Graham Paul: The battle of Devastation reef

“What was that all about?” Andrew Helfort said.

“Can’t say, sorry.”

Michael’s father stared at him, eyes narrowed, a look of shrewd appraisal on his face. “You look happier, so I think I can guess. No, no, I won’t,” he said in response to Michael’s look of alarm. “We want to meet your executive officer. She sounds like a real gem and a brave one to boot.”

“Jayla? She’s a star.” Michael glanced across the crowd to where Ferreira stood. “I think she’s over there with the Fleet’s largest coxswain.”

Andrew Helfort laughed. “Let me guess … Chief Petty Officer Bienefelt?”

“The same,” Michael said.

“I remember her dad, though I only met him once. He was a hard man to miss. Like a small mountain on legs.”

Michael rolled his eyes, wondering if there was anyone in Fleet his parents did not know. “Come on, follow me,” he said wearily.

The Palisades

Beer in hand, feet up, Michael sat in the warmth of the late-afternoon sun, the only sound the comforting buzz of one of the security drones that watched over him day and night. The last thing he had wanted was leave, but Fleet had been emphatic, so here he sat, alone, slowly getting drunk and trying not to think about all the promises he had made, promises that a posting as captain in command of Redwood rendered nearly impossible to keep. What difference could he make, tucked away in orbit around Nyleth-B? Goddamnit, what a waste of three good dreadnoughts.

Dispirited, Michael tossed the empty beer bottle into the bin and commed the drinkbot for another.

For the umpteenth time, he went through it all. After the Hammers staged their big push in May, the war settled down into a pointless series of tit-for-tat exchanges, none of which made any difference to the overall strategic situation, a badly stretched Fed Fleet holding the Hammers at bay: just. The brutal truth was that neither side had the wherewithal to force the war to a conclusion, and neither would until one side or the other won the race to get antimatter warheads onto their missiles in large enough numbers to pave the way for a successful invasion. Michael had no way of knowing when that day might come, but it sure as hell would not be soon.

It was ironic. The Feds had the resources to weaponize antimatter but not the know-how. The Hammers had the know-how but not the resources. Either way, it was going to be years before the strategic balance shifted, and to whom it shifted … well, talk about the big question. One thing was for sure, though: The Hammers had as good a chance of winning the race as the Feds did.

Michael could not wait for years, he just could not. Leaving Anna to rot in some damn Hammer prison camp while he lived the rest of his life? Not a chance. Forgetting all those whose deaths he had sworn to avenge? Not a chance. Sitting around scratching his ass waiting for the Hammers to win the antimatter race? Not a chance. Sitting around praying the Feds did? Not a chance.

There was a way, he promised himself as he drained his beer. There had to be. Problem was, he had no idea what. What could he do, stuck on Nyleth-B with three dreadnoughts? A lot of nothing, that was what.

In a sudden fit of frustration and anger, he hurled the empty bottle at the bin; catching the lip, it splintered into a hundred pieces. Much like his promises, Michael thought morosely as he commed the housebot to come clean up: empty vessels, easily broken, and once broken, impossible to put back together again.

He commed the drinkbot for another beer. Since he could not work out how to keep his promises, he would do the next best thing, what losers had done since the dawn of time. He would let ethanol weave its magic and get blind, stinking drunk.

Maybe the answer would come to him.

Offices of the Supreme Council for the

Preservation of the Faith, McNair

When the Defense Council meeting broke up, Polk waved the councillor for intelligence over.

“Yes, Chief Councillor?” Morris Kando said, looking warily at Polk.

“Helfort.”

Kando stifled a groan. Polk’s interest in the man bordered on the psychotic. “What about him, sir?”

“I’ve just seen the holovids of him getting even more medals for kicking us in the ass. Kraa! How many months is it I’ve been asking for you to terminate the little bastard? I’ll tell you, Councillor. Too many, far too many.”

“Sir,” Kando protested, “it’s not easy. We’re wasting our money: Our contacts inside the Fed Fleet have nothing new to say no matter how much we wine and dine them, and bribing the Fed trashpress is not working anymore. They’ve found new stories to chase; Helfort is yesterday’s news. He’s practically disappeared. We know he is under constant security surveillance. We cannot get near him, and even the dumbest Fed crook refuses to have a go, no matter how much money we wave under their noses. They remember what happened last time.”

Polk scowled. “So you’ve told me … a thousand times. Well, the way I see it, if you can’t get to him, get him to come to you. There has to be a way to make him break cover, Councillor, and I suggest you find it and quickly. My patience is running out fast.”

“Sir.”

FWSS

Redwood,

Nyleth-B nearspace

Barely a minute after Redwood dropped out of pinchspace into Nyleth-B nearspace, closely followed by Red River and Redress , a soft chime announced the arrival of a personal message. Michael’s heart raced when he saw what it was: Anna’s monthly vidmail. Busy with Redwood ’s arrival, he decided to read it later.

It would keep.

With Redwood and her sister dreadnoughts tucked safely into parking orbit around Nyleth-B and an hour before he took the down-shuttle to make his duty call on the base commander, Michael found the time to watch Anna’s message. His heart lurched when her face popped into his neuronics. Happily, Anna looked in reasonable shape: a bit tired and drawn but otherwise okay. It was the best he could hope for, that she would hold up until somehow the feds got her out of there.

He let the message run, happy just to hear Anna’s voice, to know that she was alive. By the time the vid finished, he was relieved to know she was as well as she seemed, camp life was dull but bearable, the food was not so good but enough to live on, the regime-her code for the Hammers, he had soon worked out-was behaving itself, and she still loved and missed him.

When the message finished, Michael was on the point of rerunning it-Anna was sure to have used her binary code trickery to pass on information the Hammers would not approve of-when her head and shoulders were replaced by someone whose face he had sworn never to forget. Not that he could.

“Oh, no, please, no,” he said, his body overwhelmed with a sick dread, every fiber telling him that something terrible was about to happen.

“Hello, Lieutenant Helfort, or may I call you Michael?” the man said, the high-necked black uniform with woven silver badges unmistakably that of a senior DocSec officer.

“Do you remember me? Yes …”

How could I forget you? Michael thought. The man’s gaunt face and pencil mustache above thin, bloodless lips were scarred into his memory, washed-out amber eyes staring at him with pitiless intensity, empty of all emotion, a short riding crop held in one hand tapping the palm of his other hand. Oh, yes, I remember, Michael said to himself; without knowing it, his fingers reached up to touch where Hartspring’s riding crop had cut his face open.