“Firstly, Mister Torrent, I have no enthusiasm for sensationalist nicknames,” he said coldly. “If you’re going to hang a damn stupid moniker on me, I’d prefer one that didn’t link me to a man whose own government forced him to commit suicide!”
From the reporter’s taken-aback expression, he didn’t know the source of Kyle’s nickname in the press. If he hadn’t already been into negative points in the Captain’s books, he’d have been sliding downhill.
“Secondly, as a Captain in the Castle Federation Space Navy, it is not my place to criticize or praise the Senate,” he said firmly. “My duty is to follow their orders and complete the missions laid out in pursuit of their goals.
“Thirdly, Mister Torrent, the Reserve is in the process of being recommissioned. Between us and the rest of the Alliance, that’s eighty more capital ships to enter our line of battle in the coming months. That boost to our forces will dramatically increase our strategic and operational options.”
He’d moved forward into Torrent’s personal space as he spoke. The reporter wasn’t a small man, but Kyle was a very large one. The camera on its prehensile mount twisted backwards to keep Kyle’s face in view, even as Torrent took an involuntary step backwards.
“In the end, your viewers should be reassured that the Senate does not rush to sacrifice the lives of their brothers and sisters solely to be seen to be doing something,” he finished. “Smarter men and women than you and I are drafting the Alliance’s war plans. I suggest you have faith.”
He waited for a long moment to see if Torrent had more to say, then turned on his heel and disappeared into the crowd. He made it perhaps three or four meters before he was interrupted by a sardonic slow clap, and turned to see the stocky form of Vice Admiral Dimitri Tobin.
“Vice Admiral,” he greeted his soon-to-be-commander with a slight bow.
“I’m impressed, Captain,” the Admiral told Kyle. He was one of a very few men who could meet Kyle at eye level and he was, if anything, broader than the massive Captain. “Not many could turn Torrent’s little ambush around like that. Well done.”
Kyle nodded carefully, swallowing down the last vestiges of his adrenaline spike as he took in his new CO and the willowy blond woman walking next to him.
“I hate that nickname,” he finally admitted, and Tobin laughed.
“Good,” he rumbled. “It’s probably a good sign. Captain Roberts, this is my wife, Sasha,” he introduced the blond. “Sasha, you know Captain Roberts by reputation, if nothing else.”
“Indeed,” she murmured, bright blue eyes holding Kyle’s for a moment. Those eyes were warm, caring – but he also felt like he’d just been appraised and measured thoroughly. “I need to grab some more food, I’ll leave you gentlemen to it.”
With a kiss firmly planted on her husband’s bearded cheek, Sasha disappeared into the crowd. Tobin nodded towards the windows looking out over Avalon and led the way over.
“Sasha knows when to leave us officers to business,” the Vice Admiral said softly, glancing after his wife. “You have no escort tonight?”
“I occasionally borrow my son’s mother when it’s made clear a plus one is non-negotiable,” Kyle told his Admiral, “but that’s… an account with limited credit.”
Tobin nodded and let the matter drop. He clearly was at least passingly familiar with complex family situations.
“How were your space trials, Captain?” he asked.
“Smooth as silk, sir,” Kyle told him. “Every metric JD-Ships rated her for, we exceeded. She’s the fastest, nastiest, ship in the Navy, sir. We’ll do you proud.”
“You’re clear to join the Battle Group then?”
“They’d cleared us for full operations prior to the commissioning,” Avalon’s Captain confirmed.
“That’s how it’s supposed to work,” Tobin observed. “But it doesn’t always.”
“My intention is to move to BG Seventeen’s orbit in the morning,” Kyle continued.
“Good,” the Vice Admiral told him. “My staff will contact you then with exact details. Barring something unexpected, though, I should be able to move my flag aboard tomorrow afternoon then.”
Kyle swallowed, surprised.
“I… did not expect to be carrying the flag, sir,” he confessed. “As the junior Captain, I assumed you would fly your flag aboard Camerone.”
“There are many arguments as to what ship an Admiral should fly his flag from, Captain,” Tobin told him dryly. “The largest. The one with the most starfighters. The one with the most positron lances. For some Admirals, it’s the one with the prettiest junior officers.
“Why an Admiral picks a flagship should always remain a mystery to others though,” he continued with a smile. “I will fly my flag from Avalon, the most impressive the Federation is contributing to BG Seventeen. Unless you have an actual objection, my dear Captain?”
“No, sir,” Kyle told him crisply. Spotting Sasha returning, he gave the Vice Admiral a crisp salute. “I believe I will leave you to your wife,” he told Tobin. “I was heading somewhere specific before our friend Torrent interrupted.”
“Of course, Captain,” Tobin agreed with a wave that approximated a return salute. “I wanted to let you know before the official notice arrived. A courtesy, if you will.”
The two men parted and Kyle waited until he was well clear of the Admiral before pinging Solace’s implant.
“Solace, once we’re back aboard, check in with the Bosun. We’re going to be hosting Vice Admiral Tobin’s flag, and I know no one was focusing on the flag deck.
“Let’s make sure it’s prim and proper before he comes aboard. Let’s not embarrass ourselves.”
“We’re carrying the flag?” she responded. “I expected him to fly from Camerone.”
“So did I, Commander Solace,” Kyle told her. “But one does not argue with Admirals.”
7
Castle System, Castle Federation
18:00 December 15, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
DSC-078 Avalon, Shuttle Three
Dimitri Tobin regarded Alliance Battle Group Seventeen – now also designated Alliance Battle Group Avalon – with an appraising gaze. The immense abbreviated arrowhead of Avalon orbited below and behind the other ships, with the thirteen hundred meter spike of Camerone the only other vessel of the four to approach her length.
The Trade Factor’s warships had originally been retrofitted merchant ships, and the Magellan-class battleship Zheng He showed that legacy in her design. She was a flattened sphere as wide as she was tall and only slightly longer. Only half a kilometer long, she was still three quarters of Avalon’s volume and packed twice the heavy armaments.
Horus was still missing, but the first Imperial contribution, the strike cruiser Gravitas, had already arrived. The Majesty-class strike cruisers were older ships, but still potent. The Imperium had purchased its original warships, a long time ago, from the Commonwealth and their capital ships were built on the same flattened cigar that had evolved into the Commonwealth’s carriers. Gravitas was a kilometer long and a quarter-kilometer wide, with a wing of eighty starfighters and an armament only slightly heavier than the much larger Avalon’s.
Combined with the Federation battle cruiser Camerone, which had another forty-eight starfighters and fell between Gravitas and Zheng He in terms of onboard weapons, Battle Group Seventeen was a powerful combat force, fully a third of the true capital ships in the Castle system.
All of that firepower – to be increased once Horus, an even newer Imperial ship, arrived – now answered to one Vice Admiral Dimitri Tobin. It was a sobering thought, and a responsibility he was determined to live up to.
Still wrapped up inside his implant, he considered the people on the shuttle with him. This was only the first load of ‘flag staff’ to come aboard Avalon, and he had fifty people coming with him. With his staff officers, their teams, the flag deck crew and its three shifts and officers to command those shifts, he was bringing over two
hundred people aboard Avalon.
Too few of them were his team from Corona. Many of those worthies had died. A lot of others, like Robert Brown, were still in recovery from injuries sustained at Midori.
Most of his new staff and personnel had been put together by his new Chief of Staff based on JD-Personnel recommendations. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Senior Fleet Commander Judy Sanchez, the head of his new team. She’d come highly recommended, but seemed a minor enigma.
This was only her second Staff posting. She’d spent most of her career working as a computer analyst with Navy Intelligence, with the kind of bland performance appraisals he’d have expected from a desk jockey… attached to a rate of promotion he would have expected from an officer in a combat zone. He could only wonder why Kane had sent him an ex-spy.
“Sir,” the blond young woman interrupted his thoughts. “I’m getting traffic on the system defense net. You may want to check in.”
The system defense net? Sanchez wouldn’t have access to that except at the most rudimentary level until they were aboard ship. If she was seeing something via that connection, it was a high level alert.
Closing his eyes, Dimitri logged into the net, and immediately inhaled sharply. The map of the Castle system the defense net fed his implants had a glowing ugly red splotch out near the orbit of the gas giant Gawain – the marker for an unidentified Alcubierre emergence.
“Pilot,” Dimitri linked into the shuttle’s cockpit. “Get in touch with Avalon and let them know you’re going to be coming in hot. I want to be on the deck in five minutes.”
He heard the young man swallow. Junior Lieutenants, however, did not argue with Vice Admirals.
“I’ll make it happen, sir,” he promised.
Dimitri was already focusing his attention back on that red splotch, waiting for the nearby Q-Com equipped probes to let the net know just what had intruded into the Federation’s home system.
The tiny robotic craft were scattered around the perimeter of the system, no more than a light minute or so apart. It took time for light to reach them and be processed and sent back to System Command. More time for System Command to assess the signatures and then update the map.
Then the splotch broke apart, settling into four crimson red icons. Commonwealth capital ships.
18:15 December 15, 2735 ESMDT
DSC-078 Avalon, Bridge
There was no time to get his flag staff organized. Dimitri boarded the ship to an appropriate lack of ceremony and charged directly to the bridge.
There, he found Captain Roberts in exactly the right place for the circumstances – directly in the middle of the bridge of his ship, preparing to engage the enemy.
“Give me an update, Captain,” the Vice Admiral snapped. “What does System Command know?”
“Four Terran capital ships,” Roberts replied promptly. “It’s a somewhat unusual split for them – three cruisers and a carrier.”
Dimitri nodded, considered Roberts’ point. The Commonwealth regarded starfighters as a defensive measure, used to keep other people’s starfighters away from the battleships that did the actual destroying. They tended to deploy in pairs of cruisers or sent a carrier to escort a battleship.
“Any idea of their objective?” Dimitri asked. “They dropped out of FTL way too far out to attack Castle itself, and they’re outnumbered over three to one by the forces in-system.”
“System Command is debating, but they’re close to Gawain,” Roberts noted. “That only leaves two real targets.”
“Walkingstick isn’t going for the cloudscoops,” Dimitri said grimly, remembering his briefing from Kane when he’d accepted the command. “He’s going for the Reserve Fleet.”
“Agreed,” his Flag Captain said instantly. “Home Fleet is preparing to move, but…”
“But, what, Captain?” the Vice Admiral demanded.
“I can’t help but remember Puppeteer, sir,” the younger man said calmly. “Walkingstick isn’t above tricking us into pulling ships out of position. The Reserve Flotilla guardships aren’t up to this fight, but…”
“Agreed,” Dimitri said sharply. “Coms – get me a link to Admiral Blake.”
Normally, he’d try to remember the officer’s name, but he didn’t have time. Nonetheless, the pitch black-skinned young woman running Avalon’s communicators got the channel for him in an admirably short time.
“Meredith, hold Home Fleet in place – our old friend Walkingstick may be playing games,” he told her.
“We only have two ships and two hundred Cobras guarding the Flotilla, Dimitri,” the old Admiral snapped. “Someone has to go.”
“BG Seventeen’s ships average newer and faster than Home Fleet, ma’am,” Dimitri replied. “We’ve got that task group matched for ships and outmassed four to three. None of us can get there in time to save the Flotilla guard force, Meredith,” he said quietly. “Let’s not risk Castle as well.”
The geometry had screwed them, badly. Of the thirteen warships in the Castle system, most were in orbit of Castle itself – two light hours away from Gawain and its dozen half-unmothballed ships. He ran the numbers in his head. Seventeen hours for Battle Group Seventeen, whose slowest ship could pull two hundred and thirty gravities. Home Fleet, with a maximum speed of two hundred gravities, would take over eighteen hours.
While the Commonwealth task group was still four hours from being able to attack the reserve ships, they’d still have fourteen hours to destroy an entire fleet’s worth of ships, likely drop a few dozen missiles into the cloudscoops anyway and run.
“Sir, we may be able to make it,” a soft feminine voice interrupted his thoughts. Tobin’s gaze snapped up, glancing first at Roberts, and then at the softly attractive form of Avalon’s Navigator.
“Finish your thought, Commander,” Roberts ordered, his voice soft.
“The direct route is seventeen hours for the battle group,” she said, confirming his math. “But that’s staying in conventional space the whole way.”
“The star is between us and Gawain, Commander,” Dimitri pointed out, but his Flag Captain forestalled him with a raised hand. He fumed internally, but gestured for the Commander to finish.
“That’s what they’re counting on, sir,” she told him, “but everyone’s thinking in straight lines.”
She threw a course up on the screen. It took them in the completely wrong direction for two and a half hours, and Dimitri was about to ask just what she was thinking, when the total flight time to Gawain came up. He shut up fast.
Two and a half hours to clear Castle’s planetary gravity well to reach a space flat enough to engage the Alcubierre-Stetson drive.
But then an hour and a half to wrap an arcing course around the outside of the system that would drop them back into regular space on the other side of the Flotilla Station, heading straight for the Commonwealth task group with every centimeter of the velocity they built up before warping space.
They’d meet the Commonwealth ships with a combined velocity over ten percent of lightspeed – and they’d do it before the bastards reached the Reserve Flotilla.
“We’re cutting the margins very tight,” he rumbled softly, considering. “Can you do it?”
“I don’t know about the rest of the Battle Group,” Roberts told him, “but Commander Pendez can do it. She’s the one that rode the needle all the way into Tranquility.”
Vice Admiral Dimitri Tobin gave the crimson icons on his screen a predatory smile. He’d hoped he’d be lucky enough to get the Navigator that had taken Roberts into planetary orbit at Tranquility. He’d have to buy Kane a drink when he got back.
“Feed your calculations to them if you have to, Commander Pendez,” he told her gently. “And let’s get this Battle Group underway.”
Kyle was getting sick of watching battles he couldn’t influence. The delays on route to Tranquility had left him watching that system’s entire fleet get blown away by a Commonwealth battle group, and it felt like he was watching a r
epeat as the two guardships of the Gawain Reserve Flotilla charged out to meet the attack.
The two older battleships defending the Reserve Flotilla, plus the two hundred fighters launched from the Flotilla station itself, deployed as soon as the presence and location of the enemy could be resolved. While BG17 was on its way, the Terran ships would be clear to launch missiles at the Reserve well before they emerged from Alcubierre.
“Sir, we’ve cleared all detectable gravity zones,” Pendez reported. “Current gravitational force is beneath one pico-meter per second squared. We are prepared to warp space on your command.”
“Admiral?” Kyle asked, glancing over at where Dimitri Tobin loomed in one of the observer seats at the back of the bridge.
“The rest of the Battle Group is following Commander Pendez’s lead,” the Admiral rumbled. “Carry on.”
“How are our Class Ones looking?” Kyle asked his engineering officer. Avalon’s five Class One mass manipulators were a good forty percent of the warship’s price tag, and the only things capable of generating the singularities necessary for Alcubierre drive.
“We are clear and green,” Wong reported over the ship’s communicator.
“All right – Commander Pendez, initiate interior Stetson fields at your discretion,” the Captain ordered.
A faint haze settled over the screens surrounding the bridge as hundreds of small emitters across Avalon’s hull woke to life, stretching a field of electromagnetic and gravitational energy around the ship. Useless in any other circumstance, the only purpose of the Stetson field was to protect the ship from the immense forces it was about to unleash.
“Interior Stetson field active,” Commander Pendez reported. “Exterior field on standby, mass manipulators on standby.”
“How’s the rest of the Group?” Kyle asked his new Tactical Officer, Commander James Anderson.
“I’m showing Stetson fields active on all ships, Captain,” the pale redheaded man replied.
Avalon Trilogy: Castle Federation Books 1-3: Includes Space Carrier Avalon, Stellar Fox, and Battle Group Avalon Page 38