25

Kyle held his steaming cup of coffee carefully, warming his hands as he watched his and Tobin’s senior officers enter the briefing room. It was early in the ship’s day, but with barely forty-five minutes until they emerged in KG-779, anyone with complaints was keeping them to themselves.

Once Wong and Anderson trickled in, the last of the ten senior officers aboard the ship to arrive, Kyle rose to get their attention.

“If everyone has their caffeine of choice to wake up, we can begin,” he said crisply. “We’re coming up the KG-779 system. If we’re lucky, we’ll find Triumphant somewhere in system where we can intercept her.

“Unfortunately,” he warned the others, “the likely situation is that the Commonwealth is only using KG as a waypoint. It is possible that Triumphant has already left, and even if she is still in the system, she’s likely to be far enough out that she can initiate Alcubierre before we can bring her to into weapons range.

“While catching Triumphant would be preferable, our objective is to find where she went from here,” Kyle concluded. “We will not be able to sustain the same acceleration advantage that has brought us here so soon after Triumphant going forward. Commander Wong’s assessment,” he nodded to his engineer, “is that we can safely sustain one point zero five light years per days squared. A five percent edge adds up fast – but a ten percent edge added up faster.

“We will be deploying Q-Com equipped probes as soon as we enter the system, and if necessary, I intend to self-destruct those Q-probes rather than retrieving them,” Kyle concluded. “I do not intend to remain in KG-779 any longer than we have to.”

He looked around the room.

“Any questions?”

When no one responded, he nodded to Tobin’s Intelligence Officer. “Intelligence has, as usual, cut things down to the wire. Commander Snapes received an update on Triumphant less than an hour ago. If you could update us, Commander?”

The Lieutenant Commander, a tall and slim woman with jet-black hair and Asiatic eyes, stood and activated the hologram in the middle of the conference table.

“While we keep at least some information on file on all Commonwealth ships, Triumphant wasn’t deployed anywhere near us six months ago,” she told everyone. “Central Intelligence had to dig deep into their archives, and see what data they could beg, borrow, or steal from our allies.

“In the end, we identified Captain Jonah Richardson as the commanding officer of Triumphant.”

An image appeared in the middle of the table. Richardson was a pudgy man of just below average height, with thinning and faded brown hair. In his Commonwealth Navy file photo, he had a mildly bemused expression.

He looked like somebody’s favorite uncle, not a mass-murdering lunatic.

“Captain Richardson was promoted to O-6 five months ago, and given command of Triumphant when she was transferred to the Rimward Marches,” Snapes continued. “For those who aren’t up to date with Commonwealth policy, they assign starship commands to O-6s instead of the O-7 most Alliance navies feel is necessary.”

Kyle, for all that he had the same title as Captain Richardson, actually outranked the man. The Federation had long ago felt that the scale of a starship’s independence, firepower, and crew numbers meant that the ship needed a senior officer with an experience level older navies would have required of their most junior flag officers.

“Richardson has served in their Navy for fifteen years,” Snapes continued. “His last duty prior to command of Triumphant was commanding a guardship squadron at the New Krishna Navy Base. While on assignment there, he picked up no less than three reprimands for the use of excessive force to keep civilians away from the Navy Base.”

“Before anyone leaps to conclusions, by Commonwealth standards that basically means he fired a warning shot,” Tobin pointed out. “At least in their own territory, they’re damned careful of their force levels.”

“Indeed,” Snapes allowed. “The most important detail of his service at New Krishna for our purposes, however, is that is where he met his wife.”

Kyle had a sudden sinking feeling as he realized where this was going, and the Intel Officer nodded as she saw the officers catching the hint.

“He and Commander Janet Richardson were married a little less than a year ago,” she said quietly. “Commander Richardson was the Executive Officer of the battleship Saint Christopher, which was destroyed at Kematian. At the last information from Kematian authorities, we have definitely identified all officers retrieved from the escape pods.

“Commander Richardson was not one of them. She died with her ship.”

“That justifies nothing,” Tobin snapped, the Admiral then looking somewhat abashedly around the room.

“No-one is saying it does, sir,” Kyle said gently. “But understanding what drove our enemy to this kind of vicious stupidity helps us catch him.”

“Agreed,” Snapes replied. “My guess is that what we saw in Kematian was the result of a moment of bloodlust, revenge, and mob mentality on the bridge of a modern warship.

“Our reports are that Walkingstick has been apprised of what happened by the transport captains. It is extraordinarily unlikely that he will let this stand.”

“I have no intention of trusting Walkingstick to handle justice for Kematian,” Tobin said grimly. “We’ll burn this Richardson before he makes it home.”

“We need to be prepared for Richardson to react in ways we might not regard as rational, sir,” Snapes told the Admiral. “We can all-but-assume he had some form of psychotic break – and his crew went along with him.

“This is a man who has already demonstrated a willingness to commit mass murder, with a crew that has already followed him into the worst crime they could commit.

“What is that man going to do when we call on him to surrender?” she asked softly. “Hell, what is he going to do if the Commonwealth calls on him to surrender? He’ll know as well as I do that anyone who takes him is going to shoot him.”

“This could get very ugly, very fast,” Solace said softly. “If he decides he can’t go home, and the Alliance is to blame for his wife’s death… Triumphant is a modern battleship. With nothing to lose, they could do a lot of damage before we bring them down.”

“Then let’s make damn sure we bring him down first,” Tobin rumbled. “Starting here, in KG-779.”

“We have full shutdown,” Pendez reported. “Class Ones are on cooldown, all stabilizers are powered down and safed. We have entered the KG-779 system.”

“Thank you,” Kyle told her, studying his implant and the screens around him. They were currently showing the computer’s estimate of where the system’s trio of lonely planets were and not much else.

KG-779 was an old, dying, star. It had one rocky planet too close in to be of use, and two massive gas giants who had, according to the astronomers’ best guess, eaten each other’s moons over the eons.

“Commander Anderson?”

“Passives are pulling in data now,” his Tactical Officer replied. “We’ll have updated details… now.”

The data being fed to his optic nerve by his implant updated, a ripple spreading through the image of the solar system as the computer processed the light it was receiving. As ships appeared, the system tagged each one with the age of the light they were seeing – without Q-probes they were limited to old-fashioned speed of light.

“What are they doing?” he heard Solace ask aloud.

He was wondering the same thing. There were four ships on the screens – Triumphant and the three assault transports she’d been escorting at Kematian. The three transports were together and moving fast. They were already a full light hour into the system and dropping into the gravity well at almost three hundred gravities.

Triumphant was well behind them, still in a region where they could enter Alcubierre Drive if they wanted, but also on a vector that would stop any attempt by the transports to leave.

“If I didn’t know better, and I’m not sure I do right now,” Kyle responded brightly, “I’d say the transports are running from Triumphant, and that Richardson is trying to keep them trapped in the system while keeping his options open.”

“Well, he’s a lot closer to us than the transports are,” Solace pointed out. “They won’t see us for an hour – he’ll see us in ten minutes.”

“Anderson. If we fire now how close will our missiles be when he sees us?”

“Still basically ten light minutes away, sir,” the redheaded officer replied. “To hit him at this range, we’d need an extended ballistic leg – we’re talking multiple hour flight time.” Anderson shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir, but unless they want a fight, there’s no way we can engage them before they jump out.”

“I figured,” Kyle noted. “Commander Pendez, take us after him anyway. Let’s not push the engines though – let’s save our sprint for when we have a chance of catching the bastard.”

The big carrier smoothly set into motion, a soft trembling running through her hull as the mass manipulators offset her acceleration.

“Vector our probes in as close as possible, Commander,” he told Anderson softly. “I want the best sensor data we can get when he goes FTL.”

“On it. We’ve got six Q-probes heading his way at five hundred gravities, and two more dropping in on the transports.”

“Should we be doing something about those, sir?” Solace asked quietly.

“I’d love to,” Kyle acknowledged, “but there’s nobody closer than Kematian, and they’re a little busy. We could force them to surrender with Stanford’s fighters, but then we’d have to fly escort to take them anywhere useful.”

“Which is not happening, Captain, Commander,” Tobin interjected. “Those assault troops are useless without starships to clear their way into a system. I’m more concerned about taking out a modern battleship and avenging Kematian than neutralizing a few dozen thousand troops, when the Commonwealth has literally millions of soldiers to send.”

“He’s right, Commander,” Kyle told her. “The Commonwealth is far more restricted in terms of transport and spaceborne firepower than they are in ground troops. Some of their occupation garrisons are over a million strong. Those transports almost have more strategic value than the thirty thousand troops aboard.”

“Besides, let’s be honest, this whole trip is about revenge, not strategy,” the Admiral pointed out. “Our job is to blow Triumphant to hell and make it damned clear no one gets away with what they did.”

That was enough to silence both the bridge and flag deck for several minutes. Then, finally, Anderson sighed aloud.

“There we go,” he said. “Right on schedule – emergence plus twenty minutes.”

A moment later, Kyle saw what his officer had seen. Triumphant had – roughly ten minutes ago now – rotated in space and set course outwards at two hundred plus gravities.

“How close do our probes need to be for us to nail down his escape vector?”

“We either need a probe within two light minute for an exact reading, or three at least a light minute apart from each other to triangulate,” Anderson told him. “Close or wide – we need another thirty minutes for wide – or almost two hours to get a probe close enough.”

“You’ve got Q-probes going for both?”

“Of course,” the Tactical Officer sounded almost offended, which Kyle gave him. He was micro-managing.

Seconds ticked away as Kyle watched Triumphant on the display. The battleship was flying directly away from them, which wasn’t going to take them anywhere. It was almost as if they weren’t quite sure where to go.

“He’s running scared,” Avalon’s Captain said quietly. “No idea where to go.”

“Ten more minutes,” Anderson replied. “I hope he stays…”

“Damn,” Solace cursed, interrupting the junior officer. “There he goes.”

On the screen, Triumphant’s crew had made up their mind where they were going. Her headlong flight from Avalon stopped as she rotated in space. A moment later, she vanished in a bright blue blast of Cherenkov radiation.

“Anderson?” Kyle asked softly.

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