The battle of Devastation reef

“No! No, they can’t have,” Chief Councillor Polk croaked at last, his face ashen. “This cannot be. What …” His voice drained away to nothing; he sat paralyzed, staring wide-eyed at the black-uniformed man sitting opposite him.

“Sir, I’m afraid it’s true,” Fleet Admiral Jorge said. He paused to steady himself. “Sir,” he continued, his voice as firm as his jangling nerves allowed, “the Feds might have antimatter weapons, but they are not our equals, not after Comdur. Their offensive capability has been all but destroyed, their-”

“So you say, Admiral,” Polk hissed, his face twisted into a vicious sneer, “so you say.”

Fear had turned Jorge’s mouth dry as ashes. He knew Polk well enough to recognize when the man was about to lose all self-control. If Polk did, he was as good as dead. “What matters is how we win,” he said, keeping his voice quietly confident, “how we keep the Feds off balance, demoralized, ineffective, until we have secured our political objectives.”

“Yes, Admiral, that is what matters.” Polk said, bitter with disappointment. “We have to win this. If we don’t, there is no future for the Hammer Worlds. And,” he added, voice dripping with venom, “no future for you, Fleet Admiral Jorge.”

“No, sir, there’s not.” Nor for you, you psychopathic dirtbag, Jorge wanted to say; wisely, he did not. “So we need to strike and strike hard,” he continued. “Yes, the Feds can destroy us, but we can destroy them, too. So we won’t, and neither will they. Mutually assured destruction. We might not like it, but history shows it works.”

For an age, Polk stared thoughtfully at the man who controlled the Hammer’s enormous military. Jorge was relieved to see the man’s rage begin to subside, the angry red flush across both cheeks fading slowly. Polk’s silence gave Jorge his opening. He leaned forward. “If they destroy our home planets, we’ll destroy theirs, sir,” Jorge said, repeatedly stabbing a finger into the desk to emphasize the point. “And why would we do that, sir? Kraa! We’re not a bunch of suicidal fundamentalists.”

“No, Admiral, we’re not,” Polk said. “That much we can agree on. So let’s cut to the chase, shall we. What is it you want?”

Jorge steadied himself. “Well, sir. We cannot beat them at the negotiating table. We need to take the fight back to them. Beat them the hard way.”

“And we can do that? Even if they have antimatter weapons?” Polk’s face had tightened into a skeptical frown.

Jorge made sure he sounded convinced; his life depended on it. “After Comdur, we can,” he said. “Antimatter missiles are just another weapon. We need to keep our nerve. We have a plan to escalate offensive operations, and we need to stick to it. It’s the only way we can bring the Feds back to the negotiating table. We have the strategic advantage … we can force them back. We can and we will.”

It was a long time before Polk replied, and when he did, his voice was subdued. “Fine, Admiral. Call me a fool, but I’m going to trust you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jorge responded, trying not to sound too relieved that Polk did not want him shot out of hand, the fate all too often inflicted on the bearers of bad news.

Friday, December 1, 2400, UD

FWSS

Tufayl,

in orbit around Comdur Fleet Base

Vice Admiral Jaruzelska’s avatar popped into Michael’s neuronics. “You ready to go, Captain?” she asked.

“We are, sir. We’ll be on our way when Admiral Perkins is onboard.”

“Glad I caught you. Is there anything we need to talk about?”

Michael blinked. Just the one thing, not that he would be telling the admiral that. “No, sir,” he said.

Vice Admiral Jaruzelska must have noticed Michael’s momentary hesitation. “Perhaps,” she said, her voice a touch curt, “I should make sure that the command arrangements for this mission are completely clear. Are they completely clear, Lieutenant Helfort?”

Bloody woman must be psychic, Michael decided. “Yes, sir. They are to me,” he said with a confidence he did not feel. “I am captain in command. Rear Admiral Perkins is onboard strictly to observe. He is to take no part in the planning or execution of the operation. He is here to watch what we do and how we do it and report back.”

Jaruzelska stared at him long and hard. “Exactly so,” she said, “and you can be assured that I have made that clear in written orders, hard-copy orders”-Michael blinked; he had never known a senior officer to be forced to issue orders on paper-“to the admiral. We … I need to know, I must know whether or not Tufayl under your command can hold her own in a fight against the Hammers, and there’s no way we’ll know that if I have to send admirals along to hold your hand.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Yes, I think it is.” Jaruzelska paused. “Go to it, Michael,” she said with sudden warmth. “Jam it up those Hammer sons of bitches.”

“I will, sir. And thanks.”

Jaruzelska shook her head. “Don’t thank me. Just kill as many Hammers as you can. That’s all the thanks I’m looking for. If we can’t put the pressure back on them, we’re in serious trouble. Remember Comdur. Jaruzelska out.”

“Remember Comdur,” Michael responded. He stared at the blank holovid screen for a moment. He never doubted that Jaruzelska backed him 100 percent. He wished he could say the same for Rear Admiral Perkins.

Thursday, December 7, 2400, UD

FWSS

Tufayl,

Faith planetary deepspace

“All stations, command. Faceplates down, depressurizing in two. Secure artificial gravity.”

The voice of Tufayl’s executive officer was wooden, stiff with stress. Michael sympathized. Ferreira had every reason to be nervous. The last time she had seen action, her ship had been blown out from under her; she had been lucky to escape with her life when so many of Sailfish’s crew had not. He glanced around the shell of Tufayl’s massive combat information center, the operational heart of the once great heavy cruiser. It was an unsettling sight, the huge compartment all but empty. It had been gutted, every last bit of equipment not needed for its new role as a dreadnought ripped out by an unstoppable army of voracious salvagebots.

But none of that fazed him as much as the sight of Rear Admiral Perkins: Combat space suit closed up, face inscrutable behind the plasglass visor, the man sat in back of Michael’s small command team.

If he did not have enough to worry about, Perkins had already crossed the line drawn in the sand by Jaruzelska. He had been quick to say that the ops plan for the attack was fatally flawed, forcing Michael to remind him-more than once since they had departed from Comdur-that he was there to watch, not to take control of the operation. It was a bitter exchange, one that Michael had no doubt would happen again.

Needless to say, the admiral was not a happy man, and why would he be? Lieutenants did not make a habit of telling flag officers to butt out, and it could not be easy for a man with Perkins’s combat record-a long and distinguished record, it had to be said-to sit back and watch a lieutenant take a heavy cruiser into battle.

Michael pushed Perkins to the back of his mind; he had better things to worry about than the man’s feelings. The most important thing on his plate was getting Tufayl through its first combat mission intact and its crew home alive. He turned his attention back to the massive holovids that filled the forward bulkhead of Tufayl’s combat information center.

The threat plot was an ugly mess of red vectors, each tracking a Hammer warship in orbit around the planet