Graham Paul: The battle of Devastation reef

“Yes, sir,” Michael said, looking much happier, the prospect of seeing Anna Cheung again bringing a touch of color to his cheeks, even if the chance of the two of them meeting up stayed the same as always: pretty close to nil. “Thanks.”

“Ah, yes. One more thing. Tufayl . Fleet had scheduled her handover for October 2. But Commander Watanabe tells me that we can take her out of the yard’s hands early. So, Lieutenant Helfort, it’s dress blacks for you. Commissioning ceremony, 09:00, Thursday 21st. Okay?”

Michael gulped. He had been so sure that Jaruzelska was about to sack him. “Yes, sir. So does that mean I’m still-”

“Still captain in command? Well, let me see,” she said, eyes dancing mischievously. “I talked with Surgeon Captain Indra last night.”

“You did, sir?” Michael tried not to sound too hopeful.

“I did. You’ve been making good progress, so she’s re-graded you P-2. Provided you continue to improve, she intends to grade you P-1, so I don’t think there’s much doubt that you will be fit for active service.”

“Jeez, sir. Thanks. I can’t tell you what …” Michael ground to a halt, unable to speak.

Jaruzelska shook her head. “You don’t have to. Now go. I’ll see you Monday week. You know what? I think we might get you straight back into the sims.”

Michael smiled ruefully. “You don’t say, sir. I’ll look forward to that.”

“You should,” Jaruzelska said with unexpected intensity, “you should. Because I think we’re close to making dreadnoughts perform the way we want them to. So enjoy your leave. You’ll see some changes by the time you get back. So go. I’ve work to do.”

“Sir,” Michael said as he left, already writing the vidmail to Anna to tell her to pull every string she could pull to organize some leave. More in hope than expectation, he fired the vidmail off. He had checked Damishqui ’s tasking, and things did not look at all promising. The armistice between Feds and Hammers might be holding, but there were always more missions to perform than ships to perform them, so Anna’s ship, like every ship in the Fleet, was kept busy.

But maybe the Fates would work for him, just this once.

The Palisades, Ashakiran planet

Utterly content, Michael sat alone on the deck of the Palisades, the family’s weekender high in the western foothills of the Tien Shan Mountains. The house provided the perfect place to sit and pretend-for a few precious minutes-that the rest of humanspace with all its cruel stupidities did not exist. Beer in hand, Michael gazed out across the valley of the Clearwater River, the ground far below invisible through a gray murk below the clouds scudding overhead. It was a wet, blustery day. He did not care. The weather might be crap, but it was still perfection. He knew it was all a chimera, but he was grateful for it, though it would have been better if Anna had been there in person. How good would it be to have her-

The insistent chiming of his neuronics smashed his daydreams to dust. “What now?” Michael muttered aloud while he accepted the incoming com.

It was his agent, Mitesh, the face of the artificial intelligence that of an older, wiser Michael. A Michael with wrinkles and a bad haircut, the family always said, teasingly. The AI’s computer-generated avatar had the good grace to look apologetic. “I know you said no callers, Michael, but I’m pretty sure you will want to take this pinchcomm.”

“Goddamn it, Mitesh, Anna is the only person I want to hear from, so …” His voice trailed off. “Ah, yeah, right,” he said after a moment.

A smug grin split Mitesh’s face. “Precisely, not that you ever told me that. Quite the opposite, in fact. What you actually told me was-”

“Okay, okay, I know what I said.” It was Michael’s turn to look apologetic. “Sorry about that.”

Mitesh smiled. “Don’t worry about it. So may I tell Miss Anna that you’ll take her call?”

“Miss Anna! Jeez, she’d love that.” Michael laughed, shaking his head. “You’re a real smart-ass! Makes her sound like some sort of feudal grande dame. Put her on.”

“Patching her through.”

After a short pause, Anna’s face blossomed in Michael’s neuronics, her avatar the most faithful of faithful renditions, thanks in large part to an indulgent father’s extravagant gift of the best avatar software in all of humanspace. In Michael’s view, it was money well spent. Anna seemed real; she might have been standing there right in front of him. She was stunning, her beauty a testament to the Chinese, Asian, African, and European gene pools of Old Earth, not to mention a great deal of expensive geneering spanning many generations.

The breath caught in his throat at the sight of her. Anna’s face was a dark honey-gold set under fine black hair that dropped to frame sharply defined cheekbones dusted with pink, a firm nose fractionally too large-geneering was still far from an exact science-above a generous mouth quick to smile. But it was the eyes that always grabbed him: large and set wide, infinitely deep green pools that dragged him in and down.

Anna groaned in mock despair. The ability of her eyes to mesmerize Michael was a long-running private joke. “Michael, for chrissakes, pay attention,” she said in no-nonsense tones. “There’s been a change of plan.”

“Change of plan?” Michael’s focus snapped back to the here and now. He sat up. This sounded promising. Had the fates delivered for once?

“Yup, change of plan,” Anna said with a smile of pure happiness. “You’re in luck, sailor boy. Good old Damishqui is cactus. One of our primary fusion plants has dropped offline, and nobody seems to know why. We’ve been diverted to Suleiman to get the problem fixed. The engineers say we’ll be in the yard for at least a week, and after much groveling, my boss has given me leave. So, let me see … yes, I’ll see you tomorrow morning your time, so make sure you’re at Bachou to pick me up. I can’t stand here talking. This call is costing me a fortune, and I’ve got a flight to catch. I’ve commed you my itinerary. ’Bye.”

Euphoric, Michael stared open-mouthed while Anna’s avatar disappeared. Well, he said to himself, sometimes things went his way, an all too rare occurrence for a Fleet officer.

He commed Mitesh.

“Yes, Michael?” “You followed all that?”

“I did. I’ll keep an eye on things and let you know when to leave to pick her up.”

“Thanks, Mitesh.”

“But while you’re on the line”-Mitesh winced at Michael’s exaggerated groan-“I’ve been swamped with requests for interviews.”

“Let me guess,” Michael said, his voice twisted with resentment, the euphoria blown away in an instant. “All provoked by the latest trashvid documentary?”

“That’s exactly why. You watch it?”

“No way, Mitesh,” Michael snarled. “That’s the fourth doco on the Ishaq business, and if this one was anything like its predecessors, why would I?” He stopped to recover his mental balance. “I suppose you did.”

“It’s in my job description, Michael,” Mitesh replied primly, lips stiffening into a thin line.

“So it is. And?”

“Well, let me see. How best to put it? Yes … it was sensationalist drivel based loosely on what actually happened, sprinkled with interviews from people who weren’t there, seasoned with opinions from so-called experts who could not find their ass with both hands, the whole tawdry brew spiced with exaggeration, innuendo, more than a few outright lies, and-”

“Enough, Mitesh, enough!” Michael said, laughing despite himself, “I get it, I get it. It was garbage.”