43

Silence reigned on Fortitude’s bridge as the world shifted around them. New datacodes appeared in the holotank as the carrier’s sensors updated, and Kira breathed a sigh of relief as green icons flashed into existence.

Security point six might have a trio of destroyers renewing the mapping, but the other five security points six light-years away from the Crest did not. They would see occasional patrols, but they were empty.

Point three was on the route to Guadaloop and was currently entirely under the control of Memorial Force. Kira’s destroyers were already swimming over to Fortitude to confirm her status.

“Report,” she said aloud. “Did we take any hits?”

“Negative,” Konrad told her. “Soler ripped Valiant apart and managed to spook the fighters and trigger the jamming at just the right moment.”

Kira’s partner gave the tactical officer a confident nod.

“You made the right choice, bringing her along.”

“I knew that,” Kira replied. “Soler, you okay?”

The young woman exhaled sharply and nodded.

“I…” She exhaled again. “I just killed a crapton of people, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” Kira agreed bluntly. “And that you register that says good things about you, and it should be hard.” She shook her head gently. “Dr. Devin is good at the counseling for that; we’ll get you in his office once this is over.

“Are you good for now?”

She’d let Isidora Soler stand aside if the young woman needed it, but it would make Kira’s life a lot easier if Soler stayed at her post.

A third ragged exhalation, and Soler nodded again.

“Yeah, I’m good,” she said. “I’ll make that appointment with Dr. Devin, though.”

Ailin Devin was Deception’s doctor and had been Conviction’s doctor before that. He was Memorial Force’s senior physician—but his focus was actually on psychiatry and counseling. He had subordinates for surgery.

Kira was starting to realize Memorial Force had grown large enough, she really needed to have Devin put together a full counseling team, the same way they had put together a surgery team for him.

“Rest of the fleet is assuming formation around us,” Konrad told Kira, clearly keeping an eye on the tactical system while Soler recovered her composure. “Nobody else in the security point. I… I think we may have pulled it off, Kira.”

“Don’t say that until we’ve been paid,” she told him. “Which means I need an all-senior-officers conference in five minutes.

“We have twenty hours where we’re probably safe. Then we’re hitting regular trade routes the rest of the way to Guadaloop. Let’s make the best use of the time we’ve got to be ready for what’s coming.”

* * *

When the dust settled, Kira was going to have to rearrange officers and rationalize her org chart. For the moment, though, she had six ships in play. That meant six Captains, though since she was acting as Fortitude’s Captain, that didn’t add anyone to the meeting.

She also had three CNGs: Cartman, Patel and Sagairt. Two deck officers: Tamboli and Waldroup—but those two were managing three flight decks.

Similarly to the deck officers, they currently only had four executive officers on the call. Lady Tramp was sufficiently important for Kira to include her Captain, but Woodcock was the freighter’s only representative on the call.

Konrad was acting as XO for both Fortitude and Deception—which meant Fortitude right now. Similarly, Milani was the ground commander for all six ships.

There were a lot of empty spots in the org chart right now, but until they could recruit new hands to fill holes, they might have to muddle along.

“Well, folks, we’ve done the first two parts,” Kira told them all. “We have Fortitude. We have the Prime Minister of the Crest and five key Cabinet Ministers in her brig. That means, among other things, we are now the most wanted people in the Crest Sector.”

That got her a collection of awkward chuckles.

“So, first steps,” Kira continued. “Fortitude needs to be a fully functional carrier. I feel bad about treating my old plane like this, but Waldroup…bulldoze the deck.”

“It won’t be pretty,” the deck officer reminded her. “Not until I have time to really dig it and clean up the debris and the hole.”

“It only needed to be pretty to fool the Cresters,” Kira said. “Now I want it functional. If we pull fighters over from Raccoon and Deception, can we fuel and arm them?”

“Sort of,” Waldroup admitted. “Including the light load on the twelve Hussars we acquired, we still have forty-eight torpedoes aboard. I can put them on any of our fighters, but I don’t have a lot of them to go around.

“As for fuel, well…we need to draw from Fortitude’s tanks to do that.”

“Which brings us to the biggest problem,” Konrad continued, picking up the hint Waldroup had laid down. “Fortitude was fueled for trials, not operations. Her tanks were only at twenty-five percent when she started the trials.

“We are well below anything I would accept as a reserve,” the engineer and XO said grimly. “We have enough fuel to get to Guadaloop, but we will have limited ability to nova once we get there.

“Sublight maneuvering, obviously, is an entirely different situation, but I don’t think we can avoid an NRC carrier group sublight.”

“We can’t,” Kira agreed. “But we’re not going to be able to refuel in Guadaloop, either. Fortitude is going to draw every eye in the system when she arrives, and Final Usury is not going to play nice, even if the CO is a Royalist.”

In theory, Kira had code words to convince Royalist officers to stand down. She wasn’t going to trust them as far as she could throw the carrier, but she had them. She just trusted them even less in a system where everyone else would be able to see what was going on!

“So, we do what we have to do,” Konrad said grimly. “Everyone’s least-favorite nightmare. How’re your hoses, people?”

Kira watched the ripple of wincing pass through the starship officers. It was possible to transfer fuel between two vessels in deep space, even if neither was a specialized tanker. It was risky and required precision flying, but it was possible.

“Konrad has a point,” she told them. “We’ll equalize fuel tanks across the fleet as best as possible, but everyone needs enough fuel to play nova footsie with a carrier group for weeks.”

“We’ll make it happen,” Mwangi said grimly. “I do not want to see Raccoon on the receiving end of a bomber strike. This is a real damn Navy, not the backwater compromises of the Syntactic Cluster.”

“We need to split our fighter force,” Kira agreed. “Sagairt will stay as CNG aboard Fortitude for now, but I want at least a few more squadrons. We’ll move torpedoes over from Lady Tramp to stockpile our magazines, but I want Raccoon-Charlie and Deception-Charlie aboard Fortitude before we nova again.”

That would give Helmet eighteen heavy fighters and six interceptors while firmly bringing both of her other ships under their listed strength for both pilots and fighters.

“We were considering which fighters to dump off Raccoon, so that works,” Mwangi admitted. “Even without trying to launch them, we just don’t the space to have extra birds on the deck.”

“We’re going to have a hell of a rationalization and reorg when we get home,” Kira told them. “A lot of promotions, a lot of new recruits. New fighters even if we decide to give Raccoon back to the RRF.

“But for now, Memorial Force is a hodgepodge of a compromise. If I had anyone else at my back, I’d be worried at the mess.” She grinned. “But I have Memorial Force, and we fucked up Cobra Squadron.

“At this point, all we have to do is dance. I trust our people to do that for us. So, we clear Fortitude’s deck and load her up. We get fuel balanced across the squadron.

“And then we head for Guadaloop to deliver our ransom demand.”

* * *

“Sir.” Milani remained in the conference room as the meeting broke up, waiting for Kira to step over to them.

They’d switched into their usual lighter armor now, abandoning the bulky-but-effective heavy boarding armor they’d worn for the assault. The dragon flitted across the entirety of this suit instead of just the holographic projection around the shoulders they’d had on the boarding armor.

It was probably Kira’s imagination that the dragon seemed excited and relieved to have that freedom.

“What is it, Milani?” she asked.

“Interesting call up from the brig during the meeting,” they told her. “Jeong is awake and she’s asking to speak to whoever’s in charge.”

“She realizes this isn’t going to go away if she makes angry faces, right?” Kira said drily.

“From what Bertoli says, she seems to have made a pretty accurate assessment of the situation,” Milani noted. “She offered him quite a bit of money to get her free and to a nova shuttle or fighter, but took his refusal calmly enough.

“That was when she asked to talk to whoever was in charge.”

“I’m not sure that the Equilibrium politician fully understanding the situation is necessarily to our advantage,” Kira murmured. “But I don’t think it hurts for me to talk to her.”

“Not my call,” Milani replied. “I just shot her in the face with a stunner.”

There was a disturbing level of satisfaction in the mercenary’s voice.

“Milani,” Kira said carefully. “Is there something I should know?”

“Nah, I just hate politicians,” the mercenary commando told her. “So, any day I get to stun one is a damn good day.”

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