The battle of Devastation reef

here is just that. Too many negative assumptions producing unrealistically high probabilities of failure. Who knows why, but the sims are wrong. Assault Group will get through.”

“Excuse me, sir,” Tuukkanen said, glaring at Perkins, his voice choked with outrage. “Are you suggesting the sims have been rigged to make the dreadnoughts look good? If you are, sir, I strongly-”

“That is enough, Captain Tuukkanen,” Jaruzelska said firmly, “I’m sure that is not what the admiral is suggesting.”

“Pig’s ass,” Michael muttered. “That’s precisely what Perkins was suggesting.”

“Thank you, sir,” Perkins said. “Like I was saying, we all know overly pessimistic assumptions can-and usually do-lead to more fallback planning, more resources diverted away from the mission to provide ‘just in case’ backup, and a loss of focus on the main game. If we make this thing too complicated, it’ll fall apart just because it is too complicated. And just so we are clear, Captain Tuukkanen, I am not suggesting the sims have been rigged to make dreadnoughts look good … though some might think that.”

Michael watched intently. Setting aside Perkins’s cheap shot about rigging the sims to favor the dreadnoughts, his main point was a good one. Yes, of course Perkins wanted to reduce the dreadnoughts’ role in Opera to a bare minimum-for all the wrong reasons-but some of what he said made sense. He was an experienced combat commander; he knew from firsthand experience that complexity sowed the seeds of failure just as much as oversimplification did. But keeping Opera simple by assuming that Assault Group would always make it through would be dumb. They might not; that possibility must be allowed for.

Michael was pleased to see that Jaruzelska agreed; she turned to Perkins.

“Simplicity is a virtue, Admiral,” she said, “but only up to a point. To assume that either Assault Group gets through to the plant or nobody does would be a serious mistake. The sims show there is always the chance that Assault Group is interdicted by the Hammers, and if it is interdicted, the dreadnoughts must be able to complete the mission.”

Michael enjoyed Perkins’s response, that of a man who had just sucked a large and bitter lemon. “Admiral!” Perkins protested, “the operation is overly-complex as it is. It would be a mistake to make it even more complicated.”

“I agree, I absolutely agree. So we need a simple solution to the problem, one that has no impact outside the dreadnoughts themselves, one that requires no detailed planning and that has no command overhead. Any ideas?”

There was an awkward pause. Afterward, Michael could not explain why his discussion with Sedova about the role of Caesar’s Ghost came to mind, but it did.

“Yes sir,” he said. “Assault Group’s mission remains unchanged. If they get through, they will destroy the Hammer plant. If they fail to get through, the dreadnoughts will have to take over. We already carry an assault lander. Give us a platoon of marines and a demolition team. They will be a last resort, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Umm,” Jaruzelska said. “Admiral Perkins?”

“I still believe it is unnecessary,” Perkins said ungraciously, “but …” His voice trailed off.

“I’ll assume that is a yes, shall I?” Jaruzelska said drily. “So that puts your complement up to … yes, up to fifty-one. Michael?”

“No problem, sir,” Michael said. “Temporary accommodation modules. The marines will not be onboard long enough for it to be a problem.”

“Good. You have twenty-four hours to work up a detailed proposal. Now, to other issues.”

Wednesday, January 24, 2401, UD

Neu Kelheim, New Hartz Mountains, Jascaria planet

The village of Neu Kelheim might have been lifted in its entirety from Old Earth, every part of it as authentically German as Fed technology could make it, or so the public relations people said. Sadly, it was far from authentic; not one molecule of the place had ever been near Old Earth. But it was perfect, even if had ended up a theme park version of the real thing: too perfect. Not that he cared much. Fake or not, it was a pretty place: Its main street ran between bars, shops, cafes, and restaurants interspersed with guesthouses and hotels, the buildings a mix of styles under pitched roofs loaded with snow, all marked with the angular black slashes, extravagant swirls, and decorative diamond shapes of Fraktur script.

Best of all was the air: Bitterly cold under a violet sky fast darkening into night, it was generously laced with the smells of fresh bread, roasting coffee, wood smoke, beer, and a hundred other more subtle aromas from restaurant kitchens.

His senses overloaded, Michael picked his way carefully along a sidewalk covered with recent snow toward the station. With not long to go before Opera kicked off, Jaruzelska had decided a short break would do the troops good. By some miracle-Michael suspected the intervention of a higher power, namely, Damishqui’s executive officer-Anna had wangled a couple of days off at the same time. Michael needed a rest badly. What with planning meetings, simulator sessions, and working long hours to get the new dreadnought squadron commanders up to speed, not to mention trying to persuade Fleet to cough up the marines he needed, sleep had become an optional extra. He was bone-tired, his state of mind not helped by the awful knowledge that he would soon be throwing Reckless and the rest of the dreadnoughts right down the throats of the Hammers. The prospect gnawed at him. Even when he was busy, images of rail-gun-firing Hammer ships would reach down out of his subconscious to twist his stomach into a knot. When he did manage to get to his bunk, sleep came only with the help of the behavioral therapies loaded in his neuronics by Indra’s postcombat trauma teams backed up by drugbots. Worst of all, the same awful nightmare had returned to torment him night after night.

“Goddamnit,” he swore despairingly. It would be one hell of a weekend if he could not stay awake during the day only to thrash around escaping imaginary ships all night. Anna would not be impressed.

On time to the second, the train flowed out of the forests that surrounded Neu Kelheim and glided into the station, coming to stop with a soft hiss. Moments later, Anna fell into his arms. Michael buried himself in her neck, overwhelmed by her warmth, her smell, the feel of her skin silk-soft against his mouth, the touch of her hair across his face.

Eventually, Anna pushed him away. She looked him full in the face. “Hello, Michael,” she said softly.

Michael and Anna walked out of the restaurant onto Neu Kelheim’s main street. It was quiet, streetlights throwing soft puddles of light onto sidewalks blanketed with welltrampled snow under a moonless black sky thick with stars. Michael breathed in deeply and then wished he had not, his lungs seared by the brutal cold. He said a short prayer of thanks to the geniuses who had made his cold-suit while it sealed itself around him, only a small patch of his face left exposed to the bitter night air.

“Come on, slowcoach,” Anna said cheerfully.

Michael suppressed a groan when they set off hand in hand. His suggestion-that it was time for bed-had been shot down out of hand. So, with a full stomach topped off with a bottle of decent Riesling, Michael followed Anna through the snow on a freezing cold night too dark to see anything not illuminated by streetlights.

Anna seemed to know where she was heading, so Michael followed dutifully across snow crunching underfoot, made brittle by the day’s sun, resigned to his fate. They made their way up the main street, across the town square with its impressively large bell tower, and into Neu Kelheim’s cliff gardens, hectares of geneered plants from hundreds of planets, all shapeless under heavy blankets of snow.

Just when Michael started to protest, Anna turned. “Here we are,” she said, “Neu Kelheim’s Pavilion of the Winds. Very famous, something you’d know if you’d done your homework.” She pointed to a small pavilion, a simple structure of hand-carved timber set hard up against the cliff edge, the path to its entrance marked by a string of firefly lights.

“Bit bloody cold for this sort of thing, don’t you think?” Michael grumbled past his cold-suit, trying not to think of a warm room, never mind an even warmer bed.

“Not at all,” Anna said, her tone of voice making it clear that Michael did not have much say in the matter. “Come on.”