You know what, ops? I think you might be right,” Gianfranco said, cheered by the thought that Adamantine might not have gotten away cleanly. “When the dust has settled, have Mother take a good look at it. I’d like to know what she thinks. Okay, how long before we can get the boarding party away? I really want to see what was so damned important that the Hammers would send a Diamond class deepspace light patrol ship to pick it up. Oh, yes. Ops! Detach Markeb and Alioth to recover the people the Hammers left behind. I have a feeling the boys and girls at Fleet intelligence will want to talk to them.”
Thursday, June 24, 2399, UD
FWSS Ishaq, berthed on Space Battle Station SBS-44, in orbit around Jascaria
Michael’s first two days on board Ishaq passed in a blur. Harried from one place to another by the AI-artificial intelligence-that managed the ship’s administration, he had found the pace relentless.
“Getting near that time, I think.” Michael was exhausted. His guide for the day, Cadet Aaron Stone, was good company, but Michael had another long day to look forward to. He needed a good night’s sleep.
Stone nodded. “You might be right. One for the road?”
Michael’s determination to call it a night crumbled. Being alone in his cabin did not seem so attractive all of a sudden.
“Oh, go on, then.”
Stone walked off to the bar. Michael commed his neuronics to bring up the news. It had been a while since he had checked what was going on in humanspace, and this was as good a time as any to catch up. Moments after the World News Network popped into view, he wished he had not bothered.
The news was bad. Talks with the Hammer over the hijacking of the Fed Worlds mership Mumtaz had collapsed; the Hammers were pulling out of the negotiations.
Stone was back with two new beers. “Check out WNN,” Michael said. “Looks like the Hammers have pulled the plug.” He sighed. Suddenly he was a million years old. “Well, Aaron. I think the shit is going to hit the fan.”
“Bastards.” Stone frowned. “Beats me how that new chief councillor. . what’s his name?”
“Polk. Chief Councillor Jeremiah Polk.”
“Yup, him. How can he try to pin the Mumtaz hijacking on someone else? Do the Hammers ever take responsibility for anything?” Stone took a long pull at his beer. “Man’s a total idiot,” he said dismissively.
Michael shook his head. Jeremiah Polk was many things-devious psychopath sprang most immediately to mind-but Michael was damn sure he was not an idiot.
“Don’t know about that, Aaron. He’s a very dangerous man, that Polk. This doesn’t look good.”
A gloomy silence fell over the two young officers.
Intently, Michael watched Polk being interviewed. He had read pretty much every word written about-and by-Jeremiah Polk. He struggled to think of a more amoral man. Christ! To call Polk a psychopath was being unkind to psychopaths, but a few things were clear. True to his Hammer bloodlines, Jeremiah Polk was a man who never forgave. He was a man who never forgot. He was a man unable to let an insult pass unavenged. He was a man whose preferred solution to most problems was violence. He despised intellectuals; smart-assed thinkers, he called them. On the basis of those traits alone, something was brewing. He would stake his life on it.
“So, Michael. What does it all mean?”
Michael had been asking himself the same question.
“Hard to tell. .”
Michael’s voice trailed off as he contemplated the terrible prospect of another full-blown war against the fundamentalist Hammers. It was not a happy thought. Nothing but nothing could ever convince the Hammers that their so-called religion was the invention of one man, that everything they thought and did was based on one giant lie. He shook his head in despair. The curiously shaped rocks discovered on Mars by Peter McNair were no more relics of an ancient civilization dedicated to the universe’s supreme being, Kraa, than his toenail clippings were. The whole thing was an elaborate charade on which the Hammers had erected possibly the most viciously cruel society known to humankind. But like all fundamentalists down the ages, reason and logic had no weight with the Hammers. They understood only one thing: brute force, so brute force it would have to be. Maybe this time, Michael thought, the Federated Worlds would go for the throat, not stopping until the entire rotten edifice that was Hammer society lay crushed into dust.
“Now,” he continued, “exactly what does it all mean? Well, I hate to say this, but I think we’re in for a fight. I think that’s what it means. So stand by for a fourth worlds war.”
Stone’s eyes opened wide in shock. “You sure of that?”
Michael shook his head. “No, I’m not. There’s no way I can be. But Polk’s got to do something. Look at the problems he’s got at home. The Hammer’s falling apart at the seams. Remember your Politics 101: When things at home are going to shit, fight a foreign war. Distracts the peasants; keeps them in line. Anyway, I think force is the only thing the Hammers really understand, so force is what Polk will turn to.”
Stone ran his hands through his hair. His face hardened. “So what? Bring it on. We’ll kick those Hammers back to the Stone Age where they damn well belong.”
Michael shook his head. “Be careful what you wish for, Aaron,” he cautioned.
Stone stared at Michael. He looked guilty. “Oh, yes. You’ve been there. Sorry. Forgot.”
“That’s all right. Anyway, there’s nothing much we can do about it. We are junior officers, nothing but low-life bottomfeeders. So drink up. I need a decent night’s sleep.”
Monday, June 28, 2399, UD
Offices of the Supreme Council for the Preservation of the Faith, city of McNair, Commitment planet, Hammer of Kraa Worlds
Chief Councillor Jeremiah Polk sat back in his chair, stretching in yet another vain attempt to ease the kinks out of an aching back. His mood was foul. “Kraa’s blood,” he muttered. For once it would be good to have a day without crisis after crisis crashing onto his desk.
“Chief Councillor?” The diffident tones of his secretary broke into his thoughts.
“Yes, Singh.”
“Fleet Admiral Jorge is here, sir.”
“Ah, good. Send him in.”
The man ushered into his office was tall, his looks well served by his Spanish forebears. Once his face must have been classically handsome. Now it was deeply lined by the long hours and stress that went with every senior position in the Hammer Worlds.
Jorge looked nervous, his forehead slicked with a telltale sheen of sweat. That was not surprising, Polk thought as he waved Jorge into a seat. The man should be nervous. After all, it was only a matter of months since Polk, in the wake of the Hammer fleet’s pathetic response to the Fed’s attack on Hell’s Moons, had personally ordered the deaths of thousands of Jorge’s fellow officers, their bodies even now rotting in DocSec lime pits. Truth be known, Polk was reassured by fear. He liked being feared-very much.
Once Jorge was settled, Polk pinned him back in his chair with a long, unblinking stare. Polk was pleased to see the man actually push back a fraction as if trying to escape.
“So, Admiral,” Polk said eventually. “Let’s get on with it. The last time we met, I asked for a firm date for the start of Operation Cavalcade.”
Jorge nodded in agreement. “You did, Chief Councillor. I’ve scheduled a full Operation Cavalcade presentation for next week’s Defense Council, and I’ll be asking for formal approval to proceed with the operation then. If I get the goahead, the ships assigned to Cavalcade-”