The battle at the Moons of Hell

control, and if 166 wasn’t ready to lift off on schedule at 04:15, nobody would be pointing a finger at her. But the strain was killing her. She could see it in Michael, too. They’d both lost a good five kilos since Corona had started, and their faces sported the same dark black smudges under both eyes and the same tense, stretched look. The rest of 387’s officers didn’t look much better. Michael’s skipper in particular looked like a man about to be hanged, his face a drawn gray-tinged caricature. God only knew how he was coping. The final approach to Hell-14 must have been a killer.

Mangeshkar gave herself a metaphorical shake. Fuck this, Mangeshkar, she chided herself. You’re getting far too maudlin. A final check of her department, a couple of hours of sleep, and then up to be ready for liftoff. Decision made, she downed her drink, slapped on an alc-suppressor patch to neutralize the two drinks she’d just enjoyed so much, and was on her feet, heading for the surveillance drone hangar.

Thursday, November 19, 2398, UD

Flag Combat Data Center, Onboard FWWS Al-Jahiz, Revelation System Farspace

As Vice Admiral Jaruzelska settled into her seat to wait out the minutes until the final pinchspace microjump into Hammer nearspace, the flag combat data center was hushed. The only sounds were half-whispered conversations and the ever-present murmur of the air-conditioning.

All around them, hunched over holovid screens and watched over by her chief of staff, the relentless Commodore Martin Li, a man she was convinced slept less than one hour a night, Jaruzelska’s flag staff checked and rechecked the final details of the attack.

Not that there was anything that she or her staff could profitably do now, she reminded herself.

Her job was the operations plan, and that had long been completed, worked and reworked, until every possible risk had been identified-eliminated if possible and managed if not. Now it was up to her captains, their ships, and the thousands of spacers under their command. If they got it right, she would be the hero of the hour. If they didn’t, her fall from grace would be savagely quick. Deservedly so, she thought. Everything she had asked for, she had been given. In return she had given her assurance that the mission would succeed, and she knew full well it was a bargain she would be held to.

All of which was well and good, but it did nothing to suppress the nervous churning that was beginning to make its presence felt in a stomach she had been too busy to fill as often as she should have. She commed the galley for one last cup of coffee.

The huge holovid screen that dominated the entire flag combat data center told the story.

In loose formation around her were the seven heavy cruisers-Sina, Revenge, Damishqui, Zuhr, Arcturus, Searchlight, and Orion-which, together with the Al- Jahiz and eight light cruisers whose main responsibility was missile defense, made up Task Group 256.1, the primary assault force for the attack on the Hell system’s flotilla base, home to one Rear Admiral David Pritchard and the twenty warships of his Hell flotilla. To starboard and astern were the two light escorts attached to the Al-Jahiz task group, Crossbow and Bombard, providing casualty recovery and there to pick up the pieces if the cruisers made a mess of things.

Ranged across hundreds of kilometers of space were the rest of her ships.

The Hell Central attack force consisted of the four heavy cruisers Rabban, Al-Battani, Resilient, and Retaliate, together with two missile defense light cruisers and their casualty recovery ships, the light escorts Carbine and Arrow.

The Hell-5 hostage recovery force was led by the heavy cruiser Repudiate and the heavy patrol ships Deflector, Democracy, Hatshepsut, and Fu Xi, followed up by Arbalest for casualty recovery, a ship so new that she had completed fleet acceptance in June and the fleet workup and operational readiness inspection in early October.

There also were the ships tasked with recovering the Mumtazers from the outer mines together with the hijackers responsible for their capture: three heavy cruisers-Ulugh Beg, Resolve, and Khaldun-twelve heavy patrol ships-Ban Chiang, Akrotiri, Anjar, Eidetic, Denouement, Ecesis, Elegant, Hiradokoro, Djagaral, Dong Yi, Bampur, and Beaumaris-and the three light escorts for casualty recovery-Rifle, Destrier, and Mangonel.

It was one hell of an outfit, Jaruzelska thought with considerable pride.

Together with the two light scouts 387 and 166, she would command fifty-two ships for the attack on the Hell system, the best warships, combat systems, and spacers the Federated Worlds could assemble.

And that wasn’t all of Operation Corona.

Add in the heavy scouts tasked with dropping surveillance satellite killers and pinchspace drop decoys, the ships of Corinne Kawaguchi’s Task Group 683, whose swarm of pinchcomsat killers and ship simulators even now were driving their way into Hell nearspace, and the ships of Admiral Kzela’s Task Force 681, tasked with recovering the passengers and crew of the Mumtaz from Eternity, and Battle Group Delta was a hugely impressive force.

All of which was well and good, but numbers never had been enough to ensure success. She hoped that the Hammer was impressed enough to get out and stay out of her way.

Thursday, November 19, 2398, UD

Ministry of Interstellar Relations, Foundation City, Terranova Planet

Giovanni Pecora stood up as the perennially sour-faced Hammer ambassador was shown into the small meeting room that adjoined his office.

Ambassador Yoon was well-known for his view that the Federated Worlds were nothing more than a filthy degenerate cesspit of heretics. From the day he had stepped unwillingly onto Fed soil, he had made little attempt to conceal that opinion from his unwilling hosts, an attitude that accounted for the open contempt in which he was held.

“Sit down, Ambassador.” Pecora kept his voice as courteous as he could, even though in all his years of public service he had yet to deal with anyone as unappealing as the squat gray-haired man sitting in front of him. The only reward for his courtesy was a grunt as Yoon planted himself in the armchair on the other side of the small coffee table, with the registered observer seating herself unobtrusively to one side. Fuck you, then, Ambassador, Pecora thought, canceling his commed order for coffee.

There was a moment’s silence. Pecora had seen more than enough of Yoon during the Delphic affair, though he had enjoyed Yoon’s obvious befuddlement over the ruse. Yoon sat in silence, obviously wondering what the Fed heretics were up to now.

Pecora had no intention of keeping him waiting. “Thank you for coming, Ambassador.”

Yoon’s face actually managed to turn even more sour.

“The matter we wish to discuss is very serious, so perhaps the best thing I can do is to hand you”-Pecora paused to pick up a heavy bound document from the small table beside his chair-“this document. I think it will tell you everything you need to know. It makes our position quite clear.” Even to ill-mannered, superstitious primitives like you, Pecora thought as he settled back.

Yoon half grabbed the document from Pecora’s outstretched hand. He rolled his eyes at the heft of the bundle. It was much too thick to be the usual complaint about some Fed commercial spacer being handled roughly by DocSec. Yoon sat back in his chair and started to read.