50

Ypres was just over twenty-six light-years from Redward. The actual trip between the two systems was closer to twenty-nine, but that was normal enough. The nova from Redward to the trade route was four light-years, followed by twenty-four light-years in four standard novas along the route, then a one-light-year nova to finish the trip.

Of the five stops along the way, Seventh Fleet had known they were going to hit a fight at the first one with the Redward blockade…and they knew they weren’t going to make it to the last trade route stop without the fight they were waiting for.

The first nova along the route went without incident. As the fighters gathered back aboard the carriers for the second trade-route nova, the third of the trip, Kira even relaxed enough to be in Flight Control for the jump instead of in her fighter.

Her squadron couldn’t make the initial launch after every nova, not without clearly distrusting Cartman and Yamauchi, after all.

“Count down to nova. Sixty seconds,” Zoric’s voice echoed through the room. “Fleet is synchronized.”

“I’m glad I’m not the one syncing this many ships to one nova,” Tamboli told Kira. “Navigation is not my strong suit.”

“Any nova-fighter pilot could do it in their sleep,” Kira replied. “If I’m syncing a full fighter strike, even leaving Conviction behind, that’s two hundred and thirty planes.”

“A year ago, I ran a shuttle maintenance facility for an orbital transfer company,” Tamboli reminded Kira, their voice dry. “We handled an average of eighteen shuttles at once, but that was because the company rented us out to do maintenance for anyone who needed it. They only owned twenty themselves.

“So far as I knew then, the only nova fighters in the sector were on the mercenary carrier that hung around the system, soaking up the fleet’s budget. Wouldn’t have even conceived of a two-hundred-fighter formation, let alone that I’d be involved.”

Kira chuckled.

“And yet when I posted for someone to run nova-fighter maintenance, you jumped at it.”

“Sounded like a challenge, something new that not many others could do that would stretch my skills and maybe show me more of the galaxy.” They shrugged. “I wasn’t wrong, was I?”

“You were the best-qualified candidate,” Kira said. “I’m glad to have you. I prefer not to worry about my fighter falling apart around me.”

A moment of tension rippled through the ship as Deception novaed.

“Excuse me,” Tamboli told Kira, stepping away to take up their station. “Memorial-Bravo squadron, Deck has the ball,” they announced.

Kira turned her own focus to the tactical display. Whichever one of Admiral Remington’s officers was coordinating the novas was doing a damn good job. The fleet had emerged in perfect formation, something not even her old Apollo colleagues had always managed.

Given the disparate components of the fleet, that was impressive. They might have split off the Yprian detachment, but there were still four mercenary ships in the fleet, and the newer ships had small but subtle differences in the nova drives, too.

A squadron of fighters launched from each carrier and Deception, putting thirty-six fighters into space in a breath. A few moments later, the carriers followed up with a second wave. Sixty-six nova fighters fell into their patrol patterns, sweeping for threats as the fleet’s sensors strained into the darkness.

“We’re clear,” Davidović reported from the cruiser’s bridge. “I was half-expecting trouble.”

“Two more trade-route stops after this and the buggers are watching for us,” Kira replied. “They don’t know where we are at any given moment unless someone sees us and novas.”

“Well, there aren’t even any civilians here,” Zoric said. “I guess there wasn’t much call for Redward-Ypres traffic with a fleet on both ends.”

“And every trade route leading out of the cluster runs past Ypres to provide a place for people to rest and discharge static,” Kira agreed. “I doubt the Bengals were letting people leave the Cluster, either.”

“You saw the intel,” Zoric said. “They’ve locked down everything. Only freighters leaving the Cluster this way fly Bengalissimo flags. Quite the economic incentive.”

“There are other routes out,” Davidović pointed out. “They’re just not as commonly used because they don’t head directly to anywhere of value. Going through Ypres, you’re on a direct course for Crest’s sector with only one discharge stop along the way.”

“They got three blockades for the price of two,” Zoric concluded. “But it won’t last.”

“Don’t get too confident, Kavitha,” Kira warned, remembering Konrad’s comments. “Deception may outgun everything they’ve got, but the Tabbies outgun everything else Redward is bringing to the party.”

That was what the Screwballs were for, but Kira was hesitant to put too much faith in the Ugly bombers.

“I know,” Zoric conceded. “When are you up on patrol?”

“Assuming no one ambushes us, six and a half hours,” Kira replied. “Four patrols on each nova stop. Everyone else on standby, even the ones that are sleeping. I think a lot of us are going to be exhausted when this is over, no matter how much sleep we supposedly get.”

“Get what rest you can, Commodore,” Zoric told her. “I’m swapping with Bueller in a few hours. We’ll be ready for whatever comes up, I promise.”

“I know.”

* * *

Hours passed in nervous silence. By the time Kira took her fighter out from Deception’s flight deck, her people had swept everywhere within half a light-day of the fleet. Nothing. The trade route was dead.

Some of that was just the Syntactic Cluster itself, she knew. There just weren’t enough freighters out there, even considering the hundred-plus that Redward and the other more successful powers each had registered, to have traffic in every trade route at every time.

But if there were any trade-route stops in the Cluster that would normally have had multiple ships, it was the line between Redward, Ypres and the rest of the galaxy. Two of the richest systems in the Cluster and the access to the rest of human space? Someone was always going to be traveling that line.

Except that Bengalissimo had cut the line off and everyone knew it. For ten weeks, Redward had been quiescent, waiting behind the blockade while they desperately assembled ships and fighter squadrons to make this breakout.

Watching her people patrol the area, Kira resisted the urge to fire off quick corrections to her former students. It was their wingmen and squadron COs who would do that now, fixing the thousand and one minor gaps in the knowledge and skill of the pilots she’d trained.

They’d managed to give those kids a solid foundation in sixty days, and that was a miracle, as far as Kira was concerned. Somehow, they’d pulled off the impossible.

And, thankfully, long-distance patrol-flying was a good place for the pilots to get rust knocked off safely—or as safely as they could ever fly an overpowered plasma-cannon delivery system.

“Backstab, tuck in your vector two degrees for me,” she said over her radio. Neha Bradley was now part of her squadron, one of the handful of the new pilots aboard Deception. Where Kira could keep an eye on her.

And since she was in Kira’s squadron, it fell to Kira to point out when the new pilot got sloppy.

OceanofPDF.com