The battle at the Moons of Hell

ourselves. The Hammer is bound to drop short, and I’ve got full driver mass bunkers, so catching 387 will be hard for them.”

Jaruzelska’s eyebrows shot up as Michael spoke. As a rule, junior lieutenants were not in the habit of telling vice admirals what they would or would not allow. But on this occasion, she’d make an exception. Helfort was absolutely right. Sacrificing four capital ships for the sake of one badly battle-damaged light scout and its already depleted crew was not a sensible option. But in her heart she knew full well that abandoning 387 to the Hammer would be the right decision only if 387 survived. If it was destroyed, she would be known forever as the commander who left a defenseless ship to the Hammer. She took a very deep breath. So be it. The ability to make the hard decisions was why she was a vice admiral.

“I agree, Helfort. I’ll comm orders to 166 to jump as soon as she’s ready. I’ll hold my ships back until we can get full missile and rail-gun salvos away, and then we’ll jump. You’ll be on your own then.”

“Sir, I understand. It’s the only sensible option. Let’s do it.”

Jaruzelska had to smile. Helfort might only be a junior lieutenant, but he had balls like titanium coconuts. Even better, he thought straight under pressure. She hoped to God he survived.

“Thank you, Helfort,” she said wryly. “I do appreciate your endorsement.”

Michael flushed as he realized that he’d been speaking to a full vice admiral rather more firmly than protocol allowed. “Oh fu-Uh, sorry sir. Shit. I, er-”

Jaruzelska cut him off with a smile. Her voice softened. “Enough, Michael. Do what you have to do and you’ll get home safely. Go with God.”

“Thank you, sir.”

With the comforting presence of Jaruzelska and her ships gone, Michael had never felt so alone. Judging from the faces of his scratch combat information center crew, the rest of 387’s crew probably felt the same way.

Jaruzelska’s final efforts on his behalf had come to nothing. A coordinated rail-gun salvo from the four heavy ships had duly ripped through the Hammer’s predicted drop point datum. The only small problem was that the Hammer commander, clearly no fool, had neutralized the salvos by dropping short and low and splitting his ships into two groups. The swarm was now just another forgotten entry in the knowledge base of space navigation hazards as it disappeared at 3.6 million kilometers per hour into the void.

The follow-up missiles were no more effective. Three salvos in all, they were too spread out, too small, and too far from the drop point to trouble the Hammer ships much. But worst of all was the fact that for once that day the Hammers seemed to know what they were doing. A good clean drop, warships well positioned, sensors up smartly, and their first salvo away quickly-all spoke of a commander who could be relied on to get things right.

Time was running out for 387 and fast, Michael thought, and the worst thing about it was the simple brutal fact that he personally could do absolutely nothing more to get 387 jump-ready. Chief Harris and his damage control teams were doing as much as any humans could do, and no amount of nagging from him would or could speed things up.

Michael was discovering that the hardest thing for any commander to do was nothing when that was the right thing to do.

“Command, Mother.”

“Go ahead.”

“Hammer forces redeploying.”

“Roger,” Michael said, now resigned to his fate. “They’re going to try to box us in, I suppose.”

“Confirmed.”

Michael nodded. Mother had been driving 387 hard away from the Hammers, but in the end, they had the numbers, and now, with only one small target to focus on, the Hammer commander could afford to spread his net wide. That was exactly what he was doing, the holocams picking up the flaring of main engines as the Hammer ships began to open out.

“How much time?”

“Estimate thirty minutes. They’ll have us enveloped then. I expect a single coordinated rail-gun salvo.”

“To finish us off,” Michael said, completing Mother’s sentence for her. He commed Chief Harris, who took the news impassively. Michael successfully resisted an almost overwhelming urge to tell him to hurry up.

The minutes ticked by as 387’s every change of vector was matched instantly by the Hammers, the deadly net closing inexorably around the fleeing ship. Michael toyed with the idea of surrendering to the Hammers but dismissed it almost as quickly as it had come. History showed that the Hammers never accepted such offers when they had the upper hand, and Michael was not going to give them the satisfaction of refusing. Now they had less than two minutes before the Hammers were in position. The Hammer ships already were turning to match bearings. Allowing five minutes’ time of flight for the rail-gun salvo, and 387 had less than seven minutes to live.

“Command, XO.” It was Harris, and Michael began to pray harder than he’d ever prayed before, his heart pounding in his chest as he struggled to steady his voice.

“Go ahead, chief,” he said, barely able to squeeze the words out.

“Sir, we’ve finished. The hull is jump-worthy. The engineers are running the final numbers into the mass distribution model now, so it’s up to them.”

Relief flooded through Michael like a warm wave. “Chief, you are a fucking star. Oh, and thanks.”

“Any time, sir, any time,” Harris replied matter-of-factly.

“Okay. We might have to jump without the mass distribution model 100 percent right, in which case it might be a rough ride, so I want everyone and everything battened down real tight.”

Michael grimaced. A rough ride. That was an understatement. If the navigation AI got the ship’s mass distribution wrong by more than one part in a hundred thousand, 387 would never make it home. Where it would go, Michael had no idea, nor would the navigation AI. Nobody had ever come back from a badly set up jump, and for all he knew, 387 would tumble through pinchspace for eternity. He put that awful thought aside. He’d take his chances in pinchspace because one thing was sure: At least they might survive, whereas staying in Hammer space would be 100 percent fatal.

He commed Reilly and was not reassured by his chief engineer’s worried face.

“Cosmo, just to let you know. We’ve got five minutes or so and-”

Mother’s urgent tones cut across him. “Command, Mother. Multiple rail-gun launches from Hammer task group. Vector analysis confirms target 387. Time of flight four minutes twenty-four. Probability of survival zero, repeat, zero.”

Oh, sweet Jesus, Michael thought, so soon. “Cosmo, did you copy?”

“I did, sir.”

“Okay. I’m going to jump anyway whether you’re happy with the mass distribution model or not. We have to take the chance. But I’ll leave it as late as I can. I’ll execute a crash jump from here, so make sure everything’s ready to go.”

Cosmo’s face seemed to crumple as he worked out that 387’s survival now depended on him. He visibly caught his breath before replying.

“Well, sir, I guess that’s all we can do. We’re pretty close now, and I’ll run the numbers as long as we can. If I don’t see you again, it’s been an honor.”

“Same here, Cosmo. Same here. Command out.”

Michael commed Mother to adjust vectors to set 387 up for a jump direct to Terranova, gave command authority to override the safety locks that in normal circumstances would never have allowed 387 to jump, and then sat back. He felt strangely calm as he commed his crew for the last time.

“All stations, this is the captain. We’ll be jumping shortly, ready or not. It’ll be rough, so hold on. May God watch over us this day. Captain, out.”

Michael waited as long as he could, the wait agonizing as he watched the incoming Hammer attack remorselessly close in. Then he could wait no more. 387 jumped.

Five seconds later, the Hammer’s massive rail-gun swarm ripped through a small knuckle of tangled and