Rimward Stars (Castle Federation Book 5)

by Glynn Stewart

  Constantinople orbit itself was quiet…too quiet. Nothing was moving.

  “Emergence!” Houshian announced, and Kyle kept analyzing the feed as they erupted into reality, a the nervous feeling sinking into the base of his spine.

  “Get Nebula up here,” he ordered. “Then get me a widebeam transmission on the Istanbul Self Defense Force frequencies.”

  “You’re on.”

  “ISDF units, this is Captain Kyle Roberts aboard the Castle Federation carrier Kodiak. We are not receiving responses on q-com channels and there appears to be some degree of uncertainty going on,” he said calmly. “Please advise of your status and the status of Constantinople and its orbitals.

  “We stand ready to provide humanitarian or defensive assistance as needed under the terms of our trade and security treaty. Please advise.”

  “Minimum four minutes for a response,” Jamison told him. “Unless someone actually gets on the q-com, anyway.”

  Kyle nodded, studying the feed and looking for any clues.

  “Energy signatures?” he asked Sterling.

  “There have definitely been antimatter explosions in orbit in the last forty-eight hours,” the tactical officer replied. “And remember those fighter platforms on the long transfer orbits? The one that would have been closest to Constantinople is gone, just debris now.”

  “What’s going on?” Nebula asked, entering the bridge. “My implant paged me.”

  “I was wondering, Mr. Nebula, if you could answer that for me,” Kyle admitted. “There’s evidence of combat in Constantinople orbit and local space, but no sign of an invasion. Your estimate?”

  The diplomat slash spy looked at the main screen. “May I link in to the tactical feed?” he asked.

  “Go ahead.”

  The bridge systems happily allowed the man to connect in once Kyle gave his permission, though since he wasn’t part of the bridge crew, they were tracking everything he did and reporting it to the Captain.

  “I did tell you that the Sultanate has a tradition of assassination,” Nebula warned. “I think…that’s exactly what we’re seeing here.”

  “Sir, incoming radio transmission,” Jamison interjected. “I have Commodore Mataraci transmitting.”

  “Send it to me,” Kyle ordered. For now, he suspected he might want to keep what was going on to himself.

  “Captain Roberts.” Mataraci’s voice was significantly less aggressive than the first time they’d spoken. In fact, he sounded almost…embarrassed. “Your timing is, well, awkward. The political situation is in some flux, but Sultan Seleucus is dead.

  “The…succession is being negotiated,” he continued after a moment’s pause. “It is mostly resolved at this point, but I am using the ISDF’s orbital contingent to maintain order and security while the Scimitars sort it out.

  “The arrival of multiple Alliance warships in orbit shouldn’t affect that process, but it would still be a complicating factor. May I…request that you keep your ships at one light-minute for the next twenty-four hours?

  “Inshallah, that should give us time to establish just who the new Sultan will be.”

  Kyle considered for a moment, then sighed and flipped the message to Nebula.

  “Your thoughts, Mr. Nebula?”

  The diplomat listened to the message and shrugged.

  “We lose nothing by delaying a day,” he pointed out. “And potentially gain goodwill from the next Sultan.”

  “Wonderful.”

  Kyle shook his head, but turned to Houshian.

  “Orders to the convoy,” he told her. “We are to decelerate to zero relative to Constantinople and hold for further notice from the surface.”

  #

  Two hours later, Kyle was sitting impatiently in his office, watching the continued slow, almost Brownian motion of sublight ships away from Constantinople. Now that they had time to study it, his people had picked out the civilian ships waiting in orbit…and the Needle starfighters launched from Mataraci’s sublight carriers standing guard above everything left.

  “Mataraci hasn’t picked a side, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Nebula said, the diplomat wandering into the office without much preamble. “From the data I’m getting on the ground, the only reason there’s debris in orbit is because someone did, and that’s not considered kosher in this kind of affair.”

  “This kind of affair is normal, is it?” Kyle asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Nebula said cheerfully. “This is a relatively normal transfer of power for the Sultanate. Someone tried to launch fighters from the closest platform, declaring themselves Sultan. Mataraci blew them to hell and ordered everyone in orbit to stay put until the new Sultan gave orders.”

  “And just what is going on on the surface?”

  “Seleucus is dead and the Household Guards have secured the Palace, but Seleucus’s brother apparently had a private army ready for just this event,” Nebula reeled off quickly. “There’s street fighting in Byzantium, but it shouldn’t last too much longer. The Army won’t tolerate it getting too bloody.”

  “The Household Guards,” Kyle repeated. “Let me guess: is Colonel Osman involved?”

  Nebula chuckled.

  “Colonel Rembrandt, of the First Household Guards, died defending his Sultan,” the diplomat explained. “Colonel Osman now holds the Sultan’s Palace and, as the bearer of a Scimitar and the possessor of the Palace, will be Sultan once that situation has lasted for thirty-six hours.”

  “I see where Mataraci’s time frame came from. What happens then?” Kyle asked, morbidly curious.

  “At that point, Sultan Osman will command the loyalty of the Army and the ISDF,” Nebula told him. “If the younger Seleucus concedes gracefully, he will be exiled to his family’s estates and otherwise pardoned.

  “If he does not, the Army will crush him.”

  “So, Osman will be Sultan,” Kodiak’s Captain considered, studying the diplomat. “Didn’t you meet with him for a while before we left? After you’d decided Sultan Seleucus was a threat?”

  “Sultan Seleucus made himself an enemy of the Federation and was looking to bring his system into the Commonwealth,” Nebula said calmly.

  “Did you assassinate him?” Kyle asked.

  “I was not here,” the spy pointed out. “I’ve been aboard Kodiak with you.”

  “That doesn’t really answer my question,” Kyle replied. “Did you arrange the assassination of the head of state of a gods-accursed ally?”

  Nebula sighed.

  “Do you want to know?” he asked flatly. “This is not the part of the job we give men like you. It’s the job we give men like me.”

  “If someone under my authority is arranging assassinations, I need to know.”

  “I did not arrange Sultan Seleucus’s assassination,” Nebula said levelly. “I did discuss the situation in detail with Colonel Osman, make it clear to him that the Federation would welcome a friendlier Sultan, and arrange for him to receive funds and supplies from the embassy’s black budget.

  “We did not ask what he planned, nor provide direct assistance, but yes, we underwrote Osman’s coup.”

  “We can’t just go around assassinating heads of state!” Kyle snapped. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “My job,” Nebula replied. “In another political structure, I would have arranged for us to fund the opposition political parties, possibly set up protests or forced a vote of no confidence. This is Istanbul’s system, Captain Roberts, though usually, these affairs are significantly less bloody.”

  He sighed.

  “If it makes you feel any better, I was expecting the usual targeted assassination and mostly ceremonial ‘defense of the Palace,’ not a goddamn street battle. Seleucus, it seemed, wanted to be certain his plans survived him.”

  “Did they?”

  “Unless the younger Seleucus comes up with a miracle in the next twelve hours, no,” Nebula said flatly. “We’ll let Osman secure control, then I suggest we del
iver the freighters and make sure we’re properly coordinated with them.

  “Everything else is…their internal affairs.”

  “Which we’ve already interfered in,” Kyle pointed out.

  “Yes. And now is the time to let the consequences of that run their course,” Nebula agreed. “My job is done. I suggest doing yours as if you didn’t know it had happened.”

  “This is not okay,” the Captain snapped.

  “No. But it is my job—just as it is your job to defend the Federation with starfighter and positron lance. And I do it damn well.”

  #

  Chapter 39

  Istanbul System

  22:00 November 29, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time

  DSC-052 Kodiak

  “Captain, I have…Sultan Osman on the q-com for you,” Jamison reported.

  Kyle took a sip of his beer and nodded wordlessly, even though he knew she couldn’t hear him. The last of the opposition to Osman had been driven from Byzantium before the deadline, though no one aboard Kodiak was quite certain what had happened to the younger Seleucus.

  “Put him through,” he ordered aloud. “Full visual.”

  He slid the beer into his desk. Irritating as the situation was, it was still not appropriate for even a friendly head of state to see the commander of a Federation capital ship drinking beer. He’d been expecting the call, sooner or later, so he was still wearing his full uniform.

  Osman was still wearing his white-and-gold Household Guard uniform when he appeared on the screen, but he’d traded in the unostentatious Scimitar of a man in the line of succession for the Golden Scimitar of the Sultan of the Istanbul System.

  “Captain Roberts,” he greeted Kyle warmly. “Welcome back to Istanbul. I apologize for the confusion; the timing proved less optimal than I hoped—and the Seleucus clan less willing to concede than even my worst fears.”

  “I am led to understand street fighting in the capital isn’t a normal part of your political changeovers,” Kyle replied.

  “No, but I freely admit that assassination is,” Osman confirmed. “Fortunately, while this tradition doesn’t require the Sultan to make transitions easy, I had some very qualified security professionals, and I’ve opened up my predecessor’s files.”

  His face turned grim.

  “You can imagine, Captain, how busy I am right now. So, you can guess just how bad what I’ve found is that I have made time for you this quickly.”

  Given that Kyle was in command of the only two capital ships in the man’s star system, he wasn’t actually surprised that Osman was speaking to him already. Phrased that way, though…

  “The Federation stands ready to assist the Sultan of Istanbul per our treaties,” he said calmly. “Though I’m sure you understand that your political transitions are…disconcerting for us.”

  “Stars know, they’re disconcerting enough for us,” Osman told him. “If I thought I could change the system, it would be among my highest priorities.” He shook his head. “Send my extended family to the Void, though, if they’d be willing to run the planet any other way.

  “Today, however, this is all to your advantage, Captain. I do not need the Federation’s assistance beyond what you are already here to achieve, but I am afraid that it now falls to me to confess my predecessor’s sins.”

  “What did he do?” Kyle asked. Osman’s urgency suggested the answer, though, and it terrified him.

  “Sultan David James Seleucus brokered the deal between Antonio Coati and Marshal Walkingstick,” Osman said flatly. “He has been supplying Coati for over two years now, directing the pirates mostly at his competition.”

  “What about Sultan?” Kyle said. The ISDF’s one starship had been destroyed by Coati’s pirates.

  “Collateral damage that Seleucus didn’t know about in advance,” Osman replied. “He was promised a modern Commonwealth ship to replace her, because, of course, the ship was more meaningful than the five thousand people aboard.”

  Osman’s grip on the ceremonial scimitar was tight, his knuckles turning white.

  “I wish,” he continued, his voice slow and calm, “that I had known about more of this before. I apologize, Captain Roberts, on behalf of the Scimitars of Istanbul. It is our task to prevent Sultans from falling this far.”

  That made a certain degree of sense to Kyle, given his own problems with the Federation’s Senators, though his own background suggested impeachment as a preferred option to assassination.

  “How much have you learned?” he asked. “Have you found a base or something?”

  “Not yet,” Osman admitted. “My best people are tearing through the files, but there’s a lot of information Seleucus kept locked down. I can tell you one thing: your opposite number is a Commodore James Tecumseh, and he arrived with a task group of two warships and a transport.

  “There may be more details in the files, but like I said, we’re still digging.”

  “James Tecumseh?” Kyle asked. “Are you sure?”

  “Seleucus spoke with the man, it seems.” Osman shook his head. “This is a mess, Captain Roberts, and it appears much of it is my world’s fault. We will learn what we can.”

  “I’ve met Tecumseh,” Kyle replied. “He seems an odd choice for this kind of operation.”

  Tecumseh, after all, had been the man who had chosen honor over his career and allowed Kyle to hunt down the Terran ship that had devastated an Alliance world.

  “I can’t speak to that,” the Sultan admitted, “only to what I have learned, which is that he is in command.”

  “It’s a starting point. I do have some expert software people aboard; we can assist if you wish.”

  Osman shook his head.

  “While much of this is relevant to you, Captain, there is just as much that is our own affairs. Without knowing everything my predecessor locked away, I am hesitant to air his dirty laundry for the Alliance to see.”

  “I can appreciate that,” Kyle accepted. “We’ll be in orbit by morning ESMDT. Let me know what your people find, or if we can be of assistance in any way.”

  “So long as those freighters arrive intact, you’re already being of great assistance,” Osman told him. “Thank you, Captain.”

  #

  “Go rest, Flight Commander,” Michelle ordered her senior squadron leader. “Stand down the bombers; the situation is under control.”

  “What a fucked-up system,” the man replied. “They seriously just killed the Sultan and everything just…goes on with the new boss?”

  “Humans do all kinds of crazy shit,” she agreed. “But we’re not needed for now, and we might be in the morning. Go on, get.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Michelle stepped off the Flight Deck into her office, her implants keeping her informed as the ready squadron of bombers slowly stood down, the crews disembarking and heading toward their bunks.

  She was still surprised they’d made it this far without losing a single one of her twenty-four Vultures. JD-Tech had sent her some of the specifications for the intended final Vulture design, asking for her opinion, but the basic Terran design was perfectly functional.

  The thought of having the Commonwealth spring them on the Alliance by surprise sent shivers down her spine. The countermeasure—regular starfighters—already existed, but the bomber was simply a more efficient ship-killer.

  As she started pulling that in, a mental alert went off, letting her know she’d received a recorded communication from Angela via q-com. Given the later hour, she resisted leaving the schematic review until morning for roughly two seconds, then activated her girlfriend’s message.

  “Hey, love,” the blonde nurse told her from the recording. “We’re under a minor communication lockdown, so I can’t talk live.”

  She looked tired, though that wasn’t an uncommon look for senior nurses in the Navy.

  “Blacksmith is in motion,” she continued. “We got sent to back up…one of the other Fleets after a major action; we’ve b
een dealing with wounded Marines for days. It’s been…rough.”

  Most space actions didn’t leave a lot of wounded. Ground and boarding actions, however, often left many Marines in need of medical attention. Sometimes more than the available transports and Navy ships could provide, hence a ship like Blacksmith.

  “I’m still here,” Angela concluded with a smile. “We’re shuttling a bunch of wounded back to Castle shortly, and my understanding is they’ll be keeping us there for a bit. No idea how long, but I’ve been told I’ll be able to get a few weeks’ leave at least.”

  The smile twisted a bit, a sad turn that tore at Michelle’s heart.

  “By which I mean I’ve been ordered to take three weeks’ leave, minimum,” she admitted. “I’m hoping you’ll be around before we head back out; I’d love a chance to see you. This whole Forces wi—girlfriend thing is hard enough when it isn’t both of us out in danger.

  “I’ve been thinking about us,” she continued. “Stuff I don’t think can be said over a com and definitely not over a recording. What I want, where I think we should go. Nothing bad, my love,” Angela said determinedly, “but let’s say I’m really looking forward to seeing you again.

  “Fly safe and come back to me. I love you.”

  Michelle sat still for a long few seconds, looking at the frozen image of Angela. The nurse’s slip of the tongue was meaningful, especially with how she’d finished the message.

  “Wife” was the word she’d almost used, and the thought had sent Michelle’s heart into pirouettes.

  She wasn’t entirely sure where she stood on the topic, even with the plan for a shared apartment back home, but the thought…was far from unwelcome.

  #

  Chapter 40

  Istanbul System

  07:00 December 1, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time