The Battle of the Hammer Worlds

by Graham Sharp Paul

  Hartspring did not move, though his eyes narrowed in a sudden flash of anger. Michael took a deep breath, fighting to get himself back under control. Careful, Michael reminded himself, careful. Hartspring was a DocSec colonel, and they came in only one variety: lethally dangerous.

  When Hartspring finally spoke, his voice was gentle and conciliatory. “Come on, Michael. No need for that,” he urged patiently, as if Michael were a wayward child. “Come on, sit down,” he said, pointing to a chair with his little cane. “We need to talk.”

  Without a word, Michael did as he was told, watching Hartspring warily as the man settled himself into a chair opposite him.

  “Now.” Hartspring leaned forward. “Listen to me, Michael. We can do this the easy way or we can—”

  Astonished, Hartspring stopped as Michael lost it completely for the second time in as many minutes, but this time there was no anger. This time his head went back, and he laughed hysterically, chest heaving despite the pain, tears pouring down his face, hands slapping the arms of the chair. “Oh, Jesus! That hurts,” he sobbed, half laughing, half crying, near hysteria. “Really, Colonel Hartspring.” He paused to wipe his face, carefully avoiding the latest repairs to his shattered cheekbone. “Colonel . . .”

  Michael put his hands up, palms out, in an attempt to pacify Hartspring; by now the man looked pretty pissed. Michael decided he had to go for it. He had to take the chance.

  “Colonel,” he apologized, “I’m sorry, really I am. Please forgive me, but save the corny trashvid stuff. I know how you guys do things. I know all about DocSec. You’re going to be nice to me, make me an offer, God knows what about. I’ll refuse, then your tame gorilla here”—Michael waved a dismissive hand at Jacobsen—“will beat the shit out of me, then you’ll be nice again. Around and around we’ll go until I drop dead or you get what you want.”

  Hartspring sat mute, refusing to respond.

  Michael plowed on. “So, Colonel, let’s cut to the chase. Why don’t you tell me exactly what you want. I’ll think about it and let you know if I can do what you want or not. If I can, then fine, I will. If I can’t, then I’ll tell you straight up.”

  Michael took in a slow, deep breath. The moment had come for another big, big lie. He was getting good at them. He stared Hartspring right in the eye, face fixed in what he fondly hoped was a convincing look of earnest good faith.

  “But here’s the catch, Colonel. If you lay a hand on me after that, I’ll order my neuronics to put me into a coma, a terminal coma. Your Doctor Whatshisname out there will never get me back. No Hammer doctor will ever get me back. Doesn’t matter how good they are. If you don’t get me to a Fed doctor inside sixty days, I’ll slip away quietly, and that’ll be that. You can feed me to the pigs. You can have me stuffed and mounted on a pedestal. You can chuck me into one of your damn lime pits. I won’t know, and I sure as hell won’t care.”

  For a moment, Hartspring sat there. In an instant, he was out of his seat and, blindingly fast, reaching across to Michael, his riding crop slashing down backhanded. The crop sliced down across Michael’s face, reopening the cut across his forehead before a second slashing blow added a new cut to the side of his head. Thank God he’s not left-handed, Michael thought through the blinding pain, forcing himself not to respond. If Hartspring had been, his left cheekbone would have gone for the third time.

  With obvious effort, Hartspring got himself back under control. He stood back.

  Michael looked up at him, ignoring the blood running down his face. “I think you heard me, Colonel,” he said through teeth clenched tight with pain. “So do we have a deal?”

  Hartspring half turned to Jacobsen. For one awful moment, Michael thought he was going to call his bluff and put Jacobsen to work. His heart began to pound, but Hartspring had other plans.

  “Sergeant! Take Helfort to the doctor. Get him stitched up. I want him back here within the hour. Understood?”

  “Sir.”

  Hartspring turned and left.

  A long and painful hour later, Hartspring returned.

  “Right, Helfort. Sit down. I’ll make this quick. In exchange for your life, resettlement under a new identity anywhere in humanspace, and a one-time payment of five million FedMarks, the government of the Hammer of Kraa requires you to sign this affidavit”—Hartspring pushed a single sheet of paper across the table—“testifying to the fact that the Battle of Hell’s Moons was part of a wider Fed campaign to destroy the Hammer of Kraa and that the hijacking of the Mumtaz was nothing more than a convenient excuse for an illegal act of military adventurism.”

  Michael’s eyebrows shot up as Hartspring sat back. What a load of bullshit, he thought. The man was barking mad.

  “Thank you, Colonel.” Michael kept his tone businesslike. “That’s clear. May I think about what you’re asking me to do?”

  “You do that, Helfort. I’ll be back at 09:00 tomorrow for your answer.”

  “Thank you, sir. I don’t suppose you’ll let me talk it over with someone from the FedWorld embassy?” he added.

  “Don’t push your damn luck, Helfort. Remember where you are,” Hartspring replied viciously. “I’ll see you at 09:00 tomorrow.”

  “Fine by me, sir.”

  Michael watched Hartspring leave. He stared at the door as it shut with a heavy thud, locks closing with metallic thunks.

  Grabbing a big glass of fresh orange juice, he sat down to think through Hartspring’s offer, not that it needed any thinking, really. He already knew the answer—it would be some variation or other on the time-honored theme of “go fuck yourself ”—but he needed to be sure he had no better options.

  He shook his head in bewilderment. Why the Hammers thought putting him up on the stand would help improve their image was a complete mystery. Now, if they could get a Fed admiral to turn over, that would be worth the effort. But a humble junior lieutenant? It was complete bullshit.

  Michael realized that what he was seeing here was a textbook example of a culture that believed its own propaganda. Well, he decided, that’s what you got when dissent was ruthlessly suppressed, when reasoned argument was impossible. After all, arguing with someone who had the power of life and death over you was probably a good way to end up in a DocSec lime pit.

  Well, be that as it may. He could not change what a bunch of dumb Hammers might think, and he was not going to try. He had rolled the dice. He had told the big lie. Either the colonel believed he could put himself into a coma at will or he did not.

  If Hartspring did not believe him, he was completely screwed. The Hammers would soft-soap him one minute and beat the crap out of him the next until he either gave in or died. Michael shivered, the fear coming out of nowhere to grab him, turning his bowels to water. He was scared, more scared than he had been looking out at an oncoming Hammer rail-gun salvo.

  He cursed silently. It was going to be a long, long day.

  Tuesday, September 14, 2399, UD

  Secure Interrogation Facility Bravo-6, Commitment

  Michael started as the door banged open. It was Colonel Hartspring, on time to the second, followed by the everwatchful Sergeant Jacobsen. Michael searched Hartspring’s face for clues, but the man was impassive as he waved Michael into a chair and sat down himself.

  “So, Michael. What’s the answer? Do we have a deal?”

  Michael shook his head. “No, we do not. I cannot do what you want me to do. I’m sorry.”

  Hartspring put his head back and sighed. It was the sigh of a patient man coming to the end of his tether. Nice acting, you Hammer pig, Michael thought as his heart sank. Hartspring leaned forward and looked straight at him.

  “I know you think we’re fools, Michael.” His hand went up as Michael started to protest. “No, let me finish.” He paused to regather his thoughts. “We’re not, you know. Well,” he said, tapping the table with his riding crop—Michael had never seen him without it—for emphasis, “I’m not. Now, personally, I happen to think you’re a damn liar. All
that crap about comas and so on.”

  Michael’s heart headed for his boots. Oh, shit. Here we go, he thought, instinctively bracing himself for the inevitable onslaught from Jacobsen.

  “Now, those set above me by the power of Kraa, while they agree with me that you are a damn liar, aren’t willing to take the chance that you might be telling the truth. They think a dead Helfort might be more of a problem than a live Helfort even if the little fucker won’t do what we want him to. But let me tell you something else, Helfort.” Hartspring spit contemptuously. “I always thought you weren’t worth the trouble, Helfort, and I was right. You’re just another piece of useless Fed crap. So, the bad news is this. I’m going to ignore my bosses and take the chance that you might just be telling the truth.”

  Michael’s spirits crashed. Hartspring got to his feet and looked down at him for a moment, his face a mix of scorn and anger.

  “Filth.” He nodded, the riding crop pointed right into Michael’s face. “Lying Fed filth, that’s what you are. Well, you had your chance. No more Class A privileges for you,” he said, waving his arm around at the luxurious suite. “Effective immediately, you’re a Class D prisoner. Sergeant Jacobsen!”

  “Sir?” Jacobsen stepped forward.

  “You know what to do,” Hartspring said, turning to leave. “And for Kraa’s sake, Sergeant! Try not to kill him.”

  “Sir!”

  Jacobsen stared at Michael. A small smile ghosting across Jacobsen’s face crashed Michael’s spirit even further. This did not look good, and he was pretty damn sure Class D prisoners did not count for much in DocSec’s perverted, psychopathic scheme of things.

  Michael stood up. “Sir?”

  Hartspring turned back, looking irritated. Obviously, Class D prisoners weren’t worthy of a DocSec Colonel’s attention.

  “What?” he barked sharply.

  “What happens now? Where do—”

  That was as far as he got. Jacobsen, taking a half step back, whipped out a small stun pistol. Casually, he stun-shot Michael in both legs, dropping him to the floor screaming, his back arching up off the floor, his mouth a rictus of agony.

  Jacobsen stood over him, waiting patiently until Michael recovered. “New rules, Helfort. One, you’re not Helfort anymore. You’re 419963-Q now. Second, you talk only when I tell you to. Understood?”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “That’s sir, you Fed maggot!” Jacobsen shouted, stamping his boot hard into Michael’s stomach. Michael rolled away in agony, his mouth open wide as tortured lungs fought for air.

  “Understood, sir,” Michael whispered when he finally regained his voice. God’s blood! When would it end?

  With great care, Jacobsen leant forward and spit into Michael’s face. “Good. I hope you do understand, 419963-Q. I really do, but to make sure . . .”

  The door to Michael’s cell smashed open, dragging Michael out of nightmare-racked sleep.

  Two DocSec troopers burst in. Wordlessly, one grabbed him, pinning him hard against the wall. The second put what looked like a gas-powered inoculation gun against his neck. That was what it was. There was a brief pffftt and a short, sharp, stinging pain, and then Michael was dragged out of the cell along an endless series of corridors to a loading dock, thrown into a van, plasticuffed, and left alone.

  He sat slumped, too stunned even to think. It all had happened so quickly. Since Sergeant Jacobsen had dumped him, battered to the edge of unconsciousness and bleeding all over the floor of his new cell, he had not seen or spoken to anyone. If not for his neuronics, he would not even know what day it was. The light had never gone off, and meals had come seemingly only when some damn DocSec guard could be bothered to sling the filthy slop that passed for food in through the tiny slot at the bottom of the cell door.

  With a start, Michael realized with mounting horror that whatever he had been injected with was attacking his vocal cords. An icy-cold paralysis starting at the base of his neck was creeping up his throat until, no matter how hard he tried, he could not make a sound. There was nothing. Not a croak, not a gasp, not a wheeze, nothing. All he could do was breathe, and even that was hard work, his lungs on the very edge of suffocation.

  It absolutely terrified him, the cold sweat beading on his forehead running down into his eyes, the salt stinging viciously. He started to panic, losing his tenuous grip on reality until with a desperate effort he took control, beating the panic back where it had come from. Slowly, he recovered, resigned to whatever fate the Hammer had in store for him.

  After a long wait, the van set off. The ride was short. Only a few minutes later, the van slammed roughly to a halt, and the two troopers reappeared. After they cut the plasticuffs, he was dragged bodily out of the van and into the evening sun. They stood alongside the huge bulk of a lander carrying DocSec markings. His escorts were muttering something about a problem with the access door. Michael did not care; the pain of old injuries, reactivated by the short trip, almost overwhelmed him.

  Finally, the door problem was fixed, and the troopers hustled him up the short ramp and into the lander. He waited again, plasticuffed to a metal bench in the shuttle’s single large passenger compartment. Passengers! You idiot, Michael thought despairingly. DocSec prisoners, the lowest of the low in the brutal, vicious system that administered the Hammer Worlds, were a million kilometers from being passengers. Feeling worse than he had for a long, long time, Michael sat there as the lander slowly filled up. Prisoners in crude plasfiber boots, dressed in the standard DocSec prison uniform of orange overalls crudely marked with their new identities, arrived in a steady procession, maybe two hundred of them in the end. They were all men, their pain and fear filling the shuttle with an acrid, sour smell. Without exception, they were a sorry-looking bunch, their faces liberally marked with bruises and cuts. Harried by DocSec troopers wielding short clubs with cruel efficiency, they were beaten, pushed, and shoved onto the racks. Michael winced as a particularly vicious blow caught one of the new arrivals across the side of the head, dropping him to the deck like a sack of potatoes. Ignored, the man lay still, blood from the gash in his scalp pooling slowly around him.

  The racks got fuller, but that did not bother the troopers. They simply jammed more prisoners in, indiscriminately laying about with their clubs to make space.

  Eventually, one of the troopers deigned to notice the man lying unconscious on the deck. Waving a second trooper across, the two men picked the unconscious prisoner up and smashed him onto a rack. The terrible wound to his head was ignored. After securing the unfortunate man, the troopers made a final cursory check that all the prisoners were secured. Then the troopers left, slamming the compartment door shut behind them.

  The compartment was quiet, but only for a moment. A gentle buzz started, a mixture of cursing, moaning, and sobbing, the noise rising and falling like crickets on a hot summer day. Michael could do nothing except lie there—he could not do any cursing, moaning, or sobbing of his own because his vocal cords were completely dead—and hope that all this soon would be over. The waking nightmare he was trapped in had already lasted a lifetime; he was beginning to wonder if it would ever end. If death was the only way to end it, why wait? This was a life not worth living.

  When the shuttle’s engines started, Michael gave himself a mental shake. It was not over until it was over, and while he still lived there was always a chance.

  After a short taxi, the shuttle ran its engines up to full power before accelerating up and away. Michael could only hope that things would get better. It better be soon, he thought as he slipped into an uneasy, pain-filled sleep.

  Curious, happy to have something—anything—break the monotony of another empty day, the occupants of Camp I-2355 stopped what they were doing to look at the truck.

  It had appeared out of the blizzard raging across the sorry-looking collection of huts set around a muddy, ice-puddled parade ground before pulling up in a screech of brakes. With a crash of gears, it reversed to put its tailgate right u
p against the outer of the two gates leading into the prison compound and stopped. Camp guards in bulky cold-weather gear formed up around it, stun guns at the ready.

  Two guards dropped the tailgate and climbed inside as others opened the inner gate. Moments later, the guards reappeared, dragging out an orange-overalled man between them. Climbing down, they pulled him out and dropped him carelessly to the ground. Hands under his armpits, they dragged the prisoner through the icy slush until, twenty meters inside the gate, they dropped the man, turned, and left.

  The first of the camp’s occupants to reach the man spun him over onto his back. His mouth dropped open. With desperate urgency, he shouted for help. “It’s one of ours. It’s Helfort! For God’s sake, give me a hand.”

  In seconds, Michael had been cradled in the arms of four prisoners and was being rushed to the nearest hut. Once they were through the door, orders flew in quick succession. Michael was blue with hypothermia, and if they did not move quickly, they would lose him.

  Soaked to the skin, Michael lay unresponsive as his orange DocSec overalls were stripped off. The hut filled with gasps of outrage as his battered body was revealed, its tapestry of bruises, welts, and cuts, old and new, all overlaid by crusts of dried blood, provided stark testimony to DocSec’s enduring commitment to inflicting pain.

  Only vaguely aware of what was going on, Michael did not care. He was happy. Even though he was barely conscious and tired beyond belief, he knew he was safe. He was no longer alone. He was back among friends. Gratefully, he slipped into unconsciousness, the welcoming blackness pulling him down to safety.

  Michael awoke with a start. Where in God’s name was he? He stared up in baffled confusion. This was not a cell. It was some sort of rough wooden hut. So where? Lifting his head off the pillow with an effort, he looked around, catching the eye of a man at the back of the hut sitting at a crude wooden desk.