Since the freighter Lougheed had been taken intact by Hammond’s Marines as well, Kyle was now in possession of another eight fighter platforms, over three hundred missile satellites, and the five hundred Scimitars for the Zions. Lougheed had also carried the necessary munitions for the satellites and starfighters, and even the crews for the platforms.
Those crews were going to be a problem. Lougheed herself only had a crew of five hundred, but adding in the starfighter crews and the launch platform personnel, she’d been carrying over three thousand people. Kyle had nowhere to put them—he was hoping Cora did.
“Brigadier,” he greeted Hammond as the balding Marine opened the channel for the meeting he’d requested. “Congratulations on a job well done. I understand your losses were minimal?”
“Worst down here,” Hammond grunted. The Brigadier had accompanied the battalion assaulting the surface, of course. “You’d think they’d know it was over once the warships were gone.”
Chimera was designed to, among her other purposes, provide orbital fire support. Twice in the seven hours since Hammond’s people had landed, they’d had to call down fire from heaven. The second time had been when the Brigadier had summoned the Marines to surrender, and their CO had refused.
The assault transport had localized the source of the refusal and dropped a ground-penetrating bunker-buster from orbit. One of a Marine commander’s favorite weapons, the missile dove nearly five hundred meters below ground before detonating—minimal collateral damage, utter destruction to underground facilities.
The fact that they’d located the command center had probably been part of the decision of the senior surviving Marine—seventh in the defenders’ chain of command, apparently—to surrender.
Without someone in orbit to protect them, the Marines on the surface were sitting ducks. Kyle had once had a front-row seat to what happened when the warheads in his own magazines were unleashed on a planet. Even refraining from that scale of devastation, Chimera alone could even the balance between Hammond’s single brigade and the defenders’ multiple divisions.
“Any contact from the local authorities?”
“We’ve linked up with the mayor of Trudeau City,” Hammond replied. “The Terrans left the city’s municipal level government intact—in exchange for which Mayor Musil happily handed us the location of their shiny new command center.”
“Nothing from the planetary government?”
“It looks like the Cora Development Corp executives are just plain gone,” the Brigadier said bluntly. “At a guess, they cleared off world as soon as the Terrans took out their defenses. Stars know the bastards would have had the money to disappear anywhere in the galaxy.”
Kyle sighed. Without a functioning local government, he didn’t have a lot of options for dumping thousands of prisoners on the surface.
“So, the only planetary structure left is the Terran occupation?” he asked.
“I’m digging, Force Commander,” Hammond said calmly. “It looks like the Commonwealth was using a lot of the municipal- and regional-level structures and governments from the CDC, but…a lot of people are going to be twitchy about collaborators, since those people were working with the Terrans.”
“I’ll check in with Command, Brigadier,” Kyle told him. “We’re supposed to be moving on in three days. We’ll see what they suggest.”
“We’re digging up enough local cops and Cora Defense Force troopers that I think we can keep order,” Hammond told him. “But I suspect that the Development Corp might be dead.”
“Don’t cry too hard, Brigadier,” the Force Commander said dryly. Hammond didn’t sound at all displeased with the fate of the Cora Development Corporation. “It would have made our lives a lot easier to have a functioning government around here.”
Zahn System
08:00 March 14, ESMDT
BC-129 Camerone, Admiral’s Office
Premier Báirbre Mantovani had the distinct look of a woman who had, not that long before, likely been quite obese—and was now disturbingly skinny. The head of Zahn’s system government looked sick, her skin hanging loosely on her frame and her blond hair streaked with gray. Her suit was clearly borrowed, her office had clearly recently been redecorated with explosives, and the fire in her eyes was bright and unbowed.
Simply the fact that Premier Mantovani was transmitting from her office in Zahn Governance Tower was the source of much of that fire. Battle Group Seven-One’s Marines had hit the ground running, two of the three battalions in-system dropping on Cobra City even as the third collected surrenders in orbit.
In theory, the surrender of the orbital platforms included the surface command. In practice, the Terran Commonwealth Marine Corps were not used to surrendering.
By the time Brigadier Yoxall, commander of the 58th Marine Brigade, had taken Governance Tower from the top down and deployed roving units into the streets, Zahn Planetary Army units had started materializing from the damnedest places. Some of those Army units had been in civilian wear with just rifles—but others had appeared with tanks and full suits of powered combat armor.
Like Alizon, Zahn had apparently listened when Castle and Coraline had helped draft emergency plans for the system falling to the Commonwealth. Mantovani had clearly been living a more austere life than she’d been used to, but when the Alliance had returned, she’d been in a position to be back in charge within the day.
“Rear Admiral, Captain,” Mantovani greeted them. “There are insufficient words for me to express my planet’s gratitude for your arrival. With the orbital platforms intact, no effort on our part would have sufficed to liberate ourselves.”
Mira left that for the Admiral to answer, covertly checking on Lord Captain Anders. The senior Imperial officer was linked into the conference as well. He looked…well, he looked as tired as everyone else in the Battle Group.
“The Alliance promised that we would protect you from the Commonwealth and liberate you if you fell,” Alstairs said calmly. “We came as soon as we were able, though I warn you that we cannot stay long.”
“I understand,” Mantovani confirmed. “We are already relocating the Terran prisoners to secure island detention facilities. We possess personnel qualified to operate the surviving fighter platforms, though the modifications to fire our missiles will be time-consuming. We are only in possession of a single wing of starfighters, as well. What aid are you able to provide us?”
“Not as much as we’d planned,” the Admiral admitted, “let alone as much as you might hope. Our mission calls for the liberation of multiple systems, and we lost one of the logistics transports attached to my command.
“I’m pleased we took the Terran platforms intact,” she continued. “We can provide you four more defense platforms, our own Citadel-class, plus roughly two hundred Falcon starfighters and two hundred and fifty missile satellites. We cannot,” Alstairs admitted, “provide you with crew for all of those. I have a cadre sufficient to provide a skeleton crew for the platforms and trainers for the starfighters. I’m afraid we can’t spare more.”
Mira ran down the numbers in her implant. That was half of the load of the freighter still with them. Seventh Fleet had been provided enough extra that the loss of one freighter meant they should still be able to set up defenses for each liberated system.
Without the fourth freighter’s worth of defensive platforms, though, she wasn’t sure if the plan to take and hold Via Somnia would still be viable. It was a system the Commonwealth would have to retake, and without the extra firepower of the defenses, Seventh Fleet could be in trouble holding it.
“Your offer is approximately what I was warned to expect,” Mantovani replied calmly. “We will shortly reestablish quantum-entanglement communications with Alliance High Command as well. I fear we will only be a burden on the Alliance for the moment, but my people will do their utmost to turn that around.”
“We will arrange for transfer of the defenses and missile stocks as soon as possible,” Alstairs to
ld her. “My people will contact yours—I am certain you have a lot to deal with, Premier.”
“The first day returning to work is always…extraordinary,” Zahn’s elected leader said demurely. “We will talk more soon, Admiral.”
The channel to the surface cut out and Alstairs turned to her flag captain and most senior captain.
“Anders, Solace. Your thoughts?”
“They have more people and ships than I expected,” the Lord Captain admitted grudgingly. “If they can refit the Terran missile satellites, this world will have formidable defenses.”
“But not enough to stand off a serious attack without starship support,” Mira said quietly.
“Exactly,” Anders agreed, to her surprise.
She’d half-expected him to disagree on principle. She needed to remember that, abrasive as the man could be, he was competent.
“These people will take time to train,” he continued. “Time we cannot spare. Time in which they are vulnerable.” He shrugged. “There is little strategic value to this system, Admiral. Liberating it has only made it a target to the Commonwealth—we have done them no favors here as we cannot afford to defend this system enough to keep it free.”
“Not to mention, where were the warships?” Mira asked. “We found none. Seven-Two hit two, one of them ancient. Seven-Three saw one—a last-generation carrier. We were expecting three ships in each system, so we’re missing six capital ships from what Intelligence expected to see.
“Ma’am, I somehow doubt those ships just disappeared. If we’re not careful, we could see a nodal force we didn’t expect rush back in and take these systems from underneath us.”
“I agree,” Alstairs said simply. “So does Alliance Intelligence. So, for that matter, does Alliance High Command. It just…doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter?” Anders demanded. “We’ve marked these people as targets and are leaving them with insufficient defenses, and it doesn’t matter?!”
Apparently, Anders had a soul. Mira had to approve.
“Captain, please,” the Admiral told him. “We always knew that these systems were going to be vulnerable. Seventh Fleet is not a defensive formation; holding these systems is not our mandate.
“But if we complete Rising Star and punch out Via Somnia, they will be safe, as the Commonwealth will lack the logistical support for offensives along this entire section of the front. In this case, the best defense truly is a swift offense.
“So, let’s be about it.”
Cora System
20:00 March 14, 2736 ESMDT
DSC-078 Avalon, Captain’s Breakout Room
The little conference room attached to Kyle’s office was large enough for half a dozen people. With the wonders of holographic conferencing, it currently held over a dozen.
Anderson and Stanford were actually physically present in the room, his XO and CAG providing Avalon’s input. Brigadier Hammond and Mayor Musil were relaying in from Montreal’s surface. Sledgehammer’s Captain Urien Ainsley, Indomitable’s Captain Gervaise Albert and Courageous’s Captain Christine Olivier were all linked in from their ships.
While those five were linked in by Q-Com, they could theoretically have used radio as all of them were within orbit of Montreal with Avalon. The other members of the conference couldn’t have—the closest was Admiral Alstairs in the Zahn system, six light-years away.
Fleet Admiral Meredith Blake, Chief of Naval Operations for the Federation, was in the Castle system, nearly sixty light-years away. Sky Marshal Octavian von Stenger, the man in charge of the Imperium’s military, was even farther away—in Coraline, eighty light-years behind the front.
Those two represented roughly a third of the Alliance Joint Chiefs of Staff, also known as Alliance High Command. While the senior officers of the Star Kingdom of Phoenix and the Renaissance Trade Factor were important, the other two Chiefs of Staff—from single-system polities inevitably poorer than Phoenix—were nonentities. If Blake and von Stenger agreed to something, High Command would back it.
Terrifying as having one third of Alliance High Command sitting in on the conference, however, it was the last four participants in the conference that were making Kyle’s palms sweat.
The first, a dark-haired woman in a plain black suit, was Leanne Summervale—the Prime Minister of the Star Kingdom of Phoenix.
The second was a balding herm, slightly pudgy with age, with the visible cybernetic advancements typical of those walking the transhuman path—Hanne Kovachev, Chairman of the Board of the Renaissance Trade Factor.
Senator Maria O’Connell of the planet Tuatha represented the Castle Federation. In general, the thirteen senators who ran the Federation were equal—if one of them committed the Federation to a task or stance, they spoke for the Federation.
Kyle had at least met O’Connell. The other two heads of state were of the Alliance’s second-ranked powers; he could adjust to having them on the conference.
The last member of the conference, at the far end from Kyle as the software was arranging the conference, was a pale, dark-haired young man—a little younger than Kyle himself—clad in an unmarked black uniform and wearing a plain platinum circlet.
Queen Victoria II of the Star Kingdom acted through her Prime Minister, though most realized that her power was quite real.
John Erasmus Michael Albrecht von Coral, Imperator of the Coraline Imperium, Prince of Coraline, Duke of the High City, and a long list of other titles Kyle could not remember without using his implant memory, made no such pretenses. The Imperium’s constitution hedged and limited his power, but there was no doubt who held the final authority over the second of the Alliance’s first-rank nation-states.
This gathering of fourteen people, half of them Seventh Fleet officers, included enough political power to decide the fate of a world—which was exactly what they had gathered do.
“Do we have any information on what happened to the executives of the Cora Development Corporation?” the Imperator began. He might have been elected—for life—but he’d been raised to the job and it showed in his level speaking voice.
“We are looking into it,” Blake responded instantly. “However, they did not arrive at an Alliance world and announce themselves.”
“I know they boarded a ship and tried to flee,” Mayor Musil, a squat man with watery eyes and thin grey hair, told the Imperator, his disgust clear in his voice. “I do not know what happened after that.”
“We’re digging into captured records,” Hammond added. “It is distinctly possible that their ship was destroyed in the battle.”
“And the shareholders?” von Coral asked.
“Approximately six million of record,” Musil replied carefully. “Sixty percent were in the Commonwealth. My understanding is that Walkingstick ordered them paid out—at cents on the dollar—when he seized the system. Most of the remainder are on Cora. We were expected to be grateful to have been brought into Unity.”
Kyle was pretty sure he knew where the Imperator was going with this, and it wasn’t a place that the shareholders of the CDC were going to like. It was the only real choice the Alliance had, however.
“With the senior executives missing or dead, and the vast majority of shareholders already having foregone their rights, it does not appear that the Cora Development Corporation is a functioning entity at this point, does it?” the young man, ruler of twelve star systems, said in a deceptively mild voice.
The conference was silent for a long moment, then Mayor Musil—the senior surviving member of any government on Cora—sighed and nodded.
“You are correct,” he admitted. “As a native-born son of this world, I am hardly ecstatic to see us in this position, but I cannot deny that our government is gone and the corporation operating it is no more.”
“Without some structure on Cora, it will be difficult for Battle Group Seven-Two to move on with the rest of Rising Star,” Kyle noted. “The situation on the surface remains fluid, making it a security risk.�
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“I agree,” Summervale said. “Unfortunately, Mayor Musil, I think it will take too long for Cora to sort out a new government on its own. I feel the Alliance must step in.”
“This is our world,” Musil objected sharply. “We are not going to idly stand by while the Federation or Imperium simply takes over!”
“No one is suggesting anything of the sort,” von Coral told him, the Imperator’s calming baritone helping cover the fact that Kyle was pretty sure that had been exactly what the Imperator was thinking. Coraline expansionism, after all, had been why there had been enough warships in what was now the Alliance to stand off the initial Commonwealth assault.
“A more nuanced approach is called for,” Senator O’Connell told the gathering. “It is clear that Cora is not currently capable of providing their own security. I believe, however, that Brigadier Hammond should be able to leave behind one of his battalions to assist in maintaining order. Admiral Alstairs?”
Kyle glanced at Seventh Fleet’s CO, who looked thoughtful.
“Both Zahn and Hammerveldt are capable of maintaining order without our help,” she finally admitted. “Leaving a battalion on Cora shouldn’t compromise our ability to complete Rising Star.”
“A new governing structure will need to be implemented on Cora,” Kovachev announced, the Chairman’s voice oddly flat. “That government will then be responsible for paying out the remaining shareholders fairly.”
That clearly hadn’t been included in anyone else’s thought process, though it made sense. Kyle would also have been shocked, however, to discover that the Trade Factor’s government didn’t own shares in the CDC.
“In the interim, an Alliance-imposed martial law is only partially conducive to public order,” the herm continued. “Some form of local interim government is required. I suggest the appointment of a local governor, someone recognizable to the populace.”
Battle Group Avalon (Castle Federation Book 3) Page 12