Stellar Fox (Castle Federation Book 2) (11 page)

Stanford watched the four
Falcons
of the overnight Carrier Space Patrol make their landings with a practiced eye. All four flight crews had done a good job of reducing velocity before entering the deck, and the carrier’s carefully positioned mass manipulators did the rest of the job of bringing them to a halt.

They floated in the center of the deck, outside the gravity field, for a few seconds before telescoping arms reached out to grab the six thousand ton craft and drag them to their bays. Even as the old ships returned, his implant informed him that the new CSP had been launched from the forward launch tubes.

Avalon’s
relatively paltry commitment to Amaranthe’s defense remained intact. Those four fighters would hold station on the big carrier, watching for anything unusual and adding another set of eyes to the net.

Between the Black Watch’s three carriers and orbital launch platforms, the Watch had almost sixty starfighters in space at any moment. None of the starfighters in the convoy’s freighters were headed here – though his implant was also showing him the engine tests of the
Gallant
the Republic Defense Force had chosen to check out before firing up all thirty.

Once the fighters were down, the deck was quiet. Stanford stood on the edge, watching the limited bustle of necessary maintenance checks and preparations while drinking his coffee. It was quiet enough he spotted the stocky, gray-haired, shape of Master Chief Marshall Hammond approaching him from over a hundred meters away.

The old Chief was well past sixty, and had been in the Castle Federation Space Force for as long as the Force had existed. There was no sign of age or wear to the man as he ably dodged his way down the deck to join the CAG in his quiet corner.

“Ekaterina took a micro-meteorite hit,” he said gruffly. “Nothing serious, but Bravo-Five-Four is down for at least a day while we check it out for hidden damage.”

“Understood,” Michael said quietly. He had no doubt that the starfighter could fly and fight even with a small hole in it –
Falcons
were as tough as the rest of the breed – but there was no reason to risk it in a system as well-defended as Amaranthe.

“Anything else I should know, Marshall?” he asked. He’d learned to rely on his senior NCOs to have a pulse on the officers and men of his starfighter group. Learned it, in fact, from Kyle Roberts before injury had taken away the other man’s ability to fly.

Hammond sighed.

“All the ships are checking out except Bravo-Five-Four. No
more
fights – the flag staff seems to have figured out insulting the Captain where anyone who flew for him can hear them is a dumb idea. Everything seems perfectly ship-shape, boss.”

Michael waited. He recognized the opening sigh,

“There’s rumors,” the Chief finally said. “Nothing I’ve been able to pin down or even find specific people involved, but rumors.”

“Am I going to have to drag this out of you, Chief?” the CAG asked calmly.

“
Rumor
,” he emphasized the word again, “is that the Admiral’s Chief of Staff is sounding out people. Specifically, new people – ones who didn’t serve on the old
Avalon
. Not a morale-check mission, not… anything like I’ve ever heard of.”

“Sounding them out about
what
?” Michael asked. For the Admiral’s staff to be talking to his people without even informing him was concerning, though rumors were hardly enough for him to raise a complaint over it.

“I can’t be certain,” Hammond warned. “But it sounded like she was trying to find people who… were more loyal to the Federation than to the Captain, if you catch my drift, sir.”

Vice Commodore Michael Stanford inhaled sharply, turning to face his senior Non-Commissioned Officer squarely for the first time since they’d started speaking.

“That’s a dangerous accusation, Master Chief,” he told Hammond.

“That’s why I can’t say I’m certain,” the older man said gruffly. “No-one she’s spoken to has come to me – I’m only getting rumors of what other people have seen and overheard. Reading between the lines, sir, I’d say that she’s checking to be sure that our pilots would follow the Admiral’s orders over the Captain’s.”

That, Michael reflected, was at least not outright
mutiny
. It was out of line, but it wasn’t
quite
a crime.

“That’s you giving the benefit of the doubt, isn’t it?” he said aloud.

“Yes, sir.”

“And if you were feeling more cynical?”

“I’d say the Admiral was trying to recruit a starfighter force that would follow his orders
against
the Captain.”

Hammond was surprisingly calm for having announced he suspected the Battle Group’s Commanding Officer of fomenting rebellion aboard his flagship.

“Right,” Michael said quietly. “If you have any appointments for the next few hours, Chief, clear them.”

“Sir?”

“We’re going to see the XO.”

“I can’t prove
anything
, boss,” Hammond warned.

“I know,” Michael admitted. “That’s why we’re going to see the XO, not the Captain.”

The Commander, Air Group in charge of a carrier’s flight group and the Executive Officer in charge of the carrier itself were the two swords of a carrier Captain. They were often the only O-6 ranked officers on the ship, though both
Avalon’s
Chief Engineer and the Admiral’s Chief of Staff shared that distinction aboard
Avalon
.

The CAG and the XO had to work together, which meant that it took less time for Michael to get onto Solace’s schedule for the meeting than it took him and Hammond to travel the full kilometer between where he’d been loitering on the flight deck and her office.

When they arrived, Solace was waiting for them. She’d already laid out coffee – and Michael noted that not only was
his
coffee made exactly as he liked it,
Hammond’s
coffee was as well. He and Solace had spent enough time in each other’s company that she knew his preference, but she would have had to ask someone – or have Belmonte ask someone – to find out Hammond’s choice.

A small thing, but a sign of respect for a senior NCO he found promising.

“Please, both of you, have a seat,” Solace told them. She remained sitting behind her desk, everything about both herself and the room precise and perfectly according to regulation. There was none of the books, datapads, or physical paperwork that Michael knew littered his own office.

“Thank you for seeing us on such short notice,” Michael replied as he took a seat. He took a sip of the coffee before continuing and smiled. The Captain’s stewards always had the best coffee, and the XO clearly had access to their services.

“Master Chief Hammond brought something to my attention that I felt you and I had to discuss,” he continued. “It’s only a rumor, but it’s a rumor of something sufficiently serious…”

“I see,” Solace said calmly. She leaned forward slightly to focus on Hammond. “Would you care to explain, Chief? I understand,” she continued, her voice softer, “that these are only rumors, and I won’t hold you to them.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Hammond responded. He laid out, quickly and precisely, exactly what he’d told Michael earlier.

The XO leaned backwards in her chair, drinking coffee in a somewhat obvious attempt to buy time to think.

“You have no idea who these conversations Sanchez allegedly had were with?” she asked finally.

“No, ma’am,” the Chief admitted. “I can guess who they
weren’t
with – any of the old
Avalon
hands would have told me or the Commodore. But… that’s all.”

“That’s meaningful on its own,” she told the two men. “You were correct to bring this to me, gentlemen,” she continued. “Even rumors of this would need to be acted on if they reached Captain Roberts’ ears.

“I will reach out to the Bosun and the Gunny,” she promised. “If there is more to this than barracks imagination, I imagine Belmonte and Wa have heard things, though likely of even less weight.

“If you can give me a written note detailing what you have heard and been told, Master Chief, I would appreciate it,” she continued. “It will
not
go past my office, you have my word. Kyle needs evidence before he can yank the Admiral’s Chief of Staff up.”

Apparently, when the XO was deep in thought, ‘Captain Roberts’ became ‘Kyle’. Michael filed that note away with a mental smile.

“We’ll keep our ears to the ground and let you know if anything else comes up,” Michael promised. “If nothing else, I’ll quietly lock the starfighters down so that only the Wing Commanders, myself or the Captain can authorize launches.” He shook his head. “If Sanchez co-opts one of the Wings, we’ll have bigger problems than preventing fighter launches.”

“I appreciate that, Commodore,” Solace told him. “I hope this is all paranoia, but I have some idea of what Tobin might be thinking. If I’m right, this is likely to explode at the worst possible time. We can’t let that happen, gentlemen,” she assured them.

Nodding, Michael finished his coffee and stood. “We should get to making sure that lock is in place,” he told her.

“If you would stay a moment, Vice Commodore?” she requested. “I have a somewhat less pressing matter to discuss.”

“Of course,” Michael allowed, gesturing to Hammond to leave.

The Master Chief saluted them both.

“Thank you, sir, ma’am,” he told them quietly. “The rumors were leaving me with an itch I couldn’t scratch. Not sure I’m feeling better, but at least I’ve shared it.”

The NCO slipped out, leaving Michael alone with Solace. She seemed to relax, slightly, with only her equal in the room. Michael wasn’t sure the woman
ever
truly relaxed, there was a stiffness to her he found uncomfortable. She was always professional, always personable, but… never warm.

“What can I help you with, Commander?” he asked.

“You’ve served with Captain Roberts before,” Solace stated. “It… falls to the XO to organize what little recognition of Christmas we allow aboard a warship. Do you know what traditions he favors?”

Michael laughed. That was
not
what he was expecting – he’d almost forgot the holiday was coming up. Like many religious days, it had been absorbed into the Federation’s aggressively secular culture as a main event, despite Christianity’s perennial duel with Reformation Wicca for second-largest religion on Castle.

“I honestly haven’t served with the man at Christmas,” he admitted. “I have no idea.”

“Drat,” Solace replied, the excessively mild curse word shocking another chuckle from Michael. “General Navy Tradition it is, then.”

That meant holographic trees in the mess halls and emergency lights set to red and green throughout the ship, plus turkey as the main course for dinner. Gift exchanges aboard a warship tended to be small and personal, and very separate from the main celebration.

“We’ll be back under A-S then?” Michael asked.

“Yes, we’ll be on our way to Dis shortly, as soon as the Republic’s Defense Forces are comfortable with the
Gallants
and the repair stations we’ve provided,” she confirmed. “Christmas in deep space. I’m getting sadly used to it.”

While Castle’s rotation was close enough to Earth’s twenty-four-hour day that there was little
date
discrepancy between the Earth Standard Meridian Date / Time used aboard starships, Corona City was roughly six hours ahead of Great Britain on Earth.

That meant Kyle was unsurprised to wake up on Christmas morning to a notification on his implant that he had a video message from Castle. Up well before his watch, he took his time cleaning up, noting that the floor level lighting had taken on cheerfully festive shades of green and red.

Once showered and dressed with a fresh cup of coffee, Kyle turned
off
the cheerful lights and made a note to let Solace know that he found that piece of Navy tradition utterly trite. If they were going to decorate the ship, they could pick up real garland on a planet somewhere. The ship might have dozens of kilometers of corridors, but it also had hundreds of often-bored Spacers and Specialists.

Shaking his head at his own wool-gathering, he settled down at his desk with his coffee and flipped the message to his wallscreen. The familiar, though time-fogged, image of Christmas in his mother’s house lit up the screen, with Lisa Kerensky waving at the camera in the foreground.

“Merry Christmas Kyle,” she told him with a grin. “Your mom is taking Jacob out to visit his grandparents for breakfast in a few minutes, they’ll be down in a moment. You can see the aftermath of the gifts behind me.”

She gestured at the strewn chaos of boxes and wrapping paper, the inevitable leftover of centuries of tradition. Sitting in pride of place on
top
of a pile of paper was a massive 1:1000 scale model of the old
Avalon
.

“I’m not even going to
guess
at who bought Jacob the meter-long starship model,” Lisa said repressively. “I think
whoever
it was should realize he didn’t have space in his room for it.”

She heaved a long-suffering sigh, but there was a twinkle in her eye. A moment later, the thundering cavalcade of a single eleven year old boy rushed down the stairs and tackle-hugged her.

“Say Merry Christmas to your father, Jacob,” Lisa instructed.

The redheaded boy, already reaching Lisa’s shoulder and starting to look like he’d equal Kyle’s own height, turned to face the camera with a bright smile.

“Merry Christmas Dad!” he half-shouted. “I got the ship! It’s
soo cool
!”

Kyle smiled helplessly as his son carried on in that vein for half a minute while his own mother came quietly down the stairs. Mrs. Roberts looked as spry and healthy as ever, but her careful steps always sent a twinge of guilt through him. When he’d stepped out of Lisa’s and Jacob’s lives for over a decade, his mother had filled the gap. He hadn’t seen much of
her
either.

“Come now, Jacob,” she finally interrupted. “We need to get to your grandparents. You can tell
them
all about it.”

The video paused, then cut to an emptier home with just Lisa in it.

“I’ll confess I’m glad for the time difference today,” she told him, and her voice was quieter. Almost sad. “I have… good news, I think, but its awkward.

“You remember introducing me to Daniel Kellers?” she asked. He nodded, though he knew she couldn’t see him.

Kyle had convinced Lisa to accompany him to a few affairs where it had been strongly implied he was
not
to show up without a guest. Since his love life had been nonexistent since he’d left her to join the military, he had a shortage of alternatives.

At one party, thrown by the Senator for Tuatha, they’d run into Member of the Federation Assembly Daniel Kellers, a local businessman of his and Lisa’s age. While Kyle had been being shown off by the Senator, Kellers had kept Lisa company.

“We’ve… well, we’ve been seeing each other since then,” Lisa admitted. “He helped me write my application for the position I just got at Corona City Hospital. And, well…” she paused, a smile flitting across her lips.

“It’s pretty serious, Kyle,” she told him. “Not expecting dresses and wedding bells, mind you, but…” She trailed off. “Jacob likes him.”

“I know neither of us really felt there was anything – or
should
be anything – between us now, but I still feel like I’m telling you something you may not want to hear,” Lisa continued. “He’s never going to come between you and Jacob, but he’s good for
me
.”

The video was silent for a long moment.

“I know Christmas is a bad time for this,” she finished, “but I needed to tell you sooner rather than later. If nothing else, to help you get your head back up and realize that
you
should be dating. Michael told me about that Phoenix officer!”

Kyle laughed, and the spell of him staring shocked at the screen was broken. He hadn’t forgotten about the officer who’d propositioned him after his wing had beaten hers in exercises, but he also hadn’t realized Stanford had told
Lisa
about it.

“Write me back when you get a minute, okay?” she asked. “I… well, I need to know you’re okay with this.”

The video ended, and Kyle let the positive bubble from the memory of Sub-Colonel Jenaveve LaCroix carry him for a few moments before letting it fade and considering Lisa’s news. He poked at it mentally, like a sore tooth.

He was a little surprised to find he was okay with it. While any spark between them had faded, if someone had asked him yesterday, he’d have said Lisa dating would have bothered him.

Turned out he’d have been wrong. It… made him feel better.

Christmas Day was generally a day for light duty unless the ship was likely to see action. Since Battle Group Seventeen wasn’t scheduled to arrive in the Dis system until late on the twenty-sixth, Kyle had seen no reason to change that tradition.

He wasn’t surprised that it took until after lunch for Solace to poke her head into his office. Since the ship was in FTL anyway, there was little that was likely to happen to need his attention. Another tradition was that the Captain wasn’t out and about on Christmas – there tended to be a bit more drunkenness than the Commanding Officer wanted to take official notice of.

“Merry Christmas, sir,” Solace greeted him.

“Merry Christmas, Commander Solace,” Kyle replied. “Everything staying quiet?”

“So far so good, sir,” she replied, taking the chair opposite him. “I am specifically
not
aware that there is a large party taking place on the Atrium with punch that is most definitely spiked with engineering’s vodka.”

“Then I shall also remain unaware,” the Captain agreed cheerfully. “Drink, Commander? Since we specifically do not know our crew is getting drunk, I don’t think anyone will begrudge us a beer.”

She shook her heard.

“I don’t drink alcohol, sir,” she reminded him. “Tea?”

Kyle grabbed a beer from the mini-fridge for himself and ran a tea out of the hot beverage dispenser for Solace.

It was a strangely awkward meeting, both of them trying to have the personal conversations normally allowed on Christmas while not really having that connection.

“Any news from home?” he asked as he passed her the tea.

“Cliath is a few hours behind Standard Meridian today,” she told him. “My sister is probably only just now chivvying her kids out of bed.”

Cliath was the capital city of Tuatha, one of the Federation’s main member systems. The planet had a twenty-two and a half hour day, so its alignment with the Earth Standard Meridian Time used on starships shifted.

“Yourself, sir?”

“Got a video from my son and his mother,” Kyle replied. “
Someone
gave the boy a meter-long replica of the old
Avalon
. He’s ecstatic, and his mother is… tolerant.” He shrugged. “She also apparently has a new boyfriend, which she seemed to think she was ‘Dear John’ing me by telling me.”

Solace seemed taken aback.

“Your son’s mother…?”

“We dated in high school and she had an implant glitch resulting in an unplanned pregnancy,” Kyle said quietly. “I ran off and joined the Navy, my mom helped take care of Lisa and Jacob. We’re on good terms, but we’re not
together
. Honestly happy for her – he’s a good man.”

“I didn’t realize you had a son, sir,” Solace admitted. “Your reputation is, well…”

“Chaste?” Kyle observed with a chuckle. “Celibate? Trust me, Commander, it only takes completely messing up one relationship to figure you aren’t cut out for them. Besides, once I started ending up in command, the options got a lot more complicated.”

“I see,” his XO said. She was still stiff. Opening up about his family wasn’t breaking down barriers, and Kyle mentally sighed. At this point, it was up to
her
to sort out her issues – so long as she kept doing her job.

“In any case,” he said, realizing that they would both be more comfortable if he brought the conversation back to work, “I had some thoughts on exercises once we get to Dis…”