2218 Svati Prime. Just the name of the planet was enough to invoke fear, anger, and grudging admiration from an Imperial audience.
The galaxy’s meanest, most effective practical joke.
Jessica grinned as she watched the theoretical track of those missiles. And if they ever actually arrived, Denis had programmed them to go inert. Friction in the atmosphere would destroy them.
But if any Buran vessel got too close, they would discover almost the entire count of Archerfish drones Jessica had brought to this frontier.
Keep them on their toes.
“Casey, have you found anything yet?” Jessica asked.
As Imperial Flag Centurion, the woman technically didn’t have anything to do, lacking Imperial vessels requiring squadron communications. She had been helping Enej’s team with squadron signals, but Jessica had pulled her off on a more important task.
“Negative, Fleet Centurion,” Casey said grimly.
“Project what we know,” Jessica ordered.
A new sphere replaced the tactical map, a gigantic plum representing the entirety of the Trusski system, out to one hundred AU. A globe approximately thirty light hours across. Large chunks of the map turned solid green, mostly on the far side of the system, while a few places showed red, with pink surrounding the crimson.
“The red are areas where we have solid information less than one hour old, Fleet Centurion,” Casey continued. “CS-405 has been paying attention on every hop, but not seen anything.”
“Nor would I expect them to,” Jessica said. “Steadfast at Dawn made that mistake once. Either the second jump was utterly random, in which case this is a fool’s errand, or they went here.”
Jessica toggled a switch and lit up an area almost one hundred AU out from the star, but exactly straight up from the spot where Auberon had caught the war entity earlier, when she had only expected the Energiya Module.
“Why there?” Casey asked.
Enej showed the same level of confusion on his face, but he hadn’t been combing Elzbet Aukley’s notes as obsessively as Jessica had.
“Ballard watched them arrive and depart earlier,” Jessica said. “Our first ambush point was their first departure hop in and out from Trusski orbit. They went there instinctively when Team One lit them up in orbit. Then we hit them there a second time. If I have the entire system to search through, we’ll only find them on blind luck and bad timing, unless I provoke them to come to me in orbit. We’ll try this one spot and if we don’t get lucky, then things will get interesting down in the gravity well.”
“Jump course plotted,” Casey said a moment later. “Nine minutes travel time.”
“Transmit and execute,” Jessica said. “Everyone be prepared to come out of jump firing.”
Jessica looked down and realized that she had forgotten her coffee from earlier. She took a sip and nodded her thanks at Marcelle as Auberon sidled between dimensions.
“All hands, this is Nina Vanek. I have Tactical,” the voice brought Jessica back from planning the next several chess moves. “Stand by to exit JumpSpace. Thirty seconds.”
Jessica saved the file and made a note for Enej or Casey to transmit the updates to the squadron as soon as they came out of jump. If this didn’t work, she might be reduced to actually bombing the planet to get Steadfast at Dawn to come out and play.
That, or go run to grab the Flight Wing and hope she could get everyone loaded before the battleship found her.
Emergence.
“Target bearing,” Enej called loudly. “All ships engage as you lie.”
Jessica’s screen lit up a half second later with the image of the monstrous Energiya Module, right out at the edge of Primary range, looking like half a carton of eggs, without two of the towers or the massive prow of the battleship in the center.
VI Ferrata had arrived first, apparently beating even CA-264, to say nothing of Alber’ and VI Victrix. Jessica watched Robbie’s Type-4 beams slam into the side of the transport module like twin hammers, followed a second later by a rake of his Type-3’s, still tuned for shooting at extreme range.
Large chunks of hull and scrap metal were left behind a moment later, blasted out into empty space when the Buran transport vanished before anyone else could get off a shot.
Robbie hadn’t killed it, but that salvo had hurt. Jessica was willing to bet a month’s pay that the blow had been severe enough that it might spend months in drydock.
Or whatever Sentient hospital a vessel like that required when it suffered something short of a mortal wound.
Not for lack of trying on her part.
“All vessels, stand down,” Enej called over the comm.
It was a redundant order. There was nothing there to shoot at, and Jessica knew that the ship was going to be hiding very hard now. Probably afraid of its own shadow.
Almost as good.
“Form them up and prepare for the next jump,” Jessica ordered.
Every transit had an element of randomness to it, riding gravity waves in JumpSpace. This had been a short enough hop that everyone was fairly close to where they needed to be: four of the corvettes in the usual, three-dimensional box around Auberon and II Augusta, with CP-406 directly above on overwatch. CS-405 was in her spot at the very van, but CA-264 had ended up somehow far aft and well to port from everyone else.
VI Ferrata was forward and VI Victrix aft, which was exactly backwards from how Robbie and Alber’ normally flew, but Jessica really didn’t mind, as long as they communicated with Enej and covered the carriers between them.
“Will they learn from this?” Casey asked abruptly.
Jessica started to retort, then realized what the woman was really asking.
“A good commander studies her wins as hard as her losses,” Jessica said simply, quoting a much younger Nils Kasum on the first day of a fateful, Fall quarter. “You will always make mistakes that could be improved upon, if you stop to understand that fundamental point. Never make the same mistake twice. Instead, fail originally.”
Casey nodded, much more an Emperor-in-training and much less a lowly Centurion.
“Override,” a voice came over the comm. “All guns to starboard broadside. Incoming.”