“I’m very much afraid you are right, Marta,” Pecora said gloomily. “God’s blood! Another Hammer war? Just what we all need right now. Interstellar trade’s a bit soft at the moment, and one thing’s for sure: A war between us and the Hammer will push things right over the edge.”
Diallo shook her head. “Well, at least we’ll have some help. I got an update from the Frontier desk yesterday. They think it’s almost certain that Frontier will support us if we need them. There were a lot of their people on the Mumtaz. It was their terraforming package the Hammers stole, and I think it’s fair to say they owe us big-time.”
Pecora nodded. “I’ve seen the report. I’m going to send a high-level team to Frontier. We need to start tying things up.”
“We do,” Diallo said. “It’s the Sylvanians I’m worried about. They look soft.” Diallo’s face turned grim as she continued. “Though you’d have to ask why they wouldn’t support us.”
“Three words, Marta: tactical nuclear weapons. They remember Vencatia and Jesmond. They’re scared shitless the Hammer won’t hold back next time. Every survey confirms it, I’m sorry to say, and the appeasers are riding the wave.”
“Jeez, Giovanni. Surely they’re smarter than that. Can’t they see that now’s their best chance to put an end to the Hammer problem once and for all? Lot of economic upside for them and everyone else if the Hammer economy can be freed up and the instability in interstellar trade reduced. I see the insurers are already applying a war premium to traffic inside 100 light-years of the Hammer.”
If it were possible, Pecora looked even more depressed. He shook his head.
Diallo cursed under her breath as she got to her feet and started to pace up and down the room. She’d had enough of the Hammer to last her ten lifetimes. “Makes you want to cry, Giovanni. Bloody Polk. If the rebels on Commitment and Faith could have made life difficult for another few months, he might have been forced to make some concessions. But as you say, blaming us made the rebels look unpatriotic, and you can’t give a man like Polk that sort of advantage and still hope to win. Poor bastards. The INTSUMs don’t paint a pretty picture of what’s been going on.”
Diallo fell silent.
She’d seen the INTSUMs with their vids of streets lined by lampposts, each with a dead rebel hanging by one leg, the gloating vidnews reports as yet another heretic guerrilla group was hunted down and exterminated, the haunting images as the families of Merrick supporters—men, women, and children, all guilty by association—were dragged away to whatever awful fate awaited them. The images would live in her mind forever.
The surveys showed that it wasn’t just Feds who’d begun to ask how much longer humanspace could tolerate such a psychopathic society in its midst. But one thing was sure: All Polk had done was postpone the happy day when the Hammer Worlds would self-destruct or the long-oppressed people of those unhappy worlds would finally overcome the forces ranged against them and throw the Doctrine of Kraa where it belonged: into the rubbish bin of history.
Diallo’s arms went up as she tried to stretch the sick tiredness out of her body. “For what it’s worth, Giovanni, I think crushing the uprising on Faith has convinced Polk he can do the same to us. I hate to say this, but the more I think about it, te more I think that’s what the stupid bastard has in mind. I might rerun some of our sim scenarios to see what that might mean for us. And we need to follow up on those reports from Commitment that the so-called heretic opposition is not as ineffective and fragmented as the Hammer would have us believe. If it comes to a fight with Polk, we’ll need to be signing them up on our side.” She sounded exhausted.
A dispirited Pecora nodded in tired agreement. “We’ll do all of that, Marta. Come on. Let’s give Nikolas Kaminski and his people a call. I think a serious chat, a very serious chat, over a few drinks is called for. I’m going to ask him to set up a time for us to talk to the secretary-general. I’m rather afraid we’re going to need the Alliance’s support. Come on.”
Friday, April 23, 2399, UD
The Palisades, Ashakiran Planet
It felt like an age since he’d last stood on the deck of the Palisades. Now that he was back, he realized how much he’d missed it and how much his commitment to a Space Fleet career had cost him. He sighed as he commed his neuronics for the umpteenth time, checking that Anna was still on schedule before turning back to look out at the sunset.
As long as he lived, Michael knew he would never tire of the Palisades, a simple house tucked in under the enormous looming bulk of Mount Izbecki with a huge west-facing deck looking out across the Clearwater Valley.
As another day drew to a close, it was just stunning.
A bottle of Lethbridge pilsner in hand, Michael stood alone, looking out across the valley, happy to comply with strict orders to leave the dinner to his dad, a defective freshwater pump to his mom, and Sam to one of her never-ending calls to Arkady Encevit, her long-standing and sadly absent boyfriend.
Michael smiled.
His dad’s enthusiasm for the primitive art of cooking wasn’t quite matched by his skill. His mom, in contrast, refused point-blank to cook—why had chefbots been invented? she would always say when challenged—and she had a real way with the long-obsolete AIs embedded in the old and sometimes very recalcitrant systems that provided power and water to the Palisades. As for Sam, Michael wished she’d marry her heart’s desire and stop the long-distance mooning that seemingly filled her every waking hour.
Michael had been watching the thick black storm clouds building in the southwest for some time. The oncoming storm was a hard, raw-edged mass driving relentlessly across a horizon painted in lurid slashes of scarlet and gold, and the valley thousands of meters below was now invisible beneath a purple blanket that was rapidly deepening to black. It was going to be a rough night, he thought as he checked the local weather forecast for the umpteenth time. No changes. They were in for a real battering, and his concern about Anna’s arrival wasn’t wholly unplaced. The Palisades’s landing site, a small clearing cut out of the top of the thickly wooded ridge, was an absolute bastard when a southerly bluster was blowing, though it was a matter of family pride that nobody had ever failed to get in safely. As he knew Anna would, even if she’d be the first to admit she wasn’t the most naturally gifted flier pilot of all time. Michael told himself to relax. Anna invariably handed control to the flier’s AI at the first sign of trouble, and she would tonight if things got tricky.
As darkness began to fall, the wind now gusting fitfully to announce the storm front’s arrival, Michael’s neuronics pinged softly, reporting that Anna’s flier was safely through the Tien Shan Mountains and on final descent.
Finishing his beer, he set off up the hill to the Palisades’s landing site. Something told him that time alone with Anna was going to be at a premium, and short though the walk back from the landing site was, he was going to make the most of it.
Dinner had been a cheerful, lively, and at times raucous affair. In part, that was due to the disastrous collapse of Helfort Senior’s pièce de résistance, a hand-crafted vermouth and crab soufflé that sadly had in the end closely resembled a soggy crepe. Michael’s father had been devastated. Everyone had stifled an overwhelming urge to say “I told you so” and roared with laughter at Andrew’s look of horror as the prize dish, lightly browned, ambitiously bouffant, and as impressive as any soufflé in history, had slowly, inexorably, and tragically deflated in front of them only seconds after it had been placed reverently on the table by the proud cook. Thankfully, the rest of the meal had been much more successful even if, in Michael’s humble opinion, the least capable chefbot could have done as good a job with a great deal less stress all around.
He wondered why his dad bothered; he certainly didn’t seem to enjoy the process much, judging by the appalling language emanating from the kitchen as the latest disaster struck home.
But in truth the buoyant mood had more to do with an overwhelming sense that the dinner was something specia
l. After what had been the worst year and the best year they’d been through, it was a celebration of survival, of family, of the bonds of love and trust and shared experience and familiarity—and, most important for Michael, a sense that Anna was now an integral part of not just his life but the family’s, too.
Well, yes, he thought gloomily, provided that the demands of two Space Fleet careers didn’t smash the bond between them.
The passing moment of pessimism didn’t last, overwhelmed by the sheer enjoyment that flooded the room. Michael sat back as Sam rattled on about the latest developments in the Arkady Encevit saga, content to listen with half an ear while watching Anna with both eyes. He was transfixed as always by her extraordinary but somehow subtle and understated beauty as the log fire’s flickering red-gold light danced across her high cheekbones and flawless skin.
Michael sighed to himself. Anna had done well in Damishqui at the Battle of Hell’s Moons. Nothing spectacular but a good, solid performance under the intense pressure and stress of combat, well enough for her to know that she’d made the right decision in joining Space Fleet. And that meant that the relationship between them was a castle built on sand. The demands of two Space Fleet careers meant their time together would be fleeting, and that was a poor basis for an enduring relationship.
He sighed again. It was one of the great mysteries of life how his parents had stuck together despite being in exactly the same situation. But they had, so there was at least hope that he and Anna would make it together.
“Come on, Michael! Pay attention,” his father said from the end of the table, the soufflé fiasco obviously forgotten, judging by his air of relaxed good humor.
“Yes,” Anna chipped in. “I’ve told you before. You think too much.”
“Oh, right,” Michael said sheepishly. “What was the question?”
“Your next posting, silly. What do you think, O great hero of the Federated Worlds, holder of the—”
“Anna!” Michael protested. “Stop it. You know that sort of—”
“Yeah, yeah, hero boy!” Anna said in mock umbrage, eyes sparkling as she cut him off. “Answer the damn question.”
Michael sighed. He’d fallen for it again. She loved teasing him. You’re too serious, she’d always say in her own defense. Not that he didn’t have a sense of humor. He did. But he knew he took things too much at face value sometimes, and that of course made him much too soft a target for her to resist. Like now, he thought, as he mouthed a silent “You’ll pay for that” across the table at her before continuing. She just stuck her tougue out.
“Ah! My next ship. Yes. Well, that’s a good one,” Michael said thoughtfully. “I must say I do like the idea of a big ship after the beating the Hammers gave poor old 387. Don’t want that again. And the Haiyan’s as big as they get. Well, for ships of the line, that is. So I think it’ll be good. Boring program, though. Independent patrols, that sort of thing.”
“You won’t know what to do with yourself,” Anna said teasingly. “From captain in command to…What was the billet again? Do you know, it’s so insignificant that I can’t even remember what it is you’re being posted to do!”
“Pig,” Michael said mildly, refusing the bait this time. “Assistant warfare officer in training, as you very well know, Anna Cheung. Responsible for all sorts of important stuff like, er, um, well, warfare training, I suppose, mostly doing op scenarios for sims probably,” he finished lamely.
Anna was right; he was going to an insignificant billet.
“Sounds sooooo impressive,” Sam said, pulling a face that said just the opposite.
“Yeah, yeah, smart-ass,” Michael replied. “The most minor of minor jobs, and well you know it. Mind you,” he added, “not that I care. Something well out of the limelight, tucked away in a big fat heavy cruiser, will suit me just fine.”
“And me, too,” said his mother with considerable feeling.
As Sam hijacked the conversation for the tenth time that evening, Michael glanced sharply across at his mother. Thanks to a very long conversation earlier in the day, he knew exactly what she’d meant by that remark. His new captain, Svetlana Constanza, was the first of her worries. Not the best, was all she’d say when challenged by Michael, whose heart had sunk when she’d let slip the fact that Constanza was a member of the d’Castreaux clan. But her bigger concern, and one Michael shared, was the Hammers. They’d talked long and hard about the prospects for peace before both agreeing that really, there weren’t any. And that meant war. Hard to say when, but Michael could see that deep inside his mother, gnawing away at her happiness, was the absolutely unshakable conviction that war between the Federation and the Hammers was inevitable.
That was, of course, why she’d admitted that she’d been happy to see him posted to the relative safety of a heavy cruiser; if things degenerated into a shooting match, it was the best and safest place for him to be. Of course she’d denied furiously Michael’s half-spoken charge that she had arranged the posting through her still very active network of Fleet contacts, a denial Michael was still not sure he believed. Not that he cared. After all he’d been through, the relative obscurity of an assistant warfare officer’s position in Haiyan suited him down to the ground. He’d keep his head down and do what he was told, avoiding whenever possible anything remotely smacking of risk or responsibility.
In the end, Michael had told her that even though she might be a retired Space Fleet commodore, she was fussing too much and he’d be fine. Yes, there might be another fight with the Hammers, but it would end the way all the others had. Only this time, he agreed with her, the Federation would have to pursue the Hammer until it was utterly destroyed, a goal he was entirely happy to pursue.
As Sam went up a gear, Michael sat back again, content to let the conversation wash over him, content to watch Anna, the nanocrystal lights tattooed onto her high cheekbones sparkling white and red-gold against honey-dark skin, her face seemingly flecked with the dust of thousands of tiny jewels shimmering in the light of the log fire. He could only do his best. If Fleet and an uncaring cosmos conspired to break them apart, then so be it. He supposed he’d just have to get over it or die trying.
Anyway, he chided himself, enough of the introspection. Tomorrow he and Anna were off to the Atalantan Mountains. There Space Fleet and all it implied for their futures could be forgotten.
For a few days at least.
Read on for a sneak preview of the second installment in Graham Sharp Paul’s exciting series, HELFORT’S WAR.
Friday, September 3, 2399 UD
Hammer Warship Quebec-One, Xiang Reef
Commodore Monroe’s mouth tightened into a bloodless slash. Face grim, he stared at the command holovid. When his ship’s final rail-gun salvo ripped into the FedWorld merchant ship Betthany Market, he bared his teeth for a second. Satisfied, he sat back.
Monroe had to give credit where credit was due.
The captain of the Betthany Market had tried his best to escape the trap. With merships exploding all across Xiang Reef, he pushed his main engines far beyond manufacturer’s limits; Monroe expected the mership’s fusion power plants to lose containment. By some miracle of FedWorld engineering they hadn’t, but nothing was going to help the doomed Betthany Market and her ill-fated crew. Fully loaded, sluggish and unwieldy, the mership had no chance of evading a rail-gun salvo fired at close quarters, and Quebec-One had been close. Her optronics had picked out every last dent and scratch on the hard-worked mership’s hull.
The Betthany Market died like all the rest of the merships ambushed by Monroe’s ships that bloody day. Rail-gun slugs sliced through her thin plasteel hull. Punched deep into the ship, three slugs reached the engine room to release the enormous energy bottled up inside her fusion power plants. Microseconds later, the ship exploded into a gigantic ball of incandescent plasma.
The command team of Quebec-One sat silent around Monroe. They stared in horrified fascination at the command holovid. The ship had vanished. Only a g
as cloud remained; it twisted away into nothing, cooling fast, its dance of death a fading memorial to mership and spacers now dead.
Monroe’s ships had executed the operation with brutal efficiency. Most of their victims knew nothing of the attack before death engulfed them. The hellish fires of runaway fusion plants consumed the few lifepods launched. The last witnesses to the latest in a long line of Hammer atrocities survived only a few seconds before they were wiped out.
The operation had been easy. No, Monroe thought, it had been too easy. Twenty-seven merships destroyed in a matter of hours. Cold-blooded murder was what it was.
Monroe broke the spell only when the last traces of the Betthany Market disappeared. He had pushed his luck far enough; they should have been long gone by now. He turned to his chief of staff. “Time we were on our way. To all ships, immediate execute—”
The sensor officer’s voice broke in, urgent with alarm. “Sir, we have a positive gravitronics intercept. Designated track 22547. Stand by…estimated drop bearing Red 3 Up 1. One ship only. Grav wave pattern suggests pinchspace transition imminent. Vector is nominal for Earth–FedWorld transit. Sir! This one’s not on any schedule. Military, sir. Has to be military.”
Monroe wasted no time. Everything told him that his sensor officer was right. The new arrival must be a FedWorld warship. The Old Earth Alliance rarely patrolled deepspace this far out; the Xiang Reef gravitation anomaly was too remote. If it turned out to be an Alliance warship, bad luck; he needed to survive before he worried about that possibility.
“Designate track 22547 hostile,” Monroe barked. “Immediate to all ships, stand by rail-gun salvo. Targeting data to follow. Kraa’s blood! Sensors! Get me the drop data…come on sensors, come on! I need a drop time, position, and vector. Now, Kraa-damn it!”
The sensor officer’s voice shook under the stress. “Standby…okay, sir. Here it comes. She’s close. Confirmed Red 3 Up 1 at 85,000 kilometers. Stand by…targeting data confirmed and passed to all ships.”
Helfort's War: Book 1 Page 40
