The Final Battle hw-5

by Graham Sharp Paul

  Michael emptied his pack and refilled it with his supply of microgrenades. He made his way aft to the ladder that accessed the hydraulically powered locks that clamped the shuttle’s massive ramp closed. Pack around his neck, he climbed the ladder. It was an awkward, jerky process with a knife in his shoulder and a useless arm, but he made it finally. He locked his left leg around one rung to hold himself in position, removed the pack, and set to work.

  Even one-handed, it was easy enough to arm the grenades and place them behind a junction box directly below the shuttle’s port reaction-mass feed line, an exotic alloy pipe 15 centimeters in diameter pressurized to 3,000 atmospheres.

  Michael had just finished when the command pilot called him. The man did not look happy. “What the hell are you up to, Helfort?” he demanded.

  “I’ve asked you to turn back,” Michael said, working his way down the ladder, “and you won’t, so now I’ll have to make you.”

  “And how will you do that?” The pilot’s voice dripped skepticism.

  “Never underestimate a desperate man,” Michael said, his voice calm even though his heart was racing. “I’ve put microgrenades under the port feed line. If you don’t turn back, I’ll set them off.”

  The command pilot’s face went dirty gray. “You wouldn’t,” he said.

  “Oh, but I will,” Michael said. “Unless you want me to trash your main engines and a whole lot of other stuff as well, I suggest you turn back right now.”

  “You’re bluffing.” The pilot had recovered his composure and some of his color. “There’s no way you’d do it. You’d kill us both.”

  Michael swore some under his breath. He’d been so sure the pilot would turn back. “I might kill us both,” he said, forcing himself to sound nonchalant, “but since I’m a dead man either way, what have I got to lose?”

  “You are so full of shit, Helfort.” The pilot sounded confident.

  “I’ll take that as no, shall I?” Michael asked. “Right, Captain Asswipe; watch and learn.” Michael picked up his rifle and made his way to the very front of the cargo bay, stopping just short of the passenger galley. He clipped his safety line to a ringbolt, then brought the rifle up and rested it on a seat back, an awkward business thanks to his damaged shoulder. “Last chance,” he called out.

  “Fuck off!” the pilot snapped. “You won’t do it.”

  “I think I will,” Michael said. He took careful aim and put a single round into the junction box packed with microgrenades.

  For one heart-stopping moment, Michael thought the grenades had failed to fire. Then they did. The blast filled the cargo bay with a sheet of intense white light and a cloud of ionized gas and smoke, the shuttle bucking under his feet as the shock front ripped through the airframe. “That should do it,” he said, throwing himself behind the galley bulkhead.

  Nothing happened. A few seconds later, a lot did and in a very short amount of time. A small explosion followed the first; then the shuttle shuddered as a massive blast ripped through the cargo bay.

  There goes the reaction-mass feed line, Michael thought, cringing back while the cargo bay filled with pulverized driver mass, a malevolent black cloud that tore the cargo bay apart, the overpressure rupturing both of his eardrums in a blaze of agony even as flying debris ripped the flimsy gallery bulkhead apart and debris clawed at his body.

  The shuttle lurched hard to one side into a slow tumbling roll as more explosions followed. Its overtaxed artgrav gave up the unequal fight. It shut down, and Commitment’s gravity took over. Thanks to the shuttle’s extreme nose-up attitude, the deck was now so steep that Michael could not stand up. His feet shot from under him. He dropped to the deck and into the shattered remnants of the galley. Around him, the whole shuttle shuddered, a hammering so violent that he thought complete structural failure had to be only seconds away.

  Michael commed the command pilot. “Having fun now?” he asked through pain-gritted teeth, head spinning and nausea rising as his overloaded brain tried to work out which way was up, a problem thanks to his ruptured ears. He blinked the tears out of his eyes and wondered if he might not have overdone the microgrenades a touch. “I certainly am.”

  “You’ve killed us all,” the man screeched. His face was white and beaded with sweat. Around him, the flight deck was raucous with the cacophonous racket of multiple alarms.

  “That all depends on how good a pilot you are,” Michael replied. “Now, it’s only a guess, but I’d say you’ve lost the port main engine, the starboard main engine’s tripped out, and all of your primary and backup hydraulics have gone as well. Am I right?”

  “You maniac,” the pilot snarled.

  “I’ll take that as a yes, shall I? Michael said. “I hope you’ve been practicing your dead stick reentries, because that’s the only way you’ll get us down alive. Just thank your lucky stars I pulled the pin before we reached orbit.”

  “I going to tear your fucking heart out,” the pilot screamed.

  “Since that means we’d have made it dirtside, I look forward to you trying. Now shut up, get us down, and let me know when we can bail out.”

  Michael cut the comm before the man could respond. He released his line and slid down the deck until he reached a crew seat. He dragged himself into it and sat down. Jury-rigging the safety harness to avoid the knife, he armed the seat’s escape capsule and sat back to wait, doing his best to ignore the pain that consumed his entire body. There was nothing he could do now. His life was in the hands of the command pilot. Provided that his little stunt hadn’t done more damage than he’d planned, the man had a reasonable chance of getting the shuttle down low and slowly enough that they could both bail out and survive.

  A thought struck him. He commed the pilot. “Hey, asswipe,” he said.

  “What?” The man still looked terrified.

  “Settle down. You can do this.”

  “You don’t know what you’ve done, do you?”

  “Tell me.”

  “As well as everything else, we’ve lost hydraulics, and that means I’ll never control this thing long enough for us to slow down and bail out. There’s a limit to what the reaction control system can do, you know. We’re dead, Helfort.”

  Oh, shit, Michael thought. This is not good. “Patch me into the command AI.”

  “Why would-”

  “Because you want to live, you idiot! Now do it.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  It took Michael only seconds to see the damage for himself. The command pilot had not been exaggerating. The shuttle was doomed. Without hydraulics, the wings would stay fully retracted, and no wings meant no control as the air thickened. The problem was that the pilot had to do two things at once: keep the shuttle stable and slow down. If he failed, the shuttle would disintegrate and they were both dead men.

  “Damn, damn, damn,” Michael swore under his breath. If only … An idea popped fully formed into his head. Michael put it to the AI, and ten seconds later he had his answer. It would be touch and go, but they might still have a chance.

  “Captain,” he said. “Can you bring the starboard main engine back online?”

  “I can, though it’s not in very good shape. I don’t know how long it’ll hold up.”

  “We won’t need it for long. How’s the reaction control system?”

  “The RCS is nominal, unlike everything else.”

  “Okay; I think there’s something we can do.”

  Hope brightened the man’s eyes. “There is?”

  Michael forwarded the AI’s analysis. “Have a look at this,” he said. “The AI thinks it’ll work.”

  “Mmm,” the pilot said. “Not sure if the RCS can keep us stable long enough, but I can use the main engine to vector the thrust, which will help. Anyway, it’s worth a try.”

  Michael nodded. “Sure is,” he said. “Hey, look. I’m sorry about the Captain Asswipe thing. What’s your name?”

  “Karroubi, Jakob Karroubi.”

  “Good luck, Jakob.�
�

  Michael sat back and patched his neuronics into the holocam behind Karroubi. It was if he were sitting on the pilot’s shoulder. He looked at the same screens, the same status boards, the same everything. It was unnerving, and for a moment Michael felt for the man. With the crippled shuttle now plummeting earthward, he had a huge challenge on his hands.

  Karroubi fired the reaction jets to spin the shuttle around. Now the stern faced the onrushing air. A fresh set of alarms bleated in protest at a maneuver that appeared in no manual Michael had ever read. “Stand by,” the command pilot called. “This will be very rough.”

  No kidding, Michael thought as the pilot fired the starboard main engine and rammed the throttle to emergency power, provoking yet more alarms. With the artgrav off, the airframe kicked hard in protest, the seat underneath Michael bucking as the pilot fought to keep the shuttle stable.

  “Throttle down, Jakob,” Michael shouted. “Throttle down. Too much and you’ll lose her.”

  “Roger,” Karroubi said; a moment later the vibration wracking the shuttle’s frame eased off a touch.

  “Better,” Michael said even though it was still worryingly bad. But there was some good news: Karroubi was a natural on the sidestick controller. With a confident hand, he kept control of the stern’s tendency to slide away from the oncoming air, and the shuttle was decelerating hard, riding a pillar of flame down to earth.

  “Looks good,” Karroubi said, “so stand by. It won’t be long before we can go.”

  “Just say the word,” Michael replied. “I’m ready to-”

  In one terrible instant, everything changed. Karroubi lost control. The stern whipped up and over with frightening speed, the airframe hammered by endless cracking bangs. “Shit!” Michael screamed as the status board told him the controls had been overwhelmed. Condemned, the shuttle tumbled to destruction; it was beyond anything Karroubi could do to reverse the situation.

  “Sorry about that,” Karroubi shouted, his body a blur as the shuddering thrashed him from side to side.

  “Don’t be,” Michael replied through clenched teeth, marveling that the pilot still was fighting against impossible odds to regain control.

  “Go when I say … best I can … do.”

  “Good luck, Jakob.”

  Time ran out. The shuttle began to come apart. Damaged clamps failed, and the stern ramp sagged open far enough to let the slipstream grab it. The air tore the massive piece of foamalloy off and whipped it away.

  “Now!” screamed Karroubi.

  The ejection system took over. It blasted Michael out into the night and into a violence that overwhelmed his senses.

  This is wrong, he thought as darkness claimed him, all wrong.

  Michael awoke.

  Rain hammered at the plasfiber capsule, the noise audible even over the insistent ringing in blast-damaged ears. It was light, a murky gray day thanks to the thick clouds that scudded overhead. He had been unconscious for … He tried to make his mind to do the math, but it refused. Since it had been early evening when the shuttle had picked him and Polk up, it was a long time. Commitment’s nights were prolonged affairs. He lay there for a long while, tired beyond belief. It was only with a huge effort that he summoned up the energy to get free of his safety harness and crawl out of the capsule, his shoulder and the rest of his body screeching in protest.

  He tried to stand up. That was a mistake. He never made it past one knee before gravity reasserted itself and dragged him back down.

  Guess I’m staying put, then, he said to himself. He pulled the survival pack out of its stowage and wrapped himself in a space blanket. He was almost asleep when a voice snapped him awake.

  “Over here,” the voice said. It was a man’s voice, a Hammer voice. Michael’s heart pounded. Not now, he thought. Not after everything.

  Every instinct urged Michael to get away, but he knew he could not. He lay there and stared up into the rain. A face appeared over his. “Here,” the man called out. He knelt down beside Michael. “You okay?”

  “Don’t think so,” Michael whispered. “Who are you?”

  “Corporal Singh, B Company, 2/284th, NRA.”

  “Where am I?” Michael asked, overwhelmed by relief.

  “Just outside of McNair.”

  “McNair, that’s goo-”

  At which point Michael passed out.

  Sunday, November 7, 2404, UD

  McNair, Commitment

  Arm in a sling and right shoulder buried beneath an impressive bandage, Michael sat atop a captured Aqaba main battle tank as it threaded its way through the milling throng, a mix of civilian and NRA, looks of dazed happiness and relief on every face. The tank slowed to a stop, and the commander stuck her head out of the hatch. “Central Station’s 500 meters that way, Colonel,” she said, pointing down a broad avenue. It was a sorry sight. Once blessed with a double row of imposing trees, most now reduced to shattered stumps, it was lined with bombed-out buildings and littered with the burned-out wreckage of Hammer fighting vehicles. “Sorry I can’t get you any closer.”

  “That’s okay. This will do fine.”

  “You look after yourself. We owe you big time.”

  Michael’s face flushed with embarrassment “Not sure about that,” he said. He’d lost count of the times he’d been thanked for sending Jeremiah Polk into oblivion.

  “Well, I am,” the woman said, a broad smile across her grease- and dust-smeared face, a face startlingly young, a face that radiated uninhibited happiness and faith in the future.

  Michael looked at her; he felt a million years old. “Thanks for the lift,” he said.

  “Need a hand?”

  “No, I’m okay,” Michael replied. He eased himself down one-handed. It took a while. His body was still a long way from forgiving him for all it had been put through. He grabbed his pack and set off, trying to ignore the nervous twitching of his heart.

  And there she was, sitting with her back against a wall, head back and eyes closed. “Anna!” Michael shouted as he forced his body into a reluctant trot. “Anna!”

  Anna looked up, and then she was on her feet and running hard toward him, skidding to halt when she saw the sling. “Oh, Michael,” she said; she pulled him into an awkward one-armed embrace. “What have you done now?”

  “Flesh wound,” he said; he buried his face in her shoulder. “It’s nothing. I’m fine … I’m sorry. I was so stup-”

  Anna pushed him back. “Stop!” she said. “It’s over. Let’s leave it at that, okay?”

  “Over?” Michael looked around at the shattered buildings flanking the debris-littered plaza. “I know it looks that way, but it’s not over, not yet. We still need to-”

  “Michael!” Anna snapped. “Stop! It is over. Polk and most of his councillors are dead, every Doctrinal Security trooper still alive is being hunted down, the Hammer of Kraa is headed for the trash can, and General Vaas has sent a special ops team to destroy the Hendrik Island antimatter plant. The war’s over, and the threat to humanspace is gone.” Her voice softened to the barest of whispers. “You’ve done all you need to, so let it go. Please, let it go.”

  “I have to make sure, Anna,” he said, eyes casting left and right. “I can’t just walk away, not now.”

  Anna looked at him for a long time. Her green eyes dragged him back until nothing else existed but the two of them. “I’ve got something to tell you,” she said at last.

  “What?”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Michael heard the words, but they made no sense. He shook his head, confused. “Pregnant? What do you mean … Ah, you’re pregnant!”

  “Ten points, Einstein,” Anna said with a smile.

  “Oh,” Michael said. He choked. Unable to speak, he pulled her back into an embrace that lasted five lifetimes.

  “Hey, spacer boy,” Anna murmured at last, “we have to go.”

  “No, we don’t. I’m not moving. You’re pregnant … I don’t believe it.”

  “You
should, and yes, it’s yours in case you’re wondering.”

  “Anna!” Michael hissed in protest.

  “Sorry,” she said; she kissed him full on the lips. “My idea of a bad joke.”

  “You’re right. It’s over. So what now?”

  “I’ve got us a ride to McNair spaceport. We’ve got places on the Morkosh Star, and we’ll be onboard when it breaks orbit tomorrow. I never want to see this asshole of a planet ever again.”

  “Whoa, slow down. The Morkosh Star. What’s that all about?”

  “All the Feds are shipping out over the next few weeks, but I’ve fixed it so we go tomorrow with the first batch.”

  “Why the rush? It’d be good to catch up with Admiral Jaruzelska. Vaas too.”

  Anna frowned. “I’m sorry,’ she said, her eyes filled with anguish, “but Jaruzelska‘s dead.”

  Michael’s head slumped. “Why her?” he said after a while. “After all she’s done, after all she’s risked, she deserved …” He couldn’t say any more, crushed by the brutal injustice of it all. “She was a brave woman,” he said at last. “I’ll miss her.”

  “We all will. But she died-”

  Michael put his fingers to Anna’s lips. “Not now, later. I just can’t take any more, not right now. I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath to flush the emptiness out of his soul. “What’s the plan?” he asked.

  “General Vaas says the Feds have done their bit and we should leave the Revivalists and NRA to finish the job. Having us around will only confuse things. The locals have enough to think about without worrying that we might be trying to take over.”

  “But I can’t go anywhere near the Federated Worlds. FedPol … they’ll arrest me. You know.” Michael shivered. “I can’t risk it.”

  “I know, but who said we were going home?”

  Michael frowned. “Where else would we go?”

  “The Morkosh Star’s first port of call is Scobie’s. I’ve booked us on a ship to Jagnesh, and once we’re there, we’ll find the most exclusive resort the place has to offer and then take … oh, I don’t know … a month to make that decision. Maybe two.”