“Computer interface engaged,” Flight Control reported, and Stanford disengaged the jack connecting him to the ship. Tiny, perfectly controlled jets from his thrusters delivered the ship into a waiting crane.
A minute after making the call, his ship was tucked into one of the handful of remaining empty spots on the deck. Stepping out of the craft, he surveyed the neat rows of Badgers. There were empty spots remaining for the rest of his squadron, but then the deck would be full of the obsolete fighters.
“Your shuttle is waiting at Bay Two,” a familiarly gruff voice told him, and Stanford looked up at the shaven-headed form of Space Force Senior Chief Kawika Liago. Liago was a massive, dark-skinned man with a shaven head – and he was also Vice Commodore Larson’s right hand man.
“Your flight isn’t for forty minutes,” the Chief continued, “and Commodore Larson wants to speak with you.”
For a moment, Stanford considered refusing. Larson was no longer in his chain of command, and he doubted that the Vice Commodore had anything to say that he wanted to hear. Then Liago’s massive hand descended on his shoulder, and he reflected on the fact that the non-com was capable of breaking him in half with one hand.
“Lead on, Chief,” he said timidly.
New Amazon System, Castle Federation
12:30 July 6, 2735 ESMDT
New Amazon Reserve Flotilla Station, Station Commander’s Office
Stanford knew he was a small man, and that it was not particularly difficult to be physically intimidating to him. Liago managed it with ease, but the big man was physically imposing and intimidating to almost everyone.
He could never quite explain why Oscar Larson terrified him.
The Vice Commodore, the most senior Space Force officer in the system even now, was a tall, lanky whited-haired man who looked like a stiff wind would blow him away. He wasn’t known for sitting still, and was pacing by the display screen taking up the entire back wall of his office when Stanford entered.
Centered in the display screen was Avalon. Behind her, the twin battleships Judgment and Retribution orbited above Rio Grande, their black bulk an intimidating backdrop to the old carrier. Next to the carrier, the massive cylinder of the Sphinx and Chipmunk refit and supply ship hovered. The extended arms connecting the freighter to the carrier were almost invisible at this distance. The starfighters being carefully transported across the space between the ships were invisible, even eight of the thirty meter ships barely a dot.
“I’m glad you could take time from your busy day to meet me,” Larson said snidely, returning Stanford’s salute briskly and walking around his desk to stare down at him. “I’m sure ingratiating yourself with your new boss is taking up your time.”
Stanford didn’t answer, quailing somewhat as he looked up at the Vice Commodore and trying not to show it.
“Please, Commander, sit, have a drink,” Larson told him, gesturing towards the chair in front of the desk as he walked back to stare at Avalon on the viewscreen.
Stanford sat, aware that Liago hadn’t left the room. The massive Chief Petty Officer had taken up a stance next to the door, wordlessly suggesting that leaving without permission would be a bad idea.
“I hear that Roberts and Blair are busily turning over stones and arresting chipheads,” the Vice Commodore told Stanford. “It must be getting warm over there.”
The Flight Commander flushed, with a quick glance back at Liago. He’d known the CPO had been aware of his own alcohol smuggling, but he hadn’t been sure if Larson hadn’t known – or simply hadn’t cared.
“Suffice to say, I can prove your activities,” Larson continued, stepping from the screen to his desk and swiping a command on the desk. Overlaid on the image of Avalon, a dozen tiny screens appeared, each playing a different video of Stanford.
“But there’s no need for us to get confrontational,” the Vice Commodore continued, a second swipe clearing the videos. He walked around the desk, to look down at Stanford’s sitting form again.
“I just want you to remember that I still have friends aboard Avalon,” he said quietly, directly into Stanford’s ear. “And if you’re thinking this pair of martinets are making the right time to bring up old history, I want you to remember that – and remember that Lieutenant Williams is assigned here.”
The flush was gone now. Stanford knew his face was white, and he did his best to maintain some composure instead of completely cracking under Larson’s pressure.
The Vice Commodore was suddenly gone, back behind his desk and fiddling with controls.
“Give my greetings to my old crewmates,” he finished, suddenly cheerful as he began to bring up his paperwork. “Enjoy your flight.”
Liago didn’t even move, but somehow he was looming heavily over Stanford. He couldn’t get out of the office fast enough.
4
New Amazon System, Castle Federation
21:00 July 6, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
DSC-001 Avalon – CAG’s Office
From the window of the Flight Group Commander’s office, Kyle Roberts watched the last ‘eight-pack’ of starfighters slowly maneuver its way onto his Flight Deck. A metallic framework strapped to a set of rockets, the eight-pack carried its payload of starfighters stacked vertically in neat ranks of two – two fighters across, four fighters on top of each other. Given the size and mass of the Falcon, that made for an assembly over sixty meters long, sixty meters wide, and fifteen meters tall that massed well over fifty thousand tons after the framework’s own mass was accounted for.
Even with the gravity of Avalon’s Flight Deck under extremely careful control, the slightest error or misjudgment could result in damage to the ships, even the complete destruction of the eighty billion Federation Stellars worth of starfighters – or worse, injury or death to his people.
This was the sixth and last pack of fighters, however, and his deck crews had handled each with aplomb and confidence. They’d taken a bit longer than he’d expected, but they’d managed the job without injuries or more than a handful of scratches on the Falcons.
The chime for his door sounded a couple of minutes after the hour rolled around, and he checked the status of his Petty Officers on his implant. Chief Petty Officer Harvey Carlisle, the most senior of his non-Senior Chiefs, had the deck, which meant Hammond, Ambrose and Miller were free.
“Enter,” he instructed.
The doors slid open and the three most senior non-commissioned Castle Federation Space Force personnel aboard Avalon entered in a pack. Kyle gestured them to the three chairs in front of his desk while he continued to watch the Flight Deck through the window.
“Any issues with the loading?” he asked the men and woman behind him.
“None,” Hammond replied tersely. “We’ll see if they picked up any issues in transit over the next few days as we test them out and let the flyboys stretch their wings, but the Falcons are supposed to be solid birds.”
Kyle nodded and ordered the screen over the window to the Flight Deck to close. After a moment, the room dimmed slightly as the stark lighting of the Deck faded, and he turned to face his Senior Chief Petty Officers.
Marshall Hammond was as much a known quantity as Kyle had on the ship. The grizzled older man looked perfectly relaxed; leaning back in the chair he’d been offered.
Harj Ambrose was a dark-skinned man of medium height with close-cropped black hair and sharp black eyes. He’d settled into the offered chair with his hands crossed in his lap, eyeing his new boss pensively.
Petitia Miller was the last of his Senior Chiefs, a frail-boned woman with ice-blue eyes that contrasted sharply with her darker skin and hair. She was perched on the edge of her seat, but her body language suggested a greater willingness to attack than to flee.
“Chiefs, thank you for meeting with me,” Kyle said quietly. “We don’t know each other well yet, though I know that will have to change. Hammond here comes highly recommended by an old friend, and he recommends you two. I hope to
trust you, because we have a problem.”
“I know the Captain broke a Euphoria chip smuggling ring aboard this ship,” he continued grimly. “This is a punishment station; I know there are drugs and alcohol being smuggled aboard. In the end, if that stops, I do not care,” he finished bluntly. “If someone’s drug or alcohol habit is a problem, I expect you and the Flight Commanders to make sure it stops being a problem before I learn about it.”
He met their gazes and all three nodded slowly as the message sank home. The informal discipline that would stop problems before the Wing Commander brought the hammer down came from the Chiefs and Senior Chiefs – often even when dealing with junior officers.
“Those things I can ignore,” he repeated, “but there are offenses which are crash and burn in the Force. I know some of those were going on here too. Abuse. Intimidation. Theft. I don’t trust any of the paperwork,” he finished, gesturing to his desk.
“Most of the Force crew are good people,” Ambrose said softly, but Hammond interrupted, shaking his head.
“That and fifty Stellars will buy you an expensive latte,” he said bluntly. “We all know there’re some real bad apples on this ship.”
“There are,” Kyle accepted softly. “And I want them off. Understand me, Chiefs – I can and will transfer crew and pilots to SFG-279 on the word of three Senior Chiefs. I’ll settle for getting them off of our ship.”
“If you want me to hand someone over to JAG, I need evidence. Something we can take to a court martial.”
The three chiefs exchanged looks, and then Miller shrugged.
“The Captain got the worst of the drugs,” she said quietly. “There’re some bullies and abusers – nothing criminal, but getting them off of the ship is all we really need.”
“You three can give me names?” Kyle asked. “I’ll also take recommendations for replacements from Two-Seventy-Nine. We’re not planning on giving Larson much choice in these transfers. Nothing worse?”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Ambrose admitted with a sigh, and looked to Hammond. “Tell him about Randall.”
The Senior Chief hesitated, and looked over to Miller. The frail-looking woman nodded firmly, and Hammond sighed and met Kyle’s eyes.
“Flight Commander Randall is my most senior officer,” Kyle said quietly. “Technically, if not for Larson busy-bodying around, he commanded SFG-001 until I arrived. He’s an ass-kisser, but I didn’t suspect more.”
“Flight Commander Randall,” Hammond replied, “is a bully, and a thug. You’ve seen him abuse Stanford, dump work on him?”
The Wing Commander nodded.
“That’s only the start. He does that for everything,” the Senior Chief told him. “You can always tell when something fishy is going on, because Randall hasn’t delegated it to someone else.”
“What kind of fishy?”
“Nothing we can prove,” Miller said softly. “I run the parts inventories – I know stuff has gone missing, but I can’t track the thefts.”
“Randall might be the only one I can’t even transfer without some kind of crime to hang on him,” Kyle said. “Abuse and over-delegation don’t count.”
Hammond glanced at Miller and Ambrose, both of whom nodded to him. With a sigh, the big Chief pulled a data chip out of one of his pockets and laid it on Kyle’s desk.
“There’s a long story here,” he started, “but it begins with a crime we can prove – Flight Commander James Randall raped Flight Lieutenant Michelle Williams, an officer under his command.”
The words dropped into the quiet of the austere office like anvils.
“You can prove this,” Kyle stated flatly. Rape was a crash and burn offense. There was no mercy if it could be proven. No excuses. It would be a long time before Randall saw the light of day if it was true.
“This chip contains all of the details of Flight Commander Stanford’s investigation,” Hammond replied. “Williams was in his Bravo squadron, before she was grounded and transferred to the Reserve Station by Larson.”
“Stanford buried this?” Kyle demanded in a low, dangerous voice. Anyone who covered for a rape would crash and burn along with the rapist if he had a say – and as the Commanding Officer of Avalon’s Flight Group, he did.
“I don’t know, sir,” the Chief admitted. “I know he completed his investigation – pulled together witness statements, medical records, enough proof to satisfy a court martial – and reported it to the Vice Commodore. I never heard anything after that, but you won’t find that report in the ship’s computers – and it definitely never made it to JAG. I, um, stole a copy to be sure it was never lost.”
“I need to review this,” Kyle told them, his eyes on the innocent looking data chip. “Please tell me this is the worst.”
“It’s the worst we can prove,” Ambrose told him. “We’ll give you names of others, pilots, gunners, engineers and deck crew we need off the ship. If we trade them out for the best of the Two-Seventy-Ninth, we can deliver you a solid crew.”
“But the rot has to be cut out first,” Wing Commander Kyle Roberts said grimly, and picked up the data chip. “I thank you for trusting me with this, Chiefs. I swear to you, upon the sacred honor of the Space Force, this report will not go astray again.”
“Justice will be done.”
Kyle read the report. It took him over an hour, and then he read the report again, to be certain. By the end, a deep weariness and a queasy unease filled him. Stanford’s report was detailed, supported, and complete. The report from the doctor who’d examined Williams was included. Video footage of the examination of the scene was included. Security tracking records showing where both Randall and Williams had been, and that Randall’s tracker had been disabled during the attack.
There was enough verifiable evidence in Stanford’s report that there’d be no need for further investigation – the Flight Commander had assembled enough evidence to justify charges against – and likely convict – his superior.
And other than the version he’d been handed on a chip, he could find no trace of the report in the system. Most of the evidence had vanished from the records as well – the only copies were in the report.
Kyle Roberts was not a perfect man, or even, in his opinion, a particularly good one. He had abandoned his high school girlfriend when she got pregnant and fled to the Navy, and had never gone home. His only contact with his son was through his mother, who had let Kyle’s ex move in and helped take care of them.
He was pretty sure he was the worst father in the Federation’s fourteen systems, but that was a… petty failure compared to the evil that he was looking at.
Randall had systematically stalked, cornered, and raped an officer under his command.
Another officer had proven it, to an extraordinary level.
And that proof had disappeared.
There was no trace, anywhere in Avalon’s systems, of Stanford’s report.
Somewhere between Stanford completing the report and it being delivered to the Federation’s Judge Advocate General, it had disappeared. The Flight Commander had allowed this.
Kyle couldn’t reconcile the detail and completeness of the report with the willingness to let Randall walk away – and to continue serving under his command.
The mystery could wait, however. Regardless of what had happened to the report before, he had it now – and his duty was clear.
He triggered a command in his implant.
“Blair,” the Captain’s voice replied several moments later as the intercom channel opened.
“Captain, it’s Roberts,” Kyle told him. The Captain’s implants should have told him that, but Kyle knew his own implants – part of being a fighter pilot – were vastly more powerful than most people’s, and he could miss data sometimes.
“It’s well after twenty-two hundred ship-time, Wing Commander,” Blair said, a soft chuckle underlying his words. “What was so important it couldn’t wait until morning?”
“I found one of those probl
ems that need to be removed,” Kyle told him flatly. “I need to meet with you and the Ship’s Marshal immediately.”
All humor dropped from the Captain’s voice.
“My office, ten minutes,” Blair ordered. “I’ll page Khadem.”
New Amazon System, Castle Federation
22:40 July 6, 2735 ESMDT
DSC-001 Avalon – Captain’s Office
Blair was waiting when Kyle arrived in his office. From the look of the papers and empty coffee cups shoved off to one corner of the spartan, Navy-Issue, surface, he’d been working when Kyle had paged him. Now, the gaunt man was leaning back in his chair looking at a physical picture frame with his biological eye.
“What was so important that it couldn’t until tomorrow?” the Captain asked.
“We should probably wait until the Marshal is here,” Kyle told him.
“Fair,” Blair agreed. “He’ll be a few minutes, I woke him up. Have a seat,” he continued, gesturing to one of the two chairs in front of the desk in the small office.
Kyle took a seat, glancing at the painting of the Battle of Trinity on the wall. He spent a moment studying it, looking to see if they showed the Marine transports often forgotten in images of the battle. Like so many others, though, this picture only showed the three capital ships that had spearheaded the strike into Commonwealth space.
Blair put the picture he’d been looking at down where Kyle could see it, revealing an image of the Captain, a dark-skinned woman of Blair’s height with a stately grace to her, and two dusky-skinned, blond-haired, girls.
“My wife and daughters,” the Captain explained. “The girls are ten and twenty – I’m missing the younger’s school theater play tomorrow, or so her latest letter informs me.”
Avalon Trilogy: Castle Federation Books 1-3: Includes Space Carrier Avalon, Stellar Fox, and Battle Group Avalon Page 4