“Sir! Attention on deck!” Ferreira called while Michael left.
Thursday, September 21, 2400, UD
Offices of the Supreme Council for the Preservation of the Faith, city of McNair, Commitment planet,
Hammer of Kraa Worlds
“… there’s nothing I can say. I need to get to the hospital. There’ll be a statement from my agent later. Thank you.”
Sour-faced, Chief Councillor Polk watched the blood-spattered figure of Michael Helfort barge its way through the media scrum and climb into a mobibot before driving off. The holovid cut back to the network anchor, an immaculately dressed young woman looking for all the world like one of the impossibly beautiful models who filled the trashvids his wife liked to spend her life watching.
“That was the scene this morning at Bachou Airport after an extraordinary night for young Michael Helfort and his girlfriend, Anna Cheung. Now we turn to Professor Nikolas de Witte for his assessment of the wider implications of this incident. Welcome, Professor.”
“Good to be here, Amelie.”
“First of all, the question everybody is asking. Who was behind this attack?”
“Well, Amelie, I think that’s pretty obvious,” the professor said, his voice a studied mix of gravitas and concern. “This is the work of the Hammers; there can be no doubt about it. I think-”
I really do not give a shit what you think, you pompous cretin, Polk thought savagely. He skipped the holovid back, pausing it at a frame of Helfort walking across the tarmac toward the onrushing media. Anger surged through him. By Fed standards, Helfort was an ordinary-looking man: not tall but heavily built, broad-shouldered, with penetrating hazel eyes set wide in a face tanned dark below windblown brown hair. Ordinary or not, Helfort was making a fool out of him and out of the Hammer of Kraa, and Polk did not like it one little bit.
To worry about one Fed out of billions was beyond stupid. Polk knew that, but Helfort represented everything he hated about the Feds. Even Helfort’s understated good looks offended him. Testament to generations of geneering-an abomination long proscribed by the Faith of Kraa-Helfort radiated the same effortless air of arrogance and superiority all Feds gave off. Polk could not help himself; that was the one thing about the Feds that irked him more than anything else.
He laughed mirthlessly. Helfort’s looks annoyed him even when splashed with blood from wounds inflicted by Hammer agents. But a bit of blood was not enough. If the chief councillor of the Hammer of Kraa Worlds could not deal with a single lowlife Fed, the damn job was not worth having. He flicked off the holovid and called his personal secretary.
“Singh!”
“Sir?”
“Councillor Kando in town?”
“He is, sir.”
“Right. I want him in my office. Now!”
Polk’s eyebrows were arching so far up his forehead that they nearly disappeared into his steel-gray hairline. He shook his head in disbelief.
“So, just let me sum up, Councillor,” he continued, acid-voiced. “An unarmed man, asleep in his bed, aided and abetted by his girlfriend, held off an entire hit squad before killing two of them, hog-tying one more, disabling their flier, and leaving them for the local police to pick up. Oh, yes, everyone’s worked out who was behind the attack, so guess what? We are being blamed for it! How am I doing so far, Councillor Kando? Have I understood it right? Kraa! Incompetent does not even begin to describe it. What a shambles.”
“Sir,” the councillor for intelligence protested, “I think I should point out-”
“No, Councillor!” Polk snapped angrily. “I think I should point out that a bunch of temple novices armed with feather dusters could have done a better job than your covert operations people. Covert operations, my ass! Brain-dead clowns, more like it!” Polk said, voice betraying his frustration and anger. “How much did this mess cost us … no, no”-Polk’s hand went up-“don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”
“But Chief Councillor-”
“Shut up! Shut up, Councillor. I’ve had enough of this little toe rag. I am sick and tired of having his exploits rubbed in my face by the Fed trashpress. Sick of it, do you hear? So”-Polk’s finger stabbed out across the desk at Kando’s face-“let’s try again, Councillor Kando. Get your people off their fat, overpaid backsides. I want them to organize a proper operation. Funding no object. Just get it done. This is personal. I want Helfort dead. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I hope you do, I really hope you do. Get out!”
Monday, October 2, 2400, UD
Secure Repair Facility Golf Five, Comdur Fleet Base
“All stations, stand by for the cold move.”
The voice of Tufayl’s executive officer was steady. Michael was impressed. It was time for the dreadnought to go to work, for Ferreira to take the ship out of the yard’s hands and into orbit around Comdur. True, he would be sitting there watching every step of the way, but by longstanding Fleet tradition, cold moves-moves handled by hydraulic rams and space tugs without any assistance from the ship’s engines-were always controlled by the ship’s executive officer, her sole assistant the ship’s maneuvering AI. Cold moves: easy to say, hard to execute. Tufayl was an enormous ship, certain to be unwieldy and uncooperative, and more than a few executive officers made a complete hash of them.
With another reminder to himself to stay out of Ferreira’s way, Michael stood back to watch, offering up a short prayer that Junior Lieutenant Jayla Ferreira would do as good a job in reality as she had in the sims. Around him, the rest of Tufayl’s crew did not even come close to filling the combat information center. For such a large ship, it carried a ridiculously small crew: Carmellini and Lomidze, his two warfare spacers, Faris, his comms man, four engineers-Fodor, Chua, Lim, and Morozov-and of course the unmistakable shape of Chief Bienefelt, Tufayl’s coxswain, made ten, including him and Ferreira. The extra spacers forced on him by Fleet-in retrospect he was glad they had insisted on increasing his crew; a pinchspace jump-capable heavy lander would be a real asset-were yet to join them. The process of digging out people who met Jaruzelska’s high standards was proving to be a prolonged one.
Ferreira turned to him. “For your information, sir. We are ready in all respects to move.”
“Roger. All yours, Jayla. Dent my shiny new ship and I’ll dent your skull.”
She grinned, a mix of excitement and nerves obvious. “I won’t, sir,” she replied. “All stations, this is Command, stand by. Dockmaster, this is Tufayl.”
“Dockmaster.”
“Release docking clamps and initiate cold move.”
“Roger … clamps released, moving now.”
With that, a faint shudder ran through Tufayl as hydraulically rammed cradles started the dreadnought on its way from the zero-gravity repair facility at the center of the asteroid that hosted Comdur Fleet Base. Ahead lay a 300-kilometer ascent through rock tunnels to the surface for handover to the space tugs that would take Tufayl up into parking orbit.
“Captain, sir. Cold move complete, ship is in orbit, orbit is nominal. Tugs detached. Propulsion fusion plants are coming online, all systems nominal. We will have full power available in twenty minutes.”
“Thank you. Nice job,” Michael said, much encouraged by Ferreira’s flawless execution of an evolution that had brought more than a few executive officers undone in the past and even more encouraged that Tufayl’s fusion plants were not about to blow his ship apart. Start-ups from cold were tricky, which was why Fleet standard operating procedures insisted that they take place well away from ships and base facilities.