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.
“Thank you,” Kyle said quietly, and turned to the remaining officers.
“Flight Commander Michael Stanford,” Blair continued after allowing the silence to drag a moment too long. “Flight Commander Russell Rokos. Flight Commander Shannon Lancet.”
Stanford was a short, pale man with a firm grip and watery blue eyes. He met Kyle’s gaze levelly and nodded his silent greetings. Rokos and Lancet each murmured pleasantries, the former a stocky man of Kyle’s own bulk without the height, and the latter a willowy blond woman.
“These are Flight Commander Wang Zhao and Jose Mendez,” Kyle told the assembled officers, introducing the woman and man who had arrived with him. Wang shared Lancet’s height, but was dark-skinned and haired to the other officer’s fair blondness. Mendez, despite his name, shared every ounce and inch of Kyle’s own imposing height and bulk, with close-cropped blond hair and the brown eyes of his Hispanic ancestors. “Both are recently of SFG-074, aboard Alamo.”
“I will leave you to the formalities of your command,” Blair told Kyle. “Once you’ve read yourself in and the Commanders have given you the tour, please do me the courtesy of stopping by my office.”
“Of course, Captain Blair,” Kyle confirmed. With a firm nod, the gaunt Captain drifted away from the group as Kyle turned to face his command.
The Flight Commanders had managed to gather up all ninety-six of the flight crew for the four squadrons already aboard Avalon, and those officers had been waiting in relatively graceful silence as the Captain had introduced their squadron leaders. Along with Kyle and his two squadron leaders, six more members of the two squadrons he’d arrived with had arrived on the shuttle with him. As they saw Kyle draw up to face the Flight Group, all eight of the new officers quietly moved over to join its ranks.
“Deck Chief, please report,” Kyle said calmly and clearly, projecting his voice across the deck. The projection was unnecessary, as the Senior Chief currently responsible for the Flight Deck had been hovering about ten feet away since he’d stepped off the shuttle.
“Senior Chief Marshal Hammond, sir,” the burly and grizzled non-commissioned officer, a stereotype of any space navy for all that the man wore the blue piping of the Space Force.
“Please record for the log,” Kyle instructed, pulling a sheet of archaic parchment from inside his jacket. Under the parchment was an electronic chip that he would deliver to the Captain when they met later, but for tradition, the parchment was vital.
“To Wing Commander Kyle Roberts from Vice Admiral Mohammed Kane, Joint Department of Space Personnel, June Twentieth, year Two Thousand Seven Hundred Thirty Five Earth Standard,” he read crisply. “Upon receipt of these orders, you are hereby directed and required to proceed to the New Amazon system and report aboard the Deep Space Carrier Avalon, hull number DSC – Zero Zero One, there to take upon yourself the duties and responsibilities of commanding officer of Starfighter Group Zero Zero One in the service of the Castle Federation. Fail not in this charge at your peril.”
At the completion of the formal words, every officer standing in front of Kyle seemed to relax slightly except for Randall and Stanford. The former remained at a perfect attention stance, and the latter seemed surprisingly nervous for a senior squadron commander.
“I assume command of SFG-001,” Kyle informed the Flight Group. “We still have flight crews and deck personnel aboard Sphinx and Chipmunk who will be reporting aboard today. Our starfighters will be coming over sometime tomorrow, so everyone should expect a busy day.”
He glanced around his people, and gestured for the Flight Commanders to attend him.
“Flight Group, dismissed!”
After the collected personnel had cleared the deck, Kyle found himself standing with his six squadron commanders and Senior Chief Hammond.
“Chief, can you have someone take care of our gear?” he asked the Deck Chief, gesturing at the duffel bags he, Mendez and Zhao had brought with them.
“Of course sir,” the NCO replied, moving away to police up someone junior to deal with the luggage.
Kyle turned back to the Flight Commanders. “All right,” he began briskly. “I need to meet with Captain Blair in short order, but we have some time. I presume most of you have duties to be taking care of,” he hinted, “but if someone can give me an abbreviated tour of the Flight Deck, I’d appreciate it.”
“Of course, sir,” Randall answered immediately, living down to Kyle’s expectations of the most senior Flight Commander. “I can show you around while Commanders Mendez and Zhao get themselves settled in.”
Kyle turned to the two officers he’d brought with him. “I want you two to do a more detailed sweep than I’ll have time for,” he instructed them quietly. “Check where your flight crews will be berthed; make sure you’re on hand as our people arrive.”
A pair of salutes answered him, and the two officers from Alamo allowed themselves to be guided away, leaving Kyle standing with Randall and Stanford.
As soon as they were alone, Randall turned to the other Flight Commander. “I’m delegating the ready squadron to you, Stanford,” he said brusquely. “Don’t scratch my paint.”
“Sir,” the pale man confirmed stiffly, and then stalked away towards what Kyle presumed to be a ready room.
“Don’t mind Stanford too much,” Randall advised Kyle after a moment of watching the other officer walk away. “He has a stick up his ass, but he’s a decent pilot.”
“I see,” the Wing Commander replied noncommittally. “Your squadron is the ready one?”
“Yeah,” the Flight Commander confirmed. “My flight crews at least. We moved most of the starfighters over to the Reserve Flotilla’s guard station, so we only have a single squadron of Badgers aboard. We’re trading off which squadron’s personnel are on-call to man them though.”
“Badgers,” Kyle repeated slowly. “This ship is still flying Badgers.”
The Badger-type fighter had been the last product of the wartime crash development programs, deployed to the Navy eighteen months after peace was declared – twenty years ago now.
“I thought Avalon was assigned Typhoons,” he continued. The Typhoon type was ten years old, two generations behind the brand new Falcon, but still at least a usable fighter.
“She carried Typhoons when she arrived,” Randall agreed. “At some point, those ships were pulled to fill out a sale to an ally, and we got the Badgers in trade. We’re all looking forward to seeing the new ships you’re supposed to be bringing, sir.”
While they’d talked, Randall had guided his new superior from the side-portion of the bay set aside for shuttles to an observation railing from which they could view Kyle’s new domain. Avalon’s main flight deck was thirty meters tall, eighty meters across, and stretched four hundred meters deep into the carrier’s hull.
Right now it was an echoing, empty, space. Equipment designed to service and move five-thousand-ton ships was neatly stored away against the sides. A handful of crewmen were rolling up the hoses they’d used to quickly refuel the shuttle from the Sphinx and Chipmunk. From the observation deck, Kyle could make out four hatches, sized to take starfighters, spaced evenly along the opposite side.
“We have four launch tubes per side,” Randall explained, pointing them out
. “We kept the Badgers aboard in the tubes – they’ll be easy to deploy out that way once the new birds are aboard. With a full deck load, we can load new birds into the launch tubes every forty seconds.”
The pilot sounded proud of that, and given the age of the equipment they had to work with he was probably right to be. A forty second turn-around on the launch tubes meant a total of over three minutes to put the entirety of SFG-001 into space – three times the design requirement for a modern carrier to deploy its even larger fighter group.
“That… isn’t fast if we have an emergency,” Kyle observed.
Randall nodded.
“I guess they didn’t realize how important rapid launches would be when they built her,” he agreed. “They did retrofit in an alternative, but I’d be terrified to use it.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“There’s mass manipulators mounted all along the deck,” Randall explained. “All carriers have them to catch the returning birds, but ours are also wired so they can run in reverse – theoretically, we can turn the center twenty meters of the deck into a single massive launch tube and blow the entire Group into space in one shot.”
Kyle shook his head, eyeing the deck askance. The ability to blast everything on his flight deck into space at the push of a button wasn’t entirely appealing to him, though he’d prefer it over having to wait three minutes to put his fighters into space in an emergency.
“Any other old tricks I should know about?” he asked.
The Flight Commander shook his head with a grin.
“That’s the thing about Avalon, sir,” he replied. “I’m not sure any of us know all of her tricks.”
Space Carrier Avalon by Glynn Stewart
Interested in reading more? Space Carrier Avalon is available now.
About the Author
Glynn Stewart is the author of Starship’s Mage, a bestselling science fiction and fantasy series where faster-than-light travel is possible–but only because of magic. His other works include science fiction series Duchy of Terra, Castle Federation and Vigilante, as well as the urban fantasy series ONSET and Changeling Blood.
Writing managed to liberate Glynn from a bleak future as an accountant. With his personality and hope for a high-tech future intact, he lives in Kitchener, Ontario with his wife, their cats, and an unstoppable writing habit.
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Other books by Glynn Stewart
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Castle Federation
Space Carrier Avalon
Stellar Fox
Battle Group Avalon
Q-Ship Chameleon
Rimward Stars
Operation Medusa
A Question of Faith: a Castle Federation Novella
Shattered Stars: Conviction
Conviction (upcoming)
Peacekeepers of Sol
Raven’s Peace
Raven’s Oath (upcoming)
Exile
Ashen Stars
Exile
Refuge
Crusade
Starship’s Mage
Starship’s Mage
Hand of Mars
Voice of Mars
Alien Arcana
Judgment of Mars
UnArcana Stars
Sword of Mars
Mountain of Mars (upcoming)
Starship’s Mage: Red Falcon
Interstellar Mage
Mage-Provocateur
Agents of Mars
Duchy of Terra
The Terran Privateer
Duchess of Terra
Terra and Imperium
Light of Terra: A Duchy of Terra series
Darkness Beyond
Shield of Terra
Imperium Defiant
Shadow of Terra: A Duchy of Terra series
Relics of Eternity (upcoming)
Vigilante (With Terry Mixon)
Heart of Vengeance
Oath of Vengeance
Bound By Stars: A Vigilante Series (With Terry Mixon)
Bound By Law
Bound by Honor
Bound by Blood
Changeling Blood
Changeling’s Fealty
Hunter’s Oath
Noble’s Honor
Fae, Flames & Fedoras: a Changeling Blood Universe Novella
ONSET
ONSET: To Serve and Protect
ONSET: My Enemy’s Enemy
ONSET: Blood of the Innocent
ONSET: Stay of Execution
Murder by Magic: an ONSET Universe Novella
Fantasy Stand Alone Novels
Children of Prophecy
City in the Sky
A Question of Faith: A Castle Federation Novella Page 7