Kellers smiled and kissed her fingers.
“I understand,” he confirmed. “I’ve a few added to that list myself. Come on. I need to check on dinner, and I’m sure Jacob has, oh, only about two and a quarter million questions for you,” he finished.
Mira returned the smile, basking in their joy and glad to be accepted. Given how poorly Kyle and Lisa’s relationship had gone for much of the past, she was happy to be there.
And her experience suggested that, yes, Jacob the Navy-mad was going to have a few million questions for his Rear Admiral stepmother-to-be.
19
Deep Space
22:00 September 13, 2737 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
Alliance Forty-First Fleet
The flight deck mess was not, in Michelle Williams-Alvarez’s experience, usually a particularly subdued place. The one aboard Elysium had been a notable exception since leaving Aswiri. Conversations were in quiet murmurs, gazes flickering away from the CAG and other senior officers as they walked through.
She’d let it slide for a few days, but four days of fighter jocks being depressed was a bad sign. She might be new to commanding an entire fighter group, but she’d learned from some of the best.
Her Wing Commanders followed her as she walked into the big room, scattering out to the tables as she glanced around the several hundred officers in the room. Only about half of her people were present, but that would be enough for this.
Gazes flicked toward Michelle and then away as she walked up to the mess bar—which should have been doing brisk business this late in the ship’s day but was currently abandoned except for the pair of bored-looking ship’s stewards.
She nodded to the two young men, gesturing for them to clear away to the sides of the bar, and then hopped up onto the bar and turned to face her people.
She hadn’t said a word yet, but the quiet conversations were already fading away as everyone turned their gaze to the Vice Commodore now standing on their bar.
“All right, people,” she said briskly. “Four days. Four days you lot have been moping around, pretending to be a bunch of sad sacks instead of starfighter crew.
“Your simulator scores suck. Your efficiency ratings suck.” In comparison to before Aswiri, anyway. They were still good pilots, after all. There was only so much slacking they would do. “Which tells me, boys, girls, and the rest of you, that your morale sucks.
“And worst of all,” she concluded, “I didn’t have to kick anyone away to get up on the bar. Now, I could go with the Admiral’s idea of a solution for this and crack open a couple of kegs of microbrew beer from back home, but if you lot aren’t drinking the beer you normally drink, I don’t see how that’ll help.”
The room was now silent and she shook her head.
“So, you’ve all got your pants in a twist,” she told them. “And we’re back in action in three days—against actual warships this time. Lay it on me, people. What bug crawled up your asses?”
She could guess. Stars, she knew. But she also knew that someone had to say it out loud who wasn’t her.
The room was silent for several long seconds.
“Ma’am…this don’t feel clean,” one of the gunners finally said aloud. “My folks live and work on an orbital platform like one of the ones we blew up. We just wrecked a lot of people’s livelihoods.”
“It wasn’t even a fair fight,” someone else interjected. “We ran an entire battle fleet into someone’s local high guard. Aswiri…they never did anything to us.”
“And Da Vinci never did anything to the Commonwealth,” Michelle reminded them. “Neither did Midori. None of our home systems wanted this war, people. The Commonwealth came to us.
“And they came to us because their own citizens believe that it was the right thing to do. That conquering our worlds and forcing us to kneel to Terra is for our own benefit. It’s the citizens of systems like Aswiri that allow the Commonwealth to wage war against us. They vote for Unificationists. They believe in Unification.
“And they are so certain that they are in the right that the concept of us bringing the war to them is impossible,” Michelle told them quietly. “I don’t like it. Nobody does. Void, I guarantee you that Admiral Roberts hates it.
“But we need to show the Commonwealth that they can’t wage war with impunity. We need to teach them that violence has consequences.
“Most importantly right now, though, we need to get Walkingstick to chase us instead of attacking our homes. We’ll do everything in our power to fight a clean war, people. That falls as much on you as it does on the Admiral or Captain Novak or me.
“But we will fight that war. You get me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She smiled grimly at the pathetic response and fell back on drill school.
“I didn’t hear you,” she bellowed. “Spacers of the Alliance—do you get me?!”
“Yes, ma’am!” they bellowed back, and Michelle grinned at them.
“Better,” she allowed. “We’ve a job to do. We’re going to do it. And if we do it right, ladies and gentlemen, we get to go home to our families. I have a gorgeous blonde who will be most ticked if I do it wrong!”
The chuckle in response was mostly honest, though there were a few awkward silences and gazes. Michelle waited. She knew what was going to come now.
“Do we know when the comms lockdown will be lifted?” one of her pilots asked slowly. “My wife…she’s pregnant. Due anytime now. Feels wrong that it could be days afterward before I know.”
“Quigley, there are over fifty thousand people in Forty-First Fleet,” Michelle told him gently. “Best guess is that there’s at least a dozen spacers and officers in the same boat as you, and it sucks.
“But right now, that comms lockdown is protecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of your fellow spacers. It’s protecting your lives, too. If Walkingstick learns our next target in advance, we will walk into one hell of a trap.
“I’ll talk to the comms department, though,” she promised. “They’ll keep an eye out for any messages from your wife for you.” She looked around. “That goes for all of you,” she added. “If there’s something from home that’s important, that you need to know about, let us know and we’ll make sure it’s fast-tracked through the lockdown.
“That does not, I’ll note, include sports scores for your gambling,” Michelle warned them. “Like any privilege, abuse my goodwill and you’ll find my help drying up fast.
“But for those of you with legit concerns back home, I’ll help where I can. That help, Quigley?”
The young man—almost certainly a first-time father, which couldn’t help with his nervousness—nodded, looking somewhat calmer.
“Now, since we seem to have talked out at least some of this, I think it’s time for Admiral Roberts’s solution,” Michelle told them all with a returning grin as the two stewards returned, each pushing a cart with two full-size kegs of expensive beer.
“Our people understand the mission, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t impacting morale,” Bai’al said grimly, their tentacles fluttering around the Captain’s head as they poured tea for them.
“It’s affecting everyone’s morale,” Kyle told his Captains. “I was hoping that it would be offset a bit more by the fact that we’re finally hitting back at the Commonwealth, but it probably says good things about our people that they don’t like it.”
Lord Captain von Kita, the senior of Kyle’s three Imperial Captains, shook her head.
“We could have found ships whose crews would have enjoyed it,” she said grimly. “Hessian’s ships. Midori’s ships. Others.”
Kyle nodded. Enough systems had passed back and forth between the Alliance and Commonwealth over the course of two wars that it wouldn’t be hard to find people with a grudge.
“We intentionally didn’t,” he told von Kita. “The last thing we need is to start adding atrocities to our side of the ledger.”
“It’s not like ther
e’s much galactic opinion left to screw with,” Bai’al noted. “With us, the League and the Commonwealth fighting each other…” The tentacles laid down the tea as they shrugged. “That’s, what, seventy-some percent of the human race tied up in this war? And the rest is like Antioch or Istanbul. They barely matter.”
“Honestly?” Kyle asked. “At this point, we’re more worried about opinion inside the Commonwealth. If we can appear more reasonable than their Unificationists, we begin to win the moral battle.
“The moral is the physical as three is to one,” he quoted. “If we can undermine the willingness of the Commonwealth’s population to support the continued expansion of Terran hegemony, we win.”
“How do we do that?” Novak asked.
“We kick the Commonwealth Navy’s ass repeatedly to demonstrate that they can’t protect the Commonwealth from the consequences of the wars the Unificationists start. There’s a few irons in the fire to demonstrate that point as thoroughly as possible,” Kyle said cheerfully.
“Our job is to get and hold Walkingstick’s attention. Sooner or later, that’s going to get us hurt,” he warned, “but I look forward to seeing just what the good Marshal thinks is needed to take us down.”
20
Starkhaven System
14:00 September 16, 2737 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
Alliance Forty-First Fleet
“Q-probes deploying,” Senior Fleet Commander Zartosht Aurangzeb reported calmly in the moments after Elysium tore a hole back into reality. “All ships have emerged on target, no drift.”
“Hold the fleet here,” Kyle ordered. “Let’s see what Starkhaven holds for us, shall we?”
Initial impressions were already coming in, but he waited to let Aurangzeb’s staff go through them. What they could see from old light could be both informative and deceptive. Once the q-com-enabled probes arrived closer in to the warships and planets, they could feed him more information.
“So far, it’s looking like Intelligence was bang-on on the fixed defenses, at least,” Kyle’s operation officer told him. “I’ve got eight Zions orbiting Kirkwall and four over Ferelden. Nothing solid on warships yet. There’s a few big energy signatures moving around, could easily be tankers or…”
Aurangzeb trailed off.
“Zartosht?” Kyle asked, linking into the tactical feed.
“We have two Assassins in Ferelden orbit as reported…and a trio of Ocean-class strike cruisers in Kirkwall orbit.”
“Ah,” Kyle replied, studying the data feed himself. The ships were separated, vulnerable. Forty-First Fleet had emerged closer to Kirkwall than to Ferelden, but he could still adjust his course to hit either group of defenders on their own.
Of course, the starfighters from the other force would probably arrive while his people were busy mopping up the first one. He’d win—there was no question about that, really—but he could get hurt. He didn’t want to lose people and he couldn’t spare the time to repair damaged ships.
Studying the system layout, though, there were always options.
“Hold all starfighters aboard,” he ordered. “Deploy ECM drones to make it look like we’ve got a strike formed up around us, and then follow this course.”
He laid the course out in the tactical feed by feel as much as thought, relying on the AIs permanently assigned to assist the Admiral to adjust it to work best.
“That course is…asking for trouble, sir,” Sterling said quietly.
“Oh, I know,” Kyle agreed cheerfully. “And hopefully, the Commonwealth will be glad to deliver.”
The Alliance ships couldn’t see them, but it was a safe assumption that the defenders had layered the system with passively orbiting Q-probes to keep a careful eye on everything. The Commonwealth forces would have had real-time information on Kyle’s fleet as soon as they’d arrived, where it would be an hour or more before his Q-probes were in position to give him the same.
The course he’d set for the fleet looked hesitant, like he’d made a mistake coming out so close to Kirkwall and changed his mind. Ten capital ships—and several hundred ECM drones pretending to be starfighters—shaped their course toward Ferelden.
“The orbital platforms have deployed their starfighters, and they’re forming up around the Assassins,” Aurangzeb said. “They’re holding position for the moment, letting us come to them. Designating them Force Alpha.”
“Logical, gives the Kirkwall force—Bravo, I suppose—time to catch up with us,” Kyle agreed. “What are they up to?”
“All of the starfighters are in space, forming up on the Oceans,” his ops officer told him. “Looks like the Zions had pure wings of Katanas, but the Oceans were carrying half and half starfighters and bombers. Ninety Longbows, four hundred and ninety Katanas.
“They’re coming after us. Hard. All of them are burning at five hundred gees, leaving the starships behind.”
“Reasonable. Those starfighters, added to Force Alpha, are enough to give us a massive headache,” Kyle concluded. “Let them commit. Get our probes on both Bravo’s fighters and Bravo’s ships.”
Aurangzeb shook his head.
“They’re going to figure you’re trying something clever, sir,” he pointed out. “I’m sure they’ve been briefed as to who is leading this fleet.”
Kyle grinned.
“Oh, I know they think I’m trying something clever,” he agreed. “But they don’t have a lot of choices. Neither Alpha nor Bravo stands a chance against us in isolation, but combined and backed up by the Zions’ fighters, they can hurt us, if not stop us.
“So, let them think they have a chance—and see what they do with it!”
“Are we actually planning on launching starfighters at some point?” Vice Commodore Lakatos asked Kyle bluntly. “Or is this all some shiny game that you’re enjoying too much for that?”
Kyle smiled cheerfully at the man over the com.
“Please, Vice Commodore, allow me my fun,” he told the starfighter pilot. “You’ll have yours before the day is done, but I’d like to make sure your people are all around to enjoy it.”
“I don’t mind that, but I’m wondering how this is contributing to that,” the junior man grumped.
“Watch and learn,” Kyle promised. “Watch and learn.”
Minutes continued to tick away and he watched Force Bravo’s fighters commit to their pursuit of his fleet, with Force Alpha continuing to maneuver to keep between him and Ferelden’s orbital industry.
“I don’t suppose anyone has hailed us?” he asked.
“Everyone seems to be assuming this is only going to end in fire so far,” Sterling told him. “Not a peep of radio; just starfighter launches.”
He nodded, analyzing the vectors again. After an hour of accelerating after him, Force Bravo’s fighters had traveled almost two light-minutes and built up a velocity over five percent of lightspeed away from Kirkwall.
With Forty-First Fleet accelerating away from them, they’d only closed the original four-light-minute range by one light-minute, with a relative velocity of three percent of light. They’d close to weapons range after he intercepted Force Alpha.
For himself, he’d closed a full light-minute towards Ferelden and would shortly cross the two light-minute line where it would be no longer wise to enter Alcubierre drive.
He smiled.
“Let’s give it another ten minutes,” he observed calmly. “Then pass this course to the fleet.”
Sterling looked at the numbers he’d sent him, then stared at him levelly.
“Has anyone ever told you you’re insane?” he asked.
“Yes,” Kyle admitted. “Why? Don’t you think our navigators are up to it?”
His chief of staff shook his head.
“They’ll be up for it,” Sterling replied grimly. “Because if any of them didn’t start practicing this bullshit after they learned you were in command, they haven’t been paying attention!”
Ten minutes later, Force Bravo’s starfig
hters were a long way away from their motherships and base stations. The Ocean-class strike cruisers had been denied a role in the fight the moment Forty-First Fleet had turned away from Kirkwall and remained in the gas giant’s orbit, sheepdogs above the cloudscoops and defense stations.
Force Alpha was now accelerating out to meet the Alliance, their course clearly carefully calibrated to reduce the engagement time before Bravo’s fighters arrived.
It was all a very clever setup, making the best of the Commonwealth’s limited resources and taking advantage of Kyle’s swing from attacking Kirkwall to moving against the weaker force above Ferelden.
What they’d missed, however, was that Kyle’s swing had left his fleet moving through space where they could still bring up their Alcubierre-Stetson drives. With less than five minutes to spare before they moved too close to Ferelden to do so, all thirteen Alliance ships brought up their FTL drives and charged for Kirkwall.
The logistics freighters swung wide, their course taking them well clear of the battlespace, where they’d be safe while the warships secured the system.
The warships went straight for the gas giant. For two minutes, they moved through space that was flat enough for A-S drive…and then they hit Kirkwall’s gravity.
“Threading the needle”, it was called. Riding the thin line between a warp bubble collapsing and dropping the ship back into normal space unexpectedly and the warp bubble shredding its contents.
Few people were insane enough to do with one ship, let alone ten.
The very air in Elysium’s flag bridge seemed to scream as a thousand tiny gravity vortexes tore through the ship, and the massive warship jerked around her crew as she charged deep into the gas giant’s gravity.
The “needle” only lasted two minutes. It felt like two years…and then Forty-First Fleet erupted back into reality, the gravity warp dissolving as the Alliance warships emerged barely a million kilometers from the Ocean-class strike cruisers and the defense platforms.
Operation Medusa Page 13
