Sector Kilo, Velmar Mountains base, Commitment
“Come on, lard ass. Colonel Balaghi and the 120th Regiment await the arrival of General Vaas’s illustrious aide-de-camp.”
“Piss off, you heartless woman,” Michael muttered.
“I’ll see you later,” Anna said, pushing his head back to kiss him full on the mouth.
“Okay.”
Forcing his unwilling body upright and out of the bunk, Michael groaned as the weight came onto his left arm. The medics had said his shoulder was healing well, but that didn’t stop it from hurting like hell. He was soon dressed and on his way, the battered buggy rattling and banging along the tunnel to where the 120th had its headquarters.
Colonel Balaghi turned out to be a man of Michael’s height and, unusually for an NRA trooper, well padded to the point of being rotund. His face was open and welcoming, with deep laughter lines etched around warm brown eyes and a mouth that smiled a lot, his teeth brilliant against mahogany skin.
Michael liked the man the instant they met.
“Welcome, Colonel Helfort,” Balaghi said, crushing Michael’s hand in his. “Call me Joe.’
“Michael Helfort,” Michael said, doing his best to crush Balaghi’s hand back and failing.
“This way. Coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
Michael followed the man through the regimental command center and into a small cell-like office. He felt awkward. He had checked Balaghi’s bio. The man was many years his senior and had picked up a gun to fight the Hammer before Michael was born, yet they were equals as far as the NRA was concerned.
Awkward? he thought as he took a seat. This is downright embarrassing. I feel like a fraud.
If any of that bothered Balaghi, it did not show.
“General Vaas said to expect you,” Balaghi said once the coffee had arrived, “though I’m assuming your visit had more to do with seeing the other Colonel Helfort.”
“I cannot tell a lie, Joe, so yes, it was.”
Balaghi laughed, a rich, infectious laugh that had Michael laughing too. “Vaas tells me you’re his new aide-de-camp.”
“I am.”
Balaghi leaned forward, the smile gone. “I think that’s good,” he said. “The NRA is getting so big, it’s hard for the brass to know what’s really going on sometimes. But …”
Oh, shit, Michael thought. He thinks I’m Vaas’s spy.
“… you should understand one thing,” Balaghi said, the sudden steel in his voice taking Michael by surprise. “You can go anywhere, talk to anyone about anything you like, but if there’s something I should know, you must tell me. Okay?”
“I wouldn’t do it any other way,” Michael said, reminded again that he would have to tread carefully.
“That’s good,” Balaghi said, sitting back with a huge smile. “Now that the end is in sight, there are far too many politicians crawling out of the NRA’s woodwork for my liking.”
“You think the end is in sight?”
“I do, though it’s not a done deal. We still haven’t worked out how to deal with John Calverson.”
“Calverson? The Teacher of Worlds?”
“Yes, him. He’s the man Jeremiah Polk fears more than anyone else. Calverson snaps his fingers and his priests can have 50 million Hammers on the streets, and they wouldn’t be rooting for us, I can tell you.”
“And will he snap his fingers?”
“Of course. We might win this war-we will win this war-but winning the peace is another matter. Calverson knows the threat we pose to all that fundamentalist bullshit the Brethren depend on. The Word of Kraa is the single largest organization in the Worlds, and it is the most corrupt. He will fight us to a standstill to make sure it survives. He has to.”
“So what are we doing about it?”
“Nothing, which is why I’m dropping the problem onto your shoulders.”
“Ah, okay. I think I’ve just found my first assignment.”
“You have. Look, the problem is this: ENCOMM is a military beast; its solutions are military solutions. The Resistance Council is a political beast, so its solutions are political.”
“Why isn’t the Resistance Council concerned about Calverson?”
“It’s ironic. They’re not concerned because of the success of Juggernaut. It delivered everything ENCOMM wanted and more. It even delivered a solution to those Kraa-damned orbital kinetics the Hammers love to drop on us.”
“The mobile laser batteries, you mean?”
“Yup. We’re very happy to see them, I have to tell you. We can cope with almost everything the Hammers throw at us, but not tungsten-carbide slugs spearing down out of space.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“ENCOMM says it can finish off Polk and his apparatchiks quickly and effectively.”
“A military solution to a military problem?”
“Exactly. And they’re wrong. Calverson has to be neutralized. If he isn’t, we’ll still be fighting this damn war in ten years’ time.”
“How do we do that?”
Balaghi threw up his hands. “That’s the problem,” he said. “I have no idea. That’s why I can’t convince the brass they’ve got it wrong. And there’s no way I can talk to anyone outside the NRA. Vaas would kick my ass if I tried.”
Michael smiled; Anna had said Balaghi was sharp. She was right. “But I can?” he said.
“That’s between you and Vaas.”
“Leave it to me.”
“Thanks. Want to hear what the 3rd’s been up to?”
“Please.”
“Well, they’re unofficially known as the Federal Battalion since there are so many of you off-world heretic scum on its books.”
“Gee, thanks,” Michael said.
“You’re welcome,” Balaghi said with a big grin. “I prefer to call them my Shock Battalion …”
Michael winced at the images that conjured.
“… because they never, ever falter. They hit the Hammers like a bomb and keep on hitting.”
“They have reason. Feds don’t like the Hammers any more than the NRA does.”
“That’s part of it, for sure. But that woman.” Balaghi shook his head. “I’ve never met anyone like her. She’s a natural-born soldier-Kraa knows why she ever became a spacer-and she has a gift for bringing order out of chaos. Her people would follow her anywhere.”
“She’s a remarkable woman,” Michael said, proud and appalled at one and the same time.
“That she is. She tell you about the Amokran operation?”
“No.”
“Ah, well, I’m not surprised. It was a bloodbath, and that Hammer special forces unit did not help, I can tell you.”
“I heard about that.”
“I bet Anna didn’t tell you that she killed three of the bastards with her bare hands … well, not quite. She killed two with her pistol and one with a knife.”
Michael looked at Balaghi in horror. “She didn’t say anything about that,” he muttered.
“Somehow I don’t think the Hammers will mess with the boss of my Shock Battalion again.”
I wish that were true, thought Michael.
“Now, you’ll have to forgive me,” Balaghi said, “but I have to go see Brigade.”
“I have to get back too,” Michael said, standing up, “and I need to catch up with some of the Feds before I go.” They shook hands. “Good to meet you, Joe.”
“Likewise. And let me know how you do with the Calverson problem.”
“I will.”
• • •
“Bye, Anna,” Michael said, kissing her long and hard.
“Look after yourself, Michael,” Anna said, holding him tight. “And no heroics, okay?’
“You’re one to talk,” he said, breaking the embrace with reluctance, “but no heroics. I’d better go.”
“Yeah.”
“You ready, sergeant?” Michael said to Shinoda, who was standing a discreet distance away.
Shinoda nodded. “Always, sir,” she said, shouldering her rifle and pack.
They climbed into the buggy; with a jerk, it moved off. Michael’s eyes stayed locked on the solitary figure of Anna until she was lost to view.
Michael slumped back, drained of all emotion. It wasn’t just the intensity of Anna’s farewell. No, even a good two hours later, it was the impact the 3rd Battalion had made on him that still resonated through every fiber of his being.
Nothing had prepared him for the brutal power of the Federal Battalion’s battle cry, the air filling with the thunderous roars of ‘Remember Comdur, remember Comdur, remember Comdur,’ on and on until Michael’s ears rang.
When the parade was over, the men and woman of the battalion were no less impressive in person. Even though he’d spent barely more than a few seconds with each one, he had been left in no doubt that their commitment to finishing the job at hand was real.
Then there was Anna. She might have been overtopped and outmassed by all but a handful of her troopers, but there was no doubting who was in command, a remarkable thing considering how many in her battalion had once been senior to her. Michael had been forced to suppress a smile at the incongruous sight of Fleet Captain, now NRA Trooper, Adrissa standing motionless in the ranks as Anna’s second in command-a marine major-had reported the battalion all present and correct to her.
And Adrissa was only one of more than twenty former warship captains in the battalion.
It had been an astonishing display, one that had frightened Michael almost as much as it had impressed him. Trying not to think about how much time Anna and the Federal Battalion would spend in harm’s way over the coming months, he slipped off to sleep.