“Command, roger. Get me a range when you can,” Michael said, fingers tapping an impatient tattoo on the arms of his seat.
“Sensors, roger … stand by … Hammer-7’s estimated drop datum Red 10 Up 5, range 70,000 kilometers.”
“Roger.”
“Command, Ghost,” Sedova said. “You were right. There is a personnel access lock. My cannons have blown the hatch off, and Trivedi’s on her way over there. I should be on my way back in five.”
“Fine. I’ll maintain station. You copied the drop report?”
“Did, sir.”
“Well, don’t hang around. I’m sure the Hammers will not be ignoring us for long. Command, out.”
“Command, Warfare. Task group Hammer-7 dropping, Red 10 Up 5, range 72,000 kilometers.”
“Command, roger.”
Michael watched the threat plot intently while Reckless’s sensors analyzed the new arrivals. Things looked bad. The Hammer task group was the usual mixture of cruisers and escorts; there were a lot of them. An icy calm settled over him. The latest Hammer reinforcements were more than strong enough to reduce Reckless’s chances of getting away to zero. And they had dropped less than thirty minutes from him, close enough to turn Reckless into a ball of ionized gas five times over. He commed his AIs into conference.
“Okay, team. Shit hits fan time. Options?”
Warfare took the lead. “Three. Stay, run, or send Reckless out to meet them while Caesar’s Ghost remains to recover demolition party.”
“Operations?”
“Agree with the options,” the operations AI said. “However, recommend Reckless’s crew transfer to Ghost. That renders Reckless expendable. In any event, we assess her chances of survival to be nil under any scenario.”
Michael marveled at the AI’s calmness in the face of its own death. “Warfare. Your recommendation?”
“All AIs concur. Off-load crew to Caesar’s Ghost, send Reckless out to engage ships of Hammer-7,” the AI replied. “That gives you the best chance of recovering the marines and clearing Hammer space to the east.”
Michael had to agree. “Option three it is. Ops, get Caesar’s Ghost back here. Brief Sedova while she’s doing that. Warfare, give me a plan for Reckless. Sensors, let me know the instant the Hammers start launching missiles. And I want all your detailed records of the operation downloaded to Caesar’s Ghost. Raw datalogs as well. If in doubt, download it. I’d rather have more than less.”
“Sensors, roger.”
“XO to the CIC, at the rush.” With a twinge of guilt, Michael remembered he had completely forgotten Kallewi. He commed him. “Assault Leader, command. Update.”
“We found the power distribution center,” Kallewi said. “Charges have been placed, timers set, claymores are in, and we’re on our way back. That’s the good news. The bad is that a group of Hammers in the last lobby before the air lock has pushed my guys back and we’re pinned down. The tacbots tell us more are coming up behind us. We can hold them off, but not forever. Oh, thanks for the diversion. We would not have made it this far otherwise. Anyway, we can’t go back, we can’t go forward, so I think the best thing would be for you-”
“Enough of that,” Michael snapped. “I’m not leaving you. Hold the Hammers until I get back to you. Command, out.” He turned to Ferreira. “Time we all left, but I have one more job for you. Take Carmellini and Lomidze with you. I want six sets of ship assault gear in the lander, plus four demolition charges.”
“Six se-”
“Just do it, Jayla. I’ll explain later. Get everyone down to the hangar. Go!”
“Sir.” Ferreira and the rest of Reckless’s crew turned and ran for the lander.
“Command, Warfare. Plan’s done.”
“Right.” Michael forced everything aside apart from how best to make use of the last card left in his hand, Reckless itself. He nodded his appreciation. Warfare’s plan was solid. “It’s good. Do it,” he said. “You have command authority to execute; just keep me posted.”
“Roger,” Warfare said matter-of-factly.
With one last look around Reckless’s combat information center, Michael left, his sense of loss bitter in its intensity. Reckless had served him well; she deserved better. Dropping to the hangar deck, he bolted for Caesar’s Ghost as fast as his combat space suit would allow, the hatch slamming shut behind him. After what seemed an age, the hangar doors opened. Sedova wasted no time and gunned Caesar’s Ghost out and away from the doomed ship.
“Okay, pay attention.” Michael stood at the front of the cargo bay, his crew ranged in a semicircle around him. “Right, we have precious little time. Lieutenant Kallewi and his marines are pinned down just inside the access here”-he pointed over his shoulder-“by a group of Hammers. I want six volunteers to persuade the Hammers to let my marines go. So who-”
Together, the crew of Reckless stepped forward. “Shit,” Michael said, “weren’t you dumbos taught not to volunteer for anything?” He shook his head. “Okay, Jayla, Bienefelt, Carmellini, Fodor, Lim, Morozov. Draw weapons. Go, go, go!”
Michael stopped for a second to recover. “Kat. Get the ramp down.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Lomidze, Chief Chua,” Michael snapped.
“Sir?”
“I want you to follow the XO’s team in case we have casualties to recover. Take crash bags and keep your damn heads down. This is not the time for heroics.”
“Sir.”
A few frantic, scrambling minutes later, Michael’s scratch assault team was ready. “Good luck, Jayla. Remember your close-quarters combat drills.”
“You can count on it, sir,” Ferreira said. “If I see a Hammer, I’ll shoot the bastard. Let’s go, team.”
Ferreira shot out of the lander, her maneuvering pack driving her hard and fast toward the door of the personnel access facility, the spacers of her scratch assault team strung out behind her in an untidy, wavering line. Chief Chua and Lomidze brought up the rear, crash bags held tight.
Making his way up to the Ghost’s flight deck, Michael commed Kallewi.
“Okay. Ferreira and a team of spacers are on their way to help out. Call sign Alfa Bravo. She’ll let you know when they’re in place. On your mark, they’ll attack the blocking force from behind. Disengage, get your guys past, and all run like hell for the Ghost. Ferreira will leave demolition charges to slow the Hammers down. Okay?”
“Roger that, sir. Sounds like one hell of a plan,” Kallewi said, unable to conceal his relief.
“Yeah, it is. Just make it work,” Michael said, dropping into a spare seat and strapping in.
There was nothing more to be done to help the beleaguered marines, so he turned his attention back to the command and threat plots. There were no surprises there. The latest Hammer task group sent to protect SuppFac27 had dropped precisely where Carmellini had said it would; now the ships were turning inward to point their bows directly at Reckless. Ranged around the task group hung a cloud of missiles that was growing in size with every new missile salvo dumped into space. Michael drew a long, ragged breath. It would not be long before those missiles were committed to the attack; he prayed Reckless kept the Hammers’ attention long enough for them to get away. He tried not to think what the Hammers would do to him if he fell into their hands.
Michael commed Warfare. “All set?”
“Reckless is under way.”
“Good luck,” Michael said, realizating that when Reckless was destroyed-and she would be-he and his crew would be alone, marooned in Hammer space, deep inside an uncharted reef with only a heavy assault lander to get them home. He was no believer in miracles, but he was beginning to think he was going to need a bag of them to pull this one off. Disconsolate, he watched Reckless pull away, her only protection a cloud of decoys inside a Krachov shroud, rail guns her only weapons.
Michael watched sickened as Reckless’s massive bulk dwindled into the distance, the ship going to emergency power as soon as she was clear of Caesar’s Gh
ost, accelerating away on twin pillars of flame. She was a good ship; he would be sorry to lose her and even sorrier to lose Warfare and the rest of the AIs. He had built relationships with all of them. Mother, Warfare, Kubby, and Kal might not be human, but they were characters in their own right, and it was hard not to feel a sense of loss.
He patched his neuronics into one of the tacbots covering the lobby. Kallewi’s problem was obvious. A large force of Hammer planetary defense troopers had pushed back the marines Kallewi had positioned to keep his exit route clear; they now controlled the lobby, firing indiscriminately at the marines from behind the cover of the security station. To attempt to cross the lobby was to commit suicide. Kallewi was stalemated. That was the bad news. The good news was that Ferreira’s team was in place.
“Assault Leader, Alfa Bravo,” Ferreira said. “We’re in position. Ready to go on your mark.”
“Alfa Bravo, stand by,” Kallewi replied. “On three, go, go, go!”
Ferreira’s attack took the Hammers by surprise, grenades exploding among their tightly packed ranks with devastating effect, the carnage made worse when her team followed up with sustained bursts of rifle fire, the rounds ripping with brutal ease through troopers blown out of cover. Kallewi did not hang around to watch the slaughter. His marines broke cover in a desperate dash for the safety of the passageway leading back to the asteroid surface. They nearly made it, but a Hammer trooper managed to squeeze off a burst that took one of Kallewi’s marines in the leg, spinning her out of control and into the laser-cut rock wall of the lobby a few meters short of the exit.
Ferreira did not hesitate. Emptying her rifle at the Hammer, she lunged forward, her momentum unchecked by a lucky shot that ripped through her left arm. Throwing her gun away, she grabbed the marine with her bad arm and the safety line with her good one, pulling the two of them out of the firefight and into safety, the legs of the marine’s suit spewing gas, blood, and lurid green wound foam in equal measures.
“Withdraw,” Ferreira shouted, “withdraw! Bienefelt, Carmellini, set those charges. And someone slap a patch on our suits before we run out of gas.”
The spacers needed no encouragement. Not all the Hammers had been cut down, and reinforcements were arriving. Recovering their composure, Kallewi’s marines began to fight back, pouring rifle fire into the lobby, their bullets smacking into the rock walls. Shielded by a second shower of grenades, the Feds pulled back past the hunched figures of Bienefelt and Carmellini while they packed demolition charges into the frame around the inner air lock door.
“Charges set,” Bienefelt said. “Fused twenty seconds.”
“Fire them and get the hell out,” Ferreira said, her voice tight with pain, pushing the wounded marine at Chief Chua.
Bienefelt and Carmellini wasted no time, clearing the personnel access facility close behind Lomidze and Chua as they struggled to push the marine into the safety of a crash bag and get back to the lander at the same time. When the last spacer had crossed the threshold into the lander’s cargo bay, the personnel access facility shivered, a transient cloud of smoke and flame boiling out of the doors before vanishing into space.
Sedova wasted no time closing the cargo bay ramp.
“Hold on,” she shouted the instant Trivedi confirmed that everyone had made it back safely. Without any urging from Michael, she rammed the Ghost’s engines to full power, driving the lander in a skidding turn to place the asteroid’s massive bulk between them and the Hammers before heading into Devastation Reef.
Michael patched his neuronics into the reconsats tracking Reckless as he made his way up the Ghost’s flight deck, throwing himself into a spare seat. It was a heartbreaking sight; around the doomed ship-the last of Battle Fleet Lima to fight and die that awful day-space sparkled as Reckless fought its final battle, salvo after salvo falling on the dreadnought, the searing heat of proximity-fused fusion warheads stripping armor off, rail-gun slugs slamming home to blow huge craters into her armor, her hull wreathed in a ghastly death shroud of ionized armor.
Michael cut the holovid feed. He could not watch anymore, so he turned his attention back to the threat plot, the latest Hammer arrivals an ugly splash of red sprawled across the screen. The big question still sat there, unanswered: Would they come after Caesar’s Ghost?
Michael took a long, careful look at the plot. Whatever the reason, the Hammers showed not even the slightest interest in Caesar’s Ghost. The ships of Hammer-7 focused on Reckless; every missile and rail-gun slug they fired had just that one target. Not that Michael blamed them: He would be concentrating on a heavy cruiser with a death wish inbound under emergency power; that much suicidal mass could inflict an awful lot of damage. The Hammers did not even bother to lock the Ghost up with fire control radar, nor did they send a few missiles its way. Not that worrying what the Hammers might do made any difference; if they came after Caesar’s Ghost, there was nothing he could do about it. Heavy landers were tough but not tough enough to keep out even a small salvo of Eaglehawk missiles. Their best bet was to run, hoping Reckless convinced the Hammers that they had better things to do than chase after a single fleeing assault lander that was doomed to die in the uncharted wastes of Devastation Reef.
Good thing the Hammers did not know about pinchspace jump-capable Block 6 landers; if they did …
For Michael, postcombat exhaustion had set in with a vengeance, the shipsuit under his space suit-as always after combat-an icy, sweat-soaked wreck. All he wanted was a shower, clean gear, and a long sleep.
“Kat. Update.”
“Roger, sir. We’re … hold on, sir … the demolition charges will blow in ten.”
Michael sat up. Shit, he chided himself, how had he forgotten? “Get SuppFac27 up on holovid and let the troops know.”
Utterly focused, Michael stared at the asteroid when it popped onto the command holovid, the ugly ball of rock a black shape cut out of star-strewn space. He struggled to breathe, all too aware that Kallewi’s demolition charges had to work. If they did not, he was as good as dead. Perkins would destroy him, and maybe he would be right to.
“Stand by … now!”
Nothing happened.
Even as Michael began to think that the whole operation was a bust, the appalling loss of ships and lives, the risks he had taken, all a complete waste, the asteroid’s surface, crystal clear in the holovid feeds coming from the reconsats, he shivered. Michael was not even sure he had seen anything, it all happened so fast. There was another tremor, much bigger this time, shock lifting dust off the asteroid, and the black surface of the asteroid cracked open, flaming jets of white-hot plasma lancing out when SuppFac27’s fusion plants blew, the enormous overpressure following every access tunnel back up to the surface, the blast blowing huge chunks of rock to tumble away into space, pursued by jets of incandescent gas.
“Oh, yeah,” Sedova said, her face a snarl of pure hatred. “Suck that, you Hammer bastards. I don’t think there’ll be much more antimatter coming out of that place.”
Michael choked up, but Reckless’s crew did not, their cheers and shouts swamping the Ghost’s com circuits.
“Right, Kat,” Michael said, spirits soaring as the weight came off his shoulders before reality brought them crashing back to ground. He was acutely aware how far from home they all were; he hoped the cheers were not premature. For him, this mission was not over until every last spacer and marine made it home safely. “Update.”
“Roger. We’re at jump speed, though the navigation AI says there is way too much gravitational instability for us to get into pinchspace safely. There’s still no sign of any interest from the Hammers. Cleft Stick has recovered lifepods from Seljuk, Secular, Iron Bridge, and Darter. She is chasing down the last of them, two from Skeandhu. When she’s recovered those, she’ll rendezvous with us.”
“How long?”
“Four hours, give or take. We’ll have a precise time once she’s recovered Skeandhu’s survivors.”
“Roger. Any sign of Ham
mers responding?”
“No, sir. Still none, and something tells me there won’t be. Hammers being Hammers, they’ll be more interested in lining up the poor bastards in charge and shooting them.”
“My heart bleeds for the pricks. Is there a list of survivors?”
“No, not yet. The Stick’s AI is doing the best it can, but routine administration is not one of its strong points.”
Michael chuckled softly. Assault landers were never designed to fly without a human crew; of course they could, but some of the finer points of command tended to fall by the wayside. “Fine. Ask it nicely to let us know if it can find the time. Even better, see if it can patch us through to one of the survivors. Next question: We can’t go back, so where the hell do we go?”
“I was afraid you’d ask me that, sir. The bad news is that we have just one option, I’m afraid. I’ve checked and rechecked. Serhati is the only non-Hammer world we can reach with the driver mass and consumables we have onboard. I’ve done a navigation plan to get us there.”
“Shit,” Michael said softly with a shake of his head; Serhati did not appear on any list of friendly systems he had ever seen. “What’s the transit time?”
“Not good, sir. It’s … let me see … yes, a thirteen-day transit.”
Michael winced; the cramped confines of a heavy lander would make for an uncomfortable trip. “Can we do that?” he said, trying not to look concerned.
“Assuming Cleft Stick recovers no more than 200 survivors, yes, we can … just,” Sedova said. “Assuming 250 souls all up, consumables are the problem: We’ll be out of food, our carbon dioxide scrubbers will be on their last legs, and we’ll be critically low on oxygen and water. And that’s even after we’ve stripped Cleft Stick bare.”
“Umm,” Michael said after he took a long look at Serhati’s profile. “Yes, you’re right. It has to be Serhati, so that’s where we’ll go. And yes, it’ll be damn tight. But I think we can do it if we keep the troops in their bunks twenty-two hours a day to reduce oxygen consumption. The big problem is that Serhati is a Hammer client. Not officially, of course; it pretends to be a Kalici Protocol world, but scratch the surface and it’s not. According to the intelligence summaries, Serhati is a covert remassing stop for Hammer ships. So I think we’re in for an interesting time. Set vector for Serhati and let the troops know that’s where we’re headed.”
The battle of Devastation reef hw-3 Page 28
