“Smart man,” Baker said approvingly. “No, it’s not just another repair facility.” He paused for a second. “No, Michael. What you are looking at is your next command,” he said, waving his arm across the heavy cruisers.
Michael stared at him, mouth open. His next command? What in God’s name was the man talking about?
“You got to be kidding, sir!” Michael protested. “A cruiser captain? That’s a four-ringer’s job. Even if it is to be my job, I haven’t got the exper-”
“Stop!” Baker ordered firmly. “Let me tell you something, Michael. You’re here because you’re the right person for the job. That’s my opinion. It’s also the boss’s opinion and one arrived at after a great deal of thought. So let’s go and meet her, and she can put you out of your misery. Now, where is the woman?” Baker asked himself. “Ah, yes. She’s inside the Tufayl, having an argument with the engineers about something. Right, hold on while I get us clearance from facility control. . okay, done. Follow me. Oh, and Michael.”
“Sir?”
“Please do not crash into anything.”
“Sir!” Michael did his best to sound hurt. “As if!”
“Hmmphh,” was Baker’s only comment. He unstuck his boots and pushed himself into space clear of the walkway. With casual competence, his backpack maneuvering unit spitting spikes of nitrogen, Baker spun on the spot and stopped dead; with easy grace, he accelerated away across the void, directly toward the center of the line of heavy cruisers. Michael was impressed. Baker needed only the briefest of brief jets of ice-cold nitrogen to nudge him back on vector.
With a deep gulp, Michael followed; he tried hard not to look down. When he was more or less lined up, he accelerated after Baker, his trajectory degenerating in seconds into an erratically three-dimensional corkscrew. It was not easy. No, it was bloody well impossible. He’d only worked in zero g wearing a combat space suit complete with life-support and maneuvering systems. Everything was different, and not surprisingly, the result was a mess. He was too light, his center of mass was all wrong, and, not surprisingly, the results were not good to look at. He got there in the end, though it was more a controlled crash than a carefully executed landing as he thumped into the Tufayl’s hull in a cloud of nitrogen-chilled ice crystals, frantically trying to compensate for coming in too fast.
Acutely aware that every spacer with nothing better to do must be enjoying the show he was putting on, he bounced heavily off the Tufayl’s matte-black armor. A few frantic blips on his thrusters brought him into the cargo air lock, where Baker was waiting to grab him, a huge smile on his face.
“God above, Michael. What a performance!” Baker called cheerfully.
“Glad you liked it, sir,” Michael muttered sourly. “I think everyone else did, too.”
Baker clapped him on the back. “Don’t sweat it. My first time, I managed to break my wrist, so all in all you haven’t done too badly. Come on. Park your unit here. The boss awaits.”
Michael stuck his boots into the micromesh covering the deck. Arms waving in an attempt to stay upright, he set off after Baker in the awkward motion-push, twist, tug, push-required to move in zero g wearing stick boots. Making their way through the ship, Michael looked around with interest. The Tufayl had been one of the ships closest to the Hammer missiles; she had suffered badly in the attack, and it was obvious.
It was a heartrending sight. The ship was a shambles. Evidence of the massive shock wave that had punched its way through the ship was everywhere-machinery big and small, pipework, cabling, lockers, all ripped off their mounts. Here and there, there were dirty black patches he strongly suspected were long-dried blood. He shivered. A lot of good spacers had died here, and he felt their ghosts. Everywhere there was debris from a once-living ship: shipsuits, boots, gloves, tool kits, test equipment, combat space suits, fire extinguishers, emergency cable kits, tables, chairs, holovid screens, mess kits, and more. There was abandoned gear everywhere. The sight was utterly demoralizing.
Baker plowed on. He must be used to all this, Michael thought. He followed Baker down a drop tube, pulling himself down hand over hand.
“Okay, here we are,” Baker announced as he pushed himself clear of the tube. They were in a small lobby. Aft lay the Tufayl’s combat information center, but Baker went forward to the captain’s quarters. He knocked on the door.
“Come!” Michael knew he should recognize that voice. Try as he might, he could not place it.
He recognized the face, though. The long, lean figure of Vice Admiral Jaruzelska smiled broadly as Michael whipped his right hand up into a salute in best Fleet fashion. Well, it would have been if Michael’s feet had been better anchored to the micromesh. They were not, and the salute spun his body into a slow turn to the right that, arms flailing, nothing could stop. Doing his best not to laugh out loud, Baker finally rescued him.
Michael, cheeks flaming red in embarrassment, struggled to recover his lost dignity. Jaruzelska made her way over to shake his hand, her face split by a huge grin. “Welcome,” she said warmly. “Welcome to the First Dreadnought Squadron, Lieutenant Helfort. Well, what will in time become the squadron when we’ve made a few alterations.”
“Thank you, sir,” he replied, wondering what the hell the First Dreadnought Squadron was. He pretty much knew the Fed order of battle by heart; to the best of his knowledge, there was no such beast as the First Dreadnought Squadron.
“How much has Commander Baker told you?”
“Well, sir. Not a lot, really, and what he has told me is, well, is. .”
“Hard to believe?” Jaruzelska laughed.
Michael nodded. “You could say that, sir. Impossible to believe might be more accurate, though.”
“Well, we’ll have to put you out of your misery, then. Now, let me explain what this business is all about.”
“Sir.”
“First things first. My job is simple. I’ve been given six months to give the Fleet an offensive capability capable of beating Hammer ships armed with antimatter warhead-fitted Eaglehawk missiles.”
Michael’s mouth dropped open. How in God’s name could these battered ships do that?
“Yes, I know, Michael. Hard to see what the Tufayl and her sisters can do to take the fight back to the Hammers, but Commander Baker here has convinced me. Commander?”
“Thank you, sir. Well, let’s start by dragging a sacred cow out and killing it. The days of the conventionally manned warship are over. Not completely, true, but thanks to antimatter weapons, Federation warships cannot carry thousands of vulnerable humans into battle anymore. Now-”
“Hold on, hold on. Sorry, sir”-Michael did not look sorry at all-“but did you just say what I think you said? If you did, that means unmanned warships, and that means the end of the Fleet as we know it. How can that be?”
“Well, Michael, needs must, I’m afraid. Two reasons: a chronic shortage of spacers and the huge amount of mass it will take to make a ship like this safe against antimatter warheads. You can have the crew but not the protection. Or you can have the protection but not the crew. You can’t have both, you see. With me so far?”
“Just, sir.”
“Good. But you’re not completely right. There’ll be no unmanned warships, but we can have the extra protection and a much smaller crew. Ten, I’m thinking.”
“Ten!” Michael protested. “Sir! I’ve been there, and I’m not sure that’ll work.”
“Michael,” Jaruzelska cut in, “you may well be right, but we’re going to try it. Maybe it’ll work. I happen to think it will. All I want from you is an open mind.”
“Sir!” Michael replied fiercely. “I’ll try anything if it gets us level with the Hammer.”
“Good. Go on, Commander.”
“Thank you, sir. As I was saying, a heavy cruiser will have a crew of only ten spacers. Not thirteen hundred as now. Every bit of redundant equipment will be ripped out. Anything not required to maneuver the ship, to operate its sensors, to fire its weapons, and to keep its crew alive-it will all go.”