That was Alstairs’ decision, but no one bothered to correct the intelligence officer. He wasn’t, technically, assigned to Seventh Fleet—Battle Group Seventeen’s assigned intelligence officer had been killed in the attempted mutiny aboard Avalon—but he was the closest thing they had, which gave him the right to make recommendations.
“Do we have any data on whether we’re likely to see that sprint mode again?” Mira asked.
“It’s not an official program,” Costa said slowly. “But, given how effective it was, I suspect you will see it again. I wouldn’t expect to see it in fleet actions, but as an extra boost to system defenses, it could give us some serious headaches.”
“What about duplicating it ourselves?” Roberts said.
Costa shook his head.
“That’s out of my realm of expertise,” he admitted. “My understanding is that the Federation’s JD-Tech is studying the possibility of adding the functionality to our own Jackhammers, but I have no details.”
“Thank you, Captain Costa,” Alstairs noted. “If we come up with anything else on Via Somnia or the ships in this sector, I want to be notified immediately, understood?”
“Of course, Rear Admiral,” he confirmed. “We got lucky—our error could have caused far more damage. I refuse to allow that to happen again, ma’am.”
Chapter 20
Frihet System
03:30 March 24, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
DSC-078 Avalon, Bridge
Every neural implant on Avalon’s bridge was displaying the timer. With five minutes before emergence, the last few members of the bridge crew were filtering into the room in response to the blaring battle stations alarm.
“Pendez?” Kyle said questioningly.
“We are on schedule and on target,” she told him, her eyes glazed over as she controlled the immense carrier through her implants. “All ships in Battle Group Avalon also report on schedule and on target,” she continued. “As do Battle Group Zheng He and Battle Group Camerone. We are four minutes, twenty-two seconds from emergence…now.”
“Thank you,” he told her, then opened a channel to engineering. “Commander Wong, what’s our status?”
“All systems are go,” Senior Fleet Commander Alistair Wong reported. The shaven-headed engineer was technically senior to the ship’s executive officer, though the arcane rules of chain of command actually put him under Anderson if something horrible happened to Kyle. “We have spun up all of the zero point cells, positron capacitors are at sufficient levels for instant engagement with all weapons systems. Please try not to break my ship, Captain.”
“I believe it’s my ship, Commander,” Kyle pointed out.
“That’s what the Captain always thinks—and he’s always wrong,” the engineer groused.
“Tell it to the Navy, Wong,” the Captain told him. The engineer chuckled but didn’t stop him cutting the channel as he flipped his attention to the starfighters, opening a channel to Michael Stanford’s command starfighter.
“CAG, are you ready to fly?”
“Got the Chiefs around the birds, kicking tires and poking engines,” the Vice Commodore replied.
“Michael, your Falcons don’t have tires,” Kyle replied. “And poking antimatter engines is a really bad idea.”
“Sir, with all due respect, I do not question my Chief Petty Officers when they tell me what they’re doing,” Stanford replied virtuously. “SFG Zero Zero One is cleared and ready for action,” he concluded. “I’ve checked in with the other CAGs as well. All Battle Group Seven-Two starfighter groups are cleared and ready for action. Give us a target and we will rip it to shreds.”
“Thank you, CAG,” Kyle told him, turning his attention back to his bridge. “Commander Xue?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Tactical status?”
“All sensors, computers and weapons are online and reporting correctly,” the dark-haired officer replied. “I have a twelve-Q-probe spread ready to launch as soon as we emerge.”
“Good. Carry on.”
The cycle through his officers complete, Kyle glanced back at the timer. Two minutes.
He brought up the tactical plot showing Frihet. There wasn’t much on the plot just yet, only the system’s eleven planets—most importantly, the fifth planet, Fyr, home to roughly two and a third billion people. Another thirty-odd million were scattered around the star system in various orbitals and asteroid habitats—highlighted on the plot as best Intelligence could locate them—but control of an inhabited system inevitably went to the people who held the habitable planet.
Icons on the plot marked where the three Battle Groups of Seventh Fleet were intended to emerge—outside the point where Fyr’s gravity well would throw off their Alcubierre drives, within roughly a light-minute of each other. Any capital ships would be in Fyr orbit, best placed to defend the planet.
“Alcubierre-Stetson emergence in thirty seconds,” Pendez announced.
“All right,” Kyle replied, turning his attention back to his people and scanning the bridge around him. Everyone looked ready. The other ship captains reported ready.
“Let’s make the Commonwealth wish they’d never come to Frihet, shall we?”
#
In a flash of blue Cherenkov radiation, Avalon reappeared in the normal universe. Fractions of a second later, the light from her compatriots’ emergences—all fifteen thousand kilometers away to provide a safety margin—reached her, the icons of the two cruisers and a battleship materializing on Kyle’s plot as the computers confirmed their presence.
New green icons flashed onto the plot moments later as Q-Com-equipped probes blasted away from each of the four ships at a thousand gravities, sweeping deep into the system and relaying instant data back to their motherships.
“What are we seeing, Lieutenant Commander?” he asked softly. He would only see icons on his plot once Xue’s team had reviewed the data—with copious amounts of help from the ship’s AIs—and assessed the reality of what they were seeing.
“Old light still,” she pointed out unnecessarily—they’d come out of FTL twenty-four million kilometers from the planet. It would be thirty-seven minutes before their first probes blasted past the planet at twenty thousand plus kilometers a second to give them their first close look at Fyr, and over fifty-two minutes before any of the probes permanently settled in orbit.
“But,” she continued, “we’ve got some clarity on what’s in orbit. Looks like they set up a full defense network.” Four large red icons lit up in orbit, followed by hundreds of smaller ones. “I’ve got four Zion-class platforms and two hundred missile launch platforms.”
That was the same defenses Zahn had been equipped with, plus a few extra missile satellites. Seventh Fleet could take that in their sleep…
“Damn,” Xue cut off his thought. Two more large red icons lit up in orbit, followed by a swarm of smaller icons. “I’ve got two capital ships in orbit. Still resolving volume, but energy signatures suggest they’re both twenty million tons. I’m also reading a fifty-fighter combat space patrol.”
“Damn,” Kyle echoed. That meant either both Volcanos or one of the Volcanos and the Saint from the ships Intelligence had identified. “Let me know as you break down size and details.”
The Saint would be a handful, but in many ways, it would be more of a headache if it was the two heavy carriers. Six hundred starfighters was more than any of Seventh Fleet’s three subgroups carried—and starfighters were fast enough that they might manage to pin one battle group down.
“Any word on the rest of the Fleet?” he asked calmly.
“Just got Q-Com confirmation,” Anderson interjected. “Dropping them onto the plot now.”
Eight more green icons flashed onto the screen, split into the two other subgroups of Seventh Fleet—both exactly on target.
“Orders, sir?” Pendez asked.
“For now, keep an eye on the bogies in orbit and try to tell me if we have a battleship and carri
er or two carriers on our hands,” Kyle told his people. “Maria, set our course towards Fyr—but take it nice and slow.
“I’m going to raise the Flag and see what the Admiral wants to do.”
03:45 March 24, 2736 ESMDT
BC-129 Camerone, Bridge
As light propagated in and Q-probes shot out across the system, it was something of a relief for Mira to sink into the all-Captains link and apply multiple brains to the problem.
“Should we jump back into Alcubierre, concentrate our forces?” Force Commander Aleppo asked. “If that’s a pair of Volcanos, we could be in serious trouble.”
“Any of the battle groups should be able to handle even six hundred starfighters,” Lord Captain Anders pointed out. “If they sent all six hundred starfighters straight at one of the Battle Groups, they’d be knowingly sacrificing the carriers for only an even chance of doing damage to us.”
“It’s a chance to do damage they won’t otherwise have,” Force Commander Roberts pointed out. “Even if that’s a Saint, the pair of them could be a handful of any of our subgroups. I suggest we consolidate our forces and avoid the risk.”
“You want to avoid the risk?” Anders asked.
“Despite what everyone seems to think, I tend to reserve suicidal options for when we have no choice,” Mira’s boyfriend pointed out. “I don’t see a point in taking a risk we don’t need to.”
“There’s another risk you are all missing,” Rear Admiral Alstairs told them. “And an opportunity—if we keep our forces divided, we can all but guarantee that those ships will not escape. It is a risk,” she admitted. “But to take down two thirds of the remaining modern units in the sector? I think it’s worth it.
“We will expand our coverage,” she continued, “and remain outside the gravity zones to open the possibility of an FTL intercept if needed. They don’t have the forces to stop us retaking Fyr, people, so let’s see what additional advantage we can take today.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Roberts and Anders conceded in unison.
“Captain,” Commander Rose interrupted the conversation to get Mira’s attention. “It’s definitely two Volcanos—they’ve just launched their birds and are assembling a full sixty-squadron strike.”
Sixty Commonwealth squadrons was the full six-hundred-fighter capacity of two Volcano carriers plus the four Zion platforms—the Terrans used a ten-starfighter squadron instead of the eight-ship formation the Alliance powers used.
“Thank you, Commander,” Mira told her, then returned to the all-Captains channel. “My tactical officer tells me they’re pulling together their birds for an all-or-nothing strike—I’d guess to cover the carriers’ retreat.”
“Rough on the starfighters,” Roberts noted. “But Terran starfighter crews are the same hotdog breed as ours. They’d carry out the mission.”
“Get our starfighters in space,” Alstairs ordered. “Let’s keep our options as wide open as we can.”
04:00 March 24, 2736 ESMDT
SFG-001 Actual—Falcon-C type command starfighter
The efforts of several million Federation stellars’ worth of mass manipulators did their best to reduce the impact of firing Michael’s starfighter out the launch tube at four thousand gravities. It still felt like being stepped on by a giant and took the breath of his entire three-person crew away.
But he had all two hundred and forty of his fighters into space in a little over a minute. Courageous and Indomitable had fewer fighters to launch, getting all of their birds into space in the same time frame.
“Intercept those starfighters,” Roberts ordered harshly in his ear. “They’ve gone all-or-nothing, Michael—there are six hundred ships headed for Seven-Three, and Aleppo has less than two hundred to meet them with.”
Michael ran the numbers through his implant. It was going to be tight for his people—and there was no way Seven-One’s fighters could get there in time.
“Understood,” he replied crisply to Roberts, then pulled all of the CAGs onto a network, running numbers through his implant and his starfighters’ computers as he assembled his orders.
“SFG Zero Zero One, Courageous Wing, Indomitable Wing, I’m downloading a course to you now,” he snapped crisply. “We need to get on that intercept now. Even at our best acceleration, we’re only going to intercept them a few minutes before they hit Seven-Three.”
Even as he gave the order, he was twisting his own starfighter and bringing up the engines. A Falcon was an expensive, finely tuned machine—it leapt from a standing start to five hundred gravities of acceleration instantly.
The three hundred and thirty-six starfighters of Battle Group Seven-Two, Avalon, joined him instantly. They were cutting the line, accelerating to a point between Zheng He and the Terran Scimitars. With the geometry as it was, their missile range would be almost three million kilometers—and they’d launch while the Scimitars were four million kilometers clear of Zheng He and her escorts and…
“Force Commander Aleppo,” he said quietly, opening a channel to Zheng He’s captain. “I need you to give me more distance. Play for time—right now, they’ll hit you before we take them out.”
“If we evade, we cannot prevent the carriers escaping,” Aleppo replied. “That is not the mission.”
“I have a plan for those carriers,” Michael replied. “You won’t be intercepting much of anyone if your battleship takes a few dozen Javelins to the nose!”
There was a pause, then Rear Admiral Alstairs came onto the channel.
“He’s right, Force Commander,” Seventh Fleet’s CO told them. “Keep them cut off if you can, but I am not prepared to lose ships today, understand me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the Trade Factor captain conceded. “We are evading.”
Michael breathed a sigh of relief as Zheng He and her companions started moving away from the starfighters at two hundred and thirty gravities—and reworked his numbers.
Now they had time. The extra time was enough that he could even coordinate Battle Group Seven-One’s fighters in for a combined strike…but he had a better idea for Seven-One’s birds.
“Vice Commodore Bachchan,” he addressed the commander of Grizzly’s flight group—the senior CAG in Battle Group Seven-One. “I want you to take your birds and catch those carriers. They’re maneuvering to try and evade Zheng He and they’ll maneuver to evade you, but you’ve got twice their acceleration and they sent everybody out to try and buy themselves time.
“Let’s make sure that purchase doesn’t clear, get me?”
“Yes, sir,” Vice Commodore Gopinatha Bachchan—promoted in the last two months like the rest of Grizzly’s senior officers and hence junior to Avalon’s CAG despite their sharing a rank—replied. “Our Imperial friends have a few extra missiles to introduce them to.”
“Thank you, Vice Commodore,” Michael told him, then turned his attention to the CAG from the other Ursine-class carrier in Seventh Fleet—the one with six hundred fighters bearing down on it.
“Vice Commodore Ozolinsh,” he addressed Gabrielle Ozolinsh, Polar Bear’s CAG. “I’m flipping you a course. Double-check my math, but I have you holding position for thirty-five minutes before accelerating to meet the Terrans at max accel.”
A moment passed, then Ozolinsh spoke.
“I get the same numbers,” she said calmly. “That will give us combined time-on-target salvos if we start the adjusted course at the right moment.”
“Ladies, gentlemen,” Michael addressed all his flight crews. “This system’s name means Freedom. Let’s give it back to these people.”
#
The Terrans appeared to have guessed his plans, Michael noted. Once all three fighter formations were in space—Seven-Two’s birds accelerating hard for an intercept, Seven-One’s chasing the carriers, Seven-Three’s holding position while their motherships ran—there wasn’t any hiding his maneuvers.
Hundreds of antimatter drives firing at five hundred gravities made one hell of an energy signature, and the
Terrans had probably already seeded the system with Q-probes. If the Commonwealth officers had any clever ideas, he’d be seeing them shortly.
Minutes ticked away. His own fighter wing was still over forty minutes from intercept, and the Terrans were easily an hour away from Zheng He and her battle group now.
Seven-One’s fighters were a few more minutes behind the Volcanos as the two big carriers ran. Admiral Alstairs’ warships were behind them, barely maintaining the distance but opening up with long-range missile salvos. Those first salvos would close with the carriers well before his own ships caught up with the Scimitars. Zheng He’s battle group was losing ground against the carriers but still cutting off their easiest escape. Aleppo’s people were launching as well—and their missiles were going to be the first of Seventh Fleet’s weapons to arrive on target.
Their positions had pushed the Commonwealth carriers onto a non-optimal vector, leaving them needing to travel almost seventy light-seconds to clear the gravity wells around them. Seven-One’s starfighters would only get one good missile salvo in, but the capital ship missiles would have almost thirty minutes to pound them—not that Battle Group Camerone had the magazines for that kind of sustained fire.
He watched the icons move around on the tactical plot in his implants. If something came up, he could maneuver the fleet starfighter in moments—but with the enemy still millions of kilometers away, that was unlikely.
The Commonwealth fighter force was still on course. Michael doubted whoever was in command thought that Vice Commodore Ozolinsh’s fighters were going to stay in place. There was no chance of the Terrans defeating his people in detail. They did have more starfighters than Michael and Ozolinsh did combined, but the Commonwealth had received a number of salutary lessons in what happened when sixth-generation fighters met seventh-generation craft in anything resembling even numbers.
Battle Group Avalon (Castle Federation Book 3) Page 15
