Stellar Fox (Castle Federation Book 2) Read Free

and my aide will make the travel arrangements.
    “I expect you take command of DSC-078 Avalon by this time tomorrow.”
     
11:00 December 5, 2735 ESD / LT
Castle Federation Joint Command, New Cardiff
     
    Most people who ended up in the office of the head of the Joint Department of Personnel had some degree of trepidation. Vice Admiral Mohammed Kane, after all, was ultimately responsible for all discipline that didn’t fall into the hands of the Joint Department of Military Justice.
    Vice Admiral Dimitri Tobin, however, had served with Kane during the last war. He’d happily arranged to insert himself into Kane’s schedule and greeted the smaller man with a crushing bear hug.
    When he released Kane, Dimitri turned the chair Kane put junior officers in around and leaned against it. He studied Kane carefully, noting the new lines in his old friend’s face and the slight stoop to the shoulders that hadn’t been there six months ago.
    “You, my friend, need a vacation,” Dimitri told the other man.
    “Not happening,” Kane replied crisply. “I won’t pretend it isn’t good to see you, Dimitri, but I do have a war to help run. You got yourself onto my schedule for this morning – what do you need?”
    “It’s not what I need.” Dimitri leaned forward, meeting his friend’s gaze evenly. “It’s what the Federation needs. We don’t have that many Admirals of any stripe, Mohammed, and we can’t afford for me to sit on my ass getting fat.”
    “You got a ship shot out of from underneath you, and half a battle group blown apart around you,” Kane said mildly. “There are those who’d say we don’t need admirals who turn in performances like that – and I have psychiatrists who say you need time to recover.”
    “I lost three ships,” Dimitri said flatly. “ Corona, Liberation , and Tara . Two battleships, one carrier. The Imperium lost four ships, and the Factor two. The Commonwealth lost twelve and failed to take Midori. I will mourn my dead for the rest of my life, as I mourn those who died in the last war.”
    He shivered, old memories rippling through his mind.
    “I will also take any man who dares suggest I should have done better into a dark alley and leave them wishing they’d been at Midori instead of meeting me there,” he finished bluntly.
    Kane chuckled and made a throwaway gesture.
    “I agree,” he admitted. “Though we have, as always, some mouthy politicians. Mostly MFAs, the Senators are better briefed than that.”
    Members of the Federation Assembly, drawn from all fifteen of the Federation’s member worlds and its three Protectorates, were the democratically elected representatives of the Federation’s people. They wrote its law and passed its budget and acted as a check on the power of the thirteen person Senate who ruled the seventeen star systems containing those eighteen worlds.
    “I’m more concerned about the psych report, old friend,” Kane told Dimitri. “They worry about you tearing open old wounds – Amaranthe. Trinity. Hessian.”
    “I read their report, Mohammed,” Dimitri replied. “And, yes, I know I wasn’t supposed to, but it’s amazing what a Vice Admiral’s stars open up.
    “I’ll add Midori to my ghosts,” he continued, “but the psychiatrists cleared me for duty. And we both know the Federation has damned few experienced admirals left.”
    “We never had many, and most of them are dead,” Kane admitted. “Are you certain, Dimitri? Let’s be honest – we expected you to lose at Midori. You’ve already delivered one victory we didn’t expect.”
    “Mohammed,” the big Vice Admiral said sharply. “How bad is it?”
    Kane swallowed and glanced at a paper report on his desk, its folder jet-black – marking the contents as Top Secret. The folder would contain tech that would check the identity of the user and destroy the contents if an unauthorized person tried to open it.
    He leaned back and faced Dimitri, and the last of the mask dropped