Deception’s bridge was large, designed to hold up to eighty working spacers at any point in time. With only a single shift on duty, roughly twenty-five people were scattered through the workstations, throwing holograms and virtual representations around and onto the screens as the big cruiser made her way out of Redward orbit.
She wasn’t alone. While Kira’s mercenary company didn’t stretch to escorts for their heavy cruiser, the RRF was moving enough ships for this operation that Remington had assigned several to Deception.
Two destroyers and six gunships made up a neat cube around the cruiser as they accelerated toward rendezvous. The screens around Kira showed other ships moving with them as well, though Perseus and her escorts were farther away.
Redward was providing most of the capital ships and half of the lighter warships that would make up the Coalition Fleet. All of those ships were moving from various stations throughout the Redward System
“Make a note, Zoric,” Kira told the cruiser’s Captain quietly. “I’d really like to get some escorts of our own. Deception is a decent jack-of-all-trades, but she’ll be safer with a destroyer or two of our own.”
She was standing behind Zoric’s chair. There was an observer seat on the bridge—for that matter, there was entire separate flag bridge for a squadron commander—but Kira liked standing. It helped remind everyone that she wasn’t actively part of the cruiser’s bridge crew.
“Would be nice to have some that could keep up with us,” Zoric said drily. “But I don’t think Redward will sell us Serendipity-class ships.”
A glance at the reports floating around them confirmed Zoric’s complaint. Scans showed the destroyers were moving at full standard acceleration, roughly eighty percent power. Deception, on the other hand, was accelerating at roughly sixty-seven percent power.
The cruiser could have easily left her “escort” behind.
“Who knows,” Kira said. “Resources and money are definitely a limit for them building new ships. If we can come up with the kroner to fund the construction of the yards as well as the ships, they might just let us buy ships they wouldn’t sell most people.
“They trust us, after all.”
“You’re still new to being a merc,” Zoric pointed out. “You have no idea how weird that feels.”
“Conviction’s been here for what, three standard years?” Kira asked.
“Three and a half. We’ve earned that trust and collected a lot of retainers over the years, but still.” The Captain shook her head. “I’ve worked for Estanza for almost fifteen years now. Mercenaries aren’t trusted, Demirci. Anywhere.”
“Given that they’re the major component of the fleet the Institute is throwing at us, I can see why,” Kira acknowledged. “If our fellows can be hired for conquests, invasions, piracy and murder…yeah.”
“Not everyone can be, but it’s hard to tell which companies won’t sign on for atrocity,” Zoric said. “That’s why the boss likes Shang—and why Redward helped Shang rebuild and replace his ships, even though he bases out of Exeteron. He’s a long-standing merc of good rep here.
“We know he’s not going to show up on the wrong side of this fight.”
“Do we?” Kira asked quietly. “The Institute has a lot of money.”
And Commodore Shang, thanks to the money and assistance Redward had provided him after the Battle of the Kiln—the last time a Redward fleet had gone into one of the Clans’ systems—now commanded three modern-by-Cluster-standards destroyers. If Equilibrium was going to hire anyone…
“I guess we don’t know with anyone who isn’t us,” Zoric conceded. The icons and images on the screens were starting to converge at the rendezvous point.
Kira had spent enough time in the Syntactic Cluster now that it looked like a lot of ships, but it was still hard for her to really process the fleet gathering as being impressive. All three of the Redward capital ships were sixty thousand cubic meters.
They wouldn’t have qualified as capital ships in Apollo’s fleet. Worse, the carrier was a “junk carrier”—a refitted freighter with no guns. Perseus had been built to carry sub-fighters, the nova fighters’ sublight and vastly inferior siblings. Recently refitted to carry nova fighters, she only had fifty of them aboard.
Bengalissimo was supposed to bring the last half-dozen fighters aboard the cruiser they’d refitted to have a small flight deck. All told, they’d have under eighty planes. It would have to do.
“Are we waiting on anyone?” Kira asked Zoric.
“I see two cruisers, us, a junk carrier, six destroyers and ten gunships,” Zoric listed. “That’s all Redward was bringing. Well, that and the twenty-four troop transports ‘hiding’ behind the carrier!”
“Sirs, incoming transmission from Perseus,” a com tech reported.
“Command screen, please, Liselot,” Zoric ordered.
The small screen directly in front of Zoric’s chair lit up with the image of a tall blonde woman in the RRF’s burgundy uniform.
“Captain Zoric, Commander Demirci,” Admiral Ylva Kim greeted them. “It’s a pleasure to be working with you both again. Deception’s refit is complete?”
Kim had commanded the task force that had gone into the Battle of the Kiln to deal with an Equilibrium-equipped Costar Clans warlord. She’d only been a Vice Admiral then, but there’d been rewards and compensation aplenty to go around after that fight.
“That it is,” Zoric confirmed. “We are fully functional up to the standards her original Navy would expect.”
Kim glanced sideways, as if making sure no one could hear her on her end.
“So, you could take out the rest of this battle group, couldn’t you?” she asked quietly.
“It would probably depend on how close we got and who launched fighters first,” Kira said. She was probably giving the RRF too much credit. In hostile hands, Deception—then K79-L—had intimidated the Cluster into assembling a massive joint fleet.
That fleet would probably have been enough, but it had also been larger than the Coalition Fleet they were taking against the Clans.
Kim’s smile suggested she picked up on Kira’s diplomacy, but she didn’t argue.
“Everyone on our side is ready to nova out,” she told them. “I’d like to bring Deception into the battle group tactical net. Your sensors are enough better that I can use that as an excuse to anyone who complains about linking in mercenaries.”
At the Battle of the Kiln, Kim had been the one to refuse to link in mercenaries. Kira and her people had clearly earned some respect there.
Zoric glanced at Kira for confirmation before saying anything, and Kira nodded. It wouldn’t matter once the multiphasic jamming went up, but prior to that, it could be useful for everyone.
“Of course, Admiral. We are standing by to nova on your command.”
“Thank you, Captain.” Kim blinked, distracted for a moment as she sent headware messages. “I also want to make one thing clear, since we had confusion about it prior to the Kiln: while my CNG has more fighters than you do, he and I are agreed that you are the Coalition Fleet Nova Group Commander, Commander Demirci.”
She smirked.
“You probably should pick a new title. Most Commanders don’t own heavy cruisers, after all.”