The battle at the Moons of Hell

military warship in orbit to have no chance of detecting their arrival.

Kzela sat in the flag combat data center deep inside his flagship, the deepspace heavy cruiser Seagirt. With its sister ship Searchlight, Seagirt was one of the Fleet’s newest heavy cruisers, both ships having been accepted into Space Fleet service from the massive orbital starship yards of Suleiman’s World only months earlier. It was so new in fact that Kzela would have sworn that he could smell the fresh paint. He had little to do but watch as, without any fuss, the task force quickly and efficiently came online and within seconds had rebuilt the threat and tactical plots.

“Good,” Kzela grunted, pleased that the threat plot confirmed that everything was as it should be, that nothing had changed.

Kzela zoomed the Seagirt’s massive holocam array in on the only Hammer threat, the Myosan. For all the world so close that Kzela could reach out and touch it, the Hammer ship hung in low orbit around Eternity like a brilliant silver and gold pebble. Its highly polished hull, its gold trim, and the massive gold Kraa sunburst on the upper side of the bow vouched for its membership in the chief councillor’s personal flotilla. The only signs that the ship was alive were the brilliant orange anticollision lights that flashed from every side and the occasional flicker-flash as Myosan’s Ka-band radar- controlled short-range lasers vaporized another small piece of space debris in its course.

Stupid bastards, Kzela thought. Myosan wasn’t even bothering to radiate its long- range search radar. Well, they’d find that was a mistake before very much longer. Its India band search radar would have no chance of picking up the ships of the task force so far out, but Kzela couldn’t begin to imagine not at least trying. Too damn confident, that was what they were. Either that or they didn’t care.

“Sloppy,” said Kzela’s chief of staff from the seat alongside, as if reading his mind, “though I’m happy to have it so. He won’t see either of us until it’s much too late for him to do anything about it.”

Kzela nodded. “No, he won’t.”

A small tremor in the holovid as the flag AI switched holocam arrays was the only indication that Seagirt, the best military warship technology in humanspace, was rolling ship in preparation for its scheduled deceleration burn. As the Myosan slipped out of sight behind Eternity, the faintest of tremors marked the firing of Seagirt’s main engines, the maneuver intended to put the heavy cruiser in a position to bring its main rail-gun and missile batteries to cover the heavy scout Groombridge as it ran in on Myosan. After a quick check with the flag AI had satisfied Kzela that all was going according to plan, he switched the holocams in quick succession to the rest of the task force, which was pulling slowly ahead of Seagirt as she began to decelerate.

There was little for him to do now but watch as the heavy cruiser Firnas headed into low orbit carrying the main ground assault force, the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 78th (President’s Own) Regiment of Marines. Farther back, the heavy scouts Draconis and Aquila ran in to intercept Mumtaz while the three remaining heavy cruisers, Regulus, Ishaq, and Recapture, adjusted vectors to put themselves into high orbit, the first line of defense if Eternity turned out to be the trap many still feared it might be.

Kzela felt like a spectator as he watched the elaborately choreographed movements of his ships.

He sighed as he reminded himself that if he had done his job right, he should feel just like a spectator. Contrary to popular belief, an admiral’s role was mostly before the event and not during it. His job was to make sure that the operational planning was sound, the sims were realistic and relevant, all possible scenarios had been assessed, and his subordinate commanders were both able and willing to discharge the responsibilities they had been delegated. The idea that modern space warfare with all its speed and three-dimensional complexities might allow him to pace some metaphorical quarterdeck while directing the activities of the thousands of men and women under his command in real time was utterly ludicrous.

More to the point, Space Fleet spent a great deal of time and effort ensuring that its senior commanders were able, as one of Kzela’s peers had memorably put it after a particularly harrowing command sim, to watch as everything went to shit and then, against all instinct and intellect, do nothing about it because there was nothing they could have or should have done.

That was not to say that admirals and their staffs didn’t have to step in now and again; they did. It just didn’t happen quite as often as the action-adventure holovids would have you believe.

So Kzela did his job, switching endlessly between the flag AI and the subordinate AIs controlling each of his ships with one eye watching the command, local, and threat plots like a hawk. But that was all he and his flag staff did. His captains knew what they had to do and needed no nagging from him to do it and do it well.

But nobody had ever said it was easy just sitting there.

Thursday, November 19, 2398, UD

Hell-14

As the final ops conference broke up into the usual noisy disarray, Michael waved Gerri Mangeshkar, his opposite number from 166, clear of the throng.

“Hey, Gerri. One for the road?”

“Damn straight, Michael! I feel like I’ve done nothing else but work since God knows when, so that’s just what I need right now.”

Michael followed Mangeshkar as she turned right out of 166’s combat information center and down the narrow passageway to the wardroom. She waved him into a violently patterned armchair that had pride of place in the cramped compartment.

“This is, without doubt, the ugliest fucking chair in all of humanspace, Gerri,” Michael said as he stretched out a grateful hand to take a small glass of Gabrielli single-malt cut with a dash of Jascarian spring water. It was pure mother’s milk, and Michael treasured every precious drop as it slipped down a throat dry and scratchy from a diet of too much recycled air.

“So you say, Michael. But I’ll have you know it’s a treasured family heirloom belonging to our esteemed navigator.”

“Balls, Gerri! Your previous skipper left it behind. I know. I checked.”

“Bastard” was all Mangeshkar said as the two settled into a companionable silence. Michael and Mangeshkar were happy for the moment to do little more than stare into the depths of their drinks and let the seconds tick by unwatched.

Michael finally broke the silence. “Four hours till the kick off, Gerri. How do you think it’ll go?”

“Well, like you, I’ve been through the sims God knows how many times, and any way I look at it, I think Battle Group Delta is going to kick the Hammer back to join that damned Kraa of theirs.” Mangeshkar paused to take a long drink from her glass. “No, all in all I think that side of it’s fine. Jaruzelska should pulverize them, no problem. It’s us I worry about.”

Michael nodded. “Funny you say that. The skipper was just saying how heavily we’ve drawn on our luck. Christ, I just hope it holds up another-what? — six hours. That’s not too much to ask, surely to God.”

“I feel the same way, Michael. It’s almost like we’ve been tempting fate being here. Who would have thought it two months ago? Two light scouts spending nearly five weeks sitting on a piece of Hammer real estate only a couple of hundred thousand kilometers away from an entire Hammer flotilla. Shit, we’ve done exactly that, and it’s still hard to believe!”

“It is. Still, we live in hope. Anyway, Gerri, much as I love you-and I do-we’ve got work to do, so I’ll say thank you.” Michael climbed out of the armchair, finishing his drink as he went. He took Mangeshkar’s outstretched hand. “It’s been an honor, Gerri. Truly it has, so let’s get through this, and hopefully I’ll see you on the other side.”

“Take care, Michael. Let’s hope that the bastards are so busy fending off Jaruzelska and her overpaid staff that we can slip away without being seen.”

“Let’s hope so. See you.” With that, Michael was gone.

Mangeshkar poured herself another small drink and sat back down. Her department was well and truly under