“I’m shocked,” Michael said with a huge grin. “Such incompetence.”
“It gets better. Apparently the same thing happened at Comdur.”
“They’ve pushed the button on Juggernaut,” Michael said. Then it hit him hard. “The Hammers. They’ll know that we’re coming after them.”
“Will they? How?”
“Why else would an entire task force leave Terranova and Comdur nearspace without authorization from Fleet?”
Shinoda thought about that for a while. “Wouldn’t they think,” she said, “that it was just … I don’t know … a precautionary move following the assassination attempt?” She took a deep breath and shook her head. “No, that makes no sense. Warships don’t move without orders.”
“They don’t, and even if the Hammers aren’t sure,” Michael said, “they’ll assume an attack is on the way. Until the missing units are relocated, they have to, and don’t be surprised if they close their nearspace to all civilian traffic.”
“Damn,” Shinoda muttered, her face bleak, “that wouldn’t be good. What do we do now?”
“Push on, find the first dead-letter box on Scobie’s. It’ll have the latest update on the Juggernaut. There’ll be new orders for us.”
Shinoda nodded. “I’ll go brief the rest of the team.”
“Let me guess. On the mats again?”
“Yup.”
“Slow learners, you marines.”
“Watch it, spacer boy,” Shinoda replied with a feral smile as she left.
Michael sat back, wondering where Juggernaut stood now. With Jaruzelska under arrest, Rear Admiral Moussawi was now in command. He was renowned for his mix of surgical skill and ruthless aggression. Michael had heard Jaruzelska describe him as one of the best Fleet commanders the Federated Worlds had ever seen; coming from her, that was high praise. But with the Hammers now expecting an attack, the chances of the operation succeeding had to have worsened no matter how good the commander was.
The butcher’s bill for Operation Juggernaut had always promised to be high; it now looked to be much, much worse. Michael could only hope that Moussawi would not be deterred.
Michael dropped his gear onto the deck and rolled into the bunk that occupied most of the cramped economy-class cabin. In the time it had taken to clear arrival formalities-and they had been formalities; Michael had never seen people so disinterested as Lagerfeld’s border security officers-the newsvids had reported the closure of Hammer nearspace in anticipation of what Polk himself had said would be a full-scale attack by rogue elements from the Federated Worlds Fleet.
“You got that one right, you Hammer asshole,” Michael had muttered.
The mission was screwed. There was no way for him and Shinoda to get to Commitment. It was over. Juggernaut was doomed. And worse than any of that, his chances of seeing Anna again were … he wondered what was less than zero. And he was a nonperson, a dead nonperson. The false identities he had been given would get him dirtside on Scobie’s and then onto Commitment, but they weren’t good enough to last him the rest of his life.
If he discounted blowing his brains out, his options had dwindled to one: flee to the outer edge of humanspace. There he could find some ratfucked system a thousand light-years from the Hammer of Kraa where nobody gave a damn who you were or what you’d done.
Just the sort of place where a dead nonperson could forget the past and carve out a new life.
Sunday, June 13, 2404, UD
Offices of the Supreme Council, McNair
“… and so, to sum up,” said Admiral Kerouac, commander in chief of the Hammer Defense Forces, in a mellow baritone voice that Polk always found faintly patronizing, “in response to a full-scale mutiny of the Federated Worlds space fleet, we are withdrawing every unit we can spare from nonessential operational tasks. Those units are now deployed in Commitment nearspace. And finally, all units are at Operational State 4 and will remain at that level until we have confirmed that the renegade Fed units that left Terranova and Comdur are not planning to attack one of our home planets. Are there …” Kerouac paused as an aide handed him a sheet of paper. “I’ve just received the latest estimate of the number of ships involved in the mutiny,” he went on, “and it seems the Federated Worlds has been unable to account for a total of sixty-six ships.”
Polk stared at Kerouac, open-mouthed with disbelief. “Did you say sixty-six ships?”
“I did, sir. Sixty-six ships: one planetary assault vessel, fifty-three warships, and twelve heavy armed auxiliaries. Now, I know that sounds like a lot, but you look at our order of battle, you will see that we have three times that number of warships in Commitment nearspace right now. That will increase by twenty-five when Task Force 41 returns from the Federated Worlds. The Fortitude and Faith systems are equally well defended, and of course we should not forget our orbital battle stations, battlesats, weapons platforms, and minefields. There can be no doubt that any attack by those renegade Fed units would be suicidal.”
“Thank you,” Polk said. “Which brings us to the one question I have been asking over and over: What the hell are the Feds up to? Councillor Kando, tell me what your intelligence analysts think.”
“We think the renegades will attack Commitment.”
“They’ll suffer enormous losses if they try, so why would they do that? They’re not stupid.”
“Hendrik Island, that’s why.”
Polk shook his head. “We’re not even sure the Feds know about Hendrik Island.”
“Too many people know about it, Chief Councillor. We must assume they do, just as we have to assume they will do whatever it takes to eliminate our antimatter plant on Hendrik Island. They have to. It’s the single greatest … no, it’s the only threat to their survival.”
Polk stared at Kando for moment before responding. “That does make sense,” he said. “What else is worth risking so many ships?’ He turned to Jones. “Your thoughts?”
“It does make sense, sir, even though taking out Hendrik Island cannot be done,” Polk’s councillor for war responded. “The Feds will not be able to penetrate our orbital defenses. It’s simple mathematics, and we’ve run the simulations-just as the Feds will have-and they all point to the same result: total annihilation. Misguided patriots these renegades might be, but even they won’t throw ships away for no reason.
“And even if they did, they’d be wasting their time. Hendrik Island was picked because it is an enormous mass of basalt. The plant is buried so deep inside that even an antimatter weapon dropped right on top would have no effect on its operational capability. An attack would be utterly pointless. We know it, and those renegade Feds will too, but we cannot assume they won’t try. Kraa knows, they are an arrogant bunch.”
Polk nodded. “So there’s no downside in making the assumption that the Feds will try to destroy our antimatter plant?”
“None.”
“Won’t the Feds just attack elsewhere?”
“There’s no point,’ Jones said. “The Feds do not have sufficient forces to mount a full-scale ground assault. Anyway, the advice I have been given-” Jones looked at Admiral Kerouac, who nodded his agreement. “-is that sufficient forces would remain to cover any eventuality. And it goes without saying that our forces can be moved as the tactical situation in Commitment nearspace demands.”
“Good. Admiral Kerouac, you know what has to be done.”
“I do, sir. I will report back to the next Defense Council meeting.”
Wednesday, June 16, 2404, UD
New Dublin, Scobie’s World
Michael let himself into the small house tucked away out of sight of the road down a tree-lined lane. He dumped his backpack and went through to the kitchen, where Shinoda waited. “Am I clean?” he asked, punching buttons on the foodbot to get himself a mug of coffee.