Helfort's War Book III Read online

  “Operations and threat assessment officers?” Michael replied, looking doubtful. “Far as I know, warfare officers are thin on the ground after Comdur, so where will we find them?”

  “We don’t.” Jaruzelska smiled broadly. “We’re bringing two cruiser AIs out of retirement to do the job. What you have been missing, Michael, is not AIs to make decisions; I know you’ve got plenty of those, and I’ve never met an AI that’s not ready, willing, and able to make decisions … never mind whether they’re right or wrong. No, what you’ve needed is the advice and support the two senior warfare officers sitting alongside their captain have always provided. Problem is you can’t have people. So instead of real live spacers, you’ll have two AIs. Proven ones, ones with a lot of combat experience. They’ll never be as good as real people, but they’ll be one hell of a lot better than two empty chairs.”

  Michael considered the idea for a while; he nodded slowly. “Sounds good, Admiral. Hope it works.”

  “We think it will. In fact, I’m kicking myself we did not pick it earlier. Anyway, we’ll find out.”

  “Can’t wait, sir,” Michael said with a conspicuous lack of enthusiasm at the idea of spending more time in the simulators.

  “Cheer up, my boy. It’ll work. Right, moving on,” she said, her voice brisk. “I’m giving you a week’s leave. I suggest you go see a certain junior lieutenant I know you’re fond of. Personnel will have your travel authority. Okay?”

  “Yes, sir,” Michael said, looking much happier, the prospect of seeing Anna Cheung again bringing a touch of color to his cheeks, even if the chance of the two of them meeting up stayed the same as always: pretty close to nil. “Thanks.”

  “Ah, yes. One more thing. Tufayl. Fleet had scheduled her handover for October 2. But Commander Watanabe tells me that we can take her out of the yard’s hands early. So, Lieutenant Helfort, it’s dress blacks for you. Commissioning ceremony, 09:00, Thursday 21st. Okay?”

  Michael gulped. He had been so sure that Jaruzelska was about to sack him. “Yes, sir. So does that mean I’m still—”

  “Still captain in command? Well, let me see,” she said, eyes dancing mischievously. “I talked with Surgeon Captain Indra last night.”

  “You did, sir?” Michael tried not to sound too hopeful.

  “I did. You’ve been making good progress, so she’s re-graded you P-2. Provided you continue to improve, she intends to grade you P-1, so I don’t think there’s much doubt that you will be fit for active service.”

  “Jeez, sir. Thanks. I can’t tell you what …” Michael ground to a halt, unable to speak.

  Jaruzelska shook her head. “You don’t have to. Now go. I’ll see you Monday week. You know what? I think we might get you straight back into the sims.”

  Michael smiled ruefully. “You don’t say, sir. I’ll look forward to that.”

  “You should,” Jaruzelska said with unexpected intensity, “you should. Because I think we’re close to making dreadnoughts perform the way we want them to. So enjoy your leave. You’ll see some changes by the time you get back. So go. I’ve work to do.”

  “Sir,” Michael said as he left, already writing the vidmail to Anna to tell her to pull every string she could pull to organize some leave. More in hope than expectation, he fired the vidmail off. He had checked Damishqui’s tasking, and things did not look at all promising. The armistice between Feds and Hammers might be holding, but there were always more missions to perform than ships to perform them, so Anna’s ship, like every ship in the Fleet, was kept busy.

  But maybe the Fates would work for him, just this once.

  Saturday, September 9, 2400, UD

  The Palisades, Ashakiran planet

  Utterly content, Michael sat alone on the deck of the Palisades, the family’s weekender high in the western foothills of the Tien Shan Mountains. The house provided the perfect place to sit and pretend—for a few precious minutes—that the rest of humanspace with all its cruel stupidities did not exist. Beer in hand, Michael gazed out across the valley of the Clearwater River, the ground far below invisible through a gray murk below the clouds scudding overhead. It was a wet, blustery day. He did not care. The weather might be crap, but it was still perfection. He knew it was all a chimera, but he was grateful for it, though it would have been better if Anna had been there in person. How good would it be to have her—

  The insistent chiming of his neuronics smashed his daydreams to dust. “What now?” Michael muttered aloud while he accepted the incoming com.

  It was his agent, Mitesh, the face of the artificial intelligence that of an older, wiser Michael. A Michael with wrinkles and a bad haircut, the family always said, teasingly. The AI’s computer-generated avatar had the good grace to look apologetic. “I know you said no callers, Michael, but I’m pretty sure you will want to take this pinchcomm.”

  “Goddamn it, Mitesh, Anna is the only person I want to hear from, so …” His voice trailed off. “Ah, yeah, right,” he said after a moment.

  A smug grin split Mitesh’s face. “Precisely, not that you ever told me that. Quite the opposite, in fact. What you actually told me was—”

  “Okay, okay, I know what I said.” It was Michael’s turn to look apologetic. “Sorry about that.”

  Mitesh smiled. “Don’t worry about it. So may I tell Miss Anna that you’ll take her call?”

  “Miss Anna! Jeez, she’d love that.” Michael laughed, shaking his head. “You’re a real smart-ass! Makes her sound like some sort of feudal grande dame. Put her on.”

  “Patching her through.”

  After a short pause, Anna’s face blossomed in Michael’s neuronics, her avatar the most faithful of faithful renditions, thanks in large part to an indulgent father’s extravagant gift of the best avatar software in all of humanspace. In Michael’s view, it was money well spent. Anna seemed real; she might have been standing there right in front of him. She was stunning, her beauty a testament to the Chinese, Asian, African, and European gene pools of Old Earth, not to mention a great deal of expensive geneering spanning many generations.

  The breath caught in his throat at the sight of her. Anna’s face was a dark honey-gold set under fine black hair that dropped to frame sharply defined cheekbones dusted with pink, a firm nose fractionally too large—geneering was still far from an exact science—above a generous mouth quick to smile. But it was the eyes that always grabbed him: large and set wide, infinitely deep green pools that dragged him in and down.

  Anna groaned in mock despair. The ability of her eyes to mesmerize Michael was a long-running private joke. “Michael, for chrissakes, pay attention,” she said in no-nonsense tones. “There’s been a change of plan.”

  “Change of plan?” Michael’s focus snapped back to the here and now. He sat up. This sounded promising. Had the fates delivered for once?

  “Yup, change of plan,” Anna said with a smile of pure happiness. “You’re in luck, sailor boy. Good old Damishqui is cactus. One of our primary fusion plants has dropped offline, and nobody seems to know why. We’ve been diverted to Suleiman to get the problem fixed. The engineers say we’ll be in the yard for at least a week, and after much groveling, my boss has given me leave. So, let me see … yes, I’ll see you tomorrow morning your time, so make sure you’re at Bachou to pick me up. I can’t stand here talking. This call is costing me a fortune, and I’ve got a flight to catch. I’ve commed you my itinerary. ’Bye.”

  Euphoric, Michael stared open-mouthed while Anna’s avatar disappeared. Well, he said to himself, sometimes things went his way, an all too rare occurrence for a Fleet officer.

  He commed Mitesh.

  “Yes, Michael?” “You followed all that?”

  “I did. I’ll keep an eye on things and let you know when to leave to pick her up.”

  “Thanks, Mitesh.”

  “But while you’re on the line”—Mitesh winced at Michael’s exaggerated groan—“I’ve been swamped with requests for interviews.”

  “Let
me guess,” Michael said, his voice twisted with resentment, the euphoria blown away in an instant. “All provoked by the latest trashvid documentary?”

  “That’s exactly why. You watch it?”

  “No way, Mitesh,” Michael snarled. “That’s the fourth doco on the Ishaq business, and if this one was anything like its predecessors, why would I?” He stopped to recover his mental balance. “I suppose you did.”

  “It’s in my job description, Michael,” Mitesh replied primly, lips stiffening into a thin line.

  “So it is. And?”

  “Well, let me see. How best to put it? Yes … it was sensationalist drivel based loosely on what actually happened, sprinkled with interviews from people who weren’t there, seasoned with opinions from so-called experts who could not find their ass with both hands, the whole tawdry brew spiced with exaggeration, innuendo, more than a few outright lies, and—”

  “Enough, Mitesh, enough!” Michael said, laughing despite himself, “I get it, I get it. It was garbage.”

  “Garbage? You can say that, though I’d prefer to call it two hours of brain-numbing pap. There were some good things about it, though.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Michael shook his head in despair. “Do tell, Mitesh.”

  “The Hammers received a good kicking, and you came out well. Man of the moment and all that. Nice shot of you in your dress blacks. Mmmm, all those medals, command hash marks, unit citations, wound stripes. I do so love gold on black. The girls will be—”

  Michael’s laughter stopped Mitesh’s increasingly camp account in its tracks. “Stop, Mitesh, stop!”

  “Well, you asked,” Mitesh protested.

  “I did,” Michael said with a heartfelt sigh. He hated the scrutiny; for as long as he could remember, he had avoided the spotlight—public speaking scared the crap out of him—yet here he was, getting it in spades. “Jeez, Mitesh. Why the hell won’t they just leave me alone?”

  “You know why, Michael. The average Fed needs heroes just like everybody else, and you’re the poor sap who just happens to be the man of the hour. So live with it. It will pass. Just do your duty and let the trashpress get on and do their thing. They’ll get bored eventually and start looking for someone else, someone new.”

  Michael sighed again. Easy for Mitesh to say but hard for Michael to endure. Exhausted by the relentless attention, he had given up going out in public. Hell! The trashpress even turned that simple decision against him. “The Hermit Hero—What Is He Hiding?” had been one of their headlines, followed by hundreds of words before providing the answer: nothing!

  “All right, Mitesh. Enough on those scum. No to the interviews, of course.”

  Mitesh’s face tightened in disapproval. “That’s a bad call, Michael. Ignoring the trashpress means letting them tell your story the way they want to. You need to tell your own story. They’re beginning to get cranky. You should talk to them before they turn on you.”

  “No,” Michael said, “no, I can’t.”

  “Can’t? Not a word I associate with you, Michael,” Mitesh said tartly. “But it’s your life.”

  “Yes, it is. Anything else?”

  “No. I’m working through the vid, and if there are any errors of fact, I’ll lodge a formal complaint with the Mass Communications Tribunal. I’ll com you if I do that; otherwise I’ll leave you be.”

  “Thanks, Mitesh,” Michael said, grateful for Mitesh’s unflagging support. Mitesh might be nothing more than the product of some fancy AI engineering, but he was a true friend.

  Sunday, September 10, 2400, UD

  Bachou Municipal Airport, Ashakiran

  “Golf India 55, this is Bachou Tower. You are cleared for takeoff on runway 25. On departure, you are cleared to follow flight pipe Green 66 Bravo.”

  “Golf India 55, cleared for takeoff on runway 25, pipe Green 66 Bravo. Roger.”

  Michael glanced across at Anna. “Ready?”

  Anna nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Michael held the flier on the brakes, his seat shuddering while its mass driver came up to full power, steam ripping the air apart behind the compact little machine. Satisfied that all was the way it should be, he released the brakes, the acceleration driving him back into his seat as the flier gathered speed rapidly. He lifted the nose up sharply, Bachou’s small airport fast disappearing behind them.

  “In a hurry, are we?” Anna asked, looking across at him, batting her eyes.

  “You know me. Places to go and all that,” Michael said with a smile. He held the flier nose up, climbing steeply under full power, the blue of the sky above deepening when they burst through the surface haze filling the valley of the Clearwater River.

  “You don’t change, do you?”

  “More than you know, Anna,” he said, trying to sound flippant and failing.

  Concern clouded Anna’s face. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, think so. It’s been pretty rough. Long days. Pressure, pressure, pressure. Jaruzelska’s one tough woman. But I’ll be fine. And the Fleet postcombat trauma guys have been great. So I’ll survive.”

  “Hope so,” Anna said. “Suppose you still can’t tell me what these damn dreadnoughts will be used for?”

  Michael shook his head. “Sorry, no. I’m not trying to be cute. We haven’t been told yet. But soon, I hope.”

  “It’s hard not knowing what the bastards have you lined up for. Whatever it is, it’ll be mayhem. You and trouble seem to go together, Michael Helfort.”

  “Yes, we do,” Michael said with a frown, “but don’t blame me. Blame the Hammers.”

  Anna sat quietly for a while. “The Hammers,” she said at last. “Does anyone understand those sons of bitches? I sure as hell don’t.”

  “Nor me,” Michael replied with a shake of the head. “Something tells me it will not be long before we’re at their throats again. If I were them, I’d tear up the armistice. Go back on the offensive. Hit us while we’re still trying to rebuild the Fleet after Comdur, shut down all our interstellar trade routes, force us back to the negotiating table.”

  “Hell. That’s a cheery assessment. Can they do that, shut us down, I mean?”

  “Don’t know for sure, but they should try. What can they lose? If they sit around waiting for something to happen, we’ll eventually have a Fleet that can take them on—who knows, maybe with antimatter weapons—and we’re back to where we were before Comdur. Lining our ships up, loading the marines, and counting the days down until we can invade Commitment to rip their Hammer hearts out,” he said, his voice rising, shaking with vicious intensity.

  He paused for a moment to recover his self-control. “Sorry. Got a bit carried away.” He threw a quick glance at Anna, her face radiant in the early-morning sun. “I must stop taking it so personally. I really must.”

  “You have every reason, Michael,” Anna said, her voice softened by concern.

  He nodded. He had. “So,” he said after another long pause, “what about us?”

  “What can I say?” Anna said, shrugging her shoulders. “Nothing’s changed. You’re right about the Hammers. There’s no chance they’ll sit around scratching their asses while we take our time rebuilding the Fleet. So the armistice is a dead man walking. It can’t be long before it falls over. That means Damishqui will be in the thick of things, and those dreadnoughts of yours, too. I’m damn sure they won’t leave you doing endless sims.”

  Michael frowned and shook his head. “No, they won’t.”

  “So, like I say. Nothing’s changed. I love you, you love me, but until the Hammers are beaten, I cannot commit, and you can’t; you shouldn’t, either. Michael”—Anna touched his arm, so softly, it was more a caress—“don’t push it. I know you want me to commit, but I can’t. Not until this is over. Just take it a day at a time, and with a bit of luck we’ll both come through. Then we’ll do the whole commitment thing, I promise. Marriage, house, day jobs, kids …”

  Her voice cracking, Anna turned away, but not before Michael saw the tears. />
  “Enough,” she said after a while, head still turned away as she wiped her eyes. “I’ve just been on the commair flight from hell, so all I want is a shower, a decent cup of coffee, and some breakfast. So let’s just leave it at that. Wake me up when we get close to the Palisades.”

  There was nothing more to say. Soon Anna was asleep. They flew on, the flier’s cabin quiet, the only noise the soft hiss of air across plasglass.

  Friday, September 15, 2400, UD

  The Palisades, Ashakiran planet

  For all the progress Michael was making with the post-combat stress deprogramming, Detective Sergeant Kalkov’s jeering face still haunted him, the nightmare grinding its way to the same terrifying conclusion. Thanks to Indra’s team, the nightmares troubled him less, but they came all the same, and tonight was one of those nights.

  Shocked awake, Michael knew better than to lie there thrashing around in a futile attempt to get back to sleep. Quietly, he slipped out of bed. Throwing on coat and shoes, he made his way out of the house, leaving Anna dead to the world, a shapeless lump in the bed, exhausted by a brutally tough day climbing the rock walls behind the Palisades. Outside, the air was cool and crisp; dawn was hours away, the night dark under a moonless sky, clear, still, and star-studded.

  Aided by the low-light processor embedded in his neuronics, Michael followed the narrow track, climbing fast but carefully until he reached a solid mass of rock that reared up out of the heavily timbered spine of the ridge, an island of granite in a sea of green. Scrambling up the scree that skirted the outcrop, he sat down where he always did, a small, comfortable heather-filled cleft slashed into the base of the huge rock. It had long been one of his favorite places, a place he used to clear his mind.

  He needed to. He had hoped Anna would help him sort things out, but she had not. The exact opposite, in fact. He was more confused than ever by the competing demands that fought for supremacy in a badly conflicted mind: the irreconcilable demands of love, duty, family, and honor.