“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Mira said with a shiver. Her relationship with Kyle was still…formative. They hadn’t had much time together since she’d left Avalon for Camerone, and before then, they’d both been trying hard to deny their interest in each other.
She needed the big man to survive long enough for them to sort out just what they had between them.
“So do I,” the Admiral agreed. “My reasons are notably less personal,” she continued dryly, “but I’d like very much if this plan works out with both Battle Group Avalon and Kyle Roberts intact.”
Chapter 31
Huī Xing System
15:00 April 3, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
DSC-078 Avalon, Captain’s Office
“So, with a day to think on it, would you do anything differently?” Mira asked Kyle quietly.
He shook his head, smiling at her.
“No,” he told her. “The risk might be making my shoulders itch, but I couldn’t stand by and leave those prisoners behind.”
“Have you even spoken to any of them?” his lover asked.
He laughed.
“Now that you mention it, no,” he admitted. “I’ve had a few messages relayed through the Marines, but I haven’t spoken to any of them directly. Ninety-six thousand people,” he said in an awed voice with a shrug. “But I can’t go over there, and it’s not like we can divert a shuttle to bring anyone over here just to satisfy my curiosity. I have a job to do.”
She shook her head at him.
“If this goes wrong, there are people who will hang you out to dry for disobeying orders,” she warned him. “And you aren’t even going to meet the people you’ve risked it all to save?”
“I don’t need to,” he told her, smiling as he thought about it. “They’re soldiers and spacers, just like those I’ve fought alongside and served alongside for years. They stood to defend their worlds, and the Gods dealt them a shitty hand.
“I could no more leave them behind than I could leave you behind,” he concluded. “They are my brothers- and sisters-in-arms, just as much as if they’d served on Avalon. We owe them this.”
“You’re not wrong,” she admitted. “But…be safe? All duty aside, you big lug, I want you to make it back. Still so much we need to learn.”
“I know,” he agreed softly. “I need to meet your sister. You need to meet my son. We need to, well”—he laughed—“get to know each other better. See how things end.”
“I don’t care how they end, so long as it’s not soon,” Mira told him. “The beginning is going swimmingly—don’t you dare get yourself killed before we even begin to find out what the middle looks like!”
“Believe me, my dear,” Kyle replied brightly, “I do not intend to do any such thing.”
The problem, as both of them knew without him saying a word, was that intentions weren’t going to matter much if the Commonwealth’s timing was right.
18:00 April 3, 2736 ESMDT
DSC-078 Avalon, Observation Deck
Kyle wasn’t quite hiding as he sat in Avalon’s quietest observation deck, watching the firefly lights of dozens—hundreds—of spacecraft swarming through Xin orbit. He could pick out the patterns in swarm that would be invisible to a layman. This swarm of lights along these lines was the Marine assault shuttles transporting the prisoners—still!—to the cargo transfer stations being used as prison camps, while that swarm of lights was starfighters moving missile satellites into position, and those lights were the constant stream of small craft moving the rescued prisoners to the three Marine assault transports.
Hundreds of smaller spacecraft and over a hundred thousand souls, all moving in accordance with his commands and his will. It was a heady feeling.
It was a sickening feeling.
His choices had brought them here, and if he had guessed wrong, a lot of those people were going to die. The Terrans probably wouldn’t intentionally target the transports, but even a single rogue missile could destroy a logistics transport with forty thousand rescuees aboard. The assault transports looked more like warships and were more likely to be attacked, but they at least had warship-grade defenses.
“Let me guess: you’re hiding in here to worry so you can put on a bright, cheerful face when you have to talk to everybody else?” Michael Stanford asked from behind him.
Kyle laughed, turning around to find his CAG crossing the observation deck toward him.
“I don’t ‘worry,’ Vice Commodore Stanford,” he told the other man. “I consider strategies and operational consequences.”
“Like I said, worrying,” Stanford confirmed. He tossed Kyle a beer.
Kyle looked at it and recognized it as one of his small-brewery beers picked up on Frihet.
“Did you raid my stash?” he asked.
“Nah, just your office fridge when I went looking for you there first,” the CAG replied. “If it helps your ‘consideration of strategies and operational consequences’, we’ll have the last of the satellites emplaced inside an hour. All they’re going to do is open fire on the first big non-Alliance ship they see, so the planet is effectively blockaded until they’re gone or we shut them down.”
“We passed that on to the locals,” Kyle noted. “They can warn off everybody—including the Terrans, for that matter. It serves everyone’s purposes that way.”
It had turned out that Wen Min, Wen Lau’s wife, had survived the First Battle of Huī Xing and was one of the prisoners they had rescued. The Huī Xing government-in-hiding’s cooperativeness had gone from “present but grudging” to “significant” almost instantly, once they’d provided the list of prisoners.
“Everything else is running on schedule,” the Force Commander told Stanford. He might have been “hiding” on the observation deck, but it wasn’t entirely hyperbole to say he could command the carrier from anywhere aboard.
“I’d like it to be running faster,” Kyle continued. “I want to be outside the gravity well ten minutes ago—but I’m also not abandoning the transports until we can get them clear.”
“Are we sending them straight back, then?” Stanford asked.
“All the way to Alizon,” Kyle confirmed. “It’s a thirty-light-year straight trip—eleven days, give or take a few hours. I’m pretty sure there is at least one person on the surface with a telescope and a Commonwealth Q-Com, so, sadly, the attempt to make us look bigger is probably a bust.
“Since that’s the case, and since I wouldn’t want to risk the transports in combat now we’ve stuffed them full of rescuees, the best thing we can do is get them out of the line of fire,” he concluded. “And as soon as they’re loaded, that’s exactly what I plan on doing.”
“Doesn’t that risk the mission, though?” Stanford asked quietly. “Are four ships really going to be enough bait to bring the entire Twenty-Third Fleet here?”
“They’ll all come here,” Kyle noted. “They’ll keep their fleet together because throwing equal numbers at us is stupid. We have better starfighters and, well…” He shrugged. “They know my name. I may hate that Gods-cursed nickname, but it’s filtered back to the Commonwealth.
“Since I’m now a bona fide hero”—he puffed out his chest and gesticulated broadly—“according to our press and theirs, that makes me a target all on my own. While losing me wouldn’t impact our actual war effort significantly, there would probably be an impact to civilian morale.”
“Not just civilian, and not just according to the press,” his CAG pointed out. “Also, speaking as one of the people who’s supposed to die before anyone gets to your carrier, I fully intend for you to live through this.”
“So do I,” Kyle agreed. “But if they look like they’re not going to play, or like they’re going to send ships to reinforce Via Somnia, we’re going to have keep their attention in the oldest way possible.”
He saw his starfighter commander wince.
“And how exactly is that?” Stanford asked levelly.
“Oh, that’s easy,” the
Force Commander told him with a wide grin. “We punch them in the nose and insult their mothers.”
10:30 April 4, 2736 ESMDT
DSC-078 Avalon, Bridge
The loading was proceeding ahead of schedule, though not nearly as much as Kyle had hoped. They were already into the potential arrival window for the Commonwealth Twenty-Third Fleet, and there was still another ten minutes of work to do.
“Sir, Sunshine is reporting that one of the prisoners on their platforms wants to speak to you,” his com officer reported. “Apparently an Imperial Vice Admiral—says it’s a matter of ‘honor’.”
Kyle winced. There were, in fact, seven flag officers among the prisoners of higher rank than him. Most were the senior officers of junior members of the Alliance, people who weren’t going to jog the elbows of the man trying to get them out alive.
There was also a Castle Federation Space Force Rear Admiral, the original commander of the Huī Xing defenses, who neither Kyle nor Stanford had heard a peep from, and Coraline Imperial Navy Vice Admiral Wilhelm Reuter—who, it seemed, was not so sensible.
“Forward it to me,” Kyle ordered with a sigh, then dropped the privacy screen around his command chair.
“Vice Admiral Reuter,” he greeted the older man who appeared on the screen. “How can I help you?”
Reuter reminded him a lot of his last Captain. Like Malcolm Blair, Reuters was gaunt, his hair pure white with age. Also like Blair, one of his eyes had been replaced with an emergency prosthesis during the war and never updated.
“You already have, Force Commander Roberts,” the Imperial replied. His voice wavered with age—Reuter looked well into his second century—but his tone was firm. “You have saved my life and the lives of those I am sworn to command and protect. I wanted to thank you directly before you sent us all off to safety.”
“Did the Terrans mistreat you at all, sir?”
“No,” Reuter allowed. “We were treated in full compliance with the Tau Ceti Accords. But a life in imprisonment is not the life my people should live. They have families they should return to, and can no more do that as prisoners than if they were dead.”
The old man shook his head.
“I should have run,” he admitted. “Three old cruisers against a Terran Battle Group was suicide. But Hammerveldt’s defenses were weak. We had to fight. We failed Hammerveldt, regardless. I must thank you and your Admiral for succeeding where I failed.”
“We did our duty, sir,” Kyle replied, a little embarrassed. He was far too aware of how fragile the defenses they’d left behind them were to feel they had truly “saved” the system.
“Perhaps in Hammerveldt, Force Commander Roberts,” Reuter told him with a small smile. “But I know there’s an entire Terran fleet in this sector. Many would have used their presence as an excuse to avoid the risks you took in rescuing us prisoners.”
“I could not leave a hundred thousand spacers and soldiers of the Alliance in Terran hands,” he replied. “It would not be right.”
“Your actions speak of honor and integrity,” the Imperial Admiral told him. “And my honor requires such be repaid in kind. This will be the end of my career, Force Commander. I intend to return to Coral and take up residence in my estates, but I am and remain an Elector of the Imperium.”
The Imperator of the Coraline Imperium was elected for life—but only the noble caste known as Electors held the franchise for that election—and only if they’d performed military or diplomatic service. The rest of the Imperial government had a broader franchise, but only Electors got to vote for the Imperator.
“I owe you a debt of honor that cannot be repaid,” Reuter concluded. “My life and the lives of those I commanded, returned to us from our imprisonment. If ever I or mine can serve you or yours with treasure or with blood, you have but to call. The Reuter family will answer.”
An attention icon flashed on Kyle’s implants—a message noting that the loading was finally complete.
“I would refrain from swearing life debts, Admiral, until we escape this system,” Kyle noted dryly. “We should be on our way momentarily. If you’ll excuse me?”
“Of course, Force Commander. Do not forget what I have said,” Reuter told him. His voice might have shown his age, but his certainty shone through regardless. “Odin guide thee.”
“Thank you, Admiral. May all the Gods watch over you.”
Dropping the channel and the privacy screen, Kyle turned back to his bridge.
“That was weird,” he muttered. “Is everyone ready to go?” he asked.
“Still confirming,” Anderson told him. “A few minutes at most.” The XO paused, then stepped closer to Kyle and continued more quietly. “I think I know why the Admiral wanted to talk to you.”
“Oh?”
“Electors have to have served in the military to claim their vote when the Imperator dies,” the younger man explained. “So, they all go to war. Reuter’s granddaughter was an Ensign aboard one of the ships under his command. She lived—and now gets to go home because of us. Because of you.”
Kyle thought about that for a moment. If someone managed to liberate Jacob from a prison—however comfortable said prison—what would he be willing to do for them?
Debts of honor, indeed.
#
“Everyone reports ready to go,” Anderson informed him after a few more minutes of rushed preparation. “All of the platforms we’re taking are locked down and under the control of the senior prisoner aboard. The rest of the prisoners are aboard the Marine transports and pointedly not complaining about the cramped quarters.”
Kyle’s XO shook his head.
“We have confirmed that we have ninety-eight thousand, five hundred and seventy-one Alliance prisoners of war aboard the transports,” he noted. “For those keeping track, that makes this the seventeenth-largest prisoner rescue of all time.”
“Damn, I was hoping to be higher in the record books than that,” Kyle replied. “If we’re ready, then let’s move. Estimated time to clear the gravity well?”
“The transports can only pull two hundred gravities,” Anderson pointed out. “Seventy-one minutes to Alcubierre activation, sir.”
“Understood,” the Force Commander turned his attention to Pendez, who was watching calmly, waiting for her orders. “Take us, Commander Pendez. Two hundred gravities for now.”
“Yes, sir.”
Kyle had the impression that everyone in Battle Group Seven-Two was feeling the same itch between the shoulder blades he was. Even the most efficient formation—which his Battle Group was well on its way to becoming—generally had a noticeable gap between the flagship starting to accelerate and the rest of the formation responding to the order. That was why combat instructions tended to have activation times sent along with them, usually in the underlying data channels that accompanied most military communications.
The gap this time was under half a second. His nine ships were underway in moments, trekking away from Xin in the opposite direction from where they expected Twenty-Third Fleet to arrive.
If they appeared before Seven-Two was clear of the gravity well at this point, Kyle expected to be able to outrun them anyway. He still watched the screens feeding to his implant carefully—they were almost clear, but almost wasn’t safe yet.
Each minute they accelerated away from Xin, he relaxed a tiny bit more.
And then everything went to Hades.
“Alcubierre emergence!” Xue shouted, flashing an alert to everyone’s screens and implants. “We have multiple Alcubierre emergences—dead ahead.”
Someone had been playing clever games, Kyle realized. Once he was underway, his course had been transmitted to the incoming Terran fleet, who had adjusted their course to emerge from FTL and cut him off.
“What have we got?” he demanded. Depending on their strength, he might be able to fight through them. If nothing else, they’d dropped out too early—he could still run the other way and escape them.
“
I’ve got five ships,” Xue reported. “Lead is registering at twenty million tons, cubage uncertain—she’s probably our missing Saint. Rest are twelve million tons by their engine signatures—last-generation ships, Assassins and Lexingtons, likely.”
Kyle nodded slowly. Depending on the ratio of battlecruisers to carriers, he might be able to take out the blocking force—but it wasn’t likely, and he’d risk stray weapons fire hitting the transports packed with rescued prisoners. It wasn’t a risk he could afford.
“Turn us around,” he ordered. “One-hundred-twenty-degree flip, take us up from the ecliptic and away from them. They dropped in too early; we should be able to evade them.” He considered. “Show me their Alcubierre reach,” he finished grimly.
He was in the gravity well, limited to the acceleration he could produce with antimatter rockets. They were outside the well and could use their Alcubierre drives to skip around the exterior.
“We’ll need to angle further way from them,” Pendez noted as she dropped their reach onto his implants. They couldn’t reach all the way around Xin before he could evade them, but with the hundred and thirty thousand–gravity acceleration of their A-S drives, they could cut him off from most of his exit points.
“Do it,” he ordered grimly. If the other three ships of the Terran Twenty-Third Fleet had gone to Via Somnia, that was going to create a headache for Alstairs—but would work well for him.
Hell, if the other three ships—none of them modern—were here and tried to stop him, he could punch them out with starfighters and keep going. The trap had almost worked.
“I have another emergence!” Xue announced, as if Kyle’s thoughts had conjured them. She swallowed and turned to look back at him.
“Sir, I have five more ships,” she said quietly. “Two are in the twenty-million-ton range. Those were not in our intel estimate.”
She hadn’t told him where they’d emerged—he could see it for himself. The second half of the Terrans’ trap, dramatically more powerful than he’d estimated, had dropped out of FTL exactly opposite the first half. Between them, they covered both Xin and Goudeshijie’s gravity wells.
Battle Group Avalon (Castle Federation Book 3) Page 26
