The battle at the Moons of Hell

for the long ride home. Michael’s heart was sick as his neuronics updated the casualty list as medics worked feverishly to stabilize the injured and get them into regen for the long ride to the base hospital. The toll kept mounting as the casualties from 387’s combat information center were triaged.

The list was awful; Michael had to struggle to understand the enormity of the disaster that had hit 387.

Ribot, Armitage, and the rest of the officers except Cosmo Reilly were all gone. Strezlecki, Leong, Carlsson, and Athenascu were gone. Ng was gone. Most of the combat information center crew, gone. Half the galley crew, unlucky enough to be caught at their damage control station in the cross-passage just outside the combat information center, gone. The entire crew of 387’s lander, Jessie’s Hope, gone. Two engineers working on a trivial problem with Weapons Power Charlie’s local AI as it went up, gone. There’d barely been enough of them left to put in a coffee cup.

Chief Kemble interrupted. “Command, sick bay. We’re done here, sir, and 166 is almost finished with our overflow. I’ve commed you the final casualty list: twenty-eight dead, sixteen seriously injured, but according to the regen AIs, they’ll all be okay, though I’m still a bit worried about Bienefelt and one of Warrant Officer Ng’s team, Petty Officer Gaetano. And twelve walking wounded, you included.”

“Thanks, chief. Let me know if there’s any change. A bad business.”

“It is, sir. Didn’t think I’d ever see something as bad as this. One more thing, sir. I know Mother’s given up nagging you, but you really must come down so we can take a look at you. You’re not going to drop dead on us or anything, but you’ve lost a lot of blood despite the best efforts of your suit, and woundfoam’s only good up to a point, especially if you won’t stay still. So, sir! For the last time or I’ll send a team to get you, sick bay now!”

Michael had to laugh at Kemble’s earnest firmness. “All right, all right. Just give me ten minutes. I need to see how my new XO is doing with the ship repairs, then I’ve got to talk to the skipper of 166, and then I’ll turn myself in. Promise.”

Kemble grunted. “If you can do all that in ten minutes, fine. If not, I’m coming to get you.”

“Yes, chief,” Michael said meekly.

Harris and his team, more 166s than 387s, Michael noted, were hard at it. Emergency generators were pumping white-gray foamsteel to secure the footings of a crude framework of steel crash beams that had been jury-rigged across the huge hole blown out of 387’s hull when Weapons Power Charlie had lost containment. The hole now was jammed with spacers welding steel bracing into place, the brilliant blue-white light from the welding arcs bleaching the color out of their orange suits.

“How’s it going, chief?”

Harris waved an arm at the chaos around him. “It may not look like it, sir, but we are getting there. This is the bad one, but Mother’s confirmed that the design of our repair is good even if it looks like something kids dreamed up. She’s happy that the steel crash bracing will hold the foamsteel plug in place. We’ve just got to get it all in there, and that’s a slow process, what with cutting the braces to size and all. The rest aren’t so bad. I never thought I’d have anything good to say about a rail-gun slug, but at least they don’t leave huge holes like this. 166’s XO is down sealing the lander hangar now, and then we’ll do the surveillance drone hangar. Another two hours, tops.”

“Good. If you need anything, let me know.”

“Sir.”

As promised, Michael made it to the sick bay inside Chief Kemble’s deadline after a short comm with Chen. The captain of 166 had sounded relieved to get a finish time for the repairs to 387. Clearly, hanging around in hostile Hammer space was not something he wanted to do any more than Michael did. Cosmo Reilly had cleared 387 to maneuver, the final rail- gun slug shaking the main engines up a bit, but nothing that a bit of recalibration couldn’t fix. Even better, Reilly and his team were well on the way to getting the ship jump-capable. With detailed designs for the emergency repairs uploaded to Mother, she should have the new ship mass distribution model completed within the hour. Terranova might be a distant 270 light-years away, but Michael was beginning to allow himself to believe that they’d be dropping in-system inside six days.

As he looked into the sick bay, the thought of going home almost overwhelmed him, and at that instant he would have given almost anything to be in Anna’s arms, to be home with the people he loved. He’d felt physically sick when he saw that Damishqui had been hit, but thank God, Anna had not been on the casualty list. Please God, get her home safely, he prayed.

As the sick bay air lock safety lights switched to green, Michael firmly shoved all thoughts of Anna into a distant corner of his mind. Like it or not, he was the skipper of 387, and he had a ship and what was left of 387’s crew to get home safely first.

The instant he stepped into the sick bay, Chief Kemble and her team were on him like a rash. Michael had been dreading what he might find, so he was pleased to see that the crash bags with the ship’s dead had been moved to the cargo containers for the trip home. The way he felt, it was bad enough just thinking about them. Seeing the physical evidence, seeing a line of crash bags, would have been too much.

It was the work of only moments for Kemble’s team to strip Michael’s suit off, leaving him standing in a ship suit saturated with a gruesome mix of reddish-black blood and bright green woundfoam. As he looked down at himself, he found it hard believe that he’d lost so much blood. He was drenched in it. But he stood only for a second until the accumulated insult and injury done to his long-suffering body finally overwhelmed him.

With a tired sigh, Michael’s eyes rolled up into his head, and he crumpled like an empty sack to the deck.

Michael was swimming in a strange sort of pool, the water deep, thick, and red. Something heavy was holding him back.

Slowly, doggedly, he fought his way to the surface, and as he did, the everyday sounds of a ship began to seep into a head stuffed full of cotton wool. But eventually he made it, opening his eyes to see Chief Kemble leaning over him, her face a mixture of amusement and concern.

“Hello, sir. The AI said you were coming back to us.”

“Try and keep me away,” Michael mumbled, his mouth thick.

“That’s what I said. Okay. How are you feeling?”

“Like shit. And sore all over.”

Kemble nodded sympathetically. If it were up to her and the medical AI, she’d have had Michael in a regen tank immediately, but she wasn’t going to waste her time asking. If her years in the Fleet had taught her anything, it was not to try to persuade a ship’s captain to put self first and duty second.

“You will be, I’m afraid. You have very severe bruising to your lower back and ribs and a lot of tendon damage. That will account for most of the pain. You managed to break your nose, but not too badly, but the rest of the face is just bruised. The base hospital will take care of that and make it look pretty again. Your left leg is the real problem. It’s a real mess, and I’m not at all sure how you’ve even been able to walk. Pity we didn’t get to it a lot sooner. It’s been sliced up pretty badly, so the medibots have been busy putting it all back together again, and we’ve transfused repairbots in to try to repair the muscle and tendon damage. It’s going to hurt like hell, but it’ll mend in time. You’ll just need to go easy on it. I’ve held off the painkillers until you surfaced, but we’ve loaded you up with drugbots, so just comm them when the pain gets to be too much.”

Michael nodded as he tried to take it all in. All he knew was that the longer he was awake, the more everything seemed to hurt.

Kemble offered him a large beaker with pale blue fluid in it. “Now drink this. We need to get you rehydrated. You’ll feel a lot better in a moment.”

Gratefully, Michael brought the large beaker of fluid that Kemble was holding up to his mouth, suddenly craving every sweet drop. “More. Please.”

Two more beakers later, Michael did indeed feel better. Much better, in fact, to the point where as Kemble turned to put the beaker back, he sat himself up. Wincing, he quickly wished he hadn’t, bruised ribs and back screaming in protest as the movement pulled at torn ligaments and ripped muscles. Ignoring the pain, he swung himself off the bunk to stand, swaying slightly, looking around for his suit, his left leg sore and stiff under the plasfiber bandages. He commed the drugbots to give him painkillers and sighed in relief as the pain evaporated almost instantly.