Advanced Strike Cruiser Fury CX+ 704
Manassas Station Frontier
Gitairn Sector Eight
CDR Jayce Hunter Commanding

Lieutenant Commander Thomas Huggins strode on to the bridge and examined the tactical display on the main viewscreen.

“Status.”

“No change, sir. Manassas Station has performed nine complete sweeps. No contact.”

“Walsh is certain there is activity in the Shasta sector. They’re going to jump out somewhere along the reach. The only question is where.”

Huggins sat at the conn and activated the commlink.

“Hunter.”

“Huggins on the bridge, ma’am. You asked for a status update.”

“And you’re about to report nothing has changed.”

“You sound impatient.”

“An astute observation, XO. I’m getting tired of tinkering with spare parts while our enemy stays out of reach.”

“We’re due to dispatch a tactical bulletin in 18 minutes. Any new instructions?”

“I’ll be up in a minute.” The channel closed. Huggins knew there were only a few things in known space that could drag Jayce Hunter out of her off-duty workshop. One was Petty Officer Beadle Angley’s vegetable stew. The other was nagging strategic doubt. The Fury XO suspected the latter was the reason Jayce had relocated her workshop to Deck Two during the refit.

“Captain on the bridge.”

Jayce walked directly past the conn to stand near the forward viewscreen. “Give me a comprehensive tactical view of the Gitairn Interdiction Zone and center it on Fury’s position.”

The tactical officer silently configured the necessary controls. An instant later, the forward display switched to a top-down map of the line of defensive sectors stretching from Raleo in the extreme upper left corner all the way down to Scorpion One Three in the lower right. Fury was situated directly in the center, occupying the zone designated Gitairn Sector Eight. Near Fury’s green avatar was the stationary indicator for the Manassas battle station. The large heavily armed base was one of only a few fortifications standing between the contested El Rey system and the edge of Core Space.

“Highlight the last positions of Rhode Island and Minstrel.”

Two new green indicators appeared three sectors away between Fury and the lower right edge of the screen. Assault Squadron Victory was operating only 800 light-hours from the trailing edge of the minefield where the Barker’s Asteroid sentinel emplacement had been destroyed. Near their position was the binary system known as Dante’s Twins. Astronomers had long believed the treacherous gravity spikes caused by the two eternally warring stars ripped nearby planets to ribbons and created the asteroid field where both Barker’s Asteroid and Scorpion One Three were located. It was the only sector where Skywatch refused to deploy a battle station, citing safety concerns. That meant it was left to Jayce Hunter to reinforce the system with two of her most prominent skippers. A risk, to be sure, but a necessary one. Left undefended, Dante’s Twins would make a fine corridor through which to send an end run of warships and drive straight through open space right to Bayone’s front door.

“Is there anything we’ve missed?”

“I don’t think so, ma’am. Commander Teller reports Spruance has established her operational patrol zone at Shiloh. That cuts off Prairie Grove. Constellation, Exeter and Revenge are reinforcing the 808th at Bayone Three. That blocks the Dead Reach. Argent and Dunkerque are ready to make their run against either Bayone or Hallows Moon. We’ve got El Rey pinned. That leaves Raleo isolated.”

“So anything coming from the right edge of that tactical display has to go through at least one Perseus warship to engage Bayone. Now, what about the threats on the left side?”

“All there is behind the Gitairn IZ is Vicksburg station and the Core worlds.”

“Exactly.”

“You’re expecting another attack by friendlies?”

“We’ve already tangled with Task Force Hades once. I’m not convinced that pinnace wasn’t of dubious origin, and we still have the matter of our famous impostor.”

The rest of Fury’s bridge crew pretended not to listen, but the truth was they were hanging on every word. The disappearance of Lieutenant Cooper had sent shockwaves through the Perseus formation. How could a senior officer just vanish like that, and how could Atwell’s forces possibly have replaced her so quietly and skillfully? For that matter, what other officers were potentially missing? And how did Commander Hunter know?

“Where is he going to strike first?” Huggins asked rhetorically.

“Ensign, what is that reading on the harmonics sensors?” Hunter asked. Ensign Coleman almost leaped out of his shoes at suddenly being called on by the captain. It took him several moments to fight through the surge of adrenaline to locate the numbers on row six of his forward projected readings. He scrolled through five screens of information trying to find the backlink.

“Ensign?” Hunter asked, arms still folded.

“Uhh– it’s an energy surge, ma’am. EW picked it up as a potential weapons emission match.”

“Weapons? Matched to what?” Hunter asked, her attention and curiosity now both fully engaged.

Coleman leaned closer. “Skywatch records indicate a feedback mechanism used by saboteurs in the First Battle of Magellan Pass. It was called the ‘Riflecutter.’”

“Feedback mechanism..” Huggins mused.

“Weren’t we briefed on feedback weapons when WEPS installed the new SPECTREs?” Jayce added. “Something about using a covalence trail as a freefloating ionized ‘wire’ for a magnetically contained plasma charge?”

“You’ve been reading those space books again,” Huggins chuckled.

“What are experimental weapons doing in my command zone, Ensign?”

“Unknown, ma’am. It could be a battle computer wrong guess. We’ve had false positives on weapons discharges before.” The ensign blushed, realizing he hadn’t been asked for speculation. Hunter let it go.

Huggins had used the moments when he wasn’t talking to move closer to Fury’s forward tactical display. “Yeah, but that was when our weapons were involved. We haven’t fired a shot.”

“Tactical, ready a type III probe. Stand by launch at zero acceleration. Ensign, give me a maximum envelope anti-transmission field. Dial us up to point five megawatts until the probe reaches range.”

Quiet acknowledgments answered the commander as she climbed into her center chair without breaking her gaze at the tactical screen.

“Probe ready, ma’am.”

“Launch. Engage forward AMT beams at fifteen percent power. Maximum amplitude gain on all pickups. Pilot, maintain position. Engines at station keeping.”

“Aye, ma’am. Helm answering all stop. Engines at station keeping.”

“Tactical, navigate probe on least-time course relative one two one mark sixteen. Vector to range point six megaclicks and report all contacts.”

The sleek little rocket shot into space at an unsettling speed. Once it emerged from Fury’s anti-transmission field, its LOS systems established datalink with the cruiser’s formidable reflectors and began to cycle telemetry.

“Readings coming in now, captain.”

“Ensign, find me anything that looks like a trail. I don’t care what it is or what it looks like, if you can track it from point A to point B, I want to know about it. Affirmative?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“I can spare an hour.”

“If we find something interesting enough, are we delaying our patrol?” Huggins asked.

“We don’t know when or where, but I have a hunch we might find out what before the shooting starts. Whatever Atwell has planned, at least some of it is going to come from under Bayone Three, and that means it’s up to Komanov and Second Marines. The rest of it might come out of nowhere in my patrol zone, and if it does, I want to be ready.”

Hunter strode back towards her workshop. She was filled with anxious energy, and she knew standing on the bridge listening to the ticking clock wasn’t going to help.

“Find me that trail, XO. You have the bridge.”

“Acknowledged.”

The lift doors closed behind her.

“Helm, set new course one zero five. All ahead slow. Notify Manassas we are delaying phase three until further notice. Maintain electronic warfare posture.”

The warship banked silently in space and crept along her new course.


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