The battle at the Moons of Hell

warped space-time, all that was left to mark 387’s presence in Hammer space.

Under the arch of a velvety star-speckled sky of a beautiful Commitment night, high-intensity floodlights streamed into the execution yard, drenching the small group of Doc-Sec troopers in a harsh white glare.

On the other side of the yard from the firing squad, two men stood beside a slumped figure tied to the execution post, his orange prison coveralls drenched in blood.

The prison doctor looked up at the young DocSec officer standing impatiently in front of him and shook his head. With a muffled curse, the DocSec officer drew his pistol to put the finishing shot into the head of Jesse Merrick.

“Jesse Arthur Merrick. So die all enemies of the Peoples of the Hammer of Kraa.”

The deed done, the DocSec lieutenant turned away, a sick feeling lying very heavy on his stomach. He knew full well that he might have signed his own death warrant with that single pistol shot. He could only hope that Polk stayed chief councillor long enough for the memory of Merrick to fade and for his part in the man’s death to be forgotten.

Monday, November 23, 2398, UD

City of McNair, Commitment Planet

McNair had simmered for three days, a lethally unstable stew of sullen resentment flaring without warning into vicious brutality.

It had taken a declaration of martial law and the news that Merrick had been executed for crimes against the Peoples of Kraa before a major offensive by DocSec supported by marine light armor had been able to push the mobs roaming the streets back behind shuttered windows and locked doors.

With control reestablished, it was only a matter of hours before DocSec swung back onto the offensive, doing what it did best. Black-uniformed snatch squads fanned out across the riot-wrecked city in an endless stream of trucks. By midday, the city had been swept clean of anyone even remotely connected to Merrick’s political machine. His once-mighty organization was destroyed as thousands of people were dragged out of their houses and thrown into trucks, the first step on the long road to some Kraa-forsaken labor camp if they were lucky or a DocSec firing squad if they were not.

DocSec didn’t worry about just the human elements of the Merrick machine. Their orders were to destroy everything. Before the day was out, every Hammer of Kraa party office in McNair had been stripped down to bare furniture, with every file, every document, and every workstation ripped out and taken away for analysis.

Chief Councillor Polk had watched the progress reports with grim, silent satisfaction. Commitment in general and McNair in particular were the wellspring of Merrick’s political strength, a source so ably exploited by Merrick during his long years at the pinnacle of Hammer political power. Well, Polk thought, not anymore, and this day’s operations in McNair were just the start. The pustulant boil that was Merrick had been lanced, and his power base had been damaged seriously. Over the coming weeks anyone and anything even remotely capable of lending aid and succor to the Merrick/Commitment faction would be dealt with with the same deadly efficiency.

It was Polk’s intention that there would be nothing left to challenge his authority by the time order was fully restored. If it took an ocean of blood and hordes of fatherless families for that goal to be achieved, that was the price that McNair and the planet of Commitment would have to pay.

Chief Councillor Polk was here to stay.

Thursday, November 26, 2398, UD

Space Battle Station 1, in Orbit around Terranova Planet

If Fleet protocol was any guide, it wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did.

Throughout the vast bulk of Space Battle Station 1, work rapidly ground to a halt as word got around, the news spreading like wildfire. In a matter of only minutes, every holovid had been switched over to watch the incoming ship as it decelerated slowly in-system.

Now every living soul on SBS-1, from the commodore in command down to the lowliest spacer, was focused on the tiny flares of ionized driver mass as 387 dropped in toward the station, safely secured fore and aft by the salvage tugs that had rescued her shattered hull after it had dropped, spinning uncontrollably, out of pinchspace.

It seemed to take a lifetime, but finally, the tugs’ main engines shut off and 387 was in position for her final approach.

Slowly, the tugs began to roll 387 to line up her main hangar door for berthing. As they did, a shocked gasp swept through the station as the damage to the ship’s hull became obvious. The white- gray patches of emergency foamsteel repairs stood out starkly against the deep blackness of the scout’s hull; everywhere gashes and gouges had been torn, ripped, and punched into the ceramsteel armor. Then, as 387 made its final approach, the massive foamsteel-filled hole that seemed to take up almost all of the ship’s starboard bow came into view.

“Holy Mother of God,” breathed Commodore Perec, his morning staff meeting in ruins around him, the chairs around the conference room table pushed back as his staff unconsciously moved to stand in front of the holovid. Perec had been through the last war and had seen some pretty badly cut-up ships, but the only time he’d seen them this bad, they’d been complete write-offs.

Perec turned to his senior engineer, a tall gray-haired captain. “I don’t believe it, Marta,” he said. “How did they survive that?”

“By good engineering design, I’d say, Commodore,” she replied, shaking her head in amazement. “She’s been hit right above Weapons Power Charlie. Looks like the blast venting really does work.”

Perec nodded. “Well, after all the ships we lost last time around from poorly contained fusion plants going up, they had to do something, and it’s good to see that it really does work.” He turned to the rest of his staff.

“This meeting’s canceled. I’m going down to meet them.”

As Perec strode from the room, nobody even noticed the fact that he was doing something unheard of. Commodores in command of space battle stations never met ships as small and insignificant as a light scout. They just didn’t.

After a short pause as 387’s cruelly torn lander was off-loaded into the care of the station’s cargobots, the salvage tugs started 387’s slow move in to berth. Her brilliant orange anticollision lights were the only signs that the scout was a operational warship and not just some battered and abandoned hulk.

Michael had received two vidmails that mattered.

One was from Anna, who, miracle of miracles, was already berthed and somehow had wrangled leave from Damishqui from 18:00. The second was from his father, reporting the imminent arrival home of his mother and Sam.

Michael sat in his makeshift combat information center bathed in a wonderfully warm glow of happiness. Surrounded by his scratch command team sitting incongruously on the cheerfully patterned chairs of the wardroom, Michael watched as the bulkhead-mounted holovid showed the meters running off as 387 made her final approach. As instructed by Chief Kemble and in no uncertain terms, Michael had his foot up as he tried hard not to keep thinking about Anna, though with little success.

None of them had much to do except keep an eye on things as the salvage tugs slowly and with infinite care maneuvered 387 alongside and then into one of the station’s berthing stations. Hydraulic locking arms reached out from SBS-1 to hold the ship firmly on the pad that would frame and seal its entire hangar door.

“Command, Mother. Berthed.”

“Command, roger. All stations, this is command. Hands fall out from berthing stations. Revert to harbor