams that had been set up to watch the approaches to the cave.
The man looked up. It was Uzuma.
“Not thinking of leaving, are we?”
Michael shook his head. “State my legs are in, I wouldn’t get far. No. I need to take a leak.”
Uzuma pointed back into the cave. “Go back in as far as you can. Come out here when you’re done. We need to talk. I’ll get you something to eat and drink. It’s going to be another hard day.”
Hooray, Michael thought. Just what he and his tortured body needed: another hard day to add to the endless stream of hard days that had started when he had banged out of the dying Ishaq.
Five minutes later, Uzuma watched silently as Michael, suddenly ravenous, tore into the food in front of him. Surprisingly, it was good and not at all what he had expected the raggedy-assed mob he had fallen in with to be eating: some sort of spiced flatbread stuffed with meat and peppers washed down with a thick, slightly sweet drink that seemed to recharge his body instantly. It was better than anything he had had in a long time. Hunger finally sated, he sat back and belched softly. Uzuma laughed.
“Feeling better, I take it.”
“Oh, yeah,” Michael responded gratefully. “Much, thanks.”
“Well, Michael, make the most of it. We don’t often eat that well. Now, down to business.”
“Shoot.”
“We’ve been following you for a few days. For a skinny little runt, you sure work hard. Must be that fancy Fed geneering we hear so much about,” Uzuma offered with a grin.
Michael nodded even though geneering had nothing to with anything. Every waking moment he had thought about the oath he had sworn over Yazdi’s grave. That and a slowburning hatred had driven him relentlessly on.
“How do you know I’m a Fed?”
Uzuma laughed. “You’re too good-looking to be a Hammer even if you are half-starved and a bit frayed around the edges. Lot of scars. Who’ve you upset?”
Michael nodded, fingering the scar put across his forehead by Sergeant Jacobsen a lifetime earlier. “DocSec,” was all he said.
“Aaah. We wondered. Anyway, let me tell you a few things,” Uzuma said softly, his eyes not leaving the holovid screen in front of him for more than a second or two. “We’re with the New Revolutionary Army.” His hand went up as Michael started to speak.
“No questions, okay? Now, we hoped there were survivors from the lander, and we’ve had patrols out to pick you up before the bad guys did. There were two of you, right?”
Michael nodded.
“And your partner?”
“She’s dead.” Michael’s voice was flat, unemotional. “Head injury when we crashed. Internal injuries, too. She didn’t make it.”
Uzuma nodded sympathetically. “Pity. If we’d gotten to you a bit earlier. .” His voice trailed off into silence. “Anyway, it was not to be. You were too far away. You’ve done well. The Hammers are pretty upset. You gave Kraneveldt a good going over, and the Hammers still can’t work out who it was.”
Michael looked surprised. “Surely they’ve got us on their security holocams.”
“Apparently not. You kept your head down, which was good. That cap-nice touch. There’s holovid of you getting into the lander, but from too far away to identify you. They’re blaming us, which is good because I really, really wish we’d done that job.”
“So glad to be of help,” Michael said ironically. “Since you haven’t beaten the shit out of me despite having me by the balls, I’m happy to accept that you’re the good guys-”
“Trust me, Michael,” Uzuma interrupted emphatically, “we are the good guys.”
“Fine. So what’s the plan?”
“Ah, well.” Suddenly Uzuma was evasive. “The plan. Umm, well, let’s say the plan is for you to trust me. There are some people who want to meet you.”
“That’s it?” Michael asked incredulously. “Trust you? Meet some people? That’s the plan?”
“Yes, Michael. Trust me. Believe me when I say that it’s the best plan. In fact, it’s the only plan, so I suggest you go with it.” Uzuma stopped for a second. “You know, I quite like you, Michael. So I would hate to have to kill you, which I will if I have to. You can trust me on that, too.”
Michael flinched.
His face softening, Uzuma leaned forward and patted Michael on the knee. “Enough. Two days will see us at the drop-off point. We move out in an hour.”