The battle at the Moons of Hell

stations, ship state 4, airtight integrity condition zulu.”

“Command, Mother.”

“Yes, Mother?”

“Message from the station, Commodore Perec is on his way down.”

Michael went pale. Somehow it had never occurred to him that anyone apart from the station’s engineers would be interested in poor old 387. “What? The commodore? Oh, shit. Tell the XO. We’ll-”

Mother interrupted Michael’s moment of panic at the thought of having to organize the ceremony that normally accompanied a commodore’s visit, the scale of the crisis magnified in Michael’s mind by a complete lack of notice and magnified again by Space Fleet’s enduring love of and abiding commitment to ceremony.

“Command,” Mother said patiently, “the commodore has specifically instructed that there be no ceremony, and he’ll wait until the medevac teams have gotten all the regen tanks off.”

Michael whistled with relief. “Oh, ah. Right. Okay. Thank God for that. Warn Chief Harris anyway and get him to meet me down in the hangar. Oh, and by the way, enough of the ‘command’ stuff. We’re alongside now, so it’s Michael. Just Michael please.”

“Yes, Michael.”

Michael got painfully to his feet. By Christ, he was sore all over, and his leg was worse today. There was no use comming painkillers, as the drugbots had run out the previous night and he hadn’t gotten around to getting more from Chief Kemble; that probably was the least smart thing he’d done all week. Add that to the list of things to do, he thought ruefully, still amazed at how much the captain of a ship had to stay on top of even with all the help that Mother provided.

Not that the routine things bothered him, not at all.

In fact, he quite enjoyed them. They could be listed, prioritized, and dealt with, each humdrum task a small reminder that there was an ordinary world out there somewhere.

No, it was the painful task of putting together the personal vidmails to the families of 387’s lost crew. Every one had hurt more than he had ever thought possible, and though Michael did his best, working and reworking each one for hours, he never felt that they were right. In the end, sheer exhaustion, the million and one other things he had to attend to, and the stress of running a ship badly shorthanded had forced him to finish the job, well or poorly. With the forlorn hope that they might in fact be at least all right, he had commed them through to the station’s next of kin support team and prayed for the best.

Michael finally made it to the hangar, white-faced and glistening with sweat from the pain of dragging an increasingly aching leg past the shattered wreck that had once been 387’s combat information center and down two sets of ladders into the hangar. Without the lander, the huge space was echoingly empty, its deck a buzz of activity as station work crews carefully maneuvered the heavy and awkward regen tanks through the forward air lock door, down to the hangar deck, and out across the grav interface; the whole process was managed by a spiderweb of AI-controlled winches and lines.

Michael stood back out of the way in the door leading aft out of the hangar and into the power control room, the sight of the regen tanks bringing back to him what he’d lost, what he might lose even now. Despite Kemble’s assurances that Bienefelt was indestructible, she was still worried about her, and it didn’t escape Michael’s notice that Kemble had watched like a hawk as Bienefelt’s regen tank had left the ship. Don’t die now, cyborg woman, Michael prayed, don’t die.

“Michael, Mother.”

“Go ahead, Mother.”

“Warrant Officer Morgan and the casualty-handling team are here. He requests approval to commence transfers.”

“Yes, tell them to go ahead. No, no…Wait.”

Once the shock of having to cope with a visit by the resident commodore had faded, Michael’s happiness at the thought of seeing Anna and knowing that Sam and Mom were safe had come flooding back. Now it disappeared in an instant, replaced by a feeling of dread that hollowed out his stomach. He was left with a sick, empty feeling, part loss and part fear. It didn’t seem right that the people who had been such an important if short part of his life should leave the ship this way, unseen and unacknowledged, like so much cargo to be off-loaded.

“Mother.”

“Yes, Michael?”

“How many more regen tanks to go?”

“The one going off now is the last.”

“Okay. Tell the casualty-handling team this from me, and it’s nonnegotiable. I want to know the name of each person before, and I mean before, they move them from the ship. Understood?”

“Yes, Michael.”

“And I want them to wait. I’ll tell them when to start, and please, ask them if they can arrange it so that Warrant Officer Ng is second to last off and then the captain.”

“Understood. Stand by…The casualty-handling team confirms that’s understood.”

“Good. Okay. I want all of 387’s crew in the hangar, now. No exceptions. There’s nothing that can’t wait, agreed?”

“Agreed, Michael.”

“And get the external cameras to cover the transfers, please. Put the feed up on the hangar holovids.”

“Will do.”

Michael quickly commed the commodore, who had been waiting patiently but grim-faced outboard as the regen tanks came aboard his station in an awful procession.

“Commodore Perec, sir, Junior Lieutenant Helfort, acting captain in command, DLS- 387, reporting.”

“Welcome home, Captain. Request permission to come aboard.”

“Please, sir, come aboard. That’s the last of the regen tanks. But sir, I have a request. I’d like to muster my crew. My casualties are about to leave the ship, and I want to acknowledge that fact, so you’ll have to bear with us for a while.”

“My boy, it will be an honor to stand beside you. Coming aboard now.”

Five minutes later Perec watched the pathetic remains of what was left of 387’s crew and Warrant Officer Ng’s covert operations support team, two ranks of gaunt-faced and hollow-eyed men and women, with the rocklike figure of Chief Harris out front fussing over the lines until they were just so.

Once he was satisfied, Harris called the crew to attention before turning to face Michael and, flanking him, Cosmo Reilly and Commodore Perec. Harris stepped smartly forward. His salute was textbook in its precision and timing. “Deepspace Light Scout Three Eight Seven present and correct, sir!”

Michael came to attention and returned the salute, desperately trying to keep the weight off an increasingly painful left leg. The hiss of a sharp intake of breath as a jagged stab of agony shot up into his heavily bruised back and ribs was not unnoticed by Commodore Perec. Michael was beginning to rethink his decision to trust a left leg that was showing every sign of giving up on him. Maybe he should have brought Chief Kemble’s makeshift cane along, after all, he thought, even if it didn’t feature anywhere in the dress code for Space Fleet officers.

“Very good, chief.” He paused to take a deep breath before lifting his head high to look at the tattered remnants of his crew full in the face.

“387s. There is nothing about this in the Manual of Space Fleet Ceremonial. But when I thought about the people we’ll never see again, I just couldn’t let them leave without saying goodbye, and I was sure you’d feel the same. That’s why I wanted you all here. Let’s not forget them.”

Michael took another deep breath. “Mother, the casualty-handling team can start.”

They stood stiffly to attention, Michael calling out the names one by one as the casualty-handling team with infinite care and patience slowly unloaded 387’s awful cargo. To Michael, the terribly slow process as crash bags were extracted from the cargo bays seemed to take hours to complete. Tears ran openly down his face and the faces of every one of his crew as the names of people who had been so much a part of them were read out one by painful one.

Finally, there were only two names left for Michael to call.

“Warrant Officer First Class Jacqueline Pascale Maria Ng, officer in command, Covert Operations Support