Stellar Fox (Castle Federation Book 2) (8 page)

“Agreed.” The Admiral nodded, his eyes cold as he pulled up Lieutenant Colonel Kai Metzger’s file. “I’ll have my Chief of Staff assemble an all-Captains meeting for the morning. Can you make sure your people are ready to receive them?”

“Of course, sir,” the Captain replied.

“I’d suggest pinning down your JAG officer as well,” Tobin continued. “Section Twenty-Six of the Alliance Treaty of Mutual Defense, Captain. Make sure you know our options. I’m not certain Captain Anders will see things our way.”

Section Twenty-Six of the Alliance Treaty covered the interactions between the codes of military justice of over a dozen star nations, and the circumstances under which officers of one nation could demand charges of an officer of another nation. Disobedience in the face of the enemy was high on that list.

The big Captain nodded his acknowledgement, his face thoughtful.

On the screen behind him, the three remaining Terran warships vanished in bursts of bright blue Cherenkov radiation.

Lord Captain Hendrick Anders, in Kyle’s considered opinion, did not look nearly concerned enough for a man whose subordinates had just completely messed up the defense of an ally’s home system.

The Lord Captain, the grandiose title equivalent to Kyle’s own rank, was a muscular man of medium height with bright blue eyes and short-cropped blond hair clad in a white and gold dress uniform with red shoulder lapels bearing the paired gold planets of his rank. He looked completely calm as he took a seat directly across from Kyle at the conference table.

Kyle did his best to ignore the man, turning his gaze to the other two Captains at the table. Captain Miriam Alstairs was
Cameroon’s
commanding officer. She was a slim woman with graying hair, and was one of the more senior Captains in the Federation Space Navy.

The fact that Alstairs hadn’t been transferred to one of the Federations newest and shiniest warships was a sign she was probably due for a star any day now.

The fourth of Battle Group Seventeen’s COs was Captain Lora Aleppo, a very small, pale-skinned woman with a shaven head who commanded the battleship
Zheng He
.

Vice Admiral Tobin was waiting at the head of the table with his Chief of Staff. That worthy seemed unimpressed with Kyle, though he couldn’t think of anything specific he’d done to upset her. He could, at least, follow Tobin’s hesitancy towards an inexperienced Flag Captain.

Anders was the last to take his seat, and the moment he did, a holographic image appeared in the middle of the room, hovering above the twelve-foot long black wood conference table.

Everyone in the room was provided a ringside seat to a perfectly detailed visual of the two
Commandant
-class carriers – and then, moments later, to the video of them exploding as that last pair of missiles struck home.

“So this was a fucking disaster,” Tobin said bluntly into the silence as the image faded. “Would anyone care to explain to me just what the hell happened?”

“The inevitable consequence of deploying the battle group before it had been properly organized,” Lord Captain Anders said calmly and precisely. “Confusion ensued, aggravated by an under-qualified senior officer. While unfortunate, the results were to be expected.”

The room was silent. Kyle wasn’t sure if everyone
else
was staring at Anders in horror, but he certainly was.

“I’m sorry, Lord Captain,” he said slowly. “Are you saying that this was somehow Vice Commodore Stanford’s fault?”

“Of course, with his lack of experience it was all too easy for an experienced officer to be confused as to why an obviously unqualified individual was attempting to give orders,” Anders replied. “Given the uncertainty, Lieutenant Colonel Metzger utilized his best judgment as to what the correct priorities were. If Vice Commodore Stanford had supported his more experienced juniors, none of the Commonwealth ships would have escaped.”

“Vice Commodore Stanford has been in uniform since Kai Metzger was in
high school
, Captain,” Kyle said bluntly. “He has, last time I checked, vastly more combat experience – especially seeing as how last night was Colonel Metzger’s first actual combat experience.

“Are you seriously sitting here, telling me that your officer did not fuck up? Thanks to Metzger, sixteen of your people are dead, a hundred and seventeen yard workers are dead, and we’ve lost two entire
carriers
.

“Section Twelve of the Alliance Treaty clearly states that in the case of any lack of clarity around command, the senior officer on the scene takes command,” Kyle continued. “Even if Metzger was somehow confused, his computers were perfectly capable of informing him that Vice Commodore Stanford was the senior officer.

“In short, Lord Captain, your Colonel is guilty of disobedience in the face of the enemy,” the big captain said flatly. Somehow, he managed to
not
yell or swear at the Imperial man, but he knew he was leaning forward, his bulk looming over the other man.

“That is
my
judgment to make,” Anders snapped. “Look to your own house, Captain Roberts – the Federation seems to be making a habit of over-promoting its officers.”

Kyle noted that Tobin seemed to be staying out of the argument, leaning back and watching with unreadable eyes. Aleppo was leaning back, clearly staying
out
of a fight that wasn’t hers. Alstairs was fuming, but she made a small ‘go ahead’ gesture towards Kyle, leaving the Imperial Captain to his tender mercies.

He smiled coldly.

“Did you
miss
the video the Admiral played at the start of this meeting?” he asked Anders conversationally. “Your Colonel’s actions directly resulted in the destruction of more firepower than many systems ever command. While you have the right to choose how he is disciplined, you do
not
have the authority to cover this kind of action up.”

Anders lunged to his feet, the smaller man trying to make up some of the height difference between him and Kyle.

“I will
not
be lectured by an unqualified
boy
,” he snarled. “I am Metzger’s Captain, and I fully agree with his decision – in the absence of a qualified commander, he had as much right to choose his own targets as any senior officer.”

Kyle slammed his palm down on the table. The crack echoed through the room, and the table itself shivered, several fine fracture lines rippling out from the impact point as Kyle glared at the Captain.

“This is my ship, Hendrick Anders,” he ground out. “Sit. The fuck. Down.”

For a seemingly eternal moment, the Imperial man met his gaze. Kyle didn’t rise, didn’t twitch, but he stared the other man down coldly. Finally, Anders sat.

“It seems I have been insufficiently clear,” Kyle continued, still holding Anders’ gaze. “If you do not prosecute Lieutenant Colonel Metzger, I will resort to the full powers available to me under Section Twenty-Six of the Alliance Treaty, and
I will make you shoot him
.”

Avalon’s
Captain smiled coldly at his fellow officer.

“Discipline your damned dogs, Captain, or I will make you put them down.”

The staredown resumed in silence, and for a few moments Kyle suspected he may have gone a few steps too far.

Then, Anders slowly bowed his head.

“I will make certain that the Lieutenant Colonel understands the full scope of his dishonor,” the Imperial captain stated simply.

“Thank you, Lord Captain,” Tobin said, someone
finally
stepping in now the immediate confrontation was over. “Now that… matter of protocol is resolved, I suggest we take a short break. I understand Captain Roberts’ people have put on a light brunch, and I think we could all use a chance to let moods cool.”

#

Watching his Captains file back in, Vice Admiral Dimitri Tobin smothered the grin he’d indulged in while they’d been out. Anders and Roberts were carefully giving each other a berth as they returned, but the confrontation between them had gone about as well as he could have hoped.

Roberts’
courage
had never been in doubt – this was, after all, the captain who’d intentionally set a ramming course at Tranquility. Tobin wasn’t sure if the man had actually intended to follow through – the Commonwealth ship had surrendered before it had got that far – but no one thought he lacked for courage.

Courage in battle, though, was very different than having a backbone interacting with other officers, especially an officer absolutely determined to protect a subordinate who’d made a bad mistake. Roberts appeared to have that as well.

His experience was still a concern for the Admiral, but Tobin’s Flag Captain was starting to look more promising than he’d expected.

“All right,” Tobin said as they all re-took their seats. “So last night’s incident has increased Alliance High Command’s concern level over the security of many of our systems. That was a deep strike, gentlemen – deeper than the Commonwealth ever launched in the last war.

“Walkingstick knows he can’t risk a head-on assault on Castle or another central system, but he is clearly willing to push the edge of what’s
safe
in the interests of cutting down our starship strength. He can afford to trade us ship for ship, and he’d come out ahead in the end. When he can trade us four for one, he’s giggling all the way back to Earth.”

Tobin grimaced and brought up the pictographic report he’d extorted out of Command the previous night. The graph showed a series of stylized stars with names and dates attached. Under each was a set of ships – one with multiple colors, different for each Allied nation, and one colored bright red for the Commonwealth.

“These are our losses in each system since the war began, matched against Commonwealth losses in each action,” he told his people. “Looking at it on this scale makes the issue clear, doesn’t it?” he asked.

Silence was his answer as the two men and three women in the room took in the chart. The initial exchange had been roughly even, though the Commonwealth losses had been disproportionately at Tranquility and Midori.

Since then, there had been no major actions, but the Commonwealth had initiated a series of small actions, single task groups hitting lightly or moderately defended systems. They hadn’t brought along transports or made any attempt to take control of anywhere, but they’d been inflicting heavy ship losses.

In over a dozen minor actions, including the previous night, the Alliance had lost twenty-two capital ships – and only taken out nine Commonwealth ships along the way.

“For those of you who weren’t cleared for this,” Tobin said quietly, “the current judgment of Alliance High Command is that we are losing this war.”

With a mental command to his implant, he cleared the graph and dropped a three-dimensional hologram of a ship into the middle of the conference table.

“This is part of the Alliance’s answer to our problem,” he continued. “Designed roughly a year ago as part of a joint Imperium-Federation research project code-named Plowshare, this is the
Gallant
-class heavy gunship.”

The ship was a saucer shape, maybe twenty-five meters thick and a hundred and twenty across. Parts of it were highlighted as he continued to speak.

“It’s built around a single big gun – like the old
Avalon
,” he nodded towards Captain Roberts, “the original weapons fit was born out of trying to find a use for the megaton-range lances built for the
Titans
before we discontinued our battleship programs.”

Originally authorized to be a new class of twelve battleships, the
Titan
-class had been short-stopped by the Federation Assembly after only two were built. The Navy had received funds for ten battlecruisers and two carriers in exchange, though, so no one had complained too loudly. They had, however, ended up with a stockpile of battleship-grade positron lances they had no use for.

Clever people had found uses for them.

“The
Gallants
aren’t starships,” he explained. “They’re sublight guardships: two hundred thousand tons apiece, with one big and six small guns, backed by two capital ship missile launchers. And thanks to the some not-so-subtle bloody shirt waving when the design was finished, the facilities to
mass produce
them were completed six months ago.

“They cost half again as much as the same mass of starfighters, but can be crewed by retrained in-system spacers,” he concluded. “Between facilities in Castle and Coraline, the Alliance has eighty-seven of these nasty little buggers ready to go, and they’re all being staged through Castle.

“To help reinforce our allies, the Federation has also gathered every
Cobra
that’s been pulled out of Home Fleet’s carriers and the other core systems – roughly a thousand starfighters – and thrown them on the same transports, along with more missile launcher satellites than I thought we
had
.”

With a wave of his hand and a mental command, he switched the screen from the schematic of the
Gallants
to a floating image of six spherical freighters, each exactly five hundred meters in diameter.

“Given yesterday’s stunt by Walkingstick, High Command took a look at the convoy forming in Castle orbit this morning and had a collective panic attack over its lack of security,” Tobin noted dryly. “These six ships contain the defenses intended to cover three star systems against an attack like today's. For anyone wondering, that means those freighters and their cargo are worth, roughly, a third of
Castle’s
Gross System Product.”

“I take it we’re being assigned as their escort?” Roberts asked, the big Captain the first to break the silence as everyone regarded the six heavily laden starships.