Stellar Fox (Castle Federation Book 2) (12 page)

“Where did
they
come from?!”

Solace’s explanation echoed through the bridge without response for a long moment, then the XO regained her composure.

The two cruisers that had just lit off their drives were the center of attention on the bridge, and Kyle leaned back in his chair as he studied the situation.

Solace had kept a single Wing, forty-eight fighters, back to protect the carrier while sending the other four at the pair of battleships deeper in-system threatening the planet of Dis. That had seemed a logical decision at the time, almost conservative with no additional apparent threats.

Now, two
Hercules
-class battlecruisers, each a match for
Avalon
in mass though less maneuverable, charged towards her. Sixty
Scimitars
led the way, and Wing Commander Rokos’ fighters slashed out to meet them.

His screen also showed Stanford trying desperately to turn the rest of the Fighter Group around. They were already millions of kilometers away with a significant velocity towards the battleships. They might get back in time to
avenge
the supercarrier, but they certainly weren’t going to save her.

Nonetheless, Senior Fleet Commander Solace’s orders were quick and firm. The carrier started accelerating away from the cruisers as her heavy beams began the almost futile attempt to help the starfighters engage the Commonwealth attack.

It was bad luck more than anything else that made the final difference. Lucky missile strikes in the first exchange took out Rokos and two of his squadron commanders. Disorganized, and with the firepower of the three capital ships filling the battlespace, the remainder of Delta Wing were annihilated.

Only a handful of the Commonwealth fighters survived, but they hadn’t needed to. The
Hercules
had fewer beams and lighter deflectors than
Avalon
did, but their beams were almost half again as heavy as
Avalon’s
.

They outranged her by over a hundred thousand kilometers, and the lights dimmed on the bridge less than thirty seconds after they entered their range. The ‘Simulation Ended’ message popped up on both the screens around them and everyone’s implants.

Kyle quickly glanced at the mental ‘screen’ where he saw Vice Admiral Tobin’s side of the engagement, and then at the other one showing the nine ships of the battle group and convoy peacefully dropping down Dis’ gravity well.

“Well, that was… fun,” Solace said flatly as Tobin’s image popped up on the screen. “You are
sneaky
, sir,” she told the Admiral.

“So is Walkingstick,” Tobin said bluntly. “Thankfully, if the Commonwealth had been attacking Dis, those two cruisers would have run into
Magellan
,
Gravitas
, and
Cameroon
, and there would have been a very different result.”

“And if
Avalon
was operating alone, as fleet carriers do, my mistake would have just killed six thousand people,” the XO replied bitterly.

“Learn, Commander, do not beat yourself up,” the Admiral said bluntly. “Captain Roberts?”

“Admiral,” Kyle acknowledged. He was making mental notes on what he’d seen on both sides of the exercise.

“I leave the critique to you,” the big bear of an Admiral turned his gaze on the bridge crew and finished gruffly. “Your bridge crew’s performance was acceptable given the odds. Let’s aim for ‘victorious’ next time, shall we?”

The Admiral’s image disappeared, and Kyle looked around his bridge with a small smile. He had his full Alpha Watch on duty for this exercise, and they were all looking abashed.

Commander Pendez had done
her
part beautifully, though she still looked concerned. Senior Fleet Commander Solace, on the other hand, had gone full black statue; and Commander Anderson, the Tactical Officer, was looking down at his console with a sallow expression.

“All right,” Kyle said crisply. “Commander Solace, you were in command. Where do you think we went wrong?”

“I sent too many fighters after the battleships,” she admitted crisply, her face frozen in the mask that he still found vaguely disturbing. “The error was mine, sir.”

“It’s an easy mistake for ex-cruiser officer to make,” Kyle pointed out. “I’ve been guilty of it myself in exercises – it’s the ‘my last ship had less than a Wing of fighters, a Wing of fighters is therefore a
lot
of fighters’ thought process.

“And,” he continued sharply, “given what you were seeing, it was a relatively accurate assessment. Commander Anderson’s horrified expression is suggesting that he has realized exactly where the main issue arose from. Would you care to elaborate, James?”

The redheaded officer was even paler than usual, but he swallowed hard and raised his head to meet Solace’s gaze levelly.

“We had a pair of sensor ghosts where those cruisers came from,” he said quietly. “Barely above detection thresholds; computer and human analysis suggested it was an old thermal trail from deeper in the system, so I didn’t mention it. We saw them – and dismissed them – before you sent the fighters ahead.

“You didn’t have enough information, ma’am,” Anderson finished. “My fault.”

“That… seems relatively reasonable, actually,” Solace told him gently, the frozen statue fading slightly as she realized it was at least partially a junior’s fault not her own. “I’m not sure I would have made a different call, James.”

“Lessons for both of you, then,” Kyle told them firmly. “Anderson –
never
assume the CO doesn’t need to know something. It would have taken you ten, maybe fifteen, seconds to let Commander Solace know what you’d seen and how low the threshold was. There was almost ten
minutes
between the ghosts showing up and Vice Commodore Stanford’s fighters passing the point of no return.

“What you see might not seem relevant – but you don’t always know all of the Captain’s plans.

“And Solace,” he turned to his XO. “
You
can’t assume that your bridge officers will pass on everything you need to know. They may not know all of your plans,” he repeated with a grin, eking a chuckle from his officers.

“You have the ability to mirror anyone’s displays into your implant,” he continued. “Outside of combat, using without care can be rude.
In
combat, it’s a necessity. I generally have the sensor feed from CIC, our ammunition status, and the primary navigation display either on my implant or on my console.

“There’s no
time
for you to watch over everyone’s shoulders in combat – but having the displays mirrored will give you more situational awareness – and help you realize when there’s a question you
should
ask.”

Both Solace and Anderson were nodding abashedly, though they’d both stopped looking like they were about to fall on their swords.

“Now,” Kyle told them cheerfully, “we’re going to do this all over again. I’ll be running the Op Force this time – and, well, you just made me look bad to the Admiral.”

Someone actually groaned aloud. He pretended to not notice, but he was reasonably sure it was Solace. That was a good sign.

Dimitri reviewed the results of the follow-up exercises from the previous night with a grin. With his people now over-sensitive to sensor ghosts due to Dimitri’s contribution, Roberts had used decoy drones to try to lure Solace into under-committing fighters to a strike.

Instead, the XO had decided to hold back all of her fighters and use sensor drones to validate her targets – and then dropped the full two hundred and forty fighter strike on the poor trio of strike cruisers Roberts had been trying to lure her into attacking with too little force.

The Admiral had also eavesdropped on the critique of the exercise he’d run the opposing force for. Roberts was doing quite acceptably though he still had some concerns around the man’s experience and aggression.

At least Dis wasn’t going to be an issue for anyone. Despite the paranoia-inducing exercises they’d been running, the system was completely secure. Three heavy fleet carriers – the entirety of the Dis Security Force’s capital ship strength – hung in high orbit over the planet. His screens showed at least twenty guardships running escort on various industrial complexes, and easily two hundred starfighters flying patrols and escorts.

The DSF was a capable defensive force, one that didn’t really
need
the carriers but had refused to deploy them out-system after Walkingstick’s first wave of attacks. The twenty
Gallants
and three hundred
Cobras
coming here were more of a bribe than a necessity, in his opinion.

He shook his head. Their visit here would be short. Unlike Amaranthe, there was no reason for anyone to visit the surface, and there was no partial unloading – the ships that had carried supplies for Amaranthe would be emptied here. The convoy was going to drop three of the ships it had brought here, and the rest would head for Kematian.

“Sir, I have that analysis of the exercises you asked for,” Sanchez informed him, sticking her head in.

“Bring it in, Judy,” he ordered.

His Chief of Staff brought in one of the Navy’s ubiquitous datapads and slipped it onto his desk.

“That second series of exercises mostly went Solace’s way,” she noted. “I would have expected the Captain to do better.”

“Success in training exercises is not always measured in who has more victories, Judy,” Dimitri reminded her. “They were intentionally one-trick exercises – if Solace saw through the trick in time, the odds were actually slightly in her favor. If she missed the trick, she got stomped.”

Sanchez shook her head.

“Roberts seems overly enamored with those kinds of tricks,” she told him. “Seems dangerous.”

“It is,” Dimitri allowed. “On the other hand, when they work, they can pull out a victory for an inferior force. It’s how he won at Tranquility. It’s a question of judgment on whether tricks are called for.”

“I see, sir,” Sanchez allowed. She glanced at the pad, which showed an assessment of Solace’s performance. “And Solace, sir?”

“Solace underestimates the value of those tricks,” the Admiral replied, skimming the data. “That doesn’t appear to be a weakness that will survive serving as Captain Roberts’ XO.”

“Do you trust her judgment or Captain Roberts’, sir?”

Dimitri looked up at Sanchez, eyeing his Chief of Staff carefully.

“Both are experienced officers,” he said slowly. “Solace has more experience in Navy command, though Roberts has more combat experience. Having seen neither in action, I’d hesitate to judge one over the other.”

“Of course, sir,” Sanchez said promptly.

Dimitri couldn’t quite shake the feeling the Senior Fleet Commander was fishing for something. The longer he served with Judy Sanchez, the more he was beginning to wonder about the woman. She was efficient, competent and took initiative – sometimes too much initiative, but better to restrain the courageous lion than prod the lazy mule.

But there was just something about her…

Among the many varied and entertaining duties of the Commander, Air Group, was surprise inspections. As a squadron leader, Michael had always found it useful to make those inspections with no one around, and he saw no reason to change the habit now that he was in charge of an entire Fighter Group.

Starting the inspection in the middle of the night also meant he might get through at least a full wing of ships before the day watch started and people began to realize the CAG was inspecting.

In the middle of an FTL dark watch, the flight deck was creepily silent. The lighting was a little bit dimmer than usual, not much but enough to throw shadows into stark relief behind and underneath the multi-thousand ton delta-shapes of his starfighters.

His Chief NCO and the squad of techs and Flight Engineers he’d dragooned into the task with less than ten hours’ notice seemed less enthused with the whole idea than he was, but that was normal for
any
midnight duty.

“All right folks,” he told them, gathering them around, “we’re going to start with my ship first. In theory,” he grinned, “this should be the example of what the starfighters
should
look like, but reality may differ.”

The truth was that he’d gone over his ship with his Flight Engineer the previous day, and if it wasn’t a perfect example, something very strange was going on.

As if the universe was listening to him, the lights in that corner of the flight deck promptly went out. That was, while not impossible, extremely unlikely to happen by accident.

“Hold position!” he snapped. “Hammond, what’s going on?”

He flipped a check command into the net as he was speaking, and saw that the lights had been turned off. A blink and a thought, and the lights came back up – only to go down again as someone slammed an override command into the net.

The deck was filled with flickering light and shadow as he pushed the rest of the lights to maximum and he and Hammond charged forward.

There
.

The shadows were moving. There were people there, using the shadows to hide as they tried to disappear from his deck. As he spotted them,
all
of the deck lights went down.

That
definitely
couldn’t happen by accident, and worse, Michael was now locked out of the lights for his own flight deck.

“What the
fuck
?!” the Chief exclaimed.

Before Hammond had even finished swearing, Michael had gone for a different option – and the running lights on two hundred and forty starfighters lit up simultaneously.

Designed to be visible from hundreds of kilometers away in deep space, the deck was
brighter
with those running lights than with its regular lighting. With everything finally clear, Michael caught a glimpse of a figure disappearing into a side access door, and another figure turning back towards them.

“Stop!” Michael bellowed. “Stand the Void down!”

He had a moment to process what he was seeing as the ship-suited figure drew a weapon – and fired!

The first bullet whipped past his shoulder, shattering against the hull of one of the starfighters, and Michael froze. He was a
starfighter pilot
, not a Marine!

The second bullet sent his tech team scattering and Michael diving for cover, dropping behind one of the many robotic vehicles used for transporting munitions across the deck – this one thankfully without a cargo.

A third and fourth shot fragmented against his cover, and then a loud thud and an exchange of cursing began. That was when Michael realized that
Hammond
had kept going.

Finally shocked into motion, the CAG jumped over his cover to find the Master Chief struggling with the gunman. The gun fired twice and Hammond jerked as the bullets sank home, but then the gun was sliding across the floor.

The assailant went for a knife, but the big Chief got his hands on the other man’s head and there was a sick snapping noise. The knife slid to the ground from boneless hands, and the gunman followed it.

“Dammit!” Michael swore. He activated his implant com as he ran to his Deck Chief’s side. “Emergency Medical Team to the flight deck, by fighter SFG-One Actual. We have gunfire and men down. Emergency Medical to the flight deck!”

“Your fighter, sir,” Hammond told him, pressing his arm over his chest to help his shipsuit exert pressure on the wounds. “They were in your ship.”

“Dammit Marshall, let’s worry about that after you’re okay,” Michael snapped.

“Fuck you sir – I’ll live, but you make
damned
sure nobody touches that fighter without a forensics…” The Chief’s words were lost in a fit of coughing, some of which came up bloody.

“You heard the Chief,” Michael snarled at the techs. “Lock down my bird. Simpson, Aramir – draw arms from the Flight Control weapons locker. You’re on guard until the Ship’s Marshal gets here.”

He knelt next to the Master Chief and prayed that the Stars would bring the Medical Team
fast
.

#

Captain Roberts and Commander Solace joined Michael on the deck shortly after the Medical Team arrived. Both stood back while the medics did a quick and dirty patch job on Hammond’s wound, then slipped him onto a stretcher for movement to the Main Infirmary.

Once Hammond and the tech who’d taken a flesh wound from the ricochets had been carried away towards medical attention,
Avalon’s
other two senior officers approached Michael.

“What happened?” the Captain asked simply. Glancing around the deck, still lit by starfighter running lights, he added: “Where are the lights?”

“Give me a second,” Michael replied. Now that he’d done everything he could for Hammond, he could return his attention to the lights. Whatever override code had been used had been de-activated, and he managed to bring up the deck lights again. A moment later, he shut down the running lights on the fighters, and fully focused his gaze on Roberts.

“We were doing a midnight inspection,” he explained quietly. “Starting with my fighter as an example – but the lights went crazy when we approached the bird. I tried to keep them on, but whoever was screwing with me had an override code that shut
me
down on
my own Void-cursed flight deck
.”

“Commander?” Roberts said questioningly, glancing over at Solace.

“There’s no record, sir,” she replied, surprise leaking through even
her
self-control. “I can see where the Vice Commodore was locked out. I can see the commands – but there’s no user record, and there’s no record of the code.”

“That shouldn’t be possible,” the Captain replied, his own eyes distracted as he accessed the files himself.

Michael followed suit, and since he hadn’t lost the starfighter pilot’s bandwidth, he confirmed before the Captain finished.

“But it’s true nonetheless,” he said softly. “Sir, we have a dead tech – one of
mine
– who was armed with a weapon with no serial number.”

They’d identified Specialist First Class Oscar O’Madden by the time the medics had arrived. He’d also, unfortunately, been very dead by the time the medics arrived. Spinal injuries were still deadly in the twenty-eighth century.

“Not from our armory then,” Roberts observed, glancing up as the Ship’s Marshal, Lieutenant Major Sirvard Barsamian entered the deck – followed by both her forensics team and a full platoon of Marines, led by Peng Wa herself.

“I see we’re waking everybody up,” Michael observed as he spotted the Gunny. It was a relief to see her – he knew the Captain trusted her completely, which meant she was a point of safety in a night that was getting very, very, scary.

“Someone
shot
Master Chief Hammond,” Commander Solace observed before the Captain could speak. “And the camera records are also gone, so the only evidence we have is your people’s vague impression of a disappearing person, and whatever was left in that starfighter.” She pointed at his ship as Michael gaped at her.

“The cameras missed it?” he demanded.

“No, the cameras were shut down by an invisible override code, the same as the lights,” the XO told him grimly. “Major Barsamian,” she greeted the dark-eyed young woman leading the Marines. “I think this is now your area.”

“Indeed,” she observed calmly. “The combat area clearly was contaminated to allow medical rescue. We can work with that,” she stated, “but if everyone would please move away from the immediate area, I would appreciate it.”

Michael and the other senior officers got her hint and started shuffling everyone else away from the corner of the flight deck where everything had gone to Starless Void.

“Has anyone entered the starfighter?” she asked Michael as the space began to clear for her people to work.

“Simpson and Aramir have been guarding the door since this all went down, and I’ve locked it down to my implant codes,” he told her.

“Please open it up for my forensics team,” Barsamian replied. “Everything here is now being recorded by lapel-cams. Nothing is going to happen without record – and we
will
find out what happened.”

The last few hours had passed without sleep for Kyle and his senior officers. They’d pulled Tobin and Sanchez in at the end, and now the five of them were sprawled around his break-out room in various stages of exhaustion and concern as Barsamian, looking completely unbothered by her midnight wake-up, faced them calmly.

“Firstly,” Kyle told everyone as he glanced around the room, “I’ve heard from Surgeon-Commander Cunningham. It was touch and go for a while, but it looks like Hammond will live. He is going to require significant internal reconstruction, and Cunningham’s recommendation is that we transfer him to a base or groundside facility as soon as possible. The procedure will take months.

“Sorry, Michael, but it looks like you’re out your Deck Chief – but he’ll live.”

“Stars know that’s a trade I’m perfectly happy to make,” the CAG replied, his eyes bloodshot and weary after the shock of the night’s events.

“I think we can all agree on that,” Solace chimed in. As usual, Kyle’s XO was perfectly turned out, showing barely a tremor from the long night.

“As for why and
what
,” Kyle continued, “I leave that to Lieutenant Major Barsamian.”

Barsamian nodded at his words and faced
Avalon’s
leadership.

“We don’t have a lot to go on,” she admitted. “O’Madden is dead. We are reviewing his movements since coming aboard, but during the most useful period, last night, vast swathes of the ship’s cameras were disabled.

“The reason that no one was able to identify the override code used is that there wasn’t one,” she continued. “All of the apparent ‘overrides’ were actually a remotely directed, self-modifying, eventually self-
deleting
, computer program. A tailored virus, if you will.”

“Is that even
possible
?” Kyle demanded. A virus capable of seriously impacting the ship was a deadly threat.

“Yes, but only for secondary systems like cameras and lights,” the Marshal explained. “The ship’s computers have highly capable defensive routines designed to prevent just this, but to help protect their code their use is restricted to high security systems.

“Similar viruses, I am told, are in the hands of Alliance Special Operations,” she continued. “It is very definitely a tool of espionage, and one that has rendered us entirely unable to identify who O’Madden’s accomplice was.”

“Surely we can identify who came in and out of the blackout zone,” Sanchez objected. “It would at least give us a place to start.”

“The virus shutdown cameras on the entirety of the two decks the flight deck links to,” Barsamian replied calmly. “It also shutdown cameras in randomly selected chunks of the ship, across what could have been seven separate continuous paths. I ran an analysis, Senior Fleet Commander. Of
Avalon’s
six thousand crew members, four thousand, seven hundred, and eighty five could have been on the flight deck during the attack without us knowing.”

The petite woman looked around her seniors.

“That number includes everyone in this room,” she finished calmly. “Though, of course, we know for certain where Vice Commodore Stanford was.”

“What about implant downloads?” Tobin asked. The big Vice Admiral sounded strained – fatigue and stress, Kyle presumed.

“We tried to download O’Madden’s. Something – probably another virus – had corrupted his entire in-head storage. We’d require a warrant to force downloads of everyone else on the list,” the Marshal replied. “While issuing said warrant is within the power of both you and Captain Roberts, the Code of Military Justice requires us to restrict said downloads to cases where we have probable cause.