Merrick could not contain himself. “Not sure?” he shouted, voice crackling with anger. “Not fucking sure? What was I just watching? A bloody high school debate? Nothing is more obvious than the fact that we need an inquiry. If the Council cannot agree to that, then what good is it?”
“I’m sorry, but I am afraid I cannot possibly agree,” Polk said smoothly, eyes flitting across the faces of the rest of the Council as he double-checked that he had the numbers. He was pretty sure he did; he wished he could be absolutely sure. His heart pounded at the terrible risk he was about to take.
Pushing any doubts aside, Polk forced himself to radiate confidence. “No, as I say, I cannot agree, and I think you’ll find if you put the matter to the vote that the Council does not agree, either. It is of course up to you, but I do think we have talked enough.”
In the face of Polk’s cool assurance, the brief glimmer of hope that had sprung into Merrick’s eyes as Polk had made the challenge died as quickly as it had come. Shit, Merrick thought. He thinks—he knows he’s got the numbers. A quick look at the faces around the table confirmed his worst fears. Kraa damn it. The nonaligned councillors refused to look at him, so they were gone, and even his own supporters looked shaky. He’d lost.
Merrick’s voice was quiet, barely concealing his bitterness at the defeat he’d just been handed by Polk. “No, Councillor. I don’t think that will be necessary. Unless anyone thinks it should be voted on right now, why don’t we sleep on it? I’ll put it on the agenda for next week.”
Polk’s triumph was obvious. Got you, you Kraa-damned son of a bitch, he thought. He’d taken Merrick to the edge, and the bloody man hadn’t liked what he’d seen. But Merrick had better get used to it because the next time he wasn’t going to let him back away.
With a stomach acid-bitter with defeat, Merrick had no option but to move the meeting on. He had needed that inquiry to give himself the best possible chance of shifting the blame away from himself and onto Herris and, by extension, Polk. But Polk knew that as well as he did, and so did the rest of the Council. Much as they hated Polk, they needed him if only to keep Merrick in check.
Merrick cursed silently.
He shouldn’t have been surprised. Things had changed, and maybe Jesse Merrick was no longer a man to be feared. But Polk was.
Saturday, October 31, 2398, UD
DLS-387, Hell-14
No matter how hard he tried, Ribot’s neuronics refused to let him sleep. The piercing comm alarm relentlessly dragged him up from the depths of a wonderfully dreamless slumber, his first in a long time.
Groggy, Ribot commed his bunk light on, oriented himself, and accepted the call.
Helfort had the watch. His voice was hoarse with stress, and his avatar made him look like shit. “Captain, sir. Officer in command. Sorry to bother you, but I thought you would like to know.”
“No problem, Michael,” Ribot muttered groggily. “What is it?”
“The interceptbots, sir. They’ve finally broken in, and we have just begun getting good-quality datastreams. The intercept AI is just starting its analysis of the Hammer’s data structures, and we’ll have a definitive data model shortly to allow us to attack the knowledge base. I’ll draft a message to Fleet for your release, sir.”
Ribot’s mind was a mass of wet concrete, and he had to struggle to think straight. “Uh, no, Michael,” he said after a moment’s thought. “Wait. Hang on for a moment. I’d like to go to Fleet with specific data rather than the promise of specific data, in particular the first of the Mumtazers we can identify, where they are, and so on. Otherwise, we’ll just get another damn pinchcomm urging us to try harder. You know how twitchy they’re getting.”
“Oh, okay, sir. That’ll take us at least three or four days, maybe more. Makes sense, though. They have been nagging us somewhat.”
“Understatement, Michael. No, sit tight for the moment. We’ll put a pinchcomm through to Fleet as soon as we have something specific. Anything else now that I’m awake?”
“Not really, sir. The Hammer’s pretty quiet tonight. The light escorts Regan and Bates moved from Fleet base to Hell Center two hours ago and are now alongside the planetary transfer station. Verity and the rest of the Hell flotilla are alongside at the flotilla base, though Mother thinks that at least four of them are preparing to get under way. The usual premission stuff: sensor testing and so on. There’s one light cruiser, two heavy escorts, and a heavy scout doing a lot of systems testing, all fire control systems but not much else, so Mother’s not sure what they’re up to, but we’ll know more in the morning. Hammer ships tend not to unberth much before 08:00. Loads of commercial traffic as always, but Mother’s watching the vectors pretty closely, and there’s nothing unusual going on.”
“Okay. Let me know if we get anything specific out of the interceptbots. Night.”
“Night, sir.”
Ribot commed the light off and lay back. For once, sleep came quickly, and in minutes he was down somewhere deep and black, snoring lightly.
Monday, November 2, 2398, UD
City of McNair, Commitment Planet
“The Feds have done what?” Merrick roared. “Put a ship into orbit around one of our planets? And sent a lander dirtside? I don’t fucking believe it! What in Kraa’s name do those stupid bastards think they are doing? I want a full report together with your recommended response within the hour!”
Merrick slammed the phone down on his long-suffering councillor for war and external security. As if he didn’t already have enough to worry about.
Kraa-dammed Feds. The bastards had put an Abydos class deepspace heavy patrol ship in orbit around Hammer 14-1. It was way too big for a genuine survey operation, as the Feds claimed it was, but not small enough to be pushed around.
Why, for Kraa’s sake, why? What were the Feds up to now?
Maybe he’d missed something. Merrick grunted as he pulled up the file on the planet 14-1. He snorted derisively as he quickly scanned the data. No, he hadn’t missed anything. It was a miserable apology for a planet. Thanks to a severely elliptical orbit, it was a frozen inhospitable waste most of the time, scoured by endless storms that ripped its methane/ nitrogen atmosphere apart, the sky thick with the sulfurous smoke and dust belched out from the thousands of active volcanoes that punctuated a planetary surface wracked with endless earthquakes triggered by two massive moons orbiting far too close for comfort. A worthless piece of dirt.
And yet, and yet. Slow down, Merrick, and think this through, he told himself.
It was becoming harder and harder for him to ignore the possibility that somehow the Feds had found out about the Mumtaz and were about to do something about it. In fact, that was the only scenario that made sense. The problem was that all he knew for a fact was that the Feds were mounting an operation code-named Corona under the command of a Vice Admiral Jaruzelska. Exactly what Corona was, nobody could tell him. But if Corona really was about the Mumtaz, he was stuck. The mountain of deceit he had erected around the whole affair had trapped him. To admit that he knew what the Feds might be up to would be to put a bullet in his head.
Polk and his gang would see to that.
So why should he take the chance unless he had to? There was always the possibility that the Feds were simply trying it on. They had been known to put pressure on the Hammer for no good reason at all. No, he had no choice. He had to keep quiet and try to hold things together until the time was right to announce the success of the Eternity project and reap the enormous political and social rewards that would follow. In fact, maybe it was time to call Digby back to start constructing the elaborate cover story that would be needed if he was to be able to claim that it was the Hammer and the Hammer alone that was responsible for the successful and speedy terraforming of Eternity. And if word had leaked…
The more Merrick thought it through, the clearer the way forward became. Get something heavy to Hammer-14 to make it clear to the damn Feds that they’d be blown to hell if they didn’t wit
hdraw. In the meantime, get the usual pointless exchange of protest notes going and use the incident to take people’s minds off what was going on in Kantzina. But stretch things out. Kraa’s blood. He needed as much time as he could get.
The necessary calls having been made to put the wheels in motion, Merrick turned his attention back to the unhappy subject of the civil unrest on Faith. Despite its impressive bulk, the report from Major General Barbosa, COMGEN-MARFOR-3, was unable to conceal the simple fact that even with the dispatch of an additional battalion of marines, the situation on Faith was slowly but surely sliding out of control. Resistance was hardening as the locals began to realize that although marines were tough, very well trained, and very dangerous, they were not invincible. With thorough preparation, good leadership, and a bit of luck, all underwritten by a willingness to accept heavy casualties, they could be taken on with some success.
The previous week had seen a major heretic assault in Kantzina’s eastern suburbs, the first attack that showed signs of careful planning based on accurate intelligence supported by good staff work. Even though the attack had had no chance against the well-dug-in marines of 5 Brigade, for once prepared with their own accurate and timely intelligence, the butcher’s bill had been too high, with the heretics leaving no fewer than 245 marine casualties behind them as they were finally thrown back in bloody confusion. That had happened only because 5 Brigade’s reserve armor had sliced deep into the northern flank of the attack to leave the heretics, cut off and isolated, to be pounded into dust by the marines’ ground attack fliers.
But 5 Brigade’s casualties in that particular encounter weren’t the end of it. They were on top of mounting DocSec casualties in Ksedicja and, worst of all, in Cascadia, home of the Great Schism. Merrick knew it would get worse before it got better. He suspected that whoever was behind the latest Kantzina assault wouldn’t make the same mistakes the second time around, and that meant many more marines shipped home in body bags. But 5 Brigade’s commander seemed to have his shit together, so maybe he was being too pessimistic. Even so, it was damn hard to be anything else.
Not for the first time he cursed Polk and his willful stupidity. “Chief Councillor Herris is a trusted servant of Kraa, and he would not tolerate corruption and cronyism.” Polk’s words came back to him as though they had been spoken only yesterday. “Well, they’ll see,” Merrick muttered savagely. Herris had rightly paid the ultimate price, and maybe Polk would, too. All he had to do was somehow keep a lid on Faith and on the Mumtaz affair and hope to Kraa that the Feds hadn’t found out, and maybe, just maybe, he’d get through things.
Maybe more marines was the only answer, short of walking away, that was. He had to bring the unrest to an end. He turned his attention back to the mound of papers on his desk, his decision to recall Digby forgotten for the moment.
Tuesday, November 3, 2398, UD
Offices of the Moderator and Cabinet, Terranova
The moderator, Valerie Burkhardt, sat back in her chair, trying to stretch the kinks out of her back without being too obvious. It had been a long cabinet meeting. “Giovanni, I think I know why you are looking so smug. So do tell.”
The federal minister of interstellar relations was indeed looking smug, and for good reason. “Yes, Moderator, I suppose I am. As you all know, the heavy patrol ship Delphic duly entered orbit around Frechaut-I, or perhaps I should say, in deference to our Hammer friends, Hammer 14-1, two days ago and successfully landed its survey party shortly thereafter. Since then, we’ve had only routine pinchcomms, but that’s to be expected until the Hammer gets a ship there. Fleet tells me that thanks to Corelli Reef, a particularly large and unpleasant grav anomaly between the Hammer and Frechaut, the earliest a warship is likely to get there is tomorrow morning sometime.
“We’ve just received the standard protest from the Hammer government. Ambassador Carlyle was summoned to the Department of Foreign Relations this morning and presented with this protest by none other than the councillor for foreign relations, Claude Albrecht himself. They helpfully pinch-commed the protest to us at the same time. The formal hard copy is on a courier drone on its way to us now. A copy is in your in-box if you’d like to have a quick look at it.”
Moderator Burkhardt snorted derisively as she read the protest. “Hammer scum” was all she said.
“And so they are, Moderator. But the good news is that they have given us one week to comply, which suits our purpose well. We want if at all possible to keep Delphic on station around Frechaut until just before Corona kicks off in earnest. Hopefully, that will keep the Hammer looking firmly in the wrong direction.”
“Good. So that means that for whatever reason, the Hammer has given us seven of those sixteen days, which is very helpful of them, I must say. So what now, Giovanni?”
“I’ll get the Hammer desk to put together the usual bullshit response and run it past the lawyers before getting onto a courier drone to Commitment. No pinchcomm summary in advance this time. That should stall things a bit further, and we’ll see what happens. The Hammer will be upset, but that’s to be expected.”
“Not so upset that they would do anything, well, stupid?” Moderator Burkhardt’s concern was less for Delphic than for the hugely complex military operation now gathering pace as they talked. It would be hard enough for Jaruzelska to do what had to be done without the Hammer jumping the gun, shooting up Delphic, and then going to a state of high alert just as Battle Fleet Delta launched its attack.
Pecora shook his head emphatically. “No, I don’t think so, Valerie, and neither do my people. And believe me, we’ve looked at this very hard. Despite their reputation, the Hammer are much more considered in their actions than people give them credit for. They have enough on their plate at the moment with the situation on Faith and will be very concerned that by upsetting us we would start covert support for the rebels dirtside. Not hard to slip stealth carrier drones past their sensors, and they know it. We think worrying about that will slow them down, which is of course exactly what we want right now.”
“Okay, Giovanni. We’ll leave that to you.” Burkhardt’s tone made it clear that the issue had been dealt with. “Well, everybody, if there’s no other business, I think that’s enough for now.”
Wednesday, November 4, 2398, UD
Operation Corona Headquarters
Angela Jaruzelska sat, as she did every morning, nursing a cup of tea at the back of the massive strategy simulation building’s main combat information center.
For her, it was the best time of day.
It was too soon for the pressure of other people’s agendas to clutter up her thinking but not too early to put the new day into the proper perspective. A good time, she always found, for thinking through the issues the day would bring while below her the pace of activity began to pick up as the operations and planning staff got themselves organized for the first formal event of the day, the daily operations conference otherwise known as morning prayers.
“Admiral, sir.”
“Yes, Bian?”
Jaruzelska’s flag lieutenant, who she would have sworn got younger by the day, nodded nervously. Jaruzelska was well known for treasuring the first part of the day as her thinking time, and interruptions had better be for something important.
“Flash message from DLS-387, sir. Can I forward it to you?”
Jaruzelska nodded. Seconds later, the message popped into her neuronics, its old-fashioned format and extreme brevity marking it out as a pinchcomms message.
As she read it through, Jaruzelska had to restrain herself forcibly from leaping to her feet. At last, she thought, at long last. 387 had found the crew and passengers of the Mumtaz. Now her staff could fine-tune the operations plan for Corona and begin the final simulation exercises before the battle group deployed.
Comming her chief of staff to come to her office as soon as he arrived, she turned her attention back to her cup of tea. Finally, she thought exultantly, finally, things were coming together.
/> Wednesday, November 11, 2398, UD
Hut 2, Eternity Base Camp
Kerri Helfort awoke with a jerk. A scream was building behind her breather mask as a black-gloved hand kept her head down on the pillow until the quietly spoken message, the FedWorlds accent unmistakable, penetrated her sleep-soaked mind.
“Commodore Helfort, sir! Wake up! And for Christ’s sake do it quietly. Commodore Helfort, sir. Wake up!”
Kerri did, and in a hurry. Signaling the black shape, which was almost invisible in the faint night-lights that lit the long hut and its rows of silent sleeping forms, to let go, she turned slowly onto her side, struggling to get her breath back.
“Who the hell are you?” she whispered, her voice shaking with the suddenness of it all.
“Corporal Gupta, sir, 1/24th FedWorld Marines, and we are here to get you out, but not yet. We need to do some work to get ready. You are the senior service officer here, so we thought we’d start with you.”
Kerri could only gape into the matte-black faceplate of the marine crouched on the floor beside her bed as the fear and tension of the last weeks welled up inside her, the tears streaming down her face past her breather mask to drop onto the tattered black T-shirt she wore in bed. She couldn’t speak, only stare, as hope burst into flame inside her, her mind racing with insane joy. She wanted to leap to her feet and tell those Hammer fuckers that their days were numbered, but years of service discipline kept her under control.
Kerri took a deep slow breath. “What do we need to do, Corporal?”
“For the moment, do nothing but think about what it’s going to take to get every one of your people out of here safely when the time comes. We’ll meet you 400 meters northeast of the camp tomorrow night at midnight. Make your way across the creek and wait there. We’ll find you, but you must come alone. Any problems with that?”
Helfort's War: Book 1 Page 26
