44

By the time Kira’s shuttle was on approach to Deception, the entirety of the intentionally misnamed Seventh Fleet had taken up formation. The two big mercenary ships were at the heart of the fleet, still the largest nova ships available to Redward.

Deception was at the center of the forward echelon, the armored spearpoint that would crush any opposition before them. Baron and Duke, the two new cruisers, were positioned on her flanks—and inside her defensive umbrella.

The two seventy-five-kilocubic cruisers were flawed ships in many ways. So far as Kira understood, none of those flaws affected their immediate combat efficiency, but keeping them shielded by Deception was probably wise.

Beyond the two Baron-class ships were Redward’s older, sixty-kilocubic cruisers, First Crown and Guardian. Combined, the five cruisers presented the closest thing to a true battle line the Syntactic Cluster could muster—one that was respectable even by the standards of the Apollo-Brisingr war.

Following behind the cruisers was the destroyer flotilla. Five Serendipity-class destroyers, Redward’s now second-most modern ships, formed the core of the flotilla, supported by three older RRF ships, Commodore Shang’s three mercenary ships, and Commodore Shinoda’s two Yprian vessels.

Bringing up the rear, intermixed with the logistics detachment to potentially help disguise them, was the carrier fleet. Conviction anchored it, obviously, with Theseus directly behind her. The four new freighter conversions, forty-five kilocubics apiece, formed a rough square around the bigger carriers.

The logistics detachment was a mix of sixty-kilocubic and forty-five-kilocubic ships, the types that had been converted into Theseus and the Flame-class carriers respectively.

Twenty-three warships and ten freighters. It wasn’t much of a fleet to hang the fate of sixteen inhabited systems on, but it was what Redward had—and it was, by any metric Kira could apply, truly a fleet.

“We’re on final approach, sir,” the pilot reported. “Commander Tamboli has provided clearance.”

Given that the Commodore, the Captain, the executive officer, the chief engineer, and the Commander, Nova Group were all aboard the shuttle—if sharing those titles across a mere three bodies—the deck officer had been forced to take on acting command of the cruiser for about a day.

Since Deception was still in one piece and in her place in the formation, Kira figured Tamboli had done okay.

“Take us in, pilot,” Kira ordered. “That’s a lot of metal floating in space that I do not want held up on my account!”

There wasn’t much risk of that. Their shuttle was one of dozens still swarming toward and around the fleet as crew, officers and new-fledged nova-fighter pilots were brought aboard.

For all of its apparent readiness, Kira’s briefings expected another twenty-four hours before Seventh Fleet commenced its sortie.

* * *

Deception, arriving.”

The announcement was mostly automated. There wasn’t even anyone in the shuttle bay paying attention to the arriving spacecraft. Most of the techs who would normally be there were probably on the flight deck, dealing with new fighter pilots.

“Welcome home,” Zoric said, looking at the other two. “You’ve both been missed, I have to say. Everything has ticked along, but I wouldn’t have wanted to nova anywhere without you two.”

“Well, we’re back,” Kira replied, glancing over at Bueller. He seemed on a bit leveler of a keel today, but she could still see a shadow behind his eyes. She wasn’t sure that would ever go away, and it hurt to see.

What they’d done had been necessary. More people would have died without Konrad Bueller—everyone involved she’d spoken to had agreed on that—but he’d been the man making the call on which safety protocols they could stretch and how far.

Like the seven pilots who’d died in her training program, those deaths would haunt him for a long time.

“I need to get to the bridge,” Zoric said after a moment of silence. “I’d suggest you two take it a bit easy to get back into the swing of things, but we are shipping out fast.”

She studied Kira and Bueller for a moment more, then shrugged.

“You both know this drill as well as I do,” she admitted. “Konrad, ship’s officers briefing tomorrow morning at oh eight hundred sharp. Should be in your calendar already.”

“It is,” he murmured. “I’ll be caught up by then.”

“I’ll probably drop in as well,” Kira promised. “Sounds like a good way to catch up on Deception after I’m up to date on the nova group.”

“Speaking of the nova group, I know Tamboli has a surprise waiting for you,” Zoric said with a surprising grin. “I think you’ll like it, but we haven’t trusted any data on it to coms outside the fleet.”

“Okay, now I’m curious,” Kira admitted.

“Go check it out,” Bueller told her, a small smile on his own face. “I have some tachyon-static discharge systems to review. Dinner in your quarters?”

“Twenty-one hundred sharp,” she promised. “Sorry, Kavitha, but we’ll skip the Captain’s mess tonight.”

“No apologies,” Zoric told her. “It is absolutely not my place to suggest that my CEO and my XO make sure to fuck like bunnies before we go to war, and that is the only reason I haven’t done so.”

* * *

By the time Kira made it to the flight deck, the slight blush from Zoric’s pointed not-suggestion had faded. The two sections of Deception designed to receive and launch spacecraft were as far apart as the structure allowed, since the flight deck could easily handle shuttles and, in an emergency, the shuttle bay could handle fighter retrieval.

The first thing she did on the flight deck was check in on her own Hoplite-IV. Apparently, someone had warned the flight crew that she was coming back—the fighter was positively gleaming…and half-hidden behind a massive banner proclaiming WELCOME BACK COMMODORE!

The rest of the interceptor’s bay was filled with paper streamers, though Kira’s trained eye picked out where the streamers had been pinned to keep them out of the way of the bay’s functions—and the way they’d been attached to each other to allow for easy removal.

She still had to stand there in front of the fighter for a full minute, just chuckling and basking in the fact that her deck crew appeared to like her.

“There you are!” Tamboli declared, the dark-haired officer barging up on her with a wide grin on their face. “As the sign says, sir, welcome home.”

“Thanks, Commander,” Kira said. “After the last two months, it’s good to be back.”

“I’m not going to thank you for the quartet of greenies you’ve handed me,” they replied. “They’re better than I was afraid of, but they still squeak when they turn.”

“We were all there once,” she told them. “Any particular problems?”

“No problems, just new-pilot friction as they learned how to work in our systems,” Tamboli replied. “We pulled most of our pilots off Conviction, so I figure you picked the best for us.”

“I did,” Kira agreed. “Watch Bradley for me, Dilshad?” she asked. “She may have handed Redward the counterintelligence coup of the decade, but she was an Institute agent. More than that, she’s… Well, she’s good at the job, but she’s got a kid to go home to. She’s not going to be a long-hauler.”

“Not all of them can be,” Tamboli said philosophically. “We all know our parts and our jobs. Though…”

“You have a surprise for me,” Kira told the officer. “Kavitha warned me. I’m guessing it wasn’t this”—she gestured at the streamers—“so, what is it?”

“Follow me,” the deck officer said, gesturing for Kira to fall in behind them.

Curious, Kira did. Tamboli led her down to the two hangar bays at the very back of the flight deck and gestured widely at the nova fighters occupying those bays.

She stared at the spacecraft in a mix of awe and horror.

“Uglies,” she said quietly. The two fighters weren’t built to any clear design, assembled from off-the-shelf components and partial fabrication schemes for the three types of fighter Deception carried. Except… “Big Uglies.”

“They’re our Screwballs,” Tamboli confirmed. “Most of the core frame is from the Weltraumpanzers, but we had to bake in components from the PNC-One-Fifteens to get everything lined up the way we needed.

“They’re Uglies, but they’re Ugly bombers, sir, and we have twenty of them across the fleet.”

Kira whistled softly.

“How many torps?”

“Ten. The internal support is a jury-rig; we didn’t want to risk more than that,” Tamboli said. “The Harrington coils are balanced enough and the nova drive works, but…none of it’s perfect. But they work.”

“And you built twenty of them?”

Deception built two,” they corrected. “Conviction built twelve, Theseus built six.” They shrugged. “Conviction kept six and sent the rest to Theseus. The RRF has a two-squadron hammer just waiting to take someone by surprise.”

“That might be the best news I’ve had today,” Kira told Tamboli. “And nobody knows?”

“Unless they’re on a ship with the Screwballs, they don’t have a clue,” the deck officer confirmed. “My understanding is that Hoffman has some of the best of the old Darkwings slotted to fly the ones on Conviction and the RRF basically has every vet that isn’t commanding a squadron sticking a bomber.”

“Give them to Yamauchi’s squadron,” Kira ordered. “Or am I saying the obvious?”

“You’re saying the obvious, sir,” Tamboli agreed. “We replaced the two Weltraumpanzers we lost against the Clans with the Screwballs. “

“Good call,” Kira said. She looked over the misshapen fighter and shook her head. Ugly as it was, if it could put ten torpedoes on target while the rest of the fighters escorted it, the Screwball was going to be worth its weight in gold.

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