Now Mira was gripping Kyle’s hand with horrified strength, and he knew he was clinging to her too as he watched the fighter strike lunge forward. With an experienced fighter group, the gunners could have fully taken over control of the capital ship missiles, augmenting the strikes and delivering a hammerblow.
It was rapidly clear Zahn’s defenders had done no such thing. The missiles charged in on their own highly capable brains alone. The fighters crossed the invisible line in space marking their own weapons range and opened fire.
Kyle winced. Half of the defenders had fired in perfect unison, linking up with the new timing of the first Atlatl missile salvo. The other half…scattered their missiles over a five-second window. In this kind of battle, five seconds was everything.
The Terran fighters, on the other hand, launched in perfect synchronicity, sending two thousand missiles back into the defenders’ teeth. The Falcons fired again, launching their remaining two salvos while they still had a chance.
The Terrans…didn’t bother.
Fourteen seconds before the missiles hit, the Falcons entered the range of the battleships’ defensive lances and the dying began. Positron beams tore through space, ripping apart missiles and fighters with equal abandon. The defending starfighters launched themselves forward, interposing their own positron lances and lasers between the incoming missiles and the battleships—but leaving the Falcons themselves to the battleships.
Kyle couldn’t close his eyes. He watched as the mix of veterans and half-trained crews, including men and women who’d served under his own command, drove into that maelstrom—their focus on the battleships.
The last Falcon died two full seconds before reaching lance range of the battleship or seeing a missile strike home. Lasers and lances alike turned on the inbound missiles, a devastating harvest of explosions ripping through space as the battleships tangled with the thousands of weapons targeted on them.
The Scimitars ripped the heart out of the missile salvos. They didn’t do it easily or cheaply—dozens of the starfighters died to direct hits and near misses—but they gutted the salvos, leaving them easy victims for the close-in defenses of three modern battleships.
As the last missiles came apart in balls of antimatter fire, Kyle finally closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind of what he’d seen. In sixty minutes, Seventh Fleet’s liberation of Zahn had been transformed into dust and death, with almost five thousand starfighter and platform crew killed in that vain attempt to achieve anything.
“What are they doing?” he heard Mira ask, and slowly opened his eyes, studying the data feed.
“They’re breaking off,” Anders said slowly. “Why? That makes no sense.”
Everyone in the room studied the screen for a long silent moment before the Admiral saw what they should have noticed from the beginning.
“No transports,” she said slowly. “They didn’t come equipped to reconquer—just to shatter whatever defenses we’d put in place. Opening a path and making an example…”
“Delivering a warning,” Kyle said harshly. “Arrogant bastards.”
Chapter 25
Frihet System
20:00 March 26, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
DSC-078 Avalon, Shuttle Bay
Kyle stepped off the shuttle into the landing bay of his carrier, feeling like a zombie. Last night, everything had seemed to be coming together. Operation Rising Star had swept four of its six targets, crushing the Commonwealth everywhere along the way. Even the warning that there were more warships in the sector hadn’t really sunk in at a gut-level, not after an unbroken string of victories.
Now thousands of Alliance spacers and flight crews were dead. One of the planets they’d liberated had been left wide open, with no defenses once the Commonwealth managed to scare up an assault division to retake them—the number of Terran POWs left behind on Zahn meant they wouldn’t even need that many troops.
James Anderson and Michael Stanford were both waiting for their Captain outside the safety zone of the shuttle bay. The pale, redheaded executive officer just looked tired, greeting Kyle with a firm nod.
Avalon’s CAG looked like Kyle felt. Despite the fact that the fighter pilot had to have rested last night, there were bags under his eyes and new lines under blond hair that looked noticeably more silver than it had a few weeks before.
“Gentlemen,” Kyle greeted them. “What’s our status?”
Anderson visibly shook himself before speaking.
“Avalon is fully restocked and prepared to move on your command,” the exec replied. “Michael is better able to speak to the fighter group, but we are above ninety-nine percent readiness in all other aspects. Crew could use a day or two of liberty if we have the time to spare.”
“We don’t,” Kyle told him. He didn’t elaborate for now. “Michael?”
“We’ve replaced the lost fighters from the logistics ships and I’ve reorganized my squadrons,” the CAG said quietly. “I have two hundred starfighters ready to deploy from Avalon’s group. Courageous and Indomitable are both down ten ships apiece.” He shrugged. “Not sure if we’re keeping the Battle Group together, so I’ve been keeping in touch with them.”
“The Admiral will be briefing us all shortly,” the Captain told him. “Thank you, gentlemen,” he continued, leading them out of the shuttle bay. “The attack at Zahn was a shock to all of our systems, but we will need to adapt and recover.”
“Zupan was one of mine,” Stanford said quietly. “One of ours. He fought at Barsoom. Damn it, Kyle—he deserved better than to be run out on a branch and cut off like that.”
“I know,” Kyle replied, glancing around the corridor to be sure none of the crew were listening to the CAG tear into the operations plan. “I don’t even disagree,” he said heavily. “It’s been the big known weakness of the plan for Rising Star since the beginning, gentlemen.”
“So, what do we do?” Stanford demanded. “We’ve got a dozen squadrons of our own people playing cadre—with barely enough time to get the people they’re training used to sitting in a damn starfighter, let alone flying one! If that fleet sweeps through Hammerveldt and Cora, all we’ll have achieved is a lot of new corpses.”
“We don’t know where they’ll go, Michael,” Kyle pointed out. “But…we have a plan.”
“What plan?”
“We make them come to us.”
21:00 March 26, 2736 ESMDT
DSC-078 Avalon, Captain’s Breakout Room
Once again, the holographic conferencing program vastly expanded the tiny conference room attached to Kyle’s office. The small room was undecorated except for a copy of Avalon’s commissioning seal—a gold circle around a hand rising from waves, with the hull number DSC-0078 at the top and the ship’s name at the bottom—painted onto one wall.
That seal was currently hidden by the projectors, which were creating the image of a room large enough to hold every Captain, XO and CAG in the entirety of Seventh Fleet, plus Rear Admiral Miriam Alstairs and her chief of staff.
Even knowing only three of those thirty-five people were actually in his conference room, knowing the true dimensions of the room left Kyle feeling mildly crowded at the size of the briefing.
And this time it was definitely a briefing, not a meeting. Kyle could guess what was coming, as the two Force Commanders had spent most of the day after the attack on Zahn discussing their options, but even he didn’t know what Alstairs’ ensuing discussions with High Command had turned up.
“Ladies, gentlemen, herms,” Alstairs said calmly. “We are all aware of the attack on Zahn, and it does change our operational objectives and constraints. The presence of a significant Commonwealth Navy force in the region is a clear and present threat both to our direct objectives and to the safety of the worlds we are here to liberate.
“I have consulted with many of you over yesterday and today both directly and in groups, and have spent the last few hours in direct conference with Fleet Admiral Blake and Sky Mar
shal von Stenger. We believe we have assembled a strategy that will enable us to complete Rising Star’s operational objectives.”
A three-dimensional map of the region appeared in the center of the briefing room, the six inhabited stars highlighted amidst the dozen or so uninhabited systems in a spherical region of space almost thirty light-years across, from Cora—closest to Alliance space—to Via Somnia—inside Commonwealth space.
“We have now liberated these four systems,” Alstairs noted, with Seventh Fleet’s previous targets flashing in the screen. “The Commonwealth force hit Zahn, here.” Zahn flashed red. “They trashed the orbital defenses, vaporized what orbital industry was still left, and then moved on. At this point, Zahn has been left with no significant strategic value to either side,” she said grimly, “which I’m sure was their intent.”
Distance markers flashed up on the screens, as even trained eyes could misread scale and distance looking at three-dimensional models like this.
“This puts them ten light-years from Frihet, eight light-years from Hammerveldt, ten light-years from Cora—and also twenty-one from Via Somnia and eighteen from Huī Xing.
“We are thirteen light-years from Via Somnia, and nine from Huī Xing,” she continued. “An assault group from here can be at Huī Xing in six days—Via Somnia in a little over seven. That force may be making payback strikes right now, but if they face a clear and present danger to their logistics base, they will have to move to defend it.
“And that, people, is our opportunity,” Alstairs finished flatly. “Over the next twelve hours, the Fifty-Eighth and One Twenty-Fifth Brigades will be transferring from their assault transports to the ships of Seventh Fleet.
“The transports themselves, along with our empty logistics freighter and the freighter carrying the defensive suites for Huī Xing, will be assigned to Battle Group Seven-Two under Force Commander Roberts,” she continued. “The transports have significant ECM capabilities of their own, and the freighters will have several ECM drones mounted to their hulls, allowing all five ships to pretend to be warships.”
Kyle nodded as the concept sunk in. He’d wondered how they could pull the enemy fleet away from Via Somnia without actually sending the lion’s share of Seventh Fleet to Huī Xing. Using the support ships as decoys would definitely work.
“Seven-Two is weak on starfighters,” he admitted. “If we’re pretending to be the entire Fleet…”
“We will reinforce your wings,” Alstairs confirmed. “While we don’t have any additional Templar ships or crews, my understanding is that the Fearless-class cruisers are able to service Falcons?”
Her questioning glance went to Captains Olivier and Albert, who both nodded.
“We’ll need to fabricate some adaptors, but I’d rather that than going in understrength,” Olivier told the Admiral. “I’m not sure we can support the Arrows, unfortunately.”
“We’ll spread the draw as wide as possible across the Federation ships,” Alstairs assured the other CAGs. “We will need full squadrons—three from each carrier, one from each cruiser.”
The other Federation ship and fighter group commanders winced but nodded.
“I want those transfers complete by ten hundred hours tomorrow,” the Rear Admiral said grimly. “Same time as the Marines. Force Commander Aleppo?”
“I’m handing back the fancy chevron, aren’t I?” the Trade Factor officer replied cheerfully. The only rank insignia for the inherently temporary rank of Force Commander was a small chevron above the original collar insignia.
“Sorry, Lora,” Alstairs confirmed. “We’ll be rolling Seven-Three back into the main fleet. You’ve done a good job, but we’ll need the firepower to take on Via Somnia.”
“It wasn’t something I would ever get to keep,” Aleppo told her.
“The plan, as it stands,” the Admiral told everyone, “is that we move out at eleven hundred hours tomorrow morning. Battle Group Seven-Two hits Huī Xing hard. Punch out their defenses and any ships they have left. Be…paranoid. Make them think they can intercept you, that it will be a fair fight.”
“I can do that,” Kyle said after a moment. “What about the logistics depot?”
“If it’s still there, I leave it to your discretion,” Alstairs told him. “If the Terrans are clearly using it, you are authorized to destroy it by long-range bombardment. We’ll discuss the exact details of your mission before you leave.”
“Understand, ma’am,” Kyle agreed. He wondered why he was the one keeping the chevron—Aleppo was the senior Captain and he had figured that if one of them had to give up the Force Commander rank, it would be him.
“With the Marines aboard, the rest of Seventh Fleet will proceed to the Via Somnia system,” Alstairs continued. “I will note that only four light-years separate Via Somnia and Huī Xing. Either Battle Group can move to relieve the other if needed.”
Assuming the group in need of relief could survive four days, at least. The light-year-per-day-squared acceleration of the Alcubierre-Stetson drive, with its need to decelerate to the same velocity you started with, made longer-distance trips more efficient than short-range jumps.
“While Battle Group Seven-Two attracts the attention of the Commonwealth nodal fleet, Seventh Fleet will assault Via Somnia,” Alstairs concluded. “With the warships drawn out of position, we should mostly be facing fixed defenses that can be engaged from long range. Once the defenses have been neutralized, we will deliver the Marines to board the remaining facilities. Once Via Somnia is ours, we will set up the defensive suites we brought with us.
“At that point, Seven-Two will fall back to Via Somnia, presumably bringing the Commonwealth fleet with them. Expecting to arrive in a system under their control, they will instead find the rest of Seventh Fleet and our fixed defenses waiting for them.
“Once they arrive, they can run or they can fight against overwhelming odds. Either way, this sector will be secure.”
#
“I’m sure you have questions, Kyle,” Admiral Alstairs told him as he settled into his office chair, the main briefing over and a private channel now open between them. “Shoot.”
“More than a few,” he admitted, his usual cheerfulness beginning to return after the shock of the loss at Zahn. “Not that I’m objecting to the chance to crack some Terran skulls, but why me? I would figure Aleppo was a better choice for an independent command if you only needed one of us.”
“It’s not a question of seniority, Kyle,” she pointed out. “It’s a question of skillset and temperament. Lora is a very competent officer, perfectly capable of planning and leading an attack on Huī Xing and fighting any enemy on equal ground.
“But I’m not sending you to fight an equal enemy, Force Commander,” she said flatly. “I’m sending you to play matador to a fleet with twice your hulls, twice your cubage, and a clearly competent commander. Encountering that force, what would Aleppo do, Roberts?”
“Withdraw,” he responded immediately. “It’s the only sensible tactical choice.”
“Exactly,” Alstairs told him. “But the right tactical choice won’t meet the operational objectives. I need that fleet in Huī Xing. I need them to stay in Huī Xing until we are in possession of Via Somnia and in a position to kick their ass when you bring them to me.
“Aleppo doesn’t have the twisty brain necessary to play cat and mouse with a superior fleet for a goddamn week, Kyle, and that’s what I need you to do. Plus, the Commonwealth knows your reputation by now. If I can’t send enough actual ships to make them think you’re a real threat, I can send the Stellar Fox.”
“I hate that nickname,” Kyle observed. “I’m considering a campaign of beating up journalists in dark alleys when I get home to convince them to stop using it.”
The Admiral laughed, shaking her head at him.
“That may be, Roberts, but it’s a name the Terrans know,” she told him. “A name whose presence makes Battle Group Avalon a threat they have to respect. Combined with the ECM t
o make them think your Battle Group is a fleet, you should be able to attract their attention before we hit Via Somnia.
“I intend to hold Seventh Fleet outside Via Somnia until they have arrived at Huī Xing,” she admitted. “We need a week to get the defenses online—I need you to hold their nodal fleet for three days, Kyle. Don’t let them trap you in the gravity well. Drag them out, dance around them—keep them guessing.”
She shook her head, her eyes grim.
“Bluntly, Kyle, being in control of Via Somnia and having the defenses in place is critical,” she told him. “Which brings me to the other reason I chose you over Aleppo: she’s a brave woman, a strong woman—but I don’t think she has the steel in her spine to lose starships and still fight a holding action.”
He swallowed. Starships were massive investments in money, technology and lives. Losing them was a high price to pay, especially given the losses the Alliance had already taken in the war. The massive industrial might of the Commonwealth could replace the ships the Terrans had already lost in this campaign more readily than the Alliance could replace Avalon alone.
“I need you to press them that hard,” Alstairs said quietly. “I’d rather you came home with everyone—all your ships, all your fighters, all your people. But if it comes down to a close action or that fleet arriving at Via Somnia before we’re ready for them, I need you prepared to spend starships to hold them. Do you understand me, Force Commander Roberts?”
He swallowed. He was mentally prepared to lose starfighters—it hurt, but it was what they existed for—and hated it. To be willing to send cruisers, battleships, even Avalon herself to near-certain death to buy time?
“Ma’am, I’m not certain I have that ‘steel in my spine’,” he admitted. “I swore to lead these people, not sacrifice them.”
Battle Group Avalon (Castle Federation Book 3) Page 20
