13:00 December 25, 2735 ESMDT
DSC-078 Avalon, Captain’s Office
Christmas Day was generally a day for light duty unless the ship was likely to see action. Since Battle Group Seventeen wasn’t scheduled to arrive in the Dis system until late on the twenty-sixth, Kyle had seen no reason to change that tradition.
He wasn’t surprised that it took until after lunch for Solace to poke her head into his office. Since the ship was in FTL anyway, there was little that was likely to happen to need his attention. Another tradition was that the Captain wasn’t out and about on Christmas – there tended to be a bit more drunkenness than the Commanding Officer wanted to take official notice of.
“Merry Christmas, sir,” Solace greeted him.
“Merry Christmas, Commander Solace,” Kyle replied. “Everything staying quiet?”
“So far so good, sir,” she replied, taking the chair opposite him. “I am specifically not aware that there is a large party taking place on the Atrium with punch that is most definitely spiked with engineering’s vodka.”
“Then I shall also remain unaware,” the Captain agreed cheerfully. “Drink, Commander? Since we specifically do not know our crew is getting drunk, I don’t think anyone will begrudge us a beer.”
She shook her heard.
“I don’t drink alcohol, sir,” she reminded him. “Tea?”
Kyle grabbed a beer from the mini-fridge for himself and ran a tea out of the hot beverage dispenser for Solace.
It was a strangely awkward meeting, both of them trying to have the personal conversations normally allowed on Christmas while not really having that connection.
“Any news from home?” he asked as he passed her the tea.
“Cliath is a few hours behind Standard Meridian today,” she told him. “My sister is probably only just now chivvying her kids out of bed.”
Cliath was the capital city of Tuatha, one of the Federation’s main member systems. The planet had a twenty-two and a half hour day, so its alignment with the Earth Standard Meridian Time used on starships shifted.
“Yourself, sir?”
“Got a video from my son and his mother,” Kyle replied. “Someone gave the boy a meter-long replica of the old Avalon. He’s ecstatic, and his mother is… tolerant.” He shrugged. “She also apparently has a new boyfriend, which she seemed to think she was ‘Dear John’ing me by telling me.”
Solace seemed taken aback.
“Your son’s mother…?”
“We dated in high school and she had an implant glitch resulting in an unplanned pregnancy,” Kyle said quietly. “I ran off and joined the Navy, my mom helped take care of Lisa and Jacob. We’re on good terms, but we’re not together. Honestly happy for her – he’s a good man.”
“I didn’t realize you had a son, sir,” Solace admitted. “Your reputation is, well…”
“Chaste?” Kyle observed with a chuckle. “Celibate? Trust me, Commander, it only takes completely messing up one relationship to figure you aren’t cut out for them. Besides, once I started ending up in command, the options got a lot more complicated.”
“I see,” his XO said. She was still stiff. Opening up about his family wasn’t breaking down barriers, and Kyle mentally sighed. At this point, it was up to her to sort out her issues – so long as she kept doing her job.
“In any case,” he said, realizing that they would both be more comfortable if he brought the conversation back to work, “I had some thoughts on exercises once we get to Dis…”
Chapter 16
Dis System
20:00 December 26, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
DSC-078 Avalon, Bridge
“Where did they come from?!”
Solace’s explanation echoed through the bridge without response for a long moment, then the XO regained her composure.
The two cruisers that had just lit off their drives were the center of attention on the bridge, and Kyle leaned back in his chair as he studied the situation.
Solace had kept a single Wing, forty-eight fighters, back to protect the carrier while sending the other four at the pair of battleships deeper in-system threatening the planet of Dis. That had seemed a logical decision at the time, almost conservative with no additional apparent threats.
Now, two Hercules-class battlecruisers, each a match for Avalon in mass though less maneuverable, charged towards her. Sixty Scimitars led the way, and Wing Commander Rokos’ fighters slashed out to meet them.
His screen also showed Stanford trying desperately to turn the rest of the Fighter Group around. They were already millions of kilometers away with a significant velocity towards the battleships. They might get back in time to avenge the supercarrier, but they certainly weren’t going to save her.
Nonetheless, Senior Fleet Commander Solace’s orders were quick and firm. The carrier started accelerating away from the cruisers as her heavy beams began the almost futile attempt to help the starfighters engage the Commonwealth attack.
It was bad luck more than anything else that made the final difference. Lucky missile strikes in the first exchange took out Rokos and two of his squadron commanders. Disorganized, and with the firepower of the three capital ships filling the battlespace, the remainder of Delta Wing were annihilated.
Only a handful of the Commonwealth fighters survived, but they hadn’t needed to. The Hercules had fewer beams and lighter deflectors than Avalon did, but their beams were almost half again as heavy as Avalon’s.
They outranged her by over a hundred thousand kilometers, and the lights dimmed on the bridge less than thirty seconds after they entered their range. The ‘Simulation Ended’ message popped up on both the screens around them and everyone’s implants.
Kyle quickly glanced at the mental ‘screen’ where he saw Vice Admiral Tobin’s side of the engagement, and then at the other one showing the nine ships of the battle group and convoy peacefully dropping down Dis’ gravity well.
“Well, that was… fun,” Solace said flatly as Tobin’s image popped up on the screen. “You are sneaky, sir,” she told the Admiral.
“So is Walkingstick,” Tobin said bluntly. “Thankfully, if the Commonwealth had been attacking Dis, those two cruisers would have run into Magellan, Gravitas, and Cameroon, and there would have been a very different result.”
“And if Avalon was operating alone, as fleet carriers do, my mistake would have just killed six thousand people,” the XO replied bitterly.
“Learn, Commander, do not beat yourself up,” the Admiral said bluntly. “Captain Roberts?”
“Admiral,” Kyle acknowledged. He was making mental notes on what he’d seen on both sides of the exercise.
“I leave the critique to you,” the big bear of an Admiral turned his gaze on the bridge crew and finished gruffly. “Your bridge crew’s performance was acceptable given the odds. Let’s aim for ‘victorious’ next time, shall we?”
The Admiral’s image disappeared, and Kyle looked around his bridge with a small smile. He had his full Alpha Watch on duty for this exercise, and they were all looking abashed.
Commander Pendez had done her part beautifully, though she still looked concerned. Senior Fleet Commander Solace, on the other hand, had gone full black statue; and Commander Anderson, the Tactical Officer, was looking down at his console with a sallow expression.
“All right,” Kyle said crisply. “Commander Solace, you were in command. Where do you think we went wrong?”
“I sent too many fighters after the battleships,” she admitted crisply, her face frozen in the mask that he still found vaguely disturbing. “The error was mine, sir.”
“It’s an easy mistake for ex-cruiser officer to make,” Kyle pointed out. “I’ve been guilty of it myself in exercises – it’s the ‘my last ship had less than a Wing of fighters, a Wing of fighters is therefore a lot of fighters’ thought process.
“And,” he continued sharply, “given what you were seeing, it was a relatively accurate assessment. Co
mmander Anderson’s horrified expression is suggesting that he has realized exactly where the main issue arose from. Would you care to elaborate, James?”
The redheaded officer was even paler than usual, but he swallowed hard and raised his head to meet Solace’s gaze levelly.
“We had a pair of sensor ghosts where those cruisers came from,” he said quietly. “Barely above detection thresholds; computer and human analysis suggested it was an old thermal trail from deeper in the system, so I didn’t mention it. We saw them – and dismissed them – before you sent the fighters ahead.
“You didn’t have enough information, ma’am,” Anderson finished. “My fault.”
“That… seems relatively reasonable, actually,” Solace told him gently, the frozen statue fading slightly as she realized it was at least partially a junior’s fault not her own. “I’m not sure I would have made a different call, James.”
“Lessons for both of you, then,” Kyle told them firmly. “Anderson – never assume the CO doesn’t need to know something. It would have taken you ten, maybe fifteen, seconds to let Commander Solace know what you’d seen and how low the threshold was. There was almost ten minutes between the ghosts showing up and Vice Commodore Stanford’s fighters passing the point of no return.
“What you see might not seem relevant – but you don’t always know all of the Captain’s plans.
“And Solace,” he turned to his XO. “You can’t assume that your bridge officers will pass on everything you need to know. They may not know all of your plans,” he repeated with a grin, eking a chuckle from his officers.
“You have the ability to mirror anyone’s displays into your implant,” he continued. “Outside of combat, using without care can be rude. In combat, it’s a necessity. I generally have the sensor feed from CIC, our ammunition status, and the primary navigation display either on my implant or on my console.
“There’s no time for you to watch over everyone’s shoulders in combat – but having the displays mirrored will give you more situational awareness – and help you realize when there’s a question you should ask.”
Both Solace and Anderson were nodding abashedly, though they’d both stopped looking like they were about to fall on their swords.
“Now,” Kyle told them cheerfully, “we’re going to do this all over again. I’ll be running the Op Force this time – and, well, you just made me look bad to the Admiral.”
Someone actually groaned aloud. He pretended to not notice, but he was reasonably sure it was Solace. That was a good sign.
10:00 December 27, 2735 ESMDT
DSC-078 Avalon, Vice Admiral Tobin’s Office
Dimitri reviewed the results of the follow-up exercises from the previous night with a grin. With his people now over-sensitive to sensor ghosts due to Dimitri’s contribution, Roberts had used decoy drones to try to lure Solace into under-committing fighters to a strike.
Instead, the XO had decided to hold back all of her fighters and use sensor drones to validate her targets – and then dropped the full two hundred and forty fighter strike on the poor trio of strike cruisers Roberts had been trying to lure her into attacking with too little force.
The Admiral had also eavesdropped on the critique of the exercise he’d run the opposing force for. Roberts was doing quite acceptably though he still had some concerns around the man’s experience and aggression.
At least Dis wasn’t going to be an issue for anyone. Despite the paranoia-inducing exercises they’d been running, the system was completely secure. Three heavy fleet carriers – the entirety of the Dis Security Force’s capital ship strength – hung in high orbit over the planet. His screens showed at least twenty guardships running escort on various industrial complexes, and easily two hundred starfighters flying patrols and escorts.
The DSF was a capable defensive force, one that didn’t really need the carriers but had refused to deploy them out-system after Walkingstick’s first wave of attacks. The twenty Gallants and three hundred Cobras coming here were more of a bribe than a necessity, in his opinion.
He shook his head. Their visit here would be short. Unlike Amaranthe, there was no reason for anyone to visit the surface, and there was no partial unloading – the ships that had carried supplies for Amaranthe would be emptied here. The convoy was going to drop three of the ships it had brought here, and the rest would head for Kematian.
“Sir, I have that analysis of the exercises you asked for,” Sanchez informed him, sticking her head in.
“Bring it in, Judy,” he ordered.
His Chief of Staff brought in one of the Navy’s ubiquitous datapads and slipped it onto his desk.
“That second series of exercises mostly went Solace’s way,” she noted. “I would have expected the Captain to do better.”
“Success in training exercises is not always measured in who has more victories, Judy,” Dimitri reminded her. “They were intentionally one-trick exercises – if Solace saw through the trick in time, the odds were actually slightly in her favor. If she missed the trick, she got stomped.”
Sanchez shook her head.
“Roberts seems overly enamored with those kinds of tricks,” she told him. “Seems dangerous.”
“It is,” Dimitri allowed. “On the other hand, when they work, they can pull out a victory for an inferior force. It’s how he won at Tranquility. It’s a question of judgment on whether tricks are called for.”
“I see, sir,” Sanchez allowed. She glanced at the pad, which showed an assessment of Solace’s performance. “And Solace, sir?”
“Solace underestimates the value of those tricks,” the Admiral replied, skimming the data. “That doesn’t appear to be a weakness that will survive serving as Captain Roberts’ XO.”
“Do you trust her judgment or Captain Roberts’, sir?”
Dimitri looked up at Sanchez, eyeing his Chief of Staff carefully.
“Both are experienced officers,” he said slowly. “Solace has more experience in Navy command, though Roberts has more combat experience. Having seen neither in action, I’d hesitate to judge one over the other.”
“Of course, sir,” Sanchez said promptly.
Dimitri couldn’t quite shake the feeling the Senior Fleet Commander was fishing for something. The longer he served with Judy Sanchez, the more he was beginning to wonder about the woman. She was efficient, competent and took initiative – sometimes too much initiative, but better to restrain the courageous lion than prod the lazy mule.
But there was just something about her…
Chapter 17
Deep Space, En route to Kematian System
01:00 December 29, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
DSC-078 Avalon, Main Flight Deck
Among the many varied and entertaining duties of the Commander, Air Group, was surprise inspections. As a squadron leader, Michael had always found it useful to make those inspections with no one around, and he saw no reason to change the habit now that he was in charge of an entire Fighter Group.
Starting the inspection in the middle of the night also meant he might get through at least a full wing of ships before the day watch started and people began to realize the CAG was inspecting.
In the middle of an FTL dark watch, the flight deck was creepily silent. The lighting was a little bit dimmer than usual, not much but enough to throw shadows into stark relief behind and underneath the multi-thousand ton delta-shapes of his starfighters.
His Chief NCO and the squad of techs and Flight Engineers he’d dragooned into the task with less than ten hours’ notice seemed less enthused with the whole idea than he was, but that was normal for any midnight duty.
“All right folks,” he told them, gathering them around, “we’re going to start with my ship first. In theory,” he grinned, “this should be the example of what the starfighters should look like, but reality may differ.”
The truth was that he’d gone over his ship with his Flight Engineer the previous day, and if it wasn
’t a perfect example, something very strange was going on.
As if the universe was listening to him, the lights in that corner of the flight deck promptly went out. That was, while not impossible, extremely unlikely to happen by accident.
“Hold position!” he snapped. “Hammond, what’s going on?”
He flipped a check command into the net as he was speaking, and saw that the lights had been turned off. A blink and a thought, and the lights came back up – only to go down again as someone slammed an override command into the net.
The deck was filled with flickering light and shadow as he pushed the rest of the lights to maximum and he and Hammond charged forward.
There.
The shadows were moving. There were people there, using the shadows to hide as they tried to disappear from his deck. As he spotted them, all of the deck lights went down.
That definitely couldn’t happen by accident, and worse, Michael was now locked out of the lights for his own flight deck.
“What the fuck?!” the Chief exclaimed.
Before Hammond had even finished swearing, Michael had gone for a different option – and the running lights on two hundred and forty starfighters lit up simultaneously.
Designed to be visible from hundreds of kilometers away in deep space, the deck was brighter with those running lights than with its regular lighting. With everything finally clear, Michael caught a glimpse of a figure disappearing into a side access door, and another figure turning back towards them.
“Stop!” Michael bellowed. “Stand the Void down!”
He had a moment to process what he was seeing as the ship-suited figure drew a weapon – and fired!
The first bullet whipped past his shoulder, shattering against the hull of one of the starfighters, and Michael froze. He was a starfighter pilot, not a Marine!
The second bullet sent his tech team scattering and Michael diving for cover, dropping behind one of the many robotic vehicles used for transporting munitions across the deck – this one thankfully without a cargo.
Stellar Fox (Castle Federation Book 2) Page 11
