UGT: 7th Ruan 280 a.G.A. / 9:16 p.m.

  ASF Aurora, above Tarnis-Vekk, Karesh-Ti’Varn system(yellow dwarf), Inner-Noran sector, Ruidan Raider Association, Milky Way

  The void after battle always felt wrong. Too quiet and still, as if the galaxy had exhaled and was waiting to see if we’d answer. It was normal to be somewhat twitchy after a battle, expecting some last-ditch effort of the enemy or something. But that happened very rarely and definitely not this time.

  From the ASF Aurora’s Bridge, I watched the SHF corral their prizes, nine Association ships, still wearing the paint of their old allegiance but now limping obediently in our formation. Fen had already started running compatibility checks and according to him Admiral Thorrison should manage to integrate them quickly enough to matter in the next fight. That would boost our combat strength significantly.

  [ Admiral Thorrison’s crews are pushing interrogation protocols. So far, nothing worth celebrating. No hidden troop deployments, no miraculous gaps in Karesh-Ti’s defenses. But they do confirm what we already suspected, the retreat was ordered without a clear command structure after we took down their Battlecruiser. They’re stretched thin, and the reintegration into Karesh-Ti’s defense grid will be sloppy. We can probably abuse that. ]

  I leaned back in the captain’s chair, eyes fixed on the tactical board as the fleet’s outline reformed in slow, deliberate sweeps. “Then we shall make sure to use the chance to its fullest. It's time to show off our Jump-Drives isn't it?” I asked rhetorically.

  The icons for Karesh-Ti’s defenders burned bright on the holographic display, a cluster of red, tight-packed around the planet’s orbital plane. Two battlecruisers. Seven cruisers. Sixteen destroyers. Nineteen frigates. Twelve corvettes. Ten cutters. Fourteen patrol boats. And every one of them crammed into an over-defended choke point like they believed mass alone could hold the line. It amounted to a total of 80 different ships and four different Admirals that struggled to find any common ground whatsoever.

  [Over-congested formations mean overlapping fire arcs, slower reaction times, and collisions in retreat. They’re creating their own blind spots. That’s where we dig in, even before the official attack will start. Just by jumping in and out we should be able to do significant damage.]

  We both knew if we won the coming battle, that would be it. Garnuk-Tel’s reserve fleet was gone. The western and southern hyperlines were ours. Tarnis-Vekk was ours already as well. All three relay towers went down in fiery explosions. Karesh-Ti and their forces at the eastern hyperline were all that they had left. If we took Karesh-Ti successfully, the Association presence in the Inner-Noran sector would finally be shattered. If we failed, we’d be fighting our way back out through hostile space, carrying the stink of retreat with us. If we survived, that is.

  The war council reconvened less than two hours after the last wreck at Tarnis-Vekk drifted into cold silence. Admiral Thorrison appeared in the center of the ASF Aurora’s holoscreen, flanked by the hard, disciplined faces of his Captains. Fen stood to my right, shimmering in her half-light projection, arms folded and eyes bright.

  No one here looked at Karesh-Ti on the tactical display without feeling the weight of what it meant. The heart of the system, of the entire sector to be honest. The last wall between us and full control of the Inner-Noran enclave. The last obstacle before we could push into the Kingdomm of Ferron.

  “Two battlecruisers. Seven cruisers. Sixteen destroyers. Nineteen frigates. Twelve corvettes. Ten cutters. Fourteen patrol craft,” Admiral Thorrison began flatly. “And we’ll be facing all of it at once. Every gun they can point will be pointed.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  One of his Captains, Vael, a lean man with sharp eyes, leaned forward. “They’ve had time to arrange their kill zones and unload their mines. We breach the artillery envelope and we’re looking at a wall of plasma. It’ll gut us before we cross the midline. Please tell us, Captain Lunaris, just how do you plan to break this incredible defence?”

  “That’s true,” I said, letting the map rotate until the pale arcs of Karesh-Ti’s orbital defenses came into view. “But we’re not going to cross the midline like that. Not this time.”

  Fen's holographic projection flicked his fingers and the display shifted, isolating the orbital platforms in a lattice of red. "Karesh-Ti’s stationary defenses are sector-bound. They cannot pivot fire quickly between opposite arcs without leaving gaps. And once they lock to a target, they tend to hold until confirmed destruction. We can use that."

  Admiral Thorrison’s brows drew together. “You’re talking about drawing their fire elsewhere. You don’t have the numbers for that kind of feint.”

  “I don’t need the numbers,” I said, letting the faintest smile touch my lips. “I have something else.”

  Fen brought up a second schematic, this time of the ASF Aurora, her profile unfolding into a cascade of power curve graphs and gravitic stress tolerances. Across her spherical hull, certain emitters pulsed in sequence. The Admiral’s Captains frowned, clearly unsure what they were looking at, but leaning forward nonetheless. This was the first time we gave them access to some of our blueprints, though they obviously only showed what we wanted them to know and nothing they could reconstruct. “This ship,” I said, “can make an emergency jump. Not a standard hyperspace run. A short-ranged, precision jump in and out of realspace before the enemy can even track the translation vector.”

  The room was silent for two full seconds. “You mean to tell me,” Captain Vael said slowly, “you can vanish from one side of their formation and reappear inside their gun line?”

  “I mean,” I corrected, “I can vanish from beyond their maximum range, appear in the dead center of their formation, fire at point-blank with no time for them to brace, and be gone before they’ve recharged their shields or reacquired firing solutions.”

  Murmurs rippled through the SHF officers. “That’s…” one Captain began, but couldn’t seem to find the word.

  “Illegal under every interstellar combat convention we know of,” another muttered. "Emergency jump-drives are to save a spacecraft, not to attack."

  “It’s also going to break Karesh-Ti's defence apart and I decidedly do not care about fighting according to your conventions,” I said. “Here’s how: The FSF Aurora jumps in, hits hard and targets key vessels in their central command chain. Battlecruisers, command Cruisers, anything coordinating their line. Then I jump out before the stationary platforms can retask their guns. The disruption will ripple through their formation in seconds.”

  Thorrison’s frown eased into something almost like interest. “While my fleet advances under the chaos.”

  “Exactly. You close the gap. Pick off stragglers. Press their front while I’m recharging for the next jump.”

  "The FSF Aurora’s recharge between jumps will be around ninety seconds to reload our weapon systems. That’s your window to lock the line in place."

  Captain Vael’s eyes narrowed on the schematic. “And those stationary platforms? You can’t dodge them forever.”

  “No,” I agreed, “but we can bleed them. Fen will seed false targeting data during each jump. Make them fire into dead space. And when your fleet gets inside their minimum firing range, those guns become ornaments.”

  The Admiral’s gaze swept the table. “If this works, we punch a hole in their defense that they can’t close before the whole system folds. If it fails…”

  “It won’t,” I said. I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t need to.

  One by one, the Captains nodded, though some looked more unsettled than convinced. Thorrison didn’t speak again until every acknowledgment was in. “Then we proceed. Captain Lunaris, you’ll have your window. Make it count.”

  “Oh, I will,” I said, already picturing the first jump’s coordinates. The heart of the Associations enclave was about to learn what Aetherian technology could really do. I stood, looking out into the dark, the faint glimmer of Karesh’s sun just cresting over the forward horizon. “Fen,” I said quietly, “this is the end-game. We take Karesh-Ti, we decide the war here. We fail…”

  [We won’t.]

  I almost smiled at his certainty. “Then light the path. Let’s burn toward Karesh-Ti.”

  The fleet rolled forward into the dark. Somewhere ahead, the Association was already preparing to meet us. They thought they knew what was coming and were confident in their numbers. Well, I would be proving them wrong. And I would make sure this would be our victory.