Time was running out for 387 and fast, Michael thought, and the worst thing about it was the simple brutal fact that he personally could do absolutely nothing more to get 387 jump-ready. Chief Harris and his damage control teams were doing as much as any humans could do, and no amount of nagging from him would or could speed things up.
Michael was discovering that the hardest thing for any commander to do was nothing when that was the right thing to do.
“Command, Mother.”
“Go ahead.”
“Hammer forces redeploying.”
“Roger,” Michael said, now resigned to his fate. “They’re going to try to box us in, I suppose.”
“Confirmed.”
Michael nodded. Mother had been driving 387 hard away from the Hammers, but in the end, they had the numbers, and now, with only one small target to focus on, the Hammer commander could afford to spread his net wide. That was exactly what he was doing, the holocams picking up the flaring of main engines as the Hammer ships began to open out.
“How much time?”
“Estimate thirty minutes. They’ll have us enveloped then. I expect a single coordinated rail-gun salvo.”
“To finish us off,” Michael said, completing Mother’s sentence for her. He commed Chief Harris, who took the news impassively. Michael successfully resisted an almost overwhelming urge to tell him to hurry up.
The minutes ticked by as 387’s every change of vector was matched instantly by the Hammers, the deadly net closing inexorably around the fleeing ship. Michael toyed with the idea of surrendering to the Hammers but dismissed it almost as quickly as it had come. History showed that the Hammers never accepted such offers when they had the upper hand, and Michael was not going to give them the satisfaction of refusing. Now they had less than two minutes before the Hammers were in position. The Hammer ships already were turning to match bearings. Allowing five minutes’ time of flight for the rail-gun salvo, and 387 had less than seven minutes to live.
“Command, XO.” It was Harris, and Michael began to pray harder than he’d ever prayed before, his heart pounding in his chest as he struggled to steady his voice.
“Go ahead, chief,” he said, barely able to squeeze the words out.
“Sir, we’ve finished. The hull is jump-worthy. The engineers are running the final numbers into the mass distribution model now, so it’s up to them.”
Relief flooded through Michael like a warm wave. “Chief, you are a fucking star. Oh, and thanks.”
“Any time, sir, any time,” Harris replied matter-of-factly.
“Okay. We might have to jump without the mass distribution model 100 percent right, in which case it might be a rough ride, so I want everyone and everything battened down real tight.”
Michael grimaced. A rough ride. That was an understatement. If the navigation AI got the ship’s mass distribution wrong by more than one part in a hundred thousand, 387 would never make it home. Where it would go, Michael had no idea, nor would the navigation AI. Nobody had ever come back from a badly set up jump, and for all he knew, 387 would tumble through pinchspace for eternity. He put that awful thought aside. He’d take his chances in pinchspace because one thing was sure: At least they might survive, whereas staying in Hammer space would be 100 percent fatal.
He commed Reilly and was not reassured by his chief engineer’s worried face.
“Cosmo, just to let you know. We’ve got five minutes or so and-”
Mother’s urgent tones cut across him. “Command, Mother. Multiple rail-gun launches from Hammer task group. Vector analysis confirms target 387. Time of flight four minutes twenty-four. Probability of survival zero, repeat, zero.”
Oh, sweet Jesus, Michael thought, so soon. “Cosmo, did you copy?”
“I did, sir.”
“Okay. I’m going to jump anyway whether you’re happy with the mass distribution model or not. We have to take the chance. But I’ll leave it as late as I can. I’ll execute a crash jump from here, so make sure everything’s ready to go.”
Cosmo’s face seemed to crumple as he worked out that 387’s survival now depended on him. He visibly caught his breath before replying.
“Well, sir, I guess that’s all we can do. We’re pretty close now, and I’ll run the numbers as long as we can. If I don’t see you again, it’s been an honor.”
“Same here, Cosmo. Same here. Command out.”
Michael commed Mother to adjust vectors to set 387 up for a jump direct to Terranova, gave command authority to override the safety locks that in normal circumstances would never have allowed 387 to jump, and then sat back. He felt strangely calm as he commed his crew for the last time.
“All stations, this is the captain. We’ll be jumping shortly, ready or not. It’ll be rough, so hold on. May God watch over us this day. Captain, out.”
Michael waited as long as he could, the wait agonizing as he watched the incoming Hammer attack remorselessly close in. Then he could wait no more. 387 jumped.
Five seconds later, the Hammer’s massive rail-gun swarm ripped through a small knuckle of tangled and warped space-time, all that was left to mark 387’s presence in Hammer space.
Under the arch of a velvety star-speckled sky of a beautiful Commitment night, high-intensity floodlights streamed into the execution yard, drenching the small group of Doc-Sec troopers in a harsh white glare.
On the other side of the yard from the firing squad, two men stood beside a slumped figure tied to the execution post, his orange prison coveralls drenched in blood.
The prison doctor looked up at the young DocSec officer standing impatiently in front of him and shook his head. With a muffled curse, the DocSec officer drew his pistol to put the finishing shot into the head of Jesse Merrick.
“Jesse Arthur Merrick. So die all enemies of the Peoples of the Hammer of Kraa.”
The deed done, the DocSec lieutenant turned away, a sick feeling lying very heavy on his stomach. He knew full well that he might have signed his own death warrant with that single pistol shot. He could only hope that Polk stayed chief councillor long enough for the memory of Merrick to fade and for his part in the man’s death to be forgotten.
Monday, November 23, 2398, UD
City of McNair, Commitment Planet
McNair had simmered for three days, a lethally unstable stew of sullen resentment flaring without warning into vicious brutality.
It had taken a declaration of martial law and the news that Merrick had been executed for crimes against the Peoples of Kraa before a major offensive by DocSec supported by marine light armor had been able to push the mobs roaming the streets back behind shuttered windows and locked doors.
With control reestablished, it was only a matter of hours before DocSec swung back onto the offensive, doing what it did best. Black-uniformed snatch squads fanned out across the riot-wrecked city in an endless stream of trucks. By midday, the city had been swept clean of anyone even remotely connected to Merrick’s political machine. His once-mighty organization was destroyed as thousands of people were dragged out of their houses and thrown into trucks, the first step on the long road to some Kraa-forsaken labor camp if they were lucky or a DocSec firing squad if they were not.
DocSec didn’t worry about just the human elements of the Merrick machine. Their orders were to destroy everything. Before the day was out, every Hammer of Kraa party office in McNair had been stripped down to bare furniture, with every file, every document, and every workstation ripped out and taken away for analysis.
Chief Councillor Polk had watched the progress reports with grim, silent satisfaction. Commitment in general and McNair in particular were the wellspring of Merrick’s political strength, a source so ably exploited by Merrick during his long years at the pinnacle of Hammer political power. Well, Polk thought, not anymore, and this day’s operations in McNair were just the start. The pustulant boil that was Merrick had been lanced, and his power base had been damaged seriously. Over the coming weeks anyone and anything even remotely capable of lending aid and succor to the Merrick/Commitment faction would be dealt with with the same deadly efficiency.