Then his people opened fire. Positron lances ripped out at the speed of light, bracketing starfighters, herding those that evaded.
As antimatter flashed across space, the missiles had their own part to play. The execution command that flashed out ordered a third of them to detonate in place, sending blast waves of radiation rippling out in front of their compatriots.
However co-ordinated the strike was, however perfect the timing, there was no way that Kyle’s people could take out all of LaCroix’s fighters in a single missile salvo.
But with everything combined, they could easily take out eight.
The Demons tactical network came crashing down as every squadron commander, including LaCroix herself, ‘died’ in hammer blows of fire.
“Rokos, Zhao, co-ordinate missile defense,” Kyle ordered. The Demons salvo was still inbound, after all.
“Everyone else… hit them!”
Phoenix System, Kingdom of Phoenix
19:00 August 15, 2735 ESMDT
McKeon Station – Dancing Starcat bar
The Demons, Stanford reflected, took losing surprisingly well.
‘Buying the drinks’ was one thing. What the Demons had actually done was more along the lines of ‘rent the entire lounge and pay for an open bar.’ Two entire fighter groups, almost three hundred men and women in the uniforms of two different nations, had descended on the Dancing Starcat in full force.
That worthy, a domestic housecat with a starry night sky for a coat, adorned much of the restaurant. It had even been etched onto the pint glasses the bartender was filling up two at a time for the swarming pilots
The two CAGs were nowhere to be seen, the slight Flight Commander noted, making him the senior officer of the chaotic crowd. There were seven Phoenix Space Force Majors around somewhere, but the two he’d seen were leading the way in terms of getting drunk.
Stanford himself was dealing with a not-entirely-newfound sense of responsibility. Roberts had yet to ask or even make much of a point as to how he’d ended up as one of the most senior active duty Flight Commanders in the Space Force, and he found himself wanting to live up to the faith his new boss had put in him.
Right now, that was manifesting itself by picking a table in a corner of the bar and moderating his drinking while keeping an eye on their people.
He was about to get up and collect his third beer of the evening when a shadow fell across his table. He looked up – and then further up! – at a mountain of a man looming over him. The bar lights reflected off the man’s shaven skull in a way that reminded Stanford of Liago and sent tremors of fear through him.
“You’re in my table,” the mountain rumbled. “Move it, little man.”
“The bar is closed for a private function,” Stanford told him, but he could hear his voice tremble. The massive man grinned.
“Don’t matter,” he pronounced. “This is Argo’s table, no one sits here.”
“I was just leaving,” Stanford muttered, sliding out of the table. His attempt to defuse conflict apparently failed, as the collar of his jacket was suddenly grabbed up in a fist the size of a dinner plate.
“Might’ve been,” Argo growled. “But you sat in Argo’s seat. Gonna teach a lesson.”
Before Stanford could try anything, a distinctive and familiar hum cut through the hubbub of the bar. Argo’s head turned, tracking the noise like a turret, to find a pair of women, both in the black and burgundy uniforms of the Phoenix Space Force – and both training fully charged stunners on the giant.
“I know the management has warned you about muscling your way in when the bar is closed,” the closest of the women, a petite but curvy blond, told Argo calmly. “No one is going to blink twice if Rachel and I taze your ass and dump you for the Station cops.”
The lithe brunette behind the speaker simply grinned and made a ‘move-along’ gesture with the barrel of the electro-laser.
Argo stared at the two women, as if unable to comprehend that a pair that he outweighed would actually threaten him.
“Put the Commander down, Mister Argo, and walk out,” the speaker continued. “Or we shoot you, apologize to Commander Stanford for the aura effect, and dump you with the cops with charges of trespassing and assault.”
Stanford hit the ground as Argo released him, managing to land mostly balanced as the giant growled wordlessly and started forward. Both of the stunners stayed locked on him and he apparently changed his mind, walking past the women and down towards the exit.
Shaking her head, the blond officer holstered her weapon and offered her hand to Stanford.
“Major Sherry Wills,” she introduced herself. “This is Sub-Major Rachel Parks,” she continued, indicating the woman behind her who grinned at Stanford and winked.
Delicately, Stanford took Sherry’s hand and kissed the back of it.
“Enchanted, Major,” he greeted her with a smile. “Your timing was impeccable!”
“Our pleasure,” Rachel told him, the brunette slipping into one side of his table. With a smile and a gentle, easily-resisted, push, Sherry slid Stanford back into the table, and herself in on the other side of him.
“We were coming over to introduce ourselves,” Sherry told him as he found himself sandwiched between the two women. “Argo just gave us a chance to do so with flair.”
He laughed, and smiled at them.
“That he did,” he agreed. “That he did.”
Nobody was that reformed.
Phoenix System, Kingdom of Phoenix
19:30 August 15, 2735 ESMDT
McKeon Station – Green Line Lounge
Sub-Colonel Jenaveve LaCroix made an excellent hostess, Kyle realized, and one who knew the ins and outs of McKeon Station with a flair and comfort that helped put him at ease. The restaurant she picked was a higher-class establishment, with soft music playing in the background and woven tapestries covering the station’s bare metal walls.
Kyle didn’t feel particularly out of place in the Green Line Lounge in his dress uniform without his medals, but LaCroix had dressed up for the evening in a knee-length red dress that clung frankly to every muscular curve, leaving very little of her frame to his imagination.
They’d spent the excellent dinner talking shop. She seemed more amused than angered by his suckering her flight crews into overconfidence, and told a story of an exercise where she’d conspired with a cruiser Captain to bring an overweening carrier commander down a few pegs.
Then the conversation had drifted to Ansem Gulf, and how Kyle had earned his valor decoration.
“The news made it sound like the pirates had turned the Gulf into some kind of Q-ship,” he explained softly as she refilled his wine. “In truth, it was a bunch of pre-war mass drivers and pulse lasers. The only real guns in the whole bunch were on a half-dozen third-generation junk starfighters from the Stellar League.”
The Stellar League was a loose coalition of systems, roughly the size of the Alliance, to the south and corewards of the Terran Commonwealth. While their technology was patchwork, it wasn’t too far behind the Commonwealth or the Alliance – otherwise, the Commonwealth would have swallowed them up years ago.
That said, even a League third-generation starfighter dated from before the end of the war.
“Nothing they had would have been more than a passing threat to a cruiser or carrier,” he told LaCroix. “We had starfighters and boarding shuttles, and they took us by surprise.”
He shrugged.
“Honestly? Once we survived the first salvo, they never stood a chance. But it was a near-run thing regardless.”
“I think you give yourself too little credit,” the Sub-Colonel told him. “What you just did to my Demons is pretty demonstrative of what normally happens when someone takes out the leadership of a fighter group. You held your people together and carried the day – we’re not impressed for nothing, Kyle.”
“Touché,” he admitted, inclining his glass towards her.
She leaned forward, brushing
her arm against his and smiling at him.
“I was impressed before you managed to show my people a badly needed lesson in not underestimating your enemies,” she continued. “And at this point, I’ve done just about everything short of hit you over the head with a club and drag you back to my quarters, and I don’t think you’re that oblivious. What gives, Kyle?”
He sighed, and leaned back away from her.
“I have a son,” he said quietly.
“You’re not married,” she pointed out. “I’m not pushing, Kyle. Though I’ll admit I’m not used to rejection!”
Kyle made a throwaway gesture.
“Believe me, Jenaveve,” he said quietly, “it is not you. Were circumstances different, you’d be more successful. But I promised myself a long time ago I’d never leave anyone else behind.”
“I wasn’t exactly looking for wedding bells here, Commander Roberts,” she pointed out. “You’re a dear, but your duty will take you a long way away.”
“What you want isn’t my style, Jenaveve,” Kyle told her. “I don’t think I even could do a quick fling.”
“I won’t begrudge anyone their choices,” she replied with a shake of her head. “You don’t know what you’re missing!” she finished with a lascivious wink.
“I don’t,” he agreed, raising his glass to her in a silent toast. “But I’ve enough regrets, and wouldn’t want to miss you.”
She laughed.
“In that case, Commander Kyle Roberts, you’d better plan on splitting a few more bottles with me,” she told him. “If I can’t bed you, I will by the stars get you relaxed another way!”
14
Thorn System
12:30 August 26, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
DSC-001 Avalon – Atrium
The atrium aboard every Castle Federation warship was considered an essential part of the life support system by Castle designers, and an effete luxury even by many of the Federation’s allies.
Michelle Williams, like many officers and crew of the Federation’s military, found it a place of quiet sanctuary amidst the inevitable bustle and rush of a starship under way. Six days and eighteen light years out of Phoenix, the raven-haired pilot was enjoying a moment of quiet peace with Angela amidst the squat trees.
Here, away from prying eyes, the pair held hands carefully. Their relationship had yet to progress past a light peck on the lips, and Michelle was unspeakably grateful for the nurse’s patience. With a small smile, the pilot leaned her head against the other woman’s shoulder and activated a program via her implants.
For the next fifteen or so minutes, she’d get a warning buzzer if anyone came near this, very concealed, corner of the pseudo-wild forest Avalon carried in her heart.
Gently, ever so gently, Michelle ran her fingers up Angela’s shoulder and into the nurse’s long brown hair. Taking the other woman’s contented sigh as permission, she laced her fingers into Angela’s hair and drew her gently around to kiss her softly.
Slowly, hesitantly, their kisses grew more passionate. Then, with a moment of sudden decision, Michelle pulled Angela down to the soft moss on the ground. For a minute, they continued to kiss.
Then a momentary misjudgment of an angle brought Angela’s full, if slight, weight down on top of Michelle and suddenly she wasn’t seeing the gentle face of the lovely woman she’d come here to spend time with. She saw another face, one with paler hair and a far uglier expression.
With a gasp of fear, Michelle threw Angela off her, rolling away into a combative stance before she even knew what she was doing.
She crouched there, hyper-ventilating and trying to control her breathing as Angela slowly rose to her own knees and met her gaze.
“I’m sorry,” Michelle gasped. “I’m sorry.”
“You weren’t ready,” Angela told her aloud, but Michelle saw the hurt in her eyes. “Give it time.”
“I’m sick of giving it time,” the pilot spat. “The Doc says I’m fit for duty – I’m a fighter, dammit, not some weak-willed civilian.”
Angela twisted her lips into a figment of a smile.
“That’s what makes it harder for you,” she said quietly. “There are wounds even now that only time can heal.”
The nurse gripped Michelle’s shoulder tightly, but from a distance – giving her both the space her panicked psyche needed in that moment and the warmth her heart needed always.
“I can be patient, dear one,” she told the pilot. “I thought you knew you were ready – I was shocked.”
Michelle looked up at her through the tears in her eyes and could see Angela crying.
“I thought I knew I was ready,” she whispered. “When will I be?”
“When you are,” Angela told her. “And I will be here.”
Thorn System
17:00 August 26, 2735 ESMDT
SFG-001 Actual – Falcon-C type command starfighter
Theoretically, flying a normal combat space patrol in an allied system was not part of the CAG’s job. After sitting around McKeon Station for days, and then spending six days in transit, Kyle had been bored out of his skull – and desperately missing the feel of deep space around him.
His wedge-shaped command starfighter swept towards Rose, the sole habitable planet of the Thorn system. Thorn was one of over thirty single system star nations scattered around the Castle Federation and Coraline Imperium that had signed on with the Alliance during the war against the Commonwealth.
Thorn was wealthier than some of those systems, with three capital ships in their fleet, and a massive industrial presence scattered throughout the entire star system. They were still poor compared to Phoenix, or even most Federation systems, but they were secure against most threats.
Three other Falcons accompanied him, drawn from Stanford’s Alpha squadron, including Lieutenant Williams’ ship. The young pilot had seemed distracted when they’d prepped for the flight, but it hadn’t shown up in her flying or her link into the network. He wasn’t going to go interfering with his people’s lives unless invited.
The CSP was well ahead of Avalon herself, closing with the planet at two and a half times the old carrier’s acceleration. Their course carefully shaped away from most of the industry and in-system shipping, so it took longer than it should have for Kyle to notice the ships heading their way.
“Landon,” he said quietly over the starfighter’s internal net. “Vector twenty-six by forty. What do you make of it?”
A moment of silence passed, but the net told him that the gunner was focusing the passive scanners on that region of space.
“Three ships,” the junior officer reported. “Warbook calls them Stardust-class heavy gunships. One hundred sixty meters long, four hundred thousand tons mass, main armament is twelve one-hundred-kiloton lances with a narrow forward firing arc. Rated for two-fifty gravities acceleration.”
“Guardships,” Kyle observed quietly, watching the three sublight warships blasting towards Avalon. “I wouldn’t want to get in front of them, but I’d be more scared if the things were actually rated for Tier Three acceleration.”
The various factors tied into fuel efficiency of a ship using an antimatter thruster combined with mass manipulators were a complex multi-factorial calculation with a number of ‘plateaus’ – or tiers. Each tier was significantly less fuel efficient than the tier below it. A Tier One ship used almost no fuel, but even with modern technology could accelerate at perhaps sixty gravities.
Only missiles could afford the fuel to mass expenditure of Tier Four acceleration, but starfighters and their five hundred gravity accelerations were rated for Tier Three – and were approximately one percent as efficient as a capital ship running at Tier Two.
The gunships approaching them were probably newer than Avalon, and might have as much as thirty or forty gravities advantage over the carrier. Kyle’s starfighters, however, could outfly them drunk and blindfolded.
“They’re pushing hard,” Kyle continued, his mental voice sti
ll soft. “I know Captain Blair notified Thorn before we left Phoenix, and when we arrived.”
His four ships weren’t much of a threat to the three much larger ships, but SFG-001 could shred them with ease. Picking a fight with a Castle Federation Deep Space Carrier was suicide for those ships – so what the hell were they doing?”
“Lyla, ping them with a Q-com request,” he ordered his ship’s engineer. “And spin the zero point cells to full power. Just in case.”
Without the proper ID codes, Kyle could contact Castle – some fifty light years away – with less time lag than he could talk to the Stardusts two light minutes away. A Q-com request was a radio ping communicating the code required to tell the massive switchboard array in Castle orbit to transfer any communication to the bits entangled with his starfighter. That code, however, had to travel at lightspeed.
A little over two minutes later, the starfighters AI informed him of an incoming communication.
“Starfighter flight, identify yourselves,” a harsh female voice ordered.
“This is Wing Commander Kyle Roberts of Avalon’s flight group,” Kyle responded. “We are flying a CSP as per the Alliance Treaty of Mutual Defense, Section Five Sub-Section Three. Please advise of the intentions of your squadron.”
“This is Commander Adele Richards of the Thorn Defense Force,” the woman replied. “Please transit your authentication code.”
“Commander, you are contacting me via a military-only quantum entanglement channel,” the Federation officer reminded her. “I am transmitting my authentication, but you owe me a damned good explanation.”
The TDF officer waited for a long moment – probably validating his codes with Federation Command, which seemed excessive to Kyle but was consistent with the paranoia.
“Your codes check out, Commander,” she admitted with an audible sigh of relief. “I apologize for the paranoia. I presume, then, that the Alcubierre emergence we detected was Avalon?”
Avalon Trilogy: Castle Federation Books 1-3: Includes Space Carrier Avalon, Stellar Fox, and Battle Group Avalon Page 13