The battle of Devastation reef

Faris, his comms man, four engineers-Fodor, Chua, Lim, and Morozov-and of course the unmistakable shape of Chief Bienefelt, Tufayl’s coxswain, made ten, including him and Ferreira. The extra spacers forced on him by Fleet-in retrospect he was glad they had insisted on increasing his crew; a pinchspace jump- capable heavy lander would be a real asset-were yet to join them. The process of digging out people who met Jaruzelska’s high standards was proving to be a prolonged one.

Ferreira turned to him. “For your information, sir. We are ready in all respects to move.”

“Roger. All yours, Jayla. Dent my shiny new ship and I’ll dent your skull.”

She grinned, a mix of excitement and nerves obvious. “I won’t, sir,” she replied. “All stations, this is Command, stand by. Dockmaster, this is Tufayl.”

“Dockmaster.”

“Release docking clamps and initiate cold move.”

“Roger … clamps released, moving now.”

With that, a faint shudder ran through Tufayl as hydraulically rammed cradles started the dreadnought on its way from the zero-gravity repair facility at the center of the asteroid that hosted Comdur Fleet Base. Ahead lay a 300-kilometer ascent through rock tunnels to the surface for handover to the space tugs that would take Tufayl up into parking orbit.

“Captain, sir. Cold move complete, ship is in orbit, orbit is nominal. Tugs detached. Propulsion fusion plants are coming online, all systems nominal. We will have full power available in twenty minutes.”

“Thank you. Nice job,” Michael said, much encouraged by Ferreira’s flawless execution of an evolution that had brought more than a few executive officers undone in the past and even more encouraged that Tufayl’s fusion plants were not about to blow his ship apart. Start-ups from cold were tricky, which was why Fleet standard operating procedures insisted that they take place well away from ships and base facilities.

“Thank you, sir,” Ferreira said, her relief obvious.

“Okay, Jayla. What’s next?”

“Final planning meeting for our shakedown cruise in thirty, sir.”

“Okay. I’ll see you there. I’m going walkabout. Chief Bienefelt, walk with me.”

“Sir.”

With Tufayl’s coxswain in tow, Michael set off. Leaving the combat information center, he went forward to the ship’s main drop tube, which took him two decks down into the cavernous air group hangar. Michael took a look around. It was the largest compartment on board. Spanning the full width of the ship, it stretched close to 200 meters long fore and aft. Once Tufayl would have stored an entire air group there: fifty-six landers and space attack vehicles, packed in tight.

Now it hosted the diminutive shape of a single light assault lander. The sight unnerved Michael, the hangar’s emptiness a powerful reminder of how much change the disaster at Comdur had forced on the Federated Worlds Fleet.

Bienefelt broke into Michael’s thoughts with a soft cough. “Take it you didn’t bring me down here to look at all this empty space, sir?”

“Uh, no. Sorry, Matti. I know you’re busy. I just wanted a chat.”

“Knew you might, sir,” Bienefelt said with a chuckle.

“I’m that obvious, eh?” Michael replied. “Yes, two things. First, thanks for agreeing to be my coxswain. I know it’s not the best posting from a personal point of view. How does Yuri feel?”

“Well”-Bienefelt’s face reddened-“well, he, er … well, uh … he says he loves me and as long as I come back, he can wait,” she said, finishing in an embarrassed rush.

“He’s a good man, Matti. He’ll be there when this is all over.”

“I know he will, sir.”

Michael stared right at Bienefelt. “I can’t tell you how good it is to have you here. We go back a way.”

“We do, sir, we certainly do. Life is never dull with you around.”

“Seems to be that way, and something tells me all this”-he waved a hand at Tufayl-“is going to keep things interesting.”

“Don’t think that’s in any doubt.”

“No, it’s not. Second thing. The troops. What do you think of them so far?”

Bienefelt considered the question a while before responding. “With one exception, they’re solid. They’ll do the job and do it well. But …”

“Come on, Matti, Spit it out!”

“Well, sir,” Bienefelt said, measuring her words carefully. “I’m a bit reluctant to leap to judgment because it’s early days yet. But Carmellini bothers me. He’s outstanding on paper, but something’s not quite right there.”

“Carmellini. Thought it might be him. He came to us from Retribution?”

“He did, but he wasn’t onboard when the shit hit the fan at Comdur. He missed that little fiasco. He was absent on compassionate leave.”

“So, what is it? Survivor’s guilt?”

“Yes. That’s my best guess, sir. Retribution suffered the second highest casualty rate on that day. Few Retributions came home, and most of those that did will never return to active duty. You can understand why he’s feeling guilty.”

“Damn,” Michael muttered. “Something must have gone wrong. Fleet’s pretty good at treating postcombat stress”-something he knew from firsthand experience, he realized with a twinge of guilt-“and it’s had plenty of practice over the years. Carmellini must have slipped past the assessment teams.”

“Pretty sure that’s what’s happened. They had their hands full.”

“So what do we do? Send him back?”

“No, sir,” Bienefelt replied, shaking her head. “Not yet, anyway. I think I’d like to hang on to him. See if we can pull him out of it.”

Michael considered that for a moment. “Sure you don’t want to refer him to the postcombat stress people?”

“No, sir. I have spoken to them, though. They’ve done the hard work for us, and we know what we have to do to make sure he doesn’t slip back.”

“What does Lieutenant Ferreira think?”

“Actually, sir,” Bienefelt said, “the XO picked it up first. She’s already spoken to me about Carmellini. She told me to take a week and get back to her. I assume she would have briefed you if she was still worried,” she added diplomatically.

Michael smiled. It was good to find out the two key members of his crew had picked up on a problem before he had. Even better, he sensed that Bienefelt respected Ferreira. He hoped so; it meant he had the makings of a good crew and a good ship.

“I’ll leave it with you, Matti. Off you go. I’ll see you at the shakedown cruise briefing. I’m going to see if the engineers have fixed that damned heat transfer pump.”

“Sir.”

It had been a long day but a good one. Tufayl was a living ship again, back in space where she belonged, one more step along the road to the day when she would go into action against the Hammers. A welcome beer in hand, he commed Mother, the AI in charge of the hundreds of AIs-big and small-that made the dreadnought work.

“Yes, Michael?” Mother said, her face by long-standing tradition that of a middle-aged woman.

For a moment Michael was a child again, talking to his own mother, which was probably why the primary AIs of this world looked the way they did: relics from a long-lost maledominated past intended to reassure insecure and lonely male officers that however bad things might seem, there was still hope. That summed up Anna’s view and that of every female spacer he had ever met. Sadly, Michael knew that what Anna said held more than a grain of truth.

“What do you think? This going to work?”

“Tufayl or dreadnoughts?”

“Both, I suppose.”

Mother took her time before answering. “The short answer is yes,” she said finally, measuring her words