Branxton Ranges, Commitment
Tabor shook Michael’s hand.
“Good luck,” he whispered. “Your pickup team may take some time, so be patient. Getting here is not easy, even for you Feds and all your smart-ass technology. But don’t worry. They will be here.” Without another word, he vanished into the darkness.
Michael lay under his chromaflage cover, stifling an unexpected urge to call Tabor back. All of a sudden he was absolutely terrified, his chest heaving as fear threatened to panic him into running after the man.
A tenuous shred of self-control kept him together. Bit by bit his breathing slowed until he got himself together. He was still scared shitless, but the overwhelming urge to bolt had passed, thankfully.
The hours dragged past, and despite still being scared shitless, Michael had begun to doze off when a rustle in the grass in front of him snapped him fully awake, his senses straining to work out what the noise meant. He tightened his grip on his assault carbine, slowly working it forward, ready to fire. Barely able to breathe, he looked intently out into the darkness from under his cape but saw only the dim outlines of starlit bushes and trees.
“Helfort!” a voice hissed softly.
The voice was so close and so unexpected that Michael jumped. He had not seen a damn thing. Before he could do anything, a hand had clamped itself onto his wrist and a whispered voice was in his ear.
“Lance Corporal Jamal, FedWorld Marine Corps. Time to go, sir.”
Heart racing, Michael put his head down onto the earth and lay there for a moment. This was going beyond a joke.
He looked up to where the voice had come from.
“Good to see you. I can’t tell you-” He choked on the words.
“Later. We need to go. But first let’s get you properly dressed.”
Jamal quickly stripped him of all his Hammer clothes, waiting patiently as Michael struggled into a marine-grade active chromaflage skinsuit complete with battle helmet and short-range laser tightbeam comms. With quiet efficiency, Jamal checked that everything worked.
“Good,” he said finally. “We’re ready. Now, follow me but not too close. Stay ten meters behind me. If anything happens, drop to the ground and stay there until I come back to get you. No heroics, and for God’s sake, use that damn carbine only as a last resort. Got all that?”
“Yes,” Michael said meekly, his confidence growing by the minute in the face of Jamal’s quiet self-assurance.
“Right. Let’s go.”
While they walked, Jamal tightbeamed him the plan. Michael studied it carefully. The plan seemed pretty simple. Heading for Bretonville, they would work their way down through the forests that covered the flanks of the Branxton Ranges until they reached the main McNair-New Berlin motorway. They would cross the motorway south of Bretonville, using one of its many underpasses, and, once clear, would turn west to head for the fishing town of Piper. The pickup point was two kilometers outside Piper. When Michael asked how the pickup would work, Jamal refused to tell him. “You don’t need to know,” he said. “Trust me and do as you’re told.”
Michael did the only thing he could. Head down, lungs burning, he followed the marine toward Bretonville, praying every step of the way that Lance Corporal Jamal knew what he was doing.
The Federated Worlds ambassador to the Hammer of Kraa Worlds felt physically ill as he looked down at the emaciated body in the sick-bay cot. Michael Helfort was sleeping the sleep of the dead. The embassy doctor had commed him the results of his exhaustive medical. It made distressing reading.
The ambassador shook his head again. Helfort’s body could be fixed-there was no doubt about that-but what about his mind?
He left Michael to sleep. He commed Amos Bichel. He needed to know two things: How were they going to get Helfort home? And what were they going to do about the rest of the survivors of the Ishaq, who, despite the Hammers’ increasingly desperate efforts to recover them, were still at liberty somewhere deep in the trackless wastes of the Forest of Gwyr?
The ambassador sighed. What a bloody mess. Since the Hammer was involved, it was a mess that could-no, definitely would-only get worse.