“I’m Chief Inspector Meir,” the older of the two men said, “and this is Sergeant Hardina, Federal Police. You are Admiral Jaruzelska?”
“You already know that,” Jaruzelska said.
“And you are Admiral N’tini?” Meir asked.
“Yes,” N’tini replied.
“John N’tini and Angela Jaruzelska,” Meir said, his voice cold and formal, “I am arresting you both under the provisions of Section 19 of the Emergency Powers Act. In accordance with that act, you will be remanded in custody until a duly authorized Federal Police officer details the charges against you in the Federal Court of Criminal Justice. You are obliged to answer all questions put to you by the Federal Police, and any failure to answer such questions may prejudice your defense. Do you understand?”
Jaruzelska’s eyes blazed. “Tell me what the charge is,” she spit.
“As I just said, sir, you will be informed of all charges against you when you appear in the Federal Court. Come with me, please.”
Jaruzelska turned to N’tini. “What do you think, John? Shall we go?”
“I hate to say it, but I think we’d better do as Mister Plod the Policeman wants.”
“Now,” Meir said, stone-faced.
Without another word, Jaruzelska and N’tini allowed themselves to be led out of the cafe. The leaden silence broke into a buzz the moment the door closed behind them.
A young man at a table by the door left his coffee unfinished. He hurried into the street. He walked past where Jaruzelska was refusing to follow N’tini into the waiting police mobibot, her voice strident above the hum of traffic.
“I’m a goddamned admiral, so get your hands off me, Meir. I want to speak to my lawyer before I go anywhere.”
“I know who you are, Admiral Jaruzelska,” Meir responded, “but I must insist.”
Jaruzelska was not looking at Meir. Instead she stared right at the young man. “Insist,” she said, her voice loud now, penetrating. “Insist all you like. My mother would not like it.”
“Your mother?” Meir said, puzzled by Jaruzelska’s sudden change of tack. “Do us all a favor and get in the bot.” Meir’s body language made it clear that his patience was running out.
“My mother would not like it,” Jaruzelska called out again.
“Now! Or I’ll cuff you and throw you in the bot myself.”
Jaruzelska threw her hands up. “Okay, okay. I’ll do it.”
The man kept walking, an almost imperceptible nod the only sign that he had heard Jaruzelska.
The door was slammed behind Jaruzelska; she slumped down beside N’tini. “This is a first,” John,” she said. “Two admirals arrested in one day.”
“And there’ll be more,” N’tini said, twisting his body to be able to look into Jaruzelska’s face. “I know a witch hunt when I see one.” He lifted an eyebrow in inquiry.
Jaruzelska nodded. “True enough.” She sat back as the mobibot accelerated away. Whatever the Hammers were up to, it did not matter now. She had pushed the button to launch Juggernaut. The young man, one of a team that shadowed her every move, had acknowledged receipt of the code phrase. Even now, every unit assigned to the invasion of Commitment would be en route for the deepspace jumping-off point.
Operation Juggernaut had started. There was nothing anyone in the Hammers or Ferrero could do to stop it. True, she’d been forced to initiate the operation early. But she’d spent almost all her adult life fighting the Hammer of Kraa; all her experience told her that Juggernaut’s chances of success were almost as good as she could have hoped.
Saturday, June 12, 2404, UD
LMS Golden Gladiator, Lagerfeld system nearspace
“Captain says we’ve been given clearance to dock,” Shinoda said. “We’ll be at the orbital transfer station in a couple of hours.”
“And the President Cruz?”
“Arrived yesterday. She’ll be leaving for Scobie’s World on schedule, though we might have a problem.”
“A problem?”
“Yup. Seems somebody fired a couple of missiles at our beloved moderator’s shuttle. Sadly, the shuttle survived, and so did she.”
“An assassination attempt?” Michael said, frowning. His mind raced as he tried to work out what it all meant. “You sure?”
“It’s all over the news.”
“That doesn’t sound good. It’s going to destabilize everything, and that’s the last thing we need right now.”
“It gets worse,” Shinoda said. “The shit has really hit the fan. The Feds have arrested most of the officers above the rank of commodore in the fleet. They’ve been charged with everything from conspiracy to murder to stealing the office teacups.”
“What about Admiral Jaruzelska?”
“She wasn’t mentioned by name, but yes, almost certainly.”
Michael was still stunned by the news. “We’ll have to work out how this affects us.”
“That’ll be hard. Things are pretty chaotic. But there is some good news.”
“We could do with some.”
“They’re saying a large force of Fleet units left Terranovan nearspace without proper authorization only minutes after the arrests. Planetary defense told them to turn back, but they refused. The antiballistic missile batteries were ordered to fire on them, but there was a problem with their fire-control systems. The missiles refused to lock onto ships squawking friendly IFF codes, so they got away.”
“I’m shocked,” Michael said with a huge grin. “Such incompetence.”
“It gets better. Apparently the same thing happened at Comdur.”
“They’ve pushed the button on Juggernaut,” Michael said. Then it hit him hard. “The Hammers. They’ll know that we’re coming after them.”
“Will they? How?”
“Why else would an entire task force leave Terranova and Comdur nearspace without authorization from Fleet?”
Shinoda thought about that for a while. “Wouldn’t they think,” she said, “that it was just … I don’t know … a precautionary move following the assassination attempt?” She took a deep breath and shook her head. “No, that makes no sense. Warships don’t move without orders.”
“They don’t, and even if the Hammers aren’t sure,” Michael said, “they’ll assume an attack is on the way. Until the missing units are relocated, they have to, and don’t be surprised if they close their nearspace to all civilian traffic.”
“Damn,” Shinoda muttered, her face bleak, “that wouldn’t be good. What do we do now?”
“Push on, find the first dead-letter box on Scobie’s. It’ll have the latest update on the Juggernaut. There’ll be new orders for us.”
Shinoda nodded. “I’ll go brief the rest of the team.”
“Let me guess. On the mats again?”
“Yup.”
“Slow learners, you marines.”
“Watch it, spacer boy,” Shinoda replied with a feral smile as she left.
Michael sat back, wondering where Juggernaut stood now. With Jaruzelska under arrest, Rear Admiral Moussawi was now in command. He was renowned for his mix of surgical skill and ruthless aggression. Michael had heard Jaruzelska describe him as one of the best Fleet commanders the Federated Worlds had ever seen; coming from her, that was high praise. But with the Hammers now expecting an attack, the chances of the operation succeeding had to have worsened no matter how good the commander was.
The butcher’s bill for Operation Juggernaut had always promised to be high; it now looked to be much, much worse. Michael could only hope that Moussawi would not be deterred.
Michael dropped his gear onto the deck and rolled into the bunk that occupied most of the cramped economy-class cabin. In the time it had taken to clear arrival formalities-and they had been formalities; Michael had never seen people so disinterested as Lagerfeld’s border security officers-the newsvids had reported the closure of Hammer nearspace in anticipation of what Polk himself had said would be a full-scale attack by rogue elements from the
Federated Worlds Fleet.
“You got that one right, you Hammer asshole,” Michael had muttered.
The mission was screwed. There was no way for him and Shinoda to get to Commitment. It was over. Juggernaut was doomed. And worse than any of that, his chances of seeing Anna again were … he wondered what was less than zero. And he was a nonperson, a dead nonperson. The false identities he had been given would get him dirtside on Scobie’s and then onto Commitment, but they weren’t good enough to last him the rest of his life.
If he discounted blowing his brains out, his options had dwindled to one: flee to the outer edge of humanspace. There he could find some ratfucked system a thousand light-years from the Hammer of Kraa where nobody gave a damn who you were or what you’d done.
Just the sort of place where a dead nonperson could forget the past and carve out a new life.
Sunday, June 13, 2404, UD
Offices of the Supreme Council, McNair
“… and so, to sum up,” said Admiral Kerouac, commander in chief of the Hammer Defense Forces, in a mellow baritone voice that Polk always found faintly patronizing, “in response to a full-scale mutiny of the Federated Worlds space fleet, we are withdrawing every unit we can spare from nonessential operational tasks. Those units are now deployed in Commitment nearspace. And finally, all units are at Operational State 4 and will remain at that level until we have confirmed that the renegade Fed units that left Terranova and Comdur are not planning to attack one of our home planets. Are there …” Kerouac paused as an aide handed him a sheet of paper. “I’ve just received the latest estimate of the number of ships involved in the mutiny,” he went on, “and it seems the Federated Worlds has been unable to account for a total of sixty-six ships.”
Polk stared at Kerouac, open-mouthed with disbelief. “Did you say sixty-six ships?”
“I did, sir. Sixty-six ships: one planetary assault vessel, fifty-three warships, and twelve heavy armed auxiliaries. Now, I know that sounds like a lot, but you look at our order of battle, you will see that we have three times that number of warships in Commitment nearspace right now. That will increase by twenty-five when Task Force 41 returns from the Federated Worlds. The Fortitude and Faith systems are equally well defended, and of course we should not forget our orbital battle stations, battlesats, weapons platforms, and minefields. There can be no doubt that any attack by those renegade Fed units would be suicidal.”
“Thank you,” Polk said. “Which brings us to the one question I have been asking over and over: What the hell are the Feds up to? Councillor Kando, tell me what your intelligence analysts think.”
“We think the renegades will attack Commitment.”
“They’ll suffer enormous losses if they try, so why would they do that? They’re not stupid.”
“Hendrik Island, that’s why.”
Polk shook his head. “We’re not even sure the Feds know about Hendrik Island.”
“Too many people know about it, Chief Councillor. We must assume they do, just as we have to assume they will do whatever it takes to eliminate our antimatter plant on Hendrik Island. They have to. It’s the single greatest … no, it’s the only threat to their survival.”
Polk stared at Kando for moment before responding. “That does make sense,” he said. “What else is worth risking so many ships?’ He turned to Jones. “Your thoughts?”
“It does make sense, sir, even though taking out Hendrik Island cannot be done,” Polk’s councillor for war responded. “The Feds will not be able to penetrate our orbital defenses. It’s simple mathematics, and we’ve run the simulations-just as the Feds will have-and they all point to the same result: total annihilation. Misguided patriots these renegades might be, but even they won’t throw ships away for no reason.
“And even if they did, they’d be wasting their time. Hendrik Island was picked because it is an enormous mass of basalt. The plant is buried so deep inside that even an antimatter weapon dropped right on top would have no effect on its operational capability. An attack would be utterly pointless. We know it, and those renegade Feds will too, but we cannot assume they won’t try. Kraa knows, they are an arrogant bunch.”
Polk nodded. “So there’s no downside in making the assumption that the Feds will try to destroy our antimatter plant?”
“None.”
“Won’t the Feds just attack elsewhere?”
“There’s no point,’ Jones said. “The Feds do not have sufficient forces to mount a full-scale ground assault. Anyway, the advice I have been given-” Jones looked at Admiral Kerouac, who nodded his agreement. “-is that sufficient forces would remain to cover any eventuality. And it goes without saying that our forces can be moved as the tactical situation in Commitment nearspace demands.”
“Good. Admiral Kerouac, you know what has to be done.”
“I do, sir. I will report back to the next Defense Council meeting.”
Wednesday, June 16, 2404, UD
New Dublin, Scobie’s World
Michael let himself into the small house tucked away out of sight of the road down a tree-lined lane. He dumped his backpack and went through to the kitchen, where Shinoda waited. “Am I clean?” he asked, punching buttons on the foodbot to get himself a mug of coffee.
“Spassky and Akuna have just checked in. No problems, they say. I don’t know what the locals do at night, but they don’t like to get out and party.”
“Where are Mitchell and Prodi?”
“Covering the perimeter. Spassky and Akuna take over from them at midnight.”
“Okay.” Michael sat down at the table, flicking the ever-present near-field jammer with a finger. “Right, I picked up a datastick from the dead-letter box,” he went on. “Admiral Moussawi is going ahead with Operation Juggernaut.”
“Yes!” Shinoda hissed. “Good for him. But what about us? What’s the plan?”
“There is no plan, not anymore. Our mission has been scrubbed …”
“Shit,” Shinoda muttered.
“… and I have orders for you guys to get yourselves to Al-Sufri. Check with the defense attache there; she’ll organize you a ride back home.”
“And why would we do that?” Shinoda asked. She shook her head, her face bitter with disappointment. “Fuck the orders,” she said. “I refuse to sit around waiting for Jeremiah Polk to tell me I’m now a Hammer citizen. What about you?”
“I’ll go to ground. If I can stay out of the locals’ hands, I might find a way to get back to Commitment. Money’s not a problem. Maybe I can bribe someone to smuggle me in.” Michael did not need to look at Shinoda to know what she thought of that proposition. An awkward silence, the silence of defeat, settled over the pair.
“The problem with looking for someone to smuggle you in is time,” Shinoda said eventually. “Nobody knows when the Hammers will reopen their shipping routes. It could be months, and you can’t survive that long. DocSec will nail you.”
“I know, I know,” Michael said.
“You got any better ideas?”
“I might,” Michael said, a distant look on his face. “To give Juggernaut the best chance of succeeding, the NRA must get those plans and brevity codes before the operation kicks off. So we can’t give up on the mission. We have to find a ship to get us to Commitment.”
Shinoda frowned, skeptical. “We can probably do that,” she said. “There must be plenty sitting around doing nothing right now. But how the hell can we get dirtside? We’d be plasma five seconds after we dropped out of pinchspace.”
“I know,” Michael conceded. “That is the fatal flaw in my strategy.”
“One hell of a flaw,” Shinoda muttered. “So what do we do?”
Michael thought about the problem for a few moments. “Let’s get everyone together,” he said. “Tell them the situation, then give them the options. If they want to head for Al-Sufri, that’s fine. If they want to stay, they can.”
“And do what, sir?”
“Work out how to do the impossible,�
� he said.
Michael paused to look at each of the marines in turn. He was struck by the intensity on every face. He knew he did not have to ask the question but did anyway.
“So there you have it, guys. There’s nothing more I can say, so it’s up to you. Go to Al-Sufri or stay and see if we can’t drag this mission across the line.” He got to his feet. “I’ll let you talk it through. Give me a shout when you’ve decided.”
“No need, sir,” Mitchell said before Michael even started for the door. “Well, not for me, anyway. The sergeant says I talk too much anyway … ’
“No kidding,” Akuna muttered.
“… but I’m in.”
“What about the rest of you?” Michael asked. “You in too?”
One after another, heads nodded.
“Well, I guess that’s it,” Michael continued. “The mission’s back on. All we have to do is work out how we can do this.”
Shinoda broke the silence that followed. “Let me have first crack at it,” she said. “The way I see it, there’s one logistics problem-we need a ship and fast-and two tactical problems: We have to survive the Hammer defenses once we drop out of pinchspace, and then we have to get safely dirtside.”
“Money will solve the first problem,” Michael said.
“Hang on a second, sir,” Akuna said. “We’re talking merchant ships here, right?”
“Yes.”
“We can’t just waltz onboard and take over. Merships have lockouts on their controls. If the crewmen don’t want to drop into Hammer space, they sure as shit won’t let us.”
“Goddammit,” Michael said, trying not to let a sudden despondency show. In his enthusiasm, he had forgotten. “Of course they do, and I have no idea how we can get the command codes. But that problem can wait. Right now we need to start building a list of issues.”
“I’ll run the list,” Prodi offered.
“Thanks. Once we know what all the problems are, we can start working out how to solve them. Okay, who’s next?”
“So that’s it, guys,” Michael said. “Get some sleep. I’ll keep an eye on things.”
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