HWS Quebec-One, Xiang Reef
Hammer Warship Quebec-One dropped into normalspace a safe 2 billion kilometers and 2 light-hours out from Xiang Reef. The ship’s registration proclaimed her to be the independent merchant ship Nancy’s Pledge from one of the more obscure planets of the Pascanici League. Her hull had the space-dust-worn blues and yellows of the real thing, which at that point in time was in pinchspace somewhere between two of the Far Planets and a long way from Xiang Reef.
Commodore Monroe sat oblivious to the usual postdrop buzz of activity around him in Quebec-One’s combat information center. He studied the command and threat plots intently while Quebec-One’s sensor teams brought order methodically out of the chaotic mass of data pouring into the ship from the surveillance vehicles surrounding the anomaly.
In front of him, the plot showed the merchant ships making the six-hour crossing of the Xiang, a confused mass of orange vectors turning to green as ships were downgraded to no threat. When the command plot stabilized, Monroe grunted in satisfaction. Things were as they should be.
The plot in front of him matched the ship and vector data that had streamed in from the Hammer pinchspace comsats standing off Paderborn Reef to the north and Vijati Reef to the south. More reassuringly, the comsat data were consistent with the traffic schedules broadcast by an ever-helpful FedWorld traffic coordination center on Terranova.
Monroe smiled broadly. He liked what he saw. To make sure that no witnesses were left behind, what he now called Force Quebec would attack when Xiang Reef was clear of all but transiting FedWorld merships. There could not be too many merships, either; Force Quebec had to be able to eliminate every mership crossing the reef in a single brutal strike. Nor could there be too few to make an attack profitless. In a concession to the bleeding hearts-even the Hammer had a few of them-Xiang Reef had to be clear of passenger liners. Operation Cavalcade’s rules of engagement were very clear. They prohibited any attacks on liners, FedWorld registered or not.
Most important of all, there had to be no chance of running into a passing FedWorld warship. The thought of a FedWorld heavy cruiser doing to him what he was about to do to the FedWorld merchant ships made him shiver.
It had taken some doing, but finally his staff had identified a number of windows in which all the mission constraints would be met. Based on the traffic reports, the earliest was in seven days’ time, but he had to be sure. Each attack depended on all the conditions being right. It would take only one Fed heavy cruiser to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Operation Cavalcade would be over before it had started. To make sure that did not happen, he had to get a better handle on what the Fed starships were up to.
Thus far, the indications were good. It was beginning to look as though the monotonous grind up and down the trade route was taking the edge off the Feds. In fact, things were beginning to slip to a point where few of the patrolling ships were making random changes of vector, and even then not as often as they should. Things had gotten so bad that predicting where individual warships would be was getting easier and easier. It was sloppy stuff, Monroe thought, and not at all what he had come to expect from the Feds.
Even as he congratulated himself on his good fortune, Monroe gave himself a mental kick. No Hammer commander ever won an engagement by underestimating those Kraa-damned Feds, and he was not going to start now.
Until he was sure that he had identified the right time to strike, Force Quebec would sit and wait and watch.
Sunday, August 29, 2399, UD
FWSS Ishaq, Paderborn Reef
It had been a long three days since Constanza had ordered his arrest, and the bulkheads of his cabin were beginning to crowd in on Michael.
At first, being confined to his cabin had not been so bad-the exact opposite, in fact. It had been wonderful. For one thing, he had been able to catch up on some badly needed sleep; like every other junior officer on board, Michael had been running a serious sleep deficit. For the first day and a half, he had been so tired that he had slept more than he had been awake. But with the problem of sleep deprivation overcome and with him unable to concentrate on the entertainment accessed through his neuronics, boredom had set in, made worse by the nagging, stomach-churning worry that Constanza might get away with her lunatic proposition that Michael and his boss were part of some conspiracy to mutiny. Early on, the idea of a conspiracy had sounded so far-fetched that he’d laughed out loud at the thought. Now, as the hours and then days dragged by, the idea was beginning to look less and less absurd. After all, captains of FedWorlds Space Fleet starships were powerful people, and it did not take much of that power to break the careers of two officers.
He decided that he would make another attempt, the latest in a long line of failed attempts, to write a vidmail to Anna. He did not get far. There was a knock, and Marine Murphy stuck his head in, his massive frame filling the doorway.
“Visitor for you, sir,” Murphy announced with a cheerful smile.
Michael smiled back. “Ah, good. Hang on a sec. I’ll just check my diary to see if I’m free.”
Murphy’s smile broadened into a grin. “Don’t waste your time, sir. It’s Lieutenant Armstrong.”
“Oh, right.” Michael scrambled to his feet as Murphy pushed the door open to admit Armstrong. “Afternoon, sir. To what do I owe the honor?”
“Dangerous trait being a smart-ass, Junior Lieutenant Helfort,” Armstrong replied, cheerful eyes contradicting a stern voice. “Not career-enhancing at all.”
“And what career would that be, sir?” Michael responded, the sudden bitterness in his voice ill concealed.
“The one you’ve got in front of you, so pay attention.” Armstrong pulled up a seat. “Sit! We’ve got a bit to talk about.” He waited patiently as Michael perched himself awkwardly on the edge of his bunk. Junior officers’ cabins were cramped spaces and certainly not designed for meetings.
“Ready?”
“Ready, sir.”
“Okay.” Armstrong was all business. “This meeting comes in two parts. The first bit is the formal part. You may record it if you wish.”
Michael nodded. Ishaq’s legal AI had briefed him well. Its avatar-a cheerful, late-middle-aged man with a no-nonsense fatherly attitude to life-had made sure Michael knew his rights.
“The second part I would rather you didn’t, so please enable me to access your neuronics to block recording.”
Michael looked at him in surprise. The capacity of Fleet officers to do and say things that completely baffled him seemed endless. “All right.” There was a small pause as Michael commed the necessary authority to Armstrong’s neuronics.
“Done, sir.”
“Good. Let’s get on with it.” Armstrong cleared his throat. “Junior Lieutenant Helfort. As required by law, I am required in my capacity as investigating officer to keep you informed as to the progress of the investigation. You and Lieutenant Commander Fellsworth are still under arrest. I’ve just received the formal brief of evidence. It’s now up to me to review that. Once I have reviewed the brief and if I am satisfied that no further investigation of any matters relevant to the charges made against you is required, I then have to decide whether the evidence supports a case with enough merit to proceed to court-martial. With me so far?”
“I am, sir,” Michael replied.
“Right. Now, until I have made that decision-whether the evidence warrants a court-martial-nothing changes, so you will have to be patient.”
“Thanks, sir,” Michael said bitterly, “I’m good at being patient.”
Armstrong ignored him. “That concludes my formal report to you. Do you have any questions?”
Michael shook his head. “None, sir.” What was the point? The process was the process.
“Good. . neuronics stopped recording?”
“Stopped, sir.”
“Let me check. . right, that’s done. Okay, Michael. Now for the unofficial part.”
“Hope it’s better than the official part.”
“Oh, yes, I think it is. First, the brief of evidence. How can I put it? ‘Useless’ is probably the most charitable description, and cert-”
Michael’s eyes opened wide in shock. This he had not expected. “Useless? You mean it won’t support the charges?”
“Got it in one try, Michael. No, it won’t, and that means the chances of this business making it to trial are nil. And by the way, the legal AI agrees. Took him five minutes to rip it apart.”
“So no trial?” Michael asked hopefully.
Firmly, Armstrong shook his head. “No. No trial. Ever. I’m briefing the captain as soon as I’ve finished here.”
Michael sat back to think about that, the enormous weight bearing down on him gone. “Well, what can I say? Thanks for that. It’ll be good to get things back to normal.”
Armstrong’s hand went up. “Not so fast, young man. I will be briefing the captain shortly and will recommend to her that the charges be dropped. However. .”
Michael’s heart sank. Why was there always a catch?
“. . it is up to Captain Constanza to withdraw the charges-”
“Or not?” Michael interrupted flatly.
Armstrong nodded. “If she wishes, she can refer the matter up the chain of command when we return to port. If she does, I stand relieved as investigating officer.”
“Jesus, sir!” Michael protested. “That could be weeks and weeks away. What do I do? Just sit in this damn cabin and rot?”
“Michael!” Armstrong said sharply. “Settle down. Be patient and let us work on sorting this mess out. Getting angry and upset is not going to help!”
“Sorry, sir,” Michael said contritely. He could see that Armstrong was doing his best.
The provost marshal stood up. “That’s it for now. I’ll keep you posted.” With that, he was gone.
Michael sat for a while wondering how Constanza had allowed herself to get into such a mess. He felt a fleeting stab of pity for the woman. She must have been a good officer once. Fleet made mistakes-all big organizations did-but on the whole its record in appointing warship captains seemed pretty good. Michael sat there wondering what had gone wrong, when, and why. What on earth had tipped a competent officer with successful commands of smaller Fleet units behind her over the edge?
His moment of charitable concern was fleeting. She might have been good once, but it was the here and now that mattered. The sooner all this was over and Ishaq got the captain it deserved, the better. The thought that a change of command might come sooner rather than later cheered him up immensely.
There was another knock on the door, and Marine Murphy’s head reappeared. “Sir?”
“Jeez, Murphy. You lonely or something?”
Murphy smiled broadly. “Got to do something to keep amused, sir.”
Michael laughed. He liked Murphy. Even though Murphy was relaxed and friendly, Michael knew full well that the nearly cyborg-sized man would be on him in a split second if he tried anything. Not that he would. He was not that stupid. Michael was small by FedWorld standards, and Murphy easily outmassed, outmuscled, outreached, and overtopped him by margins he did not even want to think about. The bloody man was huge. Any bigger, Murphy would be classified as an illegal cyborg and either reengineered or deported. The FedWorlds were strict about that, but that did not stop people like Murphy-and let’s not forget Leading Spacer Bienefelt, he reminded himself-trying to get within a hairbreadth of the limits.
“Yeah, yeah. You’ve told me. Standing in front of a closed door isn’t the most exciting thing to do of a watch.”
“True enough, sir. Anyway, it’s coming up on 16:00, so my relief will be here shortly. Will you be going to the gym?”
“Too true I will. Try and stop me,” Michael declared forcefully. He would take any chance he could to get out of the box he was confined to, and today’s gym session was one he was not going to miss. “Who’s your relief?”
“Corporal Yazdi, sir. I’ll be back for the middle watch.”
“Lucky you. See you then.”
“Will do, sir.”
The door closed, and Michael busied himself digging out his gym gear. The two hours of gym time he was given each day was the one chance he got to burn off the unholy mix of ennui, anger, frustration, and fear that churned through his body. He meant to make the most of them. No sooner was he ready than there was a knock on his cabin door.
It was Corporal Yazdi. “Afternoon, sir. Ready to go?”
“Hi, Corporal. Yup, ready.”
Small and sinewy, she did not look capable of taking on a granny in a wheelchair. Michael knew better, much better. Corporal Yazdi was not a woman to be underestimated. Michael would willingly bet a year’s pay that Yazdi was every bit as dangerous as Murphy, her lethally fast reflexes and precision more than making up for what she lacked in height and mass. He liked the marines who had been posted to make sure he did not try to blow up the Ishaq, and Yazdi and Murphy in particular. To while away the endless hours stuck in his cabin, he had talked at length to both of them, the two marines a mine of information on the Marine Corps. Contrary to the popular view held by most spacers, Michael included, that most marines were mindless grunts, Yazdi and Murphy were as sharp as anyone with whom Michael had served.
Yazdi looked cheerful. Michael knew she would have arranged for a couple of marines to back her up so that she could get some time on the mats with him doing basic drills. Despite his three years at Space Fleet College, Yazdi had not been impressed with his unarmed combat skills. In her professional opinion, they were barely up to the job of fending off a bad-tempered drunk on a Saturday night, a situation Yazdi thought was criminally irresponsible and one she had made it her business to do something about.