Rimward Stars (Castle Federation Book 5)

by Glynn Stewart

  Something in the mildly pained expression of one of the six men and women who ran the Alliance’s war effort told Kyle that John von Coral was a very different person in private than Kyle had expected.

  #

  Chapter 13

  Coraline System

  20:00 September 25, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time

  Coral, Private Estate near Lombard City

  It seemed that someone, probably von Coral himself, had given the Imperial contingent strict orders not to discuss business over dinner. Kyle found it extremely unlikely that this collection of three of the senior members of the Imperium’s government, a aristocratic ex–flag officer and a current capital ship commander normally went two hours without any business coming up.

  Dinner was, unsurprisingly, one of the best meals Kyle had eaten in a very long time, and not just because he spent most of his time eating meals aboard a warship. Reuter clearly employed an extremely skilled chef, one who knew not only how to work with the finest ingredients but also when the best option was simplicity.

  Once the meal was finished, the servers brought out small glasses of brandy, and von Coral rose to his feet.

  “If I could have everyone’s attention,” he said calmly, his carefully trained voice cutting through the conversation. “We are here today for a more informal version of what I will be doing in the morning: thanking Captain Roberts for the rescue of twenty-one thousand, four hundred and eight civilians and military personnel of the Coraline Imperium.

  “Tomorrow, Captain, I will hang a fancy piece of jewelry around your neck for the galaxy to see,” von Coral told them. “But for tonight, a toast: to the Stellar Fox! Long may he confound our enemies!”

  “The Stellar Fox!” everyone except Kyle cheered back, and he raised his own glass in silent salute to the Imperator.

  “Now, I need to steal you for a few minutes, Captain Roberts,” von Coral continued, his voice now pitched to carry to Kyle alone. “Mr. Nebula may come with you if you like; Octavian and Melech will accompany us. Xi and William will take good care of your officers, I promise.”

  “Karl,” Kyle murmured to the diplomat with an accompanying implant note. “With us, please.”

  He rose, sent Taggart and Song an implant message letting them know what was going on, and followed the Imperator as the young man slipped through a not-quite-concealed door in the side of the dining room.

  The other side of the door was an elegant drawing room, with carefully upholstered wood furniture in a style that came and went out of fashion on every world…and hadn’t been in fashion on Coral since Reuter had been Kyle’s age.

  The ruler of twelve systems stepped over to a sideboard and calmly poured out five glasses of brandy, waiting for his subordinates to file in and close the door behind them.

  “I meant every word I said, Captain,” he told Kyle. “I only know three of the people you pulled out of Huī Xing personally, but the other twenty-some thousand of my subjects were no less my responsibility and no less deserving of my attention for that.

  “I owe you. Tomorrow’s stately formalities are an acknowledgement of that, not a payment of it. Though,” he added with a wicked smile, “I suspect that the Imperial Starburst will be a useful stick for your friends on the Senate to use when beating Randall over the head to get you your promotion.”

  Kyle swallowed hard and said nothing. The Imperial Starburst was the Coraline Imperium’s highest award for valor. That would put him at…three. The highest awards for valor from three of the Alliance’s members, not including his own home system, where he’d only received the second-highest award. Twice.

  “You’re going to need a separate wall just for awards that are normally given out once in a lifetime,” the Sky Marshal observed dryly. “You might just set a new record before you’re done, Captain.”

  “I am not the first to be awarded by multiple Alliance powers,” Kyle replied. “I believe there were four officers and two enlisted personnel awarded both the Senatorial Medal of Honor and the Imperial Starburst in the last war.”

  “You’ll be at three tomorrow, and politics is the only reason you don’t have an SMH and an Admiral’s star,” von Coral said flatly. “Both may yet still come your way, though the Starburst will admittedly only help with the rank, not the medal.

  “The record, if you’re curious, is five,” he continued. “William’s older brother held the highest awards for valor from Coraline, Castle, Phoenix, the Trade Factor, and Hessian.”

  “Unfortunately, the one from Hessian was posthumous,” von Stenger said quietly.

  “Your time here is limited, my liege,” Herschel pointed out, the Chancellor taking a sip of his brandy. “We should get to the point.”

  “This is part of the point, my dear Chancellor,” the Imperator replied. “But you’re right; we need to be back on a suborbital in forty minutes.

  “Captain Roberts,” he turned back to Kyle. “We are, of course, aware of your mission, even if it isn’t taking place under the auspices of the Alliance. Antioch and their allies also reached out to us. They were desperate, and I don’t think they realized just how much stress that action could potentially place on the relationship between our nations.”

  “They bloody well did,” Herschel replied. “Don’t be fooled, my liege. Antioch might not have realized…but the request for our aid came from the Istanbul government. Since Antioch had already called for Federation aid and been promised it, the only reason Istanbul would ask for our help is if someone put them up to it.”

  “They are also desperate,” von Coral said calmly. “But yes, it seems likely there are hands working in the shadows here, Captain Roberts. Even if these pirate attacks are entirely homegrown, someone is working to use them as a weapon against our Alliance.

  “And I am quite certain that someone is Terran. I will not permit the Alliance of Free Stars to fail,” he stated flatly. “My father and I have poured too much treasure and precious blood into turning back the tide of Commonwealth expansion. I will not allow our conflict for influence over irrelevant worlds to weaken the bulwark we have constructed.

  “Do you understand me, Captain Roberts?”

  “I believe so, my lord,” Kyle confirmed. “I have no desire or intent to cause difficulties with whoever you have sent to the region.”

  “We haven’t sent anyone yet, but Istanbul does have the right to ask for our help,” the Sky Marshal interjected. “Just as Antioch did to ask the Federations. We cannot not send help without risking the trade agreements.”

  “And those agreements are as valuable to us as they are to Castle or the Renaissance systems,” Herschel told him. “The Rimward Stars are…poor and scattered and barely industrialized by modern standards, but they are a massive market mostly lacking in internal FTL transport capacity. Trade into that region fuels much of the war effort of the Alliance’s key powers.”

  “Like Castle, we cannot spare much,” the Imperator told Kyle. “I both want to avoid conflict with Castle and achieve the maximum effect out of what we can send. While this won’t be an Alliance operation, I think it is wise for us to coordinate our efforts, agreed?”

  Nebula’s stiff motionlessness next to Kyle warned him that he was in dangerous waters, but he had a good idea of what the Imperium wanted now…and it was what Castle wanted too. To solve the pirate problem without triggering an economic power struggle between the Alliance’s two main powers.

  “We are dispatching a single ship, the Rameses-class strike cruiser Thoth,” von Stenger told Kyle. “Commanding officer, Captain Elector Yann von Lambert. He’s junior to you by a full grade; Thoth is an older ship. The entire Rameses class only avoided decommissioning due to the onset of the war.”

  “Von Lambert is also at Coral-Reef LaGrange Three,” von Coral noted. “He has been informed he is under your command. His ship has been fully loaded with the Arrow-B type fighters, and her deflectors have been retrofitted to a modern standard.”

  “This is
far more help than we had hoped for,” Kyle told them. “I and the Federation are grateful.”

  “We fight a common enemy, Captain Roberts, and I see Terra’s hand in this mess,” the Imperator replied. “Find them, Captain. Find them and bring them to ground. We cannot afford knives in our back!”

  “That is my mission, my lord. I do not intend to fail.”

  #

  Chapter 14

  Coraline System

  16:00 September 26, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time

  DSC-052 Kodiak

  Kyle had to admit that the Imperial Starburst was an utterly gorgeous piece of jewelry, managing to be elegant and understated while still being made of platinum and living coral. It was the first medal he’d been given to require feeding, but they’d included a carefully designed and sized box that would handle that for him.

  The Imperium knew how to keep pieces of coral from their homeworld’s ocean alive indefinitely, though Kyle’s understanding was that only the Imperator himself was allowed to give it to anyone.

  Any chunk of Coraline coral meant the bearer was in the Imperator’s favor—and this particular one also told anyone who saw it that the wearer was regarded as a hero by the Coraline Imperium and, like most nation’s highest medals of honor, entitled him to take a salute from Imperial officers of any rank.

  He spent a good two minutes studying the medal and the box, thankful that the ceremony had been simple—if broadcast live across the entire Alliance. There was, after all, simple…and simple.

  His allocated time for ego-wallowing over, however, he placed the Starburst in its box and slid it into the drawer that also contained the highest awards for valor from the Tranquility and Alizon system governments.

  “Commander Jamison, can you get me a q-com link to the strike cruiser Thoth?” he asked. “I need to speak to Captain von Lambert at his earliest convenience.”

  “Yes, sir,” his communications officer responded instantly. “Give me a few moments; I’ll coordinate with von Lambert’s people and see if he’s available.”

  “Carry on, Lieutenant Commander,” Kyle told her. He stretched and grabbed a beer while he waited for the crews of the two warships to sort out their Captains’ schedules. He suspected that von Lambert would give him flag officer priority, which wouldn’t leave him much time.

  He managed to at least make it back to his chair and open his beer, which was slightly longer than he’d expected, before Jamison pinged his implant.

  “Sir, I have Captain von Lambert on the q-com for you. Shall I connect him?”

  “Please, Commander,” he ordered, linking the channel to his wall screen and leaning back to survey the face of his new not-quite-subordinate.

  “Captain Roberts,” Yann von Lambert greeted him. The Imperial Captain was older than Kyle had expected, with multiple visible scars crisscrossing his face. His skin was naturally quite dark, but the injuries laced it with white lines.

  “Captain von Lambert. Thank you for taking my call,” Kyle told the scarred man.

  “We’re heading the same way, as I understand,” the Imperial replied. “And I presume the Sky Marshal has informed you of my orders?”

  “We’re both headed to the Antioch-Serengeti Free Trade Zone to deal with pirates. The Sky Marshal suggested we should work together.”

  Von Lambert chuckled.

  “I know that’s not how the old man phrased it, Captain Roberts. I and Thoth are under your command for the duration. I appreciate your attempt to spare my ship’s fragile ego,” von Lambert continued with a grin, “but let’s avoid games that would put us at risk of a critical miscommunication in the middle of a firefight. This may not be an Alliance operation, but I think operating under those established protocols will avoid potential issues. Do you agree, Captain Roberts?”

  “That makes perfect sense to me, Captain von Lambert,” Kyle agreed with a smile. He should have expected that the Sky Marshal would have picked the officer they put under his command very, very carefully.

  “Before we get tied up in protocols and formalities, Captain, I need to say thank you,” von Lambert continued quietly. “We have never met, but you have changed my life twice. My brother was in the Huī Xing prison platforms…and my daughter was on Ansem Gulf.”

  Kyle winced. Ansem Gulf had been a passenger liner with fifteen thousand passengers seized by pirates before the war started. His ship, the battlecruiser Alamo, had gone to rescue the civilians. When the dust had settled, Flight Commander Kyle Roberts had been in command of the survivors of Alamo’s fighter wing…and the ship had been retaken.

  “Twice you have saved the lives of those close to me, Captain Roberts. Serving under your command is a privilege.”

  “I hope you feel the same once we’re done,” Kyle told him, more than a bit touched by the man’s words. Meeting the families of those he’d spent the blood of his people to pull out of the fire reminded him why he did what he did.

  “I’d like to invite you, your XO, and your CAG aboard Kodiak for a final planning dinner before we set off for the Free Trade Zone,” he continued. “Captain Sarka and her senior officers will join us as well. We have a lot of work in front of us, and the sooner we get to it—”

  “The fewer people die,” von Lambert finished. It might not have been exactly what Kyle was planning to say, but it carried the meaning better.

  “Exactly, Captain. May I have my staff expect you aboard at twenty hundred hours?”

  “We will be there,” von Lambert confirmed.

  #

  With the senior officers from three ships aboard, the small dining room attached to Kyle’s quarters felt almost cramped. The room was intended to host all of his department heads with room to spare, but nine officers required squeezing in extra chairs.

  If he’d wanted to include anyone else, Kyle would have needed to open up Kodiak’s currently sealed and unused flag officer quarters. That felt presumptuous enough he’d avoid if possible, though, and the Captain’s dining room fit everyone in.

  Captain Kristyna Sarka, Vice Commodore Elsie Altena and Senior Fleet Commander Hanif Kanaan represented Alexander, occupying one side of the table.

  Captain von Lambert, who was only senior to Altena and Kanaan by virtue of time in grade given the difference between where the Federation and the Imperium ranked a Captain, sat at Kyle’s right hand. Kyle or Sarka’s equal in Imperial service would have been a Lord Captain, but the Federation declined to give starship command to anyone below O-7, whereas the Imperium had some of the older ships under O-6s like von Lambert.

  Von Lambert’s XO was a shaven-headed older man named Hanne Knef with an almost silvery tinge to his skin. It appeared to be a cosmetic mod, not a transhuman’s circuitry, which was odd to see in a naval officer—especially an Imperial naval officer. If a man with visible cosmetic mods had risen to full Commander in the Imperial Navy, he was probably very good at his job.

  Thoth’s CAG was possibly the oldest person in the room, a small woman with wispy white hair and multiple obvious cybernetic replacements. Lieutenant Colonel Radomíra Horaček was a veteran of the last war who’d sacrificed an eye, an arm and a leg against the Commonwealth—and then returned to the colors when the war began anew.

  Vice Commodore Song and Senior Fleet Commander Taggart sat directly opposite Kyle, the pair neatly tag-teaming the Imperial officers over the course of the meal to pull them into the conversation.

  Once the meal was over and the stewards had cleared away the plates, Kyle picked up his glass and rose to face the table.

  “Ladies, gentlemen,” he said calmly as he held up his glass in a toast. “Spacers of the Free Stars, I give you liberty and the Alliance!”

  “The Alliance!” the others chorused back.

  “This isn’t exactly an Alliance op,” he continued after a moment, “but the toast seems appropriate nonetheless. One of the reasons our governments have put so much emphasis on this mission is to avoid any risk of this crisis triggering conflict
between us—the Alliance of Free Stars is the only bulwark either of our nations has against the Commonwealth’s expansion.”

  He let that sink in.

  “Of course, the truth is that the economies of the Alliance run on trade as much as industry,” he reminded them. “And trading with each other only takes us so far. Without the peacetime trade routes into Commonwealth space, the systems to Rimward of our nations become far more economically vital.

  “Even if we had not signed agreements binding us to protect these star systems, it is critical to our interests that freighters be able to move through this area safely. Until recently, this was enabled by us selling warships to the richer powers at bargain prices.”

  Everyone in the room had been briefed. He didn’t need to tell them what had been happening to those warships.

  “So far, the pirates don’t appear to have grown bold enough to attack even minor systems directly, but…” Kyle shook his head. “Given how rare any pirate with interstellar ships is, that can only be a matter of time,” he warned them. “The possible haul from raiding even a poor system will become tempting, especially as Alcubierre-Stetson ships become rarer on the ground.”

  “We can’t let that happen,” von Lambert pointed out. “Putting aside any economic consideration, that would be an atrocity of a scale not seen in those stars…ever.”

  “Easiest way to stop it is to find and kill the pirates,” Sarka replied. “Do we have a plan?”

  “Our first priority has to be the protection of shipping between the star systems,” Kyle told them. He sent an implant command and a holoprojector descended from the ceiling, lighting up the space above the table with a three-dimensional map of the area of operations.

  “We are sixty light-years, roughly sixteen days’ travel, from Antioch,” he continued. That system flashed in gold on the map. “Serengeti and Istanbul represent the other key systems of the Free Trade Zone.” All three systems now flashed gold.