Each tier represented a ‘flat spot’ in the fuel efficiency chart, unique to each ship’s manipulator and engine setup though generally classifiable. Once they left that flat spot, they would start burning more fuel for each kilometer per second of speed – fast.
“Two hundred thirty five gravities, aye,” Pendez replied, and the ship smoothly responded to her commands again.
Sixty seconds passed without incident, confirming, if nothing else, that the Joint Department of Technology and Design’s Ship sub-department hadn’t underestimated the ship’s ability.
“Beginning increments,” Pendez announced, and Kyle caught even Solace starting to hold her breath. He flashed the XO a quick smile, and she shook her head, ever so slightly, at him.
Seconds ticked by slowly.
“We have reached two hundred and forty gravities,” the Navigator announced. “Still running clean.”
Now Kyle caught himself holding his breath. It was rare for JD-Ships to be more than five gravities out on their estimate of a ship’s acceleration tiers.
“Two forty-five,” Pendez reported. “Wong?” she asked.
“Definitely in the tier,” the Chief Engineer replied calmly. “Keep running her up, Commander. I’ll let you know when we hit the line.”
Ten seconds more passed. Then another ten.
“Two hundred and fifty gravities.” Now Kyle was holding his breath – only to exhale quickly as Wong spoke.
“That’s it, slow her back down,” he snapped quickly.
Pendez instantly cut their acceleration by twenty gravities, and Kyle studied the numbers carefully, trying to hide the giant grin taking shape on his face.
“I think I owe some JD-Ship’s designers a beer,” he said loudly. “Ladies and gentlemen, we just clocked in at two hundred and fifty one gravities for Tier Two acceleration. That makes us, officially, the fastest damn ship in the Navy.”
“I have to object, sir,” Mira Solace put in, and Kyle turned back to her observer chair with a raised eyebrow. “Based on my own analysis, that actually makes us the fasted damn ship… in the Alliance.”
“She didn’t even strain, sir,” Wong interjected. “I’m comfortably rating our flank speed for two hundred and fifty gravities.”
“Commander Pendez? Senior Commander Solace?” Kyle asked the others. “Any disagreement with Senior Commander Wong’s assessment?”
“None, sir,” Pendez replied, and Mira simply shook her head.
“Sir,” Wong interjected slowly. “We passed Tier Two acceleration parameters, but… the ship wasn’t even straining. I’d like to take her higher.”
Kyle stopped, thinking for a long moment. There was, theoretically, no reason a starship couldn’t make Tier Three acceleration – the five hundred gravities usually reserved for starfighters. Most starships weren’t built to be able to do it, as the Tier 3 ‘flat spot’ in fuel consumption was much, much higher.
It wasn’t something he could justify on a regular basis, but knowing how hard they could push the ship in an emergency would be useful.
“That’s a daring suggestion, Senior Fleet Commander Wong,” he said very, very softly, glancing at Solace and Pendez. Pendez looked like a puppy who’d just had a bone waved in front of her face. Solace was… unreadable.
“If you see the slightest strain, we pull back to two fifty immediately,” he ordered. “Commander Pendez – initiate a ten gravity every ten seconds increment. Let’s see how fast we can go, shall we?”
There was almost no chance that any acceleration would leak through to the ship, but he saw several members of the bridge crew – including Solace – strap themselves in. He couldn’t – it would show a lack of faith.
“Ready, sir,” Pendez reported.
“Engage,” he replied. As the ship began to leap forward, he hoped that no one else could see where his hands were clenching the sides of his chair. Despite his orders to Wong, this was still risky – risky enough he’d never try it any further away from the yards that could fix the ship.
The ship smoothly accelerated to two hundred and sixty. Then two hundred and seventy. Three hundred gravities passed without even a tremor, though the fuel levels being reported in one of his mental windows were dropping faster than he’d ever seen outside a starfighter.
Three hundred and fifty, and Kyle watched the numbers and metrics like a hawk. They were burning fuel prodigiously, but the ship seemed to be able to take it.
Then, just past four hundred gravities, his sensors went crazy.
“Zero thrust, now!” he snapped and Pendez obeyed. The ship’s acceleration cut to zero but the chaotic mess across the ship’s scanners remained. After a few seconds, it began to slowly dissipate, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he realized the sensors themselves weren’t damaged.
“What happened?” Kyle demanded of Wong. The engineer had disappeared from the com screen, but returned after hearing Kyle’s voice.
“Nothing permanent?” the Chief Engineer said questioningly. “We’ll have to look into it, but it looks like several of the positron feeds opened all the way up. We had intact antimatter leaving the ship.”
“Where it annihilated against the exhaust outside the ship, and lit up the sky like we were firing off nuclear fireworks,” Kyle finished grimly. “How long is that going to last?”
“Depending on how many positrons got out… thirty, forty minutes?” Wong replied.
“All right people,” the Captain said calmly, “we know we’ve got a four hundred gravity emergency sprint, and I think that’s good enough. Let’s see if we can make it through the tests without blowing up anything else we don’t mean to.”
Shaking his head, his grin returned. Despite its ending, it had been exhilarating to, even for a few moments, see the massive carrier fly like a starfighter.
“We’re still on course for the testing zone, I presume?” he asked Pendez.
She nodded.
“All right. Take us over at two hundred and fifty gravities. It’s time to reduce our surplus asteroid supply!”
14:00 December 9, 2735 ESMDT
SFG-001 Actual – Falcon-C type command starfighter
Michael hadn’t been on the bridge during their attempt at a sprint, but he’d been linked into the ship’s network while reviewing his new Wing Commanders’ files. It had been impressive to watch, though the ‘fireworks’ display at the end had been a little disconcerting.
Now, he was strapped into the cockpit of his starfighter, glancing around him with both his eyes and his starfighter’s sensors. Avalon had two hundred and forty starfighters, all Falcons, with six Falcon-C command starfighters reserved for the CAG and the five Wing Commanders – each of whom led a six squadron wing as large as the old Avalon’s entire Flight Group.
He sat inside his own command starfighter, one of the eighty already loaded into the big carrier’s launch tubes. His starfighters made up the second part of the live fire test, and he watched Captain Roberts test the ship’s main weaponry with interest while preparing for his turn.
First, an innocent asteroid was the target of all of Avalon’s forward facing missile batteries. Eight Jackhammer capital ship missiles blasted into space at a thousand gravities to annihilate the poor planetoid in multiple gigatons of fire.
That test complete, the carrier aligned on a new victim, and twenty-four seven-hundred-kiloton-per-second positron lances rippled across space. Accelerated antimatter collided with the ice of the artificial target, and then the asteroid came apart in a glitter of debris.
Chunks of rock and ice continued towards Avalon, and her lighter beams opened up. Space glittered with the distinctive white flare of matter-antimatter annihilation as dozens of seventy-kiloton-per-second beams cleared a safe zone around the big ship.
Then an icon popped up on Michael’s implant, highlighting a third asteroid.
“CAG, it’s Roberts,” the Captain said over his communicator. “It’s your turn. Maximum turnaround launch, then melt that ice ba
ll for me.”
“Can do, Captain,” Michael replied immediately, making sure all of his Wing Commanders got the target caret. He flipped to a different channel. “Chief Hammond,” he addressed his Deck Chief, the senior NCO who ran the ship-side portion of the Space Force aboard Avalon. “Are we clear for a max turnaround?”
“First wave is locked and loaded, second and third are in their cradles,” Hammond reported gruffly. “We are clear on your mark.”
“JD-Ships says twenty-two seconds a cycle,” Michael observed. “They underestimated the engines. Think they got the launch tubes right?”
“I wouldn’t push them past twenty,” the old Master Chief replied. “Let’s not risk these kids just to make the Yards look good.”
“Fair enough, Chief,” the CAG replied. “Mark in five.”
“Confirmed. Hold on.”
Five seconds later, a massive weight slammed into his chest as the launch tube fired his fighter into space at five thousand gravities.
Eighty starfighters, most of two fighter wings, shot out into space with him.
“Alpha Wing, form on me,” he ordered. “Bravo Wing, hold for your Five and Six squadrons.”
“Sure, we’ll float here looking decorative,” Wing Commander Russell Rokos replied, and Michael shook his head.
He heard Alpha’s Wing Commander, Thomas Avignon, try not to choke. Rokos had been with them at Tranquility, but none of his other Wing Commanders had. They expected – not entirely wrongly – that Rokos would get some extra slack for that. Honestly, though, any of his officers could get away with that. Stanford wasn’t exactly going to flog people for a little humor.
Besides, the second wave – the rest of Rokos’ Bravo Wing, Wing Commander Carl Moriarty’s Charlie Wing, and two squadrons of Wing Commander Adrianna Cortez’s Delta Wing – was in space before Rokos had even finished speaking. Exactly twenty seconds for the cycle, Michael noted.
Twenty seconds later, the last eighty fighters were in space, and Wing Commander Lei Nguyen and her Epsilon Wing joined them.
“All right, since we don’t want to use Commander Rokos as decoration, let’s form up,” he ordered. “The Captain has picked us a nice solid ball of ice, it’ll take a few hits to break it up.”
Vice Commodore Michael Stanford paused, reviewing the serried array of two hundred and forty starfighters at his command.
“Passes by the numbers people,” he finished. “Sorry, Lei, but the rest of you better not leave Epsilon anything!”
He smiled with pride as his Flight Group lunged forward, hungry eyes and scanners already seeking the death of yet another ball of ice.
6
Castle System, Castle Federation
11:00 December 14, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
Orbital Dry Dock Merlin Four
The observation deck on Merlin Four was nowhere near large enough to hold all six thousand members of her keel-plate crew. Once space had been allocated for the various political personages and reporters, only two hundred of Kyle’s people had been able to attend.
Necessity meant that all of the senior officers were present, and he’d arranged a lottery for the rest. Now, those personnel formed a solid block of black uniforms in the middle of the observation deck. Mostly they were Navy, but he’d set the lottery list so thirty Space Forcers and thirty Marines joined them.
Most of the reporters were behind the block of officers and men, and then Kyle stood out in front with the VIPs. He’d met two of the three Senators standing with him, Senator Maria O’Connell of the planet Tuatha and Senator Madhur Nagarkar of New Bombay.
Senator Joseph Randall, Senator for Castle itself, he hadn’t met. The man looked enough like his son that Kyle had no issues identifying the blue-eyed man with the fading blond hair when he arrived. The degree to which Senator Randall completely ignored him was a small hint as well.
The last two people standing on the little raised dais at the front of the observation deck were both flag officers. Kyle was familiar with Fleet Admiral Meredith Blake, the tall gray-haired woman who headed the Federation’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. He’d reviewed Vice Admiral Dimitri Tobin’s file after being informed the man would command the battle group Avalon was joining, but he didn’t know the stocky man.
A band – borrowed from the station as Avalon’s crew hadn’t assembled the traditionally volunteer ship’s band yet – played the brassy tunes of the Federation’s Call to Arms, the battle hymn recognized as the anthem of the Federation’s military.
Then a tall red-haired woman in a prim black business suit stepped crisply onto the dais, carrying a single sheet of parchment.
“Ladies, Gentlemen, I am Moira Anderson, Station Manager of Merlin Four,” she said calmly. “It is my honor and my privilege to deliver deep space carrier number seventy-eight into the hands of the Castle Federation Space Navy.”
For all that everyone knew her name, and they’d even cast her seal and mounted it in Kyle’s office, Avalon was technically still only a hull. At this moment, she remained DSC-078, nothing more.
Admiral Blake saluted the Station Manager and took the sheet of parchment, officially taking possession of the carrier that hung outside the window, a sharp-edged presence with only minimal lights, ominous in the dark.
“Thank you, Miss Anderson,” Blake said calmly and turned to face the cameras. “Naming a ship is always a challenge,” she told the reporters. “Some ships are given new names as freshly forged defenders of our great nation. Others… others inherit names that carry history and legends.
“DSC-078 is our newest and most powerful carrier, a shield that will guard our worlds in these dark times. She is also the first carrier commissioned since this new war began, and it seems fitting that she bear the same name as the very first carrier Castle ever commissioned.
“Senator O’Connell, if you would do the honors please,” Blake told the petite Senator with the flaming red hair.
The Senator bowed crisply and stepped forward. A control panel sat at the edge of the platform, linked to the pneumatic cannon outside the window – the cannon aimed directly at the carrier.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the media, officers and crew of the Castle Federation Armed Forces, my fellow Senators,” the little woman said brightly. “I give you the Castle Federation’s newest legend, reborn from the fires of the Battle of Tranquility to fight for us once more.
“I hereby christen this vessel Avalon.” O’Connell hit the control, and the pneumatic cannon fired. A cask of champagne – traditionally exactly sixty liters – shot into space and smashed itself on the flat prow of the carrier.
In response to that signal, the ship’s AI triggered the routine Kyle had carefully programmed before he left the ship. Starting from the point of impact, Avalon’s running lights came fully online, rippling out in a growing sequence of lights that lit up every corner and edge of the ship.
Finally, the cloth that covered her name, invisible against the carrier’s hull, was pulled away by a dockyard tug, revealing the ten meter high letters that spelled out her hull number and name on each of her four broadsides.
Blake allowed a few moments to pass for the media to get proper shots of the new carrier, then stepped back onto the platform.
“Captain Kyle Roberts, as per your orders and assignment, I hereby deliver to you DSC-078 Avalon. May you command her with honor for the glory of the Castle Federation.”
Kyle stepped onto the platform and took that fragile sheet of parchment – Avalon’s own commissioning orders – and bowed over them.
“I hereby assume command of DSC-078 Avalon,” he said calmly.
Blake took his hand, shaking it firmly as the band begin to play again.
“Good luck, son,” she murmured. “Stars above know you’re going to need it.”
Despite the fact that they were at war, Kyle had been unable to convince anyone not to follow up the commissioning ceremony with a reception for the politicians and reporters. A party was al
l well and good in his books, but reporters were like a bucket of cold water in his opinion.
Thankfully, he’d collided with the Coraline Imperium’s ambassador at the buffet table, who turned out to be an ex-fighter pilot. The Ambassador had gleefully taken advantage of his exalted rank to monopolize Kyle’s time for at least half an hour, discussing the comparative virtues of the Federation and the Imperium’s seventh-generation fighters – the Federation’s Falcon, an ECM-heavy craft, versus the Imperium Arrow which was primarily a missile platform.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t checked the area around well enough before bidding the Ambassador farewell, and had barely made it ten steps towards the bathroom when the vultures stooped.
“Captain Roberts!” a reporter he didn’t recognized said loudly. “Can you spare a moment to speak to our viewers?”
Kyle sighed, and turned to face the man. The speaker wore a badge identifying him as being from ‘Federation Instant News’, and looked the part of the steady anchor – muscular build, perfect hair, and a perfectly symmetrical face. Kyle couldn’t help wondering how much of the man’s appearance was natural versus surgery.
“Yes, Mister…?”
“I’m Brad Torrent, of FIN,” the reporter said swiftly. A camera rose above the man’s shoulder on a prehensile telescoping mount. “Please, Captain Roberts – what do you think of the new Avalon?”
“She’s an incredible ship, a testament to her builders,” Kyle said carefully.
“A perfect weapon to strike back at the Commonwealth, no?” Torrent asked. Kyle nodded slowly, hoping not to have let himself in for too much trouble. “Yet we sit on the defensive!” the reporter exclaimed. “Captain Roberts, the people want to know what the Stellar Fox thinks of the Senate’s lack of action!”
For a long moment, Kyle wished breaking the man’s arm and telescoping camera – in about that order – was an option as he glared at the man.
Avalon Trilogy: Castle Federation Books 1-3: Includes Space Carrier Avalon, Stellar Fox, and Battle Group Avalon Page 37