Helfort's War Book III Read online

“Captain, sir. Cold move complete, ship is in orbit, orbit is nominal. Tugs detached. Propulsion fusion plants are coming online, all systems nominal. We will have full power available in twenty minutes.”

  “Thank you. Nice job,” Michael said, much encouraged by Ferreira’s flawless execution of an evolution that had brought more than a few executive officers undone in the past and even more encouraged that Tufayl’s fusion plants were not about to blow his ship apart. Start-ups from cold were tricky, which was why Fleet standard operating procedures insisted that they take place well away from ships and base facilities.

  “Thank you, sir,” Ferreira said, her relief obvious.

  “Okay, Jayla. What’s next?”

  “Final planning meeting for our shakedown cruise in thirty, sir.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you there. I’m going walkabout. Chief Bienefelt, walk with me.”

  “Sir.”

  With Tufayl’s coxswain in tow, Michael set off. Leaving the combat information center, he went forward to the ship’s main drop tube, which took him two decks down into the cavernous air group hangar. Michael took a look around. It was the largest compartment on board. Spanning the full width of the ship, it stretched close to 200 meters long fore and aft. Once Tufayl would have stored an entire air group there: fifty-six landers and space attack vehicles, packed in tight.

  Now it hosted the diminutive shape of a single light assault lander. The sight unnerved Michael, the hangar’s emptiness a powerful reminder of how much change the disaster at Comdur had forced on the Federated Worlds Fleet.

  Bienefelt broke into Michael’s thoughts with a soft cough. “Take it you didn’t bring me down here to look at all this empty space, sir?”

  “Uh, no. Sorry, Matti. I know you’re busy. I just wanted a chat.”

  “Knew you might, sir,” Bienefelt said with a chuckle.

  “I’m that obvious, eh?” Michael replied. “Yes, two things. First, thanks for agreeing to be my coxswain. I know it’s not the best posting from a personal point of view. How does Yuri feel?”

  “Well”—Bienefelt’s face reddened—“well, he, er … well, uh … he says he loves me and as long as I come back, he can wait,” she said, finishing in an embarrassed rush.

  “He’s a good man, Matti. He’ll be there when this is all over.”

  “I know he will, sir.”

  Michael stared right at Bienefelt. “I can’t tell you how good it is to have you here. We go back a way.”

  “We do, sir, we certainly do. Life is never dull with you around.”

  “Seems to be that way, and something tells me all this”—he waved a hand at Tufayl—“is going to keep things interesting.”

  “Don’t think that’s in any doubt.”

  “No, it’s not. Second thing. The troops. What do you think of them so far?”

  Bienefelt considered the question a while before responding. “With one exception, they’re solid. They’ll do the job and do it well. But …”

  “Come on, Matti, Spit it out!”

  “Well, sir,” Bienefelt said, measuring her words carefully. “I’m a bit reluctant to leap to judgment because it’s early days yet. But Carmellini bothers me. He’s outstanding on paper, but something’s not quite right there.”

  “Carmellini. Thought it might be him. He came to us from Retribution?”

  “He did, but he wasn’t onboard when the shit hit the fan at Comdur. He missed that little fiasco. He was absent on compassionate leave.”

  “So, what is it? Survivor’s guilt?”

  “Yes. That’s my best guess, sir. Retribution suffered the second highest casualty rate on that day. Few Retributions came home, and most of those that did will never return to active duty. You can understand why he’s feeling guilty.”

  “Damn,” Michael muttered. “Something must have gone wrong. Fleet’s pretty good at treating postcombat stress”—something he knew from firsthand experience, he realized with a twinge of guilt—“and it’s had plenty of practice over the years. Carmellini must have slipped past the assessment teams.”

  “Pretty sure that’s what’s happened. They had their hands full.”

  “So what do we do? Send him back?”

  “No, sir,” Bienefelt replied, shaking her head. “Not yet, anyway. I think I’d like to hang on to him. See if we can pull him out of it.”

  Michael considered that for a moment. “Sure you don’t want to refer him to the postcombat stress people?”

  “No, sir. I have spoken to them, though. They’ve done the hard work for us, and we know what we have to do to make sure he doesn’t slip back.”

  “What does Lieutenant Ferreira think?”

  “Actually, sir,” Bienefelt said, “the XO picked it up first. She’s already spoken to me about Carmellini. She told me to take a week and get back to her. I assume she would have briefed you if she was still worried,” she added diplomatically.

  Michael smiled. It was good to find out the two key members of his crew had picked up on a problem before he had. Even better, he sensed that Bienefelt respected Ferreira. He hoped so; it meant he had the makings of a good crew and a good ship.

  “I’ll leave it with you, Matti. Off you go. I’ll see you at the shakedown cruise briefing. I’m going to see if the engineers have fixed that damned heat transfer pump.”

  “Sir.”

  It had been a long day but a good one. Tufayl was a living ship again, back in space where she belonged, one more step along the road to the day when she would go into action against the Hammers. A welcome beer in hand, he commed Mother, the AI in charge of the hundreds of AIs—big and small—that made the dreadnought work.

  “Yes, Michael?” Mother said, her face by long-standing tradition that of a middle-aged woman.

  For a moment Michael was a child again, talking to his own mother, which was probably why the primary AIs of this world looked the way they did: relics from a long-lost maledominated past intended to reassure insecure and lonely male officers that however bad things might seem, there was still hope. That summed up Anna’s view and that of every female spacer he had ever met. Sadly, Michael knew that what Anna said held more than a grain of truth.

  “What do you think? This going to work?”

  “Tufayl or dreadnoughts?”

  “Both, I suppose.”

  Mother took her time before answering. “The short answer is yes,” she said finally, measuring her words carefully. “I’ve been back through every engagement this ship has ever been in, real and simulated. I’ve found only a handful where having hundreds of spacers around made a significant difference to the outcome. I hate to say this, Michael, but apart from fixing defects or repairing battle damage, all those spacers mostly just get in the way, not to mention the mass of all the systems needed to keep them alive. No, there’s no reason why they won’t work.”

  Michael nodded. Admiral Jaruzelska had made the same points to him more than a few times.

  “There is one caveat, though,” Mother continued. “I agree with the admiral. I’ve studied every operation since the Tufayl entered service, focusing on the interaction between the captain and the operations and threat assessment officers. One thing is obvious. Without their support, the job of command in combat is too hard.”

  “Even with a warfare AI as good as ours?”

  “Yes. Warfare is not there to provide advice. It is there to manage close-quarters combat, to execute command-approved plans, to do what it’s told basically. Expecting any more of it is a waste of time.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Michael said. “So you think it’s a good idea, sitting two AIs alongside me?”

  “Yes, I do. And you’re getting two good ones.”

  Michael’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh? You know who they are?”

  “I do,” Mother said a touch smugly. “Us AI’s have our ways of finding things out. Seems we are getting the operations AIs from Kuibyshev and Kaladima.”

  Michael’s eyebrows lifted even farther. “Kuibysh
ev and Kaladima? Shit! They decommissioned them, what, ten years ago? I know the AIs are kept current, but are they up—”

  “Up to it?”

  “Well, yes, that, too, though I was going to say up to date. A lot has changed since they went through the Third Hammer War.”

  “Not as much as you think, Michael. Space warfare is space warfare, and they’ve spent thousands of hours in Fleet’s StratSim simulator since the Kuibyshev and Kaladima were scrapped. I don’t think you’ll find them out of touch. They’ll do a good job.”

  “I know,” Michael conceded, “and if Admiral Jaruzelska had a hand in their selection, I’m sure you’re right.”

  “We’ll see. Oh, yes, one more thing. They both know your parents.”

  Michael groaned out loud. Was there anyone—human or AI—in the Federated Worlds Space Fleet who did not know his parents?

  “Get me another beer before I have you turned off,” he said to Mother even though it was not her job to summon the drinkbot.

  “Yes, Michael,” Mother said meekly.

  Tuesday, October 3, 2400, UD

  Section 51 Interrogation Center, McNair

  Cruelly lit by the glare from banks of overhead lights, the interrogation room was a bleak and unforgiving place, its fittings limited to three chairs and a simple metal table, all bolted to a stained plascrete floor pierced by a small drain.

  The sole occupant of the room sat facing the door, her hands cuffed to the metal table. Professor Saadak was a pitiful sight: dirty blond hair hanging in matted strands, forehead slashed by an angry cut, its crust of dried blood black in the harsh light, eyelids puffy over half-closed eyes, skin gray and stretched tight. Unmoving, she stared into the distance.

  The woman started in shock when the door crashed open, head snapping back, hands twisting in a desperate, futile attempt to push her body away from the table. A man in dark gray coveralls came in and sat down; he ignored her. The woman gave up her struggle; without a word she watched the man arrange his data pad on the table.

  The silence dragged on and on; still the man just sat.

  Without warning, he stood and reached across the table. Working quickly, he pulled her sleeve back, ignoring her frantic efforts to stop him. He pulled a small gas-powered hypo gun from a coverall pocket; Saadak flinched when he fired it into her arm.

  “You bastard, Balluci,” she said, her voice a harsh croak, “bastard, bastard, bastard …” Her voice trailed off. For a minute she sat motionless. She sat up with a start, her pupils closing to pinpoints and her hands steadying as the drug seeped into her system. She whimpered, soft moans of agony, eyes casting left and right in a frantic search for a way out of her suffering.

  “All right, Professor Saadak, I think we’re ready to talk,” Interrogator First Class Balluci said, “so let’s get started. Remember, you can finish this by telling me the truth, first time, every time. I can give you something to ease the pain. I know that drug’s a real bitch.”

  “I’ve told you everything,” Saadak said, trembling, “everything I know.”

  “Not true, Professor. You still refuse to give me access to your neuronics.”

  “I can’t,” she cried, “I can’t. I’ve told you over and over. I can’t give you access. My neuronics are blocked, and you aren’t authorized to—”

  Balluci moved so fast that Saadak had no time to react. He lunged across the table, and his open hand smacked her head savagely to one side, a scream of drug-enhanced agony racketing off the wall of the room. She slumped forward, head shaking from side to side, tears dripping onto her jumpsuit, hands clawing uselessly at the metal tabletop.

  Balluci waited until she lifted her head, peering at him from pain-filled eyes. “You know what, Professor?” he said.

  “No,” Saadak croaked, “what?”

  “I think we believe you on the neuronics thing. So let’s move on. Tell me about your defense research and development programs. Did you have oversight of their budgets?”

  “Yes, I did,” Saadak said, utterly beaten.

  “Okay. Let me ask you …”

  Four hours later, the man behind the one-way mirror allowed himself to be convinced. The woman had nothing more to tell them. If it was in her brain—pity they had not cracked her neuronics—Balluci would have dug it out. He was one of the best, even if he was beginning to get too fond of the physical side of the business; the woman was a mess. Everything Saadak said confirmed that the Feds were conducting the basic research; she knew of no funding for antimatter warhead production. All of that meant the Feds had a long way to go before they managed to weaponize antimatter. It would be even longer before any antimatter weapons made it into frontline service in useful numbers.

  He put a holovid call through to his boss. His masters would be happy to hear what he had to say.

  Thursday, October 12, 2400, UD

  Federated Worlds Warship Tufayl,

  Comdur Fleet Base nearspace

  With a lurch, the universe turned itself inside out and Tufayl dropped into normalspace, back where she belonged. With one eye on the navigation AI while it computed the vector for Comdur, Michael heaved a sigh of relief. It had been a hard seven days. Shakedown cruise, my ass, he said to himself. Shakedown it certainly had been, cruise it had not. The pressure was relentless, crisis after crisis thrown at them to test the ability of the Tufayl’s tiny crew to react to and contain the problems deepspace operations might toss at them.

  All the time, standing back in the shadows, ship riders from the staff of the flag officer for space training watched everything and missed nothing; at times, their postexercise debriefings verged on the brutal as they dissected the mistakes made by Michael and his team. It was an unforgiving process, not least because any failure by one of Tufayl’s crew was his failure. He might be in command of the most advanced warship ever produced by humans, but some things never changed.

  He was glad it was over, happy to know he would soon see the back of the last of the ship riders.

  “Command, sensors. Threat plot is confirmed. Plot is green.”

  “Command, roger. Warfare, weapons tight. I have command authority.”

  “Warfare, roger.”

  “All stations, command. Stand down from general quarters. Revert to cruising stations, ship state 3, airtight integrity condition x-ray. Engineering, restore artificial gravity. Jayla, you can stand down. I’ll take the ship in.”

  “You sure, sir?” Ferreira asked.

  “Yup. Just get those ship riders off my ship the instant we’re in orbit.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ferreira replied with a huge grin. “I’ll see to it.”

  Michael sat alone in the combat information center, asking himself the same question over and over again: Had Tufayl done well enough? Did she have her precious Operational Readiness Certificate?

  “Command, navigation. Confirmed vector is nominal for Comdur parking orbit.”

  “Command, roger,” he replied. He triple-checked the navigation AI’s vector calculations. Comdur’s defenses were formidable; they tolerated no mistakes. To stray off vector risked an encounter of the terminal kind: If space mines missed them, autonomous defensive platforms armed with ASSMs and antiship lasers came next. If they did not get them, space battle stations—newly commissioned and nervous after the Hammers wiped out most of their predecessors—would. Michael knew he was justified in keeping a close eye on his navigation AI.

  Satisfied all was well, Michael allowed himself to settle back while he watched Tufayl’s painstaking transit through Comdur’s defenses.

  “Tufayl, Space Training Control.”

  “Space Training Control, Tufayl,” the navigation AI responded.

  Now what? Michael wondered.

  “Tufayl, Space Training Control. Stand by to receive shuttle with one pax for you. Chop vidcomm channel 36, contact shuttle Mike Romeo 4466.”

  Michael overrode the AI. “Space Training Control, Tufayl. Authenticate Kilo Mike Alfa Quebec.” After a week sufferin
g at the hands of vindictive ship riders, Michael did not trust the people who managed the minutiae of space training. Who knew what stunt the bastards might try to pull even at this late stage? He would not put it past them to have packed the shuttle with marines for a last-minute boarding exercise.

  “Tufayl, Space Training Control. I authenticate Lima Lima Yankee Golf.”

  “Tufayl, roger. Chopping vidcomm 36. Tufayl, out,” Michael acknowledged, relieved that the vidcomm message was genuine and that the shuttle was not some last-minute test of Tufayl’s operational readiness. He and Tufayl had had just about all the shaking down they could take.

  He would find out soon enough who was important enough to warrant sending a shuttle all the way out to meet Tufayl. In the meantime, he would do what all prudent captains did when entering Comdur nearspace: make sure his ship’s vector was precisely where it was supposed to be.

  Thirty minutes later, a gentle bump announced the arrival of the shuttle. Michael forced air deep into his lungs to control a sudden attack of nerves. The shuttle brought him a visitor he had never wanted to meet. He watched the coxswain pipe the side, the shrill squealing of bosun’s calls greeting the new arrival while he scrambled out of the plasfiber boarding tube.

  Michael saluted Rear Admiral Van Perkins, the newly appointed deputy commander of Dreadnought Forces. Perkins—tall, buzz-cut blond hair, florid complexion—snapped to attention to return Michael’s salute.

  “Admiral Perkins, sir,” Michael said formally, “welcome aboard.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Perkins replied, piercing blue eyes looking Michael right in the face. “Pleased to be aboard this fine ship.”

  Michael smiled politely as they shook hands. The man might outrank him by a country mile, but at least Perkins had not forgotten his manners. “Can I introduce my executive officer, sir? Junior Lieutenant Ferreira.”

  Ferreira stepped forward to shake Perkins’s hand. “Welcome to Tufayl, sir. And welcome to dreadnoughts.”

  “Lieutenant,” Perkins said.

  Michael wondered if anyone else noticed how the man’s mouth tightened at the word dreadnoughts.