Stellar Fox (Castle Federation Book 2) (20 page)

“Anderson?” Kyle asked softly.

“They jumped too soon, sir,” the other man admitted. “I don’t have an exact vector.”

“That’s not acceptable, Commander,” Dimitri snapped, staring at the screen showing him the bridge in shock. “We did not chase them this far to lose them now!”

“I didn’t say we’d
lost
them,” Anderson objected. “I said we don’t have an
exact
vector. I’m running the analysis of where they could be headed now.”

Dimitri waited impatiently. They’d been prepared to pursue if
Triumphant
had already left; how long could it take to track them when they’d been
right there
?

“This isn’t good,”
Avalon’s
Tactical Officer finally admitted. “Depending on how far they’re going, the vector gives me twenty-two systems – most in Commonwealth space.”

Opening his mouth to start cursing, the Admiral paused, took a deep breath, and forced himself to count to ten. By the time he was done, Captain Roberts was speaking.

“What I’m hearing is: we need more data,” the Captain said far more cheerfully than Dimitri found believable. “Tell me what you need, James – we are bringing this bastard down.”

“Old light, sir,” Anderson replied instantly. “We need to jump out ahead of the light of their Alcubierre jump and setup a set of widely dispersed probes. It… will take some time.”

“We still have a five percent edge in FTL acceleration on them,” Roberts pointed out, as much to Dimitri as Anderson, the Vice Admiral suspected.

“Better we’re late to the right system and have to chase them again, then we end up a dozen light years or more away from them,” he finally rumbled. “Get on it, Roberts. I
want
these sons of bitches.”

“You and everyone else on this ship, sir,” Roberts replied.

Dimitri grumpily allowed the Captain and his bridge crew to get to work, pulling up Anderson’s data himself.

The Tactical Officer wasn’t wrong on how wide a net they’d cast. With the Q-probes and
Avalon
as distant as they’d been, there was a fifteen degree by fifteen degree cone in which
Triumphant
could have actually jumped to FTL.

Most of that cone was in Commonwealth space. There were systems in the list whose defenses they couldn’t risk taking
Avalon
in against – though those were all weeks and weeks away.

He didn’t like the delay, but Roberts was right. They needed more data. There was no way in Hell he was going to let Richardson get away.

#

“We are launching a new set of Q-probes now,” Anderson announced.

A forty-five minute Alcubierre jump had put
Avalon
two light hours out from
Triumphant’s
exit point. Dimitri watched as another set of four Q-Com equipped probes shot into space.

This set wouldn’t be any more retrievable than the last set, putting the cost of just the self-destructed Q-probes into the hundred million Stellar range. Cheap compared to even a starfighter, the Q-probes still cost more than capital ship missiles.

All four probes shot away from the carrier at five hundred gravities. With an hour and a quarter to get into position, the little robotic ships would give
Avalon
a set of triangulation points over twelve light minutes apart.

Time ticked by slowly. The top shift was on both the bridge and flag deck, and they went about their tasks quietly, despite the ratcheting tension.

Dimitri tried not to grumble openly, though he was certain his ill-concealed impatience wasn’t helping anyone’s tension. He kept reviewing the list of potential systems that Anderson had identified, trying to guess which system Richardson would have fled to.

Even assuming he’d stay inside the operational zone of the fleet fighting against the Alliance, there were still too many options. They needed this data.

His understanding was that, knowing the exact time and place of the
Triumphant’s
entry jump to faster-than-light, this process was now only a question of time. They knew where and when they could pick up the energy signature of the battleship’s Alcubierre-Stetson activation, and they had the drones spread wide enough to triangulate.

The thought of failure, however, was unacceptable. Dimitri Tobin had seen too many atrocities over the years. Justice had been done for most of them, but he was sick at heart from what he’d seen, what the Alliance had lost to the Commonwealth’s determination to unify humanity.

If they didn’t identify the
Triumphant’s
destination, he would take
Avalon
and start sweeping
every
possible system. There was only so far the Commonwealth ship could go, after all.

“We should be picking up their jump signature shortly,” Anderson murmured, loud enough that everyone in both rooms heard him. The tension instantly ratcheted up, with everyone focusing on the sensor displays around them.

“You’re not going to see much, people,” Captain Roberts told his crew with a laugh. “From this far away, it’s a pretty small burst of light.”

Even as he finished speaking, there it was. Dimitri had the section of space it would appear in marked on the display in his implant and it highlighted the flash as it appeared.

Dimitri’s attention focused on Commander James Anderson. Everyone else was looking at the redheaded young man as well, but he was ignoring them all, focusing on both the physical console in front of him and the information running through his implant.

Finally, Anderson leaned back and flashed a bright smile back at Captain Roberts.

“We’ve got them, sir,” he announced. “They’re en route to Alizon. ETA six days, twenty hours.”

“Pendez?” Roberts asked immediately.

Dimitri turned his attention to the Navigator, who was already working through the course.

“If we get underway ASAP,
our
ETA at one point oh five is six days, eighteen hours,” she announced.

“Are we certain they’re headed to Alizon?” Dimitri asked, the risk of losing his prey still top of his mind.

“Changing vector while under A-S drive is functionally impossible, sir,” Pendez replied. “You can change your acceleration, but not your direction.”

“There’s nothing on their direct line for about two hundred light years, and that star is an uninhabited red giant system past the other side of the Commonwealth,” Anderson added. “Alizon’s our system, sir.”

“Snapes,” Dimitri turned to his Intelligence Officer. “What do we know about what the Commonwealth has done since taking Alizon?”

The system was an Alliance member that had fallen in the first wave of attacks Walkingstick had launched. While it had been taken a by a task group of two battleships and two carriers, all of those ships were known to have been at the Battle of Midori.

“Not much, sir,” Snapes admitted. “We know they have an occupation garrison and have moved in a number of orbital platforms. We only have visual on the exterior of the platforms, though, and Intel isn’t sure if they’re fighter bases or just a logistics depot.”

“What about starships?” Roberts asked.

“No idea, sir,” she told him. “Walkingstick has been moving his forces around to keep our intelligence guessing – it’s unlikely Alizon has more than one warship in the system though.”

“A logistics depot and at most a single ship and some starfighters to protect it,”
Avalon’s
Captain murmured. “I think Richardson is playing for time. If the Commonwealth will take him back, it lets him find that out without his risking his ship.”

“And if they won’t, he can take the supplies he’ll need to operate independently by force,” Dimitri concluded. “Captain Roberts?”

Roberts flashed a brightly cheerful smile at his Admiral.

“We’re on our way,” he told Dimitri. “Anderson, blow the Q-probes. Once we’ve confirmed destruction of the probes via lightspeed scanners, you may warp space at your discretion.”

Kyle had read the pages and pages of text, across hundreds of design and engineering articles, in which Castle Federation warship designers justified, excused, and allowed for the green space atrium they insisted on installing on their ships.

It served as a reserve source of oxygen. It added a clean feel to the air that no artificial filters could replicate. It was necessary for the crew’s morale.

Most of these arguments had some degree of truth to them, but he suspect it all boiled down to one key factor those articles carefully didn’t mention: tradition.

The colony ship
Guinevere
that had carried the first colonists on their two-year Alcubierre-Stetson drive voyage to the Castle system had been built around an atrium to keep the colonists sane, so all large ships built by Castle and her daughter systems would have an atrium.

The new
Avalon’s
atrium was smaller than some he’d seen, but was still a forty meter wide, ten meter tall, and hundred meter long green space in the heart of the warship. Most of the maintenance was done by the crew on a volunteer basis, which had never stopped the atrium on any ship he’d served on being perfectly arranged and maintained.

He took a moment to take a deep breath of the air. Surrounded by trees and greenery, there was definitely something fresher about the air in the atrium. He was probably going to need the energy.

Peng had asked to meet him here, near the small, tree-shrouded, shrine tucked away in one corner for the crew’s Stellar Spiritualists. The single largest ‘religion’ both on Castle and in the Federation, despite its lack of formal structure, always had a similar shrine Federation warships.

While the Navy followed a policy of almost always approving requests for space for worship, most of the Federation’s largest religious groups tended to setup shrines in the atriums. The volunteers shaped the trees and greenery to conceal them from the main open areas, but everyone always knew where to find the Spiritualists, the Wiccans, the Christians or the Buddhists. Smaller groups might have spaces as well, but those four were almost always present on a Federation warship.

“Captain,” Wa greeted him, the Master Sergeant materializing out of the bushes with a suddenness that shocked him. “Thank you for coming.”

“What’s this about?” he asked, but she shook her head and gestured for him to follow her.

Hidden behind the trees was a small auditorium, assembled from Navy-issue furniture and a few specific pieces brought in by the Spiritualists themselves. At the center was a slowly rotating hologram of the galaxy, a view onto the stars the Spiritualists venerated. They didn’t, as he understood it,
worship
the stars. They just recognized the stars as both the natural beginning and the natural end of all life.

Kyle didn’t pretend to understand it. What he did recognize was that the dozen non-coms and junior officers waiting in the auditorium had all served aboard the battlecruiser
Thermopylae
.

Waiting at the front was Chief Hammond, in a wheelchair and wrapped in a full-torso medical cast. He nodded slightly to Peng and turned his ever-stolid gaze on his Captain.

“With the com restrictions, there isn’t much reliable news making it through the ship,” he said hoarsely. “But rumors spread regardless, and I guess we needed to hear it from you, Captain.
Thermopylae
… was she lost?”

“I’ll have to talk to the department heads,” Kyle noted, trying to marshal his thoughts and emotions. “News
should
be getting through – especially to the senior NCOs.”

He sighed and took one of the nearest seats. From the expressions around him, they all guessed what he had to say now.

“The Commonwealth raided Midori,” he told them gently. “Another one of Walkingstick’s attritional attacks, though on a larger scale than the rest. The Alliance lost four ships – and yes,
Thermopylae
was one of them.

“There
were
survivors,” he continued. “I will make certain that the list is propagated.” He shook his head.

“I hadn’t considered that impact of the coms restrictions,” Kyle admitted. “I’ll make arrangements – news
will
make it out.”

“It’s an intentional part of Level Two restrictions, boss,” Hammond pointed out. “Information that doesn’t make it onto
Avalon
can’t be betrayed by someone on
Avalon
.”

“I know,” the Captain agreed. “But while we may need delays or to limit information, data that
is
reaching us should be distributed. I’m sorry,” he told them. “I can’t tell you if your friends aboard
Thermopylae
are among the survivors, but I will make sure you can find out as soon as possible.”

“Thank you, sir,” Peng said softly. Her gaze went to the series of candles around the hologram of the galaxy. “We suspected. But with the lives of friends… we wanted to know. We will light a candle for the fallen.”

Kyle bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement. He’d put word in a few ears himself. The Stellar Spiritualists weren’t the only ones with lost friends, and there’d be more than one candle lit once the news spread.

“In short, sir, ma’am, we have completely failed to find any evidence of the spy,” Barsamian reported calmly. The young Lieutenant Major sat at attention in the chair in Solace’s office, and Kyle watched her with some amusement.

The focus of the Major’s attention was
mostly
on him, as the recipient of the report, but her gaze kept drifting to Solace. It was a nervous twitch he normally saw in inexperienced
male
officers… usually dealing with Commander Pendez, who tended to disable young male brains.

“I have to admit,” he said after a moment, focusing his attention on the matter on hand, “that having someone who’s tried to kill both myself and Stanford aboard and not having the slightest clue who they are makes me… twitchy.”

“I’d suggest we could upgrade the security on your quarters, sir, but…” the dark-skinned Ship’s Marshal shrugged. “Your quarters, the Admiral’s, the CAG’s and the XOs are the most secure on the ship. Unless you want me to provide guards on your quarters and a twenty-four-hour MP escort, I’m not sure what else we can do, sir.”

Kyle grimaced. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with the level of distance a Captain required as it was – adding an armed guard to that did
not
sound appealing.

“I doubt we’re likely to see armed assassins in the corridors,” he said mildly. “We’ll pass on the guards for now. Let me know if
anything
breaks, Major.”

“I will, sir. With your permission?”

“Of course, be on your way,” Kyle ordered cheerfully.

With a nod to Kyle and a nod that was almost a slight bow to Solace, the Ship’s Marshal bowed out of Solace’s office.

“I think our young Lieutenant Major has a bit of a crush on you, Commander Solace,” Kyle told his exec with a brilliant grin.

“Wait, what?” Solace demanded, her cheeks flushing. It was a good look on her dark skin, and Kyle’s smile widened.

“Either that, or she thinks you’re the assassin, and it didn’t seem like
that
kind of distracted look,” he pointed out.

The flush was even brighter.

“There’s nothing wrong with a crush,” his XO managed to say levelly, “so long as no violation of the chain of command or anything else inappropriate occurs.”

Kyle laughed aloud. Solace’s responding smile was good to see, and it helped loosen some of the tension that filled the office after Barsamian’s briefing.

“She’s
married
, Mira,” Kyle told her. “Her wife is an accountant on New Bombay, all she’s going to do is look. But she’s definitely looking.”

Solace shook her head repressively at him.

“In less relaxing news, though,” he continued quietly, “I realized we – as in you and I, specifically – missed something when we went to CI Two.”

“Void,” she cursed. “We went through the whole process, sir. What did I miss?”

“I said ‘we,’ Mira,” Kyle pointed out, “and I meant it. As two of our three NCOs pointed out to me today, there’s currently
no
news getting to the crew about anything going on outside
Avalon’s
hull.”

“
Starless
Void,” Solace repeated.

“There is an intentional security factor involved,” he continued, “but we do have an obligation to let our people have some idea what’s going on. Not least,” he concluded sadly, “to let them know about lost ships and fallen friends.”

Solace sighed. That hit her as hard as it had hit him.

“I’m sorry, sir, it didn’t occur to me.”

“It’s my mistake as well, Solace,” Kyle told her. “I’m more concerned about fixing it than laying blame anyways. I want you to sit down with Sanchez and put together a plan for a daily news update to the crew – you and she will review and approve what news we can release considering we may well have a Commonwealth spy on board.”

“Delegating dealing with Sanchez, I see?” his XO pointed out.

“The woman is convinced I was promoted to the level of my incompetence,” he told her. “She’s rather more bitter than I would prefer, and since I have such high-quality minions to fob her off on…”

“If she thinks you’re incompetent, she might be the last one left on the ship,” Solace observed.

“She’s not wrong about my inexperience,” Kyle noted. “If I’d spent longer as an XO, I might have realized we had to do something to keep our people informed when we went dark.”

“I
have
spent longer as an XO,” Solace replied. “I didn’t think of it.

“Don’t worry sir – I’ll deal with it.”

“I’ll consider this one a personal favor, Mira,” he said quietly. “She’s starting to be
very
uncomfortable to work with.”

“Have you raised it with the Admiral?”

“Not yet,” he admitted. “But… if she doesn’t shape up, I will. For now we’re a long way away from a replacement Chief of Staff, so I’ll play nice.

“For now.”