DLS-387, Hell-14
No matter how hard he tried, Ribot’s neuronics refused to let him sleep. The piercing comm alarm relentlessly dragged him up from the depths of a wonderfully dreamless slumber, his first in a long time.
Groggy, Ribot commed his bunk light on, oriented himself, and accepted the call.
Helfort had the watch. His voice was hoarse with stress, and his avatar made him look like shit. “Captain, sir. Officer in command. Sorry to bother you, but I thought you would like to know.”
“No problem, Michael,” Ribot muttered groggily. “What is it?”
“The interceptbots, sir. They’ve finally broken in, and we have just begun getting good-quality datastreams. The intercept AI is just starting its analysis of the Hammer’s data structures, and we’ll have a definitive data model shortly to allow us to attack the knowledge base. I’ll draft a message to Fleet for your release, sir.”
Ribot’s mind was a mass of wet concrete, and he had to struggle to think straight. “Uh, no, Michael,” he said after a moment’s thought. “Wait. Hang on for a moment. I’d like to go to Fleet with specific data rather than the promise of specific data, in particular the first of the Mumtazers we can identify, where they are, and so on. Otherwise, we’ll just get another damn pinchcomm urging us to try harder. You know how twitchy they’re getting.”
“Oh, okay, sir. That’ll take us at least three or four days, maybe more. Makes sense, though. They have been nagging us somewhat.”
“Understatement, Michael. No, sit tight for the moment. We’ll put a pinchcomm through to Fleet as soon as we have something specific. Anything else now that I’m awake?”
“Not really, sir. The Hammer’s pretty quiet tonight. The light escorts Regan and Bates moved from Fleet base to Hell Center two hours ago and are now alongside the planetary transfer station. Verity and the rest of the Hell flotilla are alongside at the flotilla base, though Mother thinks that at least four of them are preparing to get under way. The usual premission stuff: sensor testing and so on. There’s one light cruiser, two heavy escorts, and a heavy scout doing a lot of systems testing, all fire control systems but not much else, so Mother’s not sure what they’re up to, but we’ll know more in the morning. Hammer ships tend not to unberth much before 08:00. Loads of commercial traffic as always, but Mother’s watching the vectors pretty closely, and there’s nothing unusual going on.”
“Okay. Let me know if we get anything specific out of the interceptbots. Night.”
“Night, sir.”
Ribot commed the light off and lay back. For once, sleep came quickly, and in minutes he was down somewhere deep and black, snoring lightly.