“The bigger risk we faced was that the Commonwealth would retake our system,” one of the suited, unidentified, politicians added. “With the size of your force, Admiral, I believe that will not be an immediate concern.”
“Unfortunately, mister…” Alstairs trailed off.
“Lund,” he replied shortly. “Matteus Lund—Minister of Security.”
“Unfortunately, Minister Lund,” the Admiral repeated, “Seventh Fleet’s liberation of Frihet is part of a larger operation. We will not be able to remain in the system for long before it will be necessary for us to launch further offenses.”
“But without your fleet, we are defenseless!” Lund squeaked. “We need you—we signed with the Alliance because we were to be protected!”
“And we understood the necessity of war meant that sometimes that protection would be longer-term,” Ahlgren said, cutting him off. “We do have certain resources that were preserved under the continuity-of-government plans, Admiral Alstairs, but Matteus is functionally correct. None of the resources available to us would suffice to stand off even a mildly determined attack.”
“I did not,” Alstairs said sharply as the Premier finished speaking, “say we would be leaving you defenseless. Our logistics ships are carrying a full set of orbital defense platforms earmarked for the Frihet system, as well as starfighters and a training cadre for the platforms and fighters. If you have personnel to man the stations, we can have them operational inside forty-eight hours.”
In truth, the platforms designated for Frihet had been aboard the transport lost at Zahn. Since Kyle had set up captured Commonwealth platforms to defend Cora, however, they were only short four platforms instead of eight.
Each of the four logistics ships they’d started with had contained eight Citadel-class fighter launch and missile control platforms, the seven hundred and sixty-eight Falcons to fill the Citadels’ bays, another hundred or so Falcons as spares for Seventh Fleet, and four hundred Atlatl-VI missile satellites.
With one ship lost and two ships having offloaded half their cargo, they still had the platforms for four standard system-defense suites. The problem was that Operation Rising star called for three of those suites to be deployed in Via Somnia, and they would also need to see to the Huī Xing system’s security.
“That suite consists of four fighter platforms, just under four hundred starfighters to go in them, and two hundred missile satellites. I intend to have the full suite emplaced in Fyr orbit by this time tomorrow,” Alstairs noted. “Actual operational status will depend on your personnel availability.”
“We have people we can deploy,” Ahlgren said calmly. “We can also support them with our flotilla of sublight missile boats—they should be receiving the orders to leave their hiding place in the gas giant shortly. They’re out of missiles, but if you can provide us reloads from those freighters…”
There was a long untold story there from the sounds of it, and Kyle was curious—it was rare for sublight guardships like the missile boats Ahlgren was describing to survive the fall of a system. Preserving that flotilla was impressive. So, for that matter, was managing to hide inside a gas giant.
“We have more than enough munitions to do so,” Alstairs promised. “We will need to be on our way inside three days, Premier Ahlgren, but we will do all that we can first.”
Chapter 23
Frihet System
22:00 March 25, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
Landning City, Capital Star Hotel
The Alliance officers eventually reconvened in a private meeting room on the eightieth floor of Landning City’s best hotel. Mira had arranged security by the simple expedient of booking the top five floors of the massive hotel and telling the management to lock the elevator down at the eightieth floor.
Now that floor swarmed with Marines and was being rapidly, if temporarily, converted into a planetary command center. There were still plenty of rooms in the four floors above them—far more, to be honest, then the Alliance presence required, even with the Marines.
“Your impressions, people,” Alstairs asked as they settled in at the table in the genteel conference room. The table was a local wood, as were the comfortable chairs. One wall of the room was windows looking out over the city, and the others were painted in calm forest greens.
“They had a solid continuity plan and kept their government together,” Kyle rumbled. “But they’re still damned short on resources after a multiple-month occupation.”
“They’re putting on a good face,” Mira agreed with her paramour. “But their reaction when we told them we couldn’t stay says everything—they need our help.”
“And we really can’t stay,” the Admiral confirmed grimly. “None of the systems we’ve liberated are in great shape. They all need our help—but the best thing we can do for them is neutralize Via Somnia. Once the naval base there is down, these systems will be safer than they were before the war started.”
“There’s still some kind of fleet around here,” Mira pointed out to her admiral. “They weren’t here, which means there is a ten-starship formation either in Via Somnia or Huī Xing. If we run into that on top of the defenses we know are already at Somnia, our next operation could go very bad.”
“Liberating Huī Xing and taking Via Somnia are the only remaining original objectives of Operation Rising Star,” Alstairs noted. “To maintain the security of these systems, the neutralization of the nodal fleet is also a requirement, one I’m now including as an operational objective of Rising Star.
“The question, ladies, gentlemen”—she glanced around at her flag captain and Force Commanders—“is how to best achieve those three objectives. I don’t expect answers right now,” she continued. “We’ve been going nonstop since we arrived in-system. I suggest we all get some rest and discuss in the morning. Captain Solace has arranged these ground-side facilities for us; I suggest we make use of them.”
As the officers filtered out, Mira met Kyle’s gaze and smiled at him, indicating for the big Force Commander to follow her.
“I may,” she told him as they detached from the other officers, “have forgotten to book you a room. I’m afraid you’re going to have to bunk with me, Force Commander Roberts.”
He sighed and shook his head at her.
“The sacrifices we make to save funds in the Alliance’s service,” he replied virtuously.
#
At this point, Fleet Captain Mira Solace was very used to waking up at whatever time she decided before she went to sleep. The morning meeting was set late enough, however, that she actually allowed herself to sleep in—waking up to the sight of Frihet’s dawn streaming through the hotel window.
Kyle Roberts stood in the window, looking out onto Landning City, and Mira simply lay in the bed, a rumpled disaster after the prior evening’s extended activities, and watched him. This had not been where she’d expected to end up when she’d been pulled from her nice, comfortable, safe posting aboard Sunset.
But then, she also hadn’t expected to make Captain anytime soon, either. She’d first hit it off with the big carrier captain and then been promoted herself. The opportunity had seemed too good to pass up.
Now she worried. The current split of Seventh Fleet meant Kyle could easily end up in another star system, fighting—possibly dying—far away from her. Their positions and ranks made them luckier than many in the fleet—they were physically close enough that they could steal time together, and senior enough to be able to do so.
It was hard to feel guilty about that while her lover was standing naked in the window, haloed by the light of the planet’s slowly rising sun.
“You’re awake,” he said brightly without turning around. “It’s still a couple of hours till the conference. I’ve checked in with Avalon; all’s quiet in orbit.”
Kicking off the blankets, Mira joined him at the window.
“Looking at anything in particular?” she asked.
“Just…the city,” he r
eplied, gesturing outward. The Capital Star Hotel was far from the tallest building in Landning City, though it was far enough out from the main downtown to tower over its immediate surroundings.
Landning was a pretty typical colonial capital. It had a central core of skyscrapers, some towering as much as half a kilometer into the sky, where the planet’s big corporations and local branches of multistellars were headquartered. That core was surrounded by a vast expanse of suburbs, linked by carefully coordinated ground and air traffic. Sections of relatively small apartment buildings—mostly under fifty stories here—were scattered at points throughout those suburbs. Her implant said the city was roughly fifteen percent of the planet’s population.
There was surprisingly little visible damage from the fighting. Even looking beyond the city, the craters and smoke plumes where the space defense units had dug in were barely visible from here. The Terran Marines had, to their credit, made a point of surrendering before any of the fighting got into the city.
“It all looks so peaceful from up here,” Kyle eventually said. His voice was less cheerful than she was used to from him, and she looked at him carefully from the corner of her eye. “If we screw this up, the Terrans will come back, and a lot of people could still die.”
“That’s the risk the whole operation is dealing with,” she agreed. “Five systems liberated from the Commonwealth, but…only fixed defenses, no starships, and ten warships out there somewhere.” Mira shivered. “We think we’re saving these people, but we could be setting them up for a world of hurt.”
Kyle shifted, wrapping her in his arms and warming her shivers with his body heat.
“I know,” he agreed. “It’s war, it’s strategically necessary, and I hate it.”
For all of his bulk, Mira was much the same height as Kyle, and she easily wrapped her arms around him in turn.
“What do we do?” she asked quietly. Her question had more meaning than she realized. She wasn’t even entirely sure there was a “we” yet. She enjoyed Kyle’s company, respected him, but even she wasn’t sure what the long-term potential for them as a couple was yet—and that was assuming the war let them have any potential.
“Our jobs,” Kyle told her. “Too many people look to one or both of us for us to forget that,” he continued. “But…” He pressed her fingers to his lips. “We are allowed to be human, Mira. We can have doubts; we can steal this time to be us.”
His eyes met hers and Mira realized he’d heard both her questions. He didn’t know either, but he saw the potential for an “us” too.
That was…all anyone could ask for sometimes.
Chapter 24
Frihet System
09:25 March 26, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
DSC-078 Avalon, CAG’s Office
“You should see what Zahn has given us for flight crews,” the man on the other end of the Q-Com link told Michael Stanford. “Half of them are amazing—older officers, vets of the last war to a man and woman. The other half…” Flight Commander Antonio Zupan shuddered. “They’re so green, I think they’re drinking chlorophyll.”
Zupan, a whipcord-thin man with tanned-dark skin and black hair, had been promoted off Avalon when they’d brought Battle Group Seventeen’s fighter wings up to strength. His promotion had landed him an assignment to one of the cadres being delivered to the systems Rising Star liberated.
Despite his junior rank and recent promotion, the man was the second-ranked Castle Federation Space Force officer in the Zahn system, tasked with taking the crews that the planetary defense force provided and training them to fly the three hundred and eighty-four Falcons the Federation had given Zahn.
“You were no better once,” Michael told him. “Hell, you were a rabble-rousing fight-starter once, and I don’t think any of your greenhorns have grown into that level of iniquity yet!”
“I think you promoted me to make me behave,” Zupan accused. “And I’m still a rabble-rouser, for that matter. This lot will make good crews, given time. We’ve got maybe twenty squadrons of mostly qualified crews. The other thirty squadrons? They can get the birds into space, but I need more time.”
Four Citadel-class platforms based eight Federation fighter wings—forty-eight squadrons. Michael was actually surprised that Zahn had come up with enough people qualified to serve as fighter crew in the time they’d had—starfighter crew members required a ninety-ninth percentile ability to run data through their implants.
“Do they all meet the bandwidth requirement?” he asked, wondering if they’d simply let the recruiting standard slip.
“I wondered the same thing, Vice Commodore,” Zupan replied. “I checked them all—they managed to find twelve hundred souls with enough bandwidth in two days. I suspect someone, somewhere, already had a little list.”
“That helps, though it may have other issues,” Michael warned.
“If any of these kids were drafted, they aren’t whining about it,” the trainer told him. “They saw the Commonwealth occupation firsthand. They’ll fight.”
“Just make sure they can.”
“That’s what they sent me…” Zupan trailed off, staring at something Michael couldn’t see. “Fuck. FUCK. No!”
“Flight Commander!” Avalon’s CAG snapped.
“Going to have to cut this short,” the trainer replied shortly. “The Commonwealth is here.”
09:45 March 26, 2736 ESMDT
Landning City, Capital Star Hotel
There was something inherently wrong to Kyle about sitting in a comfortable hotel conference room, well rested and well fed, while watching a data stream announcing that your subordinates almost a dozen light-years away were going to die.
The scheduled conference had been canceled. None of the Marines or junior officers had joined them, but the captains of the warships in orbit were being linked in to the room where Kyle sat with the other Force Commander, the Admiral, and Mira.
The holograms helped fill a room that would otherwise have felt empty with only the four of them, and helped shield against the data feed now coming in from Zahn.
Eight capital ships accelerated towards the planet at an even two hundred gravities, spearheaded by the massive bulk of a Saint-class battleship. Arrayed around the twenty-million-ton, sixty-million-cubic-meter battleship were two Resolute-class battleships, two Assassin-class battlecruisers and three Lexington-class fleet carriers.
It was a stupendous amount of firepower, a force that would have crushed any of the three Battle Groups Seventh Fleet had been divided into for the last portion of the operation.
Against the four launch platforms, three hundred and eighty-four starfighters and two hundred missiles satellites in Zahn orbit, it may as well have been the Sol Home Fleet.
As Kyle watched, the carriers started to fall back with the cruisers as escorts. A small group of starfighters remained with the carriers, but five hundred Scimitars advanced toward the planet alongside the battleships.
“They don’t stand a chance,” Anders said aloud, putting into words what every senior officer in Seventh Fleet was thinking. “Damn it all.”
No one in Zahn was bothering to update Seventh Fleet on their plans, but access to the full telemetry from the Citadels told the story. All of the Falcons were in space, carefully establishing the swirling, semi-random formation of space combat.
Then, almost as one—too many of the pilots were green for smooth simultaneity—the starfighters lunged out at their enemies. Moments later, seventy-eight new icons lit up on the screen as the Terran battleships opened fire.
“Thirty-six minutes to fighter missile range,” Kyle noted softly. “The Atlatls will need to open up in just under eleven minutes for a massed time-on-target strike.”
A mass strike from the six hundred launchers those two hundred platforms carried, combined with the sixteen hundred fighter missiles from the starfighters, had a decent chance of hurting those battleships…except for the close-in fighter escort.
With
five hundred fighters playing missile defense for the Terrans and the defending starfighter pilots being so green…Kyle wasn’t sure how it would end. But from ten light-years away, all that Seventh Fleet’s office could do was watch.
But watch they did. Minutes ticked by, and Zahn’s defenders launched their missiles a few seconds later than Kyle predicted. It shouldn’t make too much of a difference, but the slight coordination failure worried him.
And the others. He felt Mira sneak her hand under the table into his and squeezed gently. There was nothing they could do—nothing but watch and hope that this commander had learned the lesson that Dimitri Tobin had sacrificed his career to teach the Commonwealth.
Atrocities would not be tolerated. If this fleet fired on Zahn, Operation Rising Star would be put on hold while Seventh Fleet hunted down the bastards who’d killed a world. Avalon had done it once. Kyle would gladly do it again.
More missiles blasted out from each side, the Atlatls going to rapid-fire at the command of the Citadel platforms, while the battleships maintained an even metronome of one salvo a minute for fifteen minutes.
The Atlatls, like the Terran defenders of the system before them, emptied their magazines before the Terran missiles reached them. Like Admiral Alstairs, however, the Terrans had realized this and ignored the platforms. Their missiles targeted the Citadels and hammered home with devastating force.
Seven minutes before the starfighters reached their range, the first Stormwinds reached the Citadel defensive platforms. Defensive fire filled the space above Zahn, and the Stormwinds responded with jamming and evasive maneuvers.
It wasn’t enough. The cadre of Federation officers and spacers left behind hadn’t had enough time to train their new crews. They stopped the first salvo, but not the second or the third. The fourth salvo finished the job, missiles slamming into already-crippled hulks and vaporizing them in blasts of antimatter fire.
Battle Group Avalon (Castle Federation Book 3) Page 19
