“Ye Gods,” Senior Centurion Elzbet Aukley said as the image came up on her screen. “What in creation is that?”
“That’s why I figured I should wake you up, boss,” the man said with a serious frown.
Orn Nwokolo had worked his ass off to make it to the level of Assistant Science Officer on a Galactic Survey Cruiser at such a young age. Elzbet had been partly responsible for driving him there, once she saw him work. She trusted his judgment on this sort of thing, a faith that was only reinforced when she got a look at the monitor.
“Take over down on the emergency bridge,” she decided. “Kanda needs to see this, too.”
Elzbet looked around the otherwise quiet bridge as Orn left at a run, and took a breath. It was deep in the ship’s night right now, but war was a twenty-four/seven operation. She leaned across the station and initiated a link to the commander’s suite.
“Command Centurion Lungu to the bridge,” she said, closing the channel and looking around. “Bring the vessel to yellow alert and hold there.”
Not quite shit-hitting-fan, but everyone be prepared for it in short order, so stay out of the shower and the gym.
GSC Ballard wasn’t a warship, but they were all in the navy, and even a survey cruiser had guns, Tomas Kigali’s ongoing snide commentary notwithstanding.
Elzbet logged herself into the science officer station and brought all data feeds on-line. In their time hiding at the system boundary, Ballard’s specialists had been able to covertly install a number of passive sensors, both down on the surface of the little iceball they hid behind, and in close orbit, so they could see Trusski without exposing much of themselves.
Only occasionally did the ship slip above the horizon to bring the big sensor arrays into play. Today was probably going to be one of those days. She had served with Kanda Lungu enough to know how the woman thought.
Imperial data files finally found a match with a happy chirp and began displaying specifications.
Angustidens-class. A type of vessel tagged as a Nightmaster, what the Imperials called a JumpCarrier.
Frightening.
Take a battleship bigger than anything Fribourg or Aquitaine fielded, maybe as big as a Star Controller. Along with the usual split into Buran and Energiya components for combat, this vessel carried with it four smaller ships like remorae, each classified as a Mako, or roughly somewhere around the size and capabilities of a cruiser.
A castle with four big towers on the corners, each of which could separate and fight on its own terms.
Heavier than what First Expeditionary had taken to invade Thuringwell, but Elzbet also had a pretty good idea about what an Expeditionary Cruiser like VI Victrix could do. Two of them might be a good match for four Makos, depending on luck and positioning.
“What have we got?” Kanda said as she entered the bridge, still tugging her tunic into place.
“Flagship of the enemy sector fleet just inserted into Trusski orbit,” Elzbet said. “Nwokolo spotted them when they dropped out of their in-system jump, right about where we expected them, based on Keller’s notes. Signal’s lagging about four and a half hours at this point. They appear stable now. Probably asking the locals for directions.”
“Gold star for Orn,” Kanda smiled. “You ready to peek?”
“Just waiting for the order,” Elzbet replied with a grin.
They made an excellent team, intuitively able to finish each other’s sentences like sisters at this point, even if they looked nothing alike.
Elzbet was tall and rail thin, regardless of what she ate. Her brother had always accused her of looking like an ancient scarecrow. Golden blond hair that refused to stay curled only heightened the resemblance to straw and a strawman.
Kanda Cosmina Lungu, on the other hand, was short and curvy, and as dark of skin and hair as Elzbet was washed out.
Sisters under the skin, though.
She keyed the ship-wide comm.
“All hands to action stations,” Elzbet called. “Prepare for a surveillance run.”
For the rest of the fleet, the second in command was the tactical officer for combat. On a survey cruiser, she was still 2IC, but now it was the combat of stealthy listening. At Thuringwell, it had also involved slinging a snowball of electronic hash at the opposition.
Kanda locked herself down and nodded.
“Aukley, you have Tactical,” she ordered.
Elzbet willed herself to stillness, as if she could influence the rest of Ballard by mind alone.
“Engineering, bring all power systems on-line,” she ordered.
Electronic warfare was a function of raw power, either to broadcast noise on every frequency, or cut through it. Since they were alone out here, everything could go into electronic counter measures, ECM, at the push of the big, purple icon in the middle of her console, generating an electronic smoke screen hopefully good enough for them to hide behind. At least long enough to peek-n-sneak.
The sensors themselves consumed little power, especially in passive mode, but the signal from the planet was over four hours old. That monster could have jumped out, found Ballard’s hiding spot, and be preparing to appear on top of them before Elzbet or Orn knew it was coming.
Only when the signal from engineering went green did Elzbet move to stage two.
“Nav, prepare to broach,” she ordered.
Ballard was hanging in a low orbit over their frozen world, barely held in place by just enough gravity to make the planetoid a true sphere. If they did nothing, they would orbit the star and the planet at the same speed, forever in the iceball’s shadow, as seen from Trusski.
But this was the dangerous part.
The pilot looked up and nodded his confirmation. Everybody tended to get silent on this bridge when they worked, especially when they were being sneaky. It was unnecessary, since they were light hours away, but it reflected well that everyone thought that way. There was no combat glory on a survey cruiser.
Hide with pride.
“Execute your broach, Pilot,” Elzbet ordered.
Like a whale from the lost homeworld, transplanted to so many other planets, Ballard popped over the north pole of their bolthole, bringing the sensor array into the clear like a giant, electronic blowhole. Boards that had been running at thirty percent data input suddenly hit max.
A firehose of data that the Fleet Centurion would need.
Elzbet held them there for nearly four minutes. Long enough for systems to identify the vessel as Steadfast at Dawn, according to the Imperial records accumulated on various trips to get their asses kicked at Samara too many times by this craft and another one like her.
She hoped Moirrey Kermode had a good surprise in store for those folks. That thing was a mobile combat platform, not a mere warship.
“Thoughts?” Kanda asked simply.
“Have everything I need at this point,” Elzbet replied. “Run for home?”
“Unless you have a reason to stay put?”
“Negative, Commander,” Elzbet said. “One of those Makos could take us by itself. Nav, take us down.”
He had been waiting for the order, fingers poised over the buttons with the course already laid in. On the screen, the horizon went from below them to above them, and then off to one side as Ballard pitched down hard and started to yaw starboard. In less than a minute, darkness reigned as the worldlet in front of them resumed its task as their shelter from the solar wind. And from prying eyes.
“Commander, you have the bridge,” Elzbet said.
“Roger that,” Kanda replied. “Nav, plot a course straight outward from Trusski, maintaining our sensor shield as we go. Go to JumpSpace as soon as we clear the local gravity well.”
“Already set, Commander,” he said.
Elzbet smiled. A solid crew.
Now they just needed to show all this to the Fleet Centurion.
Things were going to get rough out here.