Stellar Fox (Castle Federation Book 2) (25 page)

“Captain Paris, I am Vice Admiral Tobin of the Castle Federation Space Navy,” he rumbled. “Your surrender is accepted. My Marines will arrive in just under eighty minutes from your receipt of this message. Understand that any resistance to their arrival or their boarding will be met with maximum force.

“Enough blood has been shed this day,” the big Vice Admiral told the Commonwealth base commander. “Your wisdom in avoiding further loss is noted. Once my Marines are aboard, you will be escorted to
Avalon
where my Captain and I will accept your surrender in person.

“Vice Admiral Tobin, out.”

After almost sixteen hours on the bridge, Kyle couldn’t sit in his command chair anymore. His immobilized shoulder
hurt
, but it hurt somewhat less if he was standing, so he stood behind his chair with his hands carefully clasped across his torso.

He watched as Maria Pendez slowly and carefully brought
Avalon
to a halt, roughly five thousand kilometers from the Commonwealth logistics depot. Eight starfighters – Epsilon Wing’s Third Squadron – made their approach from the depot, angling to land as the carrier continued to retrieve her starfighters.

“Get me Major Norup,” he ordered. The Marines had been on station barely two hours – there was no way they had secured the entire facility yet.

It took a few minutes, but eventually the sallow face of the Marine commander appeared on Kyle’s implant feeds.

“Captain Roberts,” he greeted Kyle. “We’re a little busy down here, so I hope this can be quick.”

“It should be,” Kyle promised. “I need an update on the status of the depot. How long until it’s fully secured?”

“Captain Paris’ people are being co-operative,” Norup noted, “but we are talking almost twenty-five thousand military personnel across eight major and twenty-six minor platforms, plus the repair dock.”

“I’m not asking for miracles, Major, just a timeline.”

Norup shook his head.

“Between twelve and thirty-six hours is the best estimate I can give you, sir,” he said. “I can guarantee we’ll have the command facilities, any remaining defensive weapons, and the dock secured in a maximum of twelve hours.”

“All right, Major,” Kyle allowed. “I’m not going to argue with the professionals. We should be able to expect to take Captain Paris’ surrender aboard
Avalon
by, say, oh eight hundred tomorrow morning?”

That gave the Marines sixteen hours to complete securing all of the systems necessary to control the Commonwealth base. It also meant they could complete the ceremony, return Paris and Norup’s Marines to the base, and be on their way out of the system after
Triumphant
within twenty-four hours.

“We will also need to co-opt at least one platoon to coordinate with local forces on the surface,” Kyle told the Major. “Details are shaky, but we have some communication with the remnants of the Alizon Guard. Commonwealth forces on the surface are being good so far, but we’ll need to mobilize the locals if we’re to detain and secure a fifty thousand strong occupation garrison.”

From the slightly ill expression on Norup’s face, the Marine battalion commander had been focused on securing the depot. While he probably hadn’t forgotten about the five divisions of the Terran Commonwealth Army on the surface of Alizon, they hadn’t been his priority.

“The Guard would be… very helpful with that,” he agreed. “If we can coordinate with them and trust them to avoid retaliatory atrocities.”

“Commonwealth Army occupation garrisons are usually
very
strictly disciplined,” Kyle reminded him. “So far, they’re sounding more ‘get them off our planet’ than ‘kill them all,’ but I want Marines on hand. Just in case.”

“I’ll see to it, Captain,” Norup promised. “Anything else?”

“No. I suspect I’m going to have a doctor ordering me to sleep shortly,” the Captain advised wryly, “but don’t hesitate to reach out if you need anything from us. Commander Solace will be able to assist you if I’m out of communication.”

“Thank you, sir,” Norup said crisply. “We’ll be in touch, sir.”

The channel cut off. Kyle turned to Commander Anderson.

“James, what’s the status of our mass-murdering friend?”

“We got a clean read when she brought up her Alcubierre-Stetson drive, sir,” the tired looking officer replied. “Took us a bit to crunch the numbers, mostly because the destination looks strange. I’m not familiar with the system at all, but it’s in our catalog as Barsoom. Inside Alliance borders, but shows as Commonwealth.”

Kyle was about to start reviewing the information on Barsoom when Surgeon-Commander Cunningham called to give exactly the order he’d been expecting.

“Your brace is sending me all sorts of wonderful medical data, you know,” Cunningham told him dryly. “Which means I can tell that if you
don’t
get your ass either lying down, preferably asleep, or into my clinic, everything I did last night will be for nothing.

“Take a break, Captain. Doctor’s orders.”

Kyle shook his head at the Doctor – technically junior to him, but also the only man on the ship who could give him an order like that.

“I will, Commander,” he promised. He turned to Anderson. “Commander Anderson, get together with Lieutenant Commander Snapes and pull together a briefing on Barsoom. I suspect the Admiral and I will need it.”

“Congratulations on liberating Alizon with only one ship, Admiral Tobin,” Fleet Admiral Meredith Blake told Dimitri. The Federation’s uniformed military commander looked almost cheerful compared to the last few times he’d seen her.

“We missed
Triumphant
,” he admitted. That failure was far more important to him, even if everyone else regarded it as minor. “Liberating Alizon was, well, incidental.”

“And still our first truly offensive victory of the war,” she noted. “Have you made contact with the Alizoni government?”

“Captain Roberts has sent Marines to the surface to interface with the Alizon Guard,” Dimitri told her. “We’re hoping the Guard can put us in touch with whoever is left of the civilian government.”

“Their emergency plans for this circumstance called for the civilian government to disappear into hidden underground bunkers along with the Guard High Command,” Blake advised him. “Hopefully, President Ingolfson is still alive. Very sensible man, very competent.”

“We can hope, ma’am. We have secured the orbitals,” he continued. “My intent is to leave the Marines and a small force of starfighters and Navy personnel to support the Guard in securing the Commonwealth prisoners.

“We will be en route after
Triumphant
inside of twenty-four hours.”

Blake was silent for a moment, a sour expression on his face he recognized as her marshaling the words to say something she knew a subordinate wouldn’t like.

“Admiral, I’ve discussed this with Alliance High Command,” she said quietly. “Don’t get me wrong,
everyone
wants to see Captain Richardson take a long walk out a short airlock, but he’s now unquestionably rogue by Commonwealth standards – and headed into Commonwealth space.

“We know Walkingstick. He’s our enemy, but he’s also an honorable man. He will do everything within his power to bring Richardson to justice, and we can now be certain Richardson will fight him. Walkingstick will lose ships and resources to bring
Triumphant
in.”

She shook her head.

“Even if that wasn’t the case, Dimitri,” she told him gently, “holding Alizon would be more important than revenge. Destroying
Triumphant
won’t bring back the dead, but protecting Alizon and providing the hammer to force the garrison to honor Paris’ surrender will
save
lives.

“I am ordering you to remain in the Alizon system,” Blake finished bluntly. “We have reinforced Kematian and the rest of your Battle Group is now en route to Alizon. They are twelve days away. You will oversee the security of the Alizon system until sufficient defenses can be set up.”

“We cannot allow the devastation of an inhabited world to go unpunished!” Dimitri snapped, anger boiling through him at the thought. “Half a
billion
dead, Meredith! Even if the Commonwealth does punish him, then we show the galaxy we allow our
enemies
to punish crimes against
our
people.”

“There is sentiment and there is practicality, Vice Admiral,” the Federation Chief of Staff snapped. “I will leave half a billion unavenged to guarantee the safety of
three
billion.”

“I do not agree with these orders,” the Vice Admiral grounded out, but Blake simply shook her head.

“You have the privilege as an officer to disagree with your orders,” she said calmly. “You do not have the privilege to disobey.

“Can you obey your orders, Admiral Tobin, or must I relieve you and place the fate of Alizon in Captain Roberts’ capable hands?”

Dimitri swallowed his anger, letting it burn deep within him as he glared at the older, more senior, Admiral. He couldn’t. He couldn’t obey – he physically could
not
let Richardson go. Which left him only one real choice.

“I understand, ma’am,” he lied. “I will make certain Alizon is secure.”

“Thank you, Dimitri,” Blake said quietly. “I know what you’re feeling. But we can’t lose one world trying to avenge another.”

He nodded choppily and killed the connection.

#

There was very little breakable in his office, and it took Dimitri only a few minutes to work through the coffee cups, carafe and glasses scattered around the room. It made very little difference to his mood, and he found himself sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring blankly at the shards of ceramic.

Time and again, Commonwealth officers had gone too far. Logic insisted it was only a handful – less than half a dozen incidents in two wars – but Dimitri Tobin had been present for too many of them. Kematian was only the latest atrocity he’d seen with his own eyes.

The Commonwealth might well punish their own officers. Walkingstick might well take his fleet after
Triumphant
and bring down the battleship, perhaps even take losses the Alliance needed him to take in doing so.

But to leave the punishment of evil to those who enabled it stuck in Dimitri’s throat. The souls of Kematian’s dead didn’t want their justice meted out by the very men whose actions had set their fate into motion.

Perhaps worse, if the Alliance allowed the Commonwealth to police crimes committed in their space, they surrendered a piece of the very sovereignty they fought for. They would lose some of their legitimacy in the eyes of both other governments and their own people.

Vice Admiral Dimitri Tobin could understand every single step in the perfectly logical chain that had brought Alliance High Command to the orders he’d been given. But he could not agree with them. He could not obey them.

As he searched for an answer, he began to clean up the debris of his rage. If he had it all cleaned away before he had anyone in his office, no one would ever know what had happened unless he told them.

He froze, his hands full of shards of glass, as the realization struck him. Carefully, ever-so-carefully, he finished cleaning the sharp pieces of glass and ceramic off the floor and then took a seat at his desk. No one else knew the orders he’d received.

It was still possible to carry out his mission – if he was truly prepared to sacrifice
everything
. Against half a billion murdered innocents, what choice did he have?

“Lieutenant Major Barsamian,” he opened a channel to
Avalon’s
Ship’s Marshal. “Have you made any progress in identifying our spy and assassin?”

The dark-skinned young woman in his implant feed looked up from her desk with tired eyes.

“Not yet, Admiral,” she told him. “We have a lot of data to go over. It may be three or four days before I have enough for it be worthwhile to brief you and Captain Roberts.”

“Major, are you telling me we have
no
idea who this agent is?” he asked. It was the response he’d expected, but he needed to get this on the record.

“Unfortunately, sir, that is exactly what I am telling you,” she replied, her voice sharp.

“Lieutenant Major,” he continued formally, “based on this newest incident, I see no option but to take the ship to Counter Intelligence Level One.”

“Sir, that is Captain Roberts’ decision…”

“Or mine if the risk is to the Battle Group,” he reminded her. She pursed her lips sourly, but he knew he was right. With effectively a single ship ‘Battle Group,’ the line of just what the Admiral aboard could and couldn’t do was very blurry.

“You will take the ship black,” he ordered. “All communications to and from
Avalon
will go through my office, to be approved by my authorization code
only
. This is now a matter of the security of the Federation – and of Alizon.”

“I understand, sir,” Barsamian said quietly, bowing her head. “I will see to it.”

She was true to her word. Less than five minutes later, the lockout appeared on his computer screen, requesting his personal authorization codes to confirm the complete shutdown of Q-Com communication with the rest of the universe.