The Final Battle by Graham Sharp Paul

Author:Graham Sharp Paul
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780987261342
Publisher: Graham Sharp Paul
Published: 2011-12-31T17:00:00+00:00

Wednesday, June 30, 2404, UD

Branxton Base, Commitment

“I’m letting you do this only because we need all the help we can get making Juggernaut a success. You do know that, Colonel Helfort?”

“I understand, General,” Michael said with a smile.

Vaas shook his head in mock despair and patted Michael on the back. “Just don’t mess it up, that’s all. And stay on Tactical Alfa. J-Day might change, and it’s critical that you don’t go early.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You must be Shinoda,” Vaas said when the sergeant appeared. “Good to meet you,” he added. “Now, your job is to keep this man safe and well, and if there’s a choice between getting out alive and completing the mission, then getting out alive takes precedence. Is that clearly understood?”

“Understood, sir,” Shinoda replied.

“Good luck, Colonel,” Vaas said as he turned to leave.

“What was all that about?” she asked as they watched Vaas walk away.

Michael sighed. “He didn’t want me to do this, so I had to lean on him a bit. It turns out I have a talent for emotional blackmail.”

Shinoda shook her head. “Obviously,” she said. “Come on; we should go, col—ah, husband.”

“Fall in behind me, woman,” Michael said.

“Why are Hammer men such pigs?” Shinoda grumbled sotto voce as they set off.

• • •

Shinoda looked around with ill-concealed disapproval as they emerged from the maglev station onto what the maps said was Gwalia’s Grand Plaza. “What a total shithole,” she said.

Michael had to agree. Grand Plaza, my ass, he thought. Dominated by an ornate temple to the Hammer of Kraa, it was a tired and dirty town square much like thousands of others across the Hammer Worlds, he supposed. And there were an awful lot of DocSec personnel around. He swallowed hard. The sooner they were out of the place, the better.

Michael spotted a battered mobibot off to one side of the plaza, its green paint barely visible under what looked like a century’s worth of mud, dust, and dents. “There,” he said.

“Nothing but the best when you work for you know who,” Shinoda whispered.

“I don’t care as long as the damn thing works.”

And it did, surprisingly well for something that looked like it belonged on the scrap heap, humming softly as it sped out of Gwalia down the main highway northeast to Martinsen.

Ten minutes later, Michael slowed the mobibot. “Bit of history coming up,” he said, “on the right in a couple of klicks.”

“What history?”

“Gwalia planetary ground defense base … what’s left of it. I crashed the Red River into the place,” Michael said, his voice matter-of-fact, “More than half a million tons of perfectly good dreadnought moving very, very fast. Needless to say, it was completely trashed. Here we are—holy fuck!”

Michael had seen holovids of the Gwalia base both before and after the Red River had come calling, but the sheer scale of the destruction his attack had inflicted still took his breath away. Even now, many months later and with reconstruction work well under way, the place was a wasteland of flame-scarred ceramcrete

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