The battle at the Moons of Hell

he was and what he’d done. It was not a thought he relished; the idea that he might be somebody famous was completely at odds with his natural inclination to blend into the background. He’d never been one to seek the spotlight. The opposite, in fact. His mother always used to say that if you wanted to know where Michael was at any public occasion, look behind the back row. And now he would be at the head of the biggest public display the Fleet had put on in decades.

“You’re right as usual, Cosmo. Okay, chief. Let’s do the final walk-around and then we’ll be set.”

“Sir.”

It took only minutes for Michael and Harris to check that the 387s were as they should be, the spacers precisely arrayed in a few thin ranks, a gap in the last rank serving as a stark reminder of those missing.

“Very good, chief. Stand the crew at ease.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

As Harris turned away to give the order, huge double gates to Michael’s right began to swing slowly back. Michael’s heart sank as the gates opened to reveal an old-fashioned column of horse-drawn gun carriages.

He’d been dreading this moment.

To Michael’s way of thinking, black-plumed horses and the deeply varnished wood, polished leather, and burnished brass of gun carriage and harness struck an oddly discordant note. Their primitive simplicity was out of place in a world of neuronics, AIs, mass drivers, and pinchspace travel. But as his father often had pointed out, the archaic traditions of military ceremony were dear to every Worlder’s heart. So whatever he might think, horses pulling gun carriages would play their traditional part in carrying the ashes of those fallen in battle to their final resting place.

On a sudden impulse, Michael left his 387s and made his way across the yard to the column of gun carriages. The pungent earthy straw smell of horses in the warmth of the morning sun hit him as he walked over.

The gray-uniformed Planetary Service warrant officer at the head of the column snapped to attention and saluted as Michael approached.

“Chief Warrant Officer Kamal, officer in charge. An honor, sir.”

“Thanks, Mister Kamal. I…I just…I just wanted to see them before we left. I…” Michael’s voice trailed off as the emotion rose, choking his throat shut with sudden intensity.

“Go ahead, sir. We’ve got time.” Kamal’s voice was gentle. “And I think the captains of the Al- Jahiz and Damishqui want to do the same. And Lieutenant Chen. Behind you, sir.”

Befuddled for a second as protocol and emotion short-circuited his brain, Michael recovered in time to half turn and salute as the two four-ring captains stopped in front of him; his salute was returned by the pair with military precision. Bill Chen stood a pace behind with a half smile on his face as he watched Michael recover from his momentary confusion.

The older of the two, Captain van Meir of the Al-Jahiz, a broad-shouldered woman with startlingly deep blue, almost violet eyes set in a dark face the color of aged teak, was the first to speak, reaching across as she did to shake Michael’s hand. “Helfort. It’s an honor to meet you.”

“It is indeed,” said Captain Chandra, his grip painfully strong, clear hazel eyes boring right into Michael’s. “You did well, very well.”

“Thank you, sirs. But what a price.” He nodded at the line of gun carriages. “I still have trouble coming to terms with it all.”

Van Meir nodded sympathetically. “We all do, believe me, we all do. I really hoped we’d taught the Hammer enough of a lesson the last time around, but apparently not. Sadly, there are times when we have to stand up and be counted, and this was one of them. But it still hurts, especially when you knew the people. Chief Kazumi was one of mine on Warhammer, and Corporal Meritavich was with me on Qurrah when I was her XO. I’ll miss them. They were good people.”

The small group stood in silence for a moment as memories crowded in, the clinking of harnesses and the soft breathing of horses the only sounds breaking the intensity of the moment.

Chandra brought the group back to earth. “Helfort, good to meet you. If you are passing the Damishqui, please step aboard for a drink. It would be an honor, and I’m sure a certain junior lieutenant of your acquaintance would be more than happy to see you as well.”

In an instant, Michael’s face was bright pink with embarrassment. How the hell had the captain in command of a heavy cruiser found the time to know about him and Anna?

Chandra smiled indulgently. “Now, I have some people I wish to say goodbye to, so forgive me.”

“Sir.”

Michael and Chen followed the two captains as they made their way past the depressingly long line of 387’s gun carriages to those of the Al-Jahiz, Damishqui, and finally 166.

As Chen walked on, giving a brief pat to Michael’s shoulder to steady him, Michael slowly moved past gun carriage after gun carriage, all draped in the gold and purple flag of the Federated Worlds. Mounted in the center of each gun carriage was a simple mahogany plinth cradling a small gold funeral urn in front of which was a cushion, its deep crimson fabric decorated with a pathetic spread of medals, with a small brass plaque being the only clue to each urn’s identity.

Not much to show for a life, Michael thought bitterly as he wondered if the win was worth the pain. None of it felt real to Michael as he struggled without success to connect brass plates to the faces of the people who once had been his fellow 387s.

Michael stood alongside the last of the carriages, the one carrying the pitiful remains of Spacer Vignes, killed only weeks after his twentieth birthday and the youngest of 387’s crew. His neuronics chimed softly.

“Yes?”

“Junior Lieutenant Helfort, this is the AI. My apologies for interrupting, but we move off in five minutes. Would you mind taking your position.”

“On my way.”

Michael’s left leg had begun to ache, a vicious stabbing pain, only minutes after the cortege had left the Fleet barracks. True to form, he had forgotten to renew his supply of drugbots.

The strain of the march through Foundation streets packed solid with an unbroken mass of silent Worlders, their faces bitter with grief and anger, began to tell. The slow, measured pace pulled mercilessly at muscles and tendons that despite the best efforts of FedWorld medical technology were not fully recovered from the slashing damage inflicted by the Hammer slug. The human body still kept some secrets, and how to quickly repair the damage inflicted by high-velocity projectiles was one of them. As for all of human history and despite the enormous advances in geneering and trauma medicine, getting well mostly took time and lots of it.

By the time Michael had covered the seemingly endless kilometers that separated the Fleet barracks from Braidwood National Cemetery, the final resting place for the ashes of all spacers killed on active service, his leg was molten agony. So bad was the pain that the huge crowd of silent Worlders that had flanked the route from the very start had become a blur.

As the cortege turned into Remembrance Avenue for the final approach to the massive gilt gates of the national cemetery, the deep hush broken only by the chinking of gun-carriage harnesses and the uneven beat of horses’ hooves on the ceramcrete road, Michael cursed himself for not taking the basic precaution of getting some painkiller drugbots inside him just in case. You are a fucking idiot, Helfort, he railed at himself, conscious that his left leg was beginning to drag and embarrassed that there was nothing he could do about it apart from gripping his sword so tightly that the pain in his hand and wrist would distract him, praying all the time that he made it and that the holovid commentators didn’t think he was playing to the crowd.

At last, the cortege passed the gates. Guided by the AI, without which he would not have the slightest idea of where to go or what to do, Michael led 387’s crew and the sad column of gun carriages up a gently sloping hill away from the main access road and the rest of the cortege. The narrow road was surrounded by achingly beautiful trees and shrubs, their leaves and flowers bright with color in the late morning sun.