Hero's Return, page 13
Aiden was pretty certain there was only one reason the leader of the Human Confederation, the United Federation of Planets’ foreign minister, and the UFP’s fleet commander would all suddenly appear in the Pegasus System.
They found Hazard.
Aiden couldn’t get rid of the thought. And even though she knew that hoping her friend was still alive was silly, she held out hope. Why not? Hope had carried her through her own hardships. When she’d lost both legs after the Tarrant System Battle, that was what had helped her get out of bed and keep going.
Well, hope and Hazard King.
Hazard had taken her on, prosthetic legs and all, and made her part of his staff. Then he’d appointed her Constellation’s first captain. At the time, Aiden hadn’t known that Hazard was also Crown Prince Henry. That didn’t come till later. But it hadn’t mattered to her who he was. To Aiden, he had been her friend.
Not was my friend—is my friend. He’s alive. I can feel it, Aiden thought as she continued to pace.
Safe inside Federation space, the supply dreadnought convoy no longer needed an escort, so Aiden ordered her flagship, the missile dreadnought Revenge, to head for Earth.
“Damn you, Julie,” Aiden mumbled. “Our comms are secure enough for you to message me what’s going on.”
But all she could get out of her friend and boss was an order to rendezvous with the Connie. So, Revenge was tearing across the Sol System on a least-time course, burning fuel as if it was water, but Aiden didn’t care. She needed to know the truth. Needed to validate her feelings.
She glanced at the chronometer mounted on the cabin’s wall.
Sixteen more hours. Damn you, Julie.
* * *
Sol System
United Federation Space
Empire Date: Feb 1049
“Is he really alive?”
Aiden stood, staring at her friend lying inside the stasis chamber. She couldn’t believe the broken body inside the pod was alive.
“Most definitely,” the doctor standing next to her stated with assurance, “and I intend to keep him that way.”
Julie had introduced the man as Commander Keefer Solinger, Constellation’s chief medical officer, or CMO.
“We gave him the first booster injection of nanites yesterday, and we’re already seeing them working on repairing his majesty.”
“I don’t understand what that means.” Aiden turned to look at the fleet doctor. “Nanites? Repair?”
“Well—” the doctor began, but Julie cut him off.
“I’ll explain it to you later,” the Federation president explained.
Julie looked around the room full of attendants and other medical personnel and leaned close to Aiden. “It’s an imperial secret,” she whispered. “I’ll tell you in private.”
“Let’s get out of these people’s hair,” Julie said in a normal voice, and motioned for Aiden to follow her.
Aiden allowed Julie to lead her out of the sickbay. She began to ask more questions, but her friend shook her head.
“My suite.”
Aiden nodded, and the two continued in silence. Fortunately for her curiosity, Constellation’s primary medical center was in the center of the ship, not far from the VIP suites.
When they entered Julie’s suite, she headed straight for the small bar her steward had set up, poured each of them a drink, and handed one to her friend.
“It’s a little early in the day, but I think we both need this.”
Aiden accepted the offered drink.
“To absent friends and those who’ve returned,” Julie toasted.
“To Hazard,” Aiden responded, “whom I never expected to see in this life again.”
Locking eyes, both women threw back the whiskey.
Aiden smacked her lips. “Aw, the good stuff. This must be important.”
Julie smirked. “You wouldn’t know the difference.”
“What’s going on? What’s all this about nanites and repairing Hazard?”
Julie motioned her friend to one of the suite’s armchairs, then took another one facing it, and launched into the explanation. She gave Aiden the condensed version of the story.
“Bottom line, Hazard was as close to death as someone can be. They managed to get him into the pod, and it froze him in that condition.”
“They?”
“Phil and Mike.”
“What about…?” Aiden began but stopped when Julie shook her head.
“They sacrificed themselves to make sure Hazard survived.”
“Damn,” Aiden whispered. “I didn’t know Phil all that well, but—I’m going to miss that gruff old Scotsman.”
“Yeah,” was all Julie could get out. She didn’t trust herself to say anything more.
The two sat in silence for several minutes, each dealing with the loss of friends.
“What’s next, then?” Aiden asked.
“Well, first, I think another drink,” Julie said as she rose. She took Aiden’s glass, went back to the bar, and splashed more scotch into each tumbler. Handing the whiskey to Aiden, Julie slumped back down into her armchair.
“What’s next? Getting Hazard back to Britannia is at the top of that list.”
“You going to send him back on the Connie?”
Julie’s eyes roamed around the suite. “You know, I was never really a part of the space fighter community like you and Dorothy. So, I’m not as attached to her or her sisters as the two of you. But I am going to miss her.”
“You’re still going to give her back, then?” Aiden asked. “I can think of a hundred reasons to keep her.”
“And I can come up with just as many to give her back. You saw the reaction to me giving away Imperial ships to the Federation. Taking control of one of the fleet’s premier warships would make a dangerous situation even worse. Hell, Aiden, you had to fight your way into the Empire to execute your last mission.”
Before either could continue, Julie’s communications tablet buzzed.
“It’s Dorothy,” Julie informed Aiden as she accepted the call.
“What’s up?” she answered the call, placed the pad on the coffee table, and activated the speaker function. “Aiden is with me, and I’ve got you on speaker.”
“That’s probably for the best,” Dorothy’s voice echoed out of the tablet. “A courier just arrived from the Britannia System carrying an eyes-only message for you, Julie. It’s from the empress regent.”
“Any clues about what’s going on?” Aiden asked.
“Welcome back, girl,” Dorothy responded. “Not really, but the courier had a message for you, as well. The sender’s identity might be a clue, though.”
“Who sent it?” Aiden asked.
“Grand Admiral Thomas O’Riley.”
Julie, who’d been relaxed in the armchair, went rigid. “I believe things have gone from bad to worse within the Empire. Dot, get your ass over to my cabin. There are things the three of us need to discuss.”
* * *
“Everything happened after I left Britannia to return here,” Aiden said twenty minutes later. The three women had just finished listening to Hiroko and Thomas O’Riley’s messages.
“You didn’t hear anything on the grapevine before you left?” Dorothy asked.
The only people who gossiped more than old women were fleet officers. For generations, groups of officers of all ranks had established and used communication channels they had created inside the fleet net to pass on that gossip. It had started innocently enough. All the destroyer captains, for example, would exchange information about issues. That evolved from an information exchange network to a gossip and bitching one.
Aiden shook her head. “Like all of us typically do, I logged into several networks to see what was up when I got back to the Home System with the personnel convoy, only to find that someone had locked me out of every single group. When I reached out to friends via personal message, they told me HQ had labeled me as an outsider and scrubbed me from every network. And not just me. They did it to anyone who ‘went over to the Federation.’”
“I knew things were bad,” Julie said as she stood and began to pace. “Hiroko and Thomas both told me things had gone downhill. But outright rebellion within the fleet? That’s nothing I would have ever imagined.”
Julie stopped pacing, turned, and looked at her two friends. “And it’s all my fault.”
“I don’t believe that, and neither should you,” Aiden scolded her friend. “I’ll admit, your return to the capital and the announcement that you helped create the UFP might have lit the fuse, but that fuse and the charge the Imperial Senate laid were in place well before you reached Britannia.”
“You’re correct, of course,” Julie said as she began pacing again.
“I looked up some of the names,” Dorothy said, looking up from her tablet. “We still have a reasonably up-to-date Imperial Fleet database. Most of the captains commanding the dreadnoughts that rebelled were cronies of Winfred Mason.”
“And without looking, I’d guess most of the rest were senior officers Hazard ran out of the fleet when it downsized. The ones who’d advanced by nepotism and influence rather than by accomplishments,” Aiden said.
“Bingo. At least based on the names I recognized,” Dorothy stated. “Remember, I wasn’t part of the dreadnought club. In fact, I was part of the lower-than-low auxiliaries club.”
Lacking influence, Dorothy Evers had been the last officer in her academy class—those who’d survived battle and stayed in the fleet, that is—to be promoted to the rank of captain. But it had been to command not a warship, but the Marine assault transport Lord Lovat. She had been the transport’s captain when Hazard King had ordered it converted into a space fighter carrier.
“What are we going to do?” Aiden asked. “I know both Hiroko and Thomas say they don’t want us to get involved, but…”
“I can’t help but think Hazard can help fix this,” Julie finished Aiden’s statement, “even if he’s not fully recovered.”
“And Connie would be a big help, as well,” Dorothy pointed out.
“So when do I take her and Hazard back?” Aiden asked.
Julie stopped pacing and turned to stare at Dorothy. “You’re not, Aiden. Dorothy will.”
Julie had feared announcing the decision, feared it since she’d first made it during the long trip back to Earth from the Empire. Dorothy was a friend, and she hated demoting and possibly ruining her career, so the young admiral’s response surprised her.
“Thank the Deities. I assume Aiden will replace me as the fleet commander?”
Julie, shocked, could only nod and mumble, “Yes…”
“I understand why you appointed me to the position. I was the senior officer present, and you didn’t have a relationship with any of the other choices. But I was in over my head, Julie. Maybe in a few years—but I’m not ready.”
“Thank you for understanding, Dot. And yes, you’ll get your chance again.”
Julie turned to look at Aiden. “This shouldn’t be a surprise, but effective immediately, you’re the commander of the Federation Fleet.”
“I serve at the pleasure of the Federation Council and its president,” Aiden said, accepting the appointment. Then she continued.
“We can’t send just the Constellation,” Aiden pointed out. “For one thing, she’ll be carrying the emperor.”
“One of two emperors the Empire now has, but that’s a problem for Hiroko and her ministers,” Julie said.
“But since we’re going to turn Connie back over to the Imperial Fleet, the supply dreadnoughts will need an escort for the return trip,” Dorothy pointed out. “And being the former fleet commander, I can tell you that the cupboard is a little bare right now.”
“We can’t send any of the improved Swarm cruisers. That would only fan the flames of the rebellion,” Aiden pointed out. “The optics would be horrible if eight alien ships, superior to most of the Imperial Fleet, arrived in the Home System.”
“Thanks for pointing that out. I hadn’t thought of that,” Julie said. “They would have been perfect for the mission. So, who do we send?”
“Dot,” Aiden looked to her friend, “I just got back.”
The former fleet commander nodded. “I don’t think we can send any missile-armed ships. We just don’t have enough of them. Not with the losses we’ve suffered.”
Aiden tapped commands into the tablet she’d pulled out of a jacket pocket and looked at the disposition of her new fleet.
“We have some unimproved ships that should suffice.”
“The 50th Cruiser Squadron in Sol.” Dorothy nodded.
“And one of the regular destroyer squadrons that towed the second wave of Swarm cruisers to the sector,” Aiden added. “Will that be enough?”
“Along with Connie’s big guns and her fighters, that should be enough,” Julie said.
Dorothy held a hand up in a stop gesture. “She won’t be carrying all her fighters.”
The other two women stared at the young admiral. Aiden asked the obvious question first.
“Why not?”
“Because most of the Marine space fighter pilots want to stay. In my opinion, it would be stupid for us to force them to go back.”
“I would never do that,” Julie said.
“Even if they aren’t as effective in space combat as they once were, the fighters are still a force multiplier for Ant Roberts’ Marine forces in a ground support role,” Aiden stated.
“And we can still use them in anti-piracy roles,” Dorothy added.
“So how many squadrons will Connie take back with her?” Julie asked.
“Four,” Dorothy supplied.
“Only four out of the thirty-two squadrons?” Aiden asked.
“That shouldn’t surprise either of you,” Dot said. “Aiden, you and I were both involved in the initial selection of the pilots. Many of the ones on Connie were part of the initial group. We picked the best shuttle pilots the Corps had at the time, and the Marines only picked their best non-coms to become assault pilots. So, nearly every one of them is a gung-ho mofo.”
“Yeah,” Aiden said with a chuckle. “I can see a lot of them volunteering to stay and do something worthwhile here, where the action is, rather than return to the Empire and fly boring patrol missions.”
“Or worse. Be put out of the service because the fleet doesn’t need them any longer,” Dorothy added.
“Then that will leave the force a little light on firepower,” Julie observed.
“We’ll add the 1st Division of the 3rd Improved Battleship Squadron,” Aiden said. “That will give the force thirty-two railgun tubes for added firepower.”
Julie nodded. “Aiden, you and Dot put it together.”
“It’ll take two weeks to get all the ships together and shuffle around the space-fighter squadrons,” Aiden stated. “How soon do you want the force to leave?”
“We need to find out how long it will take for the supply dreadnoughts to finish unloading. Then they’ll have to load anyone else we didn’t have room for on the first trip who wants to go back to the Empire,” Julie said.
“I’ll find that out,” Aiden said.
“And we need to find out from Doctor Solinger when he’s comfortable with Hazard making the trip,” Julie stated. “I’ll find that out.”
“Sounds like we have a plan,” Dorothy said. “Aiden, why don’t you and I go to my cabin and craft a change of command statement? Then I can turn this circus over to you.”
The two admirals turned to look at their boss, the Federation president.
“Do it.”
* * * * *
Chapter 9: Testing Resolve
Crux System
Empire of Britannia
Empire Date: Feb 1049
“I’m giving you a direct order, Captain,” Berloc Telana stated. The Crux System senator had to work hard to keep the anger out of his voice. “You need to take your ships out and engage the blockade force.”
Captain Gregory Hull, commanding officer of the Imperial dreadnought Fearsome and commander of the 2nd Dreadnought Squadron, stared back, then slowly shook his head.
“That would be a fool’s errand, Senator.”
“But you outnumber that idiot Kong’s force by nearly two to one. More importantly, you outnumber him in capital ships by a factor of five to one.”
Telana had to keep his anger in check as the senior officer of the rebel forces in orbit around the planet Crux laughed.
“You don’t pay any attention to the reports I know cross your desk, do you, Senator? Ever wonder why, when the fleet downsized after the war was over, the fleet decommissioned so many dreadnoughts? Well over a hundred of them, in fact.”
Captain Hull paused. “It was because these magnificent ships are nearly obsolete. The late emperor kept four or five squadrons around because they’re great for showing the flag and impressing star system governments. Emperor Hazard took a single squadron with him when he left on his expedition to Earth. In the very first battle, the Mordorians destroyed three of his dreadnoughts and seriously damaged a fourth. And none of those ships fired a single laser at an enemy ship. The emperor decided they’d be useless in future actions and ordered the grand admiral to stop sending them to him.”
“But—” Telana began, but Hull cut him off.
“You’re going to tell me that Admiral Kong has a squadron of dreadnoughts with him, so they can’t be completely useless,” Hull stated, “but those are missile dreadnoughts, carrying the new hyper missiles. Senator, those warships can stand off well outside the range of my dreadnoughts and pound them to scrap. And if by some miracle some of my ships get close enough to attack, the missile dreadnoughts can open a portal and jump away.”
“In refusing to do anything about the heinous attack on our warships in the Baldor System, the empress regent forfeited her right to lead the empire. My fellow senators and I voted to remove her and install a temporary government. As the head of that government, I order you to take action.”
