FWSS Ishaq, berthed on Space Battle Station SBS-44, in orbit around Jascaria
Michael’s first two days on board Ishaq passed in a blur. Harried from one place to another by the AI-artificial intelligence-that managed the ship’s administration, he had found the pace relentless.
“Getting near that time, I think.” Michael was exhausted. His guide for the day, Cadet Aaron Stone, was good company, but Michael had another long day to look forward to. He needed a good night’s sleep.
Stone nodded. “You might be right. One for the road?”
Michael’s determination to call it a night crumbled. Being alone in his cabin did not seem so attractive all of a sudden.
“Oh, go on, then.”
Stone walked off to the bar. Michael commed his neuronics to bring up the news. It had been a while since he had checked what was going on in humanspace, and this was as good a time as any to catch up. Moments after the World News Network popped into view, he wished he had not bothered.
The news was bad. Talks with the Hammer over the hijacking of the Fed Worlds mership Mumtaz had collapsed; the Hammers were pulling out of the negotiations.
Stone was back with two new beers. “Check out WNN,” Michael said. “Looks like the Hammers have pulled the plug.” He sighed. Suddenly he was a million years old. “Well, Aaron. I think the shit is going to hit the fan.”
“Bastards.” Stone frowned. “Beats me how that new chief councillor. . what’s his name?”
“Polk. Chief Councillor Jeremiah Polk.”
“Yup, him. How can he try to pin the Mumtaz hijacking on someone else? Do the Hammers ever take responsibility for anything?” Stone took a long pull at his beer. “Man’s a total idiot,” he said dismissively.
Michael shook his head. Jeremiah Polk was many things-devious psychopath sprang most immediately to mind-but Michael was damn sure he was not an idiot.
“Don’t know about that, Aaron. He’s a very dangerous man, that Polk. This doesn’t look good.”
A gloomy silence fell over the two young officers.
Intently, Michael watched Polk being interviewed. He had read pretty much every word written about-and by-Jeremiah Polk. He struggled to think of a more amoral man. Christ! To call Polk a psychopath was being unkind to psychopaths, but a few things were clear. True to his Hammer bloodlines, Jeremiah Polk was a man who never forgave. He was a man who never forgot. He was a man unable to let an insult pass unavenged. He was a man whose preferred solution to most problems was violence. He despised intellectuals; smart-assed thinkers, he called them. On the basis of those traits alone, something was brewing. He would stake his life on it.
“So, Michael. What does it all mean?”
Michael had been asking himself the same question.
“Hard to tell. .”
Michael’s voice trailed off as he contemplated the terrible prospect of another full-blown war against the fundamentalist Hammers. It was not a happy thought. Nothing but nothing could ever convince the Hammers that their so-called religion was the invention of one man, that everything they thought and did was based on one giant lie. He shook his head in despair. The curiously shaped rocks discovered on Mars by Peter McNair were no more relics of an ancient civilization dedicated to the universe’s supreme being, Kraa, than his toenail clippings were. The whole thing was an elaborate charade on which the Hammers had erected possibly the most viciously cruel society known to humankind. But like all fundamentalists down the ages, reason and logic had no weight with the Hammers. They understood only one thing: brute force, so brute force it would have to be. Maybe this time, Michael thought, the Federated Worlds would go for the throat, not stopping until the entire rotten edifice that was Hammer society lay crushed into dust.
“Now,” he continued, “exactly what does it all mean? Well, I hate to say this, but I think we’re in for a fight. I think that’s what it means. So stand by for a fourth worlds war.”
Stone’s eyes opened wide in shock. “You sure of that?”
Michael shook his head. “No, I’m not. There’s no way I can be. But Polk’s got to do something. Look at the problems he’s got at home. The Hammer’s falling apart at the seams. Remember your Politics 101: When things at home are going to shit, fight a foreign war. Distracts the peasants; keeps them in line. Anyway, I think force is the only thing the Hammers really understand, so force is what Polk will turn to.”
Stone ran his hands through his hair. His face hardened. “So what? Bring it on. We’ll kick those Hammers back to the Stone Age where they damn well belong.”
Michael shook his head. “Be careful what you wish for, Aaron,” he cautioned.
Stone stared at Michael. He looked guilty. “Oh, yes. You’ve been there. Sorry. Forgot.”
“That’s all right. Anyway, there’s nothing much we can do about it. We are junior officers, nothing but low-life bottomfeeders. So drink up. I need a decent night’s sleep.”