“They’ll all come here,” Kyle noted. “They’ll keep their fleet together because throwing equal numbers at us is stupid. We have better starfighters and, well…” He shrugged. “They know my name. I may hate that Gods-cursed nickname, but it’s filtered back to the Commonwealth.
“Since I’m now a bona fide hero”—he puffed out his chest and gesticulated broadly—“according to our press and theirs, that makes me a target all on my own. While losing me wouldn’t impact our actual war effort significantly, there would probably be an impact to civilian morale.”
“Not just civilian, and not just according to the press,” his CAG pointed out. “Also, speaking as one of the people who’s supposed to die before anyone gets to your carrier, I fully intend for you to live through this.”
“So do I,” Kyle agreed. “But if they look like they’re not going to play, or like they’re going to send ships to reinforce Via Somnia, we’re going to have keep their attention in the oldest way possible.”
He saw his starfighter commander wince.
“And how exactly is that?” Stanford asked levelly.
“Oh, that’s easy,” the Force Commander told him with a wide grin. “We punch them in the nose and insult their mothers.”
10:30 April 4, 2736 ESMDT
DSC-078 Avalon, Bridge
The loading was proceeding ahead of schedule, though not nearly as much as Kyle had hoped. They were already into the potential arrival window for the Commonwealth Twenty-Third Fleet, and there was still another ten minutes of work to do.
“Sir, Sunshine is reporting that one of the prisoners on their platforms wants to speak to you,” his com officer reported. “Apparently an Imperial Vice Admiral—says it’s a matter of ‘honor’.”
Kyle winced. There were, in fact, seven flag officers among the prisoners of higher rank than him. Most were the senior officers of junior members of the Alliance, people who weren’t going to jog the elbows of the man trying to get them out alive.
There was also a Castle Federation Space Force Rear Admiral, the original commander of the Huī Xing defenses, who neither Kyle nor Stanford had heard a peep from, and Coraline Imperial Navy Vice Admiral Wilhelm Reuter—who, it seemed, was not so sensible.
“Forward it to me,” Kyle ordered with a sigh, then dropped the privacy screen around his command chair.
“Vice Admiral Reuter,” he greeted the older man who appeared on the screen. “How can I help you?”
Reuter reminded him a lot of his last Captain. Like Malcolm Blair, Reuters was gaunt, his hair pure white with age. Also like Blair, one of his eyes had been replaced with an emergency prosthesis during the war and never updated.
“You already have, Force Commander Roberts,” the Imperial replied. His voice wavered with age—Reuter looked well into his second century—but his tone was firm. “You have saved my life and the lives of those I am sworn to command and protect. I wanted to thank you directly before you sent us all off to safety.”
“Did the Terrans mistreat you at all, sir?”
“No,” Reuter allowed. “We were treated in full compliance with the Tau Ceti Accords. But a life in imprisonment is not the life my people should live. They have families they should return to, and can no more do that as prisoners than if they were dead.”
The old man shook his head.
“I should have run,” he admitted. “Three old cruisers against a Terran Battle Group was suicide. But Hammerveldt’s defenses were weak. We had to fight. We failed Hammerveldt, regardless. I must thank you and your Admiral for succeeding where I failed.”
“We did our duty, sir,” Kyle replied, a little embarrassed. He was far too aware of how fragile the defenses they’d left behind them were to feel they had truly “saved” the system.
“Perhaps in Hammerveldt, Force Commander Roberts,” Reuter told him with a small smile. “But I know there’s an entire Terran fleet in this sector. Many would have used their presence as an excuse to avoid the risks you took in rescuing us prisoners.”
“I could not leave a hundred thousand spacers and soldiers of the Alliance in Terran hands,” he replied. “It would not be right.”
“Your actions speak of honor and integrity,” the Imperial Admiral told him. “And my honor requires such be repaid in kind. This will be the end of my career, Force Commander. I intend to return to Coral and take up residence in my estates, but I am and remain an Elector of the Imperium.”
The Imperator of the Coraline Imperium was elected for life—but only the noble caste known as Electors held the franchise for that election—and only if they’d performed military or diplomatic service. The rest of the Imperial government had a broader franchise, but only Electors got to vote for the Imperator.
“I owe you a debt of honor that cannot be repaid,” Reuter concluded. “My life and the lives of those I commanded, returned to us from our imprisonment. If ever I or mine can serve you or yours with treasure or with blood, you have but to call. The Reuter family will answer.”
An attention icon flashed on Kyle’s implants—a message noting that the loading was finally complete.
“I would refrain from swearing life debts, Admiral, until we escape this system,” Kyle noted dryly. “We should be on our way momentarily. If you’ll excuse me?”
“Of course, Force Commander. Do not forget what I have said,” Reuter told him. His voice might have shown his age, but his certainty shone through regardless. “Odin guide thee.”
“Thank you, Admiral. May all the Gods watch over you.”
Dropping the channel and the privacy screen, Kyle turned back to his bridge.
“That was weird,” he muttered. “Is everyone ready to go?” he asked.
“Still confirming,” Anderson told him. “A few minutes at most.” The XO paused, then stepped closer to Kyle and continued more quietly. “I think I know why the Admiral wanted to talk to you.”
“Oh?”
“Electors have to have served in the military to claim their vote when the Imperator dies,” the younger man explained. “So, they all go to war. Reuter’s granddaughter was an Ensign aboard one of the ships under his command. She lived—and now gets to go home because of us. Because of you.”
Kyle thought about that for a moment. If someone managed to liberate Jacob from a prison—however comfortable said prison—what would he be willing to do for them?
Debts of honor, indeed.
“Everyone reports ready to go,” Anderson informed him after a few more minutes of rushed preparation. “All of the platforms we’re taking are locked down and under the control of the senior prisoner aboard. The rest of the prisoners are aboard the Marine transports and pointedly not complaining about the cramped quarters.”
Kyle’s XO shook his head.
“We have confirmed that we have ninety-eight thousand, five hundred and seventy-one Alliance prisoners of war aboard the transports,” he noted. “For those keeping track, that makes this the seventeenth-largest prisoner rescue of all time.”
“Damn, I was hoping to be higher in the record books than that,” Kyle replied. “If we’re ready, then let’s move. Estimated time to clear the gravity well?”
“The transports can only pull two hundred gravities,” Anderson pointed out. “Seventy-one minutes to Alcubierre activation, sir.”
“Understood,” the Force Commander turned his attention to Pendez, who was watching calmly, waiting for her orders. “Take us, Commander Pendez. Two hundred gravities for now.”
“Yes, sir.”
Kyle had the impression that everyone in Battle Group Seven-Two was feeling the same itch between the shoulder blades he was. Even the most efficient formation—which his Battle Group was well on its way to becoming—generally had a noticeable gap between the flagship starting to accelerate and the rest of the formation responding to the order. That was why combat instructions tended to have activation times sent along with them, usually in the underlying data channels that accompanied most military co
mmunications.
The gap this time was under half a second. His nine ships were underway in moments, trekking away from Xin in the opposite direction from where they expected Twenty-Third Fleet to arrive.
If they appeared before Seven-Two was clear of the gravity well at this point, Kyle expected to be able to outrun them anyway. He still watched the screens feeding to his implant carefully—they were almost clear, but almost wasn’t safe yet.
Each minute they accelerated away from Xin, he relaxed a tiny bit more.
And then everything went to Hades.
“Alcubierre emergence!” Xue shouted, flashing an alert to everyone’s screens and implants. “We have multiple Alcubierre emergences—dead ahead.”
Someone had been playing clever games, Kyle realized. Once he was underway, his course had been transmitted to the incoming Terran fleet, who had adjusted their course to emerge from FTL and cut him off.
“What have we got?” he demanded. Depending on their strength, he might be able to fight through them. If nothing else, they’d dropped out too early—he could still run the other way and escape them.
“I’ve got five ships,” Xue reported. “Lead is registering at twenty million tons, cubage uncertain—she’s probably our missing Saint. Rest are twelve million tons by their engine signatures—last-generation ships, Assassins and Lexingtons, likely.”
Kyle nodded slowly. Depending on the ratio of battlecruisers to carriers, he might be able to take out the blocking force—but it wasn’t likely, and he’d risk stray weapons fire hitting the transports packed with rescued prisoners. It wasn’t a risk he could afford.
“Turn us around,” he ordered. “One-hundred-twenty-degree flip, take us up from the ecliptic and away from them. They dropped in too early; we should be able to evade them.” He considered. “Show me their Alcubierre reach,” he finished grimly.
He was in the gravity well, limited to the acceleration he could produce with antimatter rockets. They were outside the well and could use their Alcubierre drives to skip around the exterior.
“We’ll need to angle further way from them,” Pendez noted as she dropped their reach onto his implants. They couldn’t reach all the way around Xin before he could evade them, but with the hundred and thirty thousand–gravity acceleration of their A-S drives, they could cut him off from most of his exit points.
“Do it,” he ordered grimly. If the other three ships of the Terran Twenty-Third Fleet had gone to Via Somnia, that was going to create a headache for Alstairs—but would work well for him.
Hell, if the other three ships—none of them modern—were here and tried to stop him, he could punch them out with starfighters and keep going. The trap had almost worked.
“I have another emergence!” Xue announced, as if Kyle’s thoughts had conjured them. She swallowed and turned to look back at him.
“Sir, I have five more ships,” she said quietly. “Two are in the twenty-million-ton range. Those were not in our intel estimate.”
She hadn’t told him where they’d emerged—he could see it for himself. The second half of the Terrans’ trap, dramatically more powerful than he’d estimated, had dropped out of FTL exactly opposite the first half. Between them, they covered both Xin and Goudeshijie’s gravity wells.
Battle Group Avalon was well and truly trapped.
33
Huī Xing System
11:00 April 4, 2736 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time
DSC-078 Avalon, Bridge
The bridge was silent for a long moment, which Kyle used to think furiously. Pulling a datapad from the arm of his command chair, he started rapidly entering commands both through the physical medium and his implants, trying desperately to find a solution.
There was no way out. But while the ultimate objective had to be escape, there were other objectives he could fulfill without getting away—and still putting the commander of the Terran fleet between a rock and a hard place.
“Commander Pendez,” he snapped. “Set a course for Goudeshijie orbit. Maintain two hundred gravities.”
“That won’t get us out of the gravity well, sir,” she told him. “Goudeshijie’s well and…”
“Xin’s are currently merged, yes,” Kyle told her. “I know. That gives us room to play, Maria. They want to keep us in this system, but they can’t enter the gravity well themselves without risking our escape. So, let’s get deep in the gravity well—if they want to play, let’s make them dance.
“Xue,” he turned to his tactical officer, “I want Q-probes close enough to read the names on their cursed hulls. If they turn into the gravity well, I want to know before they do. Clear?!”
“Yes, sir!” Xue replied.
Through his implants and screens, Kyle saw the big carrier turn, and the rest of Battle Group Seven-Two followed her. Goudeshijie was over a full astronomical unit, just under nine light-minutes, from Xin, but the gas giant’s immense gravity well merged with Xin’s, giving Kyle a huge amount of space to play in.
The Terrans’ ability to use their Alcubierre drives outside the gravity wells meant he couldn’t escape them—but he could force them to come to him if they wanted a fight.
“Michael,” he subvocalized through his implants to his CAG. “I need you to get a full combat patrol up, but cycle your pilots. We’re going to need a missile defense net for days if I make this work.”
“What happens if they come in after us?” the CAG asked.
“If nothing else, that will let us get the transports free,” Kyle pointed out. “And either way, we’ll buy the time that Admiral Alstairs needed. If they go after her in Via Somnia, they can’t leave enough ships here to fight us and still have a fleet that can challenge her.
“They have to choose—us or her. If they choose her, we’ll follow them and ram a fighter strike up their ass while they’re occupied. If they choose us…” Avalon’s Captain smiled grimly, knowing the channel would carry the emotion to Stanford, “Via Somnia falls.”
“I’ll have your missile defense in the air in sixty seconds,” Stanford said finally. “Anything else you’d like, sir?”
“If you’re sitting on a superweapon capable of taking out twice our numbers and tonnage that you haven’t told me about, now would be the time,” Kyle said brightly. “Otherwise, keep your people on their toes. I can play this game longer than they can possibly like—and sooner or later, they’re going to send every starfighter they’ve got at us.”
“We’ll be ready,” his CAG promised.
“I know.”
Dropping the channel, Kyle turned his attention back to his bridge. Consoles and screens surrounded him, linking with his implants to provide a fully encompassing view of the system outside Avalon.
The computers tagged Force Alpha and Force Bravo on his retinas, happily showing him their real-space and Alcubierre interception cones. Like his freighters, the older ships in the Terran fleet were limited to two hundred gravities—but that was enough to keep pace with his Battle Group as they arced outside the gravity well.
For now, they were content to keep him trapped. He wondered how long that would last.
Deep Space, One Light Month from Via Somnia System
11:15 April 4, 2736 ESMDT
BC-129 Camerone, Bridge
Mira studied the data being relayed to Camerone carefully, hoping to see some solution for Kyle’s predicament that wasn’t immediately obvious. Something that someone not involved could see, a way out for her lover and a hundred-thousand-plus fellow soldiers.
She hadn’t seen one by the time she got a ping from the Admiral.
“Ma’am?” she replied.
“I’m in conference with Roberts in two minutes,” Alstairs told her calmly. “I want you on for your perspective.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mira confirmed. She paused. “I’ll have my head on straight,” she promised.
“If I thought differently, I’d have stepped on your relationship instead of encouraging it, Captain,” Seventh Fleet’
s commanding officer told her bluntly. “Have your bridge crew ready to move. We’ll be on our way to Via Somnia in ten minutes.”
Camerone’s Captain swallowed and nodded.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mira passed on the preparatory orders to her bridge crew quickly, then dropped the privacy screen around her command chair. She took a moment to compose herself, breathing deeply to push back her moment of panic at seeing Kyle surrounded.
Finally, she linked into the Q-Com channel. A virtual conference table opened in her mind, with Kyle and Rear Admiral Alstairs joining her.
None of the three were actually in a conference room. She and Kyle were on their bridges. Alstairs was on the flag deck. But a conference room was the default setting for this kind of implant-driven meeting, so a conference room was what they all saw.
“What is your status, Force Commander Roberts?” Alstairs asked.
“We are running for Goudeshijie,” he replied cheerfully. “If they want to dance in the dog world’s rings, I’ll happily indulge them—if nothing else, if their two battle groups enter the gravity well, I’m reasonably sure I can sneak the transports out.”
“And if they continue to simply block your escape?”
“Then you’ll get your seven days, Admiral,” Kyle said flatly. “Once you hit Via Somnia, they’re going to have to choose—Seventh Fleet or Battle Group Seven-Two. They’ve got ten ships to our twelve; their best chance is to knock out me and then go after you. Believe me, Admiral, I can stretch out this dance as easily in Goudeshijie’s gravity well as I could outside the gravity wells entirely.
“I can give you your week.”
“Roberts,” Alstairs said quietly, “that’s not a game you can play forever. I’m not prepared to sacrifice your battle group for that week.”
“Via Somnia is the objective here,” he pointed out. “They know that as well as you and I do. Leave them the hard strategic decisions, ma’am. I can play this game for long enough.”
Avalon Trilogy: Castle Federation Books 1-3: Includes Space Carrier Avalon, Stellar Fox, and Battle Group Avalon Page 90