The battle at the Moons of Hell hw-1 Page 8

  But finally his time was up. After the duty visits to family-his mother’s instructions had been quite clear that they were not optional-and with less than a week before he had to leave to join his new ship, the less than romantically named deepspace light scout DLS-387, he was on his way home to wrap things up, and then he’d be on his way.

  Saturday, August 22, 2398, UD

  Outside the Diplomatic Compound, City of McNair, Commitment Planet

  The fear gripping Digby felt like a hand plunged deep inside his stomach trying to pull his guts out.

  The stress of making his way unseen every second night, ducking and weaving to avoid the random Doctrinal Security patrols, was beginning to tell. Worse, time was starting to run out. This was his last chance. If he couldn’t get to Kumar unnoticed this morning, Kumar would not be able to get any messages up to the fortnightly routine starship courier to Sylvania-leaving in less than eighteen hours, for Kraa’s sake-for onward transmission to the Feds in time for them to do something about the Mumtaz. And that assumed that Kumar took him seriously enough to order the mership to drop out of pinchspace to make the pinchcomm transmission.

  Digby could just imagine how a commercial mership skipper, even one under contract to the Sylvanian government, would respond to that suggestion.

  The only thing about Kumar’s routine he had managed to establish was that the bloody man didn’t really have one.

  Some mornings-Digby laughed bitterly; on this planet, that could mean anything from broad daylight to, as now, pitch darkness-Kumar jogged alone. Sometimes, in company. Sometimes, not at all. Sometimes, three days in a row. Sometimes, not for a week. The only thing definite about Kumar was that when he did go jogging, he always left the compound between 06:00 and 06:10. Even better, DocSec had given up escorting him as it should have; the prospect of running in the dark early-morning hours clearly was not to the taste of the average and usually overweight DocSec trooper.

  So it was that Digby stood in the deep blackness of the trees shading the Avenue of Heroes as it ran up to the one and only gate giving access to the diplomatic compound and waited.

  Twenty agonizing minutes later and with a heavy heart, he tasted the bitter fruits of failure. The road from the diplomatic compound had remained empty, the only sign of life being the bored DocSec guards at the compound gate. Digby stood in the shadows, lost. He had been sure that, provided that he was prepared to take the terrible risk, and he was, there would be a chance to slip a message into Kumar’s hand in time to avert the catastrophe. But Kraa had decided otherwise. Now he had missed the starship due out that night, and the next one wouldn’t go out for another two weeks. Even if he could get a message to Kumar, the man would have one hell of a job getting a seat on any starship at all with the Establishment Day holidays coming up. Digby cursed his fate. It was getting too late.

  Digby waited in the shadows, undecided. Did he give up and hope for the best, or did he at least try to lessen the damage by making it clear to the Feds that the entire affair was the unilateral action of a chief councillor gone mad? Would they even believe that? he wondered. He wasn’t at all sure that he would. But it was all he could hope for now, to lessen the blow that would surely fall on the Hammer Worlds. He slipped away through the darkness unseen.

  He knew he had no choice. He would have to be back in two days to do it all over again. He’d gone too far to turn back now.

  Friday, August 28, 2398, UD

  Torrance Airport, Ashakiran Planet

  Michael turned to walk through security and onto his flight back to the Arcadia spaceport, from where he would catch the up-shuttle to the planetary transfer station.

  Behind him stood his mother, teary-eyed, and his father, tight-lipped. It would be months before Michael saw them again, but that was part and parcel of Space Fleet life, as they knew better than he did. Worse, he wouldn’t be seeing Anna.

  She had commed him to say that Damishqui’s program had been changed at short notice to go to Anjaxx and that their two ships would be berthed together on SBS-22 for eighteen glorious hours. But just as Michael’s elaborate plans to make the most of the few hours they would have together had begun to take shape, another comm had come in from Anna. It was as unwelcome as it was short and to the point. Damishqui’s program had been changed again, and they would miss each other by a day. Sorry, can’t be helped. Love and kisses, Anna.

  Michael cursed his luck, the Fleet, Damishqui, and anything else he could think of.

  So slowly that the change had been almost imperceptible, he’d begun to miss Anna, really miss her. That was not surprising, he realized, since he’d spent the best part of three years with her at the college, not really appreciating that graduation meant they would go their separate ways.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered aloud as he made his way to the identity station, automatically presenting himself for the routine DNA and retinal checks. No wonder Space Fleet people had trouble keeping a relationship going. They were never together long enough for there to be a relationship.

  Michael shut Anna out of his mind and turned his attention to a more immediate concern: the reception that awaited him onboard DLS-387. Michael hoped that Fielding’s call to his new skipper would at the very least mean that he’d be given a fair chance. Oh, well, he thought as he joined the line to make his way onboard the up-shuttle, only one way to find out. Thirty-five minutes later, as the shuttle blasted its way into orbit en route to the huge transfer station hanging in geostationary orbit, Michael put his seat back. Seconds later, despite the chorus of oohs and aahs of the space travel virgins transfixed by the magical holovid image of Ashakiran as it fell away below the incandescent mass driver plumes of the up-shuttle, he was asleep.

  Sunday, August 30, 2398, UD

  Deepspace Light Scout 387 Berthed on Space Battle Station 20, in Orbit around Anjaxx Planet

  “Welcome aboard, sir. Identity check and orders, please.”

  Even as she saluted, the quartermaster’s voice betrayed none of the fun she’d had watching the young officer make a complete mess of crossing the line. She’d known he would do that the second it became obvious that he wasn’t going to use the lubber’s rail, because crossing the line was not the straightforward exercise it first appeared. As one approached any berthed starship, up was definitely and without doubt up. Down was down. Left was left. Right was right. Easy and, after millions of years of evolution, something the human mind was well able to manage.

  But as you crossed the line that marked the change from the space battle station’s artificial gravity to ship’s artificial gravity, up could be down or sideways or all three mashed together. In this particular case, 387 was berthed so that horizontal became down by way of a sharp, almost 90-degree lean backward coupled with a slight right-hand twist. And Leading Spacer Matthilde Bienefelt had seen everyone from admirals down to the youngest and most inexperienced recruit ignore the lubber’s rail and make a mess of a deceptively simple problem: how to cross a red and white striped line, adjust to a new gravity field, and maintain some semblance of balance, control, and dignity in the space of less than a second. But after more than twenty years in Space Fleet, Bienefelt knew full well that the human brain simply could not cope with the instantaneous rearrangement of the forces of gravity through three axes and that Junior Lieutenant Helfort was wasting his time trying. His brain’s balance control system would stay shut down until it was ready to cope. That, of course, was why the lubber’s rail was provided, though a remarkably large number of spacers let ego override common sense and ignored it.

  He would learn, Bienefelt thought, standing patiently as Michael scrambled his way across the threshold and fell rather than climbed down the ladder into the ship’s surveillance drone deployment air lock. He arrived at her feet standing up, thanks to a desperate lunge for the ladder handrail.

  After a few seconds and conscious that he, like generations of junior officers before him, had just made a complete ass of himself, Michael’
s brain came back online and he recovered his balance and composure, if not his dignity. He presented his thumb for DNA checking and his left eye for retinal scanning and then commed his orders to Bienefelt, marking his formal arrival onboard Space Fleet’s second youngest deepspace light scout, the name-challenged DLS-387.

  Michael didn’t approve of warships not having names, but Space Fleet policy was unshakable. In its view, there were simply too many small ships-light scouts like 387, courier ships, and a multitude of small auxiliary support ships-to give each one a name. So numbers it was, something Michael had always thought depersonalized a ship. That was a pity. With its master AI, a ship was in a way a living thing and as such deserved better. Still, that was the way things were, and he’d never be able to change them.

  “Thank you, sir. Welcome aboard. I’m Leading Spacer Bienefelt, and I’m in your division.” Bienefelt stuck out a hand the size of a plate and proceeded to crush Michael’s in a grip like a steel vise. Michael resolved on the spot not to argue with Bienefelt unless it was absolutely necessary. She was at least forty centimeters taller than he, maybe more, and probably a good 50 kilos heavier, to the point where she was as close to being declared a cyborg as any Worlder he’d ever seen; she’d make Karen Sutler look small. In fact, if she were any larger, she might be declared an illegal and expelled from the FedWorlds.

  “Sir, the captain asked that you see him as soon as you came aboard; he’s in his cabin.”

  Michael grimaced. He needed a shower. “What do you think, Leader? Time to change?”

  “I think you’ll find that when the skipper says now, he generally means now, sir.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “You have the ship schematics, sir?”

  “I do, thanks, Leader. Can someone take my stuff to my cabin, please.” Michael gestured at the battered trunk and a couple of smaller bags, all of which had been unceremoniously dumped just outside 387’s open air lock by the baggage bot and containing everything that Space Fleet deemed necessary for the proper conduct of his duties.

  “No worries, sir. Leave it with me. Karpov, you fucking worm.” Bienefelt turned to the young spacer standing slightly behind and to one side of the quartermaster’s desk, “Gear. Junior Lieutenant Helfort’s cabin. Now. You’ve got two minutes.”

  Bienefelt turned back to Helfort. “I’ve commed the captain to let him know you are on your way. Anything else I can help you with, sir?”

  “No thanks, Leader. It’s good to be aboard.”

  “Good to have you, sir.”

  Michael hoped she meant it.

  And with that, Michael brought up the ship’s schematics on his neuronics, nominated the captain’s cabin as his destination, and set off through the massive doorway that opened from the drone deployment air lock into the brightly lit drone hangar deck. He paused a moment to catch his breath. Ahead of him, blackly menacing in their stealth coats of radio frequency and light absorbent material, sat two massive Mark 88-K surveillance drones, to the human eye just two bottomless holes. The nothingness was absolute, so completely did they absorb the light thrown at them.

  Along the hangar walls, six smaller drones sat in two neat rows on the gray ceramsteel deck, three to a side. My babies, he thought, just the things to keep an assistant warfare officer busy. His neuronics pointed the way down through a small personnel hatch set in the deck to his right.

  Michael dropped down the ladder onto 2 Deck, the upper accommodation level, and followed a passageway lined with the usual clutter of pipe work and cabling broken up every so often by damage control lockers, firefighting equipment, and all the other odds and ends that warships used passageways to store. Michael went forward for 10 meters or so before dropping down another hatch in spacer style, boots on the outside of the ladder, hands braking his fall at the very last minute, to thump onto 3 Deck. The ship’s main cross-passage, leaving the galley and the wardroom on the left and the combat information center on the right, finally brought him to the captain’s cabin at the far end. He hadn’t passed another soul. Not surprising, he thought, this early on a Sunday morning. He’d be in bed if he had the choice.

  Michael stopped outside the closed door to straighten the rather rumpled clothes he’d been wearing since he had left home. Taking a couple of deep breaths, he knocked on the door.

  “Yes, Helfort, come in.” The voice was incredibly deep, with rich warm overtones.

  Should have been an opera singer, Michael thought irreverently as he stepped into his new captain’s cabin.

  Twenty minutes later, any irreverence Michael might have felt toward Lieutenant Jean-Pierre Ribot, JP to his friends and captain-in-command of the Federated Worlds warship DLS-387, had evaporated in the face of a very detailed statement of what Ribot expected him to do to become a useful member of 387’s command team. And with the ship due out on patrol in forty-eight hours, the list of things he had to do before it departed seemed to be a million strong. But first things first.

  After a badly needed shower, Michael changed into a dark gray one-piece ship suit marked only by his shoulder badges of rank, his name tag, and the deep purple starburst of the Federated Worlds on the left breast. The ship badge that belonged on his upper right arm would have to wait until he could find someone to issue him one from stores.

  With the transition from crumpled space traveler to ship’s officer complete, he commed Mother. Her avatar was the pleasant face of a middle-aged woman, calm and unflappable and, like most Worlders, the color of milky coffee.

  “Welcome aboard DLS-387, Junior Lieutenant Helfort.” It was a velvet voice, as calm and unflappable as her avatar.

  “Thank you, Mother. Please call me Michael.”

  “Certainly. Welcome aboard DLS-387, Michael.”

  Michael smiled. An AI with a sense of humor?

  “Mother, since it’s early and most of my division, not to mention my new boss, are away on weekend leave, I would like to get the ship knowledge and safety test out of the way first. Can you set up the guided tour for me? I’ll see if I can get it done this morning. I’ve been through the induction material and done the sims, but this is the first time in years that I’ve actually been in a light scout.”

  “Stand by. Ship knowledge and safety induction tour set up. We’ll start on 4 Deck aft in propulsion and primary power. Please follow the arrows.” As Mother finished, Michael’s neuronics pointed the way to the nearest hatch and he set off.

  Four hours later, Mother had taken Michael into every compartment, every corner, every recess of DLS-387, and there had been a hell of a lot of ship to see. She had taken him through every system onboard end to end, including, and this had been a particular thrill for Michael, the personnel and ship waste recycling system. If he didn’t know better, he could have sworn that this particular AI definitely had a sense of humor. She had taken an awfully long time making sure he knew the full intricacies of a system that most were happy to leave to the engineers.

  Finally, the induction tour over, Michael sat in his tiny cabin on 2 Deck, eyes half-closed as he successfully navigated his way through the ship knowledge and safety test before finishing up with the two mandatory damage control sims: first a catastrophic loss of hull pressure after a collision with a large meteorite and second a fire. Heart pounding and covered in sweat, Michael and his imaginary team, most of whom had to be directed more firmly than he was used to, finally had extinguished the fire that had threatened to engulf most of 3 Deck from its starting point in the galley.

  He sat back to wait for his score.

  Mother was not long, and she did not disappoint.

  “Thank you for waiting, Michael. I’m happy to tell you that you have achieved a score of 98 percent, thereby passing the mandatory ship knowledge and safety test. I will update your personnel file accordingly and inform the captain, the executive officer, and Lieutenant Hosani.”

  Michael breathed out with relief. While he had never been in any doubt-Michael was nothing if not good at passing tests af
ter three years of Space College-it was still good to get this hurdle, the first of many, no doubt, out of the way. “Any idea when the XO and Lieutenant Hosani will be back onboard?”

  “Yes, I’ve just gotten an update. They’ll both be on the up-shuttle from Anjaxx scheduled to arrive at 20:25 tonight.”

  “Fine. Can you let them know I’ve arrived?”

  A short pause. “Done, Michael.”

  “Thanks, Mother.”

  With that, Michael turned his attention to the next thing on his very long list: space-suit setup. He commed the duty safety equipment operator, one Senior Spacer Carlsson, and arranged to pick up his suit. Setup would take an hour or so, and then lunch would be a damn fine thing.

  Michael set off to find Carlsson, who according to Mother was testing one of the lifepods right aft and down on 4 Deck.

  Sunday, August 30, 2398, UD

  Outside the Diplomatic Compound, City of McNair, Commitment Planet

  Digby stood, as he had done on so many dark mornings, alone on the Avenue of Heroes.

  Running away from him all the way down to the Grand Corniche that fronted the eastern shores of the Koenig Channel, carefully shaded streetlights threw sharply distinct pools of orange light, stretching away like a long double string of exotic pearls. Massive trees flanked the road, visible only as ink-black shapes against the star-studded sky; well set back, the anonymous shapes of government buildings loomed gray and forbidding.

  As he hung back from the street safe in the deep shadows thrown by the trees, Digby was beginning not to care whether Kumar appeared. He’d seen the bloody man only once in the last ten days, and then in the company of two other men. Thank Kraa, he’d decided to get his wife out-system; confirmation that she’d made it to Scobie’s World safely had come as a huge relief. The risks he had been taking had been hard enough to bear; they would have been infinitely harder to take knowing that Jana, too, would suffer if he was arrested loitering close to the diplomatic compound for no good reason.