“With the reinforcements we’re meeting in a few novas, I’m starting to feel comfortable about this fight,” she told them. “So, we’re going to ease off on the training. Of course, once we leave this nova stop, we’re not under the protective guns of the RRF, either,” she warned them.
“We’re back to a standard patrol regimen in five hours. You all get those five hours off, but the reserve flights are going to be expected to be in the simulators for at least half that shift.
“You Memorials were the best the ASDF had to offer,” she reminded them. “Daniel Mbeki handpicked every pilot of the Darkwings, which means he thought—and I think—you can be just as damn good as the Memorials.
“We’re going to train far harder than we ever hope to fight,” she continued, feeling a twinge of grief over Daniel—and guilt over using her people’s grief as a goad. “We’re going up against an enemy with unknown resources. I think what I’ve put in these sims is overkill, that the enemy won’t field a force this strong.
“If I’m wrong, it falls to all of us to haul Conviction and everyone who shows up with us out of the fire. Because we’re the best damn nova fighter group in this Cluster—and if you don’t believe that, people, get back in those simulators until you do.”
She grinned.
“Because if this mission goes the way I expect it to, everyone else in the Cluster is going to.”
41
“Nova complete. Launching fighters.”
Kira blinked and Conviction was gone, her Hoplite-IV flung into the void.
“We’ve got lots of contacts on the scopes, Commander,” Zoric’s voice said in her headware. “We’re on the edge of the mapped nova stop, too.”
“Please tell me they’re RRF,” Kira replied as her fighter’s scanners began to pick up the contact as well. There were a dozen small signatures hurtling toward Conviction already and, as Zoric had said, a lot of bigger signatures behind the sub-fighters.
“I don’t think anyone else out here bothered to put sub-fighters on a carrier,” Conviction’s XO pointed out. “Plus, Bogey Bravo? That’s a cruiser. Only three other systems in the cluster have cruisers at all, and none of them should be here.”
There was a pause and Kira followed the data as Zoric’s people put it together.
One bulk freighter, fifty thousand cubic meters. Except the power levels were wrong for a freighter. Some kind of reactor modifications were definitely in play, and there were guns on her upper hull. That made her one of Redward’s escort carriers, almost certainly Perseus.
One serious warship, the first Kira had seen in the Syntactic Cluster outside of the Redward System. She’d probably seen this warship in the Redward System, she realized. Apollo would have called the fifty-five kilocubic warship a light cruiser.
Out here, she was one of the most powerful warships around—and as Kira was comparing her to what she was used to, Conviction’s tactical department IDed her. Last Denial was Perseus’s companion cruiser, exactly the ship she’d expected to see.
Four Redward-built destroyers and six corvettes filled out the group. The six sub-fighters had been flying a loose patrol that had converted into a much less loose strike formation at the emergence of unknown contacts.
“We have made contact with Perseus and her escorts,” Zoric told Kira after a few seconds of them both watching the sub-fighters lunge towards them. “Sub-fighters are falling back into regular escort formation momentarily.
“Estanza says maintain CSP for now as we tuck into formation. Six hours until anybody’s going anywhere.”
“Understood,” Kira replied. She’d scheduled herself to fly the first CSP at the rendezvous point intentionally. The “body language” of how the two groups of ships interacted with each other was going to tell her a lot about how well or badly this mission was going to go.
So far, so good. The reaction time on the sub-fighter wing had been acceptable, and they were turning around within an equally acceptable time frame of the recall orders.
All fifteen ships were starting to move together as well. The carrier group would inevitably be better at flying in formation with each other, but the mercenary ships needed to be incorporated too.
Kira’s patrol was scheduled to be short. She’d hover above the fleet as they rendezvoused, but if Admiral Kim wanted to call a big briefing, Kira would need to be there.
By the time her turn on patrol wrapped up, the combined fleet had assembled in something resembling a logical formation. Conviction and Perseus floated together at the heart of it, the two carriers drifting ten thousand kilometers apart. Last Denial was above them, with the five destroyers spread out below and the corvettes in front and behind to complete the rough globe formation.
With six sub-fighters filling the same role, she arguably didn’t need to have two of her nova fighters out in space. She was still planning on keeping a flight in space at all times. Just in case.
Kira trusted Redward, but she was learning that a good mercenary didn’t trust anyone. She could see where Estanza’s fear of paranoia was coming from. If the Institute had Redward so well infiltrated they could make sure no strike force hit their minion by surprise without extraordinary efforts, what was to say they couldn’t have infiltrated someone onto Perseus or Last Denial to turn their weapons on the mercenaries?
That lovely image carried her through her landing cycle. Cartman was waiting for her as she exited her fighter, her second-in-command looking harried.
“Fucking military,” Cartman said bluntly. “Wait, wait, wait, hurry up!”
“What happened?” Kira asked.
“I don’t think Admiral Kim considered that our CNG might be in the fighters flying patrol,” the other woman told her. “You have exactly three minutes to shower and change before you need to be on a shuttle toward Perseus.”
“Then why are we wasting time cursing her out?” Kira asked, already heading toward the ready room. “I’ve done that before!”
She couldn’t shower and change in that time, but hell…she could fly the shuttle, and she had every confidence in her ability to shave a few minutes off the expected flight time.
42
“Was the rush really necessary, Commander?” Estanza asked dryly as Kira left the shuttle cockpit to join him. “My clock says we are now two minutes early despite leaving three minutes late.”
“I should have rushed less, I suppose,” Kira acknowledged as she doffed her flight helmet and quickly adjusted her hair. “But we didn’t want to be late. Not today.”
“Agreed,” he conceded. “This is their ground. Kim is a competent officer but not always the most adaptable one. I wouldn’t have picked her for this mission—but sending anyone else would have deprived us of the Lancers.”
Kira nodded. Six nova fighters was worth a lot. They were almost certainly worth having a decent Admiral instead of a great Admiral.
Assuming that Redward had a great Admiral.
“Come.”
Estanza led the way out of the shuttle onto Perseus’s combined retrieval and launch bay. For most affairs, the ship had a smaller shuttle bay toward the rear of the ship. Today, there was a shuttle on the deck for every ship in the assembled task force.
Even carriers only had one place to stick fourteen shuttles!
Several shuttles were still cycling their way aboard, but Conviction’s craft had been transferred to an offloading area separate from the actual landing area. Perseus’s crew had even managed to line the shuttle ramp up with a dark blue unrolled carpet.
Control of the platform made that easier, but it was still an appreciated effort on their part. There was no formal escort on the carpet. A pair of troopers in dark blue armor saluted as Kira followed Estanza off, and a single officer waited for them past the soldiers.
“Captain Estanza, Commander Demirci,” that individual, a tall black man with bright blue eyes, greeted them with a bow. “As you can imagine, we’re having all kinds of fun organizing greeting parties for every
one.
“I am Captain Saif Abiodun, commanding officer of the carrier Perseus,” he continued. “I know she’s a pale imitation of what either of you are used to, but she’s my baby.”
“I’ve flown off worse,” Estanza told him. “Redward did a good job when they refitted the class. She might not be as large as Conviction, but she has the advantage of being much, much younger.”
Abiodun chuckled politely.
“I appreciate the concession, Captain, but I’ve seen Conviction’s scans,” he pointed out. “She might be old and a tad battered, but your ship can still outmaneuver mine and process fighters faster.
“I’m glad to see her and your fighters.” He turned his attention to Kira and bowed again. “Commander Demirci, your reputation precedes you from two services now. It would be remiss, I think, for any carrier commander within a hundred light-years of Apollo not to know your name.”
“Last I checked, Captain, there was a million-crest bounty attached to that name,” she pointed out. “I’d almost rather go unrecognized.”
“I understand. No one on this ship will attempt to collect that bounty, I can assure you,” Abiodun told her. “If you wish, I can have these two Marines escort you for your entire stay. It won’t be that much of a burden,” he assured them. “My understanding is that the briefing should only take a couple of hours at most.”
“That would be reassuring to me, at least,” Estanza cut in before Kira could reply. “Commander Demirci is critical to the operation of my ship and our plans for this mission. Losing her at this juncture, well.”
He smiled. There was no humor in the expression at all.
“If something happened to Commander Demirci, I might have to burn down a few planets to make a point.”
Perseus’s Captain blinked. He didn’t—quite—step backward from Kira’s Captain as Estanza let the anger boil to the top for a moment.
“You will be perfectly safe aboard my ship,” Abiodun assured them. “I have only recently been briefed on the full scope of our mission, and we will need every nova fighter pilot we can muster.”
“We will,” Estanza agreed. “But we are going to burn Warlord Deceiver’s little base to ashes. I think everyone can agree that is going to be a vast improvement to the Kiln System’s esthetics.”
Perseus might have been built as a freighter, but Kira wouldn’t have guessed it from her interior. It was completely crisp and clean, lacking the wear that marred Conviction’s martial impression. Every edge was sharp, every panel clean. Uniforms and salutes abounded.
For the first time since leaving the ASDF, she really felt the lack of a proper uniform and insignia. Everyone aboard Perseus clearly knew who she was, but she was an outsider there in a way she’d never been aboard a warship before.
Even on the rare occasions she’d been aboard other nations’ warships as an ASDF officer, she’d still been an allied military officer. That was a position, it seemed, that drew more respect than a “mere” allied mercenary.
Estanza clearly wasn’t letting it bother him. He was probably used to it. Even when he’d been more than a regular mercenary, no one outside his organization had known he was a member of the Equilibrium Institute.
For Kira, it was new and unpleasant. But she followed his lead as he stalked through Perseus’s corridors like an allied head of state. Captain Abiodun led them to a large room with a circular table in the center of it. Twenty seats had been laid out in the room.
All of those seats had names appear above in Kira’s headware. She and Estanza were at the far end of the table—directly to Admiral Kim’s left hand. Just past them were Shang and his second captain, then the two senior commanders of Perseus’s fighters.
She followed the Captain to their seats, barely beating Shang, and watched as everyone else filed in.
The outsider feeling didn’t really abate, even as she noted that Shang and his companion were probably getting it worse. Conviction might be a mercenary ship, but they’d been working with the RRF for a while. Most of Kim’s officers seem to feel that the long-term retainer at least made them reliable allied mercenaries.
It was still a step down from allied military officers. On the other hand, it was probably better than an ASDF officer would get on the ships of the nations Kira had once visited as an ally. Betrayal didn’t do much for people’s opinions of your military, even if the officers hadn’t been involved at all.
Vice Admiral Ylva Kim’s arrival interrupted her thoughts, an unsubtle announcement chime drawing every eye in the room to the tall blonde admiral.
Kira instinctively rose with the actual Royal Fleet officers. It wasn’t until she was on her feet and braced to attention that she realized the other three mercenaries weren’t rising.
A couple of seconds of awkwardness followed, then both Shang and Estanza rose simultaneously. Something in their body language told her that they were rising to support her, not show respect to Admiral Kim.
That lack of respect was intentional. A power game that Estanza hadn’t thought to brief her on.
“Sit down, everyone,” Kim ordered as she took the seat at the head of the table. A hologram of the task force appeared in the middle of the circular table.
“First formalities,” she continued. “Carrier Group Perseus’s officers know each other, but we have some guests.” She gestured. “Most of you know Captain John Estanza of Conviction by reputation. He is accompanied by Commander Kira Demirci, his Commander Nova Group. We are also joined by Commodore Shang Tzu and Captain Somchai Wattana of Shang’s Squadron.
“With their three ships and Conviction’s nova fighters augmenting our strength, Carrier Group Perseus has been subsumed by Redward Royal Fleet Task Force Thirty-One. I remain in command, but the use of the TF 31 designation allowed us to draw up instructions and operational plans without them being attached to the carrier group.”
Kira hoped that the Royal Fleet had relied on more layers of deception than that. Otherwise, they were probably going to be attacking an empty base.
“Only a portion of you have been briefed on our mission here, but before I get to that, I want to make certain that our chain of command is explicitly laid out and accepted,” Kim continued. “Commodore Shang and Captain Estanza report directly to me and will assume formation and maneuvers with the rest of the Task Force.
“All sub-fighter and nova fighter forces will report to Major Teige Sagairt,” she continued. “Commander Demirci, your ships will be subordinate to Major Sagairt’s command.”
An officer with six nova fighters and thirty sub-light jokes. That was not Kira’s understanding of how this was supposed to be organized. She was stunned enough that it took her a moment to gather her thoughts to respond to that.
A long-enough moment that someone else interjected.
“Sir, I have six nova fighters and less than ten years’ experience flying and commanding them,” a brilliantly copper-haired slim man at the far end of the table noted calmly. “I have only flown six nova fighter combat missions—because keeping our nova fighters secret has always been the priority.
“Commander Demirci is a twenty-year veteran pilot and commanded a nova fighter squadron involved in the active war between Apollo and Brisingr,” Sagairt continued. “I don’t know her numbers for combat missions or kills, but I would not be surprised to discover that she had over ten times my experience in nova fighter combat to go with her double my experience in general nova fighter operations.
“Speaking for myself alone, I cannot reasonably or logically expect Commander Demirci to operate under my command. I strongly recommend that we place Commander Demirci in charge of the nova fighter component of the task force.”
That was a conversation that should have taken place in private, but Kira suspected that Admiral Kim hadn’t even considered the possibility that her officer was not only far less experienced than Kira but willing to admit that lack of experience.
There was a long silence.
“Far be it
from me to argue with a man willing to surrender authority,” Admiral Kim said coldly. “Very well, Major. Lancer Squadron will be placed under Commander Demirci’s authority.”
Sagairt, Kira was grimly certain, was going to suffer for that suggestion. She’d have to make very sure that it was worth it.
“The rest of the chain of command will operate as normal,” the Admiral noted. “Which brings us to why you are all here.”
The image of the task force floating in deep space vanished, replaced by an image Kira recognized from repeated discussions since the meeting with King Larry.
“This is an asteroid cluster in the Kiln System,” Kim told them all. “While its residents presumably give it a name, the only identifier we have in our records is a catalog code from when New Ontario attempted to exploit this part of Kiln forty-eighty years ago: Cluster Sixty-Five-X-Nine.
“The failed New Ontarian base became home to one of the more aggressive Costar Clans some time ago. Like the rest of their kin, they weren’t a major threat. Recently, however, the settlement in Sixty-Five-X-Nine has become the home base for an alliance of Clans under an individual known as Warlord Deceiver.
“Deceiver has been responsible for multiple attacks on our shipping and military vessels over the last six months, and we have decided it is time to make an example.”
More data began to fill in around the asteroid cluster, marking additional stations: shipyards and fabrication facilities.
“Our target here is to destroy Warlord Deceiver’s defenders to neutralize his fleet; and to either destroy or capture all shipyards and military fabrication facilities.
“We are at all costs to avoid damage to civilian habitat stations,” she noted, “and our official priority is capture over destruction of fabrication bases. Their Majesties wish to take control of this facility and use it as a wedge into rehabilitating at least a portion of the Costar Clans.”
And if Estanza was correct, the Institute might have even given Deceiver more advanced tech than Redward possessed. Seizing the facility made sense, but Kim’s tone wasn’t promising.
Conviction (Scattered Stars: Conviction Book 1) Page 24