Rimward Stars (Castle Federation Book 5)

by Glynn Stewart

  Tecumseh hadn’t handed over full specifications on Chariot, but he had given them enough that Kyle knew the ship had functionally the same guns as Thoth: six-hundred-kiloton-per-second positron lances, a mid-weight cannon for the last generation of starships.

  “The station has a notable lack of decent anti-fighter guns,” Tecumseh told them. “They do have a suite of fifty-kiloton guns, but it’s heavily underweight for what any of our navies would have given a station like that. It’s vulnerable to modern starfighters, hence its heavy defensive complements.”

  “Are you sure their fighters were Cobras?” Taggart demanded. “Those are a restricted export; I don’t even begin to understand how Coati has so many.”

  “Easy: he’s building them,” the Terran snapped. “I won’t even pretend I understand where he got the schematics, but he’s using civilian-grade zero-point cells and mass manipulators to assemble his own replicas.

  “It’s not efficient, but I’m guessing he’s got a crack team of engineers modifying the damn things,” he continued. “They end up with a fighter that isn’t quite as capable as your Cobra, but is more than close enough for their purposes.”

  “I’d really like to know where he got the schematics,” Song muttered. “Someone back home is going to get strung up by their thumbnails.”

  “What’s important today is that we know the Cobra,” Kyle pointed out. “We know its capabilities; we know its weaknesses. It sounds like if we assume Coati’s birds are fully Cobras, we might be pleasantly surprised—but let’s not bet on the opposition fielding junkers, shall we?”

  “I have full scans of the station and its surrounding platforms,” Tecumseh told them. “There were never fewer than four of his corsairs there while we were there, but they might have been keeping an eye on us.”

  “I’ll match two hundred–plus seventh-gen birds against a hundred and eighty sixth-gen,” Song said confidently. “The corsairs are a bit of a headache, but I haven’t been impressed with them as combat units.”

  “We’ll clear any of them out with missiles,” Kyle decided, “see if we can get the fighters to move out from the cover of the station’s weapons. Once we’ve cleared the defending fighters, we’ll need to carefully neutralize the station’s defense to allow for the boarding strike.”

  “We’ll need to make certain we have IFF links between the Marine forces,” the pale-skinned Colonel Tecumseh had brought into the meeting said slowly. “We don’t want any ‘incidents’ when our people are on the same station shooting.”

  “No tactical coordination,” Major Gonzalez snapped. “I don’t trust you in my networks.”

  “Nor do I trust you in mine,” the Terran Colonel agreed. “But we must work together, and I have no interest in losing anyone we don’t have to in this mess.”

  “Keep it civil,” Kyle ordered. “This is uncomfortable for all of us, but stopping Coati is more important. I can understand not wanting to be in each other’s networks, but have your EW people work out a solution. Clear?”

  “Clear,” Gonzalez agreed.

  “Clear,” the Terran confirmed. “I want Coati, Captain Roberts. Whatever it takes.”

  “Good. Then I think we all know what the plan is based on Commodore Tecumseh’s data,” Kyle said. “Let’s make this happen. We leave Istanbul in two hours.”

  #

  Michelle paused outside the Captain’s office, trying to marshal her arguments for the discussion ahead. Just because her wing was grounded hadn’t kept her out of the whirlwind of preparation for the operation, but she could tell her people’s morale was suffering.

  Stars, her morale was suffering. They were about to finally go after Coati, and she’d been ordered to stay on the sidelines.

  Steadying her nerves, she reached out to hit the buzzer for admittance, the door sliding open the moment she tapped it.

  “Come in, Wing Commander,” Captain Roberts ordered. “Have a seat. Coffee? Tea? Beer?”

  She’d never met any senior officer as willing to feed their people not only beer but expensive beer while they were on duty, but she shook her head this time.

  “Water, please, sir.”

  Michelle was certain that Captain Roberts had a steward—she was sure he didn’t restock the fridge and drink dispensary himself—but she’d never seen them in his office. He poured her a glass of water himself as she took a seat in front of his desk.

  “I can guess why you’re here,” he told her cheerfully, “so how about I run through the arguments for you?

  “You’re our most powerful single starfighter formation; we may need you. Your people’s morale has been impacted by being grounded. You want in on Coati’s destruction; your people have lost friends fighting him.

  “Oh,” the Captain’s smile widened, “and I forgot: ‘It’s just not fair!’ Have I summed things up roughly correctly, Wing Commander?”

  It was far too easy for even Michelle, who’d served under Roberts when he was in the Space Force, to forget that the Captain had been a starfighter pilot and a CAG before he’d been Navy.

  “Roughly, sir,” she admitted. “My people want—need—to be in on this, sir.”

  “I understand that,” he agreed. “However, I need to keep the existence of the Vulture secret from the Commonwealth a little while longer. Your bombers represent a Sunday punch that may turn the tide of the next major campaign. I’m not giving up that advantage when we should have enough firepower to take down Coati without it.”

  “And what if we do end up needed?” Michelle countered.

  “Then I expect that you and your people will have kept up your simulator regimen sufficiently that I will be able to deploy you to devastating effect,” Roberts told her. “Make no mistake, Wing Commander, if I see the need for your wing, I will use you.

  “But I also see a strategic imperative to keep the existence of our bomber wings quiet. I’m aware of the pressure that puts on you and your wing. It’s not easy to sit back and watch your friends go into combat without you, but it is, in this case, absolutely necessary.”

  A tinge of something twisted the grin.

  “You can consider it practice for higher command, Williams,” he told her.

  “I see, sir,” she admitted. “I don’t like it, but I understand.”

  “I know,” Roberts said. “But it’s the job. And if we couldn’t take the joke…”

  “We shouldn’t have signed up,” Michelle sighed, finishing the ancient cliché.

  “Exactly. Is there anything else, Commander?” the Captain asked gently.

  Michelle was about to rise to leave when a thought struck her.

  “May I ask a personal question, sir?” she said slowly. “Advice, I suppose.”

  “While I don’t think it’s in my job description anywhere, personal advice to senior officers has been part of the Captain’s job since time immemorial,” Roberts replied. “I’m not the best at it, but I’ll try.”

  “Vice Commodore Song specifically warned that her relationship judgment was compromised by her husband’s death,” Michelle pointed out.

  “I know,” the Captain agreed. “I take it this is another relationship question? You know my history, Wing Commander. I’m hardly qualified to give that advice!”

  She chuckled. While he seemed to be doing better now, the rumors about the Captain’s kid and how long it had taken him to see the boy were too detailed not to have some truth to them.

  “It’s a hypothetical question, I suppose,” she conceded. “Would you consider getting married while the war was still on?”

  Angela’s slip of the tongue in her last message was still in Michelle’s mind, like a loose tooth she couldn’t stop prodding as she tried to wrap her brain around it. She wasn’t sure if the thought made her happy or made her want to run away screaming.

  From the Captain’s thoughtful expression, it wasn’t necessarily something he’d considered himself.

  “Alvarez, I’m guessing?” he said softly.

&nbs
p; “Yeah. She…implied she might be planning to ask,” Michelle admitted. “With the war…I just don’t know.”

  “Would you know if the war wasn’t happening?” he asked. “Is it just that we’re at war that scares you, or is there something else?

  “I’ve known wartime relationships that ended badly,” he continued. “People who lost lovers in this war and the last. Whether or not you’re married doesn’t change how badly that hurts.”

  The Captain’s voice had softened as he spoke, much of his usual cheer fading. There were clearly specific incidents and friends on his mind, but his point had weight.

  “If we lose them, we lose them; is that what you mean?” Michelle asked. “So, we may as well take what we have?”

  “Exactly,” the Captain replied, his expression turning thoughtful again. “The war doesn’t allow us much in terms of our own lives, but we shouldn’t let it steal what little we are left. Find your joy where you can and don’t let go.”

  “What about after the war?” she asked. “What if it turns out that being separated so much was the only reason the relationship could work?”

  “It’s always possible,” he agreed. “But would you take happiness now or avoid it out of fear of a possibility?”

  That laid it bare and Michelle found herself smiling, her decision suddenly made.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Thank you, Wing Commander. I apparently needed to churn some thoughts of my own on the matter,” Roberts told her, the grin returning to his face. “Now, it seems, we’re definitely going to survive this mission.”

  “Why’s that, sir?” Williams said slowly, barely concealing a cringe as he taunted fate.

  “Because the last time I decided to take a leap like this, I flew a carrier through a battleship and lived,” the Captain told her as his smile widened. “So, precedent says we’ll be fine!”

  #

  Chapter 43

  KDX-6657 System

  18:00 December 9, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time

  DSC-052 Kodiak

  “Emergence complete,” Houshian reported. “All systems are green; engines are live.”

  “We are scanning the system,” Sterling reported. “Confirming, Thoth and Chariot are in formation. Launching q-probes now.”

  “Anything that disagrees with Tecumseh’s data?” Kyle asked.

  “So far, the rocks line up,” his tactical officer replied. “One chunk too far in for anything, one ugly mess, lots of asteroids and a gas giant that’s too small to be of use to anyone.” He paused. “It’s not much of a system, skipper.”

  “Which is why there’s nobody here. Do we have a bead on the station yet?”

  “I’ve got a blip that might be artificial in orbit of the second rock,” Sterling confirmed. “Probes are en route; I’ll have more data in about thirty minutes as the first ones skim by.”

  “If there’s something there, that’s good enough for now,” Kyle replied, linking through to Song. “Vice Commodore.”

  “Captain.”

  “Full-deck launch, if you please.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Forty-eight starfighters flashed into space from Kodiak’s launch tubes, followed by more from both Thoth and Chariot as all three ships cleared their decks, getting the entirety of their fighter groups into space.

  With the addition of Alexander’s fighters, it wasn’t even obvious that Kodiak was holding back a half-strength wing. Hopefully, there was no way Tecumseh could tell that Kyle was holding anything back.

  Over two hundred and fifty fighters took up formations in front of the warships, the Terran ships keeping distinctly clear of the Imperial and Federation starfighters.

  “This is going to be awkward as Void,” Taggart noted in Kyle’s implant channel. “We have no q-coms with them; we’re relaying through Song’s fighters. Let’s hope nobody gets too far apart, or relativity and time delays are going to start hashing our coms.”

  “I know,” Kyle conceded. “But I’m not handing them Federation-entangled blocks and Tecumseh’s not giving us Terran ones. So, we each keep a q-probe next to each other’s ships, just in case, and relay through the starfighters. It’s not efficient, but it will work.”

  And he’d rather have inefficiencies than hand a Commonwealth flag officer a link into the Alliance’s communication networks, no matter how safeguarded.

  “Tecumseh is sending us coordinates for the station,” Jamison told him. “Your orders?”

  The Terran Commodore seemed to be deferring to Kyle’s overall command, a smart decision when the Alliance forces outgunned his two to one.

  “Take us in,” Kyle ordered. “Not much point in being subtle yet. Keep two squadrons from each ship as a reserve, everyone else goes in and the capital ships follow.”

  Right now, their biggest advantage was that no one here was expecting an attack. Shock and surprise could take them a long way. It would take almost forty-five minutes for the fighter strike to reach missile range of the station, so there wouldn’t be much surprise by then…but he’d take what he could get.

  And the pirates weren’t going to like what he did with it at all.

  #

  “There you are,” Sterling stage-whispered, the soft words still managing to project across most of Kodiak’s bridge as the tactical officer pulled the feeds from the first wave of q-probes, the ones that were blasting past l’Estación de Muerte without slowing down, and transferred the data to the main tactical display.

  “The station is exactly where Tecumseh said it would be,” he noted. “I’m not picking up any ships or deployed starfighters, though I do have a number of defensive satellites the Terrans didn’t see.”

  “Didn’t see or didn’t tell us about?” Taggart demanded.

  “I’d guess they weren’t there,” Sterling replied. “The orbits are unstable, and given their size, they won’t be able to maintain them for long. These are a stopgap in case our Terran friend came back.”

  “Hardly enough of one,” Kyle pointed out as he studied the data. “They’re too small for capital ship missiles, so that’s, what, one or two salvos of a hundred fighter missiles? Chariot’s fighters would eat that for breakfast.”

  “But it would help backstop their weakness against fighters,” Sterling said. “If they used the satellite missiles to break Tecumseh’s first fighter strike, their own fighters and on-board weapons would be enough to see off Chariot.”

  “Unfortunately for them, our Terran friend brought us,” Kyle said with a chuckle. “Make sure Song has everything and remind her that we need that station intact. Much as I want to blow it to hell from maximum range, we need prisoners and data cores.”

  “She knows,” Taggart replied. “Gonzalez and Barbados are launching shuttles now. They’ll stick with us until the path is clear.”

  “Good. Any response from the station itself?”

  “Nothing,” Sterling said. “Which is weird. We’ve been in-system for thirty-five minutes and just buzzed them with high-speed q-probes. Those probes are stealthy, but not that stealthy…so what are they doing?”

  “Being clever,” Kyle concluded. “Watch them, Commander. If they don’t already have their starfighters in space, they’ve got something up their sleeve, and I don’t want any surprises.”

  “I’ve got them dialed in with more waves of q-probes heading their way,” his tactical officer replied. “If those bay doors open, we’ll know before they even have the birds in space. But so far…it’s quiet.”

  “Too quiet,” the Captain agreed. “They’re going to twitch, Commander. I need Song to know they’re doing it before they do.”

  “We’ll do what we can.”

  #

  Minutes continued to tick by and the distance between the fighter strike and the station dropped. The vectors put the range for both the Javelins and Starfires at just under two million kilometers, and the starfighters were rapidly approaching that line.

  There was no way that the pir
ates could rely on a hundred missile-launching satellites to deal with the starfighter strike, let alone the capital ships following behind it. Every second that passed, Kyle grew more concerned.

  “Son of a bitch,” Sterling suddenly swore. “Missile launch, I have missile launch—twenty Stormwinds and a hundred Javelins outbound, targeted on the starfighters.”

  The starfighters’ own acceleration worked against them, increasing the range at which the enemy could fire on them. The defenders had a hundred-thousand-kilometer range advantage, over fifteen seconds of flight time, and had used all of it.

  “They’re covering the fighter launch,” Kyle snapped. “Get me details—where are their birds?”

  “Jamming’s come up as well,” the tactical officer reported. “I can’t get a clean sight line; maneuvering the probes.”

  “Get me details, Commander. There’s a reason they’re trying to hide.”

  Kyle didn’t know what it was, but he knew it had to be there.

  “And get our missiles in the air,” he ordered. “Use their jammers to cover the starfighter wing and hold them for counter-fighter strikes. We can’t use Jackhammers on that station and take it intact.”

  “On it,” Taggart replied from secondary control. “Keep on those scans, Sterling. Missiles on their way.”

  Thoth was linked into Kyle’s command network, and Chariot’s commanders had clearly come to the same conclusion. Within seconds of the pirates’ firing, all three capital ships had launched, sending thirty missiles back at the immobile station.

  “Son of a bitch!” the tactical officer repeated, even more fervently. “Those aren’t Cobras!”

  “What?”

  “Confirm, I have one hundred sixty, one six zero, Katanas on outbound flights,” Sterling replied. “Repeat, Katanas, not Cobras.”

  “Fuck,” Kyle swore. “Threat parameters? Give me the delta!”

  “Fifty gees more accel, a fourth missile launcher, a sixty-kiloton lance instead of thirty-five, and a Voids-cursed powerful jamming module.”