FWSS Eridani, berthed on Federated Worlds Warship Koh (SVL-407), interstellar space
With the gentlest of bumps, Eridani berthed. Hydraulic locking arms pulled her in tight to the huge bulk of the light support vessel.
“All stations, this is command. Hands fall out from berthing stations. Revert to ship state 3, condition x-ray.”
Michael hit the ground running. He did not want to waste any time. Lenksi had left him in no doubt that Eridani’s error-prone ultraviolet detector arrays were to be working by the time the ship undocked in twelve hours’ time. He was on his way to make sure the maintenance team standing by to fix the problem actually was waiting for him as promised. If it was, he could get on with the main business of the day.
To his relief, two spacers from Koh were there waiting when Eridani’s massive hangar doors opened. Two minutes was more than enough for Michael to be completely convinced that there was nothing he could offer two experienced technicians except gratuitous advice and general aggravation. They did not need either; they would do a much better job without him peering over their shoulders and being a pain in the ass. His conscience was clear. Leaving the techs firm instructions to keep him informed, he told Mother where he was going and set off on his second mission of the day, a mission that he had allowed Bienefelt to talk him into, the nervous excitement beginning to build inside him.
He smiled at the memory. Petty Officer Bienefelt, humanspace’s only cyborg agony aunt! Now, there was a truly bizarre thought.
Massing over 800,000 tons, the Koh was enormous, and getting to berth 4-Lima was an exercise in itself. At last he made it, stopping at the end of the personnel access tube to clear security. With a deep breath, he set off down the tube, wondering as he did whether he was about to make a terrible mistake.
Befitting a heavy cruiser, immaculate spacers infested Damishqui’s gangway. Michael was only another anonymous shipsuited junior lieutenant; he was completely ignored. Fair enough, he thought as he made his way to the quartermaster; he was happy to be ignored. In peacetime, he would have been shot for daring to cross the gangway dressed so casually, but wartime or not, some things did not change, and he took great care to salute the ship in the best college style as he crossed the brow, thankfully without stumbling; some considerate soul had synced Damishqui’s and Koh’s artgravs.
“Sir. Can I help you?” the quartermaster asked, returning the salute.
“Yes. Could you comm Junior Lieutenant Cheung to the gangway, please?”
“Can do, sir. Identity check, please.”
The young leading spacer watched patiently as Michael’s identity was confirmed. “Thank you, sir. I’ll comm her now. . okay, sir. Done. All right, she’s on her way.” The quartermaster leaned forward. “Probably a good idea to wait clear of the gangway,” he whispered conspiratorially. “Commodore Perkins and enough brass to sink the ship are due any minute.”
“Thanks, Leader, will do.” Michael grinned. He felt greatly relieved. He would not have been the least bit surprised if Anna had told him to piss off. Tucking himself out of the way, he stood and waited.
Anna wasn’t long. Michael caught his breath as she appeared, a slight, shipsuited figure almost lost in the ebb and flow of Damishqui’s crew as they readied the ship for combat.
“Hi, Michael,” she said flatly. “Follow me. I know somewhere we can talk. But I’ve only got a few minutes.”
“Fine,” Michael said to Anna’s back as she led the way off Damishqui, down the access tube, and into an empty compartment a few meters inside the Koh. The door hissed shut behind them as she turned, arms folded across her chest. Michael’s heart sank. He knew defensive body language when he saw it. Suddenly, he did not know what to do or say, so he stood silent, unmoving, staring into Anna’s eyes, as always lost in their green depths.
Anna sighed despairingly. She shook her head. “God above, Michael. You don’t change. What the hell am I going to do with you?”
Michael shrugged. “Um, well, maybe we could, you know, sort of start again. .” He trailed off as Anna’s cheeks flared red with sudden anger.
“Start again!” she hissed fiercely. “What makes you think I want to start again? What makes you think we can start again after all we’ve been through? Christ, Michael! It’s not that simple.”
“Look, Anna,” Michael said desperately. “I know it’s not. But the fact is I love you. Yes, I can live without you if I have to, but I really don’t want to.”
Anna stared at him in silence for a long, long time before she spoke. “That’s not the problem,” she said finally. “Problem is whether I want you in my life anymore. You can stand there all you like telling me how much you love me, but it makes no difference. I know all that. I just don’t know what I want. I need more time.”
“Anna, look-”
“No! Enough! We can talk forever, and it’s not going to help one little bit. I’ve got to work out what happens next, so let me do that and we’ll talk again. Now look, I really have to go.” She turned to go.
“Anna!” Michael protested. “Can’t we sort-”
“No, we damn well can’t, Michael!” Anna snapped, turning back. “Oh, shit,” she said gently. “Sorry. Look, Michael. Leave things with me. We’ll meet up next chance we can, see how we feel then. Promise. Now, I really have to go. You be careful.” She stepped close to kiss him on the cheek. Michael’s heart pounded as her familiar scent brought memories cascading down. “Very careful. You hear?”
With that she was gone.
Michael stood for a moment, her all-too-quick farewell kiss still warm on his cheek.
He sighed deeply, wearily rubbing eyes gritty from too little sleep and too much stress. The good news was that it could have been a hell of a lot worse. The bad news was that it could have been a hell of a lot better. Still, Anna was talking to him, had agreed to see him again, and had kissed him good-bye. Michael allowed himself to think that maybe, when the latest fracas with the Hammer was over, they could put things back on the rails.
Anyway, he had stolen enough of Eridani’s time; with his tame maintainers reporting good progress, he wanted to be there when they did their final tests on the recalcitrant ultraviolet detector arrays. He had learned the hard way that all maintainers had an uncanny knack of making systems work perfectly as long as they were there to twiddle the knobs, only to have everything fall apart the second they left.
If that happened, Lenski would kick his ass from breakfast time to Christmas.
“Any final questions?” Eridani’s captain scanned the faces in front of her. “No? Okay. That’s all, folks. Go to it.”
The mission briefing broke up in noisy confusion around Michael. For a moment, he stared at the command plot with its mission summary. It all looked so easy, so clinical, he thought, laid out tidily like that. In theory, Eridani’s upcoming mission should be no problem at all.
He suppressed an involuntary shiver.
Remassed, rearmed, they were going back into Hammer space, this time as part of a task group-four heavy cruisers and four heavy escorts supported by light patrol ships-and it was no quick dash-in, dash-out job this time, either. The task group had orders to take out one of the battle stations in orbit around the planet Faith, the third planet of the Retribution system. According to the Einsteins responsible for planning Fleet operations, the mission was intended to demonstrate the Fed’s ability to operate freely even against targets as hard as a battle station, and Hammer battle stations were hard targets. Massing millions of tons, they were not quite as large as the Fed version, but in Michael’s humble opinion they were quite large enough and heavily armed. No rail guns, though, thank God. He was beginning to get a real bee in his bonnet about rail guns, to the point where he did not even want to think about the damned things, let alone jump into Hammer space to face them. He smiled ruefully. He would be packed off to the shrinks if Lenski ever found out.
He looked again at the mission summary and shook his head. How many times had he seen mission briefings end up so neatly packaged? He shook his head again. Things were never that easy-he should know-and there was no reason why this mission should be any different.
Doing his best to ignore a sudden twinge of fear that twisted his stomach into a ball, he turned his mind to the things he had to get done before the Eridani unberthed.
Twelve hours after the Eridani had arrived, Koh’s hydraulic rams pushed it gently clear. The minute the ship fell out from berthing stations, Michael headed straight for his bunk. He would be on watch in less than six hours, and his sleep deficit was beginning to get out of hand.