was less than zero. And he was a nonperson, a dead nonperson. The false identities he had been given would get him dirtside on Scobie’s and then onto Commitment, but they weren’t good enough to last him the rest of his life.
If he discounted blowing his brains out, his options had dwindled to one: flee to the outer edge of humanspace. There he could find some ratfucked system a thousand light-years from the Hammer of Kraa where nobody gave a damn who you were or what you’d done.
Just the sort of place where a dead nonperson could forget the past and carve out a new life.
“… and so, to sum up,” said Admiral Kerouac, commander in chief of the Hammer Defense Forces, in a mellow baritone voice that Polk always found faintly patronizing, “in response to a full-scale mutiny of the Federated Worlds space fleet, we are withdrawing every unit we can spare from nonessential operational tasks. Those units are now deployed in Commitment nearspace. And finally, all units are at Operational State 4 and will remain at that level until we have confirmed that the renegade Fed units that left Terranova and Comdur are not planning to attack one of our home planets. Are there …” Kerouac paused as an aide handed him a sheet of paper. “I’ve just received the latest estimate of the number of ships involved in the mutiny,” he went on, “and it seems the Federated Worlds has been unable to account for a total of sixty-six ships.”
Polk stared at Kerouac, open-mouthed with disbelief. “Did you say sixty-six ships?”
“I did, sir. Sixty-six ships: one planetary assault vessel, fifty-three warships, and twelve heavy armed auxiliaries. Now, I know that sounds like a lot, but you look at our order of battle, you will see that we have three times that number of warships in Commitment nearspace right now. That will increase by twenty-five when Task Force 41 returns from the Federated Worlds. The Fortitude and Faith systems are equally well defended, and of course we should not forget our orbital battle stations, battlesats, weapons platforms, and minefields. There can be no doubt that any attack by those renegade Fed units would be suicidal.”
“Thank you,” Polk said. “Which brings us to the one question I have been asking over and over: What the hell are the Feds up to? Councillor Kando, tell me what your intelligence analysts think.”
“We think the renegades will attack Commitment.”
“They’ll suffer enormous losses if they try, so why would they do that? They’re not stupid.”
“Hendrik Island, that’s why.”
Polk shook his head. “We’re not even sure the Feds know about Hendrik Island.”
“Too many people know about it, Chief Councillor. We must assume they do, just as we have to assume they will do whatever it takes to eliminate our antimatter plant on Hendrik Island. They have to. It’s the single greatest … no, it’s the only threat to their survival.”
Polk stared at Kando for moment before responding. “That does make sense,” he said. “What else is worth risking so many ships?’ He turned to Jones. “Your thoughts?”
“It does make sense, sir, even though taking out Hendrik Island cannot be done,” Polk’s councillor for war responded. “The Feds will not be able to penetrate our orbital defenses. It’s simple mathematics, and we’ve run the simulations-just as the Feds will have-and they all point to the same result: total annihilation. Misguided patriots these renegades might be, but even they won’t throw ships away for no reason.
“And even if they did, they’d be wasting their time. Hendrik Island was picked because it is an enormous mass of basalt. The plant is buried so deep inside that even an antimatter weapon dropped right on top would have no effect on its operational capability. An attack would be utterly pointless. We know it, and those renegade Feds will too, but we cannot assume they won’t try. Kraa knows, they are an arrogant bunch.”
Polk nodded. “So there’s no downside in making the assumption that the Feds will try to destroy our antimatter plant?”
“None.”
“Won’t the Feds just attack elsewhere?”
“There’s no point,’ Jones said. “The Feds do not have sufficient forces to mount a full-scale ground assault. Anyway, the advice I have been given-” Jones looked at Admiral Kerouac, who nodded his agreement. “-is that sufficient forces would remain to cover any eventuality. And it goes without saying that our forces can be moved as the tactical situation in Commitment nearspace demands.”
“Good. Admiral Kerouac, you know what has to be done.”
“I do, sir. I will report back to the next Defense Council meeting.”
Michael let himself into the small house tucked away out of sight of the road down a tree-lined lane. He dumped his backpack and went through to the kitchen, where Shinoda waited. “Am I clean?” he asked, punching buttons on the foodbot to get himself a mug of coffee.
“Spassky and Akuna have just checked in. No problems, they say. I don’t know what the locals do at night, but they don’t like to get out and party.”
“Where are Mitchell and Prodi?”
“Covering the perimeter. Spassky and Akuna take over from them at midnight.”
“Okay.” Michael sat down at the table, flicking the ever-present near-field jammer with a finger. “Right, I picked up a datastick from the dead-letter box,” he went on. “Admiral Moussawi is going ahead with Operation Juggernaut.”
“Yes!” Shinoda hissed. “Good for him. But what about us? What’s the plan?”
“There is no plan, not anymore. Our mission has been scrubbed …”
“Shit,” Shinoda muttered.
“… and I have orders for you guys to get yourselves to Al-Sufri. Check with the defense attache there; she’ll organize you a ride back home.”
“And why would we do that?” Shinoda asked. She shook her head, her face bitter with disappointment. “Fuck the orders,” she said. “I refuse to sit around waiting for Jeremiah Polk to tell me I’m now a Hammer citizen. What about you?”
“I’ll go to ground. If I can stay out of the locals’ hands, I might find a way to get back to Commitment. Money’s not a problem. Maybe I can bribe someone to smuggle me in.” Michael did not need to look at Shinoda to know what she thought of that proposition. An awkward silence, the silence of defeat, settled over the pair.
“The problem with looking for someone to smuggle you in is time,” Shinoda said eventually. “Nobody knows when the Hammers will reopen their shipping routes. It could be months, and you can’t survive that long. DocSec will nail you.”
“I know, I know,” Michael said.
“You got any better ideas?”
“I might,” Michael said, a distant look on his face. “To give Juggernaut the best chance of succeeding, the NRA must get those plans and brevity codes before the operation kicks off. So we can’t give up on the mission. We have to find a ship to get us to Commitment.”
Shinoda frowned, skeptical. “We can probably do that,” she said. “There must be plenty sitting around doing nothing right now. But how the hell can we get dirtside? We’d be plasma five seconds after we dropped out of pinchspace.”
“I know,” Michael conceded. “That is the fatal flaw in my strategy.”
“One hell of a flaw,” Shinoda muttered. “So what do we do?”
Michael thought about the problem for a few moments. “Let’s get everyone together,” he said. “Tell them the situation, then give them the options. If they want to head for Al-Sufri, that’s fine. If they want to stay, they can.”
“And do what, sir?”
“Work out how to do the impossible,” he said.
