The Battle of the Hammer Worlds

generated personal agent who managed the routine details of his life, it was good to be able to find out what was going on in humanspace without having to watch the turgid bullshit that passed for a Hammer newsvid.

The news was not good.

The Hammers clearly were having some success with their campaign against Fed merchant shipping. From the look of it, Fleet was having a hard time coping with hit-and-run attacks that had spread right across humanspace. The government was paying the price; most commentators were confident in their predictions that the New Liberal government of Moderator Burkhardt was finished.

Michael stopped scanning after a while. It did not make sense, any of it. He could not even begin to understand why the Hammers were doing what they were doing. The elaborate scheme they had concocted was unraveling badly. When the Fed government saw his neuronics records, the Hammer’s days had to be numbered. After the Mumtaz affair, the government would rip the heart out of the Hammers and nail it, bleeding, to the nearest wall.

He smiled, a smile utterly devoid of charity, the smile of a man watching his bitterest enemy swing on the end of a rope. Well, if it came to that, he would be there. That was for sure. He was in the mood to rip out a Hammer heart or two.

“Spacer Torrens, Spacer McArthur. Returning to the FedWorld Courier Ship Spacerunner.”

Michael’s mouth was bone-dry. He could not help it. This was the tricky bit. Hacking into the Hammer’s knowledge base to create false identities for him and Shinoda was one thing. Hacking into Scobie’s immigration control systems was quite another, not least because unlike the Hammers, they would use purpose-built security AIs to manage their system audits. In theory, that should make a successful hack next to impossible, though if that had been the case, he and Shinoda would not be standing there. Michael could only hope that the unknown hackers had done a proper job. Fingers crossed, he stood waiting.

“Comm me your entry permits and full identities. Finger in the scanner for DNA matching.” The immigration officer did not bother to conceal his lack of interest. Nor, to Michael’s relief, did the inevitable DocSec watchdog.

Michael and Shinoda did as they were told. An anxious pause followed as they waited for the system to confirm that they were legitimate crew members of the Spacerunner.

With a flick of the wrist, the officer commed them the clearances they needed. He waved them through. Ignoring a sudden desperate urge to break into a run, Michael walked into the access tube.

Then he was through Spacerunner’s air lock and back on sovereign FedWorld territory. He got only another meter before his attempt to confirm his identity to the ship’s staff crumbled to dust. All of a sudden, it all became too much, the accumulated stress of the past months driving him onto his knees.

He was safe.

“Feeling better?” the Spacerunner’s doctor asked.

Michael nodded. He certainly was. His body never missed an opportunity to remind him of some old injury or other, and deep down inside he was far from all right, but as long as he did not think too much, he felt pretty good. He had slept well, breakfast had been as good as anything the first-class restaurant on the liner served, and the young doctor standing in front of him was no more a commercial spacer than he was. She was FedWorld Space Fleet from her regulation haircut right down to her fleet-issue boots, and Michael felt all the better for it.

The doctor smiled. “Good. Now, I have some people who have been on my back from the moment you arrived on board. They want to talk to you. You okay with that? Because if you’re not, they can wait.”

Michael shook his head. No matter how much he wanted to forget the past, he had to tell the debriefing team everything he knew-good and bad-if he was ever to come to terms with what he had done, what he had been through.

“No, no. I’m fine. Where do they want me?”

“Conference 2. Ship’s AI will show you the way. You can contact me any time if you need a break. Got that? Call me any time at all, and I’ll put a stop to it.”

Michael nodded as he got to his feet. “Thanks.”

The doctor took his arm. “Michael.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t let them push you around. When you’ve had enough, you call me. Is that understood?”

Michael bobbed his head. She would never understand that he wanted to unburden himself, and now.

The doctor watched Michael as he made his way out of the sick bay. She shook her head as she began her draft report to Fleet’s surgeon in chief.

Sunday, January 16, 2400, UD

Federated Worlds Courier Ship Spacerunner, pinchspace

“Thank you, Michael. You’ve been most helpful. You understand how sensitive this all is, so I’m going to put a neuronics block on it for the moment. Once the Hammer’s part in all this is in the public domain, then it’ll be lifted. Until then, I’ve classified it as top secret-no foreign eyes. Okay?”

Michael nodded. “Fine by me, sir.” He had expected to face a Fleet debriefing team, but he was pretty sure that neither of the two men who had sat patiently listening to his account of what had happened since the Ishaq had been destroyed was Fleet. He thought they were spooks, Department 24 most likely.

“Okay. That’s it. We’ll be dropping soon, so you can go and get ready for that bit of fun and games.”

“Thank you, sir.” Michael was gone in a flash.

The two men waited until the door hissed shut behind Michael. The older of the two got up and started to pace up and down. “What a bloody mess,” he said.

“More than a mess,” the second man replied. “I’m no lawyer, but the Barkersville police station attack is a problem. Legally, it’s murder. No argument.”

“I’m afraid it is. Anyway, that’s for someone else to sort out. I would hate to be the person who puts Helfort in the dock for murdering two Hammers, even if it was in cold blood. The great unwashed would have me hanging from a lamppost in no time flat. Christ! The pollies are going to shit themselves when this little mess comes home to roost.”

“They are, by God. You know what? I don’t think I would have done anything different.”

“Nor me. Bloody Hammers. Come on, enough navel gazing. We’ve got a report to write.”

Tuesday, January 18, 2400, UD

Base Hospital, Federated Worlds Space Fleet College, Terranova Planet

For some reason, Michael felt more nervous than the last time he had faced DocSec. He was so nervous, he could not stay still, standing up and then sitting down and then standing up again.

Finally the door opened. In quick succession, his mother, his father, and his sister Sam rushed into the room, and in seconds he was enveloped in all their arms, the tears running uncontrollably down all their faces.

“Christ, son, but you’re a worry,” his dad said when he had gotten himself back under control. “Any chance of your transferring to the Parks and Wildlife Service?”

Michael smiled tightly. He knew his dad would pressure him to leave the Fleet. Who could blame him? First the Mumtaz business, then the Battle of Hell’s Moons, and now all this. His dad should pressure him. Michael could see what it was doing to him. His father looked ten years older than he had when Michael had left to join the Ishaq.