Graham Paul - The battle of Devastation reef

“Right, I’ll be as quick as I can,” Michael said. “Welcome. Tufayl is a special ship, the first of a special squadron. I need a special crew, and you’re that crew. Tufayl is the toughest ship in the Fleet, and she’s tough for a reason. It’s tough because we will get the missions other ships cannot carry out. Tufayl is tough for another reason. Those Hammer bastards beat the crap out of us at Comdur, no doubt about it”-an angry rumble filled the room, forcing Michael to raise his voice-“but now it’s our turn. It won’t be easy, and it sure as hell won’t be safe, but it’ll be the dreadnoughts that turn this war around, and you’ll be there every step of the way.”

Michael waited until the noise died away. “Finally, you and me. I may be the youngest skipper in the Fleet, but I do have some experience in that regard.” He stopped to let the sudden burst of laughter run its course. “But I cannot get this done without you,” he continued, “without all of you. I am here for you, any time of the day or night. Of course,” he said, flicking a quick look at Ferreira, “give the executive officer a chance to fix things first”-another burst of laughter-“but if she can’t, I’m here.”

“I’ll be knocking, sir. You can count on it. You owe me a beer, for one thing,” a voice said in a poor but passably menacing imitation of a Hammer accent.

Michael laughed. “Chief Petty Officer Bienefelt! You’ll have to do better than that. And yes, I owe you a beer. I hadn’t forgotten. Okay, okay, settle down. I’d also like to say that unlike other heavy cruisers-sorry, dreadnoughts-you all have unrestricted access to Prime. I think you’ll like her, though she prefers to be called Mother, so that’s what I suggest you do. I’ve always believed the primary AI to be the closest thing a warship has to a soul, so I’d encourage you to talk to her. She’s been around awhile, so there’s not a lot she hasn’t seen. Bit like Chief Bienefelt, I’d have to say.”

“Bet she’s prettier,” said an anonymous voice. Chief Chua, the senior spacer responsible for Tufayl ’s main propulsion, Michael decided while he waited for the laughter to die down.

“Okay, okay. One last thing, and this is probably the only difficult thing I have to say to you.”

He forced himself to breathe properly; he had not been looking forward to this part of the welcome talk.

“Some people think,” he continued, “that dreadnoughts are the spawn of the devil. If you don’t know that already, you soon will. You can expect people to give you a hard time, maybe even a very hard time, just because you’ve been posted to Tufayl . All I can ask you is to deal with it the best way you can, and please note that does not mean beating the crap out of anyone dumb enough to say they don’t approve of us. Right, I’m done here. Once again, welcome aboard. XO, carry on please.”

“Sir! Attention on deck!” Ferreira called while Michael left.

Offices of the Supreme Council for the Preservation of the Faith, city of McNair, Commitment planet,

Hammer of Kraa Worlds

“… there’s nothing I can say. I need to get to the hospital. There’ll be a statement from my agent later. Thank you.”

Sour-faced, Chief Councillor Polk watched the blood-spattered figure of Michael Helfort barge its way through the media scrum and climb into a mobibot before driving off. The holovid cut back to the network anchor, an immaculately dressed young woman looking for all the world like one of the impossibly beautiful models who filled the trashvids his wife liked to spend her life watching.

“That was the scene this morning at Bachou Airport after an extraordinary night for young Michael Helfort and his girlfriend, Anna Cheung. Now we turn to Professor Nikolas de Witte for his assessment of the wider implications of this incident. Welcome, Professor.”

“Good to be here, Amelie.”

“First of all, the question everybody is asking. Who was behind this attack?”

“Well, Amelie, I think that’s pretty obvious,” the professor said, his voice a studied mix of gravitas and concern. “This is the work of the Hammers; there can be no doubt about it. I think-”

I really do not give a shit what you think, you pompous cretin, Polk thought savagely. He skipped the holovid back, pausing it at a frame of Helfort walking across the tarmac toward the onrushing media. Anger surged through him. By Fed standards, Helfort was an ordinary-looking man: not tall but heavily built, broad-shouldered, with penetrating hazel eyes set wide in a face tanned dark below windblown brown hair. Ordinary or not, Helfort was making a fool out of him and out of the Hammer of Kraa, and Polk did not like it one little bit.

To worry about one Fed out of billions was beyond stupid. Polk knew that, but Helfort represented everything he hated about the Feds. Even Helfort’s understated good looks offended him. Testament to generations of geneering-an abomination long proscribed by the Faith of Kraa-Helfort radiated the same effortless air of arrogance and superiority all Feds gave off. Polk could not help himself; that was the one thing about the Feds that irked him more than anything else.

He laughed mirthlessly. Helfort’s looks annoyed him even when splashed with blood from wounds inflicted by Hammer agents. But a bit of blood was not enough. If the chief councillor of the Hammer of Kraa Worlds could not deal with a single lowlife Fed, the damn job was not worth having. He flicked off the holovid and called his personal secretary.

“Singh!”

“Sir?”

“Councillor Kando in town?”

“He is, sir.”

“Right. I want him in my office. Now!”

Polk’s eyebrows were arching so far up his forehead that they nearly disappeared into his steel-gray hairline. He shook his head in disbelief.

“So, just let me sum up, Councillor,” he continued, acid-voiced. “An unarmed man, asleep in his bed, aided and abetted by his girlfriend, held off an entire hit squad before killing two of them, hog-tying one more, disabling their flier, and leaving them for the local police to pick up. Oh, yes, everyone’s worked out who was behind the attack, so guess what? We are being blamed for it! How am I doing so far, Councillor Kando? Have I understood it right? Kraa! Incompetent does not even begin to describe it. What a shambles.”

“Sir,” the councillor for intelligence protested, “I think I should point out-”

“No, Councillor!” Polk snapped angrily. “I think I should point out that a bunch of temple novices armed with feather dusters could have done a better job than your covert operations people. Covert operations, my ass! Brain-dead clowns, more like it!” Polk said, voice betraying his frustration and anger. “How much did this mess cost us … no, no”-Polk’s hand went up-“don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”

“But Chief Councillor-”

“Shut up! Shut up, Councillor. I’ve had enough of this little toe rag. I am sick and tired of having his exploits rubbed in my face by the Fed trashpress. Sick of it, do you hear? So”-Polk’s finger stabbed out across the desk at Kando’s face-“let’s try again, Councillor Kando. Get your people off their fat, overpaid backsides. I want them to organize a proper operation. Funding no object. Just get it done. This is personal. I want Helfort dead. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I hope you do, I really hope you do. Get out!”

Secure Repair Facility Golf Five, Comdur Fleet Base

“All stations, stand by for the cold move.”

The voice of Tufayl’s executive officer was steady. Michael was impressed. It was time for the dreadnought to go to work, for Ferreira to take the ship out of the yard’s hands and into orbit around Comdur. True, he would be sitting there watching every step of the way, but by longstanding Fleet tradition, cold moves-moves handled by hydraulic rams and space tugs without any assistance from the ship’s engines-were always controlled by the ship’s executive officer, her sole assistant the ship’s maneuvering AI. Cold moves: easy to say, hard to execute. Tufayl was an enormous ship, certain to be unwieldy and uncooperative, and more than a few executive officers made a complete hash of them.