The Battle for Commitment Planet by Graham Sharp Paul

Author:Graham Sharp Paul
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Tuesday, October 9, 2401, UD

Sector Golf, Branxton Base, Commitment

It had been a long, grinding week, and Michael was exhausted. Like all the Feds except those involved in Leading Spacer Sasaki’s court-martial, he had been working long hours getting the microfabs purloined from the three dreadnoughts operational. If the Feds were to make a difference, the damn things needed to work. All things considered, the NRA was doing well, but Vaas and his commanders had admitted that it had to do better, and to do better, the NRA needed more of everything: ordnance, secure comms gear, real-time decrypters, portable electronic intercept systems, battlefield trauma equipment …

Michael abandoned his attempt to itemize all the things the NRA needed. He would be itemizing all night; the list was endless, and everything important was scarce. Thanks to a library of microfab production templates, the machines had the smarts to turn out much of what the NRA needed using only basic raw materials, geneered bacterial feedstock, and lots of power. Nothing they produced would be state of the art—after all, the templates had been bought from an information broker based on one of the Rogue Planets—but what they did turn out would be a hell of a lot better than nothing.

Best of all was something that Chief Chua had discovered during the setting-up work: Microfab machines carried microfab templates. In theory, given the right raw materials, they were able to turn out copies of themselves.

Which meant—

Michael’s dreams of hectares and hectares of microfab plants busy churning out everything the NRA needed were rudely interrupted by a call from Anna.

She wasted no time on niceties. “Court-martial’s wrapping up. Sasaki’s been found guilty, and they’re about to sentence him. Patch your neuronics into channel 36. It’s the live vid.”

“Okay.”

Michael’s neuronics filled with an image he never forgot: the face of Leading Spacer Sasaki, pale, sweating, his fear betrayed by a trembling lower lip.

The president of the court-martial panel looked just as unhappy. He peered at the piece of paper in his hands; he was clearly having trouble believing what was written there. “Leading Spacer Jon James Sasaki,” he said finally, voice wavering. “It is my duty as president of this court-martial to announce that the court-martial, all members concurring, sentences you to death by firing squad.”

The tiny court-martial room was silent. “Oh, shit,” Michael murmured as he dropped the holovid feed.

Michael’s hopes of a full night’s sleep were shattered by a priority call from Adrissa. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled, trying to shake off the bone-numbing fatigue of a long, hard day.

“My office, now!” she snapped, dropping the comm before Michael responded.

“Yes, sir,” he said to the empty nothingness of a dead comms link. What the hell, he wondered as he slipped out of his bunk, fumbling around to find his shipsuit and boots, careful not to wake Anna.

Michael hurried through the silent corridors connecting the Feds’ quarters. The sparse lighting did nothing to help him shake off a dreadful certainty that something bad was about to happen. Knocking on the flimsy door to Adrissa’s office, he went straight in.

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