The skeletal Commonwealth officer shrugged, looking very tired.
“kaBhekuzulu agreed,” he said simply. “The crisis appeared over, and we stood down to allow the Triumphant to be taken in. You saw what followed.”
“You’ll forgive me, Captain Paris, if I am more concerned about the hundreds of millions Richardson killed on Kematian than the thousands he killed here,” Tobin said bluntly. “But do not worry. We will hunt Captain Richardson to the ends of the galaxy if need be.”
Kyle managed to avoid making any noticeable response to that. Hopefully, the Admiral was exaggerating – there were limits to how far Avalon could go, or how long they could indulge in this pursuit.
“I must confess, Admiral,” Paris replied, his voice very quiet, “that before I surrendered our facility to you I left a program in our surveillance network to inform Walkingstick of where Triumphant fled. Whether by your hand or by the Marshal’s, Richardson will pay for his crimes.”
Tobin grunted and gestured for the Marines to take Paris and his subordinate away. Once the prisoners had left, Major Norup exited the shuttle. The Marine was in an unmarked dark gray jumpsuit, the kind his people wore under body armor, and looked exhausted.
“Captain, Admiral,” he saluted. “I beg leave to report we have secured approximately seventy five percent of the Commonwealth base. We have identified and sequestered slightly over eighty percent of Captain Paris’ people – we’re using one of the storage platforms to hold them all. It’s been cleared of anything except food,” he noted.
“Excellent work, Major,” Kyle told him. For sixteen hours work in as large a facility as the Commonwealth had assembled here, that was almost a miracle.
“We have also managed to make contact with the command structure of the Alizon Guard,” he reported. “My understanding is that President Ingolfson is alive, but buried very deep – both literally and metaphorically. He is expected to be in a position to speak with Admiral Tobin by later this morning.
“My people are coordinating efforts with the Guard, but so far, the Terrans are being cooperative. If,” he finished with a wicked smile, “somewhat shocked at just how many intact, fully equipped, Guard units are still around.”
“Well done indeed, Major,” Tobin confirmed. “We’re having a staff meeting on Avalon’s next steps at oh nine hundred hours. It will impact your people, so I’d like you to be there.”
“Yes, sir,” was the disheveled Marine’s only reply.
09:00 January 15, 2736 ESMDT
DSC-078 Avalon, Flag Deck Conference Room
Dimitri took a swallow of his coffee as he settled himself down at the end of the conference table, glancing around the room at the small group he’d gathered. If he failed to convince these five people of the validity of his plans and authority, he might well end up throwing his career away for nothing.
“Ladies, gentlemen,” he began calmly. “It has been seventeen hours since Triumphant went faster than light. Since it will take us two hours to get clear enough to engage our own FTL drive, that means we are a minimum of nineteen hours behind Captain Richardson, and according to my math, we’ll only make up four hours over the ten light years to Barsoom.
“We are under some pressure from High Command to bring Triumphant to heel and return to other duties,” he lied. “I want to get us underway as soon as possible – I would very much like to have us underway by thirteen hundred hours. Giving Captain Richardson more than twenty hours in a system that is effectively defenseless makes my teeth itch.”
“What about Alizon, sir?” Norup asked immediately. “The Guard may be doing the heavy lifting on the surface, but the Star Guard is functionally gone. Even if they have pilots, they have no starfighters or guardships.”
“Remember, Major, that Captain Paris’ surrender included the remaining starfighters,” Dimitri reminded him, “While the flight crews did their jobs and wiped their systems, my understanding is that we have a copy of the Scimitar’s flight and combat software. Vice Commodore?”
Stanford started, surprised, but nodded slowly.
“The Scimitar has been in service for years, and we’ve captured a few intact already,” he agreed. “We have full copies of their software to use in our simulators. The Q-Coms won’t work – we don’t have updated Commonwealth codes and we’re probably better off tearing the entangled particle arrays out of the ships for our own security – but we can give them control of the engines and weapons.”
“The Alizoni should be able to come up with flight crews for sixty starfighters,” the Admiral told his people. “As I understand it, the support ships we have left are capable of refuelling and rearming in space. They should be able to coopt some of the insystem clippers or civilian platforms to provide quarters for their crews, and we can leave… how many tugs would you be comfortable leaving, Captain Roberts?”
Avalon’s Captain looked uncertain. Dimitri knew that Roberts had been aware of the original deadline, now expired, and hoped the man figured the Admiral was stretching his orders, not completely defying them.
“I’m not entirely comfortable only having eight ships for SAR,” he admitted finally. “But we can leave four. The Commonwealth platform had enough Javelins aboard to provide functionally infinite reloads for the starfighters as well. From a planetary defense standpoint, though, sixty starfighters is a pretty sparse line to shield a world.” The Captain paused. “Triumphant barely qualifies as a modern ship. We can probably spare one of Stanford’s Wings.”
“Agreed,” Dimitri told him. “The rest of Battle Group Seventeen is already en route here and can reinforce the Star Guard and whichever Wing we leave behind. I can’t see Walkingstick mobilizing an assault force and getting it here in the next twelve days.”
He turned back to Norup.
“I have no intention of leaving the Alizon Guard in the lurch, either,” he told the Major. “The truth is that we will not be attempting to board Triumphant,” he admitted. “Outside of a small detachment – the platoon or so you’ve already left aboard should do – for onboard security and supporting Marshal Barsamian, I don’t see any need for Marines.
“I intend to leave you and most of your battalion behind, quartered in the logistics base, with all of your assault shuttles. With you acting a fast response force, and the Commonwealth starfighters to provide a core force for the Star Guard, I believe the Alizoni should be able to secure their own system until BG Seventeen arrives.”
“That… makes sense,” the Major admitted with a sigh. “We can do that, sir.”
“Admiral,” Solace interjected, the first the dark-skinned executive officer had spoken so far. “We now know that Walkingstick knows exactly where Richardson was going from here. One of his main nodal forces is, well, only ten light years from Barsoom. He can have a ship – or even multiple ships – to Barsoom before we can get there.
“It’s a Commonwealth system, sir. Can we really justify leaving one of our systems swinging in the breeze to charge off to protect a Commonwealth system from a Commonwealth Captain?” she asked bluntly.
“This system needs us, sir. This kind of decision is your prerogative as the flag officer on the scene – we need to at least consider whether or not pursuing Triumphant is really in the Alliance’s best interests.”
Damn, Solace was a clever woman. And a brave one too – Dimitri was sure several of the others had been thinking it, but Roberts’ XO had been the one to put it forward. Of course, she was junior enough that no one would hold being devil’s advocate against her.
“It’s not our place to second-guess Alliance High Command,” Sanchez snapped, Dimitri’s Chief of Staff leaping to his defense. He wondered, for a moment, if she knew what he was doing. She was perhaps the only person on the ship who might have overheard something.
“It’s not, Commander Sanchez,” Dimitri agreed, but he forced a smile on his face as he looked at Solace. “However, as Commander Solace says, discussing and considering these sorts of points is the
responsibility of a flag officer – or a ship commander,” he added, nodding to Roberts, “on the scene.
“As it happens, Admiral Blake and I had this exact discussion.” Though the sides hadn’t been what he was trying to convince his people of. “High Command and I agree that we cannot risk the loss of face and sovereignty inherent in allowing the Commonwealth to exact justice for our dead. The Alliance has never allowed these atrocities to go without punishment at our hands, and we cannot change that policy now.
“Triumphant must – and will be hunted down and destroyed. We are the closest, and we will carry out this mission,” he stated firmly. “Now, in regards to that, I believe Senior Fleet Commander Sanchez has prepared a briefing on the Barsoom system?”
He seemed to have won his case. His officers were nodding and turning their attention to the briefing. Despite everything, it seemed to have been an astonishingly easy lie to carry off.
“Barsoom,” Sanchez began, “is a five planet system inside what has traditionally been Alliance space. It was scouted by ships from Earth around the same time as many of the planets that made up the first wave of colonization this far out, but deemed unsustainable for colonization.”
A model of the star system appeared in the middle of the table. It was a stereotypical five planet system – two gas giants in distant orbits, an asteroid field of debris the gas giants had kept from forming into planets, a burnt rock in a super-fast orbit, and a heavy atmosphere hothouse world just too close to be habitable.
The third planet was the key. It was a reddish blue, an odd tinge, but one Dimitri knew tended to be found on barely habitable worlds.
“The system was named for Barsoom III’s resemblance to what geologists believe Mars to have looked like tens or hundreds of millions of years ago. III has an atmosphere, even one breathable to humans. However, an extended weak period of the system star has resulted in most of the water on the planet being locked into the soil and a long-term die off of vegetation and animal life.
“Combined with a trio of large inner system cometary bodies, whose orbits are just fast enough to avoid being captured by Barsoom III but close enough in to strip atmosphere away every time they pass, the surveyors figured III would be uninhabitable by roughly Earth Standard Year three thousand and almost completely atmosphere-less by year four thousand.
“Since the area had many planets that could be inhabited without the massive intervention Barsoom would require, no one had any interest until the War ended,” she said calmly. “At that point, the Commonwealth launched a government-sponsored terraforming operation. The three comets stealing Barsoom’s atmosphere were destroyed or re-directed, and active warming efforts began.
“They have slowed the degradation and begun to re-stabilize the ecosystem. Current projections are to open colonization in about twenty years – at which point, the corp doing the terraforming stands to make an absolutely unimaginable amount of money.”
“But we’re pretty sure it was there as a listening post,” Kyle pointed out.
“Exactly,” Sanchez agreed. “To our knowledge, there is no military presence in the system, but there is a Commonwealth Intelligence facility and the terraforming base would be able to provide the Triumphant with all of her consumables except ammunition.
“And unless Walkingstick does send ships to its defense from Captain Paris’ data, the system is completely defenseless.”
11:00 January 15, 2736 ESMDT
DSC-078 Avalon, Vice Admiral Tobin’s Office
“Sir, we finally have President Ingolfson for you,” Dimitri was informed by the com operator. “He’s requesting an immediate link-up.”
“Put him through,” he ordered. A momentary chill ran through him. If Ingolfson had an active Q-Com connection back to the Alliance, it was going to get a lot harder to pretend his orders were still to chase Triumphant very quickly.
His wallscreen dissolved from plain gray metal into the image of a heavily jowled blond man sitting at a cheap desk that could have fit in any office in the galaxy.
“Vice Admiral Tobin,” the President of Alizon greeted him. “I’m glad to have the opportunity to thank you personally for your intervention. While the Commonwealth’s occupation was not heavy, it is never… easy to rest under the hand of a foreign conqueror.”
“We were in the area, Mister President,” Dimitri told him. “But once we were here, we weren’t going to leave the Commonwealth in charge.”
It took almost a full second for Ingolfson to respond, and Dimitri checked quickly to confirm his impression – the President was speaking to him via an old-fashioned radio, not any kind of Q-Com. Which made sense, as he’d have had to confirm any Q-Com communication himself.
Counter Intelligence Level One gave him complete control over the ship’s interstellar communications. Technically, Captain Roberts should have been the one with the review, but Dimitri was perfectly willing to push the gray area of effectively having a ‘Battle Group’ of one ship.
“It’s appreciated,” Ingolfson eventually answered. “My understanding from my staff is that you do need to continue your original mission, correct? I’ve been briefed on Kematian.”
“Exactly, Mister President,” Dimitri confirmed. “We intend to be underway in approximately two hours. We don’t intend to leave you defenseless, though I’m hoping you can contribute personnel if nothing else. Captain Roberts’ people are just finishing re-booting the sixty Scimitars the Commonwealth has left behind.
“We’ll be leaving one of our fighter Wings and those Scimitars behind. If you can provide flight crews for the Scimitars, plus hopefully some kind of quarters for our people, it would be appreciated.”
Again, most of a second passed by, and then Ingolfson’s face split in a wide grin.
“As it happens, Admiral,” he said calmly, “several of the new stations being built in orbit under the Commonwealth’s careful eye have interiors with a strange resemblance to our old orbital fighter bases. If we strip some redundant paneling off – which I’m assured will take only a few hours – they’ll work perfectly.
“I won’t pretend I wouldn’t rather see Avalon in orbit,” the Alizoni man admitted, “but I understand that sometimes the mission must take priority – and there is no question Triumphant must be destroyed.”
“Are you in contact with Alliance High Command?” Dimitri asked carefully.
“No,” Ingolfson replied. “When we assembled our emergency command bunker, we assumed that we would still have access to our own orbital switchboard array.” He grimaced. “Given the Commonwealth’s focus on interstellar communication as the reason for unification, I don’t think they blew it up intentionally, but our Q-Com network went down with it.”
He shrugged.
“Whether it was intentional or not, the Terrans took advantage of it,” he continued. “They policed up every Q-Com unit they could find that linked to an Alliance switchboard. We’re trying to find one, but I was honestly hoping we could borrow at least a block of entangled pairs from you.”
Dimitri nodded slowly.
“Unfortunately, we’re under an FTL communications lockdown due to evidence of a spy aboard,” he told Ingolfson. “While I think we’re safe, I’m not sure any block we could give you would be… uncompromised.”
“Damn,” the President cursed. “Given your time constraint, it doesn’t seem worth the effort then,” he allowed. “We’ll find the ones the Commonwealth confiscated soon enough, I’m sure.
“I’ll have Star Guard Command coordinate moving those starfighters into those concealed launch bases, and make arrangements for proper quarters for your people,” Ingolfson concluded. “I’m sure you’re busy with your departure preparations.
“But once again, Admiral, you have my thanks, and the thanks of the Alizoni people, for your efforts on our behalf. The name Avalon was in no risk of being forgotten here, but now… now I think she will once again be a legend to my people.”
Chapter 34
&nb
sp; Alizon System
12:45 January 15, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date / Time
DSC-078 Avalon, Bridge
Vice Admiral Tobin’s deadline might not have been necessary, in the strictest sense, but it had at least been doable. With fifteen minutes to spare, Kyle sat on the bridge of his ship and watched the forty-eight starfighters of Wing Commander Lei Nguyen’s Epsilon Wing gently boost across Alizon orbit.
The station they were headed for wasn’t yet able to take them – or the sixty ex-Commonwealth starfighters orbiting it – aboard just yet, but the covert teams who’d snuck an entire fighter base into what they’d told the Commonwealth was a transshipment terminal assured him they’d be ready in less than an hour.
“All right, Maria,” he told Fleet Commander Pendez. “That’s the last item on the to-do list. Set your course for Barsoom, flank acceleration until we’re clear for Alcubierre.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied crisply and hit a single button. The preloaded course activated, and Avalon’s mighty engines flared to life.
Kyle watched the recently liberated planet drop away behind them and brooded. They’d done good work here, and he wasn’t a fan of leaving the job half-done. While he agreed it was unlikely the Commonwealth could organize an attack to retake the system before the rest of Battle Group Seventeen arrived, leaving the planet half-defenseless didn’t sit well with him.
Two hours to being able to warp space. Six days and four hours to Barsoom. But what then? Arriving in the system fifteen hours after Triumphant, it was entirely possible their visit to Barsoom would end up like their visit to KG-779 – barely in time to see the rogue battleship flee.
With a concealed sigh, he began to look up their orders. Just how far did High Command expect them to go to pursue Kematian’s murderers? If they were willing to leave an Alliance world unprotected, then the deadline must have been released…
Stellar Fox (Castle Federation Book 2) Page 24
