The battle at the Moons of Hell hw-1 Page 16

  The little surveillance drone was one of the triumphs of Federated Worlds engineering. Packed with the best electromagnetic radiation and gravitronics microsensor systems the Worlds’ technology could produce, the drone vacuumed data out of Hammer nearspace at a phenomenal rate and, taking extreme care that no Hammer warships or sensors were in the line of sight, fired the data over the tightbeam laser a million kilometers back to 387, where an increasingly stressed command team looked anxiously for confirmation that Mumtaz was in-system.

  But Mumtaz was nowhere to be seen.

  Nine minutes later, Bonnie skimmed above the desolate and blasted surface of Hell-11. Then, with Revelation-II’s gravity pulling its vector inward, Bonnie, nose on to minimize its radar cross section, curved in to pass Hell’s Flotilla base and its thick cluster of Hammer warships, the stealth coat absorbing the energy thrown at it by the Hammer’s phased-array radar.

  For a brief moment a bored sensor operator thought he might have seen a faint ghostly return, but it didn’t last, and in the interests of a quiet watch he didn’t bother to do anything about it.

  At 00:28, Bonnie passed Hell-13 and was on her way out of Revelation-II nearspace.

  Wherever the Mumtaz was, it wasn’t in orbit around Revelation-II or any of its moons.

  Tuesday, September 15, 2398, UD

  Hell Planet (Revelation-II) Nearspace

  Ribot had closed the ship up to general quarters when Hell Central was just over 500,000 kilometers away.

  Petty Officer Strezlecki, along with Helfort and the rest of the surveillance drone team, was suited up. But with the ship’s artificial gravity shut down to reduce the effectiveness of Hammer grav arrays, the wait was not as unbearable as usual.

  What was certain was that after days of anxiety, the strain of not knowing was slowly tearing Helfort apart, to the point where Strezlecki was beginning to get concerned about his mental state. Smart man, the skipper, she thought. He’d known this would happen, had been worried enough to ask her to keep a very close eye on Michael. Squinting sideways past the edge of her helmet, she watched as Michael stood to one side, a light sheen of sweat clearly visible through his open visor underneath the bright orange oxygen mask, eyes unfocused and breathing heavy. She moved a little closer to be by his side.

  “Surveillance, command.”

  Patching her neuronics in, she watched Michael carefully as he took the captain’s comm.

  “Surveillance.”

  “Petty Officer Strezlecki? You in on this?” Ribot asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Strezlecki said, puzzled. Of course she was. As a matter of routine she’d sit in on all comms to and from surveillance. What was the skipper going on about?

  “Ah, good. You need to hear this, too, Michael. Even though her registration has been painted out, and she’s squawking on Esmereldan ID, Mother has been able to confirm that the UV drop intercept we made earlier is in fact the Mumtaz. She’s not berthed on Hell’s planetary transfer station; she’s on vector for Hell-13, where there’s a lot of activity-drone remassers, transfer shuttles, and so on. So it seems pretty clear that Fleet’s right: She looks to be leaving before very much longer. Not much else to say, Michael, except how sorry I am. But the good news is that Mumtaz looks fine, no damage anywhere that we can see, and I’m sure your family is safe.” Ribot’s voice dried up as he ran out of things to say, and for a moment there was silence.

  “Thanks for that, sir,” Michael said in a half whisper.

  Now Strezlecki understood why Ribot wanted her in on the comm, and she watched as Helfort began to draw himself up straight for the first time in days, his hunched and defeated posture beginning to fade.

  But Michael’s avatar was still gray-faced. “Michael, are you there? Are you okay?” Ribot sounded concerned. As any good skipper would, Strezlecki thought.

  “Oh, sorry, sir. Yes, I’ll be fine. Actually, it’s a bit of a relief now that we at least know what’s going on. And sir, I’m from a Fleet family, and I’m sure that the Fleet will get them all back.”

  Finally Michael’s voice had some of its old strength, some emotion in it, even if his face still didn’t, Strezlecki realized.

  Ribot couldn’t quite conceal the relief in his voice. “Michael, nothing in life is certain except that the Hammers are scum. But I think we can be pretty sure that the Worlds won’t take this lying down. There are still plenty of people who haven’t forgotten what happened the last time around, so I think it’s just a matter of time. That was certainly the impression I got from Fleet operations when I spoke to them, so have faith. I’ve got no doubts. We will get them back.”

  “I can’t see the Worlds leaving what, a thousand or so people, in the Hammers’ hands, sir. So I’m sure you’re right.” Michael’s voice grew in strength and determination with every word, his face beginning to lose its gray pallor.

  “Let’s hope so, Michael. Now, we’ve got things to do, so let’s leave it at that. I’ve got to tell the crew what’s going on.”

  “Fine, sir. And thanks.”

  “No problem,” Ribot said. “Command out.”

  Petty Officer Strezlecki stood for a moment, acutely aware of the fact that everything Ribot had just said applied only if 387 wasn’t caught.

  “Holy Mary, mother of God!” Holdorf couldn’t contain himself, earning a look of savage disapproval from Ribot as the threat plot suddenly blossomed with the bright red lines of a pinchspace gravitronics intercept.

  “Command, this is sensors. I have a positive gravitronics intercept. One vessel. Grav wave pattern indicates pinchspace transition imminent. Estimated drop at Green 60 Down 2. Appears to be headed for Hell Central.”

  Ribot cursed savagely under his breath. 387’s track had been carefully chosen to keep it well clear of Hammer ships dropping out of pinchspace, which they usually did on the sunward side of Hell planet. Now this bastard was coming in almost at right angles and from God only knew where.

  Outwardly unconcerned, Ribot acknowledged the report. “Roger that. Nothing much we can do, folks. Let’s hope they are slow to set up after the drop and we’ll be past and gone.”

  Ribot’s voice was calm and measured as he offered up a silent prayer of thanks that almost all of the Hammer ships in-system were at the flotilla base on Hell-8, almost 400,000 kilometers away and way outside the radar detection threshold against a stealthed light scout. Even better, they were still showing absolutely no sign of moving.

  But this warship was different.

  If the Hammer ship was dropping in-system, heading for Hell Central, it would drop when 387 was about 200,000 kilometers away and as a result well inside the radar detection threshold. If the Hammers reset sensors as quickly as they should after a pinchspace drop, if their equipment was working, and if the operators were on top of their jobs, there was a reasonable chance that one of them would pick up 387. That was a lot of if’s, true, but not too much to expect of any half-decent warship crew. Ribot knew all too well how the Hammers always reacted to unidentified warships in Hammer space. Without exception, an immediate rail-gun barrage or missile salvo first and questions, if anything was left to question, second. In that case, there was only one way out: an immediate jump into the safety of pinchspace.

  If that happened, he might as well send them an autographed, framed holopic of 387, he thought glumly.

  But for the moment, there was little he could do apart from curse his luck that 387 hadn’t been thirty minutes earlier and hope that the Hammers were slow to reset their sensors. Mother would fine-tune the ship’s active chromaflage coat to make sure the hull was doing what it was designed to do-look like an asteroid, closely enough, he hoped to fool the Hammer’s infrared and optical analysis-but apart from that, they were relying on the power of prayer, sadly a notoriously unreliable nostrum.

  Ribot hoped he’d done the right thing. Going active was always a risk, and like all warship captains, he hated taking risks until the shooting started. The alternative of relying on 387’s
stealthcoat to absorb the Hammer’s radar was asking for trouble. The Hammer warship’s grav arrays would tell it something was out there; when its radars couldn’t see anything, there would be only one reason why: a stealth warship-so stand by missile attack.

  “Command, sensors. Drop datum confirmed at Green 60 Down 1 at 200,000.”

  “Roger, Mother. All stations, Captain. We have a Hammer ship dropping 200,000 k’s at Green 60, and we’ll be within range of their sensors when they do. There’s nothing much we can do, but if we detect a rail-gun or missile release, we’ll be jumping immediately, so stand by.”

  Ribot took a deep breath. He’d allowed himself to believe they would get through this fly-by undetected. “Propulsion, command. Stand by emergency jump.” The atmosphere in the combat information center was thick with tension as he sat back in his chair, fighting hard to look both confident and unconcerned. His father had often said that leadership was as much acting as anything else, and for once Ribot couldn’t agree more.

  As he waited for the inbound Hammer ship to drop, Ribot cursed long and hard under his breath. One decent radar paint, one decent grav intercept, one decent optronics image, and it was game over. Fleet would have little or no chance of getting the Mumtaz back.

  “Command, sensors, contact dropping now. Datum confirmed Green 62 Down 2, range 210,000 kilometers. Stand by vector.”

  “Command, roger.” Ribot wanted to do something, but he couldn’t. There was nothing 387 could do. She just had to ride it out. The tension in the combat information center was palpable, and it wasn’t just tension. It was fear as well, gut-churning fear, the product of decades of demonizing the Hammer, fear strong enough to drive 387’s command team down into shapes hunched over workstations. Their ship was a long way from home, alone deep in Hammer space, and about to have a close encounter of the worst kind with what could only be a Hammer warship, and everybody knew it.

  “Command, sensors. Contact confirmed as Triumph class heavy cruiser, Carswell. Vector confirmed. Inbound for Hell Central.”

  “Command, roger.” Terrific, Ribot thought, just terrific. A goddamm heavy cruiser. A quick check. Yes, he’d remembered it right. The Carswell was one of the oldest cruisers in the Hammer order of battle, but she was an adversary to be feared nonetheless. Any slipup now and 387 was toast, and very badly charred toast at that. Sweat began to trickle cold and slimy down his spine. He shivered. He looked around; even through closed faceplates he could see the tension on every face.

  Ribot turned back to the command plot, which now showed the red icons that marked the Carswell’s position and vector. It was not a pretty sight. The Hammer ship was way too close for comfort. And then the command plot blossomed with a new icon, a long stabbing line reporting the fact that Carswell’s planar arrays had deployed and its long-range search radar was painting the 387 with a torrent of radio frequency (RF) energy.

  Ribot sighed in fatalistic resignation. What would be, would be. Right about now the Hammer command team should be working out that the unknown contact 200,000 kilometers away wasn’t all it seemed to be at first sight.

  Thanks to 387’s active chromaflage skin, Carswell’s optronics would report it as nothing more than another insignificant S-type siliceous asteroid, one of the countless asteroids that wandered the cosmos. But even allowing for the fact that 200,000 kilometers was a very long way even for Fed gravitronics systems, especially against a small target like 387, the mass analysis provided by the Carswell’s grav arrays would tell her captain that the object’s density was way too low for an asteroid. First red flag. Then, to bang another nail into 387’s coffin, infrared would report the object as fractionally too warm. Second red flag. True, 387’s heat sinks were so good that it would be only by a tiny amount, but together with the other inconsistencies, any warship captain worth his salt wouldn’t ignore two red flags. He’d dump a missile salvo down the threat axis, sit back, and see what happened. Ribot knew he would.

  Ribot’s virtual finger twitched over the bright red virtual emergency jump button. Any second now, any second now. Barely breathing, he sat unmoving, waiting for the inevitable: the tightly focused beam of a missile fire control radar followed by the infrared blooms of an inbound missile salvo.

  Time slowed to a crawl for Ribot, his shipsuit now cold, saturated with sweat under a space suit suddenly tight and constricted, the helmet ring digging into shoulders that were taut with tension. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. Surely the Hammers must have worked it out. What in God’s name were they up to? The most inexperienced captain would have launched missiles by now. Hell, even a first-year cadet at Space Fleet College would be on to them; they were fed simple tactical problems like the one facing the Carswell for breakfast.

  If it were possible, time slowed down even more until Ribot began to entertain the hope that Carswell might just be more than an old heavy cruiser. She might be an old and unreliable heavy cruiser, and the more he thought about it, that was the only thing that made any sense. If Carswell’s sensors had been 100 percent online, 387 would have been on the receiving end of a missile attack long before now. She wasn’t being attacked, so Carswell must be having problems. Sensors, maybe? Or the data analysis and integration software? Operator error? Anyway, it didn’t matter why. The fact was, it was beginning to look very much like 387 had gotten away with it.

  Ribot put a sudden burst of optimism firmly away. He’d wait another five agonizingly long and slow minutes before he’d allow himself that luxury. In the meantime, his virtual finger would stay firmly over the emergency jump button, his eyes locked on the plot for any sign of a Hammer missile launch.

  It would be a long five minutes.

  Michael and everyone else onboard heaved a huge sigh of relief as Mother downgraded the threat from the the aging and seemingly unreliable Carswell. The threat plot now was a mass of orange symbols and a reassuring change from the lurid reds of just a few moments earlier.

  For one awful moment, like everyone else onboard, Michael had thought it was all over, sick at the thought that the Hammers might get not just him but Mom and Sam as well. He couldn’t begin to imagine how his dad would cope with a disaster of that magnitude.

  When Mother identified the new arrival as a deepspace heavy cruiser, it should have been game over.

  But for some reason, they had survived undetected.

  Anyway, it was all academic now, and Michael didn’t have enough emotional energy left to worry why. The threat analysis teams back at Fleet would get the datalogs. Let them work out why 387 had gotten away with it. Getting safely through the outer ring of surveillance satellites that circled Hell at 3 million kilometers was the next job. In theory, that shouldn’t be a problem because 387 would have to pass well inside 100,000 kilometers for a Hammer surveillance satellite to have any chance of picking up something that well stealthed and deceptive. Once well clear, 387 would maneuver to recover its surveillance drones and then jump to Eternity planet to confirm that part two of the Hammer plan was as reported. That should be a piece of cake compared to what we’ve just been through, Michael thought, unless it really is a trap. That was a possibility he’d found out was running at odds of fifty to one in the strictly unofficial book being run by Leading Spacer Miandad in propulsion.

  But judging by the swarm of activity waiting for Mumtaz at Hell-13, it was no trap. Everything pointed to the Mumtaz being turned around and sent on her way to Eternity planet long before 387 got far enough out to jump out-system without being detected.

  As soon as Holdorf stood the ship down from general quarters and restored its artgrav and atmosphere, Michael left the drone hangar. It was time to get out of his truly rancid, sweat-soaked, foul-smelling space suit for a long and well-earned shower followed by a good night’s sleep. Six more days would see them fly by Eternity, an undertaking he earnestly hoped would be a great deal less stressful than the Hell fly-by if Fleet’s THREATSUMs were to be believed. Then another week to get to Frontier planet and the job would be
done.

  It would be interesting, Michael thought as he went down the ladder, to see the effect Ribot’s report had on Space Fleet and the politicians.

  Thursday, September 17, 2398, UD

  Federated Worlds Space Fleet Headquarters, Foundation, Terranova Planet

  With 387’s pinchcomms message confirming the hijacking of the Mumtaz, the full seriousness of the situation finally had sunk in. All of them, from flag officers on up, sat silent as they worked out the full implications of what the Hammer had done.

  Up to that point, the frantic work of Battle Fleet Delta’s hastily appointed staff had had a strange air of unreality about it, as if there still were some chance that the whole thing was an elaborate hoax and in the end the Mumtaz would drop out of pinchspace safely, on vector and decelerating into one of Jackson’s two planetary transfer stations. Angela Jaruzelska also had felt the fear in everybody’s mind, the terrible fear that once again the Federated Worlds would have to go to war against its most long-standing and bitter enemy.

  At fifty-six, she was old enough to have been through the last round with the Hammer in the late ’70s, and it was not an experience she would ever want to repeat. But then, she had chosen the Fleet and it had chosen her. With God’s help, she would do her best to make sure that this time around the Hammers would be repaid tenfold for their stupidity and greed.

  A glass of very fine Anjaxxian Pinot Noir cradled in her left hand, its heady perfume washing over her, Jaruzelska settled into her favorite chair on the broad timber deck that overlooked the sky-shaded lights of Foundation that were spread out below her.

  Midnight was fast approaching. It had been another very long day.

  Getting approval for the operation to recover the Mumtaz-Operation Corona it was now officially called-had not been easy. The preliminary concept of the operation had shocked the cabinet with its complexity, unavoidably so, given the mission objectives set. But what had really stunned the inner cabinet had been the risk assessment with its sobering estimates of the ships and lives that could be lost. For a moment, Jaruzelska had been surprised by the impact her casualty estimates had had.