The battle at the Moons of Hell

What had been just a small, dull red speck, a mere pinprick on the vast expanse of New Dallas’s stern, had grown in the space of only a few minutes into a searingly bright spot. Even as Michael watched, the spot began to spew a small jet of plasma, molten metal, and debris out into space as the ships’ lasers chewed their way remorselessly into the hull. Shit, Michael thought. He was seeing ship’s atmosphere venting to space.

“By Jesus, their hull integrity’s breached,” he said. Michael could hardly breathe, the tension of the moment gripping his heart like an iron band. He had trouble believing what he was seeing, but something deep inside told him there was more to come.

“Mother, I have a feeling about this. I want everyone who can to watch.”

“Roger.”

When the end came, it came horrifyingly fast. In a matter of seconds, the jet of material pouring out of the hole in New Dallas’s stern exploded into a searing plume of incandescent gas hundreds of meters long as the lasers finally broke through deep into the ship’s hull.

And then, in a single searing flash, the antiship lasers finally connected with something big, and the entire starboard quarter of the huge ship erupted in a massive explosion. Its force punched New Dallas into a slow, tumbling stern-over-bow spin, furious jets of reaction mass spewing fore and aft as maneuvering systems struggled to bring the heavy cruiser back under control.

Mother provided the commentary this time. “According to the TECHINT briefings we’ve been given, there’s an auxiliary fusion power plant aft of the propulsion power compartments that feeds the after rail-gun batteries. I think that’s what’s gone up. She won’t be destroyed, but she will be combat-ineffective for a while until they sort things out.”

Michael could hardly speak, wishing that Ribot and all the other 387s could have been there to witness something that would go down in the record books.

Chen commed him.

“We did it, Michael, we did it.”

“Hard to believe, sir. But by God, we’ve paid a price.” Michael stopped, choked with emotion.

“You did. I’m calling a halt. It’s time we got jump-worthy and went home. And Michael!”

“Yes, sir?”

“You’re 387’s skipper now, so for fuck’s sake stop calling me ‘sir.’ It makes me nervous. Call me Bill,” Chen said, his voice soft with compassion.

Michael managed a laugh. “Sorry, sir-er, Bill.”

“And one more thing, Michael. Get yourself to the sick bay. You need attention.”

“All in good time. There are things I need to do first.”

Flanked by her senior staff, all standing dumbstruck, Vice Admiral Jaruzelska stared open-mouthed at the holovid.

She’d known that 387 and 166 had kept up their laser attack on New Dallas but had tucked that information away in the back of her mind, where she parked stuff that wasn’t significant, bits and pieces that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things for which she was responsible.

Therefore, it took a good long time before she and the rest of the flag staff believed what they were seeing: a huge ship slowly falling out of the line of attack, the massive explosion on her starboard quarter pushing her into a slow spiraling spin to nowhere.

And then the cheers from the ship’s company of Al-Jahiz and from her own flag staff drove home the extent of what the two little ships had achieved. “By God, that was one for the record books,” Jaruzelska muttered, disabling a ship hundreds of times their size. Finally, order prevailed and the flag staff turned their attention back to the rest of the battle now under way across hundreds of billions of cubic kilometers of Hell nearspace. The command plot was now showing the Hell nearspace component of Operation Corona in its entirety. Along with the two heavy assault forces tasked with reducing the flotilla base, Hell Central, and any warships unlucky enough to be on station to dust, the command plot now tracked Task Group 256.3, under the command of Commodore Pinto in the heavy cruiser Repudiate together with four heavy patrol ships as they ran in on Hell-5, one of the three moons holding those of Mumtaz’s passengers and crew who had not been sent to Eternity.

Much farther out, Commodore Yu Genwei in the heavy cruiser Ulugh Beg and the fourteen other ships of Task Group 256.4 had dropped out of pinchspace on schedule and were tracking in toward three of Hell system’s outer moons. Hell-16 and Hell-18 held the rest of the Mumtazers, and the third, Hell-20, held the overly trusting and no doubt thoroughly disillusioned hijackers of the Mumtaz.

Satisfied with the big picture and after a final check that the Hammer forces in orbit around the system’s home planet of Commitment were still showing no signs of moving, Jaruzelska collected her thoughts. “Flag AI, flag. Message to the captains and crews of DLS-387 and DLS- 166.”

She paused for a moment, conscious that what she said would go down in history and wanting to get it right. Not for her own sake but for the sake of those who needed to understand, to know at what a terrible price the freedoms long enjoyed by the Worlds came.

She took a deep breath. “In the face of appalling odds, crippling damage, and severe casualties, your unrelenting attack on vastly superior forces is in the highest traditions of the Federated Worlds Space Fleet. With you, we mourn the loss of your comrades. The ultimate sacrifice they have made to protect the freedoms we all hold so dear will never be forgotten. I and every other member of Battle Group Delta salute you all. Signed, A. J. Jaruzelska, vice admiral, Federated Worlds Space Fleet, Commander, Battle Group Delta.”

Jaruzelska braced herself for what was to come as she counted down the seconds to the arrival of what the flag AI assured her would be the first and last missile salvo launched at her ships from the shattered flotilla base.

Jaruzelska hadn’t much enjoyed missile engagements with the Hammer the last time around and didn’t expect to now. It had been nearly twenty years since she’d been shot at seriously by the bastards, and she wasn’t looking forward to repeating the experience, a view shared by her chief of staff as he exercised his authority to shut down the excited chatter and get the flag staff to focus on what came next.

“All stations, command. Missile salvo inbound. One minute.”

Only half-aware of what she was doing, Jaruzelska hunched down in her seat and struggled to bring her breathing under control, if only to give her fogged-up visor a chance to clear. As always, her space suit was uncomfortable, the helmet neck ring heavy on her shoulders as she watched the massive attack make its way inexorably toward them.

Jaruzelska completely approved of Captain van Meir’s caution in going to full suits. Unlike some heavy cruiser captains, the Al-Jahiz’s skipper insisted that visors be closed and suit checks completed as an attack became imminent. Heavy cruisers rarely depressurized for combat. They were too big and too tough, and the loss of personal communication was too keenly felt, particularly by command teams under pressure. But not shutting up suits as an attack approached risked the lives of anyone caught in a compartment suddenly open to hard vacuum.

As Jaruzelska checked and rechecked that nothing had been overlooked, the tactical plot showed an ugly and menacing sight.

The flag AI’s latest estimate was that there were upward of 750 Sparrowhawk missiles in the attack, though based on what she’d seen so far, Jaruzelska thought that the AI’s assumptions about Hammer missile availability were too pessimistic. She snorted dismissively. The Sparrowhawk was so old that it used hypergolic fuels for its launch stage, for God’s sake. But it didn’t matter who was right. They’d soon find out one way or the other. What really mattered was how well the task group’s sensors had separated the missiles from the myriad decoys and jammers sent along to confuse, baffle, and divert the attention of the antimissile defenses.

If the task group got that right, they’d come through this pretty much unscathed. If they didn’t…

After a quick check that everything on the command plot was as it should be, Jaruzelska forced the grim prospect of a successful Hammer attack out of her mind as she turned her attention back to the tactical plot.

The Hammer had adopted what the missile attack tacticians called a standard doughnut formation, or do-