The battle of Devastation reef

Reckless,

Comdur nearspace

Michael stared at the holovid on the bulkhead. Battle Fleet Lima hung in space, motionless. The massed ranks of warships were a powerful reminder that the Federated Worlds might be down-and they were after the defeat at Comdur-but were not out. They were still a force to be reckoned with. The raw power projected by the ships struck Michael to his core, his chest tight with a nervous mixture of pride and apprehension.

Pride that for all the setbacks inflicted on the Federation, it could still send a full battle fleet into the field. Apprehension that the Hammers’ antimatter plant-on which the Hammers’ entire strategic advantage rested-might be a bridge too far. Suppfac27 was the Hammers’ single most important strategic asset; they would defend it to the death. And if it was a bridge too far …

“Captain, sir.”

A soft knock cut short what threatened to be a depressing review of the Fed’s future if Opera failed.

“Come!”

It was Ferreira. “Lander’s ready when you are, sir.” “Right, Jayla. I’ll be there. No ceremonial. You’ve got better things to do.” Ferreira smiled gratefully. “Aye, aye, sir. As you wish.”

“How do I look?” he asked.

Ferreira cast a critical eye over Michael. She nodded approvingly. “Sharp, sir. Very sharp.”

Michael turned to look at himself in the full-length mirror. Ferreira was right. He did look sharp. His uniform was immaculate, the ribbon around his neck holding the Valor in Combat starburst-a slash of rich crimson-rank badges, combat command hash marks, and unit citations, all brilliant gold against the black cloth of his dress blacks, thin gold strips of wound stripes above his left cuff, the single row of medals a blaze of color across his left breast.

“It’ll have to do,” Michael said. “I look like a goddamn tailor’s dummy.”

Ferreira laughed. “Tell you one thing, sir. You have more stuff on your uniform than most senior officers I’ve met.”

Michael knew that. What Ferreira had said might be true, but not for one moment did he like it. It made him stand out from the crowd, it provided a focus for all the resentment and anger churning around inside those less fortunate, and, worst of all, it offered the antidreadnought lobby a convenient target they were never slow to attack. He might as well walk around with a high-intensity strobe on his head; he was that obvious.

“Okay,” Michael said, “tell the gangway I’m on my way. You carry on. I’ll see you when I get back.”

“Sir.”

Deftly, Lieutenant Kat Sedova drifted Cleft Stick-the replacement lander for poor old Creaking Door-into position alongside Seljuk, Vice Admiral’s Jaruzelska’s flag a blaze of white and gold above the personnel air lock. With a gentle bump, the lander berthed.

“Nicely done, Kat,” Michael said. As the saying went, a ship was known by its boats, and the old adage still applied even if it was landers these days.

“Thank you, sir. My pleasure. Give them hell.”

“Don’t know about that, Kat,” Michael said when he turned to leave the flight deck. “Low profile for me tonight. Too much brass around for my liking.”

“I’ll be here when it all gets too much. By the way, sir.”

“What?”

“You look sharp. Very sharp.”

Michael rolled his eyes. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Junior Lieutenant Sedova! Not you, too.” He shook his head despairingly. “Just be here when I need to make a run for it.”

“Will do, sir,” Sedova replied with a grin.

Michael dropped down the ladder and into the lander’s cargo bay just as the lights over the air lock changed from red to green. The loadmaster, Petty Officer Amira Trivedi, slapped the handle, and the hatch snapped open.

“Clear to disembark, sir,” Trivedi said cheerfully, her singsong intonation betraying her Nuristani origins. “You look sharp, sir, if you don’t mind me saying so, very sharp.”

Michael shook his head ruefully and laughed. Was this the start of a running joke? he wondered. Some had been known to follow an officer for their entire career. “Don’t be so bloody cheeky, Petty Officer Trivedi, but thanks, anyway.”

“No problem, sir.”

Steeling himself, Michael stepped into the air lock to be greeted by the time-honored ritual that accompanied the arrival of a captain in command, no matter how junior. The side party snapped to attention, bosun’s calls shrilled, and the officers assembled to greet him and the rest of the battle fleet’s captains saluted. Michael paused to return the salute. Seljuk’s captain, a dour-looking man, his dress blacks sporting a single combat command hash mark where Michael had three, stepped forward.

“Captain,” the man said curtly. He did not look happy, his perfunctory handshake a halfhearted welcome to the Fleet’s latest heavy cruiser, the ship so new that it positively sparkled.

Michael forced an unwilling smile into place. Another dreadnought hater; he recognized the signs. “Thank you, sir. Pleasure to come aboard.”

Seljuk’s captain ignored the remark; he waved one of his junior officers forward. “Cadet Hendriksen will show you to the admiral’s quarters,” he said before turning his back on Michael.

Well, thanks for nothing, Michael said to himself.

“Follow me, sir,” the cadet said. The boy made Michael feel a million years old. He knew he must have looked that young once, but that had been a long time ago.

They set off; not a word was said while they worked their way through and down into the enormous cruiser. “You, too?” Michael said softly.

The cadet stopped at the two marines standing guard at the doorway into the admiral’s quarters. “Here we are, sir. First door on your left.”

“Thank you, Cadet Hendriksen.”

His identity confirmed, Michael stepped through the heavily framed opening in the airtight bulkhead. The door into Seljuk’s flag conference room was open, a wave of conversation washing over him when he walked in. He plunged into the mass of black uniforms toward the only person he recognized, Vice Admiral Jaruzelska herself. She spotted him and waved him over.

“Michael,” she said, “welcome. First captains’ dinner?”

“It is, Admiral. All the other engagements under my command have been a bit more ad hoc. No time for formal dinners before battle.”

“It’s an old tradition,” Jaruzelska said, “but a good one. Sadly, we don’t often get the chance to do it even though it’ll be one hell of a scrum fitting everyone in. The air group commander’s not at all happy with what I’ve done to his hangar. Now”-she glanced around the crowded room-“there are some people I want you to meet.”

Despite Jaruzelska’s obvious support, Michael’s evening got off to a rocky start and never improved. He knew how passionately the antidreadnought lobby held to its views; what he had not understood fully was how vocal it was. Except for a couple, all the officers he spoke with opposed dreadnoughts, some bitterly, and they all felt obligated to tell him why-at great length-an experience shared by Rao and Machar, as he learned when he bumped into them in the throng.

Restrained by youth, rank, and a grain of common sense, Michael refused to argue his case, resigning himself to saying no more than good manners required.

Retiring from a verbal drubbing at the hands of a vindictive Rear Admiral Perkins and two of his cronies-he had not spotted them until it was too late to escape-Michael turned around straight into the well-rounded figure of Seigneur’s captain.

“Oh, sorry, sir. Didn’t see you there.”

“Lieutenant Helfort,” Captain Xiong said, shaking his hand vigorously and smiling broadly. “Good to see you again. It’s been a while.”

“And you, sir,” Michael replied. It had been a while. The last time he had seen Xiong had been after Adamant, Michael’s first-if brief-cruiser command, had captured the