Battle Group Avalon (Castle Federation Book 3)

by Glynn Stewart

  Battle Group Avalon was well and truly trapped.

  Chapter 32

  Huī Xing System

  11:00 April 4, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time

  DSC-078 Avalon, Bridge

  The bridge was silent for a long moment, which Kyle used to think furiously. Pulling a datapad from the arm of his command chair, he started rapidly entering commands both through the physical medium and his implants, trying desperately to find a solution.

  There was no way out. But while the ultimate objective had to be escape, there were other objectives he could fulfill without getting away—and still putting the commander of the Terran fleet between a rock and a hard place.

  “Commander Pendez,” he snapped. “Set a course for Goudeshijie orbit. Maintain two hundred gravities.”

  “That won’t get us out of the gravity well, sir,” she told him. “Goudeshijie’s well and…”

  “Xin’s are currently merged, yes,” Kyle told her. “I know. That gives us room to play, Maria. They want to keep us in this system, but they can’t enter the gravity well themselves without risking our escape. So, let’s get deep in the gravity well—if they want to play, let’s make them dance.

  “Xue,” he turned to his tactical officer, “I want Q-probes close enough to read the names on their cursed hulls. If they turn into the gravity well, I want to know before they do. Clear?!”

  “Yes, sir!” Xue replied.

  Through his implants and screens, Kyle saw the big carrier turn, and the rest of Battle Group Seven-Two followed her. Goudeshijie was over a full astronomical unit, just under nine light-minutes, from Xin, but the gas giant’s immense gravity well merged with Xin’s, giving Kyle a huge amount of space to play in.

  The Terrans’ ability to use their Alcubierre drives outside the gravity wells meant he couldn’t escape them—but he could force them to come to him if they wanted a fight.

  “Michael,” he subvocalized through his implants to his CAG. “I need you to get a full combat patrol up, but cycle your pilots. We’re going to need a missile defense net for days if I make this work.”

  “What happens if they come in after us?” the CAG asked.

  “If nothing else, that will let us get the transports free,” Kyle pointed out. “And either way, we’ll buy the time that Admiral Alstairs needed. If they go after her in Via Somnia, they can’t leave enough ships here to fight us and still have a fleet that can challenge her.

  “They have to choose—us or her. If they choose her, we’ll follow them and ram a fighter strike up their ass while they’re occupied. If they choose us…” Avalon’s Captain smiled grimly, knowing the channel would carry the emotion to Stanford, “Via Somnia falls.”

  “I’ll have your missile defense in the air in sixty seconds,” Stanford said finally. “Anything else you’d like, sir?”

  “If you’re sitting on a superweapon capable of taking out twice our numbers and tonnage that you haven’t told me about, now would be the time,” Kyle said brightly. “Otherwise, keep your people on their toes. I can play this game longer than they can possibly like—and sooner or later, they’re going to send every starfighter they’ve got at us.”

  “We’ll be ready,” his CAG promised.

  “I know.”

  Dropping the channel, Kyle turned his attention back to his bridge. Consoles and screens surrounded him, linking with his implants to provide a fully encompassing view of the system outside Avalon.

  The computers tagged Force Alpha and Force Bravo on his retinas, happily showing him their real-space and Alcubierre interception cones. Like his freighters, the older ships in the Terran fleet were limited to two hundred gravities—but that was enough to keep pace with his Battle Group as they arced outside the gravity well.

  For now, they were content to keep him trapped. He wondered how long that would last.

  Deep Space, One Light Month from Via Somnia System

  11:15 April 4, 2736 ESMDT

  BC-129 Camerone, Bridge

  Mira studied the data being relayed to Camerone carefully, hoping to see some solution for Kyle’s predicament that wasn’t immediately obvious. Something that someone not involved could see, a way out for her lover and a hundred-thousand-plus fellow soldiers.

  She hadn’t seen one by the time she got a ping from the Admiral.

  “Ma’am?” she replied.

  “I’m in conference with Roberts in two minutes,” Alstairs told her calmly. “I want you on for your perspective.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Mira confirmed. She paused. “I’ll have my head on straight,” she promised.

  “If I thought differently, I’d have stepped on your relationship instead of encouraging it, Captain,” Seventh Fleet’s commanding officer told her bluntly. “Have your bridge crew ready to move. We’ll be on our way to Via Somnia in ten minutes.”

  Camerone’s Captain swallowed and nodded.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Mira passed on the preparatory orders to her bridge crew quickly, then dropped the privacy screen around her command chair. She took a moment to compose herself, breathing deeply to push back her moment of panic at seeing Kyle surrounded.

  Finally, she linked into the Q-Com channel. A virtual conference table opened in her mind, with Kyle and Rear Admiral Alstairs joining her.

  None of the three were actually in a conference room. She and Kyle were on their bridges. Alstairs was on the flag deck. But a conference room was the default setting for this kind of implant-driven meeting, so a conference room was what they all saw.

  “What is your status, Force Commander Roberts?” Alstairs asked.

  “We are running for Goudeshijie,” he replied cheerfully. “If they want to dance in the dog world’s rings, I’ll happily indulge them—if nothing else, if their two battle groups enter the gravity well, I’m reasonably sure I can sneak the transports out.”

  “And if they continue to simply block your escape?”

  “Then you’ll get your seven days, Admiral,” Kyle said flatly. “Once you hit Via Somnia, they’re going to have to choose—Seventh Fleet or Battle Group Seven-Two. They’ve got ten ships to our twelve; their best chance is to knock out me and then go after you. Believe me, Admiral, I can stretch out this dance as easily in Goudeshijie’s gravity well as I could outside the gravity wells entirely.

  “I can give you your week.”

  “Roberts,” Alstairs said quietly, “that’s not a game you can play forever. I’m not prepared to sacrifice your battle group for that week.”

  “Via Somnia is the objective here,” he pointed out. “They know that as well as you and I do. Leave them the hard strategic decisions, ma’am. I can play this game for long enough.”

  “It will take four days for us to relieve you, Kyle,” Mira said quietly. “You won’t have time to realize if things are going downhill.”

  “That’s the risk we have to take,” he replied. “This sector isn’t safe unless Via Somnia falls. The bastards already jumped us with two more modern warships than we expected. If you neutralize the naval base, this Twenty-Third Fleet has to fall back—I can get the prisoners to safety and we can catch the bastards between your and ships and mine at Via Somnia.”

  “And if they believe Via Somnia can hold and press you harder?” Alstairs asked. “Or if they decide to destroy you and then come after us?”

  “Then I will give the bastards a fight they won’t soon forget,” Kyle told them grimly. “I don’t plan on dying here, Admiral. They’ll make a mistake sooner or later.”

  “Very well, Force Commander,” the Admiral replied. “We will proceed as originally planned.”

  Alstairs dropped out of the channel, leaving Mira and Kyle looking at each other’s virtual avatars.

  “Do not die on me,” she told him fiercely.

  “I’ll be fine,” he said breezily. “They have to catch me first, and I’ve got an entire gas giant’s gravity well to play in.”

  Mira shook her head slowly. “
Give them hell,” she told him.

  Chapter 33

  Huī Xing System

  18:00 April 4, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time

  DSC-078 Avalon, Bridge

  Avalon settled into the rings of Goudeshijie with careful precision. The Battle Group had slowed, but not to a velocity where the gas giant could actually hold them in orbit. An orbit was too predictable, a path that would allow the Terran ships still drifting outside the gravity well to fire missile salvos.

  “I’m surprised we made it this far without them shooting at us,” Xue said quietly. “Or sending fighters in, for that matter.”

  “With our fighters out, they know they couldn’t get any birds through our defenses,” Kyle pointed out. “Long-range missile fire also makes accurate targeting a problem—they’d risk hitting the transports carrying the prisoners, and it appears that our Terran friends don’t want to risk that.”

  “So, what, they’re just going to orbit out there until we run out of food and have to surrender?” his tactical officer asked.

  “Given that we barely have enough food aboard the transports to make it to Alizon as it is, it’s not the worst plan they could have,” Kyle replied. “The platforms had a thirty-four day stock of food. Removing the guards from the calculation doesn’t add that much extra to the allowance. Keep us trapped for a few days and the options for the transports start shrinking fast. Keep us trapped for a few weeks and our food supplies start being a problem.”

  The warships could recycle a lot of things. Food was…technically one of them, but the efficiency was low, and once they started on the ship-produced nutrient bars, everyone knew what they were eating. The transports full of rescued prisoners would run out of food much faster than the Battle Group’s warships—but the Battle Group would go onto nutrient bars before the transports ran out of real food.

  Morale would suffer. Demoralized crews would be less efficient. Right now, if Kyle didn’t have the transports to protect, shooting his way through one of the Terran task forces would be a reasonable option—he wouldn’t get everyone out, but he’d probably get at least two of his four warships clear. A demoralized Battle Group’s odds would go down—not from any active desire on the part of his people not to escape, but from the inevitably slowed reactions of terrified, underfed spacers.

  He wasn’t that desperate yet. For now, all he needed to do was bide his time—if Alstairs and Mira could take Via Somnia, the enemy would be forced to withdraw. He could achieve his mission without firing a shot.

  “Sir, we’re receiving a wide-beam transmission from the Commonwealth forces,” his com officer told him. “It’s addressed to you—personally.”

  “We didn’t exactly hide who was in command,” Kyle reminded his XO. “Put it through.”

  It popped up on the screens of his command chair, and Kyle found himself looking at a recording of the flag bridge of a Commonwealth warship.

  He couldn’t actually guess which ship it was—like the Federation, the Commonwealth standardized both the command and flag bridges of warships. It was one of the three modern ships—one each, apparently, of the Saint, Volcano and Hercules classes—but he couldn’t narrow it down more than that.

  In the center of the recording, with the screens around him blocked out by automatic censoring software, sat a slim pale-skinned blond man in the black-and-red sashed uniform of the Commonwealth Navy, three gold stars at his neck marking him as a Vice Admiral. This had to be the commander of the fleet trapping him.

  “Force Commander Kyle Roberts, I am Vice Admiral Kaj Ness of the Terran Commonwealth Navy’s Twenty-Third Fleet, charged with the security of Sector Charlie of the Rimward Marches. A Sector, I hardly need to tell you, that you have rampaged through, destroying ships and killing men and women I have served with for longer than you have been alive.”

  Ness inhaled sharply, bringing his hands together and then releasing them as he exhaled.

  “Nonetheless, Force Commander, I am prepared to be merciful. You can hide like a rabbit in the rocks if you wish, but we both know you only delay the inevitable. Surrender, and I promise that you and your people will be treated gently.

  “If this comes to a battle, you will not win. You will only die and take all of those under your command with you.”

  The message ended and Kyle smiled.

  “Record for response,” he ordered, then leaned back to face the camera in his chair.

  “Vice Admiral Ness, I appreciate the kind offer you have extended, but I must decline,” he told the Terran calmly. “I am a soldier of the Federation, sir, and I have not yet begun to fight.” A mental command ended the recorded and transmitted the message.

  The bridge was very quiet, and Kyle looked at the channel from secondary control to see Anderson watching him.

  “So, what happens now, sir?” his XO asked quietly.

  “We wait,” Kyle replied. “We see what our Admiral Ness does once he knows Via Somnia is under attack.” He paused, considering. “Oh, he’ll also probably fire missiles relatively quickly. They’ll take over an hour and a half to get to us, but they’re going to do something.”

  #

  “Missile launch, sir,” Xue reported about five minutes later. “You were right.”

  Kyle sighed. He’d hoped he wouldn’t be—long-range missile fire was notoriously inaccurate, putting the transports packed full of rescued prisoners at risk.

  “What do we have?” he asked.

  “Looks like two salvos from each task force,” she told him. “They also seem to be moving their Q-probes in closer to refine their targeting—I don’t have clear hits, but the ghost zones are getting smaller.”

  Like Battle Group Seven-Two, Twenty-Third Fleet had Q-probes in close to provide near-real-time data back to Admiral Ness on their enemy’s actions. The quantum entanglement com–equipped probes were the stealthiest things in anyone’s arsenal—as much as anything with an antimatter rocket capable of a thousand gravities could be stealthy.

  Their sensors and computers could tell Xue and Kyle that there were Q-probes out there. They could even make a guess at how many—but they couldn’t tell them the exact location or velocity. Only an area where the probe could be—hence “ghost zones’.” Speed and engine size decreased the size of the ghost zone rapidly, rendering the technology useless for just about any other purpose, but it let both Ness and Kyle have eyes on the other that were less than a second out of date as opposed to over eight minutes.

  Speaking of the Q-probes…

  “Do we have probes detached to follow the missiles?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Kyle nodded and leaned back in his chair, studying the two salvos. Both salvos were roughly sixty missiles, which matched up with what the Q-probes were telling him. Admiral Ness had to be cursing whichever Terran Navy bean-counter had assigned his fleet so many of the Lexington-class carriers.

  The Lexington was a last-generation ship with a hundred and fifty starfighters aboard, a perfect unit for a nodal force defending multiple systems—but it had no missile launchers. Admiral Ness had three of them, two with his Saint flagship and one with the other task force.

  He also had three modern ships and four last-generation battlecruisers, which made up much of the difference. There were a lot of games Kyle could play with eight light-minutes of maneuvering room to prevent Ness’s people from consolidating their fighter strength, but fewer he could with missiles.

  “Inform Vice Commodore Stanford we will have missiles inbound in one hundred minutes,” he said aloud. “Keep everyone in the Battle Group informed on the status of the salvos. I presume we’re looking at time-on-target impacts?”

  “I can’t be certain yet,” Xue warned, “but it appears so. I believe we’ll have all two hundred and thirty-six missiles arriving simultaneously on two vectors.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant Commander,” Kyle told her. “Keep me informed.”

  There wasn’t much to do now but wait and watch
. The missiles simply added a new timer to the series of countdowns running in his implant. How long until Seventh Fleet arrived in Via Somnia. The estimated time for Seventh Fleet to destroy Via Somnia’s defenses and plant the defenses they’d brought with them.

  The estimate for how long until the ships under his command ran out of food.

  The timer for incoming missiles was in appropriate company.

  #

  Both salvos cut their engines roughly eighty-eight million kilometers away from Battle Group Seven-Two, doing just over ten percent of lightspeed. The Q-probes kept pace with the missiles, allowing Kyle’s people to dial them in for long-range defensive fire—but nothing in their arsenal except their own missiles reached that far.

  “Should we at least fire back?” Anderson asked over the intercom, the XO clearly perturbed by simply waiting for the missiles to arrive.

  “No, I want to hang on to our missiles,” Kyle replied. “That said, now that they’re flying dumb, it’s time for us to do something. Transmit these course directions to the Battle Group.”

  He’d spent the hour the missiles were accelerating toward him preparing his plan. The freighters now lunged away from the capital ships at two hundred gravities, tucking toward Goudeshijie’s largest moon. In the forty minutes the missiles were ballistic, they’d be able to put the midsized lifeless rock between them and the weapons.

  The capital ships went one way, turning to close the distance with the sixty-missile salvo inbound from one task force, while most of Stanford’s starfighters went the other. With pure ballistic courses, many of their weapons could start killing missiles at about ten light-seconds—about twenty-five seconds before the missiles would bring up their drives for their terminal attack.