The battle of Devastation reef

“I do, sir.”

“Obey it!”

“No, sir,” Michael said. “I can’t do that. If I obey, Opera is finished. The dreadnoughts will push on. The mission’s prime directive takes precedence over your orders. I’m sorry, but that’s a fact … sir.”

While Michael spoke, Perkins’s face twisted with ugly rage. “Listen here, Helfort,” he barked, his voice thick with fury. “Goddamn it! A direct order is a direct order. Take station on Assault Group. Now!”

“No, sir,” Michael said with another shake of the head. “Sorry, I will not comply with your order, and neither will my captains. Reckless, out.”

Michael cut the link and Perkins’s avatar, mouth open, face crimson, and eyes closed to narrow slits in impotent rage, faded away. For a moment, Michael wondered just what he had done. Ignoring a direct order from an admiral in battle was bad enough. Ignoring an order with the future of the Federated Worlds at stake was a hundred times worse. Heart racing nearly uncontrollably, he forced himself back to reality.

“Command, Warfare. To all Dreadnought Group ships, immediate execute emergency speed 300, acknowledge.” “Warfare, stand by … all ships acknowledged, emergency speed 300.”

Michael commed Rao and Machar. “You guys copy that?”

“We did, sir,” Rao said.

“You with me?”

“Yes, sir, we are. The admiral has given us the same order, and we have both declined to obey it.”

Michael swallowed hard. Trashing his own career was one thing; consigning officers as promising as Rao and Machar to the scrap heap was quite another. “You know what you’re risking?”

“Not as much as you are,” Machar said, “so don’t sweat it, sir. We’re in.”

“Roger. Thanks. Reckless, out.”

The die was cast; there was no going back. Michael could do nothing more. He breathed in and out slowly to try to get an unruly body back under control while Reckless’s main engines came up to emergency power, tons of driver mass accelerated at 40,000 g pouring from her main engines in two massive blue-white plumes of plasma. Around her, the dreadnoughts followed suit, thirty ships now driving in hard toward SuppFac27.

To Michael’s surprise, all of a sudden the stress, the fear, and the tension that had hung over him from the start of the operation started to slip away. With absolute clarity, Michael knew this to be the defining moment of his Fleet career. A strange calm filled his body, sharpening his senses, the terrible risks he faced visible in all their frightening detail. With a huge effort, he cleared his mind of everything but the mission, his ships, and the target. What mattered was making sure that the bet paid off.

Everything else was irrelevant.

Michael watched the command plot as the final acts of Operation Opera began to unfold. He was not going to worry about Perkins and his ships. What concerned him was the two Hammer task groups falling back to SuppFac27 after wasting their time dealing with the decoy attacks. If left unchallenged, they were strong enough to deflect his final assault on SuppFac27. Chucking yet another of the Fighting Instructions’ precious rules out the window, he decided to split his forces,

“Retrieve, Recognizance, this is Reckless.”

The faces of Rao and Machar popped into his neuronics; the pressure of events was clear to see. “Sir?” they said in unison.

“Kelli. I’m detaching Second and Third squadrons under your command. Adjust vector to intercept the Hammer task groups inbound for SuppFac27. I know it’s a big task, but I need you to keep them off my back while the First pushes on to deal with the antimatter plant. You must hold them up long enough for me to get through, even if it costs you every last one of your ships. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Rao said.

“Good. Destroy the Hammers if you can, then take to the landers and get the hell out of here. You don’t have enough time to turn your ships before they enter the southern minefield, so don’t try. Okay?”

Rao said nothing for a moment. Then she nodded. “Yes, sir. I see what you want. Leave it with me; we’ll do our best.”

“I know you will,” Michael said. “Nathan. Clear?”

“Crystal, sir. Good luck.”

“We’ll need it. Before you detach, I’ll take two more missile salvos from your ships … stand by … right, you have targeting data.”

“Roger that, sir. Launching missiles, second salvo to follow.”

“See you on the other side. Remember Comdur. Reckless, out.”

Reckless shuddered when hydraulic rammers off-loaded another missile salvo; Michael ignored the noise and scanned the command and threat plots. With the rest of the dreadnoughts under Rao’s command dealing with the last of the Hammer ships, the tactical situation came down to the one defensive problem-the battle stations and defense platforms arrayed around SuppFac27-standing between him and his only objective, the destruction of the antimatter plant.

Michael briefed Warfare. His fingers tapped impatiently; he waited for the AI to translate his wishes into specific plans. One minute later, Warfare produced what he wanted: a detailed plan to take and destroy SuppFac27’s defenses, a plan that had a reasonable chance of success. And he had to succeed; if he did not, he knew that Perkins would have every right to have him shot, and he did not intend to give him the satisfaction. He would make the damn plan work.

“Command, approved,” Michael said, sitting back. He had played his part; execution of the plan now rested in the hands of Warfare.

Reckless shook when massive hydraulic dispensers rammed a second full missile salvo into space, the rest of the dreadnoughts of the First following suit. The missiles opened out slowly. Two minutes later, another salvo followed, and two minutes later another, and another and another until none were left. The die was cast; Reckless’s missile magazines and those of the rest of the First were empty. Well, not quite. Michael kept twenty missiles back, half with fusion, half with conventional chemex warheads-they had a job, but only if and when his ships punched their way through SuppFac27’s defenses.

“Now,” Michael whispered an instant before Warfare gave the order that committed the missiles to the attack, tens of thousands of Merlin antistarship missiles rammed toward the Hammers defending SuppFac27 on pillars of fire.

“Command, Warfare. Missiles committed. Time to target seventy seconds.”

“Roger. Update.”

“Retrieve reports dreadnoughts have engaged. Hammer ships interdicted by preemptive rail-gun and missile attack.”

“Command, roger. Nice work, guys, nice work.” Michael focused his attention back on the First’s salvo. He watched it smash home, the combination of missiles and rail-gun slugs overwhelming SuppFac27’s defenses, space flaring white as proximity-fused fusion warheads detonated. The Hammer battle stations and platforms disappeared from view behind clouds of flaming armor.

While he waited for the battle damage assessments, Michael checked the dreadnoughts of the Second and Third squadrons, which were closing on the Hammer ships. Rao had to stop the Hammers; if she did not, Michael knew he would be attacking SuppFac27’s defenses while the Hammers fired missiles up the sterns of his ships, precisely where dreadnoughts were most vulnerable.

It seemed a long wait, though it probably was not. Taking aggression to new heights, Rao and Machar threw their ships directly at the Hammers; soaking up everything thrown at them, they closed until the Hammers had nowhere left to run. The massive ships, shrouded in clouds of ionized armor blown off by the Hammers’ frantic attempts to keep them out, were unstoppable. Smashing into the enemy, the dreadnoughts blew themselves apart, taking the Hammer cruisers with them, the rest of the Hammer ships falling to waves of missiles and rail-gun slugs, sheer brute force battering them into bloody wrecks tumbling away into space.

Michael frowned. Rao and Machar had done well. It was a great victory, but it had come at a terrible cost: Twenty dreadnoughts was an awful price to pay but one worth paying to give Michael’s ships the clear run in he needed so badly.

“Command, Warfare. Message from Retrieve: Mission accomplished. Hammer task