The battle of Devastation reef hw-3 Page 12

  Polk licked suddenly dry lips. One word from Teacher Calverson and within hours a hundred thousand priests and millions of credulous primitives would be calling for his dismissal. That was why Calverson was one of the few people Polk feared. The problem was that Calverson knew it.

  After the steward served coffee and left, Polk opened the proceedings. “The briefing note from my chief of staff says you want to discuss the situation on Salvation,” he said with a warmth he did not feel, “but I’m confused, Teacher. It is years since the heretics on Salvation fell from the grace of Kraa. Why are we concerned about them?”

  Calverson’s angular face creased with concern. “Because, Chief Councillor,” he said in the tones of a father speaking to a dim-witted son, “those poor souls on Salvation are still of the Faith, and it is our duty to bring them back”-Calverson’s finger stabbed out-“otherwise they cannot enjoy the protection of the Faith of Kraa. They will be damned for all eternity. We owe it to them to bring them back, whether they like it or not.”

  What arrant, self-serving nonsense, Polk wanted to say. Wisely, he confined himself to a nod of agreement. “Yes, you are of course quite right, Teacher Calverson. There is no provision in doctrine for apostasy. But, there is the small problem of how we do that. Bring them back, I mean. Salvation is-what? — 170 light-years away? That puts it well inside the Fed sphere of influence. The last time we tried to retrieve the heretics, the … well, let’s just say the operation wasn’t a complete success. In any event, I’m not sure the Worlds are in any position to carry out the operation you’re asking for.”

  “Chief Councillor. I am but a humble priest”-with an effort, Polk suppressed a snort of derision-“but I read the strategic assessments provided by your office with great care. Even if they have antimatter weapons, I cannot remember a time when the Federated Worlds found themselves in such trouble, when our strategic advantage was so great. Our attack on Comdur dealt them a blow from which they may never recover. Am I right?” Calverson said.

  “Yes, you are, Teacher Calverson,” Polk conceded.

  “Excellent, Chief Councillor,” Calverson said, beaming. “So let’s move. We must act while we can. Kraa demands it.”

  Polk knew defeat when he saw it, so he gave up. “Yes, Teacher Calverson, I absolutely agree with you on this. Let me talk to Councillor Jones and Admiral Jorge. When the planners have worked out how we can recover Salvation’s heretics, I’ll arrange a briefing for you.”

  Calverson’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll expect it a week from today,” he said. “I think that should be enough time, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Teacher Calverson,” Polk said through gritted teeth, wondering how he was ever going to justify an attack on a neutral world, never mind the diversion of Fleet assets to pursue something so pointless. For Kraa’s sake! Only a narrow-minded priest would worry about a few heretics in the middle of a shooting war with the Feds.

  Wednesday, December 20, 2400, UD

  FWSS

  Tufayl,

  Comdur Fleet Base nearspace

  “Tufayl, this is Comdur Command.”

  “Tufayl,” Ferreira said.

  “For your information, reporting the arrival in Comdur nearspace of heavy lander PHLA-442566, Junior Lieutenant Sedova in command, inbound from New Dawn. We’ve cleared 566 on a direct vector to you. Confirm ready to take tactical control?”

  “Confirmed.”

  “Roger. Chopping tacon of PHLA-442566 to Tufayl.”

  “Tufayl, roger. Tufayl has tacon of 566, out. Command, copy?” Ferreira said, glancing across at Michael.

  “Copied.” Michael nodded, pleased to see that his new lander had made a good start, arriving on time to the second.

  “Command, Warfare; 566 is on vector, cleared for direct approach. ETA 15:45.”

  “Command, roger,” Michael said. “PHLA-442566, this is Tufayl on vidcomm channel 34, over.”

  “Tufayl, 566,” the lander’s command pilot replied, “go ahead.”

  “Okay to talk?”

  “Yes, sir. We’re established on vector.”

  “Good. Welcome to Comdur, 566,” Michael said, looking with interest at the latest addition to his crew, a cheerful-looking woman with an open, friendly face framed by her combat space helmet, a few rebellious strands of ash-blond hair peeking out from underneath the helmet’s molded crash-foam lining.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said. “Junior Lieutenant Kat Sedova at your service.”

  “Good to have you with us. Flight okay?”

  “One for the record books, sir.”

  “Oh?”

  “Longest pinchspace flight by a vessel less than five hundred tons empty mass,” Sedova said, smiling broadly. “A touch over 16 light-years. We didn’t just break the record, we completely trashed it. The flight was five times longer than any previous flight by a jump-capable lander.”

  Michael’s eyebrows shot up. “Congratulations. Impressive.”

  “Scary more like it, sir. Bloody scary, in fact, given the Block 6’s less than stellar reputation.”

  “Ah, yes. Bit of a gut churner, I would imagine.” Michael did not need to say any more. Sedova would have had good reason to feel nervous. Development of the Block 6 heavy lander had been a long and troubled process, culminating in the loss of the first manned pinchspace test flight. The lander had broken up when it reentered normalspace, killing the crew, a shockingly unexpected accident that drove the lander’s chief designer to suicide. It took another five years and billions of FedMarks before the appallingly complex pinchspace generators squeezed into the lander’s hull to create humanspace’s smallest starship were certified safe to carry humans into pinchspace.

  “Must admit it was,” Sedova said. “But the Ghost did really well. The pinchspace generators never blinked. Rocksteady the whole time. No, sir, the Ghost’s a good one.”

  “Ah, yes,” Michael said, “I was going to ask. So you’ve christened your ship?”

  “I certainly have, sir. Caesar’s Ghost.”

  “You spend too much time studying ancient literature, I suspect,” Michael said with a chuckle when his neuronics tracked down where the name came from.

  “Something like that, sir.”

  “Sounds fine to me, so Caesar’s Ghost it is. At least I won’t have Fleet objecting. Anyway,” Michael continued, “I’ll leave you alone for the moment. We’ll talk more when you’ve berthed.”

  “Sir.”

  Tufayl’s combat information center was quiet, all eyes focused on the heavy assault lander filling the command holovid. Michael watched intently as Caesar’s Ghost closed in. It was not an attractive sight. In Michael’s opinion, assault landers had to be one of the ugliest machines ever sent into space by humankind. Brutally functional, the lander was a wedge nearly as broad as it was long, with a rounded nose and sliced flat across the stern, its matte-black shape broken by laser and rotary cannon turrets, landing gear, sensors, stub aerials, heat dump panels, and hatches, all strewn seemingly at random across its armored skin. Heavy assault landers were certainly fit for their purpose, but with the aerodynamics of a large ceramcrete block, they were neither elegant nor pretty; the fact that the machine flew at all was a tribute to the enormous power of its twin fusion-powered mass drivers.

  But Michael loved them, right down to the last bolt. His only ambition had been to be a lander command pilot. Not that he would ever get the chance the way things were going.

  “Tufayl, Caesar’s Ghost. On final approach.”

  “Tufayl, roger. Approved to dock.”

  Sedova brought the Ghost to a precise stop a few meters off the armored doors accessing Tufayl’s hangar. Michael was impressed; the difference in vectors was only a few millimeters per second. Reaction control nozzles flared, and the lander drifted smoothly into the hangar air lock.

  “You have the ship, Jayla,” Michael said. “I’m going down to meet our new arrivals.”

  “Aye, aye, sir. I have the ship.”

  “W
elcome to Tufayl,” Michael said, lifting his beer in salute.

  “Thank you, sir,” Sedova said, raising her glass in reply. “It’s good to be here, though … can I be frank?”

  “Of course. Shoot.”

  “Well, sir, I don’t understand why dreadnoughts need jump-capable landers. Our primary mission is interdiction operations against low-level, low-density threats, acting as a force extender. We’re also good for remote, small-scale dirt-side operations in support of the marines. As I understand it, dreadnoughts are intended to take on high-level threats, targets too risky even for conventional cruisers. I cannot see how we fit into a frontal assault on something like a Hammer battle fleet deploying antimatter weapons, for example, nor can we operate in high-threat missile and rail-gun environments. Assault landers are tough but not that tough. We wouldn’t last five minutes. So what exactly is our role?”

  The minute Fleet approved the deployment of Block 6 landers to his dreadnoughts, Michael knew he would be asked that question. Now he had, and by someone he suspected would not respond well to a serving of bullshit.

  “Why? Well, it depends,” Michael said, weighing his words carefully, “and I am not ducking the question when I say that. The decision made by Fleet to give each manned dreadnought a lander was politics. Pure politics”-he could not help noticing Sedova’s hastily suppressed frown-“because Fleet was concerned that the cuts in crew size had been taken too far. So we had to increase the numbers. There are plenty of landers in our order of battle, so-”

  “Why not make use of them?” Sedova interrupted with a touch of bitterness. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  “Steady, Lieutenant,” Michael said.

  Sedova’s face reddened. “Sorry, sir. Excuse me.”

  Much as he disapproved of her bluntness, Michael understood her frustration. Nobody minded being asked to a job, however tough. But professionals did mind-rightly-being asked to undertake missions for purely political reasons.

  “As I was saying, expediency and politics is where this started. But it’s not where it ends.”

  “Oh?”

  “No,” Michael said with a firm shake of his head. “No, it’s not. Once we knew we were getting a Block 6 lander, we started to look at how we would get the best out of it. You’re right. Unless you and your crew are willing to commit suicide, there’s no part for you in a conventional frontal assault. Like you say, you would not last five minutes. But for operations that take dreadnoughts deep into enemy space, operations where conventional ship losses would be unacceptably high, we will need you to get out alive. So that’s one mission.”

  “What are you saying, sir? We’re a glorified lifepod?” Sedova said. “That’s it? That’s all we are?”

  “No, that’s just the bad news. I thought I’d better get it out of the way first”-Michael was pleased to see that Sedova was still able to smile-“but given the places we’ll be going to, don’t be surprised if you have to fight your way out.”

  Sedova nodded.

  “Much more importantly,” Michael continued, “there is a role in taking down heavily defended targets too big for dreadnoughts alone to take care of. Asteroid-based support facilities are a prime example; there are a lot of them out there we’ve never even thrown a rock at. Fleet does not consider them a priority, and rightly so: too small to be worth the ships needed to get through their nearspace defenses. But dreadnoughts can, and with a lot fewer ships. Tufayl’s proved that. Once their defenses have been cracked, these support bases are sitting ducks. They only have platoon-sized security forces-they’ve never needed anything bigger-and your lander can drop more than enough marines in to finish them off after we’ve destroyed their space-based defenses. That’s what Tufayl and her sisters are good at, and we can do it with far fewer ships. In many cases just one dreadnought will finish the job. But we cannot get in to finish the mission. That’ll require you.”

  Michael waited patiently while Sedova mulled that over.

  “That all makes sense, sir,” she said finally, “except that we don’t carry marines. No point cracking open a dirtside target unless we can send the grunts in to do whatever it is they do when we’re not watching.”

  “True, we don’t. But I’ve talked to Admiral Jaruzelska about that. She has confirmed that we will carry marines when we need to. They won’t like it much, but we can carry as many as you like in temporary living modules in the hangar. We’re a long way from our mass limits.”

  “Still, sir, it’s a long way from taking on antimatter-armed Hammer ships.”

  “It is. But that will be only one of our missions. Dreadnoughts are brand-new, so it will be up to us to write the tactical handbooks on how to use them. There’s a lot more we can do, and Admiral Jaruzelska is not one to leave us sitting around scratching our asses. I think we’ll find plenty to keep you occupied once we’re let off the leash.”

  “I hope so, sir. I did not become a command pilot to sit around waiting for something to happen.”

  “I didn’t think so. And guess what?”

  “What, sir?”

  “I didn’t become captain in command of a dreadnought to sit around, either. Trust me, Lieutenant. We’ll be busy, and so will you.”

  Friday, December 29, 2400, UD

  Offices of the Supreme Council for the Preservation of the Faith, McNair

  “To summarize. The operation to return the heretics of Salvation to the Faith is scheduled for the end of January. Supported by a task group, the planetary assault vessels Kerouac and Mitsotaki will drop three marine brigades onto Salvation to secure the city of New Hope and its spaceport. Once they are secure, a DocSec brigade will round up and evacuate the heretics. We expect the operation to be completed in less than two days, enough time before the Federated Worlds can respond in force. That concludes my briefing, gentlemen. Does anyone have any questions?”

  Fleet Admiral Jorge’s eyes flitted across the councillors seated around the Defense Council table. “No? Chief Councillor?”

  “No, Admiral. That sounds good to me. Moving along,” Polk said. “Next item. Operations against the Feds. Admiral?”

  “Thank you, sir. If you turn your attention to the holovid, you can see a summary of the week’s operations. It has been a successful week, I have to say, an outstanding week in fact. The Feds stayed quiet, continuing their focus on defensive operations. We were more active. Coordinated antishipping operations around the Paderborn, Xiang, and Vijati reefs successfully disrupted the Fed’s main trade route to Old Earth despite heavy Fed opposition. The routes to Szent-Gyogyi and Merritt’s were shut by offensive mining operations around West Kent Reef that claimed the lives of six Fed merships, the pinchcomm relay station on Gok-3 was destroyed, and Fed supplies of helium-3 from mines in the Clarion system have been disrupted by the destruction of two storage facilities.

  “To conserve war stocks, antimatter missile operations were limited to attacks on two Fed deepspace forward operating bases in the Panguna and Lagerfeld sectors, both destroyed. Looking at each operation in more detail …”

  Saturday, December 30, 2400, UD

  FWSS

  Tufayl,

  in orbit around Comdur Fleet Base

  The eyes of all in Tufayl’s combat information center locked on the command holovid, the only sound the soft hiss of air-conditioning.

  “Command, sensors. Positive gravitronics intercept. Estimated drop bearing Green 90 Up 1. Nine vessels. Gravity wave pattern suggests pinchspace transition imminent. Vectors nominal for inbound dreadnoughts.”

  “Command, roger.”

  Flanked by Vice Admiral Jaruzelska, Michael watched flashes of ultraviolet announce the arrival of the nine ships that made up Dreadnought Squadron One.

  “Command, sensors, ships dropping. Nine dreadnoughts, drop datum confirmed Green 90 Up 1 at 30,000 kilometers.”

  “Command, roger.”

  After a flurry of laser tightbeam messages confirmed that the new arrivals really were the rest of Mich
ael’s command, Michael stood the Tufayl down from general quarters, leaving Ferreira to coordinate the down-shuttling of the ferry crews to Comdur.

  He turned to Jaruzelska. “Big day, Admiral.”

  “It is, Michael,” Jaruzelska said, her face grim. “And you know what? There’ve been times when I didn’t think we’d ever get this far.”

  Michael nodded sympathetically. He would have to be stone deaf not to hear the growing opposition to dreadnoughts from within Fleet, opposition he suspected was encouraged-even orchestrated-by Rear Admiral Perkins, opposition that now verged on the dishonest. The Faith operation-Tufayl’s successful attack on the Hammer battle station HSBS-261-was portrayed by some in Fleet as a fluke, a lucky one-off never to be repeated. Sons of bitches! I’ll give them a fucking fluke, Michael swore savagely. If that was not bad enough, his decision to press on with the attack without a casualty recovery ship had been turned against him. Dangerously reckless, they said, an officer willing to hazard anything and anyone to advance his own career, even if that risked the future of the Federated Worlds themselves. Worse still, the trashpress had decided that he was their next soft target, a strategy Michael had no doubt had Perkins’s full support. He wondered how much longer the Hero of Hell’s Moons-the trashpress’s phrase, not his-would survive their growing attacks.

  It was all gut-wrenchingly unfair, but he was a serving officer, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  No, that was wrong. There was something. He could make dreadnoughts work. He had to, and he would. He pushed the problem away to watch the command holovid as it tracked the shuttles picking up the ferry crews.