Helfort’s War Book 4: The Battle for Commitment Planet Read online

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Anjula, out.”

  Michael swore under his breath. While Jaruzelska still held the job, Michael had hoped she might persuade Fleet to see sense and restart the program. Now that hope had gone; without Jaruzelska, the dreadnoughts were finished. The ships had single-handedly destroyed the greatest threat ever faced by the Federated Worlds; now they would fade away into history, unmourned by the vast majority of Fleet’s senior officers. Their demise would be a triumph of political expediency and narrow-minded self-interest over the needs of the Federated Worlds.

  Michael swore some more and stepped into the drop tube for the ride back to Nyleth’s surface. The loss of Jaruzelska’s protection and support was bad enough. Looking her in the eye knowing that he was going to steal the last three ships of the dreadnought force would be a million times worse.

  Friday, August 31, 2401, UD

  FWSS Redwood, in orbit around Nyleth-B

  “Attention on deck. Commander, Dreadnought Forces.”

  Flawless in dress blacks, the crew of Redwood snapped to attention while the age-old ritual of piping the side played out under Chief Bienefelt’s watchful eye: Bosun’s calls squealed, hands snapped to foreheads in salute, and Vice Admiral Jaruzelska saluted in turn as her tall, angular frame crossed the bow to board Redwood, her flag lieutenant close behind. Michael returned her salute; when the carry-on was piped, he stepped forward, hand extended.

  “Admiral. Welcome to Redwood, sir.”

  “Thank you,” Jaruzelska said, shaking Michael’s hand before turning to Ferreira. “Lieutenant. Hope you’re not finding Redwood and Nyleth too dull.”

  “A dreadnought spacer’s life is never dull, sir,” Ferreira said with a broad grin.

  “Hmm,” Jaruzelska said. “Why am I not surprised to hear you say that? Chief Bienefelt. How’s that enormous boyfriend of yours? Nyleth’s one hell of a long way from Anjaxx. What’s his name?”

  Michael struggled to suppress a laugh; Bienefelt’s face had colored brick red. “Er,” she muttered, “er, umm … Yuri, sir. He’s fine, thank you, sir.”

  “Please to hear it, Chief. When you get married, be sure to send me the holopix. I can’t wait to see you doing the virginal bride thing all in white. That’ll be one for my living room wall. Now, Captain,” Jaruzelska said, turning back to Michael, leaving Bienefelt speechless and the rest of Redwood’s gangway crew trying not to laugh. “Where to first?”

  “Ship tour, sir,” Michael said with great difficulty, forcing his face to behave. “If you’d follow me, please.”

  Jaruzelska’s trademark whirlwind tour of Redwood over, she and Michael sat back in the comfortable armchairs that dominated his day cabin.

  “Congratulations on your new appointment, Admiral,” Michael said, raising his coffee mug in salute.

  “Thank you, Michael. It’s the right job for me, and I’m pleased to have it. I can hear the ‘but,’ though.”

  “No surprises there, sir. The loss of a dedicated commander for dreadnoughts will make life hard for us. Those cruiser types don’t much like us.”

  “No, they don’t, Michael. Not one bit. However, I’ve briefed Admiral Jensch and his staff on dreadnought idiosyncrasies. I think you’ll get the support you need. Not every admiral in Fleet thinks dreadnoughts are the work of the devil.”

  “Pleased to hear it, sir. Any other developments?”

  “One, not that it will affect you. The INTSUM will be out this week, so there’s no harm in telling you that the reconsats have located the Hammer’s new antimatter facility. Well, what will become their new plant in however many years’ time. Bloody plant will be huge. Twice the size of the one you and your dreadnoughts destroyed.”

  “Oh, shit,” Michael whispered. “But why won’t that affect us?” he continued. “Surely dreadnoughts will be critical to any operation to destroy the plant. They were the last time.”

  “No, they won’t, not this time. The Hammers have learned their lesson. Trying to hide the plant in deepspace like they did with their first plant is fine in theory. There’s a lot of deepspace, after all, but we found the place and blew it to pieces, anyway. No, they’ve been much smarter this time around. It’s located on Commitment itself, on a small island so far away from civilization that nobody will notice if it goes up in smoke.”

  Michael’s face betrayed his shock. “They must be insane. Building an antimatter manufacturing plant on an inhabited planet? And not just any old planet, either. Commitment! That’s the Hammer’s home planet. What if it does go up?”

  Jaruzelska shrugged her shoulders. “They’re Hammers. They don’t worry about things like that. Anyone who objects gets shot. You know how things work over there.”

  “I do, sir.”

  “Putting aside the risk to the rest of the planet for the moment, the decision makes good military sense. Our attack on the original plant at Devastation Reef will have showed them the folly of trying to protect such a high-value target so far from home. Better to have it tucked away dirtside underneath Commitment’s planetary defense systems, where it’ll be safe. It’ll be a long time before Fleet’s in any position to mount a planetary invasion,” she added with a trace of bitterness, “because that’s what it will take to destroy the place.”

  “So the race is on, sir?”

  “Yes, it is. If we rebuild the fleet before they finish their damn antimatter plant, we can invade: We win, they lose. If they finish their plant first and get enough antimatter warheads onto those damn Eaglehawk missiles of theirs, they win and we lose. It’s that simple.”

  Michael broke what had turned into a long and uncomfortable silence. “Our antimatter project,” he said. “What about that? What progress are we making getting our own antimatter missiles into service?”

  “Above your pay grade, Michael, so I won’t answer. However, the Hammers needed decades to work out how to weaponize antimatter and even longer to work out how to manufacture enough of it to support high-intensity operations, so I leave you to draw your own conclusions.”

  “Oh, right,” Michael said. “Changing the subject, sir.”

  “Yes?”

  “Morale, sir.”

  Jaruzelska looked at Michael quizzically. “Morale? What about it?”

  “Well, sir. Nothing official’s come through, but the lower deck is awash with rumors about a mutiny on Palmyra, and—”

  Jaruzelska sat upright. “Mutiny on Palmyra? How the hell do you know that, Captain?” she snapped, chopping him off, her eyes blazing with anger. “That’s classified information you should not have access to.”

  “I keep my ear to the ground, sir,” Michael protested, raising his hands. “Some things Fleet can’t keep secret, and a mutiny’s one of them.”

  Jaruzelska stared at him, the anger draining away. “If word’s leaked out, obviously that’s true,” she said. “Damn. The trash-press will have a field day when they find out.”

  “There’s more, sir.”

  “More?”

  “Yes. Palmyra may be a symptom of a wider problem.”

  “Oh?” Jaruzelska said with a skeptical frown. “That’s not the view inside Fleet. The briefing I received from Fleet personnel said Palmyra’s captain triggered the mutiny. The man should never have been given command of anything bigger than a cargo drone. We don’t always get our command postings right, especially now, when we are so short of good officers thanks to Comdur.”

  “I’m sure that’s correct, sir, but I think there’s more to it. Word is that the troops aren’t too keen on the way Fleet’s handling things. It seems there are more than a few unhappy spacers out there. They no longer think we can bring this war to a successful conclusion. Putting it bluntly, they’re losing faith in management’s ability, and that’s a worry.”

  “Your troops, too, Michael?”

  “Yes, sir. Not that it’s affecting my ship’s operational readiness, but they are all thinking people. They see what’s happening, and they don’t l
ike it any more than …” Michael’s voice trailed off into silence.

  Jaruzelska finished the sentence for him. “Than you do,” she said quietly.

  “No, sir.”

  “How bad is the problem?”

  “All I know is what my coxswain tells me, sir, so it’s anecdotal, but I trust Chief Bienefelt with my life.”

  “You know what? I would, too,” Jaruzelska said. “Sorry, you were saying?”

  “Well, Bienefelt says it’s bad. I guess Palmyra proves that.”

  “Damn it to hell,” Jaruzelska said, grim-faced. “I was afraid of this.”

  “Bienefelt says the problem’s widespread, so Fleet may have another Palmyra on its hands if it’s not careful. Since Bienefelt is telling me this, I am inclined to take it seriously. She is well connected, that woman.”

  “She is,” Jaruzelska said after a moment’s reflection. “Look, it’s no secret that things are not going well, and the decision to terminate the dreadnought experiment despite their success at Devastation Reef has made things worse. The latest projections show that we will not have enough spacers to man an invasion fleet capable of taking Commitment inside four years at best. Now, those projections depend on some optimistic assumptions about Fleet’s ability to deal with Hammer missiles tipped with antimatter warheads, which they still have enough of in inventory to cause us problems. So I reckon it’s going to be more like five years. The Hammers hurt us badly at Comdur. We have a long way to go.”

  “It’s not good, is it?”

  “No, Michael, it’s not, and it’ll be even worse if we can’t rely on our spacers to do their duty. I’ll talk to the commander in chief. She needs to get a handle on this. Talk to me in a year’s time. Maybe Fleet can pull a rabbit or two out of the hat. I’ll also talk to Admiral Chou at personnel. I think Fleet needs to establish just how bad things are out there.”

  “What about the politicians. Have they seen the projections? How do they feel about waiting five years?”

  “That’s also above your pay grade, Michael, so sorry, no comment.”

  “Understood, Admiral. Forgive my French, sir, but they’ll shit themselves, though.”

  Jaruzelska shrugged. “Can’t say. Anyway, enough of that. Let’s talk about you.”

  Michael’s heart sank. Jaruzelska’s ability to get to the heart of things was legendary. “Okay, sir,” he said, struggling to keep his voice matter-of-fact despite the fact that his heart had started to thump.

  “I’ve been reviewing your recent operations: Balawal, Barcoola, Grendell, Tyrlathi. To be fair, you did what you were sent to do, but I can’t say that you executed them with the flair I’ve come to expect from you. Too many unnecessary risks, too many shortcuts. It’s as if you just wanted to get the job done quickly, like … oh, I don’t know … like there was something better for you to do, somewhere else you’d rather be.”

  “Every one of those operations did what it was supposed to do, sir,” Michael said. “And the Nyleth system commander hasn’t raised any concerns.”

  Jaruzelska’s eyes narrowed in a sudden flare of anger. “That’s because he does not know you the way I do, Lieutenant,” she said, her words clipped, “and I know you very well. So I strongly suggest that this is not the time to play games with me.”

  “No, Admiral,” Michael said with an apologetic bob of his head; with a sudden stab of fear, he knew it would not take much for the admiral to tear the truth out of him. “Sorry, sir.”

  “Hmm.” Jaruzelska paused. She looked Michael directly in the eye with a focused intensity that kicked his heartbeat up yet another gear. “So tell me … why would that be?” she said.

  Fighting back an overwhelming urge to tell Jaruzelska about Anna, Michael forced himself to sound calm and in control. “Well, sir. The honest answer is, I don’t know,” he said. “But what you say is right. My executive officer shares your concerns, and she’s already spoken to me.”

  Jaruzelska’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “She has? That takes guts. Not many executive officers would have done that.”

  “Jayla Ferreira’s a great XO, sir. She’s tough, she’s smart, and she’s focused. She also has a clear view of right and wrong. I’m lucky to have her.”

  “I think you are, but she’s not the issue here. You are. So what’re you doing to fix the problem?”

  Michael offered a silent prayer of thanks that Jaruzelska had moved past the still unanswered question: Why was he performing below his best?

  “Recognize the problem,” he said, “accept it, make sure I deal with recommendations made by my CIC team, consider them, don’t dismiss them out of hand. Less Michael Helfort, more Redwood command team.”

  Jaruzelska smiled. “In other words, act like the Michael Helfort I know so well, the Michael Helfort who blew the Hammer antimatter plant at Devastation Reef to hell.”

  “Yes, Admiral,” Michael said, doing his best to look chastened rather than relieved. He doubted he could have withstood one of Jaruzelska’s cross-examinations; he had seen her reduce tougher spacers than he to quivering blobs of jelly.

  “I’m pleased to hear it,” Jaruzelska said, “because if I’m right about Ferreira, she’ll understand precisely what Fleet Regulations have to say on the subject of a captain’s fitness to command.”

  “She does, sir. She told me she understands her obligations under Fleet Regulations, section 34, subsection 15.”

  “Fine,” Jaruzelska said. “I don’t think I need to say any more, do I?”

  “No, sir. You don’t.”

  “Turning to other matters. My shuttle’s due in less than half an hour, and I have a few more things to talk to you about before I go. First …”

  Wednesday, September 5, 2401, UD

  FWSS Redwood, in orbit around Nyleth-B

  “All set, Jayla?”

  “All set, sir. Redwood, Red River, and Redress are ready in all respects to go.”

  “Right, let’s do this.”

  “Yes, sir. All stations. Assume damage control state 2, airtight condition yankee. Propulsion, main engines to stand by.”

  Michael settled back to let Redwood and her sister ships make their final preparations to get under way and depart Nyleth orbit, the familiar routine ebbing and flowing around him. “Captain, sir.”

  “Yes, Jayla.”

  “Ship is at damage control state 2, airtight condition yankee. Redwood, Red River, and Redress are nominal. We have clearance from Nyleth nearspace control to depart. We’re good to go, sir.”

  “Roger. All stations, stand by to leave orbit.”

  Five minutes later, Michael allowed himself to relax a fraction. Another few hours, he thought, and the mission would become a reality, the option to turn back gone. He looked across at Ferreira as she entered the combat information center; he waved her over.

  “So, Jayla. Looks like we’re committed.”

  “Yes, sir. We are.”

  “Not having second thoughts?”

  “Hell, yes.” Ferreira grinned. “Who wouldn’t? Even though this feels like every other time we’ve broken orbit, that it’s just another mission like all the rest, it sure isn’t.”

  “No,” Michael said softly, “that it’s not. Can’t have been too many missions in Fleet history where nobody was coming back.”

  “None that I can think of. But you know what I hate most, sir?”

  “What?”

  “Knowing that we’ll survive … most likely … but Redwood, Red River, and Redress won’t. I hate that.”

  “Me, too.” Michael paused to look around. “I’ve never thought of ships as just big lumps of ceramsteel and titanium. It’s old-fashioned, I know, but I’ve always thought ships have souls. It makes me feel like we’re killing them, even if it is in a good cause.”

  “Tell you one thing, sir. Nobody’s going to forget these three ships, never. This operation is a doozy. It breaks every rule in the Fighting Instructions, it treats Fleet Regulations with contempt, and it’s going to dest
roy the careers and reputations of all of us. I’m going to be branded a criminal for life, and so, sir, are you.” Ferreira looked at Michael and grinned. “Talk about taking your place in history.”

  Michael had to laugh. “I can handle all that, Jayla. But you want to know what really bothers me?”

  “That we fail? That we go through all this and Anna … you know.”

  “Actually, no. I think we’ve planned this well enough to know that our chances of success are as good as any mission I’ve been on. No, what really bothers me is the fact that once I’m dirtside on Commitment, I’m marooned there until this damn war ends.”

  “If we live that long. It’s going to be tough, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is.” Michael nodded, grim-faced. “Very tough. I know we’ve talked about this, but the thought that I might never get home again—now, that is hard.”

  “Hard to die so far away from home,” Ferreira said, her voice catching for an instant, “maybe all alone. Not good.”

  Michael knew how she felt; a churning mix of doubt, fear, and apprehension had preyed on him more and more as the time approached for them to depart Nyleth. He also knew that he and Ferreira were not alone. The same feelings troubled everyone, the pressure building remorselessly as the day to leave approached. “I felt that way when I lost Corporal Yazdi on Commitment the last time.”

  “Corporal Yazdi? The marine who escaped from POW camp with you after Ishaq was ambushed?”

  “Yes, her. Walking away from her grave, leaving her there on her own, maybe forever, that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

  “There’s one more thing that bothers me, sir. My parents. I hate to think what I’m doing to them.”

  “At least yours aren’t ex-Fleet, Jayla. My mother’s a retired commodore, my father a retired captain. I can’t begin to understand how they’re going to take it.”