Hardy whistled silently.
“I don’t know how much you’ll be able to do with that,” she admitted. “I don’t pretend to be briefed on the timelines, sir, so I’m not going to argue. But that’ll give you maybe twenty-four hours in the slips. That’s barely enough to—”
“—to close the major holes in the hulls,” Kyle finished for her. “Hopefully, that’s all we’ll need. I’ll need to steal every starfighter you can spare, though.”
The Star Kingdom officer shook her head at him.
“I don’t suppose I can’t spare any is an acceptable answer?” she replied. “I only have three hundred starfighters, Admiral. And keeping even two hundred in space to look like we’ve got more is hurting my people.”
“I’m down almost half my fighter strength, Captain,” Kyle admitted sadly. “I don’t plan on actually picking a fight when I head out next, but I need to at least look like I’m going to.”
He was relatively certain his true mission had been accomplished, but he needed to keep the Commonwealth’s gaze riveted on him. That meant he had to make at least one more attack.
It didn’t need to succeed. It just needed to happen.
MICHELLE CAREFULLY BURIED her discomfort as she looked around the virtual “conference room.” The two Imperial Flight Colonels were senior to her but had conceded command of Forty-First Fleet’s fighters to her. The senior Wing Commanders now in charge of the fighters from Avalon, Genghis Khan and Carolus Rex were all junior to her, though, and she had exactly three days’ seniority over Vice Commodore Kimi Wirt, the commander of the Federation detachment there in Via Somnia.
“You’ll understand, Vice Commodore Williams-Alvarez, that I’m…unenthused with these orders,” Wirt finally said as she finished reviewing her instructions from Roberts. “We already stripped the cupboard here at Via Somnia bare to fill Task Force Midori’s losses when they moved out as Seventh Fleet.
“Via Somnia should have a full Commodore or even a Rear Admiral commanding a flotilla of a thousand starfighters or more,” she concluded. “Instead, we have me, four wings of Falcons, one wing of Vultures and two battlecruisers’ worth of Phoenix Templars.
“Three hundred and thirty-six starfighters,” she concluded unnecessarily. “If we stripped Via Somnia bare, we couldn’t replace your losses, and then Via Somnia would be basically defenseless!”
“I’m not certain of Admiral Roberts plans,” Michelle admitted, “but I suspect we’re taking Unstoppable and Defiant with us. If this operation works out, holding Via Somnia won’t be nearly as difficult—and if it fails, whether we hold Via Somnia won’t matter.”
Everyone else in the room winced at her frankness.
“We’re going for checkmate, people,” she reminded them. “I doubt that’s a shock to anyone, but if you hadn’t realized it, let’s make it clear: we’ve hung the entire survival of the Alliance on a black swan play. Our job is to keep the Commonwealth looking at the Stellar Fox while the sucker punch swings.
“So, yes, I am aware that I’m asking you to strip Via Somnia bare,” she told Wirt. “I’ve already spoken to JD-Personnel, and your transfer orders, Vice Commodore Wirt, are being processed as we speak. You’re moving aboard Avalon to take command of SFG-001.
“And we are taking all of the starfighters,” she continued grimly. “I suspect we’ll leave one of the freighters as an evac ship, because I doubt that Roberts is going to expect the defense platforms to hold on their own.”
Wirt was silent for several seconds.
“I guess we should have figured that when Admiral Rothenberg left the system with thirty-eight capital ships,” she admitted. “That’s the largest force the Alliance has ever deployed as one unit. For all of the marbles, eh?”
“For everything,” Michelle agreed. “That’s classified, but since the entire damn Alliance is under coms lockdown, it’s not like you’re telling anyone.
“Let your subordinates know the immediate plan,” she continued. “We need every fighter aboard Seventh Fleet by oh six hundred hours tomorrow. Last plan I heard is that we’re going to be back in FTL by twelve hundred hours.”
Around her, Elysium had barely made it into her repair slip, the supercarrier’s crew already suiting up and swarming over her hull.
They’d have twenty-four hours to do as much good as they could and load the starfighters aboard. Then…then they went back to war.
“I know this is a harsh turnaround and we’re barely going to have time to exercise our new wings and groups before we go straight into action with the Commonwealth, but needs must when the Void drives,” she told them. “We know what we need to do. Let’s make it happen.”
CAPTAIN HARDY and her fellow Star Kingdom of Phoenix officer, Captain Delilah Sutherland, looked more than a little shocked and discomfited by their inclusion in Kyle’s briefing for Forty-First Fleet. With all nine of the original ships in repair slips, he’d corralled all of his Captains into an in-person meeting aboard the fleet base.
“We are abandoning Via Somnia,” he told them without preamble. “I’m officially commandeering both of your cruisers and all of the base’s starfighters.
“We’ve used up enough munitions and supplies to empty one of my logistics ships, so we’ll use Sunlight of Richmond to evacuate the defensive platforms. We’ll leave an AI to continue running the ECM systems to try and fool the Commonwealth as long as possible, but once we’ve completed what repairs we can, we are leaving the fleet base empty.”
“What happens when the Commonwealth comes back?” Hardy demanded.
“The AI destroys the base,” Kyle said flatly. “We’re honestly not getting that much use out of it—we seized it to remove a threat to our spinward flank. We don’t have much need for its facilities, and we need the ships, fighters, and people we’ve deployed to defend it.
“Let the Commonwealth have the system back if they want it. There won’t be anything of value left here for them.”
“So, when do we move?” Novak asked. “All of our ships need a lot of work.”
“Twelve hundred hours tomorrow,” he said levelly. “We are five light-years—just over four days—from the Leopold System.
“Leopold is one of the key systems for Niagara’s logistics support. I expect Walkingstick to have reinforced it heavily, and I intend to arrive on the ninth and threaten it, keeping his attention focused on us.”
He glanced around the room, waiting to see if anyone picked up on his careful phrasing.
“Threaten it, sir?” Bai’al finally asked, the Trade Factor officer looking amused.
“We will arrive at roughly fourteen hundred hours on October eighth,” Kyle told them. “Our job, more than anything else, is to make sure that Walkingstick dispatches no offensives into Alliance space before October tenth.
“In no way, shape or form does that objective require us to actually take the Leopold System, and given the state of our fleet, I have no intention of even trying,” he continued. “My plan is to drag our coats in front of the defenders, draw them into a missile-and-starfighter duel, and allow them to ‘chase us off.’
“My goal is to be in the Leopold System for twenty-four to thirty-six hours, and to be gone before the Operation Medusa assault kickoff,” he concluded.
“We need Walkingstick looking over his shoulder, not sending his fleets at our homeworlds, when the ax finally drops.”
“What happens then?” Hardy asked. “I haven’t been briefed…”
“And you won’t be,” Kyle admitted. “Not until it happens. Then, well… At that point, either the war will be over…or this fleet will be all that stands between James Calvin Walkingstick and conquest of the Alliance.
“I will not risk Forty-First Fleet to sustain the distraction at this point. We need to attack somewhere Walkingstick is looking—but we do not need to press that attack hard enough to take losses.”
Kyle smiled.
“Victory this week, people, rests in the hands of others.”
/>
32
Niagara System
14:00 October 5, 2737 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
BB-285 Saint Michael
THE ENTIRE NIAGARA System buzzed with activity as the twenty-two capital ships of Vice Admiral Gabor’s Twenty-Fifth Fleet jockeyed with the existing nineteen ships of Walkingstick’s reserve, officially Thirty-Eighth Fleet.
The forty-one capital ships represented a third of the strength he’d had two weeks before, the Marshal reflected. With the loss of Vasek’s seventeen ships, they were now, well, forty percent of his command.
Tasker had another twenty on their way. That would bring Niagara up over sixty warships, every ship he’d been given that wasn’t tied up in defensive commitments that the Marshal of the Rimward Marches couldn’t help but feel shouldn’t have fallen under his jurisdiction.
He’d been tasked to conquer sixty-five star systems. Expecting him to protect the twenty Commonwealth stars closest to his enemy was…aggravating.
James would admit, at least in the privacy of his own mind, that he hadn’t cared when they’d included that in his assignment. He hadn’t expected the war to last this long—he’d had plans and allowances for the possibility, of course, but they’d been low-probability items.
First, the Alliance had frustrated his early campaigns. Then, just as he’d finished grinding them down so he’d be able to take them with his expected reinforcements, the war with the League had broken out and his reinforcements had evaporated.
He didn’t buy that as coincidence. It was far more likely, in his opinion, that that whole mess had been an Alliance covert operation—but no one had any proof of that.
Not that it would have mattered. Not anymore. As soon as the punitive expedition had been launched, that war had been unavoidable too.
“Sir, Commodore Corna is requesting some of your time this afternoon,” Andrea Messere told him. “I think the analysis department may have a…well, a guess as to Robert’s next step.”
James smiled.
“I have my own guesses, but we need to make a decision.” He thought for a moment.
“Get Corna, Bousaid, Gabor and Tasker in a conference in thirty minutes,” he ordered. “And tell Captain Tarr that he should make certain Saint Michael is ready for action in all respects.”
Captain Bohumil Tarr was James’s flag captain, an unflappable veteran of a dozen annexations.
“You’re taking command yourself, sir?” Messere asked.
Good subordinates were a treasure, James reflected. Clever subordinates were worth their weight in gold.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “If our political masters are going to insist I take down Admiral Roberts, then I am going to make damned certain it’s done right.”
ONCE AGAIN, Commodore Corna and Commander Bousaid found themselves facing a wall of stars as James assembled his senior officers for the planning meeting.
Tasker was still half a day out, attending via q-com. Everyone else was present in person. It was a small meeting: the two analysis officers, James, Admiral Gabor and Commander Messere.
“All right, Commodore,” James told Corna. “You weren’t far off last time. What’s your guess this time?”
She shook her head.
“There’s a lot of factors in play,” she admitted. “We’ve confirmed that he fell back to Via Somnia after clashing with Vasek’s fleet, but our stealth platforms in Via Somnia have gone dead.”
“Dead?” he asked. “I thought they were supposed to survive anything.”
“They’re not supposed to survive Alliance starfighters firing positron lances into them,” she said grimly. “Someone had clearly spent the last few months nailing down the location of every drone we had in the system. They got a clean sweep, roughly thirty hours after Roberts arrived.”
“So, there’s something in Via Somnia they want to hide,” Gabor replied. “Should we be heading there?”
“No,” James replied instantly. “If we combined all three fleets, we’d be able to take their Forty-First and Seventh Fleets, but Roberts won’t have stayed—and if they’ve blown our surveillance platforms, they’ve almost certainly sent their Seventh Fleet somewhere as well.”
The Marshal shook his head.
“We’re in the endgame, people,” he said grimly. “We need to punch out this damn Forty-First Fleet and then head right back to the Trade Factor and finish what we started there. Our political masters want it very clear that attacking our systems will not be tolerated.”
The hypocrisy wasn’t lost on James, but it wasn’t a surprise. Few of the Unificationists really understood what “waging war to unify humanity” really meant. The Commonwealth was too used to being invulnerable.
“But that means we need to catch our dear Fox. That’s where you come in, Commodore Corna.” He gestured to his chief analyst.
“Much of what we discussed last time around him moving back to Via Somnia applies now in reverse,” she told them. “The Carnelian or Jinsei No Ai Systems are the closest systems to Via Somnia that are lightly defended.
“The Leopold System is about as close but already has Rear Admiral Hopper’s battle group there. Three Assassins and a Lexington aren’t going slow Roberts down much, but so far, he’s avoided heavier defenses.”
“Leopold is also one of our key logistics centers,” James pointed out. “We’ve basically taken over the local zero-point-cell industry to supply our needs. If he destroys Leopold’s orbital industry, we’re in actual trouble logistically.”
“So far, he’s only hit one of those systems,” Bousaid pointed out. “I think the odds are that if he knows them…well, he’s probably trying to keep us guessing. I’d expect him to hit one more non-key system first.”
“It depends on how much Admiral Roberts and his superiors want our attention,” the Marshal replied. “You’re right, he wants to keep us guessing—but he also has to actually undermine our war effort, and he hasn’t done much of that yet.”
“What about Vasek’s fleet?” Tasker asked.
James shook his head.
“That wasn’t part of his plan. The rebels held him up and allowed Vasek to catch him. No, he wants to make a splash, weaken us.”
The Marshal smiled grimly.
“How far are we from those systems?” he asked, running the numbers in his head.
“Between four and five days,” Gabor said instantly. “Roberts will need to repair his ships. The yards at Via Somnia can take care of his damage, but it will take them time. We’ve plenty of time to move into place.”
“Roberts is too aggressive for that,” James disagreed. “He’ll do the minimum amount of repairs, replenish his starfighters from Seventh Fleet and head straight back out. If he does it right, he’ll smash the next system with just his starfighters, keeping his starships out of the way.”
“We can’t let him do that,” Tasker objected.
“And we won’t,” James agreed. “But we need to cover all of our bases still. Gabor—I need you to split your fleet in three. You’ll take one detachment to Carnelian. You’ll pick a subordinate to take another to Jinsei No Ai.
“The third will join my Thirty-Eighth Fleet and we will head directly to Leopold.”
“What about my ships?” Tasker asked.
“You’ll follow us to Leopold,” James told her. “Seven ships, with the local defenses, should at least force Roberts to hesitate at Carnelian or Jinsei No Ai. I expect him at Leopold, however, and I want the forces to crush him.
“Utterly.”
33
Deep space, en route to Leopold System
15:00 October 7, 2737 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
Alliance Forty-First Fleet
“YOU KNOW that I have no idea where you are,” Mira’s recorded message told Kyle. “But I know you, which tells me that you’re in about the largest amount of trouble you can possibly find.”
The tall Rear Admiral he was engaged to shook her head at him with a bright smile.
>
“Hopefully, you’re unleashing it on the Commonwealth and not suffering from it, love. Be careful.
“For myself, well, I’m learning some degree of appreciation for these gunships I’ve ended up in command of,” she continued. “I’m not sure I wouldn’t have rather had the same stellar investment in starfighters, but they can certainly pull their weight.”
That was about all she could say about her own work, though, so the recording paused for a moment as she considered.
“Your friend Mason has grown into command well, too,” she noted. “I even got to meet the baby!”
Kyle smiled. Mason’s lover, his old friend Michael Stanford, had died in the Battle of Huī Xing, but he’d left sperm samples behind, just in case. He hadn’t met their child himself, but he was glad to know the little girl existed.
And if having a four-month-old baby, even if he had been carried to term ex utero, was why Captain Kelly Mason and the strike cruiser Sunset had remained in Home Fleet when most of the Navy had charged off on Operation Medusa…well, Kyle hadn’t asked and couldn’t bring himself to mind.
“Don’t worry,” Mira continued, “I’m only coming over somewhat maternal from the adorable baby. What Mason’s doing is brave and romantic and I bloody well refuse to try and raise a kid without you; am I clear, Admiral Roberts?”
He laughed. That was a more pointed comment directed at him than it would have been at most—given that he hadn’t met his son with Lisa Kerensky until the boy was ten years old—but her intent was clear.
“I’m pretty sure Rear Admirals can’t give Vice Admirals orders, but I’m also pretty sure everyone will forgive me for this one,” she noted. “Come home, Kyle. Kick the Commonwealth’s ass, and then come home to me so we can plan a future.”
Operation Medusa (Castle Federation Book 6) Page 21
