The Battle of the Hammer Worlds

by Graham Sharp Paul

  Terranova was finished.

  Leaving the shattered wrecks of their casualties behind, surrounded by swarms of lifepods, the rest of the Hammer ships jumped out of Terranova nearspace. There was a long, long silence as every spacer in the combat information center absorbed the awful sight of Terranova writhing in agony, a planet dying a slow and terrible death. “Holy Mother,” Michael muttered. Even though it was only a simulation, he felt sick.

  The soft voice of the AI running the COMEX broke the silence with the pointless observation that the exercise was over.

  Flanked on either side by Ishaq’s executive officer, Commander Morrissen, and the head of the warfare department, Commander Pasquale, Fellsworth stood rock solid. Her eyes were focused on the bulkhead as a ranting, nearly demented Constanza, her face red with anger, spittle-flecked lips working furiously, struggled to get her words out.

  “How dare you? How dare you humiliate me like that! By God, Fellsworth, I’m going to break you for this; you can depend on it. And I know it’s not only you. I know you had that arrogant, self-serving shit Helfort do the legwork. That makes it a conspiracy, Fellsworth,” she screeched furiously, “a conspiracy against your legally appointed captain. I can put you away for twenty years and that little worm Helfort and the rest of your lickspittle team if I want.”

  “Sir—”

  The executive officer’s attempt to intervene was stillborn; Constanza cut him off with an angry wave of the arm. “No, Commander Morrissen. I do not want to hear from you. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that you’re part of this.”

  She turned back to Fellsworth. “Well, it won’t work. I’m taking formal action against you, Fellsworth. Conspiracy. I’m charging you with conspiracy to mutiny. That’ll do it. You are confined to your cabin. Morrissen, get the provost marshal in here. I want the ship to see this woman in custody. I want them to see what happens to people who conspire against me.”

  “Sir!” The executive officer’s voice was thick with protest.

  “Be quiet, Morrissen! I won’t tell you again.”

  “No, sir, I will not be quiet,” the executive officer replied firmly. “I should not have to remind you that under Fleet regulations I have a duty to speak.”

  “Sir!” Commander Pasquale waded into the fray. Constanza’s appalling behavior—her intemperate language, her arrogant disregard for subordinates, her refusal to take counsel—went against everything she believed in. “I must tell you, sir,” she protested, “that you have no choice but to hear Commander Morrissen out. Fleet regu—”

  Constanza’s face was a cruelly contorted mask of vicious, uncontrolled anger. “Shut the fuck up, Commander Pasquale, or I’ll have you arrested as well.”

  Pasquale could only gape at Constanza in amazement. Captains did not swear at commanders—well, not in front of witnesses at any rate.

  The executive officer put his hand on Pasquale’s arm; he shook his head. This was his fight. Morrissen tried again. “Sir, I really must—”

  One last thin shred of sanity forced Constanza to take control of herself. “Go on, then. If you must,” she muttered bad-temperedly.

  “Sir. I have to tell you you are making a very serious mistake. An officer who does her duty cannot be conspiring to mutiny. Fellsworth was doing her duty, and I will attest to that fact when asked.”

  “So will I, sir,” Pasquale interjected.

  The executive officer plowed on. He wished Pasquale would stay out of it. A first-shot commander, Pasquale was young, talented, and ambitious. She had a career ahead of her; as for him, he was beginning to be pretty damn sure he did not. “So, under the circumstances, I think—”

  Constanza lost it. In seconds, she was incandescent with rage; her voice crackled with uncontrolled fury. “Think! Think? I don’t care what you think, Morrissen. I don’t give a damn what you think.” She paused for a second, noticeably struggling to get her voice under control. “Listen to me, all of you . . . ah, wait!”

  The door opened to admit Lieutenant Armstrong, Ishaq’s provost marshal.

  “Armstrong!”

  Armstrong, a thin, wiry man with the watchful eyes of a policeman, looked puzzled. Something bad was happening here, that much was obvious, but it was clear he had no idea what. “You wanted me, sir?”

  Constanza waved him in. “I do. First, I want you to witness the order I am about to give.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” She turned back to look her second in command right in the eye. “Commander Morrissen! I am giving you a direct order to take Lieutenant Commander Fellsworth here into custody pending the completion of investigations into the charges I will be laying against her. She is to be confined to her cabin under close arrest until further notice. Now, Commander, is there any part of that order you did not understand?”

  Morrissen shook his head; he knew when he was beaten.

  “No, sir. I understand,” he muttered unhappily.

  “Good,” Constanza crowed triumphantly. “Now that that’s out of the way, I am also giving you a direct order to take Junior Lieutenant Helfort into close custody. He is to be confined to his cabin under guard until further notice. Now, Commander,” she declared looking right into his eyes. “Did you understand that?”

  “I understood the order, sir,” Morrissen replied dejectedly. This was turning into a clusterfuck of serious proportions, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  “Pleased to hear it. So good of you to comply.” Her voice dripped sarcasm. “Now get on with it. Dismissed!”

  Morrissen tried one more time. Pasquale tried one more time. Their protests were to no avail as Armstrong took Fellsworth by the arm and led her out of the captain’s office.

  Michael was in the wardroom, deep in the middle of a subdued discussion of the morning’s extraordinary events with Aaron Stone, when a quiet voice interrupted.

  “Helfort. Come with me.” It was the provost marshal. The man’s tone was quiet but firm.

  “Yes, sir. What’s up?” Michael asked, climbing to his feet.

  “You’ll find out. Come on, let’s go.”

  When they left the wardroom, one of Ishaq’s marines was waiting outside, the man falling in behind them as they made their way up two decks to the ship’s regulating office. When they got there, Armstrong waved Michael into his office, telling the marine to wait outside.

  “Sit!”

  Armstrong looked right at Michael while he gathered his thoughts. He had been a cop for a long time. He had more experience than he cared to think about, and every bit of that experience argued that the business at hand was a goldplated crock of shit. Sadly, for the moment at least, his hands were tied. There was a process to follow, even if that meant trampling all over two officers who by all accounts had always tried to do their duty and—in Helfort’s case at least—had the scars to prove it.

  “Right, then.” Armstrong’s voice was flat, unemotional. “I’m going to comm you a document. It’s a preliminary charge sheet alleging that you and Lieutenant Commander Fellsworth entered into a conspiracy to mutiny.”

  Michael looked stunned. “What?” he finally stammered. “Mutiny? I don’t understand.”

  “Just read the charge sheet, Helfort.”

  Minutes later, Michael looked up, his pain and confusion plain to see. “Sir,” he said, shaking his head, “I’ve read this thing five times over, and it still makes no sense, none at all. How can developing a COMEX be construed as mutiny? This is a complete load of crap—”

  Armstrong’s hand went up, stopping him in his tracks. “Now’s not the time to respond, so—”

  “Sir!” Michael protested. “It’s wrong. It’s—”

  “Stop right now! Goddamn it, Helfort! That’s an order!” Armstrong barked. His voice softened as he continued. “Now. Listen to me. This is what’s going to happen. You’ll be confined to your cabin until further notice. You’ll eat there, have an hour’s exercise twice a day under escort, and be able to have visitors at m
y discretion. Maximum two at any one time. The ship’s legal AI will act as the accused’s friend, and let me tell you it will do a better job of it than anyone I know, so don’t waste your time looking for any amateur lawyers on board. When I have the brief of evidence, I’ll pass that to the AI, and it’ll tell you what it thinks of the case against you.” And what a no-brainer that’ll be, Armstrong thought savagely.

  Michael sat openmouthed, obviously not taking any of it in. Armstrong felt for him. The whole business must be like a bad dream, some dreadful black comedy, a bizarre tale of a mad captain crossing swords with a young officer too dumb not to know when to keep his head down.

  “Helfort! Are you listening to me?”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “Hmm,” Armstrong grunted. “Okay. Where was I? Oh, yes. Accused’s friend, use the legal AI, brief of evidence. I think that covers it all, so that’s it for now. Any questions?”

  “Fellsworth, sir. Has she been charged, too?”

  “She has.”

  “Can I see her?”

  “No, not at the moment. If I decide both cases can be dealt with jointly, you will. Be patient.”

  “Not much choice there, then, sir,” Michael muttered with a twisted half smile.

  “No, I suppose not. Right, let’s get you to your cabin. I’ve got work to do. Lance Corporal Johannsen!”

  Friday, August 27, 2399, UD

  HWS Quebec-One, Xiang Reef

  Hammer Warship Quebec-One dropped into normalspace a safe 2 billion kilometers and 2 light-hours out from Xiang Reef. The ship’s registration proclaimed her to be the independent merchant ship Nancy’s Pledge from one of the more obscure planets of the Pascanici League. Her hull had the space-dust-worn blues and yellows of the real thing, which at that point in time was in pinchspace somewhere between two of the Far Planets and a long way from Xiang Reef.

  Commodore Monroe sat oblivious to the usual postdrop buzz of activity around him in Quebec-One’s combat information center. He studied the command and threat plots intently while Quebec-One’s sensor teams brought order methodically out of the chaotic mass of data pouring into the ship from the surveillance vehicles surrounding the anomaly.

  In front of him, the plot showed the merchant ships making the six-hour crossing of the Xiang, a confused mass of orange vectors turning to green as ships were downgraded to no threat. When the command plot stabilized, Monroe grunted in satisfaction. Things were as they should be.

  The plot in front of him matched the ship and vector data that had streamed in from the Hammer pinchspace comsats standing off Paderborn Reef to the north and Vijati Reef to the south. More reassuringly, the comsat data were consistent with the traffic schedules broadcast by an ever-helpful FedWorld traffic coordination center on Terranova.

  Monroe smiled broadly. He liked what he saw. To make sure that no witnesses were left behind, what he now called Force Quebec would attack when Xiang Reef was clear of all but transiting FedWorld merships. There could not be too many merships, either; Force Quebec had to be able to eliminate every mership crossing the reef in a single brutal strike. Nor could there be too few to make an attack profitless. In a concession to the bleeding hearts—even the Hammer had a few of them—Xiang Reef had to be clear of passenger liners. Operation Cavalcade’s rules of engagement were very clear. They prohibited any attacks on liners, FedWorld registered or not.

  Most important of all, there had to be no chance of running into a passing FedWorld warship. The thought of a FedWorld heavy cruiser doing to him what he was about to do to the FedWorld merchant ships made him shiver.

  It had taken some doing, but finally his staff had identified a number of windows in which all the mission constraints would be met. Based on the traffic reports, the earliest was in seven days’ time, but he had to be sure. Each attack depended on all the conditions being right. It would take only one Fed heavy cruiser to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Operation Cavalcade would be over before it had started. To make sure that did not happen, he had to get a better handle on what the Fed starships were up to.

  Thus far, the indications were good. It was beginning to look as though the monotonous grind up and down the trade route was taking the edge off the Feds. In fact, things were beginning to slip to a point where few of the patrolling ships were making random changes of vector, and even then not as often as they should. Things had gotten so bad that predicting where individual warships would be was getting easier and easier. It was sloppy stuff, Monroe thought, and not at all what he had come to expect from the Feds.

  Even as he congratulated himself on his good fortune, Monroe gave himself a mental kick. No Hammer commander ever won an engagement by underestimating those Kraa-damned Feds, and he was not going to start now.

  Until he was sure that he had identified the right time to strike, Force Quebec would sit and wait and watch.

  Sunday, August 29, 2399, UD

  FWSS Ishaq, Paderborn Reef

  It had been a long three days since Constanza had ordered his arrest, and the bulkheads of his cabin were beginning to crowd in on Michael.

  At first, being confined to his cabin had not been so bad—the exact opposite, in fact. It had been wonderful. For one thing, he had been able to catch up on some badly needed sleep; like every other junior officer on board, Michael had been running a serious sleep deficit. For the first day and a half, he had been so tired that he had slept more than he had been awake. But with the problem of sleep deprivation overcome and with him unable to concentrate on the entertainment accessed through his neuronics, boredom had set in, made worse by the nagging, stomach-churning worry that Constanza might get away with her lunatic proposition that Michael and his boss were part of some conspiracy to mutiny. Early on, the idea of a conspiracy had sounded so far-fetched that he’d laughed out loud at the thought. Now, as the hours and then days dragged by, the idea was beginning to look less and less absurd. After all, captains of FedWorlds Space Fleet starships were powerful people, and it did not take much of that power to break the careers of two officers.

  He decided that he would make another attempt, the latest in a long line of failed attempts, to write a vidmail to Anna. He did not get far. There was a knock, and Marine Murphy stuck his head in, his massive frame filling the doorway.

  “Visitor for you, sir,” Murphy announced with a cheerful smile.

  Michael smiled back. “Ah, good. Hang on a sec. I’ll just check my diary to see if I’m free.”

  Murphy’s smile broadened into a grin. “Don’t waste your time, sir. It’s Lieutenant Armstrong.”

  “Oh, right.” Michael scrambled to his feet as Murphy pushed the door open to admit Armstrong. “Afternoon, sir. To what do I owe the honor?”

  “Dangerous trait being a smart-ass, Junior Lieutenant Helfort,” Armstrong replied, cheerful eyes contradicting a stern voice. “Not career-enhancing at all.”

  “And what career would that be, sir?” Michael responded, the sudden bitterness in his voice ill concealed.

  “The one you’ve got in front of you, so pay attention.” Armstrong pulled up a seat. “Sit! We’ve got a bit to talk about.” He waited patiently as Michael perched himself awkwardly on the edge of his bunk. Junior officers’ cabins were cramped spaces and certainly not designed for meetings.

  “Ready?”

  “Ready, sir.”

  “Okay.” Armstrong was all business. “This meeting comes in two parts. The first bit is the formal part. You may record it if you wish.”

  Michael nodded. Ishaq’s legal AI had briefed him well. Its avatar—a cheerful, late-middle-aged man with a no-nonsense fatherly attitude to life—had made sure Michael knew his rights.

  “The second part I would rather you didn’t, so please enable me to access your neuronics to block recording.”

  Michael looked at him in surprise. The capacity of Fleet officers to do and say things that completely baffled him seemed endless. “All right.” There was a small pause as Michael comm
ed the necessary authority to Armstrong’s neuronics.

  “Done, sir.”

  “Good. Let’s get on with it.” Armstrong cleared his throat. “Junior Lieutenant Helfort. As required by law, I am required in my capacity as investigating officer to keep you informed as to the progress of the investigation. You and Lieutenant Commander Fellsworth are still under arrest. I’ve just received the formal brief of evidence. It’s now up to me to review that. Once I have reviewed the brief and if I am satisfied that no further investigation of any matters relevant to the charges made against you is required, I then have to decide whether the evidence supports a case with enough merit to proceed to court-martial. With me so far?”

  “I am, sir,” Michael replied.

  “Right. Now, until I have made that decision—whether the evidence warrants a court-martial—nothing changes, so you will have to be patient.”

  “Thanks, sir,” Michael said bitterly, “I’m good at being patient.”

  Armstrong ignored him. “That concludes my formal report to you. Do you have any questions?”

  Michael shook his head. “None, sir.” What was the point? The process was the process.

  “Good . . . neuronics stopped recording?”

  “Stopped, sir.”

  “Let me check . . . right, that’s done. Okay, Michael. Now for the unofficial part.”

  “Hope it’s better than the official part.”

  “Oh, yes, I think it is. First, the brief of evidence. How can I put it? ‘Useless’ is probably the most charitable description, and cert—”

  Michael’s eyes opened wide in shock. This he had not expected. “Useless? You mean it won’t support the charges?”

  “Got it in one try, Michael. No, it won’t, and that means the chances of this business making it to trial are nil. And by the way, the legal AI agrees. Took him five minutes to rip it apart.”

  “So no trial?” Michael asked hopefully.

  Firmly, Armstrong shook his head. “No. No trial. Ever. I’m briefing the captain as soon as I’ve finished here.”