Jessica had cleared most of the flag bridge of people for this meeting. There was only herself and Enej, plus Command Centurion Kanda Lungu from Ballard and First Officer/Science Officer Elzbet Aukley. And Jennifer Glenn of CP-406. The Scout Team.
At the last minute, she had also pulled Casey in, more for the educational aspects than anything, since Casey’s role as Imperial Flag Centurion was only going to really ramp up after they had settled and begun to interact with the Imperial Fleet on a regular basis.
So, the five of them. She could have invited Arott. And Denis, Robbie, Alber’, and Tomas. Tamara. All the command centurions. Any number of experts on any number of topics.
That would happen later. Jessica had a revolution to unleash first.
They all sat at the big round table with the holoprojector at the center. To better make her point, Jessica had dimmed the lighting. Denis had the flag and would handle everything from the bridge if anything happened in the next hour.
She started by projecting an animation Moirrey had prepared. Graphics were the best way to communicate concepts, and Pint-sized was still the best there was at creating them. The projection showed a great emptiness with a rough, golden sphere hovering in the center of a sea of small white dots. Stars representing Fribourg space.
“We are here,” Moirrey’s stage voice narrated, as two other dots appeared at great remove. “St. Legier in purple. Ladaux in azure.”
The image zoomed in, and then rotated as it blasted forward onto the far shores of the Fribourg Empire.
“Osynth B’Udan is Fribourg’s sector capital facing Buran,” the narration continued. A white star appeared, followed a few moments later by a red one at some distance. “Samara is the most heavily-fortified planet across the border, and we believe it to be their sector capital. The Ural Starbase is at least comparable to any orbital fortification Fribourg or Aquitaine has ever built.”
Moirrey had added some piano music quietly in the background, almost too low to hear, but it was just the right piece to convey the grand emptiness; the bleak, black loneliness, married with the hint of impregnable solidity. In the animation, a vast gulf opened, a gap between arms of the galaxy itself. A dark sea with almost no far shore, as stars were sparse and well-separated here.
A green star appeared finally, after a good piano solo.
“Ninagirsu,” Moirrey continued. “Gateway to the Altai sector. Anchor of the defenses on the far side of the gulf and the first step on the highway to Winterhome, homeworld of Buran, the Lord of Winter.”
The animation spun again, driving well up from the galactic ecliptic, until all the stars previously marked were visible again and everyone had a map of the incredible distances involved. It stopped there. The piano faded.
Silence fell.
Jessica powered the projection down and studied the faces around her. The next phase rested on their shoulders.
“I have two problems,” Jessica began. “We will be operating a long way from home, with incredibly difficult supply lines. And Buran is not stopped by the edge of a gravity well as we are.”
Kanda nodded. She had been there at Thuringwell. And had heard all the stories about St. Legier. The others remained quiet. Contemplative.
“There are other problems, as well,” she continued. “Fribourg is still riddled with spies, so anything we do will eventually be leaked, no matter what. That’s part of the reason we are not passing through an Imperial base on our way.”
“What are you looking for in a forward staging area?” Glenn spoke up suddenly. “If we’re going dark, how dark?”
Jessica smiled. Her newest commander had made the kind of intuitive leap they would need.
“Without a star to home in on, navigation gets tricky,” Jessica replied. “Find me a spot in between stars, marked by nothing but a complicated set of vectors from known locations.”
“That’s easy, Fleet Centurion,” Jennifer replied. “What am I missing?”
“How does Buran do it?” Elzbet suddenly piped up. “That’s the rogue element. We know from the records that they can cross vast spaces at impossible speeds. We don’t know how.”
“Correct,” Jessica said. “We can pick a spot at random. Easy enough, but how do we ensure that we aren’t on some autobahn of theirs that accidentally vectors them right through us?”
“JumpDrives and not sails, we know that,” Glenn said. “According to the old records from Alexandria Station, you pick a direction and a distance then throw yourself like a rock. When you arrive, you calculate your current location as a deviation from your intention, determine the correction, and leap again. How do you make that faster?”
“Highway signs,” Enej suddenly said.
“What?” Jessica turned to the man.
“Yes. Middle of nowhere. You need navigation points,” the Elzbet interjected. Enej nodded. “We don’t because we use known gravity wells as signatures. But you could drop a small beacon in the middle of nowhere. Maybe a line of them, each transmitting a different signal. A ship drops out, listens, and can triangulate themselves quickly, maybe immediately, as fast as those ships were supposed to think. We go through systems. They might just go around them, and then turn and drop in on the one they want when they achieve optimal proximity. Galaxy’s mostly a thick pancake, but if you go up or down, the density thins out appreciably, so you could probably perform tremendous ballistic jumps to go even farther. Where there are fewer things in the way to risk hitting, you can go much faster.”
Jessica turned to Kanda.
“When we get approach the place I want to base from, that will be your first task,” she ordered. “Find out if there is anything nearby like that. We’ll have to maintain total comm silence while we set up, just in case, so figure out how to do everything with a series of point-to-point lasers. Then you’ll start a grid and work outwards slowly.”
“And when we find it?” Glenn asked.
“Nothing,” Jessica replied. “If we break their toy, they’ll send someone to fix it eventually, but we’ll need to be prepared to pinpoint it and map it. We’ll also need to roll a long chunk of the network up all at once, if there really is such a thing. Killing one might just be a pothole they can sail around. I want to burn the bridge in front of them. And maybe behind them. You three put your minds on what to look for and how to unravel it. Bring in anybody you need, second priority to Arott and his team setting us up a base.”
“Moirrey?” Kanda asked.
“I’d start with her,” Jessica said. “Tell her to get silly and efficient. Maybe ask Yan, too, since he thinks in small, automated tasks better than anyone.”
“And when we get ready to kill it?” Jennifer asked, as if the thing was already a done deal.
“That’s what I have you and Alber’ for,” Jessica noted.