The battle of Devastation reef

Thursday, January 18, 2401, UD

FWSS

Iron Duke,

in orbit around Comdur Fleet Base

“So, Michael. What do you reckon?”

“I didn’t think it would happen.”

Vice Admiral Jaruzelska nodded. “Did wonder myself sometimes,” she said.

“Any chance of getting the additional dreadnought squadrons, Admiral?”

Jaruzelska shook her head. “I know we need them, but no, none at all. Three’s our lot. I had formal confirmation of that from Fleet only this morning. So, apart from the ships held back as operational reserves, what you see is all we get.”

Inside, Michael wanted to scream out his frustration. It made no sense. Fleet had heavy cruisers laid up in parking orbits around every one of the Federated Worlds, fully functioning warships except for one important thing: After the Battle of Comdur, there were no crews to take them back into combat. Leaving them there unused at a time when Fleet faced a resurgent Hammer was beyond dumb; sadly, there was not a thing he-or, more significantly, Vice Admiral Jaruzelska-could do about it.

Across the forward bulkhead of Iron Duke’s combat information center, the holovid flared while one after another the ships of Dreadnought Squadrons Two and Three dropped into Comdur normalspace, twenty converted heavy cruisers in all, followed after a short pause by Tufayl’s replacement, Reckless.

With mounting excitement, Michael watched the ships decelerate, the shuttles tasked to remove their transit crews already closing in. By any standard, the twenty-one converted R-Class heavy cruisers were an impressive sight.

Surely, he told himself, this was the beginning of the end. The dreadnoughts of the First Squadron had more than proved themselves against Hammer antimatter missiles, and in the freewheeling chaos of close-quarters space combat, that was the sort of fighting to be done if the Hammers were ever to be defeated. With three full squadrons of dreadnoughts, the slow, grinding business of destroying the Hammer space fleet could get under way. Once that was done, invasion of the Hammer Worlds could follow. For a brief moment, Michael allowed himself the luxury of imagining what life might be like without the unending threat of yet more death and destruction at the hands of the Hammers, a threat hanging over humanspace for more than a century. He stifled the idea. There was a long way to go; there was a lot more killing to be done before that happy day arrived.

“Okay, Michael,” Jaruzelska said. “I’ve seen enough. Let my shuttle know I’m on my way.”

“Stand by … It’s ready when you are, sir.”

“Fine. I’ll see you at the squadron commanders’ conference tomorrow.”

“Looking forward to it, Admiral. It’ll be good to get all the squadrons operational.”

“It will, though I don’t think the Hammers will be quite so happy.”

“I hope not,” Michael said with a feral grin. “I plan to make them extremely unhappy.”

“I bet. Though I should remind you that we have a lot of work to be done before this lot”-Jaruzelska waved a hand at the holovid-“are up to the standard of the First.”

“Just a matter of time, sir,” Michael said.

“It is. I know we’ve set a target of three months, but you understand my concerns. We might need anything up to six, but we’ll see. Before I go,” she said when they had left the combat information center, “I’ve got a couple of admin matters for you. First, how’s that arm?”

Michael waved his left arm in the air. “Good, sir. It’ll be a hundred percent within a week.”

“Pleased to hear it. Another wound stripe, I suppose?”

“Absolutely, sir. You know me. Too much gold is not enough.”

Shaking her head, Jaruzelska laughed. “Have you heard anything from the Bachou police?”

“Yes, sir. We received formal notification this morning that the federal prosecutor’s office has decided not to proceed against me, so that’s that. Anna’s off the hook, too. The full decision has been posted on the net if you’re interested in the legal gymnastics.”

Jaruzelska snorted in derision. “Oh, no, not me. I hate that stuff.”

“Bit of a close thing, though,” Michael said. “The bad guys might have been a bit more obvious that it was me they came for before I actually started firing, so there was an argument that the courts should be allowed to decide whether the first killing was justified or not. But get this, sir. If I’d waited until they started shooting, I would have had no case to answer at all.”

Jaruzelska snorted again. “Lawyers! Anyway, I’m glad you’re off the hook. You’ve got better things to do than waste your time defending yourself against a charge of homicide. Second, how is Anna?”

“Fine, sir. She sounded well in her last vidmail.”

“Good. I think Damishqui missed her.”

Michael laughed. “I bet they did, sir,” he said, “though I’d be a lot …” His voice trailed away.

Jaruzelska turned to look Michael full in the face. “Don’t even think it, Michael. You’ll come through this, and so will Damishqui, trust me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Michael followed Jaruzelska into the drop tube that would take them to Iron Duke’s personnel air lock. He appreciated her confidence, but not even admirals as competent and experienced as Jaruzelska could be so sure that things would turn out okay. The Hammers had not survived by being pushovers, and Damishqui-along with every spacer and marine onboard-was as much at risk as any other ship in the Fleet.

Jaruzelska watched the Iron Duke dwindle into nothing against the stars. The arrival of the dreadnoughts brought the force up to its authorized strength; that was the good news. The bad news was that there would be no more. Once the three dreadnoughts in reserve had entered service, she would have no more ships to replace combat losses. Even convincing Fleet to release the Reckless had taken far more of her dwindling stock of political capital than she cared to think about.

She would need all the capital she had left. The fight inside Fleet over dreadnoughts was getting dirty. The overwhelming majority of the Fleet agreed with Rear Admiral Perkins’s view that dreadnoughts were a disaster waiting to happen. If that was not bad enough, more details of the fight over the dreadnoughts had leaked through Fleet’s normally watertight security; the trashpress was beginning to sniff around, looking for an angle that would allow them to make the most of the disagreement without looking unpatriotic.

She let out a long sigh: part frustration, part fatigue, part anger. The dreadnought argument long ago had crossed the line that separated rational argument from emotional slanging match-encouraged, she had no doubt, by Rear Admiral Perkins’s diligent if so far covert efforts to undermine her and her ships-and that meant things were going to get a lot worse.

A depressing assessment of what that would mean for her workload was interrupted by a priority com. Closing her eyes, she read the message, then read it again to be sure.

Elation pushed depression aside. Yes, she thought, finally. After months of effort and billions of FedMarks, the Hammer antimatter manufacturing plant had been located. “Now comes the endgame,” she whispered, her elation turning to anticipation. With the source of their strategic advantage gone-she had no doubts, none at all, that her dreadnoughts could bludgeon their way in close enough to destroy the plant-the Hammers were finished.

It would only be a matter of time.

She commed her chief of staff. The commander in chief had scheduled the preliminary planning conference for the next morning; she and her staff had a lot of work to get through to be ready.

Friday, January 19, 2401, UD

FWSS