The battle of Devastation reef

way things were going. Apart from the Feds’ forlorn hope, the initial phases of the operation were running according to plan. Now the marines had to secure the streets and key buildings of New Hope. When that was done, it would be up to DocSec to go house to house rounding up the heretics and bundling them onto the landers. Knowing what lay in store for the Salvationists once DocSec’s black-jumpsuited troopers laid their hands on them made Tu’ivakano uncomfortable. DocSec were the scum of the earth, and their shock brigades were the worst of a sadistic bunch.

He would hate to be a Kraa-worshipping Salvationist.

Tu’ivakano’s face flushed livid with anger. “What do you mean the operation is stalled? Stalled? How can that be? These Kraa-damned Salvationists are nothing, nothing. They’re only a bunch of fucking civilians, for Kraa’s sake. They don’t even have an army,” he shouted, struggling to control himself, white flecks of spittle collecting in the corner of his mouth. “How can the attack be stalled?”

The assault commander’s face betrayed him; he was angry, frustrated, and embarrassed, all at the same time. “Well, sir,” he said, “yes, they are only civilians, but they are civilians with nothing to lose, they are well armed, they understand urban combat, they know how to fight, and their damn houses are the closest things to bunkers I’ve ever seen. No, Kraa damn it! They are bunkers. Every one is a steel-reinforced ceramcrete fortress, mostly underground, with small windows protected by plasteel shutters, all interconnected by a tunnel network with access to the streets. I’ve never seen anything like it, and needless to say, we are having to take them the hard way, meter by meter, house by house.”

“Wait, General,” Tu’ivakano said, puzzled. “That makes no sense. Bunkers for houses? Who’d want to live in a ceramcrete bunker?”

“It’s simple, sir, not that anyone considered it important enough to include in the intelligence briefings. The few prisoners we have tell us that they have storms here like nothing you’ve ever seen, wind gusting 350 kilometers an hour. The buildings have to be tough to survive. Problem is we didn’t know that.”

“Kraa damn it! Why? Why didn’t we know? What’s the point of an intelligence briefing that misses something this important?”

“I wondered the same thing, sir.”

“Have you considered sending in the ground attack landers?”

“We tried that, sir. Doesn’t help. Landers just make our job harder. Everything above the ground gets reduced to rubble, and the minute the marines go in, the heretics pop up out of their basements like nothing’s happened and start shooting again.”

“Kraa!” Tu’ivakano said as the seriousness of the problem sank in. Thin tendrils of fear twisted their way through his body as he contemplated what would happen to him if he failed to carry off what was supposed to be a simple, fast in-and-out operation. “Armor?”

“Armor’s no better than landers. Ceramcrete blockhouses and armor don’t go well together. We end up having to blast our way through, which means more collapsed houses, more piles of ceramcrete rubble, and even more ambush sites. We’ll push on, sir. It’s all we can do.”

Tu’ivakano nodded. “Understood. But remember, we have less than thirty-six hours to wrap this up. Finished or not, that’s when we’re leaving. I don’t think the Fed attack this morning was an accident. Some of my staff think our operational security has been blown, in which case more Feds will be on their way.”

“We’re doing our best, sir.”

“I hope so. For both our sakes, I hope so. Kraa, I wish we were able to nuke the damn place. That would solve the heretic problem once and for all.”

The assault commander said nothing. Tempting though the idea was, Tu’ivakano knew that even the Hammers would not stoop that low.

Sunday, February 18, 2400, UD

Salvation deepspace

Coasting in at 150,000 kph, Reckless hung in deepspace, 4 billion kilometers out from Salvation planet. In station around her were the ships of the dreadnought force, with the planetary assault vessels Madison and Nelson and their escorts following a million kilometers behind. The virtual conference room was silent, the faces of Vice Admiral Jaruzelska’s captains grim as they watched the holovid recordings of Commodore Kumoro’s task group attempting to head off the Hammer attack on Salvation.

When the last Fed ship died, nobody said a word, every last spacer overawed by the insane bravery of the attack.

Except one.

Michael sat unmoving, his mind paralyzed by a gut-gnawing fear, by the ice-cold certainty that Anna must be dead, her chances of getting clear of the dying cruiser remote at best. The hurt of her loss was physical, slivers of pain stabbing into his chest, his stomach cramped into a ball of undiluted white-hot agony, his mind a maelstrom, tormented by an unruly flood of memories of Anna, always smiling, her bottomless green eyes sparkling and dancing.

The agony of her loss ignited a slow-burning rage that flared in an instant into an all-consuming fury. Why would Fleet deliberately send good ships and their crews to certain death? Why? What sort of cold, callous bastards were they?

With an enormous effort, he wrestled himself back under control.

He always knew that Kumoro’s mission was doomed, but to see it fail on a holovid display, knowing that Anna and Damishqui were condemned, too, was pure torture. The agony was made all the worse by the fact that there was not a thing he could do-or could have done-to change the outcome.

In a matter of minutes, eleven precious ships-Damishqui; the light escorts Kukri and Yataghan; the heavy patrol ships Agache, al-Badisi, Huari, Electric, Dunxi; and Beaumaris; and the heavy scouts Unukalhai and Tarantula-along with far too many of their irreplaceable crew-were blown to white-hot gas. Michael did not fault the sacrifice-it was in the Fleet’s finest traditions-but he did fault the commanders who had sent Commodore Kumoro and his ships to certain death, a sacrifice whose only purpose was political, an empty gesture that would tell the rest of the neutral planets in Fed space that even though they might die, they would not die alone.

The brutal fact was that Kumoro’s sacrifice was utterly pointless: Only two Hammer ships suffered mission- abort damage, and only twenty-seven assault and ten ground attack landers had been hacked out of the assault stream by Fed missiles. Not nearly enough to stop the Hammer operation.

Jaruzelska’s voice splintered the shocked hush. “You know what we have to do.”

Michael did not move.

“Skipper,” Ferreira said softly, “I’m sorry … what can I say? Damishqui-”

“You can damn well say nothing, Junior Lieutenant Ferreira,” Michael barked, his voice trembling with pain and anger, harsh and unforgiving. “Nothing, so shut your damn mouth. What you can do is your duty. Is that understood?”

Ferreira flinched. “Aye, aye, sir … all stations, this is command. Faceplates down, stand by to depressurize. Secure artificial gravity.”

“Goddamnit to hell,” Michael muttered, wishing he could take back every last hurtful word. Jayla Ferreira deserved better. He flicked a glance at her. His executive officer was turning into one of those officers every captain dreamed of: smart, tough, resourceful, steady under pressure, not afraid to ask the hard questions, not afraid to admit her mistakes. Damishqui’s loss, the loss of Anna, was not her fault; he should not take his suffering out on her. He waved Ferreira over; he put his helmet to hers.

“Sorry, Jayla. I was out of line,” he said.

“Don’t sweat it, sir. I can’t imagine what you must be going through. Hang in there and we’ll get this done. And there’s always a chance Anna made it off. I counted thirteen lifepods from Damishqui.”