“All squadrons have reported in and are ready for combat operations,” Colombera reported. “Any problems on the ship side, Captain Davidović?”
“None,” Huntress’s CO said brightly. “I want Queen Sonia to loom threateningly over all of my construction crews in future. This ship is still purring like a kitten.”
Kira grinned at that image. While Sonia cultivated the image of a gorgeous socialite, one focused on networks, economics and getting the right people in the right rooms, there was very much another side to her. One that could use every scrap of the woman’s near two meters of height to loom very effectively indeed.
“I suspect she’s leaning over our next carrier’s build team in much the same manner,” she noted. “Mwangi, Nightmare? Status on Deception?”
“Guns are charged and clear, deck is clear, all systems are green,” Mwangi said instantly. “Bueller would hurt me if this ship wasn’t perfect.”
“Scimitar has all of the planes,” Cartman complained. “Why are we even worrying about my little wing?”
“Because twenty nova fighters of ninety-two is actually pretty damn relevant,” Kira told her old friend. “And we all know that if you shout jump, Abdullah will be three feet in the air before asking ‘Which way?’”
“I take offense to that,” Colombera said. “I am a much better jumper than you give me credit for. I’d be at least five feet in the air.”
“Be that as it may, Nova Group Deception is fully operational and ready for combat operations,” Cartman said with admirable equanimity, though it sounded like she’d barely swallowed her laughter to manage it.
“Springtime Chorus, you have our course?” Kira asked Captain Hennessy.
The blond-haired and blue-eyed enby commander of Macey’s consular packet arched a perfectly groomed eyebrow at Kira.
“We have your course,” they murmured. “We will follow in twelve hours, barring an emergency alert from one of your fighters.”
“Everything looks safe here,” Kira told them.
That wasn’t entirely a good thing. The trade-route stop they currently occupied was safe because it was empty. And that meant that there was no traffic heading toward Samuels. Their next stop was the last place where a ship could safely divert to Colossus from a Samuels-bound course—but anyone who, say, adjusted their course after receiving the warning in Mowat would take a different route entirely.
“Good luck, Admiral Demirci,” Hennessy told her. “My principal can’t bring herself to wish you the same, unfortunately, but she hopes for the best conclusion possible.
“I understand where Mrs. Macey is coming from, Captain. Her best wishes and yours are appreciated—but if things go according to plan, luck won’t be a factor today.”
They gave her a crisp nod and dropped the connection.
Kira turned her attention back to her four senior officers.
“Last chance, people. Anything going to explode that isn’t supposed to?” she asked.
Silent headshakes answered her, and she smiled.
It still felt awkward to be going into battle from a flag deck instead of a nova-fighter cockpit, but that was her life now.
“Memorial Force…nova.”
* * *
“Contacts identified,” Soler snapped moments after they arrived. “I have five freighters on the scopes, clustered together here.”
The navigational slash tactical display was shared between the two bridges and Kira’s flag deck. Soler’s marker lit up around a location two light-minutes away. Five freighters together like that suggested the Colossus Nova Wing was corralling captured ships there for easy management.
“Unclear what’s in place to defend them,” the Tactical officer continued. “I would expect to see nova fighters or gunships, but I have nothing showing up around the freighter cluster.
“I do have nova-fighter squadrons—here and here. Initial data suggests eight to twelve fighters each. Probably Liberators, but our resolution isn’t that solid yet.”
Two new markers appeared. One was just as far away as the freighters but on a different vector. One was in the opposite direction but only a single light-minute away.
“I have one destroyer at three light-minutes, past the freighter corral, and another at ninety light-seconds past the closer fighter squadron. No further active contacts.”
Kira processed silently as the data appeared on the screen. They still had almost forty seconds before the first fighter squadron even realized that Memorial Force was there. Her warships couldn’t nova for twenty hours—but that was why she’d brought the nova fighters that were spilling out of both ships in a tide of green dots on the display.
“Form by squadrons,” she heard Colombera bark on the fighter tactical network.
The Colossus forces had spread out to provide coverage against freighters breaking through the blockade—while keeping enough of a concentration to deal with any nova-fighter strikes out of Samuels.
Lacking real carriers, Samuels’s military couldn’t do what Kira could. The CNW was divided and vulnerable, and her instincts said to take advantage of it. The lightspeed delay would let her fighters swarm half the destroyers and fighters before anyone even knew her people were there.
“Plot your jumps, Nightmare, Scimitar,” she ordered. “But stand by. They’re badly outgunned, and we promised we’d try to end this without violence.”
A silent message to Smolak brought up Kira’s recording software, and she focused on the pickup with a sad chilly smile.
“Colossus forces, I am Admiral Kira Demirci of the Memorial Force mercenary fleet. We have been contracted to break the blockade of the Samuels System. You have one chance to withdraw. If you do not nova homeward within five minutes of the receipt of this message—eight minutes from transmission for the farthest of you—I will take that as a sign of determined hostilities with my employer and act to reduce your forces.
“Demirci, out.”
She sent the message and leaned back in her chair, a timer automatically starting in the corner of her vision.
“When do we jump, boss?” Cartman asked.
“Mwangi, Davidović, set course for the freighter corral,” Kira ordered, half in response to her old friend. “I expect them to converge on the depot ship holding those ships prisoner.”
“Depot ship, sir?” Mwangi asked, then nodded as he caught up.
“There’s no carrier here,” Kira explained to the others. “So, one of those freighters is both armed and has docking ports to resupply fighters. She’s not even a junk carrier, but she can extend the operating time of a fighter wing indefinitely.
“They’ll converge on her, because the freighters are the most valuable thing in the area, and then decide if they’re going to make a fight for it as a group.”
She shook her head.
“Which they will,” she warned her people. “Scimitar, Nightmare—I want a plan for punching both those destroyers out with a single bomber pass. I don’t want to lose anyone today, not when we have this much of an edge!”
“On it,” the two Commanders, Nova Group, replied in sync.
That was the worst part of being one of the galaxy’s ethical mercenaries. There wasn’t truly a standard code of conduct, but there was enough of one, and it aligned well enough with Kira’s own morals to set a standard for Memorial Force.
She turned down jobs she didn’t think were moral, she didn’t open fire without warning unless she was involved in a clear and active war, and she followed the regular rules of war to the letter and the spirit.
And sometimes that meant she gave up one hell of a tactical advantage, she reflected as she took in the light of the closest nova-fighter squadron reacting to her arrival. They blipped out instantly, following the age-old adage of nova-fighter pilots:
If you’re in trouble…be somewhere else.
“Nova-fighter wings and the closer destroyer have converged on the freighter corral,” Soler reported. “As expected. Sixty seconds before we’ll see the second destroyer arrive, if that’s her call.”
“I hope your fingers are on the jammer buttons, people,” Kira said. “These guys haven’t said anything yet, but they didn’t come out here to back down.”
“Incoming transmission,” Smolak reported.
“Play it for everyone,” Kira ordered.
A shaven-headed woman of about Kira’s own age appeared on the screen. Tattooed whorls of silver Celtic knots wrapped up around the sides of her face and over where her hair should be, and her irises were a matching silver.
“I am Senior Captain Nadia Hopson of the Colossus Nova Wing,” the silver-eyed woman declared. “I must inform you that the Samuels System and surrounding trade-route stops are under a formal blockade due to a contract dispute between Samuels and Colossus. Any attempt to breach the blockade will be met with all necessary force.
“I will give you this one opportunity to accept that your contract is pointless and stand aside, Admiral Demirci. Our conflict with Samuels is longstanding and deep-rooted, and an outsider such as yourself has no idea of the crimes that have been committed.
“If you do not withdraw your nova fighters aboard your vessels, I will assume you are hostile and treat you as active combatants of the Samuels System. Choose carefully before you involve yourself in a war you know nothing about.”
The recording ended and Kira chuckled.
“Presumptive of her to think we haven’t done our research, isn’t it?” she said aloud. “But it’s the only card she has to play.”
There was still almost three minutes left on her timer.
“Second destroyer has arrived at the corral,” Soler reported. “As of a minute ago, the nova fighters were forming up. Likely preparing for a nova strike. Their jammers are still… Never mind. Multiphasic jammers are live; we have lost our sensor lock.”
A two-light-second-wide sphere of chaos suddenly appeared on Kira’s display. While it was reasonably certain that the CNW ships were at the center of the sphere, it wasn’t that perfect a radius from the transmitter. Hitting the Colossus ships at any range was now impossible.
“Understood,” Kira said. “Scimitar, Nightmare?”
“Admiral.”
“Jammers up. Nova and attack.”