Support Facility 27 nearspace,
West Devastation Reef
In a savage flash of white light, antimatter warheads stripped out of captured Hammer Eaglehawk missiles exploded. Seconds later, a wall of gamma radiation overwhelmed the sphere of heavily armed defense platforms and pinchspace jump disrupters protecting the drop zone for ships heading for the Hammer antimatter buried deep in the heart of Support Facility 27. The radiation, ferocious in its intensity, pushed through the platforms’ meager armor, forcing fusion reactors out of limits until they, too, erupted into massive balls of white-red gas, before it reached out to destroy a small Hammer task group on forward picket duty.
In less than a nanosecond, billions of cubic kilometers of Hammer space had been scoured clean, its defenses blown to incandescent gas.
Seconds later, more cargo drones dropped out of pinchspace to the north and south of the drop zone; their payloads of antimatter warheads sterilized two bubbles of space large enough to accommodate the ships of Battle Fleet Lima, the void filling with hundreds of thousands of white-hot flares as space mines were overwhelmed by gamma radiation, their directed-fission warheads going critical, stabbing jets of fire uselessly into space.
For a while, nothing happened. Slowly cooling spheres of gas expanding out into the void were the only things moving.
“Captain, sir. All suits are green, ship is at general quarters in ship state 1, airtight condition zulu, artificial gravity off, ship depressurized,” Ferreira said.
Michael ignored a stomach doing somersaults as Reckless’s gravity disappeared. “Roger. I have the ship. All stations, stand by to drop. Thanks, Jayla.”
“I’m glad it’s started, sir,” Ferreira said, “that’s all I can say.”
“Amen to that,” Michael said; he meant it. The wait was killing him.
“I’ll be in damage control, sir. Good luck. Remember Comdur.” Ferreira spun on the spot; with a one-footed push, she glided away.
“Remember Comdur,” Michael whispered while his executive officer flew effortlessly out of Reckless’s combat information center. The huge compartment felt uncomfortably empty, its only other occupants the anonymous combat space-suited figures of Carmellini and Lomidze strapped into their shock-resistant seats, hunched forward over consoles in front of Michael. Flanking him were the two AI-generated avatars in the operations and threat assessment seats. Kubby and Kal-their clones, to be precise; the original AIs were a small part of the diffuse cloud of gas that once had been Tufayl-might look every bit as solid as Carmellini and Lomidze, but they were just images spun across his mind’s eye, figments of a computer’s imagination. Michael did not care; it was good to have them there.
Time to commit. “Warfare, command,” Michael said. “Weapons free. You have command authority.”
“Warfare, roger. Weapons free. I have command authority.”
Maddeningly slow, the drop counter ran off the seconds. “All stations, this is Warfare. Stand by … dropping.”
Michael’s gloved fingers dug into the arm of his seat while Reckless turned the cosmos inside out, the navigation AI depositing the ship precisely onto its drop datum. The rest of the dreadnoughts fell neatly into station around her.
After months of work, Operation Opera started in earnest. With a quiet prayer that he would make it out alive and that Anna would be home soon, he closed his mind to everything except the job at hand.
A crunching shudder shook the ship from end to end, the opening move of Operation Opera: Reckless and her sister ships each deployed their first salvo of long-range Merlin antistarship missiles along with their clouds of protective decoys. The missiles would keep station while the dreadnoughts added more missiles to the salvo. When the time came, and coordinated to the second, first stage engines would fire, driving the missiles toward the target in a single enormous wave, a rail-gun salvo timed to arrive on target seconds before the missiles smashed home.
Executed properly, a well-crafted missile and rail-gun attack was a brutally effective tactic, a tsunami of missiles and rail-gun slugs intended to confuse, overload, and overwhelm. Space fleets all across humanspace spent enormous amounts of time trying to get it right; Michael’s dreadnoughts were no exception, and he liked to think they, too, had gotten it right.
The Hammers had more than the dreadnoughts to worry about. Running ahead of Michael’s ships was Group North, a mixed task group of heavy and light cruisers backed up by fleet escorts and led by Vice Admiral Jaruzelska in Seljuk. Their missiles and rail guns would add to the misery to be inflicted on the Hammer ships tasked with defending the northern approaches to SuppFac27.
That was the good part.
The problem was that anything the Feds dished up, the Hammers would return with interest. Two hundred thousand kilometers ahead of Group North and Michael’s dreadnoughts, the Hammer ships of task group Hammer-2 were already adjusting vectors to intercept the incoming Feds, their first missile salvo quickly deployed, with many more to follow.
It was going to be rough, and there was always the chance that the Hammers’ first missile salvo would carry antimatter warheads, even if Fleet’s intelligence analysts had been emphatic that they would not. The risk of collateral damage to the intricate web of fixed defenses and minefields and to the roving task groups of Hammer warships that protected SuppFac27 was too high, they argued. Michael agreed with them, not that his opinion mattered: The intelligence wonks had been known to get things spectacularly wrong, and if they had, the heavy cruisers were doomed, and so was Operation Opera.
For Jaruzelska, accepting the analysts’ call had been an enormous gamble, the biggest of her long and successful career. If the analysts were wrong, she risked the future of the Federated Worlds and its billions of citizens. Michael was more than happy that Jaruzelska was in charge; it was a good time to be a lowly lieutenant, responsible for only a small part of the mind-bendingly complex business that was Operation Opera. If it all went to shit-and there was a good chance it would-it would not be his scalp the politicians came after.
“Command, Warfare. Threat plot confirmed.”
“Command, roger.”
Relieved, Michael whistled softly. The Hammers were where the few reconsats Jaruzelska was allowed to deploy said they would be. There were three task groups: Hammer-1, covering the central approaches to the antimatter plant; Hammer-2, 100,000 kilometers to the north; and Hammer-3, the same distance to the south. That was nice, Michael thought, a threat plot that did not turn to shit in the first few seconds of an operation, though he knew that happy state of affairs would not last. Things would go wrong, he reminded himself, the moment Hammer reinforcements started to arrive. If there was one thing certain about Operation Opera, that was it.
“Command, Warfare. Dreadnought Group established on vector. Groups North and South report launch of minefield clearance drones.”
“Roger.”
A quick check confirmed that Warfare had the dreadnought force in station and on vector. Michael settled back, eyes flicking between the threat and command plots. The Fed attack was developing according to a plan that for once-most unusually-was addressing a two-dimensional tactical problem rather than the three that bedeviled most space combat. That was because, buried in the heart of Devastation Reef, SuppFac27 was a difficult place to get into. Thanks to an impenetrable tangle of gravitational rips, ships approaching the Hammer plant in pinchspace were forced to come from one direction only: from the west, parallel to the galactic plane. From any other direction-up, down, north, south, or east, it did not matter-a transit through normalspace was the only way in: Tens of millions of kilometers of gravitational reef forced a long and slow transit. As one of the planners had pointed out, to come in across the reef would be to tell the Hammers a week ahead of time that an attack was on its way, ensuring that the entire Hammer fleet would be waiting to blow you to hell when you finally turned up.
All of which was why the Hammers had located SuppFac27 where they had, so from the west it was.
The result? The Feds would fight their way into the Hammer antimatter plant across what amounted to a flat-if invisible-surface. It was the one thing Opera had going for it, and Michael loved it; it simplified the tactical situation greatly.
There was one small problem, though. If fighting a battle on a flat surface made things easier for the Feds, it did the same thing for the Hammers.
Now the two Fed task groups drove east out of their drop zones and across the western edge of Devastation Reef; ahead of them lay the Hammer ships covering the antimatter plant’s flanks. In the center, two decoy attacks-configured to look like a massive force of heavy cruisers and intended to fool the Hammers into thinking that they were the main assault force-were on vector running right up the middle, heading straight for SuppFac27.
The aim was to confuse the Hammers, to conceal the real threat to the antimatter plant for as long as possible. If Opera went to plan, the Hammers’ commander would have no idea which of the Fed ships were feints and which posed the real threat to their precious antimatter plant.
To confuse them further, cargo drones spewed decoys, jammers, and spoofers into the space between the attacks until SuppFac27 nearspace was filled with an elaborately constructed torrent of electronic noise, most of it garbage. For an instant, Michael sympathized with the Hammers; he wondered what the poor sap in charge of defending SuppFac27 was thinking. Buried under an avalanche of conflicting information, flummoxed by a blizzard of electronic noise, and with attacks developing along four separate vectors, he would be struggling to sort out truth from deception, which, of course, was the whole point.
But the Hammers had one thing going for them. There was only one target, and in the end Jaruzelska’s ships would have to close in on it to have any chance of destroying the plant. If the Hammers were smart, they would pull back and wait for the Feds to come to them instead of blundering around trying to sort out reality from deception. In the sims, the margin between success and failure narrowed dramatically every time the Hammers did that. When reinforcements turned up in the right place at the right time as well …
Happily, the Hammers were not yet doing the sensible thing. Michael was watching what might have been a “best case” simulation. As Jaruzelska’s planners hoped, the Hammer ships did not wait for the Feds to come to them; they were moving out to meet and engage the incoming Feds. But the Hammers had a big problem: three task groups to interdict four Fed lines of attack. That allowed one of the Feds’ decoy attacks to run unopposed right at the antimatter plant, giving the Hammer commander, Michael hoped, a severe attack of the vapors when he realized what was happening.
“Command, Warfare, sensors. Positive gravitronics intercept. Estimated drop bearing Red 180 Up 0. Multiple vessels, range 12,000 kilometers. Gravity wave pattern suggests pinchspace transition imminent. Drop datum nominal for Assault Group.”
Michael acknowledged the report, relieved that Assault Group-deemed too valuable to drop with the advance guard-was on its way. The bad news was that Assault Group was under the command of Rear Admiral Perkins, a decision Michael reckoned had the fingerprints of Fleet politicians all over it. With Perkins in charge of Assault Group, the man would be in at the kill, and Michael knew full well who would take the credit for Opera’s success. All too clearly, he could see what would happen. Ignoring the task forces protecting his vulnerable flanks, ignoring the dreadnoughts that had blasted the way open for him, Perkins would attribute the success of Opera to the conventional warships of Assault Group and, no doubt, to his skills as a combat commander. Sonofabitch.
Michael dismissed the Perkins problem. What mattered was making Opera a success, though he was pretty sure who would be getting the blame if Opera turned out to be the failure the analysts said it might so easily be. He would not want to be Jaruzelska if that happened.
“Command, Warfare, sensors. Assault Group dropping. Drop datum confirmed Red 180 Up 0, range 12,500 kilometers. Stand by … confirmed. Arrivals are Assault Group.”
“Command, roger.”
Michael settled down to wait. Warfare was performing flawlessly, so he forced himself to relax a touch. Space warfare, like all warfare down the ages, was a mixture of boredom and terror, invariably bucket loads of the former seasoned with occasional pinches of the latter. Opera was definitely in the boredom phase. This was as unexciting as combat got: two groups of ships hurtling toward each other across hundreds of thousands of kilometers of space, too far apart to engage, their principal task to dump missiles into space, building their opening salvos while they closed on the enemy for the inevitable. It was the bloody business of close-quarters combat, a battle of attrition as missiles and rail-gun slugs stripped armor off ships’ frames, looking for a way through to the fusion plants driving main propulsion. Michael buried an image of Reckless’s fusion plants going up, doing his best to ignore his body’s reaction to the impending fight: churning stomach, sweaty hands, hammering heart, and dry mouth.
Time dragged by with excruciating slowness, the quiet concentration of Reckless’s tiny combat information center crew interrupted by the routine reports of missile launches when Fed and Hammer ships dumped missiles into space.
“Command, Warfare. Update. Ships of task group Hammer-1 have engaged Decoy Group One. Expect Hammer breakaway imminent.”
“Command, roger.” The Hammer commander would be seriously pissed when he discovered that he had thrown one of his precious task groups into an attack on a bunch of decoys. Fed decoys were good but not good enough to mount a convincing defense once attacked. The big question was where the Hammer ships would go when they found out they had been conned.
Michael received his answer a few minutes later. The ships attacking Decoy Group One changed vector, furious jets of ionized reaction mass from maneuvering thrusters turning them end for end, the electronic and optical noise spewed out by the decoy attack ignored completely.
“Shit,” Michael muttered when the Hammers’ intentions became clear. They had ignored the one Fed attack they had not been able to deal with: Decoy Group Two, the second decoy attack running at SuppFac27. The Hammer commander was pulling his ships back to screen the antimatter plant, and that meant just one thing. Stopping Decoy Group Two was going to be somebody else’s job. Reinforcements were on the way.
He commed the admiral’s staff.
“Flag, Reckless.”
The avatar of one of Jaruzelska’s operations staff took the com, the stress on the man’s face all too obvious. “Go ahead, Reckless.”
“The Hammer ships tasked to intercept Decoy Group One are withdrawing to SuppFac27. My assessment is that reinforcements are inbound to deal with Decoy Group Two. You concur?”
“Stand by … yes, we concur. We’re just about to update the threat plot.”
“Any estimate of the drop datum?”
“Somewhere to the southeast is our best guess, but it’s just a guess at the moment.”
“Roger. Reckless, out.”
Michael’s worst fears were about to be realized. Reinforcements were the basis for all the nightmare scenarios they had been subjected to in the sims, and far too many of those had ended in disaster. If the Hammers dropped the right ships in the right places at the right times, even a commander as good as Jaruzelska was going to struggle.
The tactical problem was simple. Jaruzelska knew Hammer ships were on the way-that much was certain-but she had no idea how many or where or when they would drop. That meant she could do nothing to head them off. She had to wait, responding to the Hammer reinforcements as they arrived. Michael hated it-no commander liked being forced to react to events-but Jaruzelska had no choice.
“Command, Warfare. Group South engaging ships of task group Hammer-3.”
“Command, roger.”
Michael patched his neuronics into the holocam feed coming from the heavy cruiser leading Group South. What he saw made his skin crawl. Shrouded in clouds of decoys, Hammer missiles-arranged like a giant doughnut perpendicular to Group South’s vector-had turned inward; now they plunged down onto the Fed task group, the fast-closing gap between attackers and defenders filled with the flash of missiles exploding as Group South’s mediumrange missiles and lasers did the grim work of tearing the Hammer attack to pieces. The battle was degenerating fast into a wretched, scrambling fight for survival, one that no Fed ship could afford to lose: A single fusion warhead, triggered by a proximity fuse to explode close to its target, released enough raw power to strip a heavy cruiser’s flank armor right down to the inner titanium hull, the impulse shock violent enough to send razor-sharp splinters ripping through the ship to lethal effect.
The missiles that survived closed in, and the Feds’ short-range defensive weapons joined the fight, throwing up a wall of metal backed up by lasers, clawing more and more missiles out of the attack. But missiles still made it through, relentless, unstoppable; there were too many of them. Just before missile detonation, the Hammers’ rail-gun salvo arrived, slugs burying themselves deep in the frontal armor of their targets, great gouts of ionized ceramsteel armor blasted out into space, ugly clouds of white-hot gas boiling away from the ships. Seconds later, the missiles hit home, a brutally effective mix of boosted chemex and fusion warheads, lances of white-hot fire and hellish torrents of radiation putting their victims to the sword.
It was a sickening sight. Michael watched the damage reports flooding in. The ships attacking SuppFac27’s southern flank had been roughly handled. Too many were beyond help, broken hulls spitting lifepods in all directions, orange-strobed specks driving away through clouds of ice and fire in a frenzied race to get clear before the ships blew, violent blue-white flashes marking the loss of one ship after another. More ships, battered and combat-ineffective, pulled out of the line of battle to reverse vector and run for safety.
The fight was not one-sided, though; now it was the Hammers’ turn to suffer. The Fed ships dropped their own exquisitely coordinated rail-gun and missile salvos onto the enemy ships, flame-shot clouds of plasma erupting as rail-gun slugs and missile warheads clawed at the Hammer ships. When the clouds cleared, Michael saw that the Hammers had suffered every bit as badly as the Feds, maybe more so. Ship after ship pulled out of the line, brilliant flares flagging the death of ships when their fusion power plants lost containment.
The first phase of the engagement was over; to Michael’s astonishment it had lasted only a few seconds. Now the hard slog started for Group South: The two sides closed in, trading salvo for salvo, missiles and rail-gun slugs thrown across space in a brutal war of attrition that would end when one side either ceased to exist or fled the field of battle. The Feds were relying on better salvo rates and more accurate targeting to overcome the Hammers.
Michael’s mouth tightened into a thin, tight snarl of approval. Operation Opera had a long way to go, but so far, so good. It might be a bloody business, but Group South was doing what it had been sent to do: fix the Hammer ships in place, lock them into a running battle from which they could not disengage without risking destruction, keep them away from the dreadnoughts and Assault Group. It was a magnificent, tragic spectacle; while he watched, Michael tried not to think about the thousands of spacers dying to protect his ships.
“Command, Warfare. Group North missile commit in five … stand by … now.”
Missile first stages fired, the Fed ships illuminated by the harsh brilliance of hundreds of thousands of thin white pillars of flame. It was an awesome sight, the missiles opening out into a ring while they flew toward the advancing Hammers, who were not slow to respond.
“Command, Warfare. Group North reports missile commit from task group Hammer-2.”
“Command, roger,” Michael acknowledged. His mouth dust-dry, he contemplated ending up on the wrong end of hundreds of thousands of missiles. “All stations, this is the captain. Quick update, folks. It’s on. The Hammers have committed their missiles, and they’ll be on us soon. So brace yourselves. It will get rough. Command, out.”
Michael patched a quick com through to Rao in Retrieve and Machar in Recognizance. Their avatars popped into his neuronics, grim-faced, taut with apprehension. Michael’s heart went out to them; though they had all been in combat, none of them had ever seen anything quite so daunting, quite so terrifying, as the immense missile strike heading their way.
“Kelli, Nathan. All buttoned up?”
“Yes, sir,” the pair chorused.
“Good. Stick to the plan, and remember that if and when it all goes to shit, do whatever it takes to get your ships through to SuppFac27. Just go, keep on going, and get your marines into the plant.”
“Sir.”
“Good. See you on the other side. Reckless out.”
Death arrived, heralded by the appalling racket of Reckless’s defenses when they joined with the dreadnoughts and the rest of Group North to slash missiles out of space. But there were too many to fend off. Inevitably, some fought their way through, leaving ship after ship reeling from fusion blast, missile strike, and the impact of rail-gun slugs. The Hammers had planned their attack well. Focused on the leading ships, their opening salvo ripped the guts out of Group North. Too many of the cruisers had been hit, some fatally, the telltale orange strobes of lifepods filling the space around the dying ships, the distress radio frequency filling with the urgent bleatings of automatic beacons asking for help.
“Command, sensors.” Carmellini’s voice was hoarse. “Seljuk’s in trouble, sir.”
Of all the ships! Michael did not want to think what losing Jaruzelska might mean for Opera’s chances of success. He forced himself to sound calm. “Command, roger. Train a holocam on her.”
The video feed from the holocam confirmed Carmellini’s report. The massive heavy cruiser had been heavily punished up forward; Seljuk’s bows were a smoking ruin of white-hot ceramsteel armor. Worse, the full force of a pair of well-timed fusion warheads had opened up her starboard side down to the titanium frames; Michael saw right into the dying cruiser. He did not have to check the data feeds from Seljuk; he had seen enough damaged ships to know that she was doomed. It was just a matter of time before a Hammer missile-one of many held back, loitering behind the main attack to pick off the wounded-plunged into the ship, its target one of the massive cruiser’s main fusion plants. For Seljuk-and Admiral Jaruzelska-Operation Opera was over.
Not having Jaruzelska in charge was bad enough.
Having Perkins in charge of Opera might be, would be, ten times worse.
A terse com from Seljuk confirmed his worst fears. “Command, Warfare. Message from Flag: Seljuk fatally damaged. Abandoning ship. Flag passes to Seiche; Rear Admiral Perkins has operational command. Good luck. Jaruzelska out.”
“Command, roger.” Damn, damn, damn, Michael raged. Without hesitation, he trusted Jaruzelska with his life. He would not trust Perkins to look after a week-old cheeseburger. Michael watched the damage assessments flood in. They made for horrific reading. But there was some good news. Largely because they had run tucked in behind the main group of Fed ships, Reckless and her fellow dreadnoughts had escaped unscathed, the only damage inflicted by missile debris and minor. Five minutes behind them, Assault Group drove on completely untouched.
Group North had been mauled severely: moments after Seljuk blew itself apart, more ships followed her into oblivion, and others started to pull out of line, but not before dumping every missile into the next attack their shock-damaged hydraulics were capable of. Relief flooded his body as he watched the next phase of the attack develop: Group North might have been battered, but it remained an effective fighting force.
Michael forced himself to stay focused, to stay objective. Hard though they might be to accept, those losses did not matter provided that the Hammer ships attacking Group North were kept away from the dreadnoughts. And the Hammers were taking a beating. Pinned in place by Group North’s attack, the ships of task group Hammer-2 were being ripped to bloody shreds. It was a good result. The way things were going, none of those Hammer ships would be a threat when the dreadnoughts and Assault Group broke away for the final assault on SuppFac27.
“Command, Warfare. Stand by to alter vector in five.”
“Command, roger. Advise Flag.”
“Stand by … Flag advised.”
Michael forced himself to relax. He half expected Perkins to start changing the operations plan, but thankfully, that did not happen.
Five seconds later, the dreadnoughts adjusted vector, peeling away from Group North to turn southeast to start their run into SuppFac27, 180,000 kilometers distant. At 12,500 kilometers behind the dreadnoughts, Assault Group turned to follow.
Endgame time, Michael whispered to himself, endgame time. If the Hammer commander had not shot himself in despair-or been shot for incompetence, something the Hammers were inordinately fond of doing-he would see now where the real threat to his antimatter plant lay. If Opera had been a bloodbath so far, it was going to get a whole lot worse when the Hammers focused their efforts to keep the dreadnoughts out. With fear chewing away at his guts, Michael shivered at the awful prospect of the hours still to be spent deep inside Hammer space before the job was done and they could all go home.
“Command, Sensors. Group South reports positive gravitronics intercept. Estimated drop bearing Green 60 Up 3. Multiple vessels, range 155,000 kilometers. Gravity wave pattern suggests pinchspace transition imminent. Designated hostile task group Hammer-4. Initial vector analysis suggests incoming ships tasked to intercept Decoy Group Two.”
“Command, roger. Confirm vector soonest.
“Here we go,” Michael whispered. With the arrival of reinforcements, the real fight had started; the tactical advantage was back with the Hammers. Keeping one eye on the battle still raging off the dreadnoughts’ port side between Group North and the Hammer ships protecting the northwestern approaches to the plant, he watched the threat plot while it updated to show the incoming Hammer reinforcements.
“Command, sensors. Hammer task group designated Hammer-4 dropped. Mixed force: twelve heavy, fifteen light cruisers, ten heavy escorts, plus seven other ships. Vector nominal to intercept Decoy Group Two.”
“Time to engagement range?”
“Ten minutes.”
“Command, roger.” Those ten minutes were precious; they gave his dreadnoughts some time to run in toward SuppFac27 unopposed, ten minutes before the new arrivals worked out that they had been suckered into another attack on a bunch of Fed decoys, ten minutes before the Hammers turned to deal with the real threat to their plant. Michael swore softly. An hour would have been better, but he would take what he could get. One thing was for sure. Hammer-4 was just the first batch of reinforcements; more were certain to be on their way. He saw it in his mind’s eye: Ignoring the elaborate web of diversionary attacks staged by the Feds right across Hammer space, attacks intended to delay reinforcements for as long as possible, Hammer ships would be scrambling in a desperate race to come to SuppFac27’s defense.
In stark contrast to the terrifying intensity of the battles raging to the north and south, the Hammers had ignored the dreadnoughts and Assault Group so far, their commander still too short of ships to head them off. He would be having kittens, no doubt praying to his beloved Kraa for reinforcements and soon.
The rest of Battle Fleet Lima was doing it tough. Twenty thousand kilometers to port, Group North was still slugging it out with the Hammers, exchanging missile and rail-gun salvos, ships either blown or dropping out of the engagement, bleeding air and lifepods into space. One hundred thirty thousand kilometers to starboard, the newly arrived Hammer ships headed for the diversionary attack mounted by Decoy Group Two. Fifty thousand kilometers beyond them to the south, the engagement between Group South and the Hammers covering the southern approaches was grinding its way to a blood-soaked conclusion, the Feds’ superior missile and rail-gun launch rates giving them the advantage.
Michael scanned the damage reports and forced himself not to think of the thousands of spacers dying on the blood-drenched altars of Hammer ambition. Only one thing mattered: that Groups North and South did their jobs-running interference, keeping the Hammer defenders pinned in place and away from the dreadnoughts, their sacrifice buying Michael and his ships the time they needed to smash a path through SuppFac27’s defenses, opening the way through for Assault Group.
And what a job they were doing. Ignoring their losses, the Fed ships pressed home the attack until the Hammers could take no more. One ship after another, the Hammers broke and ran.
“Command, Warfare. Group South reports Hammers withdrawing. Group North reports Hammer ships to the north also withdrawing, assessed combat-ineffective, though they expect harassing attacks from ships still operational. Flag has ordered Group North to detach all available units to support Assault Group.”
“Command, roger. Units to be detached?”
“Stand by … heavy cruisers Secular, Ulugh Beg, Iron Road, Al-Zahravi, Zuben-el-Genubi, plus light cruisers and escorts.”
Michael shook his head in despair that Group North could spare so few ships.
“Command, Warfare. Task group Hammer-4 has engaged Decoy Group Two. Expect Hammers to break away shortly.”
“Command, roger.” Michael stared at the command plot. When the ships of Hammer-4 discovered that the second decoy group was yet another Fed diversion-and it would not take them long-where would they go? They would pull back, Michael decided after careful consideration; they would pull back to defend SuppFac27. That created a new problem straightaway: Pulling back would put the Hammer ships on vector to intercept Assault Group, and Hammer-4 had enough ships to give Admiral Perkins and Assault Group a headache.
Everything told Michael that Opera was close to its tipping point. He had seen it before: the point where an operation started to slip out of control and into instability, where the assumptions underpinning the operations plan started to fall apart, where those old enemies, fear, uncertainty, and doubt began to take over, where one wrong decision was all it took to ruin an entire operation.
Michael needed to know how close they were to the moment of crisis. He commed Rao, Machar, and his AIs into a conference; together they ran the numbers.
On the Fed side, Assault and Dreadnought groups, augmented by a handful of battered survivors from Group North, were established on vector, heading right for SuppFac27. Between them and their goal stood SuppFac27’s fixed defenses: space battle stations deployed around an inner ring of semiautonomous defense platforms-all tough and resilient but unable to move and lacking the ship-killing power of rail guns-augmented by Hammer ships pulling back from their abortive intercepts of the two decoy attacks, all supported by the SuppFac27’s last line of defense: fixed missile and laser batteries emplaced on the surface of the asteroid itself.
All that was bad, but the more he studied them, the more Michael liked the odds, and so did the rest of his team.
“We can finish this,” Machar said.
“Yes, we can,” Rao added.
Michael agreed with them. The dreadnoughts would blow the fixed defenses aside, and their rail guns would drop a hailstorm of slugs to destroy anything and everything on the asteroid’s surface. As for the Hammer ships pulling back to defend the antimatter plant, they were strong but not strong enough to withstand the weight of missiles and rail-gun slugs thrown at them by the dreadnoughts and the ships of Assault Group.
Yes, the dreadnoughts could clear the way into SuppFac27. Provided that nothing changed, it was game over … provided that nothing changed.
Michael watched and waited.
Seventy-two minutes into the operation and less than thirty minutes before the dreadnoughts smashed through the defenses around SuppFac27, Michael allowed himself to believe that the worst was over.
Then things changed.
“Warfare, Command, Sensors. Positive gravitronics intercept. Estimated drop bearing Green 45 Down 1. Multiple vessels, range 60,000 kilometers. Assault Group confirms intercept. Gravity wave pattern suggests pinchspace transition imminent. Designated hostile task group Hammer-5. Initial vector assessment suggests Hammer-5 has been tasked to intercept Assault Group. Stand by vector confirmation.”
“Confirm Green 45, 60,000?” Michael said, baffled. That should not be possible. As far as he knew, the Hammer ships were going to drop right into Devastation Reef, and even Hammers were not that stupid. Their ships would be torn apart.
“Drop datum for task group Hammer-5 is confirmed, Green 45, 60,000.”
“Goddamnit,” Michael said, frustrated and concerned at the same time. According to the intelligence briefings, gravity rips stopped Hammer reinforcements from dropping this close to SuppFac27. But the Hammers obviously did not read Fed intelligence briefings, so there they were, a major threat he did not need. “Command, roger,” he said struggling to keep his voice under control. “Confirm vector soonest.”
“Warfare, Command, Sensors. Hammer-5 dropping … stand by … task group Hammer-5 dropped. Mixed force, thirty-five cruisers, sixty escorts. On vector to intercept Assault Group, time to engage ten minutes.”
“Roger.”
Sweat beaded Michael’s forehead. The Hammers were pulling rabbits out of the hat, and they were not small fluffy ones, either. These rabbits were big, ugly, and dangerous. That many ships dropping this close to SuppFac27 constituted a serious threat. He worked through the problem: An ice-cold band wrapped itself around his chest and squeezed hard. Michael struggled to breathe. Assault Group was in trouble, and the Hammers were sure to have reinforcements inbound to help stop the dreadnoughts. All that meant Opera was in trouble. His first instinct was to turn back to help; he gave Warfare the order.
“Warfare, Command, to all ships, emergency reverse vec-”
Something made him stop. “Warfare. Disregard my last,” he said, sitting back, his eyes locked on the command plot, his mind churning while he struggled to work out what came next.
One thing was becoming clear: If he followed his instincts and turned the dreadnoughts back to support Assault Group, there was a real chance he would lose most of his ships. Firing main engines to fall back to Assault Group would put the dreadnoughts beam on to the Hammers. They would not be able to fire their rail guns, and the Hammers could fire theirs right into the dreadnoughts’ thin flank armor. And the most vulnerable part of his ships-their sterns-would be pointing right at SuppFac27’s defenses; a well-timed missile salvo would tear the asses of his ships out. At best, they would be gutted; at worst, they would all be blown to hell. True, Assault Group would lose fewer ships, but the ones that survived would be trapped in a running battle, pinned by the incoming Hammers, unable to break away to press home their attack on SuppFac27. Chances were, the attack would stall and the Feds would not have enough assets left to press home the final assault.
Worse, the Hammers would have gained what they most needed: the time they required for more reinforcements to arrive. Michael did not know how many more Hammer ships were on their way, but they would be coming, and they would have the dreadnoughts firmly in their sights.
In the end, it came down to a simple choice. Turn back the dreadnoughts and SuppFac27 would survive, churning out antimatter for the Hammers’ missiles; Opera would have failed. Press on, and there was still a chance. It was a no-brainer, the sort of tactical problem set to trip up dim-witted cadets too idle to read an operations order properly.
Any way he analyzed it, Assault Group’s mission had just changed. Any chance they had of getting through to SuppFac27 unchallenged had gone. Perkins needed to forget about destroying the antimatter plant. He should pin the incoming Hammers in place, run interference for the dreadnoughts while they ran in to finish the job, and keep Hammer missiles and rail guns away from his ships.
It was the only way. But …
Deep down inside, something told him that Perkins and his staff might not see things the same way, so he needed to be sure. He commed Rao and Machar into conference with his AIs. Working frantically, he ran the tactical options past them. It was the work of only a minute before they reported back.
“Command, I speak for all of us,” Kubby said, the operations AI’s avatar grim-faced.
Michael glanced at the other AIs; the avatars nodded their agreement. “Kelli? Nathan?”
“Us, too,” his two captains said.
“Fine. Go ahead.”
“We’ve considered all the options. Realistically, there are just two. Either the dreadnoughts push on or they turn back to assist Assault Group.”
“You’re sure of that? I need to know I haven’t missed something here.”
“Those are your options,” Kubby replied, its tone emphatic. “We recommend that the dreadnoughts press on. Assault Group should be retasked to deal with the latest Hammer incursion. Let me show you why.”
Michael watched the AI run a quick and dirty simulation of what would happen if he turned back. It was as he feared: Opera could not succeed if the Fed attack ended up bogged down in an endless battle of attrition with a never-ending flow of Hammer reinforcements. With everything to lose, the Hammers would not hold back. They would keep throwing ships into the fight until every last Fed warship exploded into a ball of gas. Somebody had to press home the attack, and he was that someone.
“Okay,” he said. “I agree. We don’t have a choice. We need to push on. Warfare concurs?”
“Warfare concurs. Push on.”
“Retrieve?”
“Concurs.”
“Recognizance?”
“Concurs.”
“Roger. Let me talk to the admiral’s staff to get their approval,” Michael said, praying harder than he had ever prayed that he was going to get it. “And if I don’t get the admiral’s approval, we’re going anyway, and that’s an order.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” his dreadnought captains replied.
“Good.” Taking a deep breath-the step he was about to take had kicked his heart into overdrive-Michael commed Perkins’s staff.
“Flag, Reckless,” he said.
“Flag.” The avatar of some staff drone-a three-ring commander-replied.
“Hammer-6 will be in a position to engage Assault Group in less than ten minutes. I intend to push on to destroy the plant. Reckless, over.”
“Stand by, Reckless.”
The wait was a long one; the staff officer’s avatar reappeared finally.
“Reckless. From Flag, not approved, repeat, not approved. Dreadnought Group is to adjust vector to take station on Assault Group. When the Hammer attack has been contained, Assault Group will res-”
“No, sir!” Michael barked. “That will not work. This Hammer attack is a distraction. If the dreadnoughts turn back to support you, we’ll lose too many ships and too much time to complete the operation. We have the initiative, but we’ll lose-”
“You’re not listening to me, Captain!” the officer barked. “Without the support of your ships, Assault Group cannot contain these Hammer ships, so adjust vector as ordered. That’s an order.”
“No, Commander, you’re the one not listening,” Michael replied. “If we pull back, the Hammer ships inbound for SuppFac27 will get there intact. More reinforcements are sure to be on their way. Once those warships are under the protection of the battle stations and platforms, we will not have the assets to break through if we stop to help Assault Group. We’ll lose too many ships. And if the dreadnoughts don’t get through, that means all of this effort, all of the ships and spacers we’ve lost, will have been wasted. I’m sorry, I know it will be rough for Assault Group, but that’s just the way it has to be. Assault Group’s mission has changed. It has to change, sir. You have to run interference for us. Look at the sims; you’ll see what I mean.”
“Don’t tell me my job, Captain,” the staff commander said, his voice pure ice.
“I’m not, sir,” Michael said, “but we have run the sims, and it’s clear that pulling the dreadnoughts back to cover Assault Group endangers the entire operation. More to the point, it is inconsistent with Opera’s prime directive.”
The staff officer’s eyes bulged in disbelief. He glared at Michael, visibly angry. “You leave me no choice, Captain.”
“I am obliged to comply with Opera’s prime directive, Commander,” Michael snapped. “Sorry, sir. I will not adjust vector. Request you provide cover for my assault on SuppFac27.”
“Stand by.”
The staff officer’s avatar disappeared, the grim face of Rear Admiral Perkins taking its place. “Listen to me, Helfort,” Perkins said, his voice shaking. “I don’t care what you think. Your ships are under my command, and you’ll do as you are damn well ordered.”
Michael shook his head. “Sorry, sir. Under normal circumstances, of course I would. But these are not normal circumstances. If I follow your orders, Opera is lost.”
“That’s a matter of interpretation, Helfort, and I should not have to point out that it is my interpretation that counts, not yours.” Perkins’s face reddened with rage, the effort he was making to stay in control all too obvious. “Listen to me, Lieutenant, and listen well. This is a direct order. Dreadnought Group will adjust vector to take station on Assault Group. Do you understand my order?”
“I do, sir.”
“Obey it!”
“No, sir,” Michael said. “I can’t do that. If I obey, Opera is finished. The dreadnoughts will push on. The mission’s prime directive takes precedence over your orders. I’m sorry, but that’s a fact … sir.”
While Michael spoke, Perkins’s face twisted with ugly rage. “Listen here, Helfort,” he barked, his voice thick with fury. “Goddamn it! A direct order is a direct order. Take station on Assault Group. Now!”
“No, sir,” Michael said with another shake of the head. “Sorry, I will not comply with your order, and neither will my captains. Reckless, out.”
Michael cut the link and Perkins’s avatar, mouth open, face crimson, and eyes closed to narrow slits in impotent rage, faded away. For a moment, Michael wondered just what he had done. Ignoring a direct order from an admiral in battle was bad enough. Ignoring an order with the future of the Federated Worlds at stake was a hundred times worse. Heart racing nearly uncontrollably, he forced himself back to reality.
“Command, Warfare. To all Dreadnought Group ships, immediate execute emergency speed 300, acknowledge.” “Warfare, stand by … all ships acknowledged, emergency speed 300.”
Michael commed Rao and Machar. “You guys copy that?”
“We did, sir,” Rao said.
“You with me?”
“Yes, sir, we are. The admiral has given us the same order, and we have both declined to obey it.”
Michael swallowed hard. Trashing his own career was one thing; consigning officers as promising as Rao and Machar to the scrap heap was quite another. “You know what you’re risking?”
“Not as much as you are,” Machar said, “so don’t sweat it, sir. We’re in.”
“Roger. Thanks. Reckless, out.”
The die was cast; there was no going back. Michael could do nothing more. He breathed in and out slowly to try to get an unruly body back under control while Reckless’s main engines came up to emergency power, tons of driver mass accelerated at 40,000 g pouring from her main engines in two massive blue-white plumes of plasma. Around her, the dreadnoughts followed suit, thirty ships now driving in hard toward SuppFac27.
To Michael’s surprise, all of a sudden the stress, the fear, and the tension that had hung over him from the start of the operation started to slip away. With absolute clarity, Michael knew this to be the defining moment of his Fleet career. A strange calm filled his body, sharpening his senses, the terrible risks he faced visible in all their frightening detail. With a huge effort, he cleared his mind of everything but the mission, his ships, and the target. What mattered was making sure that the bet paid off.
Everything else was irrelevant.
Michael watched the command plot as the final acts of Operation Opera began to unfold. He was not going to worry about Perkins and his ships. What concerned him was the two Hammer task groups falling back to SuppFac27 after wasting their time dealing with the decoy attacks. If left unchallenged, they were strong enough to deflect his final assault on SuppFac27. Chucking yet another of the Fighting Instructions’ precious rules out the window, he decided to split his forces,
“Retrieve, Recognizance, this is Reckless.”
The faces of Rao and Machar popped into his neuronics; the pressure of events was clear to see. “Sir?” they said in unison.
“Kelli. I’m detaching Second and Third squadrons under your command. Adjust vector to intercept the Hammer task groups inbound for SuppFac27. I know it’s a big task, but I need you to keep them off my back while the First pushes on to deal with the antimatter plant. You must hold them up long enough for me to get through, even if it costs you every last one of your ships. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Rao said.
“Good. Destroy the Hammers if you can, then take to the landers and get the hell out of here. You don’t have enough time to turn your ships before they enter the southern minefield, so don’t try. Okay?”
Rao said nothing for a moment. Then she nodded. “Yes, sir. I see what you want. Leave it with me; we’ll do our best.”
“I know you will,” Michael said. “Nathan. Clear?”
“Crystal, sir. Good luck.”
“We’ll need it. Before you detach, I’ll take two more missile salvos from your ships … stand by … right, you have targeting data.”
“Roger that, sir. Launching missiles, second salvo to follow.”
“See you on the other side. Remember Comdur. Reckless, out.”
Reckless shuddered when hydraulic rammers off-loaded another missile salvo; Michael ignored the noise and scanned the command and threat plots. With the rest of the dreadnoughts under Rao’s command dealing with the last of the Hammer ships, the tactical situation came down to the one defensive problem-the battle stations and defense platforms arrayed around SuppFac27-standing between him and his only objective, the destruction of the antimatter plant.
Michael briefed Warfare. His fingers tapped impatiently; he waited for the AI to translate his wishes into specific plans. One minute later, Warfare produced what he wanted: a detailed plan to take and destroy SuppFac27’s defenses, a plan that had a reasonable chance of success. And he had to succeed; if he did not, he knew that Perkins would have every right to have him shot, and he did not intend to give him the satisfaction. He would make the damn plan work.
“Command, approved,” Michael said, sitting back. He had played his part; execution of the plan now rested in the hands of Warfare.
Reckless shook when massive hydraulic dispensers rammed a second full missile salvo into space, the rest of the dreadnoughts of the First following suit. The missiles opened out slowly. Two minutes later, another salvo followed, and two minutes later another, and another and another until none were left. The die was cast; Reckless’s missile magazines and those of the rest of the First were empty. Well, not quite. Michael kept twenty missiles back, half with fusion, half with conventional chemex warheads-they had a job, but only if and when his ships punched their way through SuppFac27’s defenses.
“Now,” Michael whispered an instant before Warfare gave the order that committed the missiles to the attack, tens of thousands of Merlin antistarship missiles rammed toward the Hammers defending SuppFac27 on pillars of fire.
“Command, Warfare. Missiles committed. Time to target seventy seconds.”
“Roger. Update.”
“Retrieve reports dreadnoughts have engaged. Hammer ships interdicted by preemptive rail-gun and missile attack.”
“Command, roger. Nice work, guys, nice work.” Michael focused his attention back on the First’s salvo. He watched it smash home, the combination of missiles and rail-gun slugs overwhelming SuppFac27’s defenses, space flaring white as proximity-fused fusion warheads detonated. The Hammer battle stations and platforms disappeared from view behind clouds of flaming armor.
While he waited for the battle damage assessments, Michael checked the dreadnoughts of the Second and Third squadrons, which were closing on the Hammer ships. Rao had to stop the Hammers; if she did not, Michael knew he would be attacking SuppFac27’s defenses while the Hammers fired missiles up the sterns of his ships, precisely where dreadnoughts were most vulnerable.
It seemed a long wait, though it probably was not. Taking aggression to new heights, Rao and Machar threw their ships directly at the Hammers; soaking up everything thrown at them, they closed until the Hammers had nowhere left to run. The massive ships, shrouded in clouds of ionized armor blown off by the Hammers’ frantic attempts to keep them out, were unstoppable. Smashing into the enemy, the dreadnoughts blew themselves apart, taking the Hammer cruisers with them, the rest of the Hammer ships falling to waves of missiles and rail-gun slugs, sheer brute force battering them into bloody wrecks tumbling away into space.
Michael frowned. Rao and Machar had done well. It was a great victory, but it had come at a terrible cost: Twenty dreadnoughts was an awful price to pay but one worth paying to give Michael’s ships the clear run in he needed so badly.
“Command, Warfare. Message from Retrieve: Mission accomplished. Hammer task groups combat-ineffective. Own losses heavy: sixteen ships destroyed, four ships seriously damaged and combat-ineffective. Casualties: six wounded, two serious, in regen tanks. Retrieve and Recognizance abandoning ship. Kill those Hammer bastards. Remember Comdur. Retrieve, out.”
“Command, roger. Reply: To Retrieve and Recognizance, thanks, job well done. Good luck. Get home safely. Reckless out.”
“Warfare, roger. Message sent … stand by … missile launch from SuppFac27 ground defenses.”
“Command, roger.” Michael was unconcerned. SuppFac27’s missile and laser batteries were well camouflaged and hard to eliminate, space battle stations were tough, and defensive platforms were expendable, but that was about all SuppFac27 had going for it. It had an Achilles’ heel: None of its defenses could maneuver, which made them the sort of target every rail gunner dreamed about, and his rail guns bettered any in humanspace. His dreadnoughts would make short work of SuppFac27’s defenses; millions of rail-gun slugs had already pulverized the surface of the asteroid and everything on it into a finely milled cloud of dust, the destruction systematic and unrelenting. Now his ships had to survive the Hammer missile attack pushing through his outer defensive screen of medium-range missiles at over 1,000 kilometers per second.
“Command, Warfare. Update. Assault Group reports task group Hammer-6 combat-ineffective”-well done, Rear Admiral Perkins, Michael thought acidly; you are good for something, after all-“surviving Hammer units scattering to the north, assessed no threat.”
“Command, roger. And Assault Group?”
“Combat-ineffective. Heavy losses, including Seiche”-this was turning out to be a bad day for flag officers, Michael said to himself, trying to ignore an image of Perkins being bundled ignominiously into a lifepod, a glorious moment of unalloyed schadenfreude-“Flag has passed to Sephardic; Commodore Jun has operational command. Assault Group conducting lifepod recovery. Flag advises that Assault Group will withdraw on completion.”
“Roger that. Request Flag to recover landers with survivors from Retrieve and Recognizance.”
“Roger … Flag confirms landers will be recovered. Stand by, message from Flag … Message reads: Personal from Commodore Jun for captain in command, FWSS Reckless. Your actions in keeping with highest traditions of Fleet. Well done. Regret in no position to assist you. All ships combat-ineffective. Good luck. Remember Comdur. Jun out.”
Michael sat for a moment, stunned. He had more friends in high places than he knew. “Send to Flag: Thanks, Reckless out.”
Much as he appreciated Jun’s vote of confidence, her confirmation that he could expect no support from Assault Group was a blow, not unexpected but disappointing nonetheless. Of all the ships committed to Opera, only his could finish what Opera had set out to achieve: the destruction of SuppFac27.
It was a lonely feeling, not least because success or failure rested on a single pair of shoulders: his.
“All stations, Warfare, brace for missile impact.”
Reckless reverberated with the familiar racket of close-in defensive weapons systems fighting to keep a Hammer attack at bay, the noise underscored by a crunching thud when Reckless fired her rail guns, the job of reducing SuppFac27’s defenses not forgotten. After the terrifying brutality of the earlier Hammer engagements, the attack launched by SuppFac27’s defenses was an anticlimax: There were simply too few missiles attacking too many ships. Without the mindless violence of a rail-gun attack to break open their defenses, the dreadnoughts could focus every weapon they had on the incoming missiles while they clawed their way across tens of thousands of kilometers of space. The noise died away finally, the last Hammer missile blown apart hundreds of kilometers short of its target.
Turning his attention back to the battle damage assessment, Michael took stock. His last salvo had inflicted enormous damage but not enough to finish the job. The defensive platforms might have been scoured out of space, but the Hammer battle stations still stood; they were a much tougher proposition altogether. Though badly damaged, they had survived to launch another missile salvo, their antistarship lasers still working hard to strip the frontal armor off the inbound dreadnoughts. Enough, Michael decided, enough. What came next broke his heart, but it had to be done. He did not have the time-or the missiles-to do this the hard way.
“Warfare, command. Commit the dreadnoughts. Send them in.”
“Warfare, roger.”
The unmanned dreadnoughts responded. Pushing their main engines to emergency power, the ships accelerated away from Reckless on vectors direct for the Hammer battle stations, their defensive weapons scouring the Hammer’s last missile salvo out of existence with contemptuous ease. Outnumbered, the battle stations never stood a chance. Shrugging off everything an increasingly desperate Hammer defense threw at them, the ships smashed headlong into the armored spheres, ripping them open before joining them in incandescent balls of plasma when their main propulsion fusion plants exploded.
Michael emptied his lungs in a long slow hiss of relief. The approaches to SuppFac27 lay wide open.
Reckless, the last ship of Battle Fleet Lima still engaged in Operation Opera, turned end for end and started to decelerate, its main engines firing across space toward the tiny asteroid that was home to SuppFac27, blazing pillars of driver mass reaching down to a surface scrubbed clean by the dreadnoughts’ relentless rail-gun salvos.
There was one more thing to do before Michael turned his attention back to the thorny problem of destroying SuppFac27. “Warfare, command.”
“Warfare.”
“Launch Cleft Stick under your control. Looks to me like there’ll be lifepods left in Hammer space by the main force. I want them picked up. When that’s done, set the Stick on vector east away from SuppFac27 across the reef. We’ll rendezvous with her when we leave this goddamn place. Any problems with that?”
“Stand by … no, none, sir. The only lifepods not recovered are drifting east away from the main force; they are well clear of any Hammer forces. Stick has the driver mass to pick all of them up. The Hammers are not showing any interest. They have their own problems.”
“Good. Make it so.”
“Warfare, roger.”
Michael turned his attention back to the business at hand. “Caesar’s Ghost, command.”
Sedova’s face popped into his neuronics. “Ghost.”
“As I’m sure you’ve worked out, it’s up to us to finish the job, so stand by to launch. I’ve commed you the ops plan.”
“Ghost, roger. Standing by.”
“Command, roger. Assault Leader?”
Kallewi’s avatar replaced Sedova’s. “Sir?” he said.
“Well, seems like you’re going to get your chance, after all. Demolition team ready to go?”
“They are, sir. Didn’t think it would come to this.”
“I hoped it wouldn’t,” Michael said, “I really did, but it has. So good luck. I’m telling you something you already know, but for chrissakes, make it fast. There are more Hammers on the way for sure, and I want to be gone before they turn up. So if you get stalled, set the charges and get the hell out.”
“Roger that, sir. I hate this damn place already,” Kallewi said. “Remember Comdur. Assault Leader out.”
“Command, Warfare. Reconbots launched and nominal, now on vector for SuppFac27.”
“Roger.”
Michael turned his attention back to the command holovid, which had been switched to take its video feed from the reconbots running toward SuppFac27. The asteroid was a dismal sight, its surface ripped and scarred by rail-gun slugs fired to wipe out the radar installations, missile and laser batteries, and other surface infrastructure that protected the plant. All that remained were a few lucky buildings, spared by random perturbations in the rail-gun swarms, lonely islands of ceramcrete in a sea of shattered wreckage hurled across the asteroid’s surface, the nearspace overhead filled with yet more junk thrown out into space by the appalling force of repeated rail-gun attacks, the asteroid’s microgravity too weak to claw the debris back to ground.
Michael was not interested in gloating over the damage his rail guns had done. What he needed to confirm-and quickly-was the location of the main access down into SuppFac27. The schematics stolen from the Hammers showed a gaping tunnel cut down into the asteroid to allow the installation of heavy plant and equipment, and he needed to find it. The stolen schematics had identified the access as a pair of heavily armored doors framed by a massive plascrete portal, but where the hell was it?
Carmellini spotted it first, smacking a target icon on the main access a full five seconds before the optronics AI decided that yes, it really had found what it was looking for. Warfare wasted no time; the initial group of missiles fired their first stages, accelerating toward the portal. Molded into a single weapon, the missiles hit home, the plascrete framing the armored doors no match for chemex warheads blasting thin pillars of plasma deep into the asteroid, blowing enough rock away to leave a gaping crater that completely undermined one side of the portal.
Warfare sent the next missile on its way. Michael and the rest of the combat information center crew watched engrossed as it headed for the center of the crater, a gaping void bleeding thin skeins of vaporized rock back into space. With just meters left to run, the fusion warhead exploded. The flash of the blast boiled meters and meters of rock, plascrete, and armor off the portal, vaporizing hundreds of tons of mass into a massive ball of white-hot gas erupting back out into space. When it cleared, the blast had left the portal completely undermined on one side by a hellish inferno of red-hot molten rock spewing gouts of flaming gas into the vacuum.
“Aaaah,” Michael hissed softly, teeth bared in a rictus of savage joy when the holocam confirmed that the armored doors had been forced wide open by the blowback of exploding gas. The access tunnel into SuppFac27 lay open.
The remaining missiles followed in a line heading right for the tunnel entrance. Michael’s plan was simplicity itself. Destroying the antimatter plant by using missiles was impossible-it was buried too deep-but dropping missiles one after another as far down the main access tunnel as they would go before firing their fusion warheads would give SuppFac27’s defenders one hell of a shake, to the point, he hoped, where most would decide that self-preservation was the order of the day and flee for safety, leaving Kallewi and his marines a clear run in.
An instant before the first missile disappeared into the portal’s gaping blackness, Michael could not help himself. “Fire in the hole,” he shouted, and its warhead exploded, a seething cloud of rock and gas veined white-red by twisting jets of flame erupting outward.
One by one, the remaining missiles followed. By the time the last missile exploded, the access tunnel had been transformed into a hellish white-hot crater hundreds of meters across, belching vaporized rock out into space. “Oh, yeah,” Michael whispered, reveling in the sheer brute force of the attack. The poor bastards inside SuppFac27 would be suffering as tremor after tremor after tremor shook the rock tunnels close to the point of collapse in an unending earthquake. If that did not induce an overwhelming desire to flee in the minds of SuppFac27’s defenders, nothing ever would. He knew he would not be hanging around for tea and biscuits.
“Command, Warfare. Reckless in station. Clear to launch Caesar’s Ghost when ready.”
Michael checked quickly. Reckless was in station, her enormous bulk hanging motionless less than half a kilometer above the blasted surface of the asteroid. “Command, roger.” He flicked the command holovid to take the holocam feed from the reconsats.
Warfare had retasked them to keep tabs on one of SuppFac27’s personnel access stations. Michael liked the look of what he saw. The station’s squat shape-one of the few buildings to survive the dreadnoughts’ devastating rail-gun attacks-spewed an ice-loaded cloud. That meant only one thing: The shock waves from the missile attack on the main access portal had destroyed SuppFac27’s airtight integrity; the plant was venting humid air into space. Then a panicked flood of figures dressed in Day-Glo orange emergency space suits started to pour out of the building, bounding away in giant leaps; soon hundreds of orange blobs bounced across the asteroid’s surface like a collection of demented rubber balls. Where the hell were they all going? It was such a bizarre sight that Michael could not stop himself from laughing any more than the rest of the combat information center’s crew could.
“Enough, people,” he said, wishing he could wipe the tears from his eyes. “Ghost? We have confirmation that the personnel access station’s air lock is open. You ready?”
“Caesar’s Ghost is ready to go.”
“Roger, launch. Good luck.”
“Thanks. Launching,” Sedova replied laconically.
“Sensors.”
Carmellini swung around. “Sir?”
“We’re not out of the woods yet. If more Hammers come calling-and they sure as hell will-we’re going to need all the notice you can give us if we’re to have any chance of getting clear.”
“Roger that, sir.”
Caesar’s Ghost cleared Reckless and made a long swinging turn down to the asteroid’s surface before Sedova pulled the nose up sharply. She fired the belly thrusters, their efflux picking up orange blobs and tumbling them away in long, looping arcs, arms and legs flailing in desperate attempts to get back dirtside. Sedova made it look easy, the lander’s massive bulk coming to a dead stop scarcely a meter above the asteroid, right alongside the personnel access station. The instant it came to a halt, the rear cargo access door dropped, and Kallewi’s marines spilled out, the bulky black shapes of the three nuclear demotition charges strapped to their powered sleds close behind, a small swarm of gas-powered tacbots leading the way, the little spheres working overtime to zap the surveillance holocams that infested the place.
After a quick check of the threat plot to make sure the Hammers were not creeping up on him unannounced, Michael switched the command holovid over to Kallewi’s helmet-mounted holocam. The marines were already through the outer air lock, an unwilling Hammer tethered to the largest marine in Kallewi’s squad, a man even bigger than Sergeant Tchiang if that was possible. Michael grinned; the poor bastard obviously had been coerced into the role of guide. The marines paused long enough to set and fire small charges to wreck the air lock’s outer doors before moving inside. The inner doors already hung open, immobilized. Inside was a large lobby, its security post empty. Ignoring the dwindling stream of survival-suited Hammers fleeing the facility, the marines flew down the central passageway; Michael was thankful to see that the facility’s artificial gravity had failed and looked like it would stay that way. Kallewi’s marines trained to operate in zero gravity; he doubted SuppFac27’s defenders did. According to intelligence reports, only second-tier planetary defense troops protected the antimatter plant. Michael pitied them; Kallewi’s marines would tear the defenders apart, something whoever had planned SuppFac27’s defense clearly had never anticipated. Using planetary defense troops was a baffling decision given the plant’s importance. Maybe not so baffling, Michael decided after a moment’s thought; hubris and policy were the reasons. The Hammers had put altogether too much faith in the ability of their spaceborne defenses to hold off any Fed attack, and as a matter of long-standing policy, Hammer marines were never used to protect fixed installations.
Just before the next air lock-open like all the rest so far-the marines stopped before what had to be another lobby. Something was up. Kallewi waved a section forward, led by the unmistakable bulk of Sergeant Tchiang, with the marines taking up position around the frame of the lobby access air lock. Another pause. When Michael patched his neuronics into the vid feed from the leading tacbots, the problem became obvious. A plasglass-fronted security post dominated the lobby, and floating around in front of it, standard Hammer-issue assault rifles Velcroed to their chests, were ten, maybe twelve planetary defense troops, part of SuppFac27’s internal security force. There were still some Hammers doing what they were paid to do; these did not look as demoralized and panic-stricken as he’d hoped.
For Kallewi and his marines, navigating their way through the maze of passageways and drop tubes that made up SuppFac27 with an old high-level schematic stolen from the hard-rock tunneling contractor and a reluctant Hammer to show them where to go was bad enough. Doing all that while fighting their way past Hammer troopers, and pretty pissed ones at that-even if they were only planetary defense force troopers-was a complication he wanted to avoid.
Kallewi was not letting any of that worry him. The marines around the air lock erupted into action. Fragmentation grenades hurled into the Hammers exploded soundlessly in the vacuum, spalling shards of rock off the tunnel walls, and the marines fell on what was left of the defenders. The firefight was short, vicious, and one-sided, the Hammers flailing around while they struggled to bring their guns to bear. Kallewi waved his marines on, two staying back to bag the few Hammers still living, plasfiber cocoons snapping taut with enough air to keep the occupants alive for two hours. Michael had insisted that anyone with a chance of survival be bagged, pointing out that there was a good chance the marines would be cornered somewhere deep inside SuppFac27 and that he did not want them shot out of hand for leaving wounded Hammers to die a painful death from asphyxiation. In the end, a reluctant Kallewi had agreed, but not before Michael had forced him to admit he had not volunteered for a suicide mission.
Satisfied that Kallewi had things under control, Michael turned back to check the command and threat plots. He was relieved to see nothing had changed. To the west, the tattered remnants of the Fed forces that had run interference for the dreadnoughts had cleared Hammer space, the ships of Assault Group under Commodore Jun’s command the last to leave. They had done a good job recovering survivors; Michael was pleased to see that only a few wayward lifepods from the two northern task groups had slipped through the net. Beyond the Feds’ reach and ignored by the Hammers, they drifted out of control into the confused maze of gravity rips to the east of SuppFac27, chased by Cleft Stick. It was lucky for them, he had persuaded Jaruzelska to let him keep his light lander, Michael thought. Without it, he had no way of getting them back; he had no doubt that the Hammers would have left them to die.
Michael turned back to check Kallewi’s progress. He was doing well, the marines racing into the heart of SuppFac27, the Hammer opposition weak and fragmented, brushed aside by the single-minded ferocity of Kallewi’s attack.
The marines stopped before another air lock door. Machinelike in their precision, they overwhelmed its security post and planetary defense troops in a matter of seconds. Leaving the medics to deal with the wounded and a handful of marines to cover their withdrawal, they were quickly on the move again.
“Command, Assault Leader. Update,” Kallewi said. “One hundred meters ahead, there’s a passageway to the left. According to our guide, twenty meters farther on is a drop tube that accesses SuppFac27’s power distribution center, and beyond that are the primary fusion power plants. According to the schematics, the rock wall is about five meters thick. Our guide says the access doors are too heavily armored for us to shoot our way in, and I’m inclined to believe him. We’ve run some quick and dirty sims, and we have a 100 percent chance of breaching the plants’ containment if we can get the demolition charges down there. So my plan is to do just that and get the hell out.”
“Command, roger. Concur. Any sign of organized defense yet?”
“Sadly, yes. The Hammers have worked out what we’re up to, but they’re struggling to get their people in the right places. I suspect their c-cubed is shot to shit, they don’t have any holovid coverage of our attack, and there are a lot of panicky technicians getting in their way. I’ve stationed marines to cover our exit route; they’ll make sure we aren’t ambushed when we pull back, but it’s going to be tight. Estimate egress inside thirty minutes. Timers on the demolition charges will be set for forty.”
“Command override on the charges?”
“Will be suppressed. There’s no going back on this. Once they’re triggered, they’re going to blow, and we’ll leave proximity-fused claymores behind to discourage the Hammers from getting too close.”
Michael shivered; claymores fired down rock passages would shred any Hammers unlucky enough to get in the way. “Roger. We’ll be waiting here for you.”
“Hell, I hope so. There are will be some very pissed Hammers looking for a piece of my ass when this is all over. Kallewi out.”
Kallewi’s avatar disappeared, and Michael sat back to think things through. He hated leaving the marines with all the heavy lifting. He studied the scorched surface of the asteroid for a moment before comming Sedova. He had an idea. “You copy Kallewi’s update?”
Sedova nodded. “Yes, sir. Wish I could do something to help.”
“You can. See that heat dump, fine on your port bow at about 500 meters?” Michael positioned a target indicator over the remnants of a ceramcrete tower.
“Yes, sir,” Sedova said. She sounded puzzled.
“Okay, this is not in the plan, but we need to take some of the pressure off Kallewi. Get your lander across there. There’s bound to be a personnel access, probably a hatch, somewhere close. You have demolition charges in your ready-use lockers?”
“Yes, sir, we have.”
“Good. Find the hatch, blow it open, and send your load-master across to lob a couple of charges in. I’m hoping we can persuade the Hammers that we’re sending in another assault party.”
“Roger that, sir.”
“One proviso. Any time things start to go wrong, get the hell back here. I don’t want to leave Kallewi without a lift home,” Michael said. He suppressed a flicker of anxiety. Maybe dispatching Cleft Stick to pick up wandering life-pods had not been the smartest move he had ever made. Having a backup lander might have been the prudent thing.
“On it,” Sedova said, a quick blip on the maneuvering thrusters lifting Caesar’s Ghost off the asteroid before another burst sent the lander in a shallow arc across to the heat dump.
Something made Michael look across at Carmellini, a sudden cold shiver slithering its way up his spine. The spacer was hunched over his holovid, and his body language spoke volumes: Something was up. Michael forced himself to sit tight. Carmellini would tell him what was going on when he was ready.
“Command, Warfare, sensors,” Carmellini said, his voice tense. “Positive gravitronics intercept. Estimated drop bearing Red 10 Up 5. Multiple vessels. Gravity wave pattern suggests pinchspace transition imminent. Designated hostile task group Hammer-7.”
“Damn, damn, damn,” Michael cursed. Another half hour and they would have been on their way out of this godforsaken place. Not that the Hammers were so incompetent as to leave him alone for that long. Two lots of reinforcements had dropped in-system already; there would be more, and they would not be long coming.
“Command, roger. Get me a range when you can,” Michael said, fingers tapping an impatient tattoo on the arms of his seat.
“Sensors, roger … stand by … Hammer-7’s estimated drop datum Red 10 Up 5, range 70,000 kilometers.”
“Roger.”
“Command, Ghost,” Sedova said. “You were right. There is a personnel access lock. My cannons have blown the hatch off, and Trivedi’s on her way over there. I should be on my way back in five.”
“Fine. I’ll maintain station. You copied the drop report?”
“Did, sir.”
“Well, don’t hang around. I’m sure the Hammers will not be ignoring us for long. Command, out.”
“Command, Warfare. Task group Hammer-7 dropping, Red 10 Up 5, range 72,000 kilometers.”
“Command, roger.”
Michael watched the threat plot intently while Reckless’s sensors analyzed the new arrivals. Things looked bad. The Hammer task group was the usual mixture of cruisers and escorts; there were a lot of them. An icy calm settled over him. The latest Hammer reinforcements were more than strong enough to reduce Reckless’s chances of getting away to zero. And they had dropped less than thirty minutes from him, close enough to turn Reckless into a ball of ionized gas five times over. He commed his AIs into conference.
“Okay, team. Shit hits fan time. Options?”
Warfare took the lead. “Three. Stay, run, or send Reckless out to meet them while Caesar’s Ghost remains to recover demolition party.”
“Operations?”
“Agree with the options,” the operations AI said. “However, recommend Reckless’s crew transfer to Ghost. That renders Reckless expendable. In any event, we assess her chances of survival to be nil under any scenario.”
Michael marveled at the AI’s calmness in the face of its own death. “Warfare. Your recommendation?”
“All AIs concur. Off-load crew to Caesar’s Ghost, send Reckless out to engage ships of Hammer-7,” the AI replied. “That gives you the best chance of recovering the marines and clearing Hammer space to the east.”
Michael had to agree. “Option three it is. Ops, get Caesar’s Ghost back here. Brief Sedova while she’s doing that. Warfare, give me a plan for Reckless. Sensors, let me know the instant the Hammers start launching missiles. And I want all your detailed records of the operation downloaded to Caesar’s Ghost. Raw datalogs as well. If in doubt, download it. I’d rather have more than less.”
“Sensors, roger.”
“XO to the CIC, at the rush.” With a twinge of guilt, Michael remembered he had completely forgotten Kallewi. He commed him. “Assault Leader, command. Update.”
“We found the power distribution center,” Kallewi said. “Charges have been placed, timers set, claymores are in, and we’re on our way back. That’s the good news. The bad is that a group of Hammers in the last lobby before the air lock has pushed my guys back and we’re pinned down. The tacbots tell us more are coming up behind us. We can hold them off, but not forever. Oh, thanks for the diversion. We would not have made it this far otherwise. Anyway, we can’t go back, we can’t go forward, so I think the best thing would be for you-”
“Enough of that,” Michael snapped. “I’m not leaving you. Hold the Hammers until I get back to you. Command, out.” He turned to Ferreira. “Time we all left, but I have one more job for you. Take Carmellini and Lomidze with you. I want six sets of ship assault gear in the lander, plus four demolition charges.”
“Six se-”
“Just do it, Jayla. I’ll explain later. Get everyone down to the hangar. Go!”
“Sir.” Ferreira and the rest of Reckless’s crew turned and ran for the lander.
“Command, Warfare. Plan’s done.”
“Right.” Michael forced everything aside apart from how best to make use of the last card left in his hand, Reckless itself. He nodded his appreciation. Warfare’s plan was solid. “It’s good. Do it,” he said. “You have command authority to execute; just keep me posted.”
“Roger,” Warfare said matter-of-factly.
With one last look around Reckless’s combat information center, Michael left, his sense of loss bitter in its intensity. Reckless had served him well; she deserved better. Dropping to the hangar deck, he bolted for Caesar’s Ghost as fast as his combat space suit would allow, the hatch slamming shut behind him. After what seemed an age, the hangar doors opened. Sedova wasted no time and gunned Caesar’s Ghost out and away from the doomed ship.
“Okay, pay attention.” Michael stood at the front of the cargo bay, his crew ranged in a semicircle around him. “Right, we have precious little time. Lieutenant Kallewi and his marines are pinned down just inside the access here”-he pointed over his shoulder-“by a group of Hammers. I want six volunteers to persuade the Hammers to let my marines go. So who-”
Together, the crew of Reckless stepped forward. “Shit,” Michael said, “weren’t you dumbos taught not to volunteer for anything?” He shook his head. “Okay, Jayla, Bienefelt, Carmellini, Fodor, Lim, Morozov. Draw weapons. Go, go, go!”
Michael stopped for a second to recover. “Kat. Get the ramp down.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Lomidze, Chief Chua,” Michael snapped.
“Sir?”
“I want you to follow the XO’s team in case we have casualties to recover. Take crash bags and keep your damn heads down. This is not the time for heroics.”
“Sir.”
A few frantic, scrambling minutes later, Michael’s scratch assault team was ready. “Good luck, Jayla. Remember your close-quarters combat drills.”
“You can count on it, sir,” Ferreira said. “If I see a Hammer, I’ll shoot the bastard. Let’s go, team.”
Ferreira shot out of the lander, her maneuvering pack driving her hard and fast toward the door of the personnel access facility, the spacers of her scratch assault team strung out behind her in an untidy, wavering line. Chief Chua and Lomidze brought up the rear, crash bags held tight.
Making his way up to the Ghost’s flight deck, Michael commed Kallewi.
“Okay. Ferreira and a team of spacers are on their way to help out. Call sign Alfa Bravo. She’ll let you know when they’re in place. On your mark, they’ll attack the blocking force from behind. Disengage, get your guys past, and all run like hell for the Ghost. Ferreira will leave demolition charges to slow the Hammers down. Okay?”
“Roger that, sir. Sounds like one hell of a plan,” Kallewi said, unable to conceal his relief.
“Yeah, it is. Just make it work,” Michael said, dropping into a spare seat and strapping in.
There was nothing more to be done to help the beleaguered marines, so he turned his attention back to the command and threat plots. There were no surprises there. The latest Hammer task group sent to protect SuppFac27 had dropped precisely where Carmellini had said it would; now the ships were turning inward to point their bows directly at Reckless. Ranged around the task group hung a cloud of missiles that was growing in size with every new missile salvo dumped into space. Michael drew a long, ragged breath. It would not be long before those missiles were committed to the attack; he prayed Reckless kept the Hammers’ attention long enough for them to get away. He tried not to think what the Hammers would do to him if he fell into their hands.
Michael commed Warfare. “All set?”
“Reckless is under way.”
“Good luck,” Michael said, realizating that when Reckless was destroyed-and she would be-he and his crew would be alone, marooned in Hammer space, deep inside an uncharted reef with only a heavy assault lander to get them home. He was no believer in miracles, but he was beginning to think he was going to need a bag of them to pull this one off. Disconsolate, he watched Reckless pull away, her only protection a cloud of decoys inside a Krachov shroud, rail guns her only weapons.
Michael watched sickened as Reckless’s massive bulk dwindled into the distance, the ship going to emergency power as soon as she was clear of Caesar’s Ghost, accelerating away on twin pillars of flame. She was a good ship; he would be sorry to lose her and even sorrier to lose Warfare and the rest of the AIs. He had built relationships with all of them. Mother, Warfare, Kubby, and Kal might not be human, but they were characters in their own right, and it was hard not to feel a sense of loss.
He patched his neuronics into one of the tacbots covering the lobby. Kallewi’s problem was obvious. A large force of Hammer planetary defense troopers had pushed back the marines Kallewi had positioned to keep his exit route clear; they now controlled the lobby, firing indiscriminately at the marines from behind the cover of the security station. To attempt to cross the lobby was to commit suicide. Kallewi was stalemated. That was the bad news. The good news was that Ferreira’s team was in place.
“Assault Leader, Alfa Bravo,” Ferreira said. “We’re in position. Ready to go on your mark.”
“Alfa Bravo, stand by,” Kallewi replied. “On three, go, go, go!”
Ferreira’s attack took the Hammers by surprise, grenades exploding among their tightly packed ranks with devastating effect, the carnage made worse when her team followed up with sustained bursts of rifle fire, the rounds ripping with brutal ease through troopers blown out of cover. Kallewi did not hang around to watch the slaughter. His marines broke cover in a desperate dash for the safety of the passageway leading back to the asteroid surface. They nearly made it, but a Hammer trooper managed to squeeze off a burst that took one of Kallewi’s marines in the leg, spinning her out of control and into the laser-cut rock wall of the lobby a few meters short of the exit.
Ferreira did not hesitate. Emptying her rifle at the Hammer, she lunged forward, her momentum unchecked by a lucky shot that ripped through her left arm. Throwing her gun away, she grabbed the marine with her bad arm and the safety line with her good one, pulling the two of them out of the firefight and into safety, the legs of the marine’s suit spewing gas, blood, and lurid green wound foam in equal measures.
“Withdraw,” Ferreira shouted, “withdraw! Bienefelt, Carmellini, set those charges. And someone slap a patch on our suits before we run out of gas.”
The spacers needed no encouragement. Not all the Hammers had been cut down, and reinforcements were arriving. Recovering their composure, Kallewi’s marines began to fight back, pouring rifle fire into the lobby, their bullets smacking into the rock walls. Shielded by a second shower of grenades, the Feds pulled back past the hunched figures of Bienefelt and Carmellini while they packed demolition charges into the frame around the inner air lock door.
“Charges set,” Bienefelt said. “Fused twenty seconds.”
“Fire them and get the hell out,” Ferreira said, her voice tight with pain, pushing the wounded marine at Chief Chua.
Bienefelt and Carmellini wasted no time, clearing the personnel access facility close behind Lomidze and Chua as they struggled to push the marine into the safety of a crash bag and get back to the lander at the same time. When the last spacer had crossed the threshold into the lander’s cargo bay, the personnel access facility shivered, a transient cloud of smoke and flame boiling out of the doors before vanishing into space.
Sedova wasted no time closing the cargo bay ramp.
“Hold on,” she shouted the instant Trivedi confirmed that everyone had made it back safely. Without any urging from Michael, she rammed the Ghost’s engines to full power, driving the lander in a skidding turn to place the asteroid’s massive bulk between them and the Hammers before heading into Devastation Reef.
Michael patched his neuronics into the reconsats tracking Reckless as he made his way up the Ghost’s flight deck, throwing himself into a spare seat. It was a heartbreaking sight; around the doomed ship-the last of Battle Fleet Lima to fight and die that awful day-space sparkled as Reckless fought its final battle, salvo after salvo falling on the dreadnought, the searing heat of proximity-fused fusion warheads stripping armor off, rail-gun slugs slamming home to blow huge craters into her armor, her hull wreathed in a ghastly death shroud of ionized armor.
Michael cut the holovid feed. He could not watch anymore, so he turned his attention back to the threat plot, the latest Hammer arrivals an ugly splash of red sprawled across the screen. The big question still sat there, unanswered: Would they come after Caesar’s Ghost?
Michael took a long, careful look at the plot. Whatever the reason, the Hammers showed not even the slightest interest in Caesar’s Ghost. The ships of Hammer-7 focused on Reckless; every missile and rail-gun slug they fired had just that one target. Not that Michael blamed them: He would be concentrating on a heavy cruiser with a death wish inbound under emergency power; that much suicidal mass could inflict an awful lot of damage. The Hammers did not even bother to lock the Ghost up with fire control radar, nor did they send a few missiles its way. Not that worrying what the Hammers might do made any difference; if they came after Caesar’s Ghost, there was nothing he could do about it. Heavy landers were tough but not tough enough to keep out even a small salvo of Eaglehawk missiles. Their best bet was to run, hoping Reckless convinced the Hammers that they had better things to do than chase after a single fleeing assault lander that was doomed to die in the uncharted wastes of Devastation Reef.
Good thing the Hammers did not know about pinchspace jump-capable Block 6 landers; if they did …
For Michael, postcombat exhaustion had set in with a vengeance, the shipsuit under his space suit-as always after combat-an icy, sweat-soaked wreck. All he wanted was a shower, clean gear, and a long sleep.
“Kat. Update.”
“Roger, sir. We’re … hold on, sir … the demolition charges will blow in ten.”
Michael sat up. Shit, he chided himself, how had he forgotten? “Get SuppFac27 up on holovid and let the troops know.”
Utterly focused, Michael stared at the asteroid when it popped onto the command holovid, the ugly ball of rock a black shape cut out of star-strewn space. He struggled to breathe, all too aware that Kallewi’s demolition charges had to work. If they did not, he was as good as dead. Perkins would destroy him, and maybe he would be right to.
“Stand by … now!”
Nothing happened.
Even as Michael began to think that the whole operation was a bust, the appalling loss of ships and lives, the risks he had taken, all a complete waste, the asteroid’s surface, crystal clear in the holovid feeds coming from the reconsats, he shivered. Michael was not even sure he had seen anything, it all happened so fast. There was another tremor, much bigger this time, shock lifting dust off the asteroid, and the black surface of the asteroid cracked open, flaming jets of white-hot plasma lancing out when SuppFac27’s fusion plants blew, the enormous overpressure following every access tunnel back up to the surface, the blast blowing huge chunks of rock to tumble away into space, pursued by jets of incandescent gas.
“Oh, yeah,” Sedova said, her face a snarl of pure hatred. “Suck that, you Hammer bastards. I don’t think there’ll be much more antimatter coming out of that place.”
Michael choked up, but Reckless’s crew did not, their cheers and shouts swamping the Ghost’s com circuits.
“Right, Kat,” Michael said, spirits soaring as the weight came off his shoulders before reality brought them crashing back to ground. He was acutely aware how far from home they all were; he hoped the cheers were not premature. For him, this mission was not over until every last spacer and marine made it home safely. “Update.”
“Roger. We’re at jump speed, though the navigation AI says there is way too much gravitational instability for us to get into pinchspace safely. There’s still no sign of any interest from the Hammers. Cleft Stick has recovered lifepods from Seljuk, Secular, Iron Bridge, and Darter. She is chasing down the last of them, two from Skeandhu. When she’s recovered those, she’ll rendezvous with us.”
“How long?”
“Four hours, give or take. We’ll have a precise time once she’s recovered Skeandhu’s survivors.”
“Roger. Any sign of Hammers responding?”
“No, sir. Still none, and something tells me there won’t be. Hammers being Hammers, they’ll be more interested in lining up the poor bastards in charge and shooting them.”
“My heart bleeds for the pricks. Is there a list of survivors?”
“No, not yet. The Stick’s AI is doing the best it can, but routine administration is not one of its strong points.”
Michael chuckled softly. Assault landers were never designed to fly without a human crew; of course they could, but some of the finer points of command tended to fall by the wayside. “Fine. Ask it nicely to let us know if it can find the time. Even better, see if it can patch us through to one of the survivors. Next question: We can’t go back, so where the hell do we go?”
“I was afraid you’d ask me that, sir. The bad news is that we have just one option, I’m afraid. I’ve checked and rechecked. Serhati is the only non-Hammer world we can reach with the driver mass and consumables we have onboard. I’ve done a navigation plan to get us there.”
“Shit,” Michael said softly with a shake of his head; Serhati did not appear on any list of friendly systems he had ever seen. “What’s the transit time?”
“Not good, sir. It’s … let me see … yes, a thirteen-day transit.”
Michael winced; the cramped confines of a heavy lander would make for an uncomfortable trip. “Can we do that?” he said, trying not to look concerned.
“Assuming Cleft Stick recovers no more than 200 survivors, yes, we can … just,” Sedova said. “Assuming 250 souls all up, consumables are the problem: We’ll be out of food, our carbon dioxide scrubbers will be on their last legs, and we’ll be critically low on oxygen and water. And that’s even after we’ve stripped Cleft Stick bare.”
“Umm,” Michael said after he took a long look at Serhati’s profile. “Yes, you’re right. It has to be Serhati, so that’s where we’ll go. And yes, it’ll be damn tight. But I think we can do it if we keep the troops in their bunks twenty-two hours a day to reduce oxygen consumption. The big problem is that Serhati is a Hammer client. Not officially, of course; it pretends to be a Kalici Protocol world, but scratch the surface and it’s not. According to the intelligence summaries, Serhati is a covert remassing stop for Hammer ships. So I think we’re in for an interesting time. Set vector for Serhati and let the troops know that’s where we’re headed.”
“Sir.”
Michael ignored a momentary flash of panic: Going to Serhati meant giving the Hammers the best chance they would ever have to get their hands on him. But what choice did he have?
“Anything else of note?” he said.
“No, sir.”
“Roger. I’m going below. Keep a close eye on the Hammers. Let me know when the Stick has finished rescuing pods and gives us a definite rendezvous time.”
“Sir.”
His body saturated with fatigue, Michael dropped down the ladder into the cargo bay. He walked across to where Ferreira sat, head back, her injured arm-liberally decorated with orange leak patches and smeared black and green with dried blood and woundfoam-resting on a convenient power box. “Jayla. How’s the arm?”
“Bloody sore,” she said. “That fucking woundfoam is ten times worse than getting shot in the first place. Don’t care how good it is. Shit, it hurts. My neuronics say the wound’s nothing serious, and anyway, I now have the combat wound stripe I’ve always wanted.”
Michael laughed. “We have about four hours before we pick up Cleft Stick. You ready for a load of uninvited guests?”
“We are, sir,” Ferreira said, a broad grin clearly visible through the plasglass of her helmet’s faceplate. “It will be one hell of a squeeze, but we’ll manage. A five-star establishment this is, and Bienefelt’s agreed to be concierge while I sit around feeling sorry for myself.”
“Can’t see you sitting around, Jayla. Marine Mehraz, how is she? Good work, by the way, getting her out.”
Ferreira’s head bobbed in embarrassment. She waved her good arm in protest. “Shit, sir. Somebody had to do it. Marine Mehraz is safely in one of the regen tanks. She’s in pretty bad shape; her legs took a lot of rounds, and she’s suffering lung damage from explosive decompression of her suit, but the medical AI says she’ll be okay until we get to Serhati.”
“I hope so. As soon as we’re sure the Hammers won’t bother us, I’ll tell Kat to get the lander repressurized.”
“That would be outstanding. I am sick of this crappy space suit, and the medibots want to clean up my arm, though what I really need is a long, hot shower. How good would that be?”
Michael laughed. “Better than good, Jayla. Right, I’ll leave you alone. When I’m done here, I’ll be back on the flight deck if you need me.”
“Sir,” Ferreira said, closing her eyes and slumping back, face pale with shock.
Concerned, Michael patched into the medical AI to make sure Ferreira was better than she looked; it assured him she was, so he turned to study the Ghost’s cargo bay. He nodded his approval. Chief Bienefelt had wasted no time getting the place organized-loose gear stowed, bunks rigged up, fresh clothing broken out, and hot drinks laid out on a side table. He picked a beaker up and plugged it into the drinks port of his suit, grateful for the coffee’s sudden lift, the grinding fatigue easing a touch. He made his way across to where Kallewi and his marines were sprawled out across the deck.
“Hi, sir,” Kallewi said, setting his assault rifle aside and getting to his feet.
“No need to ask the Federated Worlds Marine Corps if things are under control.”
“Sir!” Kallewi protested. “The green machine never sleeps; you should know that.”
“Bloody marines!” Michael snorted. “Full of it.”
“Come on, sir. You need us, and you know it.”
Michael shook his head in mock despair. “Sad but true. Back to business. Jayla tells me that Marine Mehraz should be okay.”
“We think so, sir. The AI says she’s stable.” Kallewi paused for a second. “You know what, sir?” he continued, voice soft.
“Tell me.”
“We were screwed, totally screwed. All our egress routes were blocked. The Hammers had finally gotten their shit together, and there were heavy weapons squads on their way. Another ten minutes and the bastards would have overrun us. We had no chance. So thanks for sending in the cavalry. Wasn’t in the plan, you didn’t need to, and you probably shouldn’t have. But you did. Without them we were dead meat”-Kallewi shook his head-“so tell your exec that she’s welcome in any marine mess, anywhere, anytime. She did well.”
“She sure did.” There was a pause, and Michael reflected on the appalling risks they had all taken that day. “Okay,” he said at last, “need anything?”
“This ship repressurized so we can get out of these space suits, then a hot shower, a clean shipsuit, something to eat, and some serious sack time.”
“You and everyone else,” Michael said, laughing, “and don’t worry. You’ll be sick of your rack by the time we get to Serhati.”
“Sick of my rack? Never happen!”
Michael laughed, not least because he knew what Kallewi had said was true. Making his way back to the flight deck, he was relieved to see that the red icons that had infested the threat plot had been downgraded to a reassuring orange: hostile but no threat. There was no doubting it. Obviously, the Hammers had more on their plate to worry about than a fleeing lander, so he commed Sedova to repressurize the lander.
“Captain, sir, pilot.”
“Yeah, go ahead, Kat.”
“Cleft Stick is on final approach.”
“Roger.”
Comming Ferreira and Bienefelt to join him, Michael stood patiently at the Ghost’s starboard personnel air lock. After an age, a gentle bump ran through the lander, followed by a metallic thunk when the docking interlocks slammed home. Cleft Stick had berthed. Green lights came on over the air lock door, the Ghost’s loadmaster slapped the handle, and the door swung open and up. A short pause followed to allow the outer hatch to open with a tiny swirl of air when the two landers equalized, and there she was, Vice Admiral Jaruzelska in person.
“Attention on deck! Commander, Battle Fleet Lima,” Chief Bienefelt bellowed in her best parade ground fashion.
“Thank you, Captain,” Jaruzelska said, acknowledging Michael’s salute. “Chief Bienefelt, good to know that you’re not allowing standards to slip even though we’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Thank you, sir,” Bienefelt said.
“Lieutenant Ferreira.”
“Welcome aboard Caesar’s Ghost, sir.”
“Glad you stayed to give us a lift. What’s with the arm?” Jaruzelska said.
“Flesh wound, sir,” Ferreira replied, lifting a heavily bandaged arm. “I’ll live, which is more than I can say for the Hammer sonofabitch who shot me.”
Jaruzelska laughed. She took Michael by the arm and pulled him clear of the procession of survivors that followed her across from Cleft Stick, their faces tight with fatigue and delayed shock. Michael had never seen such a sorry bunch, the strain of what they had been through etched deep.
“I know I’ve already said this, Michael,” Jaruzelska said, “but I’ll say it again, anyway. I always had faith in dreadnoughts. More to the point, I always had faith in you. You did well. About time we stuck it to those damn Hammers. Something tells me that they are going to miss that antimatter plant of theirs.”
“Thank you, sir,” Michael said. “They sure will. Hammer scum. But, um … there are a few things you need to know. We had a few, er … a few issues along the way.”
Jaruzelska rolled her eyes. “Why is nothing ever easy with you, Lieutenant Helfort? Okay, when you’ve gotten rid of that ludicrously named lander of yours and we’re on our way, I’ll want a full brief. And when I say full,” she said sternly, “I mean every last detail.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well,” Jaruzelska said, “Captain Tuukkanen and I have been through your report in detail, along with the records downloaded from your AIs. Way we see it, this is pretty much open and shut. So, speaking as your commanding officer, my formal response is this.”
She paused, weighing her words with obvious care. “Rear Admiral Perkins will take disciplinary action against you. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. However, that action will be stayed until the board of inquiry into Operation Opera finishes its work. The board will review your report of proceedings along with those of all the other commanders, along with statements from everyone else who thinks they have something worthwhile to say, not to mention every datalog they can get their hands on. Given that dreadnoughts were involved”-a hint of bitterness crept into her voice-“and, more significantly, given that you disobeyed a direct order from none other than the flag officer in charge of Opera, I think there will be plenty of people wanting to be heard. Until the board reports its findings, it would be premature to speculate any further. Suffice to say, what happens after that will depend upon the board of inquiry’s findings of fact, as well as its conclusions and recommendations.”
“I imagined that’s how it would go,” Michael replied, his stomach tightening as he sensed the nightmare that lay ahead.
“So,” Jaruzelska said, her voice firm, “that’s my formal response. Let me give you the informal one. Put simply, you were 100 percent right and Rear Admiral Perkins was 100 percent wrong. If you’d complied with his order, Operation Opera would have failed. It’s that simple, and I intend to say so.”
Relief flooded Michael’s body: Even after hours of agonizing self-analysis, he still believed he had been right, but it was good to have a combat-proven vice admiral come out and say she saw things the same way. “Thanks for that, sir.”
Jaruzelska shook her head. “Don’t thank me. That’s the only conclusion to draw from the evidence. But”-why is there always a caveat? Michael wondered-“disobeying a direct order in battle is a serious matter.” She looked Michael right in the eye. “Let me tell you this, Michael. If you failed, if you’d not destroyed SuppFac27, a court-martial stacked with your best friends would have found you guilty of disobeying the admiral’s order. Nobody would have asked whether or not the order was right or wrong. Failure has no friends, none at all.”
“I knew that, sir,” Michael said. “The moment I ignored Perkins’s order, I knew I was laying my life on the line.”
“And yet you still did it?”
“Well, to quote you verbatim, Admiral, if I may: ‘It will be up to one of you to do whatever it takes to reduce that damned place to a ball of molten slag.’ I had not forgotten. So, yes. I still did it. Anything else would have been dereliction of duty.”
“It was still one hell of a big call, but one I’m glad you made. So don’t worry. I’ll be with you every step of the way. It’ll be a bloody business, but we’ll get you through it. So,” Jaruzelska said briskly, “let’s have a look at Serhati, a real shithole if ever there was one. Took the old Dependent there back in ‘85; the place was the pits then, and I’d be surprised if it’s improved any. We’re going to need a damn good plan if we’re to stop those scum-sucking Serhati vermin from handing us all over to the Hammers.”
“I’ll second that, sir,” Michael said fervently. “I think the Hammers are going to wet themselves when they find out.”