The Battle of the Hammer Worlds hw-2 Read online

  With their help, Michael stood at the gate, hands locked into the wire to stay upright. “You,” he shouted at one of the guards, “get over here. Get over here now or by God, you’ll regret it.” To Michael’s surprise, the man, shipsuited and hooded like all the rest, did not need much persuading; he slouched over to see what Michael wanted.

  “Yeah? Waddya want?”

  “Right, you fucking piece of Hammer filth,” he shouted furiously, “listen to me. You go now and get whoever’s in charge of this circus. Tell him Helfort wants to see him. Now!”

  The man stepped back in astonishment. Without another word, he spun on his heel and was gone.

  Kaufmann was impressed. “Bugger me, sir. Don’t fool around, do you?”

  “Yeah, well. What has to be done and all that,” he whispered as he slid down the wire and onto the deck.

  When Michael shuffled painfully out of the interrogation room, he felt a brief moment of elation.

  He did not know who Kingpig was, but the man was not all bad even if he had allowed him to be beaten to a bloody pulp. It turned out that the doctor had not bothered to inform Kingpig that some of his unwilling guests were dying and that more would die without proper medical attention. Kingpig had been visibly angry when Michael told him. Michael was glad he was not the doctor. It looked like the man’s casual attitude toward his duties would cost him dearly. Even better, it seemed that Kingpig had bought the story that the Feds could soon be on to them. Michael did not know who they were, but there must be other officers in other cages, and they would have run the same analysis as Michael, and so they must know it was the Hammers they were up against.

  The only flaw in Michael’s hastily constructed position was the fictitious intelligence report. Kingpig had told him that all the other officers he had interrogated had flatly denied that any such thing existed. Kingpig must have attributed that to their unwillingness to reveal classified information; the possibility that they actually might be telling the truth did not seem to have occurred to him. So they were safe, for the moment at least.

  When Michael was pushed back into the cage, he was pleased to see the Hammers already stretchering away the worst of the casualties. It seemed that Kingpig really was the man in charge or at least a man who could make things happen. Michael was exhausted. He had to sleep. He waved Kaufmann over.

  “Sir?”

  “Tell whoever is next senior after me that they’re in charge. I can’t do this mu. .”

  With that, Michael slumped to the deck before rolling slowly onto his side. Two seconds later, he was asleep.

  Sunday, September 5, 2399, UD

  HWS Quebec-One, pinchspace

  Michael felt much better despite the fact that he was one huge ache shot through with sharp stabbing shards of pain from a brutally mistreated body. A good night’s sleep made a huge difference, even if he had to sleep on the bare metal deck like all the rest of the spacers in his cage.

  Things could have been a lot worse, he thought philosophically. The ship’s doctor, now seemingly convinced that Michael was not a man to be trifled with, had taken great care to fix him up. To Michael’s surprise, the lack of AI-controlled medibots made Hammer medicine no less effective, slower than he was used to but good enough. Now, wounds stitched and what turned out to be a fractured cheekbone operated on, Michael was happy to sit back and let the handful of remarkably effective painkillers he had been given work their magic. On top of that, the rest of his cage had been checked out; they had been fed and watered properly and given access to a crude but effective pair of heads installed in the cage behind a screen.

  Arguably better than all of that, they had established a makeshift communication system with the rest of the Ishaqs captured by the Hammers. Under the cover of some suitable noisy diversion-singing badly at the top of their voices was popular-tap-code messages could make their way up the pipework that ran vertically through all the cages. Primitive it might be, slow it certainly was, but the system worked, and that was all that mattered.

  Amid an ocean of bad news, there was some good. Fellsworth and Chief Ichiro both had survived; they were up two decks from Michael’s cage in what the Ishaqs now called Cage Bravo, along with the rest of the women prisoners, 142 in all. They had gotten out of the warfare training department ahead of Michael, and their lifepod must have left the ship only seconds before his. Aaron Stone had made it, too, though he was badly injured and now in the ship’s sick bay; nobody seemed to know if he would make it. Corporal Yazdi and Marine Murphy were okay, of course, the pair having survived the ordeal without so much as a scratch. Yazdi was in Cage Bravo. Murphy was up in Alpha. Leading Spacer Petrovic, Matti Bienefelt’s classmate from basic training, was injured and still in the sick bay but would pull through. Sadly, so were a few people Michael would have traded for one of his friends in a heartbeat, Constanza supporters all of them.

  Fellsworth appeared to be the ranking officer, so onto her shoulders fell the dubious honor of being senior officer. He wondered how that would sit with the Hammers. They had rigid views on the role of women in society. Cooking, cleaning, sex, babies, and deferring to men on all matters pretty well summed Hammer attitudes to women. Up against a set of prejudices a tacnuke could not shift, Fellsworth was not going to find being senior officer easy. Michael worked his way through the survivors one more time. “Bugger,” he muttered. If the Hammers bypassed Fellsworth, the next in line was a Lieutenant Commander Hashemian and then his old friend, Xing. Hashemian was very bad news; from the moment they had met, the man had made no attempt to conceal a bitter resentment of Michael. He and Xing were soul mates of the worst sort. If the Hammers refused to work with Fellsworth and one of those useless timeservers ended up as the man in charge, God help them all, Michael thought.

  There was bad news, of course, and much too much of it. Only 286 Ishaqs had gotten clear before the ship blew. Petty Officer Bettany had not made it. Word was that rail-gun slugs had caught him. Michael felt awful. His probably had been one of the bodies Michael had climbed over on his way to the lifepods.

  Constanza, Morrissen, and the command and sensors teams had all died when a rail-gun salvo had hit Ishaq’s aft quarter, the slugs penetrating the armor up into the combat information and sensor management centers, both of which were packed for the ship’s drop into normalspace. He did not give a damn about Constanza, but Morrissen and all the rest deserved better. Ishaq’s marines and air group were all pretty well gone, too, lost when the ship’s mine magazine on 8 Deck went up, triggering a sympathetic detonation in the aft missile magazine.

  Michael had sat in a corner as the full import of the news sank in. Head in his arms, he had wept silently as the enormity of what had happened hit home. Most of the people Michael had been close to on board were gone, their deaths fueling the white-hot flame of hate that burned deep inside him. When he ran through the list of survivors, he swore he would do whatever it took to destroy the Hammer.

  The moment of weakness did not last long. Michael buried the grief deep inside and got on with surviving. Enduring was all that mattered. He had to survive long enough to make the Hammers pay in full for the pain and suffering they seemed determined to inflict on the rest of humanspace.

  His second in command, Chief Ferreira, dropped to the deck beside him.

  “How are things, sir?”

  “Ripping along, Chief, ripping along. How are the troops today?”

  “Oh, you know, sir. They’re all pretty shell-shocked by it all but otherwise okay. They’re starting to complain about things, so that’s a good sign.”

  Michael smiled. Fleet folklore said the time to worry about spacers’ morale was when they stopped complaining about things in general and the food in particular. His dad had always sworn by the old adage; he reckoned he should, too.

  “Good. I’m going to ask Kingpig for exercise time. I’m going to suggest another cage. We can play futbol or something.”

  “That’d be good. Another few days and this
lot”-Ferreira waved an arm at the cage’s occupants-“will be getting antsy. Be good to head that off.”

  “I agree. I’ll have a go today. Apart from that, anything?”

  “Nothing serious. Nelson and Khurtsidze are due to go back to sick bay to have dressings changed at 10:00. That’s about it.” Ferreira paused for a second. “Sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “Well. .”

  “Come on, Chief. Spit it out!”

  “What do you think we’re in for?”

  Michael shook his head. “Honestly, I don’t know. I think I’ve managed to convince Kingpig that Fleet knows the Hammers are responsible, so I don’t think they’ll space us. Even the dumbest Hammer knows they’ll be hunted down if they do. That means a prison camp somewhere. But beyond that?” He shook his head. “I have no idea. It’s what, three hundred plus light-years from Xiang Reef back to the Hammer Worlds? If that’s where we are going, we’ll be dropping sometime during the afternoon of the twelfth. Say a week from today.” Michael shrugged his shoulders. “If we drop earlier or later than that, then your guess will be as good as mine.”

  “Shit.” Ferreira leaned back against the wire and thought about it for a while. “A week. Long time. Any chance of taking the ship?”

  “I wish.” Michael shook his head sadly. He looked around. “No, don’t think so. Christ, a baby with a teaspoon could get us out of these cages. The problem is that the Hammers know that. Notice how they keep us covered all the time from the main access lock with stun guns anytime we go in or out of the cage? We could rush them, but I don’t think we would get far. Anyway, as of last night, word from on high”-Michael pointed up to the women’s cage two decks above-“is to sit tight and protect the escape kits. Sorry, meant to tell you, but you’d crashed out.”

  “No prob, sir. Much as I would like to think we could take this sucker and swan on home, I don’t think we could. I would put good money down that Kingpig is too smart.”

  “So would I, Chief. So would I.”

  Sunday, September 12, 2399, UD

  HWS Quebec-One, pinchspace

  The week dragged on interminably, and the pressure of sitting around doing nothing was beginning to tell. The only thing that broke the monotony was an endless round of interrogations, in Michael’s case more than all the others in his cage put together. The Hammer interrogators were very good, and Michael thought they were sounding less and less convinced by his fictitious account of intelligence linking them to the mership attacks. Not that it mattered much anymore, though. The lie had served its purpose. The Hammers had not killed the survivors from the Ishaq, and Michael did not think they would.

  The inactivity was hard to take. Despite Michael’s best efforts, Kingpig had rejected his idea of a cage for futbol out of hand. Worse, Michael’s authority was beginning to wear thin as he chivvied his troops to stay active and positive.

  Tempers were beginning to fray. Fights, sometimes bad ones, were all too common. The Hammers did not seem to care. Safe behind their stun guns, they watched from a distance as Michael, Ferreira, and anyone else who could be bothered to help broke up the fights.

  Michael sighed. In another few hours, they should know their fate.

  Michael sat bolt upright as the characteristic hum of the ship’s main broadcast being switched on cut through the desultory buzz of spacers talking among themselves. It had never been switched on before. Michael was sure he knew what it meant. Here we go, he thought. This has to be the drop.

  “All stations. Stand by to drop in five minutes. Five minutes. Out.”

  For a moment, the cage was silent. Then it erupted in a welter of excited talk, the boredom and ennui that had blanketed the spacers for days gone in a flash. Michael shouted for silence.

  “Okay, guys. Get ready for the drop. Let’s hope these Hammer filth are taking us somewhere nice.”

  It was a pretty sad joke, Michael thought as laughter, almost hysterical in its intensity, engulfed the cage.

  The excitement of the drop out of pinchspace had evaporated long before.

  Michael stood by the wire, hands jammed into the pockets of his tattered shipsuit. Behind him, the occupants of his cage lay sprawled across the deck, awake but silent. Michael cursed the Hammers. What in God’s name were they doing? Probably fighting over who would get their hands on the Ishaqs, he thought. Utterly depressed, he slumped to the deck; with nothing better to do, he was asleep in a matter of seconds.

  A violent crash jerked him awake and onto his feet. What now?

  It was Porky, smashing his club on the wire to get their attention; hooded or not, Michael would recognize the man anywhere.

  Porky came to the wire where Michael stood. Behind him, two more spacers stood, well back, stun guns leveled at the cage and its occupants.

  “Get your men on their feet, Helfort.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “Helfort”-Porky sounded utterly uninterested-“if there’s anything I think you should know, I’ll tell you. Now, get your men on their feet.”

  Michael shrugged his shoulders. “Okay.” He turned to his men. “On your feet, everyone. Come on,” he said to the laggards, “on your feet.”

  Porky waited until all the Ishaqs were standing. He stepped away from the crude gate cut into the wire. “Right,” he ordered with quiet authority. “When I call out your name, leave the cage, turn forward, and go through the air lock door. Leading Spacer Jarvinen, let’s be having you.”

  One by one, Porky called out the occupants of Michael’s cage. The numbers thinned quickly, but Michael was not too concerned. Rank had its privileges, after all, and being last to leave was one of them. When the only remaining spacer left the cage, Michael stepped forward and made to follow the rest of his men.

  “Where the fuck do you think you’re going, Helfort?” Porky hissed venomously.

  “Leaving, like the rest,” Michael said, puzzled. “Why?”

  “No, you’re not. Get back from the gate, you piece of Fed scum.”

  Michael stepped backward, his confusion total.

  After locking the gate and without another word, Porky and his backup left the compartment. Michael stood unmoving for a long time. He was alone and very afraid.

  The men who appeared at the cage door were something new.

  They did not wear hoods, for a start, and a quick search through his Hammer information base told him they were dressed in the black uniforms of the Hammer’s Doctrinal Security Service. Two chevrons woven in silver thread into the black fabric marked one out as a corporal. The other was a trooper. Shit, Michael thought. DocSec; that was all he needed. He had heard a lot about DocSec, none of it good. If half of what he had heard was true, DocSec was a truly nasty organization, the Hammer’s internal security force and secret police rolled into one.

  Michael made his way to the wire.

  “Yes?” He put as much authority into his voice as he could muster. “What do you want?”

  “You, sir,” the corporal replied. “I want you. Junior Lieutenant Helfort, right?”

  Michael nodded.

  “Good. Come with us, sir,” the corporal ordered, his voice polite but firm. “Stand away from the gate, please.”

  The DocSec trooper unlocked the gate and stepped back. “Come through, sir.”

  Warily, Michael stepped through. Pleasant though the two men were being, they were still DocSec. The two black-uniformed men plasticuffed his hands behind him before taking him by the arms and hustling him out of the cargo bay, their footsteps echoing through the huge empty space.

  The instant the air lock from the cargo bay shut behind them, the two DocSec troopers stopped being polite. The trooper took Michael by the hair on the back of his head. The corporal stepped in front of him; with vicious deliberation, he hit Michael heavily three times across the face. With his hands secured behind him, Michael could do nothing to protect himself except twist his head to one side in a frantic bid to escape the attack. It was futile. He grunted in
pain as the first blow smashed into his face, a ring on the corporal’s right hand opening up a deep cut across his forehead to drop a curtain of blood down his face and onto his wrecked shipsuit. The second was worse, his newly repaired cheekbone absorbing the full impact of the backhander. Michael screamed in agony. He did not even feel the third as it turned his mouth into a bloody wreck.

  The corporal put his mouth to Michael’s ear. “Now, Helfort, let me explain something,” he hissed. “We don’t give a fuck whether you live or die. So do as you are told and don’t talk until you’re ordered to. Got it?”

  Michael could barely speak, the pain was so intense. “Yes,” he mumbled, fresh blood frothing up into small bubbles across his battered mouth. “Understood.”

  “Good. Right, Helfort. I’ve got good news. You’re going dirtside. There are some people who really, really want to talk to you.”

  Michael did not much care anymore. They could put him in lead boots and drop him into thirty meters of liquid pig shit for all he cared right now. Dripping blood, he was half dragged, half pushed along yet more corridors, down two levels in a drop tube, and along another set of corridors until finally they got to a lander for transfer dirtside. He had screamed with pain most of the way as his tortured body was driven into every hard projection they passed. The troopers’ only response had been to backhand him again and tell him to shut the fuck up before smashing him into the next door frame they came to.

  Dragged through what looked like a lander’s air lock, Michael was pulled down a short corridor and into a small compartment. He was thrown bodily onto a metal rack, his plasticuffs quickly and efficiently replaced by a single plasfiber wrist strap secured to the lander’s hull. Then, with a parting slap to the head, the DocSec troopers left him alone.