"Good," Michael replied. "Let's hope we get a better result than last time."
"Couldn't be much worse." Ferreira's face betrayed her concern. "We have to find a way."
"If we can," Bienefelt said softly.
"We have to," Michael said. "Otherwise this whole business is a bust."
Heads nodded, but nobody said any more, and the meeting broke up. With a heavy heart Michael watched his officers leave. All the early enthusiasm had evaporated, boiled off by the brutal truth that dropping into a defended system-especially a well-protected one like the Hammer of Kraa's home planet, Commitment-and surviving long enough to get dirtside was at best close to impossible, at worst an exercise in suicide. Michael had no idea how much longer he could keep them on the rack. Their commitment to him, a commitment to join the most egregious crime in the history of the Federated Worlds, was not open-ended; he knew that. Either they found a way forward, preferably one that saved them from being incinerated by Hammer missiles while they fought their way dirtside, or he would have to call the whole business off. He hated to remind himself of the consequences of failure, but those consequences were his and his alone to deal with.
Struggling to shake off a growing certainty that the brutal realities of space warfare might in the end be too much to overcome, Michael followed his officers out of the meeting room. Screw it, he decided in a sudden burst of optimism, pushing all doubt aside. There had to be a way, and they would find it. It might not be easy, it might not be safe, it might not be guaranteed of success, but he was sure there would be a way. And when they found it, Anna would have a chance to escape Hartspring's vengeful brutality; for the first time since the colonel's awful message had ripped his life apart, he allowed himself to think that the nightmare would end, that he would see Anna again, that they might one day live their lives together. And if fate determined otherwise, at least he would die knowing that he had not simply thrown his hands up in despair, that he had done everything he could do to save Anna.
"End of simulation."
Nobody said a word, the awful hush dragging on for a long time. Sedova broke the silence. "I don't think it can be done, folks," she said.
"You might be right, Kat," Ferreira said. "If we follow Fleet standard operating procedures and drop spaceward of the Hammer's defenses to fight our way in, we're toast. There's no way in hell we can get across tens of thousands of kilometers of hostile space without having our asses kicked."
Another long silence followed.
"That means we have two choices," Michael said. "Accept we can't get in or drop closer."
"Hell, sir, what sort of choice is that?" Ferreira said. "Fleet standard operating procedures are clear on that score. Dropping any closer than 100,000 klicks is too damn risky. Let me just bring the probability array for Commitment online. Hold on… right, here we go."
The holovid screen blossomed into life to display a funnel standing vertically thin end down, its curved walls representing Commitment's gravity well, the funnel shading from an encouraging green through to an unpromising scarlet as the distance to the planet's surface decreased. "Umm," Ferreira said, "yes… there you have it." She put a cursor on the funnel where green started to shade into yellow. "Minimum safe drop distance is 105,000 klicks. Drop there and we're all dead. Every Hammer in orbit will have more than enough time to take us out. They'll be able to use antimatter missiles on us, and they will. Drop closer and we're equally dead. It just takes a bit longer and is probably a touch more painful."
Ferreira's gallows humor brought fleeting smiles to everyone's face. The smiles faded fast; the silence hung like a pall across the meeting.
With a bang, the solution came to Michael. Judging by the look on Ferreira's face, she had just come to the same conclusion. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Jayla?"
She grinned at him. "Yes, I think so. This damn graphic"-she waved a hand contemptuously at the holovid screen-"is based on one key assumption."
"Go on," Michael said impatiently.
"It is a cast-iron Fleet regulation," Ferreira continued, "that no starship drop out of pinchspace unless it can jump back again safely if everything goes to shit. So-"
"Yes, yes, yes!" Sedova could not contain herself. "So what we're looking at is the product of two unconnected probability arrays."
"Precisely," Ferreira said, a touch smugly, Michael thought. "Smashing into the planet when dropping out of pinchspace is one risk. Jumping back safely without getting lost in deepspace is the second. We are only interested in this probability"-the holovid graphic changed; this time the green extended most of the way down to the planet's surface-"and that's because we're not coming back. We don't give a shit about the risk of jumping back into pinchspace 'cause we won't be jumping back into pinchspace."
"No, we won't," Michael said, his heart beginning to race with a newfound hope that Gladiator might work. "And if we drop close-"
Again Sedova could not hold back. "We'll be well inside the Hammer's defenses, the Hammers will be looking the wrong way, and there's what, 10,000 k's to cross before reentry? That," she declared with a confident smile, "is a much better proposition than trying to cross 100,000 klicks."
"It sure is," Bienefelt said with feeling. "I have to say, I was worried there for a while."
"Hold your horses, 'Swain," Michael said, even though he knew that this was the answer they had been looking for. "We need to see if this will work, but it is looking good, I must say. Right. Jayla, Kat, can you take this and rework the plan? When you have something workable, we'll run it through the sims to see how it holds up. Okay?"
"Sir," the pair chorused. Tuesday, August 28, 2401, UD Nyleth system base
Face impassive even though his stomach was a mess, Michael waited for the down-shuttle to dock; he steeled himself for what came next: He had to resolve the last impediment to Operation Gladiator.
The planning had produced something that everyone agreed would work. Anna's last vidmail confirmed she was still tucked away inside Camp J-5209. The latest intelligence reports following the progress of the New Revolutionary Army seemed encouraging. Under the leadership of Mutti Vaas, the NRA had recovered from its defeat at Bretonville in late July. Now they were pushing north and east out of their stronghold in the Branxton Ranges to attack the towns of Perdan and Daleel, and thanks to microsat transmitters-he had no idea where Vaas's people found them; seemingly the NRA had enough of them to replace the ones the Hammers kept shooting down-the people of Commitment could see that there might be an alternative to the ruthless totalitarian regime that had held the people of the Hammer of Kraa Worlds subjugated for centuries.
All of which was good, but one last problem had thwarted all Michael's efforts to find a solution. With only a month to go, time was running out, and today's meeting to finalize the Nyleth squadron's operations for the upcoming month was his last chance to secure an operation that would allow Redwood and her sister dreadnoughts to get clear of Nyleth unimpeded. With a new operations officer, a woman focused on using the dreadnoughts to keep Nyleth safe, that task was harder than it should have been.
Still, Michael stayed optimistic. He had lobbied the system commander to allow the squadron to take out yet another Hammer signal intelligence station uncovered by reconsats in Szent-Gyogyi deepspace, the sort of operation at which his dreadnoughts had proved to be devastatingly effective. The last time he spoke to Commodore Anjula, she did not say no, so there was still hope.
Three long hours later, the meeting wrapped up. Michael commed Ferreira.
"Tell me it's good news, sir. Please," she said.
"Let me see now, Jayla," Michael said, deadpan. "That depends"-Ferreira's face fell-"but I can tell you that our new operations officer has tasked the squadron to system nearspace defense"-Ferreira's face fell even farther-"but only until September 5, when the squadron will be departing Nyleth to blow the crap out of the Hammer SIGINT station on Maaslicht-43."
"About time." Ferreira's relief was obvious. "I was beginning to think we might end up stuck here."
"Me, too. Get everyone together. Now that we have a date, we need a final planning meeting for Gladiator. We also need to get a plan for the Maaslicht operation together even if we have no intention of going anywhere near the place."
"I'm on it, sir."
"See you in twenty."
Michael started to make his way back to the shuttle portal, and his neuronics pinged to announce a priority comm. "Bugger," he said softly when he saw who was calling; he could not help himself. What was the system commander after?
"Yes, sir?" he said when Commodore Anjula's face appeared.
"Thought you should know that Vice Admiral Jaruzelska will be here end of next week."
Michael's heart skipped a beat. "Noted, sir, thank you. Anything specific?" he asked.
"Have a look at the dreadnoughts, of course. Apart from that, just a look around before she takes up her new post."
"New post, sir? I haven't heard."
"The announcement has just come through. She's the new director of Fleet planning, effective October 1."
"Oh, right," Michael said. "So who's taking over the dreadnought force?"
"Nobody."
"Nobody, sir?"
"That's what I said," Anjula replied, a touch testily, "nobody. The job's been abolished. With only your three operational and no chance of any more entering service, Fleet's decided to manage dreadnoughts as part of the heavy cruiser force. Administrative efficiency, the announcement said. She'll be happy to debate the merits of that decision with you, I'm sure, so I won't. My staff will get a draft program out for her visit in the next day or so."
"Thank you, sir."
"Anjula, out."