The Battle of the Hammer Worlds

The marines had found the antimatter warheads they had been looking for.

Michael felt acutely embarrassed as he crossed the brow to board the Seigneur. He had not thought to bring dress blacks for what was supposed to be a simple transit assignment. A shipsuit was all he had to wear. A clean shipsuit, true, but it was still only a shipsuit. He stopped, coming to attention as the bosun’s mates piped him on board, the main broadcast announcing his arrival with the traditional “Attention on deck, FWWS Adamant.”

The ritual that accompanied the arrival on board of a captain in command completed, Michael stepped forward to take Captain Xiong’s outstretched hand.

“Welcome aboard, Helfort, welcome aboard. Meet my officers, and then we’ll debrief you on your trip from Comdur.”

Duty done, Michael was ensconced in a comfortable chair in Xiong’s day cabin, a welcome glass of beer in his hand. There was a moment’s companionable silence as Xiong took her own glass from the drinkbot. She put it carefully on the table before sitting down.

Xiong looked across at the young man sitting opposite her. Considering Helfort’s reputation, he was not that impressive at first sight. For a Fed, he was small. Probably to compensate, he was heavily built, with well-defined shoulder and chest muscles pushing hard against his shipsuit. It was the face that impressed her. It had the stretched look she had seen in so many spacers fresh from combat. His eyes, a striking hazel color, were sunk deep, framed by a gray-black dusting of fatigue and stress, and were half covered by lanky brown hair falling down across his face, the lines of a much older man beginning to cut their way out from eyes and mouth.

“What made you abort the missile strike, Michael?” Xiong asked.

“Luck, sir, to be honest,” he said after a moment’s thought. “Aborting the missiles suddenly seemed like a good idea. Can’t really say why. I don’t know why. Instinct? Fear, maybe.”

Xiong’s eyebrows went up in surprise. She took another sip of her beer. “You know, Michael, I would have put a million FedMarks down that you would have spun me some yarn or other.”

Michael shook his head. “You know what, sir?”

“What?”

“Well,” he declared, his voice a crude parody of Pavel Duricek at his pompous best, “between us cruiser captains. .”

Xiong’s head went back as she roared with laughter. “Us cruiser captains. Oh, my. . us cruiser captains. Now, that’s a good one,” she gasped, struggling to draw breath. “God’s blood, Michael. If you can make jokes at a time like this, maybe there’s hope for the rest of us. Sorry. You were saying?”

“Well, the truth is I just did it. But what if I’d been wrong? What if they’d gotten a full salvo away? What if the salvo had been targeted on Terranova?”

Xiong shook her head. “If, if, if. Sometimes I think it’s the worst word in the English language. Actually, Michael, it would not have been a problem. Fleet’s pulled back most of the heavy units to cover the home planets. A two-ship attack probably would not have gotten through.” She sighed heavily. “I’m not sure I can say the same thing for a full-scale attack like the one on Comdur, but. .” Her voice trailed off. The thought of the Hammer dropping an antimatter attack on the Fed Worlds was too much to think about.

Michael nodded. He looked relieved.

Xiong regathered her thoughts. “Anyway, enough of that. I have new orders for you and your crew.”

Michael looked up.

“Yes, Michael. Orders. We’re going to keep the Adamant here as a temporary base until we’ve offloaded the Eaglehawk missiles. Needless to say, our esteemed government doesn’t want the damned things anywhere near Terranova. A courier ship is on its way; you’ll transfer to that. Now, this may change, but at this stage you’ll get some leave, and then it’s back to the Eridani with another combat command hash mark to add to the one you already have. And that, my boy, is one more than me.” Captain Xiong raised her glass in a mock salute. “Fleet has commed me the authorization already, so next time you’re in dress blacks, make sure you’re properly dressed.”

Michael blinked. The thought of hash marks obviously had not occurred to him.

“Oh,” was all he could say.

Michael watched the holovid intently as the battered wrecks of the McMullins and the Providence Sound fell away.

Behind the fast courier, the orange strobes of shuttles transporting captured Eaglehawk missiles across to cargo drones flashed brilliantly against the star-dusted blackness of deep space. Now and again, a searing white flash flared up as a drone and its precious cargo accelerated away to what Michael would have bet his life was, after centuries of willful neglect, a seriously reenergized interest in all things antimatter.

Around the two Hammer ships but pulled well back out of harm’s way in case a missile exploded, were the Fed ships, their hulls visible only as bottomless black shapes cut out of the stars. Now they were home to a small team of defense scientists and engineers laboring desperately to try to work out how the Hammers had done what every Fed scientist would have sworn was impossible.

Hope they’re dispensable, Michael thought. It seemed to him that poking around antimatter was the quickest way to get a one-way ticket straight into the great unknown.

Michael closed his eyes as a sudden wave of tiredness broke over him. Antimatter was going to change a lot of things, and space warfare would be one of them. What those changes were he would be happy to wait to find out.

Soon he was asleep.

Thursday, April 20, 2400, UD

FWSS Eridani, berth Bravo-10, Comdur Fleet Base Repair Facility

“Well, well, well. Look what the cat’s dragged in.”

“Lieutenant Kidav, sir!” Michael sounded hurt. He crossed the bow and saluted the ship. “Is that any way to greet the allconquering hero fresh from his latest triumph over the forces of darkness?”

“Hero, my ass,” Kidav replied affectionately, returning the salute. “Lucky is what you are. Lucky, lucky, lucky, and here I am, five years older-”

“Seven, actually.”

“Pig!” she conceded good-humoredly. “All right, seven years older, and do I have anything to show for all my years of devoted service? No, not a damn thing.”

“Not my fault. You should have stuck close to me. How was your temporary command?”

Kidav scowled, her bantering mood evaporating in a flash. “Well, we got there okay. The poor old Sunfish was a mess,” she said with a frown. “Really gruesome up forward. Horrible. Those damn ship designers need to take radiation impulse shock a bit more seriously than they have been.”

Michael nodded somberly. It had been a bad week, what with the Hammers firing antimatter missiles toward the home planets every few days. The hidden message was so obvious that even the dumbest politician must have gotten it by now. Pretty simple, really: Surrender or we incinerate your home planets.

Michael finally broke the silence. “What’s next for us? Any orders?”

Kidav shook her head. “No, not yet. We undock tomorrow as planned. Back up into parking orbit. That’s all we know right-”

“All stations, this is command. Stand by for an announcement from the Flag Officer Commanding, Comdur System.”

Michael and Kidav stared at each other. “Oh, shit,” Kidav muttered. “Please, God, not one of the home planets.” Michael could not speak. He stood there, paralyzed by fear.

“All stations, this is Rear Admiral Malhotra. I have received a message from the commander in chief, Space