The battle at the Moons of Hell

could work and the Hammer would be doomed. And without AI-based management, geneering, self-replicating robotics, and all the other things held by the Path of Doctrine to be absolute abominations, prison labor was the only economical-if marginal-way to operate the mines spread across seventeen of Hell’s twenty-two moons. It also solved the problem of what to do with the countless unfortunates who fell afoul every year of Doctrinal Security, trapped like flies in the endless webs of half-truth, deceit, treachery, and revenge spun by DocSec’s enormous secret army of informers.

Oh, yes, it was a good place to put those Hammers who strayed too far from the Path, Merrick thought. It was also a good place to consign any out-system travelers stupid enough to wander uninvited into Hammer- controlled space without a good excuse for being there, and there was no such thing as a good excuse. If they were lucky, Hammer prisoners would eventually return to civilized Kraa society. But off-worlders would labor in the mass driver plants until old age, overwork, or a brutal beating from a bored prison supervisor finished them off.

“Digby, that was a very uncharitable thought. I’m sure Governor Costigan is-and I hope will remain-a valued member of the Faith.”

The chief councillor’s faint, almost imperceptible smile, more a sneer than a smile, betrayed him. He watched as a tremor ran barely visible through Digby’s squat frame. Just as well, Merrick thought, pleased with himself. It never hurts to remind your subordinates they should fear you, and Digby clearly had gotten the message that he was no less expendable than Prison Governor Costigan.

“It was uncharitable, sir,” Digby agreed. “But I’m sure Costigan will not let us down. He’ll treat the arrival of a shipment of off-worlders the same as any other shipment of transgressors. With ruthless efficiency, as usual and without question.”

“Good, let’s hope so. We have enough to worry about as it is.” Merrick’s words were an order, not a wish, and Digby nodded his acceptance. “So, General. Your report?”

“Well, sir, I have completed the review of the various options open to us, and I’m happy to report that it confirms Frontier as our best choice. It is a matter of public record that the Frontier Worlds Development Corporation successfully completed its planned fund-raising in August last year and placed contracts for an integrated phase one terraforming package with Planetary Dynamics Corporation two months later.”

“And the name of their new planet?”

“Ganesh, sir. The second planet of the Acadia System.”

Merrick’s face soured, his mouth a bitter line across his creased and pallid face. This problem had frustrated him longer than he could remember. The Hammer had neither the resources nor the technology to terraform planets quickly. That meant there was no chance of settling the fourth habitable planet of the Hammer Worlds, Eternity, in any useful time scale, never mind H-5, H-6, H-7, and all the rest of the unnamed candidates for terraforming over which the Hammer had planetary development rights in perpetuity. In fact, even the simple act of choosing the name Eternity summed up the inability of the Hammer to get things done.

The Supreme Council for the Preservation of Doctrine had taken months to approve the new name in the face of strenuous opposition from the Teacher of the Worlds John Calverson. An affront to doctrine, he had said over and over until Merrick had had great trouble not reaching down the council table and strangling the fucker. Calverson should spend more time caring for the souls of Kraa’s people-which was his job as the Hammer’s supreme spiritual head, after all-and less on endless nit-picking doctrinal arguments, Merrick thought sourly. And always egged on by Polk, which didn’t help.

So the Hammer would continue to be hamstrung for as long as doctrine required it. To add further pressure, the trade and technology embargo against it remained in place. Merrick snorted derisively. Why should the Hammer sign the Planetary Use of Nuclear Weapons Treaty? If Kraa’s purposes required the use of nuclear weapons against planetary targets, Kraa’s people would use them and the rest of humankind be damned.

Meanwhile, not only was Frontier developing Ganesh, the Federated Worlds were about to settle the first wave of colonists on Roper-III, the Sylvanians had started on Guardian-I, and the Earth Alliance had plans not only for 40 Eridani A, B, and C but for Pi 3 Orionis as well, not to mention a whole clutch of orbital habitats and other worlds targeted for mineral extraction, low-g manufacturing, space tourism, and so on.

Not for the first time, Merrick cursed the Hammers’ fate, a fate that condemned them to seemingly endless stagnation without the hope of growth. Kraa’s blood! It wasn’t just the major polities in humanspace-the Old Earth Alliance, the Federated Worlds, the Sylvanians, the Javitz and Delfin Federations-that were terraforming new planets as fast as capital and skill allowed. Even the smaller systems were expanding: Frontier, the Buranans-by Kraa, the list was endless. Everywhere it was expand, expand, expand. Even that rabble on Scobie’s World had plans for terraforming in an adjacent star system, and they were practically a Hammer vassal state. And the Hammer? Nothing. It couldn’t even develop a new orbital habitat.

Merrick stopped himself dead. This was getting him nowhere.

All those things might be true, but, he thought viciously, they were going to change. And the Feds were going to help them get started. After that, it would be up to the Hammer, but the time saved would be measured in decades; the extensive use of the latest geneered bacteria and organisms would see to that. That was another reason Merrick couldn’t talk to his fellow councillors about the matter, he thought. But meeting the growing demands for more living space could not be deferred in favor of long-winded sermons from narrow-minded, stiff- necked priests like John Calverson. The stresses imposed by the growing population of the Hammer Worlds, made all the worse by a seriously underperforming economy, were beginning to open up the social fault lines in a way that had the Supreme Council increasingly concerned. Not that they had any answers other than more propaganda, more repression, more violence.

Well, let’s try more hope, Merrick thought as he turned his attention back to the man waiting patiently in front of him.

“Continue, General.”

“Sir. I was about to say that my contacts on Terranova tell me that the prime contractor, Planetary Dynamics Corporation, has begun final assembly of the terraforming package. Package elements have started to come from the subcontractors’ plants on Anjaxx, New Paradise, Suleiman, and Planetary Dynamics’s plant on Nuristan. As things stand, they are due to ship out to Frontier in early September. And best of all, the last-ditch Frontier Supreme Court challenge mounted by the Deep Ecology Coalition with the support of the Naess-Rolston Foundation has been thrown out on its ear, so the last legal barriers are now gone.”

Merrick grunted. He would have liked to see a bunch of cosmic preservationists try to tell him what he could and could not do. “Who’s the carrier?”

“Prince Interstellar Shipping Lines. The ship is the Mumtaz.” Digby smiled.

“Ah, Prince Interstellar. Now I see where this is going. I know I shouldn’t ask, but indulge me. That man we implicated in the Protector incident, what was his name?”

“Jean-Luc d’Castreaux, sir. A very, very nasty piece of work but more than happy to cooperate when General Cassidy’s agents presented him with the autopsy reports on the bodies he stupidly left behind.”

Merrick watched Digby grimace at the memory. Even Merrick blanched a little. The Hammer could be a brutal and merciless place, but mostly out of necessity. Its reputation for single-minded cruelty in the pursuit and punishment of anyone who strayed from the Path of Doctrine, even if only slightly, was well deserved and widely feared.

But for sheer cold-blooded sadism, what d’Castreaux had done was worse than anything the Hammer had ever committed in the name of Kraa. It was just d’Castreaux’s bad luck that a Hammer light cruiser dropping out of pinchspace short of the planet Fortitude with a serious systems malfunction had literally stumbled on the three bodies, still roped together and heading for interstellar oblivion. And it had been d’Castreaux’s even worse luck that the cruiser had had a captain smart enough to recognize foul play when he saw it and to work the vectors back to see where the bodies had come from. After that, it had been just a matter of patient investigation to track down who’d been responsible. It had taken more than five years to sift d’Castreaux’s name out of the thousands of Feds involved in the bitter fight for Space Battle Station Protector, but in the end there had been no doubt.

“Yes, d’Castreaux. Pity he was kicked out of the Fleet by the Feds. He would have been much more useful as a serving officer, especially if he’d made it to flag rank. But of course his wife is the real force behind Prince Interstellar.” Merrick smiled. He enjoyed blackmail, which was why he forced an unwilling intelligence department to feed him the juicier cases, source protection be damned. He was chief councillor, for fuck’s sake. Who was he going to tell?