The battle at the Moons of Hell

Much more important, he had an account allocated to him by the chief councillor personally, an account DocSec’s normally relentless investigators wouldn’t go near. Even they had more sense than to ask what the chief councillor was up to.

Wonderful place, the Hammer, he thought as he bent to the task of finding what he needed to know about Captain Ashok Kumar. If you worked for the chief councillor, you could pretty much get away with anything, go anywhere, do anything, know everything about everybody.

Until the next chief councillor took over.

Then you were dead.

Thursday, August 6, 2398, UD

Planetary Heavy Lander (Assault) 005338 Berthed on Space Battle Station 1, in Orbit around Terranova

Michael realized that not once in the two weeks of his lander command requalification had Lieutenant Michael Hadley said one word more than was absolutely necessary.

The silent, moodily uncommunicative Hadley had not cut him one inch of slack or encouraged the slightest hope that he might get the 98 percent he needed if he was to have the career path he wanted. As a member of the warfare branch of the Federated Worlds Space Fleet, that meant only one thing as far as he was concerned: assault lander pilot. The alternatives-most likely a career as a navigator or an intel spook, or, even worse, a transfer to the engineering or logistics branches of the Fleet-just didn’t bear thinking about. Still, Hadley hadn’t failed him yet, so maybe he still had a chance.

So far the atmosphere had been heavy and formal, and Michael hated it. Maybe Hadley was pissed off at having to change his leave plans; Michael had no idea. Seeing Hadley’s glowering, almost sullen face the day after graduation had been more than enough to kill off any idea Michael might have had of talking about Hadley’s private affairs.

He sighed and settled deeper into the battered and scarred command pilot’s chair of Moaning Minnie, more properly known as Planetary Heavy Lander (Assault) Number PHLA-005338, his combat space suit stiff and uncomfortable as he waited for Hadley to complete briefing the directing staff who’d be controlling the opposition forces Michael was up against for the final live exercise of his requalification.

Michael looked around the flight deck with affection. As landers went, Moaning Minnie wasn’t a bad ship. Michael had flown it many times before. Everything worked, and its AI was reasonably stable and had no bad habits that he knew of. For the tenth time, he had his neuronics call up the mission and, eyes shut, methodically worked through the mission plan and the supporting threat summary step-by- step, item by item. He knew the THREATSUM (Threat Summary) forward and backward by now, but at least it was something to do while he waited.

Mother, the lander’s AI, broke his fierce concentration to tell him that Hadley had come aboard. Finally, Michael thought as he closed the mission file and stood up to await Hadley’s arrival.

He didn’t have long to wait.

“Right,” Hadley said as he settled himself into the tactical officer’s chair alongside Michael, ignoring the rest of Michael’s team ranged to the left and right of him. His voice became very formal. “Junior Lieutenant Helfort. You have command.”

“Roger, sir. I have command. Stand by.” Michael activated the lander’s CombatNet; it would stay open until the mission had been completed. With a deep breath to steady himself, he started in on the checklists, the slow and tedious process of confirming that Moaning Minnie was ready for the torture he was going to put her through. One by one, his crew signed off, and finally the ship was ready to go.

“All stations, ship is go for launch. Stand by for drop in”-Michael checked the master mission timer-“ten minutes. Helmets on, suit integrity checks to Mother. Command out.”

Michael commed BaseNet. “Space Battle Station 1, this is PHLA-005338, mission call sign Golf Charlie. Ready to launch at designated drop time. Golf Charlie over.”

“Roger, Golf Charlie. Stand by, out.”

Settling his helmet onto its neck ring, Michael quickly ran through his own suit checks and, visor down, confirmed suit integrity. He uplinked the results to Mother and confirmed for himself that Mother had fifteen good suits onboard: fourteen crew and one pax. Hang on. A passenger? Who the hell could that be? he wondered, but he had too much to think about to bother checking. Flipping his armored plasglass visor back up, Michael turned slightly to look at Hadley out of the corner of one eye. The man who carried his fate in his hands was sitting unmoving in the tactical officer’s seat, staring out at the vast gray bulk of Space Battle Station 1’s hull as it curved away from them.

Michael turned back and sat motionless. There was nothing to do but sit and wait in silence. Michael felt the pressure bear down on him. An open-mike circuit, CombatNet was quiet except for the breathing of the loadmaster, Chief Petty Officer Sara Gemmell. For some reason, before launch she breathed as hard as if she’d just run a race, a long one and uphill at that. Nerves, Michael supposed. He didn’t have the gossip, insults, and facetious comments that normally characterized the minutes immediately before a launch to take his mind off what was at stake.

“Michael.” Hadley’s voice came up on CommandNet and cut across his thoughts.

“Sir?”

“Good luck.” Hadley turned away and resumed his sphinx-like study of SBS-1’s hull.

“Tha-” Michael’s surprised acknowledgment of the first words from Hadley not specifically called for by a checklist or standard operating procedure was cut short as BaseNet came up. “Golf Charlie, this is SBS-1. You are clear to drop under SBS control. Departure pipe is Violet-34. Acknowledge, over.”

“SBS-1, Golf Charlie. Roger, clear to drop, departure pipe Violet-34, over.”

“Golf Charlie, SBS-1. Roger. Good hunting. On dropping, immediate chop TACON to assault mission command. Over.”

“SBS-1, Golf Charlie. Roger. Out.”

With a sigh, Michael sat back. If anything, he felt even more nervous. Seven minutes thirty seconds to go. Damn it, this couldn’t go on. Michael commed CombatNet again.

“Okay, folks. The BUFF outside the windows has given us launch clearance, and we will drop as scheduled in…seven minutes and twenty seconds. At which point you will be relieved to know that our esteemed loadmaster will cease heavy breathing.”

“I am not a heavy breather,” came Gemmell’s indignant and entirely predictable reply. It was what she always said.

“That’s not what I hear,” chipped in Petty Officer Taksin, Michael’s weapons supervisor for the day.

“You cheeky young pup, Taki. I’ll have you know…”

CombatNet caught the chuckles of Minnie’s crew, and Michael felt the pressure ease. These were good people, well trained and experienced. He’d done missions like this successfully before, and he’d do them again. Having started the traditional prelaunch banter, he sat back and let it wash over him, the chatter wandering through the social lives and idiosyncrasies of the crew with careless abandon.

At one minute to go, it was down to business.

“Okay, folks, one minute. Visors down and stand by. Final checks. Call them in.”

In a matter of seconds the final checks were in. It was time to go.

“All stations, this is command. Moaning Minnie is go for launch. May God watch over us this day,” Michael said, offering up the traditional spacer’s prayer before any launch. Notwithstanding the fact that the human race had been dropping down gravity wells for hundreds of years, the process was a violent one that stressed the best-designed and best-built spacecraft to their limits and occasionally past them. Over the centuries, descent from orbit had taken the lives of far too many good spacers and was not ever to be taken for granted no matter how good Fed technology might have become.

The seconds ticked away. BaseNet came to life. “Golf Charlie, forty-five seconds to drop. Automatic drop sequence commenced. Over.”

“Roger. Golf Charlie out.” Michael shrugged himself down in his straps and commed CombatNet. “Stand by,