Loralynn Kennakris 3: Asylum (17 page)

“With the assets we have, ma’am, trying to maintain a CAP is basically a waste of time.” Commander Sonovia Harmon,
Trafalgar’s
fighter boss, waved her hand through the omnisynth’s holographic display.

“Then there’s no point in trying to maintain one, is there?” Commodore Shariati looked across at Commander Harmon, observing her critically. She had transferred her flag to
Trafalgar
from
Artemisia
upon Lo Gai’s departure—an entirely prudent move, but not an entirely comfortable one. These were Lo Gai’s people and she didn’t know them well. Further, all TF 34 had been able to spare them were three cruisers, one heavy and two light, along with enough destroyers to provide a barely ample screen for the carriers. By all reasonable metrics they were badly overmatched by the approaching forces, and this wasn’t having a good effect on anyone’s temper. So Shariati had a distinct feeling Harmon was playing it a bit close to the vest with her temporary CO. They didn’t have time for that.

“But ma’am, we also don’t have the recon assets to cover all the potential threat axes and our sensor net does not extend far enough to give us the reaction window we’d need to rely purely on interceptors.”

“Then we would be well advised to make the Doms worry about us, instead of us worrying about them, wouldn’t we?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Harmon agreed with a twinge of alarm. The commodore had made her name in small actions; she was new to fighter ops and Harmon was getting a sinking feeling that she may not fully appreciate the difficulties involved. It was one thing to commit slashing attacks with a squadron built around a fast battlecruiser, and quite another to try it with the understrength task group they had, especially with slugs in it like their two frigates and the light carrier LSS
Concordia
.

Commodore Shariati seemed to be reading her mind and smiled. “Don’t worry, Sonovia—I’m not suggesting we go entirely ‘jolly roger’ here—but if we can keep landing jabs, they won’t be able to get off a coordinated strike—you know how the Doms dote on that. Breaking up their arrangements early and often is our only real chance, isn’t it?” They had loaded all the latest data along with their assessments into a couple of hyperdrones and launched them to PrenTalien at Point Moira, but they knew they could not expect help from that quarter. They would have to fight this battle out themselves.

“Certainly, ma’am.” Harmon looked beseechingly over at Commander Jagai DeCano, Huron’s successor as Lo Gai’s operations officer, who’d been left behind not only to lend his expertise but to act as a buffer between the officers of the task group and the commodore’s staff.

“I agree, ma’am,” DeCano said. “But employing a cascading defense with strong attritional tactics”—essentially what the commodore meant by
landing jabs
—“requires assets we don’t have. Especially stealth frigates.”

“Good point,” interjected Captain Dirk Bajorat, Shariati’s chief of staff, and both commanders breathed an inward sigh of relief. This mixing of staffs on the fly was a tricky business and Captain Bajorat’s willingness to offer the comment was a hopeful sign.

Shariati nodded, her expression composed and withdrawn. “True, Dirk. Let’s get all the staff together and see what we have to work with . . .”

*     *     *

“That’s the size of it, ma’am,” Commander DeCano finished. “They can hit us with about twice our mass and strike power, on any of these three axes.” He highlighted each of them on the omnisynth. “That’s
assuming
they don’t have a center force with them. If they bring just two heavy hitters along, my assessment is that we’re all looking at early retirement.”

Shariati rolled a stylus between her teeth. DeCano was right, of course, even if she didn’t much like his tone. Two battleships—DeCano’s heavy hitters—
would
ruin their whole day, which was why they needed to get ahead of the game now. The three-axis problem arose because the Doms could use the force they’d foxed Rhimer with at Callindra 69 to strike directly from there, which had the advantage of being able to hit them sooner. Or they might have returned to Novaya Zemlya with the Bannerman Fleet. That would allow them to attach those major capital ships DeCano was worried about.

If they did the latter, the Doms had two further choices: bring the whole combined force to Wogan’s Reef and detach the carrier force to attack Outbound there, or split the carrier force off where jump fields linked the Novaya Zemlya transit to the Callindra 69 lane through another node that also connected with Outbound. For convenience, this gravitational complex was referred to as the NZ fork.

Shariati didn’t believe in the first of those two options much at all. With the Doms’ advantage in numbers and throw weight, they would want to spread the CEF force to the maximum extent possible. Launching an attack on Outbound from Wogan’s Reef not only didn’t do that, it risked getting embroiled with PrenTalien. He might even be able to detach part of his fleet to catch them in a pincer between his force and Outbound’s defenders, which as far as the Doms knew, consisted of a fully constituted TF 34.

No, the Doms wouldn’t run that risk. That left the other two options. She leaned forward on her elbows, scrutinizing the omnisynth’s volume, crowded with the latest situation assessment.

“This is still the crux, isn’t it? This chokepoint here.” She used her stylus to circle a volume of space between the NZ fork and the Callindra 69 lane. It wasn’t a chokepoint in the physical sense, but an area where gravitational lensing allowed the phase wakes of a fleet on either transit to be detected. If they could cover it, they’d get an early read on what they were up against, on exactly which axis, and be able to arrange their defense accordingly. If the attack was overwhelming, she had her sealed orders, which she had not shared with anyone, and would not before absolutely necessary.

Her staff nodded as one, though none to them—from the intel officer to the chief of logistics to the young jig who was her very temporary and nearly invisible flag lieutenant—looked happy about her bringing it up again: DeCano and Harmon most especially. Dirk Bajorat was keeping his thoughts to himself, as per usual.

“Yes, ma’am,” DeCano said, his tone shaded with frustration at having to recap an argument he’d thought was settled. “But as we said before, we don’t have a way to surveil it. If we detach
Artemis
and
Callisto
, and support them with
Janus
and
Ixion
, I wouldn’t give much for our defense net if the Doms do get a punch through. And I wouldn’t give anything for
them
if the Doms put ‘em in a tight spot. Frankly, I don’t like dividing our forces to that degree—not with what we’re up against.”

What the operations officer was being less than frank about, Shariati sensed, was his strong philosophical objection to sending their people on a suicide mission, which was what this amounted to. Maybe not for
Callisto
and
Artemis
—the two destroyers were fast and would give a good account of themselves in a scrap—but certainly for
Janus
and
Ixion
. The frigates were old, thin-skinned, light on the bite, short-winded and, most of all,
slow
. They were of no use to her if she had to execute her sealed orders, and not much more in defending the station. They
could
be invaluable as reconnaissance assets—but only if she was willing to sacrifice them.

The commodore nibbled her stylus delicately, her dark violet eyes shadowed. Lo Gai could order it—and she had no doubt he would—but coming from her, it was more likely to seem merely callous. She couldn’t fight this battle with his people believing she considered them no more than expendable pawns—fine words and cogent arguments would get her no more than grim-lipped obedience and she needed much better than that. She set the stylus aside.

“Well, then. I think we know enough about what we don’t have. Let’s focus on what we
do
have.” Half the faces in the compartment looked as if they expected a homily on the value of surprise. “What we have”—she smiled as she prepared her surprise—“is a ‘tanker fleet’, although it exists purely in the Doms’ mind.” Shariati’s smile might have been decorated with feathers, but none of the staff were quite sure of the ill-fate canary’s identity. “We can position this ‘fleet’ wherever we like, to funnel the Doms’ assault along a vector of our own choosing. If they are attacking strictly with a carrier group, that should be quite diverting for them, as their fighters won’t be much use against the station, and by not tying our force down here, we retain tactical mobility.”

She directed her attention to the staff intelligence officer, Lieutenant Irene Varis. “Lieutenant, I’d like the Doms to think we are doing everything we can to give them the impression the tankers are cozied up here, when ‘in fact’ they are moving to a ‘rendezvous’ with Admiral PrenTalien. Do you think you can do that?”

The lieutenant, who had previously been on the ragged edge of glum, looked positively joyful at the prospect. “Yes, ma’am. Shall we scatter breadcrumbs or give them a nip-slip?”

Varis was fairly young and Shariati was not entirely familiar with that turn of phrase, but she took it to be equivalent to what her generation called a
knickers flash
. “Whichever you feel would be more effective, Lieutenant.”

“Breadcrumbs I think would be surer, ma’am, but they take longer too. Though I suppose we could moon them if they’re too slow on the uptake.”

“As you see fit, Lieutenant. I see no need to be culpably abrupt in our actions.” Shariati said it a touch coolly—she was finding Varis, in this new mood, a trifle unbuttoned.

The intel officer seemed not to notice. “Exactly where will we be sending them, ma’am?”

“Caucus with Commanders DeCano and Harmon when we break here and work out some options based when we’ve discussed this AM. Do you think you can have something by 1400?”

The three officers concerned exchanged a look. “Doable, ma’am,” Varis asserted.

“Excellent. Jan?” She queried the operations officer as she highlighted the Callindra 69 transit on the display. “On this axis, how soon could they be in position to launch a strike against us?”

“I’d say fifty-three hours, give or take four hours. If they use the Novaya Zemlya axis, that would add at least another twelve hours, but it does give them additional support options.”

Shariati tried to ignore him harping on his damn battleships. “True. But the Callindra axis is the more urgent problem. If can we rule it out, we have that half day to respond on the Novaya Zemlya axis, is that not so?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That gives us about forty-two hours to prove my theory correct.” The commodore turned now to her fighter boss. “Sonovia, what are our long-range recon assets currently?”

“They’re not what I’d call ideal—um . . .” Harmon cleared her throat, realizing a moment late that she was criticizing her absent CO’s dispositions to his spouse. “Apologies, ma’am. That is, we have Commander Huron’s wing here on
Trafalgar
and
Concordia’s
squadron.”

“Both full strength?”

“No, ma’am.
Concordia’s
squadron is a full flight short of its complement. Commander Huron’s wing is in no better shape: he’s light one squadron. The remaining two have all but three slots filled, though his Echo Squadron has two officers on semi-active status, one with provisional flight clearance.”

That
was
far less than optimal. “Display them, please.”

Harmon put the latest condition report for all the units up on the board. The commodore skimmed it. She would have been much happier with another squadron but at least she had Huron. Then her eyes narrowed in displeasure as she noted the numbers that Huron’s own Echo Squadron had put up. They had more kills, by far, than any other in TF 34; perhaps more than any other in the fleet. That would never do: recon squadrons were not supposed to act like strike forces or interceptors. In fact, Shariati was aware that Huron had been assigned to recon to curb his famously aggressive tendencies. Of course, he was also known for pushing things to the outer limits of his instructions, but she was still surprised that he’d been hotdogging it to this degree.

However, Huron was not
her
wing leader, and she could hardly rebuke an officer for his prior conduct, especially when his actual CO ranked her. But in view of her orders, she
could
see to it that he kept his horns in where they belonged while on her watch.

“Display the combat detail for Echo Squadron, please.”

The record appeared and one of Shariati’s dark level eyebrows rose as it revealed the real surprise: the flight’s elevated numbers were
not
primarily the work of Commander Huron, though he’d done his share. It was a junior member of Echo Squadron who’d been running up the total; one of the two on the walking wounded list. Shariati highlighted the officer and recognized the name Lo Gai had mentioned.

“This Ensign Kennakris—she’s the one who mixed it up with Jantony Banner?”

Harmon glanced up. “That’s affirmative, ma’am.”

“I see.” But the name also rang a different, and rather distinct, bell. “She’s been associated with Commander Huron for some time, has she not?”

A touch of color came to Harmon’s cheeks. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Link me her service record, please.” The file obediently appeared on the commodore’s xel. She opened it and almost immediately looked up. “Why does Kennakris have dual seniority dates in her file?”

“She served on active duty while at the Academy, ma’am,” Harmon answered. “They entered her as a midshipmen for three months after her first term. The reason’s not in her file but allegedly it had something to do with slaver ops. Apparently she has . . . expertise in the area.”

Ignoring the superfluous explanation, Shariati looked at the dates. An ensign’s seniority normally went by their class ranking. Skimming her academy record, she noted Kennakris had graduated near the bottom of the upper quartile due to mediocre course work in everything but tactics, math, and flight training. There were a few disciplinary issues, as well—a cryptic note about her hustling, of all things, low-gee racquetball—which, combined with her course work, put Kennakris about a third of the way down the list. But then there were her months of active service.