“Captain, sir. Command. We are on track, vector correct and aligned ready to commence our deceleration burn, which is due in fifty-five minutes’ time. That gives us time to deploy pinchcomms to catch the 22:00 transmission sked and get our drop report away.”
“Captain, roger. Let’s do it.”
Seconds later, Michael watched as the holocams tracked the massive pinchcomms antenna as it deployed. At almost 10 meters across and 3 high, it was an impressively large piece of equipment; it had to be if it was to get the beam accuracy it needed to communicate across pinchspace. To look at, it was just a shallow concave oval shape with the jet-black pinchspace stasis generator mounted dead center. Slowly the antenna emerged, the single massive hydraulic ram lifting it smoothly clear of its armored container behind the surveillance drone hangar. As it cleared the hull, the array began to twitch as its AI hunted out the optimum path to the nearest relay station, in this case a long-range pinchcomms relaysat sitting in interstellar space about halfway between 387 and the Federated Worlds 150 light-years away. It looked like a dog scenting something, Michael thought.
Finally, the twitching stopped as the dull silver array locked on to the pinchcomms carrier wave, ready for the routine 22:00 message broadcast.
“Captain, sir. Command. Pinchcomms are up and locked on, and the jump report has gone. Er, hold on a minute, sir. Something is coming through for us marked flash.” Armitage’s voice betrayed her shock.
What the fuck is going on? Michael asked himself. Messages with a flash precedence were usually used only to report enemy contacts, and so far as he knew, it was very unlikely that the Feds had gone to war with anybody in the five days since they had left Terranova.
“I’ll deal with it in my cabin.” From the look on his face, the captain clearly shared Armitage’s shock. As Ribot hurried out of the combat information center, Michael was left with a very uneasy feeling in the bottom of his stomach, and it had nothing to do with the residual effects of 387’s transition back into normalspace. A flash pinchcomm could mean only one thing: bad news, very bad news.
Ten minutes later, Ribot sat alone in his cabin.
The message had finally come through, with the glacially slow data rate of the pinchcomms message broadcast transmission doing nothing for his nerves. The message was short and to the point: 387’s mission had been aborted, and they were now on their way into Hammer space. Something had gone seriously wrong somewhere, and he had a nasty feeling that 387 was about to get very close to that something, whatever it was.
Taking time only to tell Mother to acknowledge safe receipt of the message from CINCFEDWORLDSFLT, Ribot commed Holdorf.
“Leon. Captain.”
The navigator’s avatar popped up in a flash.
“Leon. I want a new nav plan for Revelation-II, and I want it yesterday. I’ve commed you the system identifier.”
“Revelation-II?” Leon’s voice was heavy with disbelief. “But that’s in Ham-”
Ribot cut him off. “I know it’s in Hammer space, and no, I don’t know why yet. I have to speak to Fleet.”
Holdorf’s avatar hung there, mouth half-open.
“Leon, for fuck’s sake, stop standing there like a pregnant goldfish! Get on with it,” Ribot snapped impatiently. “You and Mother get started and get back to me when you’ve got an 80 percent plan good enough to initiate the burn for the vector change. We’ll fine-tune the plan once I have a better idea from Fleet what they want to achieve. Now go. I need to speak to Fleet.”
“Sir.” With his normally taciturn face working overtime to express a mixture of doubt, anxiety, and fear-Hammer space was absolutely to be avoided at all costs, and the prospect of jumping little 387 direct to Revelation-II was enough to make the bravest person think twice-Holdorf’s avatar disappeared.
Ribot commed Mother. “Mother, set up a priority pinchcomm vidlink to Fleet and let me know when you are through to the duty operations officer. I’ll take it in the pinchcomms shack. Oh, and warn Cosmo that I’ll be using as much ship’s power as I need to keep the data rate up. I don’t want him finding out only when the lights go out.”
“Roger, command.”
As Ribot got to his feet to make his way to the pinchcomms shack, Holdorf commed him back.
“Yes, Leon?”
“Sir, I have the first cut of the nav plan, and we are realigning the ship, ready to commence the burn. The burn’s going to be a right bastard, skipper.”
Ribot wasn’t surprised. Warships were never intended to do hard left turns at 150,000 kph.
“Okay, do it.”
“Sir.”
A good twenty minutes later, the protracted pinchcomms conference with Fleet operations finally wound up, and Ribot sat back. He couldn’t put off the evil moment any longer. He commed Michael. After the briefest pause, Michael’s avatar popped up, the excitement of the urgent changes to 387’s plans plain to see. At least one of the crew relished the thought of a punch-up with the Hammers, Ribot thought.
“Michael, pinchcomms shack now, please.”
You poor bastard, Ribot thought as Michael, face flushed with the excitement of it all, appeared in the doorway. He’d be seeing it all as some sort of huge adventure. “Come in, Michael. Shut the door and sit down.” Puzzled, Michael did as he was told, wondering what the hell all of this had to do with him. Ribot took a deep breath before he spoke. “Michael, I have some bad news. You, like everyone else onboard, are wondering what the hell is going on. Well, it appears that the Hammers are going to hijack the Mumtaz, and Fleet has confirmed that your mother and sister are onboard. Michael, I’m so sorry.”
The blood drained from Michael’s face, his skin turning a dirty shade of gray, his mouth working to say words that wouldn’t come.
Finally, but only with a huge effort, Michael forced himself to speak. “Are they okay? Have they been hurt? Are they coming back? Why-”
Ribot interrupted what threatened to become a flood of words. “Michael, we have one unconfirmed report that the hijacking is going to take place when Mumtaz drops out at the Brooks Reef around midday on the eleventh. But as yet Fleet has no independent verification, none at all. That’s why our mission has been scrubbed and why we have been diverted to Hammer space. We need to establish what really has happened.
“Michael, we’ve got a lot to do, so I need to cut this short, but I wanted you to know first. It’ll be difficult for you, but I need you to be at your best. And believe me, I think Fleet means it when they tell me that nothing-and I mean nothing-is going to stop us from getting every soul back. And be thankful that however bad the Hammers are, they do tend to treat women civilians well. So Michael, can you do what I need you to do?”
The anguish in Michael’s eyes was replaced by a steady cold-burning anger. “Sir. Of course. Does my father know?”
“No. Fleet’s keeping this very tight in case it’s just the Hammer trying to make trouble. Let’s hope that’s all it is. Now, get your team mustered and get Petty Officer Strezlecki checking and double-checking every one of those birds of yours. I want them all 100 percent. We are going to need them. When you’ve got them started, you can join the think tank in the combat information center.”
“Sir.”
Ribot finished summarizing the detailed CINCFEDWORLDSFLT briefing he’d received and sat back.
Michael sat unmoving, still white-faced with shock, his mind churning as he struggled not to think about what might be happening to Mom and Sam. Think, Michael, think, he scolded himself. The best thing he could do right now was help 387’s command team work out a plan that would get things started.