Authors: Graham Sharp Paul
• • •
Michael dropped his gear onto the deck and rolled into the bunk that occupied most of the cramped economy-class cabin. In the time it had taken to clear arrival formalities—and they had been formalities; Michael had never seen people so disinterested as Lagerfeld’s border security officers—the newsvids had reported the closure of Hammer nearspace in anticipation of what Polk himself had said would be a full-scale attack by rogue elements from the Federated Worlds Fleet.
“You got that one right, you Hammer asshole,” Michael had muttered.
The mission was screwed. There was no way for him and Shinoda to get to Commitment. It was over. Juggernaut was doomed. And worse than any of that, his chances of seeing Anna again were … he wondered what was less than zero. And he was a nonperson, a dead nonperson. The false identities he had been given would get him dirtside on Scobie’s and then onto Commitment, but they weren’t good enough to last him the rest of his life.
If he discounted blowing his brains out, his options had dwindled to one: flee to the outer edge of humanspace. There he could find some ratfucked system a thousand light-years from the Hammer of Kraa where nobody gave a damn who you were or what you’d done.
Just the sort of place where a dead nonperson could forget the past and carve out a new life.
Sunday, June 13, 2404, UD
Offices of the Supreme Council, McNair
“… and so, to sum up,” said Admiral Kerouac, commander in chief of the Hammer Defense Forces, in a mellow baritone voice that Polk always found faintly patronizing, “in response to a full-scale mutiny of the Federated Worlds space fleet, we are withdrawing every unit we can spare from nonessential operational tasks. Those units are now deployed in Commitment nearspace. And finally, all units are at Operational State 4 and will remain at that level until we have confirmed that the renegade Fed units that left Terranova and Comdur are not planning to attack one of our home planets. Are there …” Kerouac paused as an aide handed him a sheet of paper. “I’ve just received the latest estimate of the number of ships involved in the mutiny,” he went on, “and it seems the Federated Worlds has been unable to account for a total of sixty-six ships.”
Polk stared at Kerouac, open-mouthed with disbelief. “Did you say sixty-six ships?”
“I did, sir. Sixty-six ships: one planetary assault vessel, fifty-three warships, and twelve heavy armed auxiliaries. Now, I know that sounds like a lot, but you look at our order of battle, you will see that we have three times that number of warships in Commitment nearspace right now. That will increase by twenty-five when Task Force 41 returns from the Federated Worlds. The Fortitude and Faith systems are equally well defended, and of course we should not forget our orbital battle stations, battlesats, weapons platforms, and minefields. There can be no doubt that any attack by those renegade Fed units would be suicidal.”
“Thank you,” Polk said. “Which brings us to the one question I have been asking over and over: What the hell are the Feds up to? Councillor Kando, tell me what your intelligence analysts think.”
“We think the renegades will attack Commitment.”
“They’ll suffer enormous losses if they try, so why would they do that? They’re not stupid.”
“Hendrik Island, that’s why.”
Polk shook his head. “We’re not even sure the Feds know about Hendrik Island.”
“Too many people know about it, Chief Councillor. We must assume they do, just as we have to assume they will do whatever it takes to eliminate our antimatter plant on Hendrik Island. They have to. It’s the single greatest … no, it’s the only threat to their survival.”
Polk stared at Kando for moment before responding. “That does make sense,” he said. “What else is worth risking so many ships?’ He turned to Jones. “Your thoughts?”
“It does make sense, sir, even though taking out Hendrik Island cannot be done,” Polk’s councillor for war responded. “The Feds will not be able to penetrate our orbital defenses. It’s simple mathematics, and we’ve run the simulations—just as the Feds will have—and they all point to the same result: total annihilation. Misguided patriots these renegades might be, but even they won’t throw ships away for no reason.
“And even if they did, they’d be wasting their time. Hendrik Island was picked because it is an enormous mass of basalt. The plant is buried so deep inside that even an antimatter weapon dropped right on top would have no effect on its operational capability. An attack would be utterly pointless. We know it, and those renegade Feds will too, but we cannot assume they won’t try. Kraa knows, they are an arrogant bunch.”
Polk nodded. “So there’s no downside in making the assumption that the Feds will try to destroy our antimatter plant?”
“None.”
“Won’t the Feds just attack elsewhere?”
“There’s no point,’ Jones said. “The Feds do not have sufficient forces to mount a full-scale ground assault. Anyway, the advice I have been given—” Jones looked at Admiral Kerouac, who nodded his agreement. “—is that sufficient forces would remain to cover any eventuality. And it goes without saying that our forces can be moved as the tactical situation in Commitment nearspace demands.”
“Good. Admiral Kerouac, you know what has to be done.”
“I do, sir. I will report back to the next Defense Council meeting.”
Wednesday, June 16, 2404, UD
New Dublin, Scobie’s World
Michael let himself into the small house tucked away out of sight of the road down a tree-lined lane. He dumped his backpack and went through to the kitchen, where Shinoda waited. “Am I clean?” he asked, punching buttons on the foodbot to get himself a mug of coffee.
“Spassky and Akuna have just checked in. No problems, they say. I don’t know what the locals do at night, but they don’t like to get out and party.”
“Where are Mitchell and Prodi?”
“Covering the perimeter. Spassky and Akuna take over from them at midnight.”
“Okay.” Michael sat down at the table, flicking the ever-present near-field jammer with a finger. “Right, I picked up a datastick from the dead-letter box,” he went on. “Admiral Moussawi is going ahead with Operation Juggernaut.”
“Yes!” Shinoda hissed. “Good for him. But what about us? What’s the plan?”
“There is no plan, not anymore. Our mission has been scrubbed …”
“Shit,” Shinoda muttered.
“… and I have orders for you guys to get yourselves to Al-Sufri. Check with the defense attaché there; she’ll organize you a ride back home.”
“And why would we do that?” Shinoda asked. She shook her head, her face bitter with disappointment. “Fuck the orders,” she said. “I refuse to sit around waiting for Jeremiah Polk to tell me I’m now a Hammer citizen. What about you?”
“I’ll go to ground. If I can stay out of the locals’ hands, I might find a way to get back to Commitment. Money’s not a problem. Maybe I can bribe someone to smuggle me in.” Michael did not need to look at Shinoda to know what she thought of that proposition. An awkward silence, the silence of defeat, settled over the pair.
“The problem with looking for someone to smuggle you in is time,” Shinoda said eventually. “Nobody knows when the Hammers will reopen their shipping routes. It could be months, and you can’t survive that long. DocSec will nail you.”
“I know, I know,” Michael said.
“You got any better ideas?”
“I might,” Michael said, a distant look on his face. “To give Juggernaut the best chance of succeeding, the
NRA
must get those plans and brevity codes before the operation kicks off. So we can’t give up on the mission. We have to find a ship to get us to Commitment.”
Shinoda frowned, skeptical. “We can probably do that,” she said. “There must be plenty sitting around doing nothing right now. But how the hell can we get dirtside? We’d be plasma five seconds after we dropped out of pinchspace.”
“I know,” Michael conceded. “That is the fatal flaw in my strategy.”
“One hell of a flaw,” Shinoda muttered. “So what do we do?”
Michael thought about the problem for a few moments. “Let’s get everyone together,” he said. “Tell them the situation, then give them the options. If they want to head for Al-Sufri, that’s fine. If they want to stay, they can.”
“And do what, sir?”
“Work out how to do the impossible,” he said.
• • •
Michael paused to look at each of the marines in turn. He was struck by the intensity on every face. He knew he did not have to ask the question but did anyway.
“So there you have it, guys. There’s nothing more I can say, so it’s up to you. Go to Al-Sufri or stay and see if we can’t drag this mission across the line.” He got to his feet. “I’ll let you talk it through. Give me a shout when you’ve decided.”
“No need, sir,” Mitchell said before Michael even started for the door. “Well, not for me, anyway. The sergeant says I talk too much anyway … ’
“No kidding,” Akuna muttered.
“… but I’m in.”
“What about the rest of you?” Michael asked. “You in too?”
One after another, heads nodded.
“Well, I guess that’s it,” Michael continued. “The mission’s back on. All we have to do is work out how we can do this.”
Shinoda broke the silence that followed. “Let me have first crack at it,” she said. “The way I see it, there’s one logistics problem—we need a ship and fast—and two tactical problems: We have to survive the Hammer defenses once we drop out of pinchspace, and then we have to get safely dirtside.”
“Money will solve the first problem,” Michael said.
“Hang on a second, sir,” Akuna said. “We’re talking merchant ships here, right?”
“Yes.”
“We can’t just waltz onboard and take over. Merships have lockouts on their controls. If the crewmen don’t want to drop into Hammer space, they sure as shit won’t let us.”
“Goddammit,” Michael said, trying not to let a sudden despondency show. In his enthusiasm, he had forgotten. “Of course they do, and I have no idea how we can get the command codes. But that problem can wait. Right now we need to start building a list of issues.”
“I’ll run the list,” Prodi offered.
“Thanks. Once we know what all the problems are, we can start working out how to solve them. Okay, who’s next?”
• • •
“So that’s it, guys,” Michael said. “Get some sleep. I’ll keep an eye on things.”
“Not so fast, sir,” Shinoda said. “Spassky and Akuna, take the perimeter.”
“You’re a hard woman,” Spassky grumbled.
Shinoda ignored her. “Mitchell, Prodi, you take over at … let me see, at six. Now move!”
The marines shuffled out, leaving Michael and Shinoda alone.
“I’ve found a ship broker, Pinczewski Associates,” Michael said. “They have plenty of ships for lease. That’s the good news. The bad is the cost. Ship leasing does not come cheap.”
“Can we get the money?”
“I’ve got some ideas,” Michael said after a moment’s thought, “but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’ve set up a meeting for ten this morning with Max Pinczewski. Let me see what he’s got to offer, and we’ll take it from there, okay?”
“All right, but we’ll need a cover story. One of Pinczewski’s people is bound to ask what we want the ship for.”
“Shit!” Michael swore. “Hadn’t thought about that.”
“I have,” Shinoda said with a smug grin. “Remember the consignment for the Live-in-Hope Mining Company? Fed border security bought that story, so I’m pretty sure our friends at Pinczewski Associates will too. We left the containers in one of the orbital bonded warehouses; it won’t be a problem to get them shifted. They are ours, after all.”
“And we have the necessary end-user certificates, so problem solved.”
“Only ten thousand to go,” Shinoda said. They both laughed.
“So, where is the Live-in-Hope Mining Company?”
“The Varakala Cluster.”
Michael winced. “Long way. That’ll be expensive. Still, we won’t worry about that just yet. And let me have a look … yes, that works.” He pulled up a chart of the space around the Hammer Worlds on the kitchen holovid screen. “A ship jumping from Scobie’s en route to the Varakala Cluster passes within 20 light-years of Commitment. Not as close as I’d like, but a ship suffering a major systems failure, say, here—” Michael’s finger stabbed at a point north of Brooks Reef. “—would have to try for Commitment.”
Michael paused to study the chart.
“Where,” he went on, “the Hammers will do their best to blow us all to hell the moment we dropped into normalspace. But that’s a problem for later.”
“Which we won’t worry about now, sir. You should get some sleep. We’ll head into town early. That’ll give us plenty of time to check out Mister Pinczewski’s place.”
“Sounds good,” Michael said. “I have to drop off an update for Admiral Moussawi as well. He needs to know what we’re planning.”
Thursday, June 17, 2404, UD
New Dublin, Scobie’s World
“That was easy,” Michael said, taking a sip of coffee. “I just hope the
Matrix Starlight
is as good as Max Pinczewski says it is.”
“Easy?” Shinoda shook her head. “Thanks to the Hammers, Max Pinczewski has ships sitting on their asses doing fuck all, and we have the money. Of course it was easy.”
“Apart from the fact that we don’t have the money.”
“So what do we do?”
“Only thing I can think of is my father. He can get us the money.”
“That’d mean making a pinchcomm call to the Federated Worlds, which I don’t like the sound of,” Shinoda said. She looked anxious. “Scobie’s World is infested with State Security and DocSec agents. It’ll be risky.”
“No money, no mission, no choice,” Michael said, his tone blunt. “We have to, but not here in New Dublin. Somewhere quieter.”
“Then the sooner we do it, the better.”
• • •
“Not perfect,” Shinoda said, scanning the plaza at the heart of Charfield, a small town three hours by mobibot from New Dublin. It was a place no Hammer tourists ever came to; in theory, that meant DocSec didn’t either. Michael hoped the theory was right. “It will have to do. Now, any questions?”
Michael shook his head, mouth dry with nerves.
“Off you go, then, and if anything doesn’t look right, get out of there fast. You know where we are.”