The Battle of the Hammer Worlds hw-2 Read online

  “Well, bugger me.” Michael looked in astonishment at Bienefelt. He noticed the chief’s shoulder straps only when she dropped her huge frame into a chair. Then again, he would have to be twice as tall to get a decent look at her shoulders in the first place. “Chief? How?”

  “Well, the old saying; your misfortune, my good luck.” Bienefelt shook her head, her voice suddenly somber. “Lot of people hurt when those Hammers did us wrong. A lot.”

  Michael nodded sadly. It was true. The Hammers had not killed as many Fed spacers as they had planned to, he was sure of that, but they had badly damaged plenty. “Trust me, Matti. Their day will come.”

  “Oh, yes. It will. It sure as hell will.”

  There was a moment’s silence. “So,” Michael continued. “Chief, eh? What does that mean?”

  “One more week in the good ship Eridani. Then posted to leave for two months to clear the backlog I’ve built up. After that, don’t know yet. I’ve asked for a heavy scout running out of Anjaxx.”

  “Coxswain?”

  “Yup.”

  “Anjaxx, eh?” Michael looked thoughtful. “Now, let me think. Anjaxx? Why Anjaxx? You’re a Jascarian.” He pondered the problem; then he got it. “Ah ha!” he said triumphantly, wagging his finger in Bienefelt’s face. “You are one sly dog, Chief Petty Officer Matti Bienefelt. Now I remember. Isn’t there a certain Yuri somewhere on Anjaxx? And isn’t he even bigger and uglier than you are? Am I right? Hmmm?”

  Bienefelt did her best to look deeply offended. “Good thing you’re not just an officer but a runty little officer. Otherwise. .”

  Michael’s hands went up in surrender. “Okay, okay, I take it back. Yuri isn’t bigger and uglier. Let’s just say he’s as big and as ugly.”

  “You are a very rude man,” Bienefelt said amicably. There was a long pause. “Sir.”

  Michael’s laugh was cut short by his neuronics. He had an appointment to keep. “Oh, shit, Matti. I’ve got to go.” He got to his feet and put out his hand. “Now listen to me, you big lump. Be careful and stay in touch, okay?”

  Bienefelt stood up, towering over Michael as she took his hand. “You’re the one who should be careful. So be careful,” she said sternly.

  “Yes, Chief,” Michael said meekly. “See you.”

  Thanks to his neuronics’ timely reminder, Michael made it to the transit officers’ quarters with his dignity intact a scant thirty seconds ahead of Commander Baker.

  “Helfort.” Baker shoved out his hand briskly. “Welcome to Comdur.”

  “Good to be here, sir,” Michael said, taking Baker’s hand. The man was just as he remembered him: small, chunky, and radiating nervous energy, though considerably less stressed than the last time around.

  “Liar! Comdur’s a dump, and we all know it. Now, we have to process you in, and then I’ve got something I want you to see.”

  “Sir, what exactly am I posted here to do?”

  “Patience, my son. Patience. All will be revealed. Let’s go.” With that, Baker was off.

  Michael, duly processed onto the strength of the Advanced Projects Unit and now the owner of the highest security clearance he had ever seen after a briefing of eye-watering ferocity, had followed Baker at a half trot as the man had led him through a maze of laser-cut rock passageways, his neuronics unable to say where they were going. He was beginning to realize that Baker knew only two speeds: flat out and full stop. To Michael’s relief, Baker finally skidded to a halt in front of a marine-manned security barrier. Overkill surely, Michael thought, considering they were a good two kilometers below Comdur’s surface and in the heart of the most secure Fleet base in the Federation.

  The marines would not have cared what Michael thought. With meticulous care, they cleared first Baker and then Michael through the barrier and into a brilliantly lit lobby backed by steel doors. There was another delay and another identity check with the security AI before the doors agreed to open to reveal a bare plasteel box fitted with simple folddown seats and red emergency lockers.

  No sooner were they in than the doors snapped shut. “Strap in securely. We will depart shortly,” announced a disembodied voice. Baker waved Michael into a seat, and they strapped in. The box, vibrating gently, began to move sideways. After thirty seconds or so, it stopped. A recessed red warning light began to flash. “Stand by to drop in five seconds,” announced the voice.

  Baker looked across at Michael. “Bit of negative g coming up, so I suggest you hang on,” he offered offhandedly.

  “Oh, right, sir, but-”

  The bottom fell away from underneath them as the artgrav cut out completely. Michael struggled to control a heaving stomach suddenly intent on misbehaving. For a moment, he and Baker floated in their straps before a fierce downward acceleration began to build, the negative g pulling the two men out of their seats and tight against their restraining straps.

  The complete lack of air noise and the massive acceleration gave Michael all the clues he needed. They were in a drop car in a hard vacuum tunnel heading for the center of Comdur, which lay the best part of 300 kilometers below them. If he remembered correctly, that meant that the drop car, its speed topping out at close to 2,000 kph, would have them wherever the hell it was they were going in less than ten minutes. He flicked a glance at Baker. The man seemed to be asleep, so Michael left him alone.

  Baker would give him answers when he was good and ready; there was no point pestering him.

  The minutes dragged slowly past. Michael tried hard not to think about the 300 kilometers of solid rock that lay at the end of the tunnel, now rushing toward them at more than 500 meters per second. The disembodied voice returned.

  “Stand by for deceleration in ten seconds.”

  Baker woke up. “Ah, good,” was all he said.

  Deceleration was an understatement. When it came, Michael winced as the g force in the drop car reversed with sudden brutality, slamming him back into his seat. Jesus, he thought. More like a bloody fairground ride than a passenger conveyance.

  Suddenly the g force vanished, and once again the two men floated in their straps. There was a short pause, and then the car began to move, artificial gravity returning to drop Michael back into his seat again. Michael followed Baker’s lead as, without a word, he unstrapped and stood up.

  The drop car’s doors opened to reveal yet another lobby hacked out of the rock. Three tunnels led off the lobby. Baker wasted no time before plunging into the center tunnel; he took off so fast that Michael had to run to catch up. Fifty meters down the tunnel, Baker stopped in front of a bench set up across the mouth of a room the size of a small warehouse and packed floor to ceiling with shelves loaded with orange plasfiber boxes; a sign proclaimed it to be the Personal Maneuvering Systems Workshop. Michael’s confusion was now absolute, so he stood there as Baker commed someone out of the back of the workshop.

  A crusty old chief appeared, a smile on his face as he saw Baker.

  “Hullo, sir. Haven’t seen you for a while.”

  “Some of us have to work for a living, Chief.”

  “Well, sir, thank God I don’t,” the man replied cheerfully. “What can I do for you?”

  “Two units, please. Oh, I forgot.” He waved an arm at Michael. “Chief, this is Lieutenant Helfort. You’ll be seeing a lot of him.”

  “Morning, Chief. Junior Lieutenant Helfort. Nice to meet you.” Michael shook hands across the counter.

  “Oh, shit, damn, and blast,” Baker muttered, shaking his head. “Sorry, Michael. You’re improperly dressed.”

  Michael looked puzzled. It was pretty hard to be improperly dressed in a shipsuit and boots. “Sir?”

  “Yes. Improperly dressed. A lieutenant should not be wearing a junior lieutenant’s shoulder straps. Fleet Dress Regulations, chapter something or other.”

  “What? I don’t. .” The penny dropped. “Aaah.”

  “Yes, sorry. Effective today, you’re a lieutenant. Orders only arrived this morning. Should have told you but fo
rgot. Congratulations and all that. Now, where were we?” Baker asked briskly.

  “Two units?” the workshop chief asked sardonically.

  “Ah, yes. That’ll do. Plus stick boots, of course.” Ten minutes later, the personal maneuvering unit heavy on his back and stick boots on his feet, an even more confused Michael followed Baker down the tunnel. He had no idea what they were doing. He had no idea why they were wearing personal maneuvering systems. He had no idea why he had been promoted to lieutenant two years early. All in all, the whole day was turning out to be a complete mystery.

  “Good, we’re here,” Baker said.

  They were in front of a plasglass security lock behind which lay a black and yellow striped door marked REPAIR FACILITY YANKEE. DOOR M-34. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY in emphatic red letters.

  “Now, Michael, I’m going to download a safety briefing. While you’re going through that, I’ll confirm that we can actually get in.”

  “Sir.”

  Michael got some answers as he watched the safety vid. Seemingly, behind the black and yellow striped door lay a single enormous space, brilliantly lit by wall-mounted light panels. Quite what the space was for, the briefing did not say. In the vid, it was empty except for a network of spidery bridges running in all directions. The briefing’s main purpose appeared to be telling him over and over again that unless authorized by a superior officer, he was to keep his stick boots on the bridges at all times. The rest of the brief was standard stuff for working in a zero-g environment. When Baker asked if he was ready, he nodded.

  One by one, with their identities confirmed by a skeptical security AI, Baker and Michael passed through the personnel lock.

  “Ready?” Baker asked.

  Michael could have screamed. Get on with it, he wanted to shout. The suspense was killing him, but he nodded.

  Baker commed the door open. It slid back silently. Michael blinked in the wave of harsh white light that flooded out. He followed Baker out onto one of the bridges, the artgrav disappearing as soon as he left the lock. As he looked down, his stomach lurched. They were hanging a good two hundred meters or more above the floor. For a moment, what he saw did not make any sense.

  Then it did.

  The space was vast, easily big enough to hold five heavy cruisers in a line with room to spare, the massive shapes sitting in cradles anchored to the floor and ceiling. Michael looked closely. The ships showed signs of massive radiation damage, with huge patches of their armor stripped away, in some cases down to the titanium inner hull. There were orange-strobed spacers and small workbots everywhere, maneuvering units spitting thin white spikes of compressed nitrogen as they wheeled and danced around the ships in an elaborately choreographed ballet. There were heavy bots on the move, too: salvagers, transporters, welders, cutters, hydraulic rammers, and more. Their escorts of safety bots were clearing the way through the endlessly shifting fireflies that infested the place.

  Ah, Michael thought. Now he understood. It was a repair facility. No, hang on, that was not right. No repair facility ever had such strict security. After all, the fact that the Federation was fixing its battle-damaged heavy cruisers was hardly the state secret of all time, and why was the facility right at the heart of Comdur? Getting ships the size of heavy cruisers down Comdur’s gravity well, small as it was, would take some doing.

  So what was going on here?

  “Well, Michael. What do you think?” Baker asked.

  “Impressive, sir,” Michael replied guardedly. “Impressive. But it’s not just another repair facility, is it?”

  “Smart man,” Baker said approvingly. “No, it’s not just another repair facility.” He paused for a second. “No, Michael. What you are looking at is your next command,” he said, waving his arm across the heavy cruisers.

  Michael stared at him, mouth open. His next command? What in God’s name was the man talking about?

  “You got to be kidding, sir!” Michael protested. “A cruiser captain? That’s a four-ringer’s job. Even if it is to be my job, I haven’t got the exper-”

  “Stop!” Baker ordered firmly. “Let me tell you something, Michael. You’re here because you’re the right person for the job. That’s my opinion. It’s also the boss’s opinion and one arrived at after a great deal of thought. So let’s go and meet her, and she can put you out of your misery. Now, where is the woman?” Baker asked himself. “Ah, yes. She’s inside the Tufayl, having an argument with the engineers about something. Right, hold on while I get us clearance from facility control. . okay, done. Follow me. Oh, and Michael.”

  “Sir?”

  “Please do not crash into anything.”

  “Sir!” Michael did his best to sound hurt. “As if!”

  “Hmmphh,” was Baker’s only comment. He unstuck his boots and pushed himself into space clear of the walkway. With casual competence, his backpack maneuvering unit spitting spikes of nitrogen, Baker spun on the spot and stopped dead; with easy grace, he accelerated away across the void, directly toward the center of the line of heavy cruisers. Michael was impressed. Baker needed only the briefest of brief jets of ice-cold nitrogen to nudge him back on vector.

  With a deep gulp, Michael followed; he tried hard not to look down. When he was more or less lined up, he accelerated after Baker, his trajectory degenerating in seconds into an erratically three-dimensional corkscrew. It was not easy. No, it was bloody well impossible. He’d only worked in zero g wearing a combat space suit complete with life-support and maneuvering systems. Everything was different, and not surprisingly, the result was a mess. He was too light, his center of mass was all wrong, and, not surprisingly, the results were not good to look at. He got there in the end, though it was more a controlled crash than a carefully executed landing as he thumped into the Tufayl’s hull in a cloud of nitrogen-chilled ice crystals, frantically trying to compensate for coming in too fast.

  Acutely aware that every spacer with nothing better to do must be enjoying the show he was putting on, he bounced heavily off the Tufayl’s matte-black armor. A few frantic blips on his thrusters brought him into the cargo air lock, where Baker was waiting to grab him, a huge smile on his face.

  “God above, Michael. What a performance!” Baker called cheerfully.

  “Glad you liked it, sir,” Michael muttered sourly. “I think everyone else did, too.”

  Baker clapped him on the back. “Don’t sweat it. My first time, I managed to break my wrist, so all in all you haven’t done too badly. Come on. Park your unit here. The boss awaits.”

  Michael stuck his boots into the micromesh covering the deck. Arms waving in an attempt to stay upright, he set off after Baker in the awkward motion-push, twist, tug, push-required to move in zero g wearing stick boots. Making their way through the ship, Michael looked around with interest. The Tufayl had been one of the ships closest to the Hammer missiles; she had suffered badly in the attack, and it was obvious.

  It was a heartrending sight. The ship was a shambles. Evidence of the massive shock wave that had punched its way through the ship was everywhere-machinery big and small, pipework, cabling, lockers, all ripped off their mounts. Here and there, there were dirty black patches he strongly suspected were long-dried blood. He shivered. A lot of good spacers had died here, and he felt their ghosts. Everywhere there was debris from a once-living ship: shipsuits, boots, gloves, tool kits, test equipment, combat space suits, fire extinguishers, emergency cable kits, tables, chairs, holovid screens, mess kits, and more. There was abandoned gear everywhere. The sight was utterly demoralizing.

  Baker plowed on. He must be used to all this, Michael thought. He followed Baker down a drop tube, pulling himself down hand over hand.

  “Okay, here we are,” Baker announced as he pushed himself clear of the tube. They were in a small lobby. Aft lay the Tufayl’s combat information center, but Baker went forward to the captain’s quarters. He knocked on the door.

  “Come!” Michael knew he should recognize that voice. Try as he might,
he could not place it.

  He recognized the face, though. The long, lean figure of Vice Admiral Jaruzelska smiled broadly as Michael whipped his right hand up into a salute in best Fleet fashion. Well, it would have been if Michael’s feet had been better anchored to the micromesh. They were not, and the salute spun his body into a slow turn to the right that, arms flailing, nothing could stop. Doing his best not to laugh out loud, Baker finally rescued him.

  Michael, cheeks flaming red in embarrassment, struggled to recover his lost dignity. Jaruzelska made her way over to shake his hand, her face split by a huge grin. “Welcome,” she said warmly. “Welcome to the First Dreadnought Squadron, Lieutenant Helfort. Well, what will in time become the squadron when we’ve made a few alterations.”

  “Thank you, sir,” he replied, wondering what the hell the First Dreadnought Squadron was. He pretty much knew the Fed order of battle by heart; to the best of his knowledge, there was no such beast as the First Dreadnought Squadron.

  “How much has Commander Baker told you?”

  “Well, sir. Not a lot, really, and what he has told me is, well, is. .”

  “Hard to believe?” Jaruzelska laughed.

  Michael nodded. “You could say that, sir. Impossible to believe might be more accurate, though.”

  “Well, we’ll have to put you out of your misery, then. Now, let me explain what this business is all about.”

  “Sir.”

  “First things first. My job is simple. I’ve been given six months to give the Fleet an offensive capability capable of beating Hammer ships armed with antimatter warhead-fitted Eaglehawk missiles.”

  Michael’s mouth dropped open. How in God’s name could these battered ships do that?

  “Yes, I know, Michael. Hard to see what the Tufayl and her sisters can do to take the fight back to the Hammers, but Commander Baker here has convinced me. Commander?”