Conviction (Scattered Stars: Conviction Book 1)

by Glynn Stewart

  “Given what we learned on the PNCs and the fact that you have officer-level access codes for the ASDF, Waldroup can probably crack open the copy protection in three or four days,” Estanza told her. “I won’t do it without your permission. It’s up to you. I think you should,” he admitted. “But I won’t tell you what to do or go behind your back. Good enough?”

  “For now,” she conceded. “I need to sleep on it, sir. No question about that.”

  “Fair enough. Go,” he ordered. “Zoric and I have the watch. We’ll probably nova out to the trade lane before you’re awake.

  “I want these Institute engineers off my ship.”

  51

  Kira may have promised not to interrogate anybody, but she hadn’t said anything about not using the interrogation rooms. She’d gone so far as to dig up more comfortable chairs, but that was her sole concession to making the steel-walled room any less intimidating.

  Burke wasn’t any more prepossessing in person than he had been over the com. He was a small man of roughly her own height, but vaguely pudgy with faded brown hair and watery blue eyes.

  He didn’t look like he’d been expecting her, but a glance back at the mercenary escorting him resulted in a sigh before he stepped into the room.

  “When they told me someone senior wanted to speak to me, I was hoping Estanza was finally responding to my message,” he admitted, but he took a seat in the empty chair.

  “He is. He sent me,” Kira told him. She gestured with her coffee cup to the full one on the table. “There’s coffee if you want it. I’m Commander Demirci.”

  “The Apollo pilot, yes?” Burke asked as he took the coffee cup.

  “Yes,” she confirmed. “I’m surprised you don’t know more about me. There seems to have been some effort to pretend you were a Brisingr team, but there’s no way anyone from the Kaiserreich navy would be so uncertain about me.”

  “I’m from deeper towards the Core,” Burke conceded. “That’s how I know Captain Estanza. I just wanted to catch up with an old friend since fate brought us together.”

  Kira sighed.

  “Interesting that you don’t say that you were or weren’t working for Brisingr,” she noted. “How about we cut the bullshit, Em Burke? I know you’re from the Equilibrium Institute.”

  She’d been reasonably certain that the nervous engineer was an act. He might have been a munitions tech once, but today Burke was running a thirty-person covert mission to secretly deliver arms technology to a pirate warlord.

  The speed at which he recovered from her namedrop proved that he was a good actor. He just wasn’t good enough not to react at all.

  “That’s not a name you hear much out here,” Burke countered gently, but his voice had changed ever so slightly. Some of the nervous pitch was gone.

  “But I imagine it was one you heard when you worked for the Cobras, yes?” Kira pushed.

  Burke chuckled, but he never took his gaze away from hers.

  “I did,” he conceded. “It’s hard to argue with the vision, isn’t it? A peaceful galaxy, kept that way by Seldonian analysis and careful balancing of the galactic powers.

  “There’s not much point in arguing with the woman who can decide I suffer an unfortunate accident before we reach Ypres,” he told her. “Yes, I work for the organization that Captain Estanza knew as the Equilibrium Institute. Some of my people are from the Institute. Others are exactly the kind of minimally questioning contractors we were all supposed to be.

  “I don’t expect you to understand what we were out to achieve here, but I assure that our goal is not what you think it was.”

  “Your goal was to make Davies enough of a threat that Redward or one of the Cluster’s other significant powers had to smack him down,” she replied. “In doing so, they’d take possession of the shipyards and fabricators, giving them a shot in the arm you expected to encourage them to turn militarily expansionist.

  “By controlling that expansionism, you expected to turn them into a regional hegemon to maintain stability in your particular model of Seldonian analysis.”

  Kira smiled.

  “Am I close?”

  Burke had frozen with his coffee cup nearly at his lips.

  “Surprisingly,” he conceded. “I see that Captain Estanza has been very free with our secrets.”

  “I’m a special case,” she assured him. “I don’t know what you plan to say to Captain Estanza, but you can say it to me.”

  “I suspect you can guess,” Burke pointed out. “We want to recruit him—and I wouldn’t blink at recruiting you—to help us guide this Cluster towards stability.”

  “King Larry and his Syntactic Cluster Free Trade Zone seem to be a huge leap in that direction,” Kira said. “I’m surprised to find you opposing him.”

  “Who says we are?” the Institute agent asked. “The RRF was the most likely candidate to move against Warlord Deceiver, and everything we set up in the Kiln System would have fallen into their hands.”

  He snorted.

  “We were not expecting Davies to rig the entire place to blow, I’ll admit.”

  “Ass-backwards way of helping someone out,” she said. “A lot of dead people to get to that point, even if it worked. Why not just offer King Larry help?”

  Burke sighed.

  “In its current form, our Seldonian analysis projects that the SCFTZ will successfully take shape—and then slowly disintegrate over twenty years, precipitating an economic and political crisis that will trigger a no-holds-barred war over most of the Sector.

  “We’re looking at an eighty-five percent probability of a war with minimum casualties measured in the billions, Demirci,” he told her. “We’ve seen it happen; we trust the analysis. This kind of free-trade structure buys some time but only at the cost of major long-term violence.

  “The only solution that reliably works is a strong hegemon forcing the rest of the region to behave. King Larry has so far refused to let Redward become that hegemon.”

  “So, you try to make him,” Kira concluded.

  “Exactly.” Burke shrugged. “Either Redward becomes the Syntactic Cluster’s unquestioned leader, or someone else has to. It’s the only way to avoid the war that will come.”

  “So, building a peaceful trade alliance can only end in war?” she asked.

  “I don’t do the Seldonian analysis,” he admitted. “I’m an engineer. This kind of tech-lift? It’s what I do. It’s what I’ve done for the Institute for thirty years.”

  “And what if the analysis is wrong?” Kira asked. “What if you’ve already killed hundreds—thousands—and created the very crisis you’re trying to prevent?”

  “That’s not what the analysis says will happen,” Burke said calmly. “There are very smart people running those numbers, Demirci. Very smart people—far more capable than you or I. They know what they’re doing, they know what they’re seeing.”

  “So, you blithely hand Redward nova fighters?” she said.

  “Part of my job was to make sure at least some of this tech stayed in the Cluster ecosystem,” he agreed. “It’s not like Redward can do anything spectacular with them. They’ll have to go through the same rough edges of developing nova fighters everyone else did.

  “They’ll learn, Demirci.”

  “And how many people die along the way?” she demanded.

  “As few as possible, as many as necessary,” Burke said bleakly. “It would help us a lot to have you and Estanza on board. Very clearly, King Larry trusts Estanza and Estanza trusts you. Even if he won’t speak to me, you can carry my message.”

  “I could, but I already know his answer,” Kira told him. “I already know my answer. Tell me, Em Burke, how much did the Equilibrium Institute have to do with the Brisingr-Apollo Agreement on Nova Lane Security?”

  The room was silent.

  “We’ve helped Brisingr, yes,” he conceded. “The Council of Principals represents the worst kind of oligo-capitalism: self-centered, grasping, and unwil
ling to exert the control necessary to maintain peace.

  “Better a dictator than a self-satisfied oligarch.”

  “I’m not sure the worlds now forced to pay tribute would agree with you.”

  “Their children who will live in peace might,” Burke told her. “It is always for the future.”

  “I don’t believe in your future,” Kira replied. “I don’t believe that tyranny trumps democracy, that hegemony trumps association. Larry might be a king, but he’s bound by law and an elected government. Redward isn’t perfect, but they’re better as leaders than as masters.

  “I won’t fight for your Institute and neither will Captain Estanza. If you want to spread your tendrils into the Syntactic Cluster, well.”

  She smiled thinly as her decision on the fighter schematics and everything else fell into place.

  If Cameron Burke was representative of Estanza’s old employers, she knew her enemy. This self-satisfied little man, this fanatic in service of an imaginary calculation…he was an example of the worst humanity had to offer. He’d do anything in service of his cause and could never be swayed from it.

  “If the Equilibrium Institute wants to pick a hegemon out here, they’re going to have to go through Redward to pull it off,” she said sweetly. “And I don’t think you’re going through Redward without going through us.”

  Thank you so much for reading Conviction. Read on for a preview of Space Carrier Avalon, book 1 in the Castle Federation series, or click to check it out in the Amazon store.

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  Preview: Space Carrier Avalon by Glynn Stewart

  Enjoyed the Conviction? You may also enjoy the first book in the Castle Federation series, Space Carrier Avalon, available now!

  A bygone legend with a washed-up crew

  A crack team gathered for one last tour

  A cold war that has simmered to its final hour

  When the Castle Federation deployed the first starfighters, they revolutionized war and drove the Terran Commonwealth from their space. The first of the carriers for those deadly strike craft was Avalon, a legend that turned the tide of a dozen battles.

  That was decades ago. Now Avalon is obsolete, a backwater posting—but still a legend to the Federation and her allies and enemies alike. Wing Commander Kyle Roberts and a cadre of officers are sent aboard the old carrier to take her on a final tour along the frontier.

  Aboard, Roberts finds outdated fighters, broken pilots…and key subordinates who just might be traitors. He and the others will get Avalon ready for war once more regardless. Show tour or not, the old enemy has been seen near the border and no matter what, when the call comes, Avalon will answer!

  1

  New Amazon System, Castle Federation

  18:00 July 5, 2735 Earth Standard Meridian Date/Time

  On approach to DSC-001 Avalon

  Wing Commander Kyle Roberts did not enjoy being flown by someone else. It was always a struggle for the red-haired pilot to keep his hands and implants away from the controls and overrides when he was a passenger in a shuttle. To make everyone’s lives easier, he normally stayed out of the cockpit.

  Today, however, he wasn’t feeling quite so magnanimous, and had unceremoniously shunted the small craft’s normal co-pilot into the bucket seat that was supposed to be reserved for an observer like him. The burly Commander already felt a little bit guilty over that, but that slipped from his mind as the shuttle began its final approach and Avalon came into view.

  “There she is, sir,” the pilot told him, her amused tone revealing at least some understanding of her much-senior passenger’s anticipation.

  Avalon would not be the first of the Castle Federation’s Deep Space Carriers that Kyle had served on – but she was the first whose starfighter group he’d command in its entirety. Avalon was a legend, the first modern space carrier ever built by anyone, and her SFG-001 had a list of battle honors as long as Kyle’s arm.

  The abbreviated arrowhead of the carrier slowly grew in his vision, and he twigged his implants to zoom in on her. The computer in his head happily threw up stats and numbers as he scanned along the length of his new home.

  The carrier was small compared to her modern sisters, a mere eight hundred meters from her two hundred meter wide prow to her four hundred meter wide base, angling from a hundred meters thick at the prow to two hundred meters at the base. She was smoother than more recent ships as well, with her weapons and sensors clustered together in the breaks in her now-obsolete neutronium armor.

  Several of those clusters were currently open to space, weapons dating back two and three decades, according to his brief, being ripped out for replacement with the super-modern systems delivered by the transport he’d arrived on.

  “I never expected to see Avalon fly again,” the co-pilot observed from behind Kyle. “Rumor had it that her assignment as guardship here was just a quiet way of placing her in the Reserve.”

  Kyle nodded his silent agreement. He’d heard the same rumors, and he’d seen the rough brief of the work they were doing to make her fit for duty. If nothing else, Avalon was a carrier, and the starfighters she’d carried had been three generations out of date.

  That was his job to fix, of course. He’d spent his trip babying six entire squadrons – forty-eight ships – of brand new, barely out of prototype, Falcon-type starfighters. The new ships strapped mass manipulators and engines rated for five hundred gravities to four three-shot launchers firing short-range missiles with gigaton antimatter warheads and a positron lance rated for fifty kilotons per second.

  The number of ships told the story of Avalon’s age, though. His last command, the fighter wing aboard the battlecruiser Alamo, had also been forty-eight ships. That ship, however, been almost thirteen hundred meters long, and had carried a broadside of ten half-megaton-per-second positron lances in each of the four sides of her arrowhead shape, plus missile launchers and the seventy-kiloton-per-second lances generally used as anti-fighter guns.

  Avalon was less than two thirds the size of modern ships, as the technology behind the Alcubierre-Stetson Drive had advanced significantly in the forty years since she had been built. Past her, he could see the twelve ships of the Castle Federation’s New Amazon Reserve Flotilla – the smallest and oldest of them twenty years newer than Avalon, and a quarter again her size.

  “She’s a special case,” Kyle said finally, continuing to eye the old carrier. “The Navy’s Old Lady, gussied up one last time.”

  After that, Kyle was silent, considering his new ship and his new command. One last time was true – rumor had it that the tour of the Alliance that they’d been assigned to carry out was Avalon’s last mission. Once they were done, they would deliver the old lady to the shipyards of the Castle system itself, where she would be gently laid to rest.

  New Amazon System, Castle Federation

  19:00, July 5, 2735 ESMDT

  DSC-001 Avalon – Flight Deck

  Exiting the shuttle, followed closely by the two Flight Commanders he’d brought with him, Kyle found the ship’s Captain waiting. He was a tall, gaunt man with iron-gray hair who looked like he’d gone best out of three with Death – and the Reaper had kept an eye.

  Modern prostheses could be almost indistinguishable from the real thing, but Captain Blair’s was an older model, an emergency implant Kyle had most commonly seen on men and women injured in the War who were proud of the plain but extremely functional metal eye.

  “Welcome aboard Avalon, Wing Commander Roberts,” the Captain greeted him with an extended hand. Like Kyle, he wore the standard shipsuit that, despite imitating the appearance of slacks and a turtleneck, was a single piece g
arment capable of sealing against vacuum and sustaining the wearer for at least six hours, underneath his formal uniform jacket – piped with gold in the Captain’s case for Navy, blue for the Space Force in Kyle’s.

  “I am Captain Malcolm Blair,” Kyle’s new commanding officer continued. “I wanted to welcome you aboard in person, though your Flight Group is waiting to show you the song and dance.”

  Blair gestured slightly behind him, where the four Flight Commanders leading the squadrons currently aboard the carrier stood at rigid attention.

  “Thank you for the welcome, Captain,” Kyle replied. “I understand we have our work cut out for us.”

  “We do,” Blair confirmed. “Uniform of the day is shipsuits until further notice,” he continued cheerfully with a tug at the gold-banded sleeves of his uniform. “We have enough work going on throughout the ship that an accidental loss of pressure isn’t impossible.”

  “Understood, sir,” the Wing Commander replied, glancing past the Captain again to the men and women he would command.

  “Allow me to introduce you to your Flight Commanders,” Blair asked, stepping aside and leading Kyle and his two trailing officers forwards to where the Flight Group waited. “Your senior squadron leader is Flight Commander James Randall.”

  Randall stepped forward with an Academy-precise salute and inclined his head slightly.

  “Welcome aboard, Wing Commander Roberts,” he said smoothly. “May I say that it’s an honor to serve under the hero of Ansem Gulf?”

  Kyle shook Randall’s hand calmly, gauging the man with an appraising eye. The Commander was blond, blue-eyed, and easily ten years older than Kyle himself. His uniform jacket was decorated with the neat blue and gold square ribbon of the Space Force Combat Badge, a badge only earned by flying a starfighter under fire. Technically, Kyle’s jacket should have borne the same badge, next to the tiny gold icon of the Federation Star of Heroism, their second highest award for valor, but only dress uniform required even the ribbons.