“The Queen is worried,” Kyle murmured, his gaze running along the length of the station.
“What makes you say that?” Kleiner asked. “Get an email from her?”
“Check the exterior cameras,” he told her. “All four ships of their reserve are in for refit, and they’ve got all six construction yards working.”
An Alcubierre-capable capital ship cost some fifty trillion Stellars to construct, a measurable percentage of a healthy system’s Gross System Product. Even with three worlds and eight billion souls to draw on, the construction of six capital ships simultaneously was a noticeable fraction of the Kingdom’s national GDP, let alone the government’s budget.
The Senate had, the last Kyle had heard, just approved a building program of twelve new warships across the Castle Federation’s fourteen star systems. Whatever had made that august body nervous was clearly being felt in the smaller Alliance members as well.
“We’re all worried,” Blair said softly, confirming Kyle’s thoughts. “Avalon is on this tour due to an increase in piracy – and I don’t think anyone in the Alliance really believes in space pirates.”
Kyle nodded silently, his attention on the ships around them. Even a ‘small’ interstellar freighter was the size of Avalon and an important contributor to its home system’s economy. Some starship theft happened – but most ‘piracy’ was done with in-system ships and stealth. An uptick across multiple systems suggested something more – usually another interstellar power stirring the pot.
Someone like the Terran Commonwealth.
“There she is,” Blair pointed out, and Kyle sensed that the Captain was now in the system with him. He followed the other man’s attention and spotted Dauntless coming out from behind McKeon Station. The flagship of the Royal Phoenix Navy and one of her sister ships, a heavy carrier from the look of her, orbited fifty thousand kilometers away from McKeon Station. Black watchdogs, guarding an immobile flock.
Dauntless was an even-sided diamond, fifteen hundred meters long and a quarter kilometer across at her widest beam. Each of her eight ‘broadsides’ bristled with positron lances and missile launchers, flanking launch tubes for her starfighters.
“Two years old, fourteen and a half million tons,” Blair murmured aloud. “Second of the class, eighth of the name Dauntless. I’m a carrier man, but that is one hell of a battlecruiser.”
Phoenix System, Kingdom of Phoenix
18:30 August 14, 2735 ESMDT
BC-067 Dauntless – Flag Mess
Kyle admitted that Sub-Admiral Patrice Blackbourne put on a fantastic meal. The one star admiral commanding Dauntless and the carrier Adamant had clearly convinced his staff and chef to go all out on behalf of the three Federation officers.
While Blackbourne only commanded a pair of warships, Dauntless was intended to be the lead unit of any major formation the RPN took to war, so her flag facilities were impressive. Among them was a flag mess designed to hold almost sixty people.
The three black-uniformed Avalon officers were heavily outnumbered by the senior officers of Blackbourne’s staff and the two ships under his command. The Phoenix officers wore almost identical black shipsuits as the base of their uniform, but their dress uniform jackets were much flashier than the subdued garments Castle issued its officers.
The Navy officers wore dark blue jackets with short tails, gold braid at the shoulders, and embroidery down the sleeves. The small number of Royal Phoenix Space Force officers, Kyle’s counterparts, wore similar jackets in a dark burgundy.
The entire flag mess had been covered in drapery in the same dark blue and burgundy colors, and only vast quantities of bright lighting kept the dark colors from sobering the mood.
All three Castle officers had sat together, at Sub-Admiral Blackbourne’s right hand, through the meal. Once the excellent food had been cleared away, Captain Blair had become consumed in a conversation with Admiral Blackbourne and Captain Campbell of the Dauntless, gesturing for Kleiner and Roberts to ‘go mingle.’
Kyle proceeded to find the bar and the dessert buffet, in that order, and then took up part of the wall with a glass of wine and a decadently good brownie. He could seek out company, but as one of the guests of honor, he knew he wouldn’t be standing alone for long.
He was approached almost immediately, as it turned out, by a woman with short-cropped hair the color of burnished copper and the dark burgundy jacket of an RPSF officer. She had the lithe body of a consummate athlete, and moved with a panther’s grace that caught his eye as she approached.
Her shoulder boards carried four narrow brands of gold braid, marking her as a Sub-Colonel – equivalent to his own rank. His implant provided the memory of being introduced – her first name was Jenaveve, but someone had coughed at the wrong moment and he hadn’t caught her name or whether she served aboard Dauntless or Adamant.
“Sub-Colonel,” he greeted her with an inclination of the head and an extended hand. “I’ll confess that the introductions were a complete blur to me,” he told her with a grin. “If you’ll do me the favor of re-introducing yourself?”
She returned the smile, slightly, and shook his hand firmly.
“I am Sub-Colonel Jenaveve LaCroix,” she told him. “I command Dauntless’ Demons – the fighter wing.”
While Phoenix fighter wings did have numbers, they were also assigned names when they were established. Unlike the Federation’s Starfighter Groups, those names were the main reference.
“I am impressed by Dauntless herself,” Kyle admitted. “I can’t help but assume that her fighter wing is to match.”
“My men are the best,” LaCroix replied with a small smile. “Our Chevaliers are no Falcons, of course, but that will change in time.”
“Of course,” Kyle agreed. “I heard the Templar was supposed to enter flight trials shortly?”
The Templar was the Kingdom’s seventh generation starfighter, supposed to be a fraction less-heavily armed than the Falcon but with matching speed and an even more powerful electronic warfare suite.
LaCroix winced. “It did,” she said shortly. “There were… interference issues with the mass manipulators. Six flight crew died.”
Kyle shared her wince, and offered his glass in toast to the fallen flyers.
“Per ardua ad astra,” he said quietly.
LaCroix drank and nodded her agreement.
“How is the Falcon to fly?” she asked after they’d let a silent moment pass.
“A dream,” Kyle told her. “I haven’t spent as much time in real space in one as I’d like, but I swear the engineers worked some magic with the compensators and gimbals. I’ve never flown anything as smooth.”
“The pilot makes all the difference,” the Phoenix officer observed. “I heard Avalon’s wing had issues?”
Kyle took a sip of his drink and raised an eyebrow at her over the glass. That wasn’t exactly polite to point out to an ally. He shrugged.
“She’s been off front-line duty for a while,” he admitted. “SFG One took some molding to get back up to grade, but they’re starting to live up to my standards.”
“Are they now?” LaCroix murmured, eyeing him. “Care to put your money where your mouth is, Wing Commander Roberts?”
“Oh?” he asked cautiously.
“Exercising against other Phoenix wings only gets us so far,” she told him. “They have the same doctrine, same tactics, as we do. It stops becoming a stretch for anyone after a while. I would love to put my Demons up against Avalon’s wing – see if their extra experience can offset your people’s superior fighters.”
“My people are making my grade now,” Kyle warned, and the Sub-Colonel grinned brightly at him.
“You know that, and I know that – but my people don’t. Either they listen when I tell them that, and make up the difference with teamwork, or they learn a valuable life lessons,” she told him.
“Losing wing buys the beer – and losing commander buys the other dinner,” LaCroix proposed. “Sound li
ke a bet, Wing Commander?”
Kyle returned her grin.
“I’ll take that wager,” he told her.
13
Phoenix System, Kingdom of Phoenix
9:30 August 15, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
SFG-001 Alpha Actual – Falcon-type starfighter
“So boss, I heard about your side bet,” Stanford told Kyle over a private channel.
“The one where if we win, they have to buy the entire wing drinks?” the Wing Commander asked dryly. He’d made that one clear to everyone, Stanford knew.
“Nah, the one where if we lose you buy LaCroix dinner,” the Flight Commander replied. “So, boss, should we lose so you get a date?”
“Ha!” Roberts barked. “Somehow, I don’t think the entire Flight Group would be willing to trade buying drinks for the Demons, even for getting the CAG laid.”
“You’d be surprised,” Michael muttered, knowing perfectly well that Roberts would hear him over the mental link.
“Play nice, Flight Commander,” was all his boss told him. “I have LaCroix on another channel, we should be clear to link the simulations in a couple of minutes.”
As soon as Kyle signed off of the channel, Stanford flipped to a second private channel with the other Flight Commanders.
“He didn’t go for it,” he reported. “Told you.”
“Does he really expect to win this?” Shannon Lancet asked quietly. “The Demons are the Kingdom’s best and we’re…”
“Good,” Mendez interrupted, to the shock of the Flight Commanders from the original SFG-001. The two Flight Commanders from Alamo had always seemed a cut above to Stanford and his compatriots. “Better than our people think they are – better than your lack of faith deserves.”
“Hell, I was willing to go for it just to get the man laid,” Rokos told the others. “I’m with Mendez,” he continued. “The Group is good – one hell of a lot better than we were. But we could use Roberts laying off the men, too.”
Zhao laughed, a melodic peal from the tall and elegant woman.
“I’m not sure the man has got laid while I’ve known him,” she told the others. “And even if he did, I don’t think it would make him lay off the Flight Group. But kicking the Demons’ butt? That will get him to give the crews some slack.”
“Some slack they’ll have earned – and he knows, like we all do if we’re paying attention, that we can do it.”
All of the squadron commanders were silent for a moment, then the Wing Commander linked them into his circuit.
“All right people,” Roberts told them, presumably unaware of their prior discussion. “We are syncing with Dauntless’ simulation computers in sixty seconds. I’m downloading the formation I want your squadrons to assume now.”
A moment of silence passed as the squadron leaders reviewed them.
“These intervals are garbage!” Lancet declared. “Half of them are too close, half of them are too far. The only squadron with a decent formation is Alpha, and you’ve got Foxtrot and Echo intermingled with them. What is this?”
“It’s what a rookie reserve wing would do,” Rokos observed quietly.
“It’s what the wing the Demons think we are would do,” Stanford agreed, his mental attention turning to Roberts.
“Exactly,” the CAG told them, his mental voice tinged with pride. “This is what we’re going to do…”
Phoenix System, Kingdom of Phoenix
9:40 August 15, 2735 ESMDT
SFG-001 Actual – Falcon-C type command starfighter
In reality, Kyle’s six thousand ton command starfighter – which traded out the fourth missile in one of its launchers for dramatically expanded computer support – rested in its maintenance cradle in the bay on Avalon’s Flight Deck.
In the simulated world conjured by the synchronized computers of two carriers and almost a hundred starfighters, the ship sat slightly to the left of the central part of the chaotic-looking arrangement he’d provided his people.
The scenario he and LaCroix had agreed to was straightforward, negating most of the tricks that could be played with starfighters. The two fighter groups had each assumed formations in front of what was referred to in training design as 'nominal carriers’ – wireframes of the motherships with no ability to influence the engagement except as targets.
The Demons’ formation, he noted was just about perfect. Their intervals were all randomized, but with a clean synchronization set up to allow each ship a clear field of fire at every moment in the cycle.
His own formation was neater than it looked – the fields of fire were clear eighty-five percent of the time, and the excessive drifting he’d built in worked better for defense most of the time. More than anything though, it looked unprofessional.
“Here they come,” Rokos announced over the command network.
Kyle nodded to himself and switched to an all-hands channel. “All right folks, let’s go meet Phoenix’s best,” he told them. “Keep your EW suites in intel-gather mode until I tell you otherwise,” he continued, “and play lame duck. Let’s see how sloppy we can convince them to get.”
That got a few chuckles on his command net, and the CAG smiled to himself as he sent his own starfighter spiraling forward at five hundred gravities. If his people could carry this sim – if they could even hold their own – it would do wonders for his people’s morale.
“Landon,” he said quietly, linking to his ship’s gunner. “Most of the data from everyone’s electronic warfare suites is going to be dumping into our systems. You know what you’re looking for – let me know when you’ve got it.”
The Chevaliers were similar to the Falcons in base design, thirty meter long wedge-shaped ships. The Phoenix fighters were just as fast as the newer Federation ships, but narrower, and hence lighter and more lightly armed.
The two clouds of starfighters closed at almost ten kilometers per second squared, and the hundreds of thousands of kilometers between them began to evaporate far too quickly.
“Their ECM is good,” Landon reported after a minute. “I’m not getting much of a read on them.”
Kyle considered. He needed a reaction, but he couldn’t waste missiles – not yet.
“All ships,” he said softly, opening a channel to all of his people. “Give them a two second blast of positrons.”
“We’re not going to hit anything at this range,” Lancet objected.
“I know,” he agreed. “So let them think we’re useless – I want to see how they react.”
A few seconds later, obedient to his orders, lightspeed simulated antimatter blasted out from the fronts of his starfighters. Enough firepower to level a good sized city hurtled through space at the Phoenix ships – and missed them by as much as hundreds of kilometers as magnetic deflectors threw the charged particles aside.
But the target formation shifted. Intervals tightened slightly, allowing the deflectors to reinforce each other so as to throw any other long range attacks aside harmlessly. And the change to the formation meant orders had to be given…
“I’ve got them!” Landon announced over the ship’s internal net. Eight of the Chevaliers were suddenly highlighted in bright red on Kyle’s display: squadron command ships.
“Sloppy,” Kyle murmured. “Sloppy indeed.” The Demons, ‘knowing’ they were facing inferior opposition, had been relying on the passive security on the internal networks. Active security would have bounced and re-bounced the messages as well as encrypting them, preventing him from identifying the command ships – but also requiring the direct attention of at least one officer in each squadron.
“Download targets to Alpha and Bravo squadrons,” he ordered Landon. “Set up the parameters for Snicker-Snack and download to everyone.”
At their closing velocity, missile range was half a million kilometers, which they would reach… now.
“All ships, fire as per download,” he ordered.
Forty-eight ships each fired four missiles each, a si
ngle salvo from every one of their launchers. One hundred and ninety-two Starfire missiles, each carrying a one-gigaton antimatter warhead – enough to kill a starship, let alone a starfighter – blasted away from his ships at one thousand gravities.
The bright white light of his people’s missiles were the only activity between the two fighter groups for thirty seconds as the Demons waited for a better targeting solution. Then ninety-six missiles blasted away from the Chevaliers, heading for Kyle’s people.
A timer popped up in his mental screens. It started at one hundred and thirty seconds – twenty seconds before his missiles would reach the Phoenix fighters, roughly when they would start trying to take the missiles out.
Given the apparently disorganized swarm of missiles his people had launched, he was sure LaCroix’s pilots and gunners were sure they would easily handle the salvo, and then gut his people.
Another thirty seconds passed, and a second salvo blasted away from the Demons. At ninety seconds from impact, a second salvo blasted away from his own ships. The virtual space between the two wings was now filled with antimatter fire and intelligent missiles seeking self-immolation.
“Stand by,” he murmured into the all-hands channel when the counter hit fifteen. He was sure his pilots were on tenterhooks and hardly needed the warning.
“Now,” he snapped as the timer hit zero. “Execute Snicker-Snack!”
Whether or not any of his people were familiar with the old poem about the Jabberwock and the vorpal sword, they understood perfectly what he wanted of them.
He’d timed the launch and execution perfectly. At his command, the formations around him suddenly snapped into place – intervals opening and shortening to clear every ship’s line of fire.
Every ECM system on forty-eight starfighters blasted to full strength at the same time, and a seventh generation starfighter’s systems made the five-year-old Chevaliers look like children shouting into tin cans. He knew their scans of his group had just turned to garbage.
Avalon Trilogy: Castle Federation Books 1-3: Includes Space Carrier Avalon, Stellar Fox, and Battle Group Avalon Page 12