“Operating fully under our own power now, ma’am,” Wright interjected. “Reactor at one hundred percent of potential output.”
“Navigation, release all moorings.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.” Mitzner paused for a moment. “Moorings released.”
Tehrani leaned forward. “All ahead, dead slow. Maneuvering thrusters only.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
The sides of the shipyard berth started moving almost imperceptibly at first, though each passing second brought increased speed. The blackness of the void, broken up solely by the Milky Way's stars, lay beyond, beckoning them forward.
“Conn, Navigation. We are clear and free to navigate, ma’am.”
“Navigation, come to course…” Tehrani glanced at her plot. “Two-three-five, declination ten degrees.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
As the Greengold headed toward the Canaan Lawrence limit, Tehrani sat back. “It feels good to be back in the vacuum.” She turned her eyes to Wright. “What about you?”
“The first week or so off the line, I had some relief, you know?” Wright replied. “I could sleep through the night without the general quarters klaxon sending me into the top of my bunk.”
“I sense a but in there.”
Wright nodded. “Once I was fully rested, I started feeling like I was shirking my duties somehow, not being out in the fight.”
His comment resonated with Tehrani, as she’d had the same thoughts. I suspect any circumspect soldier feels the same way. “Now you understand why I was abrupt with our engineer last week.”
“Touché, Skipper.” Wright furrowed his brow. “While we’re on the subject, I’d rather be out fighting Leaguers than some wannabe pirate with a few surplus fighters.”
“Don’t be so quick to dismiss this enemy, XO.” Life had taught Tehrani never to underestimate an opponent. “We don’t know what we’re facing except that it’s a non-nation-state actor.”
“Well, at least we won’t be running through the Leaguer heavy-cruiser buzzsaw. Convoy duty got brutal there for a bit.”
“Thank Allah for that.” Tehrani shook her head. “Of course, if the neutrals would simply accept there’s a war on, form their ships into convoys, and mark the trade lanes they’re using, this would be a far easier task.”
Wright snorted. “Nothing’s simple in interstellar politics, ma’am.”
“Quite.”
“Conn, Navigation. We’re clearing the Lawrence limit in sixty seconds, ma’am.”
The “High Loop” orbit shipyard they had been in was significantly farther away from Canaan than most stations around the planet. As a result, it was far faster to the limit than a normal departure from CDF headquarters.
“Navigation, plot a Lawrence drive jump to the first set of coordinates on our route to the border.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am. Jump coordinates are plotted and ready to engage on your command.”
She must’ve preplanned our route. Good—shows initiative. Tehrani counted down the seconds until they were past the limit, which was overlaid clearly on her plot as a bright dotted line. “Navigation, execute Lawrence jump.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
The bridge lights dimmed immediately as the mighty Lawrence drive—the Terran Coalition’s only method of FTL travel—came to life. Directly ahead of the ship, a small vortex began to form. Over several seconds, it grew to a massive spatial feature with a kaleidoscope of color—blue, green, red, and orange. The artificial wormhole allowed nearly instantaneous travel to anywhere with its range, which for the Greengold was roughly seventy-five light-years.
“Conn, Navigation. Wormhole stable, ma’am.”
“Take us in.”
It only took a few moments for the carrier to slip through the maw of the brightly colored wormhole and pop out the other side—with an entirely different set of stars.
“Conn, Navigation. Transit complete, ma’am. Within five thousand kilometers of our target.”
“XO, have engineering begin cool-down activities.” Tehrani sucked in a breath. “I want our next jump to proceed in two hours.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
From there, they had two more jumps to reach the Marcus Luttrell, while the Astute along with the two converted Saurian frigates would join further into their patrol. The tactical plans Tehrani had already put together showed it was doubtful she would be able to keep Battlegroup Z together as one concentrated force. Spreading her ships out to cover a larger area of space was the only way they would be able to catch the pirates—as long as she balanced the danger posed by being too far apart to support one another. The next few weeks looked to be long indeed.
4
CSV Zvika Greengold
Deep Space—Terran Coalition Border Zone
21 August 2434
With a full week of patrol activities under her belt, the Greengold and her crew received a few credible activity reports but had yet to encounter pirate forces. Two months of refits had added just enough cobwebs to their readiness that Tehrani ordered random battle drills to get the enlisted ratings back into shape. So far, they’d greatly improved their reaction times, and she was pleased with the progress.
August 21 began like every other day in the void—with rote routines and sheer boredom. Tehrani was tempted to skip the morning watch and instead focus on paperwork but in the end decided if she could put off readiness reports for six hours, she would.
“You okay, Skipper?” Wright asked.
His voice brought Tehrani out of her thoughts. “Oh, yes.” She turned toward him. “I was thinking about the mound of paperwork I have to do when the morning is over.”
“The only constant in the universe.”
Tehrani leaned back. “Battlegroup status?”
“Astute is poking around in deep space, watching a system with a lot of freighter traffic. The Marcus Luttrell is a few kilometers off our port side, and our two frigates are escorting a small group of vessels with cargoes of lithium.”
She’d left detailing of the other ships’ assignments to Wright, mostly because he needed some joint command experience on his personnel review. It’s time for Benjamin to get his own command, and I’ll do my part later this year. A grin came to Tehrani’s face—her XO had no idea what she had planned.
“Conn, Communications. I’m receiving a distress signal, ma’am.”
“Put it on my viewer,” Tehrani replied.
An image of a battle-scarred bridge appeared on the monitor directly above her head. Through waves of static and lines in the picture, a woman was visible. “This is the ISV Hadley to anyone in range. We’re under attack by unidentified
