The battle of Devastation reef

“Warfare, Command. Priority targets now ships of Hammer-1 and OHMP-344.”

“Warfare, roger.”

Michael forced himself to sit back, to assess the tactical situation dispassionately. Even though it seemed like hours, they had been in Hammer space for only a matter of minutes. The question was how much longer they should stay. Michael scanned the threat plot. The Hammers had reacted quickly to the First’s incursion; a group of Hammer ships-designated task group Hammer-2-accelerated hard toward them and would be within rail-gun range soon. Their first missile salvos were already on their way, heading toward the dreadnoughts. Not long, Michael decided. The First only had minutes to finish up and get the hell out.

“Warfare, Command. We’ll go for one more missile and rail-gun salvo before we jump.”

“Warfare, roger.”

Utterly engrossed, Michael watched the battle unfold. A swarm of rail-gun slugs joined the dreadnoughts’ second missile salvo; together they fell on the ships of the hapless Hammer task group around OHMP-344-what was left of them. The Hammer ships’ desperate efforts accounted for too few of the incoming missiles. In seconds, the attack slammed home, the three Hammer light cruisers reeling under the impact. Michael watched transfixed as a tear opened up across the cruiser Carlucci’s hull, a sinuous line, thin and impossibly bright. When the rip reached Carlucci’s stern, it exploded into a flare that stabbed flame out into space, and the ship staggered. An instant later, the blinding flash of runaway main fusion plants swallowed the doomed ship.

Warfare wasted no time. Missiles held back in reserve throttled up to full power, streaking in to hit the two ships in their thinly armored flanks before they could turn away. Machuca and Fram spewed reaction mass in a desperate attempt to pull out of the attack, spitting lifepods in all directions, until they, too, vanished into the hellish hearts of exploding fusion plants.

The Hammer task group was finished.

“Command, Warfare. Missiles away. Target OHMP-344. Time to target 3 minutes 15. Stand by, command … rail-gun salvo launched from task group Hammer-2. Time to target 2 minutes 10.”

“Command, roger.” The Hammers had fired early; despite the extreme range, the rail-gun swarm was big and its geometry appeared good enough to force the dreadnoughts to turn to meet the Hammer attack-taking a rail-gun swarm in the flanks was never a good idea-and ride it out if they were to get one more rail-gun salvo away.

Michael cursed some more; the Hammers were fighting smart, and things were getting complicated. The Hammers were avoiding the perennial weakness that afflicted so many of their commanders-shooting first and thinking second-and it became obvious that the salvos from OHMP-344 and the ships of Hammer-2 were timed to arrive on target to the second. Thanks to Hammer-2’s arrival, the squadron was under attack from two different directions at once, something that the Fighting Instructions advised Fleet captains to avoid at all costs.

So here he was, about to be caught in exactly that position. The safest thing would be to jump the squadron clear, but that risked letting OHMP-344 off the hook. For a moment, Michael sat paralyzed by indecision before the time-to-impact counter galvanized him back into action. He emptied his lungs slowly to settle his nerves and made his decision. The Hammers were not going anywhere. He could always come back another time.

“Warfare, Command. End of operation. Adjust vectors for Comdur. Jump when ready.”

“Warfare, roger.”

The decision made, Michael waited for the squadron to adjust vectors for home. The Hammers were going to be pissed. The commander of Hammer-2 would have liked his chances of taking out at least a couple of the dreadnoughts. Well, he was not going to get the opportunity, and the more missiles he wasted on the doomed Tufayl, the better.

Satisfied that the squadron was safe to jump and with mass distribution models checked and rechecked, Warfare gave the order, and the dreadnoughts vanished into the safety of pinchspace, leaving the missiles from OHMP-344 and Hammer-2 to rip through the tangled knuckles of space-time left behind by Dreadnought Squadron One. Frustrated, the missiles attempted to turn to attack the Tufayl, but she was too far ahead. One by one, the missiles’ second-stage engines flamed out. Unable to acquire a target, the salvo self- destructed in a spectacularly wasteful display of pyrotechnics.

But the battle for OHMP-344 was far from over.

With only one ship to deal with, the next missile salvo enjoyed the benefit of a solid target datum; they turned into the attack. As they did, Tufayl’s antimissile defenses filled the fast-closing gap with a lethal mixture of missiles, lasers, and depleted-uranium rounds fired by hypervelocity chain guns. One after another, Hammer missiles died in fireballs of exploding warheads and failed microfusion plants, but enough survived the slaughter to press home the attack. Joined by a second rail-gun swarm from Hammer-2, a wave of missiles and slugs plunged into Tufayl; her bows vanished behind great roiling clouds of ionized ceramsteel armor when warheads punched deep, the doomed ship staggering under the repeated impacts, the few slugs to hit adding to the carnage.

With time to turn bows on to the rail-gun attack, Tufayl survived thanks to her reinforced armor, but she was left a bleeding, crippled wreck. Another missile and rail-gun attack would finish her off, but the Hammers were out of time. Shrugging off the damage the Hammer defenders had inflicted on her, Tufayl closed in on OHMP-344. The platform fought to keep her out. Frantic crews labored to get the next long-range missile salvo away while close-in defenses tried to deflect the oncoming ship. Tufayl’s hull flared white-hot as lasers probed for weaknesses in the armor, missile strikes punched gouts of yellow-red armor out into space, and chain-gun rounds speckled the bows with flashes of fierce white flame.

To no avail. With the ships of Hammer-2 unable to get another rail-gun salvo away in time, the Hammers broke and ran. All of a sudden, OHMP-344 spewed lifepods in every direction, swarms of strobes double-flashing orange pleas for help, fireflies in a desperate flight to get clear of the unfolding catastrophe.

With impressive precision, Tufayl smashed into OHMP-344, her battered bows driving directly into the platform’s spherical heart, explosive decompression of the platform’s atmosphere hurling sheets of plasteel into space, tumbling away inside an ice-crystal cloud filled with splintered plasglass, furniture, equipment, and those of OHMP-344’s crew too slow to get to the lifepods.

With her hull buried deep in the platform’s guts, Tufayl’s fusion plants blew, and the ship died. The explosion ripped OHMP-344 apart, sending the smashed remains of the platform out into space, its intricate framework of girders, some with ships undergoing repair still berthed on them, twisting and buckling into a blackened mess of warped plasteel that tumbled away to nowhere.

With Iron Duke safely in pinchspace and ignoring the mounting pain from his arm- the painkillers were fast wearing off-Michael made it to the captain’s cabin only to collapse into a chair, worn out by the aftereffects of combat but more by the certain knowledge that he had come within seconds of dying as Sedova fought to get Caesar’s Ghost back to Iron Duke and safety. He sat for a long time. Not that he had much choice. Even if he wanted to move, he could not; his legs refused to work, his arm hurt like hell, and he was beyond exhausted.

“Captain, sir.” It was Ferreira.

“Yes,” he croaked. “What?”

“I’m getting an alarm from your neuronics. Your vitals are crap, and it seems you have a broken arm. Why didn’t you say something? I’m on my way.”

Michael wondered if he should tell her to leave him alone but decided against it.

The cabin door banged open, and Ferreira burst in, closely followed by Bienefelt. The pair knelt beside him.

“For chrissakes, sir,” Bienefelt said; she gently removed his helmet. “What are you doing?”

Just having the world’s biggest spacer there made Michael feel better. “What? Can’t I even have a sit-down when I want one?” he said. “What the hell’s the point of being captain of this tub if I can’t do that? Come on, you two. Help me up. I need a shower.”

“Sick bay first, sir, if you don’t mind,” Ferreira said. “That arm needs fixing.”

Michael started to argue, but the determined look on Ferreira’s face told him that this was not the time. “Okay,” he said, resigned, “come on, get me out of this damn chair.”