“This is Captain Xolani Bhuku,” he answered Edvard. “Commanding Officer Zion K Three Oh Four. Are you the rescue party?”
“Not exactly,” Edvard replied. “This is Lieutenant Major Edvard Hansen of the Castle Federation Marine Corps. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask for your surrender.”
Bhuku laughed, a deep infectious chuckle that almost made Edvard smile back despite the circumstances.
“Son, you may be officially a boarding party, but as far as anyone left alive on this dead hulk is concerned, you’re the rescue party,” he told Edvard. “I will gladly surrender whatever remains in my authority in exchange for making certain my people are extracted alive.”
“It’s always nice to talk to someone reasonable,” Edvard replied. “I accept your surrender, Captain Bhuku. I’ve got enough survival bubbles out here for about a hundred people. Shall we see about getting you off this station?”
“Lieutenant Major, right now I am looking forward to your POW camp. Let’s see what we can do.”
08:30 March 24, 2736 ESMDT
DSC-078 Avalon, Captain’s Breakout Room
“We are now fully in control of Fyr orbit,” Rear Admiral Alstairs announced to her captains and CAGs.
Nobody quite cheered—but Kyle could pick up the general feeling of relief even through the holograms he was seeing of the rest of Seventh Fleet’s captains.
“Brigadier Hammond’s people have done a superb job of securing the stations. Brigadier, if you can fill the Captains in on what you found?” Alstairs asked.
Hammond took half a second to glance around the captains, the stocky bald man apparently reminding himself of who the captains were before speaking. As the senior of the three Marine Brigadiers, he was equal or senior to everyone on the conference except Alstairs herself and the two breveted Force Commanders.
“All four Zions were very neatly, professionally, and completely disabled,” he said crisply. “We have confirmed the use of two laser-initiated micro-fusion bombs on each platform, plus several dozen more conventional explosives. All appear to have been smuggled aboard the stations and detonated upon confirmation of the arrival of Alliance forces.”
“Do we know who?” Kyle asked.
“We suspect Fyr Army Special Operations,” Hammond said calmly. “I am preparing my men to deploy to the surface and have reached out on certain frequencies the Fyrans provided us prior to the invasion. My understanding is that we have received several data packets in return—targeting locations for drops and kinetic bombardments.”
“I have summoned the planetary forces to surrender,” Alstairs noted. “They have half an hour to comply. If they haven’t by then, the Brigadiers have a go for their landings.”
“What is the status of our fighter wings?” Force Commander Aleppo asked quietly. “I know my own are…gone. But…”
“Our casualties were lighter than we had any right to expect,” Stanford replied. “Ozolinsh’s people were clear before the missiles impacted, and the Terrans self-destructed the second salvo to avoid risking damage to the ejected pods.”
“She still lost fifteen people,” Avalon’s CAG—Seventh Fleet’s senior starfighter officer—said quietly. “My own losses were heavier. With the violence of the engagement, we had a low ejection percentage. Out of sixty-seven lost ships, only nine pods were launched. With injuries and radiation damage aboard the pods, we lost a hundred and eighty people.”
“Vice Commodore Ozolinsh’s actions were unacceptable,” Lord Captain Anders snapped. “To abandon her starfighters in the face of the enemy like that is pure cowardice!”
Kyle kicked Stanford under the table before his CAG could reply, leaning forward himself to speak more calmly than he suspected Stanford could.
“What would you have had her do, Lord Captain?” he asked bluntly. “My personal assessment is that the presence of human pilots and gunners would have enabled her to destroy perhaps another five hundred missiles—still leaving three or more weapons for every single ship she had. Once their missiles were away, there was no point in sacrificing her flight crews against a salvo they could not stop.
“Polar Bear and Culloden’s starfighters were doomed as soon as the Terrans decided to concentrate their fire on only one fighter formation,” he continued. “That Vice Commodore Ozolinsh held her people on long enough to launch not just one salvo but all of their missiles in the teeth of their annihilation speaks to a rare level of courage.”
He carefully did not look at Stanford—or Ozolinsh—as he continued.
“That said, I agree that the Vice Commodore’s actions need to be assessed,” he said very calmly. “Admiral, I do not believe we have a choice but to field a Board of Inquiry.”
“In theory and per the letter of the Federation Articles of Military Justice, you are correct, Force Commander,” Alstairs told him. She did look directly at Gabrielle Ozolinsh, a sallow-faced black-haired woman who looked even more exhausted that the rest of Seventh Fleet’s senior officers. “However…faced with the constraints of Operation Rising Star, the strict letter of the law will not serve us today.
“Vice Commodore Ozolinsh, how long will it take you to get your fighter wings back to combat-readiness?” she asked sharply.
“We can pull replacement fighters from the logistics ships, though that will reduce the value of the fighter platforms we were reserving to protect Via Somnia,” Ozolinsh said slowly. “To get the starfighters set up, re-linked to my pilots, and run both the ships and my people through at least basic exercises to make sure we are combat-ready…three days. We’ll still be short four ships for lost crew. I could replace those crews, but it would take even longer.”
“Vice Commodore Stanford, your wings’ status?” Alstairs asked crisply.
“We have sufficient spare starfighters aboard the freighters to provide new ships for our surviving flight crews,” Stanford said slowly, slightly calmer now. “But neither I nor my Royal compatriots”—he nodded to the two Phoenix CAGs— “are in a position to replace our lost crews. Accounting for that, we will be combat-functional within thirty-six hours.”
The Admiral turned back to Ozolinsh.
“Vice Commodore, I don’t think we have time for the Board that, yes, should be convened on your actions,” she said bluntly. “The Ops plan for Rising Star calls for us to move on Huī Xing and Via Somnia in four days. Are you prepared to continue doing your duty, being aware that a Board may still need to be convened once Rising Star is complete?”
Implicit in that, of course, was that her actions in the rest of Rising Star would heavily slant the results of that board. It wasn’t quite a complete approval of her actions—but it was a safe way out for everyone involved, inside the spirit if not the exact letter of the Articles.
“I am, Admiral Alstairs,” Ozolinsh confirmed slowly.
“Is that sufficient for you, Force Commander Roberts?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kyle agreed instantly. By putting forward the demand for a Board himself, he’d given the Federation control over whether Ozolinsh would be punished—and rendered Lord Captain Anders’ opinion of the decision mostly irrelevant.
Surprisingly, though, the Imperial Captain nodded his own acceptance of the decision and leaned back in his chair.
“It appears Fyr Special Operations has helped open the door to their homeworld,” Admiral Alstairs told them all. “Brigadier? Are the Marines ready to act on the intelligence they’re providing?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said calmly. “Chimera and Manticore currently have drones sweeping the target locations they provided to confirm their data, and Pegasus is preparing the bombardment. We have received no response from the Terran surface commander. We are ready to go as soon as the deadline expires.”
“Good luck, Brigadier,” she said quietly.
09:10 March 24, 2736 ESMDT
AT-032 Chimera Landing Group, Assault Shuttle Four
“Watch your fucking flight zones!”
Edvard Hansen w
inced as the bellow came over the shuttle channel. As a company commander, he was an eavesdropper on the channel for the landing group. He wasn’t sure who had shouted—he suspected it might even have been his pilot—but he definitely sympathized.
In that moment, a pillar of white light lit up the sky barely a hundred and fifty meters from his shuttle, as another of Pegasus’s “rods from God” blasted past. That was six by the Lieutenant Major’s count—six within visual range of his shuttle.
“Please tell me this is worth it,” he snapped at the pilot.
“Unless you want a close personal introduction to a terawatt-range air defense laser, it’s definitely worth it,” the pilot replied. “Now, sir, shut up and let me fly.”
As a seventh kinetic projectile blasted past—this one much closer! —Edvard obeyed the junior officer.
The problem that the 103rd and the other two brigades were facing was simple: the Terran Commonwealth Marine Corps had dug in hard around Landning City. Dozens of mobile and immobile space defense units, prefabricated fortifications, the works.
Edvard’s impression was that they’d been holding the capital city hostage as a lever to try to keep a planet of notoriously stubborn Viking descendants from exploding on them. It also, apparently, had given the TCMC General in charge of the planet a feeling of invulnerability—if the Alliance took the time to bombard the space defense units, he could relocate his HQ and ground positions, giving them a giant headache when the Marines landed.
Unless, of course, the Castle Federation Marine Corps decided to land while bombarding the space defense units. It was perfectly safe—assuming the shuttles didn’t diverge from their planned courses and none of the gunners firing one-tenth-kiloton kinetic weapons slipped.
“We’re dropping you in forty-five seconds,” the pilot announced. “Did one of you people volunteer to go into the heaviest fire on the planet?”
Edvard smiled without responding, sending nonverbal orders for his people to check their systems.
As it happened, he had volunteered to be one of the companies hitting the main command center—but he wasn’t going to admit that to the pilot.
The shuttle never even touched the ground. It came blasting over the reinforced concrete walls of the fortress above the Terrans’ command center at three times the speed of sound, dropping a swarm of smart munitions and spraying seventy-millimeter cannon fire across the open interior.
The interior had been a vehicle park, with a dozen or so formal-looking vehicles on one end and six medium tanks on the other. One of the dozens of tenth-kiloton weapons dropped by Pegasus had been aimed at the tanks, however, and the interior was mostly crater at this point.
“Drop!” Edvard ordered as they hit the seconds-long window, and his people obeyed — the speakers on their suits amplifying and projecting their wolf howls as they plummeted from the passing shuttle and slammed into the broken mud and concrete.
The sensors in his battle armor were already sweeping for targets—not least because he knew how Castle Marines would have handled the situation. Terran Marines, it turned out, ran on a very similar playbook.
Bravo Company had barely hit the ground when the shuttle passed over the other side of the compound’s wall—and chameleon-coated battle armor suits boiled out of the exits of the underground facility.
Edvard had been expecting it. His heavy-weapons troopers opened fire even before the doors finished opening, bolts of superheated plasma blowing entrances wide open before the Terran Marines could exit them. Miniguns, barely portable even in suits of battle armor, began to chatter, spraying the emerging Terrans with dozens of penetrators.
Then the rest of his people joined in. There were eight separate entrances to the facility, and the Spec Ops data package the Alliance had received had told them where all eight were. Each of his two hundred troopers had an entrance tagged as their zone of responsibility—and their fire added to the plasma rifles and miniguns.
It wasn’t entirely one-sided. Like the Castle Marines, the Terrans knew the playbook. They hadn’t known the invaders would know exactly where they would emerge from. Edvard watched his people get thrown back, though even tungsten penetrators weren’t a guaranteed kill against full powered battle armor, and charged forward where the Terrans were breaking out.
He fired on the run, his rifle spitting penetrators even as he activated the auto-tracking micro-missile launchers built into the armored suits’ shoulders. Micro-missiles couldn’t do much—dozens of them were detonating across the battlefield every second, mostly unable to penetrate battle armor—but they helped pause the assault.
He reached the gap, stepping into a hole where several of Bravo Platoon’s troopers had gone down, and joined the firing. The Terrans seemed to keep coming. The only intelligence Edvard didn’t have was how many troops were in the fortress under his feet—and he was starting to think he’d poked a hornet’s nest.
Then he ran out of ammo. Given the weight that an armor suit could carry and the low volume of the tungsten penetrators his battle rifle used, the weapon took stupendously sized magazines—but could run out.
The reload process was simple. He mentally ordered the weapon to eject the empty magazine, ordered his suit to open the panel containing a replacement, and slammed it in. It took barely a second—a second after which he realized he was now staring down the barrel of a Terran Marine’s almost-identical weapon.
Before the Marine could pull the trigger, his entire torso exploded and Edvard’s suit started flashing up a threat warning. Someone, not in the fortress but with a clear line of sight, had a mass-manipulated gauss sniper rifle—and the Alliance hadn’t dropped any of the sniper weapons with their Marines.
Fyr Special Ops had apparently decided not to leave their world’s liberation entirely to the Castle Marines.
More of the characteristic supersonic explosions rippled across the compound, easily a platoon’s worth of snipers on a nearby hilltop backing up his Marines as they faced what had to be an entire brigade trying to break out.
It lasted perhaps two minutes—until all eight entrances were filled with shattered armor and broken bodies.
Then he started picking up an omnidirectional, unencrypted radio transmission.
“This is Lieutenant General Michail Popov to all Terran Commonwealth Marine forces and Castle Marine forces,” the transmission said calmly. “Commonwealth forces—lay down your arms. Alliance forces—we surrender.”
23
Frihet System
08:00 March 25, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
DSC-078 Avalon, Captain’s Office
They’d been in the Frihet system for twenty-nine hours, and Kyle had managed to sneak a three-hour catnap at roughly the twenty-four-hour mark. He’d been tied up in some of the coordination with the apparently still-very-intact Frihet government, but he’d intentionally not included his CAG in the conference to let the man rest as he flew back to Avalon.
From the bags under Michael Stanford’s eyes and his general shattered expression, that had been wasted effort. There was no way Avalon’s CAG had slept since the strike had launched yesterday morning. He slumped in the chair across the desk in Kyle’s office like a student called in front of the principal.
“I fucked up, sir,” Stanford said harshly. “Dammit, I should have seen that coming—it made sense.”
“Arguable, yes, and yes,” Kyle replied. “Yes, you should have seen it coming—but what would you have done differently?”
That, thankfully, looked like it scored a hit.
“If you were wondering,” the Force Commander—who had, a long time before, been Stanford’s CAG—continued, “I did see it coming. And the reason I didn’t tell you is because I thought you had as well—because I wouldn’t have been doing anything different. It was a risk you had to take or Zheng He and her sisters were going to end up on the receiving end of that same firepower.”
“There had to have been something I could have done to save O
zolinsh’s ships,” Stanford replied. “Hell, I lost almost two hundred of my own people.”
“In hindsight,” Kyle said quietly, “knowing that the orbital platforms were out of the fight as soon as they launched their starfighters, you could have adjusted your vectors to bring your fighter wing into range at the same time as Battle Group Seven-Three. Adding the starship’s defensive fire to that of Vice Commodore Ozolinsh’s ships might have protected them long enough to drag the Terrans into a lance-range dogfight.
“Might.
“But that would also have allowed those starfighters to fire on Battle Group Seven-Three—and honestly, those salvos would probably have cost us starships as well as starfighters had we taken that risk. Pulling Seven-Three out of the fight wasn’t your call,” Kyle noted. “It was your recommendation—but it was Admiral Alstairs’ call. She made it.”
“The starfighter deployments were my call, though,” Stanford said hoarsely. “Sending Seven-One’s fighters after the carriers was redundant…”
“But still the right call,” Kyle replied. “You couldn’t count on capital ship missile fire taking out the carriers—it’s not something that we see often at that kind of range. Not to mention, they couldn’t have intervened against the fighter strike.
“Damn it, Michael,” he told his subordinate, “the physics only gave you one option. You played it—and you backed Ozolinsh when she saw a way to save her people if not her ships.”
“I still lost so many people.”
“I know,” Kyle admitted. “And it sucks, Michael—we both knew those people. Losing them hurts. That your squadron and wing leaders survived helps keep the Group together as a fighting unit, but losing sixty-seven fighters and a hundred and eighty people is never easy. We tell our people that starfighters exist to die so starships don’t, and it’s true—but the cold calculus of war is no comfort to lost friends and those Gods-damned letters home.”
Avalon Trilogy: Castle Federation Books 1-3: Includes Space Carrier Avalon, Stellar Fox, and Battle Group Avalon Page 81