“I agree,” the Imperator confirmed. “My understanding is that Mayor Musil is the senior remaining member of the previous government—and his actions in enabling us to take the planet with minimal collateral damage have been well publicized.”
The only person in the conference who seemed surprised by the suggestion was Johannes Musil himself. Kyle had figured out what was coming the moment Rear Admiral Alstairs had told him who was being invited to the meeting.
“It appears to be the best option,” Senator O’Connell confirmed. “As part of the Alliance, we will keep Cora safe while Interim Governor Musil restores order and holds a new constitutional convention.”
“I… I… I’m not sure that I’m the right person for the job,” Musil replied.
“Perhaps, but you’re the only person who can do it,” Summervale told him calmly. “Your world needs you, Johannes Musil. The right guiding hand could see Cora emerge from this stronger and wiser, but even a few missteps at this stage could leave your world ruined.”
The mayor was not a large man, but Kyle could see him straighten at the Phoenix Prime Minister’s words. Musil was a politician. He had to know he was being played—if Kyle could see it, he was sure the Coran man could see it—but it worked anyway.
“We all do what we must,” he finally said. “On behalf of my planet and myself, I accept.”
Chapter 17
Cora System
10:00 March 17, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
Orbital Fighter Platform Zion-K265
“Pack it up, people,” Edvard ordered Bravo Company. His Marines were scattered throughout the airless, lightless void of the Zion-class fighter platform, checking to make sure there weren’t any unexpected holdouts from the Terrans.
Even with Navy sensors telling them the station was empty of life, it wasn’t quite busywork—there were ways to conceal the heat signatures of humans, after all.
“The new Governor finally found some people to send up to take possession of his new orbital defenses,” the Lieutenant Major continued. “And we, for those of you who didn’t read even the part of the ops plan you were cleared for, are heading out-system in two hours. Chimera wants us back aboard.”
Third Battalion had drawn the figurative short straw and was going to be staying on Montreal, guarding the new government and training a new planetary army from scratch. It was a necessary job, and one with a lot more public attention and friendly locals than the general run of chores the Castle Federation Marine Corps got assigned.
They were welcome to it. Edvard Hansen had signed up to fight pirates and the Commonwealth, and that was where he was going.
He wasn’t surprised when Ramirez materialized next to his arm.
“We only got seventy percent of the station swept, sir,” he said quietly over a direct channel. “We covered the most likely areas first, so we can be pretty sure the place is empty, but…”
“I know, Gunny,” Edvard told him. “We could spend a week securing platforms and satellites, though, and still be only ‘mostly sure’ they were empty. The Corans will be fine.”
“Still doesn’t feel right, leaving them in the lurch like this,” Ramirez admitted.
“Since we, ahem, accidentally rendered the Commonwealth freighter unable to generate a warp bubble, they’re getting everything she had aboard,” the Lieutenant Major pointed out. “That’s a lot of firepower, Gunny. More than most systems have to keep themselves safe.”
“And no starships,” his NCO pointed out. “Void, sir, are they even going to be able to man those platforms and fighters? Most of the people they had trained to do that died defending this system the first time.”
“Needs must when the Void pulls,” Edvard said quietly. “This op always called for temporary defenses in the systems we liberated until further reinforcements were available from the Reserve or new construction. They were supposed to have plans to hide their military personnel if the Commonwealth took over, but…”
“The CDC didn’t spend the money,” Ramirez accepted sadly. “It still doesn’t feel right, sir.”
“Well, Gunny, if everything goes right, this place will be safe, and we’ll give the Terrans a beating they won’t forget. Get our people moving. I don’t think Chimera will leave without us, but we are trying to get three Battle Groups to one place at the same time!”
DSC-078 Avalon, Bridge
“So, Maria, can we do it?” Kyle asked his navigator.
“I can do it,” she noted calmly. “Assuming we break orbit anytime in the next three hours, I can get us to Frihet on time. But you are talking a simultaneous arrival for three separate forces, all engaged in relativistic—if low-tau—courses while sublight and then warping space beyond recognition while flying faster than light. To pull it off, I need to be good—but so do Rear Admiral Alstairs’ navigator and Force Commander Aleppo’s navigator.”
“Both of whom you have been talking to all but constantly for three days,” the Force Commander observed with a cheerful smile. “So, Maria, can we do it?”
“Sixty-forty,” she admitted. “But even if someone’s timing is off, we’ll know at least a day in advance and the other two Battle Groups can adjust their deceleration to match whoever is falling behind. So, yes, sir, we can do it.”
“Any major concerns?” he asked, suddenly more serious.
“No,” she replied. “Everyone’s A-S drives have been gone over with a fine-toothed comb, and we’re not even pushing Avalon’s engines this time. Besides, is this degree of finesse even necessary, boss?”
“I don’t know,” Kyle admitted. Alliance Intelligence put the same three starships at Frihet that they’d expected at Cora, Zahn and Hammerveldt. Since there had only been three starships between those systems, he wasn’t sure what to expect at Frihet. “If Intelligence is right this time, bringing everyone in should give us a four-to-one advantage. On the other hand, if the missing ships are at Frihet…”
“I guess we wouldn’t want only one Battle Group showing up, then,” Pendez agreed. She shrugged. “We’re just waiting on the Marines to return aboard Chimera. Once Captain Langdon confirms the Brigadier’s people are aboard, we can be on our way immediately.”
“Let’s stick to the schedule unless something comes up,” Kyle instructed. “This is a simple enough evolution for the moment, so let’s keep it that way.”
“Yes, sir.”
#
“Seven-Two is ready to go as soon as our Marines are aboard,” Kyle reported to Alstairs from his office. It was a small conference via Q-Com with the three Battle Group commanders plus Alstairs’ flag captain. “I don’t expect to be leaving late, though Commander Pendez tells me we have an hour or so of leeway before it will be an issue.”
“Seven-Three departed six hours ago,” Aleppo advised him. The Trade Factor Force Commander’s Battle Group had the farthest to go—twelve light-years to Seven-Two’s eleven or Seven-One’s ten. “We are on schedule for arrival.”
“Seven-One will be ready to depart in approximately eight hours,” Rear Admiral Alstairs confirmed once her subordinates had finished reporting. “So far, we are on schedule for Phase Two of Rising Star?”
“Fully,” Kyle confirmed. “We were able to use the captured Terran freighter to provide orbital defenses to Cora. I suspect she was intended to provide defenses to several systems, which will give Cora a very solid defense network once they’re all online.”
“How long is that going to take?” the Admiral asked.
“Longer than I’d like,” Kyle admitted with a sigh. “From what Governor Musil has learned so far, barely ten percent of the Cora Security Force personnel survived. He has found their records, however, and has people digging up every ex-member of the Force they can find. Enough experienced volunteers have come forward over the last few days that Musil believes they can have the two deployed platforms online—at least as missile control centers—by tomorrow evening Standard Meridian.
“Refitting the pl
atforms with non-Commonwealth Q-Coms is going to be the biggest task,” he continued, “and Seven-Two is out of reserve blocks of entangled particles. Nonetheless, Cora’s new military may not have a name, but they will have a fully functioning defense network by the end of the week—one that is only going to grow stronger given time.”
“But you have the Federation platforms aboard the logistics ship still?” Aleppo asked.
“Exactly,” he confirmed. “None of those platforms or fighters are being deployed here—Governor Musil has accepted the logic.”
“That will help make up for the loss of the Venture in terms of Rising Star,” the Rear Admiral said grimly. “A lot is going to depend on what we encounter at Frihet,” she continued. “If they’ve based a nodal force there, we could be looking at an even fight.”
“I’m not a fan of those,” Kyle noted. “But with all three groups arriving, I’m pretty sure we can make them leap the wrong way.”
“Somehow, that you want them looking the wrong way when you punch them doesn’t surprise me,” Aleppo said dryly. “I’m glad you’re on my side.”
“We need more data to really play them,” he replied. “In this case, we’re probably best off going in fast and crushing them with overwhelming firepower. It all depends on whether their missing ships are there.”
“It’s unlikely that those ships are missing for a reason we’ll like,” Solace noted. She was being quiet, though Kyle certainly had been aware of her presence. “I would guess they’ve been pulled back for upgrades. There’s a lot of things they could be refitting their old ships with that would make our life harder—modern deflectors, for example.”
“I don’t trust a position Walkingstick set up to be as weak as this appears,” Admiral Alstairs agreed. “I’m also concerned about rumors they’ve been testing a seventh-generation starfighter—by now, they have to have realized the deficiencies of the Scimitar’s design versus our new ships. Re-equipping their carriers and cruisers with a starfighter capable of going toe-to-toe with our Falcons will be a headache.”
“Walkingstick thinks like I do, I believe,” Kyle told his fellows. “So, my question is…where does he want us looking—and what are we missing?”
“I don’t know,” Alstairs said slowly. “We can hope he didn’t see Rising Star coming—we’ve been pretty lackadaisical about attempting to reclaim our systems, after all. But if he did… Watch your backs, people,” she ordered.
“We’ll discuss our plans for Frihet in detail as we get closer. Review what we have on the system, and for now, let’s assume that all six of our missing ships are there.”
#
The Rear Admiral and Force Commander Aleppo dropped off the channel, leaving just Kyle and Mira on the conference. Given that everyone else in the Fleet was limited to recorded messages to their loved ones, stealing even a handful of minutes made Kyle feel guilty.
“If we cut this off early, the Admiral will tell me off again,” Mira said immediately, heading off his guilt with the smile so few people saw. It transformed the elegant ebony statue of his former executive officer’s work persona into a still-gorgeous but far more human woman.
“How are you holding up?” he asked quietly. Camerone was her first command, and one she’d been rushed into with little notice or preparation. While they’d taken advantage of her no longer being his subordinate quite quickly, he was also concerned about the demands on her.
“Alstairs built up a good team,” she told him. “And, thankfully, she also knows when to get out of the way. Her people don’t look to her for orders instead of me most of the time.” She paused. “It’s good. We don’t do the easiest job in the galaxy, but with this team behind me, I’m doing okay.”
“I saw the Zahn reports,” Kyle replied. “I’d say you’re doing better than okay!”
“I at least didn’t hang my ship out to dry as bait!” she said. “What were you thinking?”
“That I was outside the gravity zone the whole time and could have backup in place in twelve minutes,” he told her with a grin. “Compared to the crap I pulled at Barsoom, that was nothing—and pulling it off captured a star system in exchange for thirty-seven Marines.”
His grin faded as he remembered that. Most of them had died on the surface, taking Trudeau City. Just because the casualties had been light to take an entire system didn’t stop them being people with lives and memories that were now lost.
“How often can you play the odds like that, Kyle?” she asked. “Sooner or later, one of your stunts is going to blow up in your face.”
“I know,” he agreed. “That’s why the Cora plan had fallbacks and cutouts, Mira. Barsoom…Tranquility…those were all-or-nothing stunts where I had no choice. The worst-case scenario in Cora was realizing the entire Battle Group was outgunned and going back into warp before we engaged anyone. I like those kinds of options.”
She shook her head.
“Fair enough, I suppose,” she allowed. “I believe I have mentioned that you’re not allowed to get yourself killed in this war, right?”
“And the same applies to you, my dear,” he reminded her. “I look forward to stealing some actual time together in Frihet.”
“Hopefully, the Commonwealth won’t impede that plan,” Mira told him with a smile.
“Walkingstick would probably like to cut our time short,” Kyle agreed. “But with all of Seventh Fleet, I don’t think he’ll succeed.”
“Oh, he won’t succeed,” Mira replied, her smile widening into something more predatory. “But he’s welcome to try.”
Chapter 18
Deep Space, En Route to Frihet System
20:00 March 17, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
DSC-078 Avalon, Main Flight Briefing Room
“Vice Commodore, this is Rokos.”
The voice of his Bravo Wing commander echoed in Michael Stanford’s skull as he approached his office.
“What is it, Wing Commander?” Avalon’s CAG asked.
“We need you in the main briefing room,” Rokos replied crisply. “We’re having a…discipline problem and need higher authority.”
Stanford cursed whatever Stars had made him the CAG. With two hundred and forty starfighters under his command, that meant he had seven hundred and twenty flight crew, plus roughly a thousand deck personnel.
The flight crews, in his experience, were prima donnas to a man, woman, and herm. By and large, the Flight Commanders handled their squadrons, but problems filtered up to the Wing Commanders on a regular basis—and, occasionally, the worst cases hit the Vice Commodore in charge of the Group.
“I’ll be right there,” he sighed.
“Thank you, sir,” Rokos told him crisply.
It was late in the ship’s ‘day,’ three quarters of the way through the Bravo shift and two hours away from changeover. Flight Country was dead. The current Combat Space Patrol was being run by starfighters from Indomitable, playing trainer to several squadrons of hastily refitted Scimitars in the hands of Coran ex-retirees.
He was surprised, as he approached the briefing room, not to hear any signs of commotion. If a Wing Commander felt they needed to call in the CAG, there was usually shouting when said CAG arrived.
Michael’s sense of paranoia, finely honed in recent months after an assassination attempt by the same woman who’d tried to take out the Captain, finally triggered when he stepped into the main flight briefing room—a room the size of many school gymnasiums, designed to allow addresses to or social events for every one of his seven hundred-plus flight crew—to find the lights down.
The door slammed shut behind him before he could begin to retreat, and he was halfway into reaching for his weapon when the lights came back on—and his ears were suddenly assaulted by over seven hundred voices chorusing, “Happy birthday to you!”
Even if any of his people could sing, enough of them couldn’t that it dissolved into an overwhelming cacophony, aided easily along the way by the two men in the front—one
tall and huge, one short and wide—both of whom had the lungs for volume but couldn’t carry a tune in a star freighter.
“I see,” Michael replied as the sound finally died down, “that your ‘discipline problem,’ Commander Rokos, was your own willingness to ignore my standing order to ignore my birthday.”
“Without question, sir!” Rokos replied in perfect cadet form. “No apologies, sir.”
“If you aren’t planning on scrubbing starfighters with a toothbrush tonight, there had better be cake,” Michael intoned perilously, only to find his Captain laughing at him.
Massive as Force Commander Kyle Roberts was, it was hard to be intimidated by him when he was grinning and laughing like a teenager—something Michael suspected that Roberts cultivated intentionally.
“Please, Michael,” Roberts told him. “Of course there’s a cake.”
Avalon’s captain gestured imperiously, and a path opened through the crowd, allowing Senior Chief Petty Officer Olivia Kalers, his deck chief, to roll a munitions trolley across the briefing room. Kalers was a shaven-headed woman with a permanently sour expression, but she was trying to smile. Pride of place on the trolley was a one-twentieth-size model of a Falcon starfighter, made of cake.
The other worthy pushing the trolley was Master Chief Petty Officer Cardea Belmonte, Avalon’s bosun. Belmonte was a massive woman with short-cropped white hair, and she was smiling—one of the biggest grins Michael had ever seen on a human being.
“Happy thirty-ninth birthday, Vice Commodore,” she told him. “We made you a cake!”
#
By the time most of his people had swung by, seized cake, and wished him a happy birthday, Michael was feeling utterly wrung out. It wasn’t often that he dealt with this large a portion of the nearly two thousand people under his command on anything even resembling a one-on-one basis, and the process had consumed over two hours of his evening.
Battle Group Avalon (Castle Federation Book 3) Page 13
