Graham Paul: The battle at the Moons of Hell

“Yes,” Anna chipped in. “I’ve told you before. You think too much.”

“Oh, right,” Michael said sheepishly. “What was the question?”

“Your next posting, silly. What do you think, O great hero of the Federated Worlds, holder of the-”

“Anna!” Michael protested. “Stop it. You know that sort of-”

“Yeah, yeah, hero boy!” Anna said in mock umbrage, eyes sparkling as she cut him off. “Answer the damn question.”

Michael sighed. He’d fallen for it again. She loved teasing him. You’re too serious, she’d always say in her own defense. Not that he didn’t have a sense of humor. He did. But he knew he took things too much at face value sometimes, and that of course made him much too soft a target for her to resist. Like now, he thought, as he mouthed a silent “You’ll pay for that” across the table at her before continuing. She just stuck her tougue out.

“Ah! My next ship. Yes. Well, that’s a good one,” Michael said thoughtfully. “I must say I do like the idea of a big ship after the beating the Hammers gave poor old 387. Don’t want that again. And the Haiyan ’s as big as they get. Well, for ships of the line, that is. So I think it’ll be good. Boring program, though. Independent patrols, that sort of thing.”

“You won’t know what to do with yourself,” Anna said teasingly. “From captain in command to…What was the billet again? Do you know, it’s so insignificant that I can’t even remember what it is you’re being posted to do!”

“Pig,” Michael said mildly, refusing the bait this time. “Assistant warfare officer in training, as you very well know, Anna Cheung. Responsible for all sorts of important stuff like, er, um, well, warfare training, I suppose, mostly doing op scenarios for sims probably,” he finished lamely.

Anna was right; he was going to an insignificant billet.

“Sounds sooooo impressive,” Sam said, pulling a face that said just the opposite.

“Yeah, yeah, smart-ass,” Michael replied. “The most minor of minor jobs, and well you know it. Mind you,” he added, “not that I care. Something well out of the limelight, tucked away in a big fat heavy cruiser, will suit me just fine.”

“And me, too,” said his mother with considerable feeling.

As Sam hijacked the conversation for the tenth time that evening, Michael glanced sharply across at his mother. Thanks to a very long conversation earlier in the day, he knew exactly what she’d meant by that remark. His new captain, Svetlana Constanza, was the first of her worries. Not the best, was all she’d say when challenged by Michael, whose heart had sunk when she’d let slip the fact that Constanza was a member of the d’Castreaux clan. But her bigger concern, and one Michael shared, was the Hammers. They’d talked long and hard about the prospects for peace before both agreeing that really, there weren’t any. And that meant war. Hard to say when, but Michael could see that deep inside his mother, gnawing away at her happiness, was the absolutely unshakable conviction that war between the Federation and the Hammers was inevitable.

That was, of course, why she’d admitted that she’d been happy to see him posted to the relative safety of a heavy cruiser; if things degenerated into a shooting match, it was the best and safest place for him to be. Of course she’d denied furiously Michael’s half-spoken charge that she had arranged the posting through her still very active network of Fleet contacts, a denial Michael was still not sure he believed. Not that he cared. After all he’d been through, the relative obscurity of an assistant warfare officer’s position in Haiyan suited him down to the ground. He’d keep his head down and do what he was told, avoiding whenever possible anything remotely smacking of risk or responsibility.

In the end, Michael had told her that even though she might be a retired Space Fleet commodore, she was fussing too much and he’d be fine. Yes, there might be another fight with the Hammers, but it would end the way all the others had. Only this time, he agreed with her, the Federation would have to pursue the Hammer until it was utterly destroyed, a goal he was entirely happy to pursue.

As Sam went up a gear, Michael sat back again, content to let the conversation wash over him, content to watch Anna, the nanocrystal lights tattooed onto her high cheekbones sparkling white and red-gold against honey-dark skin, her face seemingly flecked with the dust of thousands of tiny jewels shimmering in the light of the log fire. He could only do his best. If Fleet and an uncaring cosmos conspired to break them apart, then so be it. He supposed he’d just have to get over it or die trying.

Anyway, he chided himself, enough of the introspection. Tomorrow he and Anna were off to the Atalantan Mountains. There Space Fleet and all it implied for their futures could be forgotten.

For a few days at least.