The battle of Devastation reef hw-3 Read online

  “Let’s hope so. Let me know when you’re done. The XO tells me the Ghost is inbound, so I’ll be down in the hangar.”

  “Sir.”

  Reassured that Tufayl was okay and leaving Bienefelt to finish the survey, Michael made his way back to the hanger while Caesar’s Ghost cycled through the air lock. Once the lander was secure, he made his way over and waited until Sedova emerged.

  “How was it, Kat?” Michael said as the Ghost’s command pilot jumped down.

  “Well, sir. To be honest, bloody terrifying.” Sedova smiled, but it was forced. She unlatched her helmet and took it off, running a hand through sweat-soaked hair.

  “Troops handle it okay?”

  “No probs, sir. They’re fine. I shut down Iron Duke’s artificial gravity and kept the Ghost in the hover until the attack was over, so we missed the impulse shock altogether, but we have a couple of radiation-induced glitches I’d like the engineers to have a look at.”

  “Okay. Keep me posted. To save the executive officer having to nag you, get everyone up to the sick bay like yesterday.”

  “Will do, sir. Never seen my dosimeter read so far into the red. My neuronics are telling me I don’t have long to live. Talk about scary.”

  Michael nodded. It had been. Without nanobots to repair the radiation damage, he and the rest of Tufayl’s crew would all be dead inside forty-eight hours. “Right. I’m off back to the CIC. Let me know when the Ghost is 100 percent.”

  “Sir.”

  “How are we doing?” Michael asked when he climbed back into the command seat.

  “Good timing, sir. Stand by …” Ferreira said as the subdued rumbling of the Tufayl’s main engines cut out. “We’re in station. The drone is launching its shuttles. Estimate squadron will complete remassing on schedule.”

  “Good.” Quickly he scanned the threat plot-still green-before double-checking what the ship’s passive sensors were picking up, pleased to see nothing out of the ordinary. Leading Spacer Carmellini had the sensor watch; Michael walked over to him and patted him on the shoulder. “Am I missing anything?”

  Carmellini shook his head. “No, sir.”

  Michael dropped into a seat alongside Carmellini’s workstation, the better to see his face. “Way I like it.”

  “Me, too, sir,” Carmellini said with feeling.

  “You okay?”

  “I am, sir. The first time back in action, well … that was pretty hard after, you know, after …” Carmellini’s voice faded away. “But it’s better this time, though it’s still tough. But tough or not, it’s what we are all about,” he said, recovering his composure, “so I’m happy to be here. We owe those Hammer sonsofbitches big time.”

  “We sure do. You’re doing well, son. Very well,” Michael said, pleased to see Carmellini every bit as steady as he sounded.

  “Thank you, sir. Remember Comdur.”

  “Remember Comdur,” Michael replied.

  He returned to his seat to watch the remassing, a slow-motion space ballet performed by chunky black boxes fitted with simple thrusters shuttling to and fro to dump their loads of driver mass pellets into the dreadnoughts’ depleted bunkers.

  It was a pleasant, even soothing, sight, but even though Michael was tempted to relax-with the adrenaline leaching fast out of his system, he was tired-not for one microsecond did he let his guard down. Dreadnought Squadron One was in deepspace light-years from the Hammers-so far from anything that its chances of being detected and attacked were infinitesimal-but that did not matter. Captain Constanza, Ishaq’s skipper, had assumed her ship was safe, and the Hammers had gone and ambushed it at Xiang Reef. Her reward? To have her ship blown apart around her, killing her along with hundreds of Ishaq’s crew, dumping Michael and close to three hundred other survivors into Hammer hands.

  Not on my watch, he said to himself, counting the minutes down until the First returned to Faith nearspace for the second phase of Operation Blue Tango.

  “Shiiiiit,” Michael hissed through clenched teeth, reflexes forcing his body right back in its seat in a vain attempt to get away from the disaster bearing down on them, a disaster he could do nothing to avert.

  The command holovid filled with the awful sight of a Hammer ship-the light escort O’Connor-closing with horrifying speed, Tufayl’s bows aimed right into her flank. Michael cursed his luck. Tufayl had dropped so close to O’Connor that there was no way either ship could avoid the looming disaster. A collision was inevitable. He swore again; of all the billions and billions of cubic kilometers of space O’Connor might have been in, it had to pick the same tiny bubble Tufayl would be in seconds after it dropped out of pinchspace.

  “Another first for the dreadnoughts,” he said sardonically, “a ramming.”

  “All stations,” Warfare said laconically. “Brace for collision.”

  With nearly superhuman effort, Michael forced himself to look away. There might be only seconds before Tufayl was ripped apart, but he still had a squadron to think about, a squadron right in the middle of an attack on the small Hammer task group-designated Hammer-1-in loose formation close to OHMP-344, one of the orbital heavy maintenance platforms in Clarke orbit around Faith planet. Needless to say, neither the Hammer task group nor the unfortunate O’Connor had been anywhere near OHMP-344 when the dreadnoughts had departed from Hammer space to remass before returning for the second phase of Blue Tango. Murphy, Michael reminded himself, was very fond of military operations.

  “Warfare. Status?”

  “Own missile and rail-gun salvos have ten seconds to impact. Targets still turning; probability of first strike kill on Novo City and Jarramshia is high. Hammer missile salvo inbound from OHMP-344’s defensive platforms, time to impact four minutes, targets Rebuke and Sina. Iron Duke adjusting vector to take station on Tufayl for casualty recovery; Caesar’s Ghost and Creaking Door are at Launch 1.”

  “Command, roger.” He had not needed to ask-Warfare’s report matched Michael’s mental plot of the operation-but it was never a bad thing to know for certain that nothing had been overlooked.

  Turning back to look at the holovid and the relentlessly closing O’Connor, Michael promised himself that never, ever again would he allow the First to be thrown into an attack on the basis of old, stale intelligence. Never, and if the admirals did not like it, they could go screw themselves.

  The last few seconds to impact ran off with glacial slowness. For fuck’s sake, Michael swore; it was like being back in the eighteenth century! One ship ramming another. What next? All hands to boarding stations? Issue cutlasses? And if that was not bad enough, nobody could tell him whether Tufayl would survive what would be the first recorded collision in space combat. Michael hoped she would survive. Tufayl outmassed the hapless O’Connor by a big margin, and her reinforced bow armor should make short work of the light escort’s thinly protected flanks, but that was a long way from being sure. What if the O’Connor’s fusion plants lost containment? What if she carried antimatter miss-

  With a sickening, tearing crash that picked the ship up and shook it, Tufayl plowed into O’Connor about one-third of the way back from her bows, the impact dragged out into a series of grating crunches as Tufayl tore through the hapless Hammer ship, overloaded metal frames squealing in protest, bending and twisting under the stress of the collision. Horrified, Michael and the rest of Tufayl’s crew watched the dreadnought slice the Hammer ship apart, forcing its hull wide open, air dumped into space in a shivering, scintillating white mass of ice crystals. Nausea twisted Michael’s guts into a tangled knot: The cloud wasn’t just ice. It was seeded through with small, tumbling shapes blown bodily out of the ship by explosive decompression, some space-suited, most not, thin shipsuits no protection against the hard vacuum of space.

  Michael shivered; Tufayl was not the only one taken by surprise.

  Even as Michael allowed himself to hope that Tufayl might escape unscathed, the ship was picked up again, only to be smashed bodily to starboard, overstressed frames scr
eeching as it was blown away from the fractured corpse of O’Connor. One of the Hammer ship’s auxiliary fusion plants probably, Michael reckoned. Might have been worse. The Tufayl might not have survived if one of the Hammer ship’s main propulsion plants had exploded.

  Damage reports flooded in. Michael’s face turned grim while he studied them. He commed Ferreira. Her face spoke volumes.

  “Not looking good, sir,” she said. “We don’t have the spacers to deal with half the problems we’re facing. And we’re no longer jump-capable.”

  Michael nodded; he knew Tufayl was in serious trouble. “Can we save her?”

  “No, sir,” Ferreira said emphatically. “She either blows up or O’Connor does the job for us. Either way, chances of saving her are nil.”

  “I agree. I’ll give the order. Get your people into Creaking Door.” Michael did not waste any more time. There were plenty more ships to go around. It was spacers Fleet could not replace.

  “All stations, command. Abandon ship. I say again, abandon ship. All hands to the lander! Command, out.” Michael’s space-suited finger struggled with the black and yellow cover over the abandon ship alarm, but he forced it open finally. His finger stabbed down, and the ship filled instantly with an unmistakable whoop whoop whoop, the combat information center filling with the lurid red flashes of emergency strobes.

  Michael commed Ferreira. “Sir?” she said.

  “I won’t be far behind you, but if it all goes to shit, you are not to wait for me, understand?”

  “Sir, I-”

  “That’s a direct order, Ferreira. Just do it. Captain, out.”

  “Command, Warfare. Have Iron Duke ready to receive survivors.”

  “Warfare, roger,” the AI replied, quite unruffled by the fact that it had only minutes left to live. Michael suppressed a stab of guilt. It was just an AI, after all, and anyway, its clone and those of Kubby and Kal were all safely aboard the Iron Duke, ready to take over the instant Tufayl was destroyed. He would miss Mother, though; she was not going home, and there was no time to say goodbye.

  “Command, Warfare. Iron Duke acknowledges. Closing on Tufayl. Second missile salvo away, targets Hammer light cruisers Machuca, Fram, and Carlucci.”

  “Command, roger,” Michael said. He took one last look at the command and threat plots to make sure nothing had been overlooked and headed for the hangar, an awkward shuffling run made difficult by an uncooperative combat space suit and by what felt horribly like the imminent failure of Tufayl’s artificial gravity. He redoubled his efforts. If the ship lost artificial gravity, he would never make it. Desperately he hurled himself into the drop tube, plummeting down to the hangar deck. To his surprise and relief, he was met by Bienefelt and Carmellini on the end of safety lines rigged back to Creaking Door. They wasted no time. Without a word, they grabbed Michael under the arms and rushed him back to the lander, throwing him bodily through the starboard access door, Carmellini slapping the handle down to close the hatch behind them while the lander accelerated hard into space, away from the doomed Tufayl.

  “Jeeeeez!” Michael hissed. “Jayla,” he said to Ferreira, struggling to recover his composure, “tell me we have everyone.”

  “We do, sir. Ten souls.”

  “Good,” Michael said, much relieved. He strapped himself in. “Who’s flying this thing?”

  “Sedova and her team, sir, by datalink.”

  “Good. Okay, back to work.” He had an operation to run. He closed his eyes and switched his neuronics to the command and threat plots. A quick check reassured him that apart from the imminent loss of Tufayl, the operation was going well. The squadron, trailed by Iron Duke, bored in toward the Hammer task group, already two ships down as Novo City and Jarramshia death-rolled out of the fight, with air, smoke, and flame belching from multiple missile and rail-gun impacts. His mouth tightened into a savage snarl at the sight. The Hammer task group was not going to survive this encounter.

  But the primary target, OHMP-344, was still intact. Michael had an idea. Since the Tufayl was well and truly in the ramming business, she ought to go out with a bang. “Warfare, command.”

  “Warfare.”

  “Set Tufayl’s vector to impact the platform, main propulsion to full power,” Michael said, adding a silent prayer that Tufayl’s starboard main driver mass supply feed had held up. “Set all fusion plants to self-destruct at impact plus two seconds.”

  “Warfare, roger. Adjusting Tufayl’s vector,” the warfare AI replied calmly. “Stand by … vector set, ship at full power.”

  “Command roger.” The chances of Tufayl surviving long enough to get through to OHMP-344 were fifty-fifty at best, but it was worth the effort, if only to distract the platform’s defenses. The sight of a heavy cruiser with a death wish heading right at them would attract the undivided attention of OHMP-344’s defenders, that was for sure.

  “All stations, warfare. Stand by Hammer missile salvo impact three minutes.”

  Michael urged the Door on; getting caught in a light assault lander in the middle of a Hammer missile attack was not conducive to a long and happy life.

  “Roger. Warf-”

  Without any warning, Creaking Door staggered, a bone-jarring bang throwing the light lander off vector, hurling the crew of Tufayl across the lander’s cargo bay in a tangle of space-suited arms and legs. Michael hit the bulkhead with sickening force. He bounced off, crashing into Bienefelt’s enormous bulk, his left arm-held out in a futile effort to protect himself-giving way with a dry crack when he hit. Dazed, he ignored the stabbing pain from his arm. Comming his neuronics to dump painkillers into his system, he found his feet when the Door’s artificial gravity came back online. He commed Sedova.

  “Sitrep,” he said thickly as the painkillers worked their magic, the pain receding fast but leaving him light-headed with shock.

  “The Door’s finished. Lucky shot from an antiship laser blew out the starboard auxiliary fusion plant, I think. I’m on my way. Get the ramp down so we can take you off. We don’t have much time.”

  “Roger that,” Michael replied; he commed Ferreira to take over the transfer. He still had a battle to run. A quick check confirmed that nothing much had changed except that the clock was running down fast. Sedova would have to work quickly.

  She did. Tufayl’s crew hung clustered around the ramp, watching Caesar’s Ghost, her ramp down, belly thrusters firing and decelerating savagely, come to a dead stop barely a meter away from the gaping hole in Creaking Door’s stern, jets of reaction mass spewing into space while Sedova realigned the lander for the run back to Iron Duke. A figure-Sedova’s loadmaster, Petty Officer Trivedi, according to Michael’s neuronics-shot across the gap, maneuvering pack on her back, trailing a thin recovery line. Nobody needed to be told what to do. Without waiting, spacers clipped in and started to pull themselves to safety.

  “Ghost, loadmaster. That’s the lot. Go, go, go,” Trivedi shouted when everyone was hooked on.

  Sedova did not hesitate. Leaving Creaking Door to tumble away into space, the timers on her self-destruct charges running, she fired the main engines in a short, sharp burst that sent the lander heading back to Iron Duke, spacers flailing out behind, clinging desperately to the recovery line while unseen hands inside the Ghost reeled them in. Trivedi’s maneuvering units were spitting jets of nitrogen as she pushed from behind.

  After what they had been through, the rest of the transfer turned out to be a welcome anticlimax. Once inside, Michael was more than happy to lie on the floor of the cargo bay, leaving Trivedi to push the last spacer into Caesar’s Ghost and slam the ramp shut. He was even happier when Sedova piloted the lander inside the protective armor of Iron Duke, acutely aware that they had made it by a dangerously small margin.

  Impatiently, he waited. Finally, Caesar’s Ghost came to a dead stop in the Iron Duke’s cavernous hangar, armored air lock doors slamming shut behind them. The instant the lander stopped, he leaped out, cradling his injured arm and running hard, eyes hal
f closed while he watched the battle unfold on his neuronics, the rest of his crew in hot pursuit.

  Chest heaving from the effort, Michael burst into the combat information center, throwing himself into the command seat with only seconds to spare before the Hammer missile attack fell on the Fed dreadnoughts, fumbling one-handed to strap himself in. With the Hammer task group all but destroyed and lacking rail guns-orbital installations such as space battle stations and maintenance platforms did not carry them, only missiles, lasers, and chain guns-the platform’s attack never troubled the Feds. One by one, missiles were hacked out of space by the carefully coordinated efforts of the dreadnoughts, the missiles unable to penetrate the blizzard of fire from medium-range and close-in defensive weapons, missile fusion plants, and warheads exploding in blue-white balls of flame.

  It was over; barely a handful of missiles sneaked through, the damage to Iron Duke limited to a few patches of vaporized armor.

  “Warfare, Command. Priority targets now ships of Hammer-1 and OHMP-344.”

  “Warfare, roger.”

  Michael forced himself to sit back, to assess the tactical situation dispassionately. Even though it seemed like hours, they had been in Hammer space for only a matter of minutes. The question was how much longer they should stay. Michael scanned the threat plot. The Hammers had reacted quickly to the First’s incursion; a group of Hammer ships-designated task group Hammer-2-accelerated hard toward them and would be within rail-gun range soon. Their first missile salvos were already on their way, heading toward the dreadnoughts. Not long, Michael decided. The First only had minutes to finish up and get the hell out.

  “Warfare, Command. We’ll go for one more missile and rail-gun salvo before we jump.”

  “Warfare, roger.”

  Utterly engrossed, Michael watched the battle unfold. A swarm of rail-gun slugs joined the dreadnoughts’ second missile salvo; together they fell on the ships of the hapless Hammer task group around OHMP-344-what was left of them. The Hammer ships’ desperate efforts accounted for too few of the incoming missiles. In seconds, the attack slammed home, the three Hammer light cruisers reeling under the impact. Michael watched transfixed as a tear opened up across the cruiser Carlucci’s hull, a sinuous line, thin and impossibly bright. When the rip reached Carlucci’s stern, it exploded into a flare that stabbed flame out into space, and the ship staggered. An instant later, the blinding flash of runaway main fusion plants swallowed the doomed ship.