The Battle of the Hammer Worlds

Michael stood up, stretching. It was strange to be back at work, to sit around a table for the weekly team meeting, with everyone acting as though nothing had happened. To make things even more uncomfortable, Fellsworth had reverted to her normal standoffish self. Any and every attempt by Michael to talk things over was rebuffed politely but firmly. It was as though Fellsworth had forgotten that they were still under open arrest and that the charges had not been withdrawn by Constanza even if she and the rest of the ship knew they would be. With a mental shrug of the shoulders, Michael went to the cooler to get some water. He was going to need it. God, he hated pinchspace drops.

“Sir?”

It was Bettany.

“What’s up, Morris?”

“There’s something to see you. Too big to be human, so it must be either a cyborg or a marine. Oh, and a small marine as well.”

Michael laughed as he went to the door. Had to be Yazdi and Murphy. Who else could it be?

It was. Christ, Murphy is huge, Michael thought. His neck ached trying to look the man in the face. “Corporal Yazdi, Marine Murphy. Come to arrest me?”

Yazdi’s face reddened. “Hell, no, sir,” she muttered. “Just wanted a word.”

“Okay. Can’t be too long. I’ve got a meeting after we drop. Got your bag? Don’t want you chucking all over the table.”

Yazdi waved a bag in silent reply. The two marines followed Michael through to one of the small meeting rooms. “Take a seat, guys.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Well, sir.” Yazdi stopped; she looked faintly embarrassed. “Well,” she continued, “we wanted to say that we’re pleased it all worked out for you in the end. I know it’s not official yet, but it seems pretty clear what’s going to happen.”

“Thank you. You’re right. It has all worked out in the end. Oh, shit. Hold on, guys.” With that, Ishaq’s alarms sounded and the universe turned itself inside out as the ship dropped into normalspace.

After the drop, Michael and the marines cleaned themselves up quickly.

“Right, where were we? Oh, yes. I was-” Michael was stopped dead by the strident urgency of the ship’s klaxon driving the crew to general quarters.

“What the hell?” Michael shouted. Acting on instinct, he and the two marines erupted from their seats to join the crowd of spacers trying to get out of the department’s one and only door at the same time. With maddening slowness, the jam cleared.

When Michael got to the door, with Yazdi and Murphy close behind, the world erupted around him, a sudden tornado of smoke and flame ripping the ship apart around him before disappearing as fast as it had come. Oh, shit, Michael thought despairingly. Rail-gun slugs; it had to be. God above, he prayed, not again; please, God, not again. For a moment, he did not think he could take it, his hands turning cold and clammy when he remembered the last time. Desperate now, he knew that duty was his best defense against the bowel-churning panic threatening his tenuous grip on reality. Michael clawed his way to a survival station, with Yazdi and Murphy following. With frantic energy born of a desperate hope that somehow Ishaq and her crew were going to survive, Michael tore open the doors and began to hurl skinsuits into the mass of people behind him. Murphy’s huge mass forced some semblance of discipline on what was close to a panicstricken mob. When there were only three suits left, Michael threw two to Murphy and Yazdi before grabbing the last one for himself. In a matter of seconds, he was secure inside it, the plasglass helmet sealing onto the neck ring with a satisfying ssssssffffftt as the shapeskin molded itself to his body. He watched carefully as the suit ran its start-up diagnostics. Thank God, he thought. All green. He had a good suit.

Michael looked around, cold sweat beading on his face. He wondered what the hell he could do that would make the slightest difference in a situation that seemed to be going from bad to catastrophic faster than he could think and faster than Ishaq seemed able to react. Hesitating, he stood there, and then another rail-gun salvo hit home. This time there was serious damage. All of a sudden, the air around Michael was a tortured mass of smoke and flame. The shock wave from a close pass by a rail-gun slug punched him hard against the nearest bulkhead. We’re dead, he thought as he staggered back to his feet. Whoever was attacking was good enough-and close enough-to have the Ishaq on toast.

In seconds the smoke was so dense, Michael could not see an arm’s length in front of him. Underneath him, the deck bucked and heaved as more slugs smashed home. He cursed silently, pushing the fear and panic that threatened to overwhelm him back down where they had come from. Secondary explosions were beginning to rip Ishaq apart; massive shock waves were hammering through the ship, and the artgrav was losing the unequal struggle. Around him, skinsuited shapes came and went, looming out of the smoke before disappearing to God only knew where, the spacers staggering and slipping like drunks. Frantically, Michael patched his neuronics into the ship’s main AI only to find to his horror that it was dead. That meant one thing: Ishaq was in serious trouble. No matter which channel he tried to patch his neuronics into, there was nothing. The calm, rational voice of authority, of someone-anyone-who knew enough to take charge of the situation and mobilize the Ishaq’s crew was completely absent.

For a moment he was baffled. He stood, with an arm wrapped around a stanchion the only thing keeping him on his feet as Ishaq bucked and heaved like a mad thing under his feet. He did not understand it. How could a ship the size and power of the Ishaq become a useless wreck in the space of a few minutes? The massive shape of Murphy appeared out of the gloom with what looked like Yazdi close behind. Murphy’s massive hand came out of the murk, clamping his and Michael’s helmets together. “What do we do, sir? What do we do?” Murphy yelled hoarsely.

“I don’t know. I’m trying to find out what-”

The voice booming out of his skinsuit speakers came as a complete shock. “All stations, this is command. Abandon ship, I say again, abandon ship. All stations, this is command. Abandon ship, I say again, abandon ship. Sitrep on neuronics channel 45 Bravo. Sitrep on neuronics channel 45 Bravo. Go with God. Command out.”

“There’s your answer, Murphy. Go. Go now.” A frantic check with his neuronics showed him the way to the nearest lifepod station. “8-November’s our best bet, so let’s go.”

Michael and the two marines began to run, making their way to the nearest lifepod station. Michael patched his neuronics into channel 45 Bravo, apparently the only one of Ishaq’s hundreds of internal comm channels that was working. Whoever was responsible deserved a bloody medal, Michael thought as finally he got access to channel 45 Bravo. It was not what he expected. No situation reports there. The channel accessed the Ishaq’s event log, raw data from hundreds of ship systems, all chronicling Ishaq’s catastrophic fall from operational warship to dying hulk. He pounded along, the vast bulk of Murphy forcing a way past smashed bulkheads, wrecked equipment, and fallen cables; hydraulic pipes were spewing fluid onto decks already slippery with the blood of broken bodies awkwardly twisted across the passageway. He kept running with the event log scrolling in front of him, his neuronics skimming through each of Ishaq’s major systems in turn. He began to get some sense of the calamity that had befallen the Ishaq, and it was grim reading.

There was far too much unprocessed data for him to get any real understanding of it, and so it would have to wait. Comming an order to dump the entire event log into his neuronics for later, he turned his mind back to the more pressing matter of survival. From what he had seen so far, it was only a matter of time before Ishaq’s main fusion plants blew, and if they were not a long way clear when that happened, that would be it.

Murphy skidded to a halt. Turning with surprising speed for such a large man, he shot his arm out to grab Yazdi and Michael before hurling them unceremoniously into the access hatch of one of the few lifepods still left at station 8-November. Michael offered up a quick prayer of thanks. He had missed the hatch, and without Murphy he would have wasted precious seconds finding it.

“Stay there!” Murphy barked. “I’ll make a final check, and then we’ll go. If I’m not back in one minute, go without me. I’ll get the next bus.” He disappeared back into the filthy gray-black murk that choked Ishaq’s passageways from deck to deckhead.