Operation Medusa (Castle Federation Book 6) by Glynn Stewart

Author:Glynn Stewart
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Publisher: Faolan's Pen Publishing Inc.
Published: 2017-12-13T07:00:00+00:00

RELOADED and rearmed before leaving Starkhaven, Forty-First Fleet’s warships adjusted their courses, each ship changing her alignment to line up the largest number of missile launchers with the defensive platforms. It would change the final arrival time of the missiles by only fractions of a second, but those fractions of a second could make all the difference to the survival of the missile that destroyed a target.

Almost one hundred and eighty missiles flashed away, flying toward a mere eight targets.

Targets that didn’t react.

“Shouldn’t they be doing something?” Sterling asked. “I mean…without their starfighters, they don’t have the missile defense to survive that salvo.”

“They should have already launched,” Kyle realized aloud. “We’ve been in-system for thirty minutes. They can’t have missed us.”

It was an over forty-minute flight time for the missiles, but still…the defensive platforms should have reacted by now.

“Is there any sign that they know we’re here?” the Admiral asked.

“None,” his chief of staff replied after a few moments. “They don’t even have fighters in space. It’s like they didn’t see us arrive, let alone launch missiles.”

“That’s impossible. What are they playing at?” Kyle replied. “Get our fighters into space,” he ordered. “I can’t help feeling we’re walking into a trap.”

Elysium trembled underneath him as her launch tubes came to life, firing starfighters into space with abandon. Hundreds of the tiny ships took up formation around his fleet, a shield against a hidden enemy Kyle couldn’t help but suspect was there somewhere.

The Presley System was one of the few where someone could hide, after all.

But…nothing. There was no reaction.

The Alliance fleet spent forty minutes on high alert, watching their missiles flash across the two light-minutes between them and Ambrose…and then watching them slam home. Eight starfighter launch platforms died in massive balls of fire that would be visible from the surface, without even a twitch to suggest they’d seen their death coming.

“Sir,” Vasilev interjected in her soft voice. “We’re being contacted from the surface—it’s via the Commonwealth Q-probe network, but it’s one of our covert operations authentication codes.”

Kyle sighed. “No complications” was starting to look like a pipe dream.

“Put them through.”

An icon of a holographic swimming dolphin appeared in front of him and a calm voice greeted him.

“Alliance commander, this is…Green Dolphin, let’s call me. I speak for Open Ocean, the organization dedicated to the freedom of Ambrose and the Presley System.

“I received this authentication code from a Coraline Imperium Intelligence agent who is unfortunately now dead. The Pacification Corps killed him, along with every other rebel and intelligence operative they could catch…and a few thousand innocents they threw in for good measure.”

That was consistent with what little the Alliance knew of the Corps’ operations. “Break a few eggs to make an omelet” summed up their methodology.

“As you may have guessed by now, we have taken control of the planetary scanner sensor and its communications.” The dolphin laughed in a way that Kyle was relatively sure the real animal physically couldn’t.

“If they’d thought to use their own sensors, they’d have seen you coming, but they decided to rely on the Q-probe net entirely,” Green Dolphin concluded.

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