"Jump path plotted, Captain."

Combat acceleration gel didn't impede the movements of augmented Imperials. Unfortunately, pregnant Imperials might as well be unaugmented, given all the limitations placed on us until we decanted. I floated in the thick, green gel, thankful my essie could at least filter out the worst of the auditory and visual distortions.

"Excellent. Marine status?"

"All Marines are armored up and ready to launch at your command." Jeremy Fitzhugh whispered in my ear from half a ship away. He hadn't been my First for long, and I'd been in my third trimester the entire time. I blamed most of our lack of camaraderie on my pregnancy; so many of the normal social activities available to Imperial servicemen were 'strongly discommended' for pregnant women. He hadn't been lax in his duties, but until now I hadn't pressed him much.

"Excellent, First. If I am..." I paused, bile rising at what I had to say next. "If I am not available to give the command, launch them against any pursuit after our second jump."

"The plan is to launch armored Marines, targeting pursuit, after our second jump. Roger."

"Okay, Tiamat. Give me full military power for our first jump point." The moment the words left my mouth, the gel squooshed against my back. Full military power meant no grav plate compensation for inertial effects. A tiny line of text in the corner of my eye let me know my essie had shut down my sense of acceleration until combat maneuvers were over, but the direction of the gel's pressure showed me which direction I faced relative to our line of travel anyway.

The command room fell away, and I saw with Tiamat's sensors. A thin net of glowing scarlet lights surrounded us, turning into a fog beyond the reach of our sensors. Even the fog glowed faint pink due to the probable existence of enemies beyond our sight. Behind us and to our flanks four Madrecita class 'Sects accelerated to intercept us before we got clear of the net. One of them got ahead of her sisters, and Tiamat spun on her core, fired her main projector banks and a pair of ship killer missiles, then spun once more to face her chosen jump point. The incautious 'Sect twisted, threw off an outer skin as chaff, but the second ship killer buried itself in her side before detonating.

One down, an interstellar empire's worth of bugs to go.

The four scouts closest to our line of travel moved to block our path; simultaneously their sisters shifted back to avoid our long-ranged fire. "Have I mentioned yet how much I do not like smart 'Sects?"

"I do recall you mentioning something to that effect, yes."

A foreign thought occurred to me, slipping past my lips before I could call it back. "How sure are we that there's not a 'Sect hive in system?"

The question seemed to take Tiamat by surprise; her pause tasted more of shock than introspection. Her answer came hesitantly, each word pulled from her.

"The system is patrolled yearly; we've occasionally skirmished with Scouts, but we've never seen mother ships of any size here before. Two lifeless inner bodies are marked for eventual terraforming. Half a dozen have the potential for possible conversion to ships; three scouts, four cargo vessels, and one capital ship. The 'Sects have shown no ability to terraform from lifelessness in under a century. By our best estimates that would take longer on a body with no substantial gravity."

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I shook my head, banishing the distractions. If the 'Sects had a hive in system, it would explain the intelligent behavior, but we didn't have the firepower to exterminate an infestation of that size. Hive or no hive, we had a destination. I noted the possibility of a hive in the system and turned my attention back to the 'Sects ahead of us. Three of them had formed into a triangle shape, obscuring our view of the remaining enemy. They intended to soak up Tiamat's firepower in an attempt to give their sister a chance to latch on to us.

If she succeeded, we wouldn't be able to jump until Tiamat recalculated or we ripped her loose. We had to take out all four, and we needed to take the rear one first, since the debris of the three in front would obscure our shot even better than the live 'Sects themselves.

The answer rose from my subconscious, overriding my mouth before I could stop it. "Tiamat, plot a firing solution for the bug in the back. The three in front are simple; I can manage the plot for those."

Again, her reaction reeked of stunned surprise. "Yes, Captain. I'll have a solution momentarily."

I raced through my calculations, plotting sure kills with nothing but energy weapons, then creating secondary and tertiary solutions with increasing levels of physical munitions. We could replace energy far easier than mass, if it came down to a battle of attrition before we rejoined the supply tenders. Not that it would, if I had anything to say about it.

I finished my third set of firing solutions and paused, staring at the three sets of data rich icons floating in front of me. As I watched, a final set of icons flickered into place with the three I'd put together. The three sets Tiamat could have created in an instant, leaving me time to create the critical final set. For the life of me I couldn't think why I'd given her the crucial targeting solution and done the grunt work myself. Must have been a side effect of pregnancy or something. I couldn't wait for my little one to be ready for decanting.

Eight days until optimal conditions for birthing. Delay for up to sixteen additional days possible, with increasing delivery difficulty until surgical procedures are required on day seventeen.

I frowned slightly at my essie's reminder of how soon I'd be a mother. That left me another limiter to the ongoing firefight; I had to get us free of the 'Sects to give birth. Nothing eroded a crew's morale like having their Captain in med bay, and we needed every edge we could get.

"...firing solution set?" Tiamat's voice cut through my musing. I twitched; my attention refocused on the firing solutions. Scanning through hers, I pulled together four sure kills and wordlessly marked them as approved. The others slid into storage, and the acceleration gel quivered as Tiamat's weapons unleashed Hell on the Insectoids standing between us and freedom.

The Scouts evaporated under a combination of missiles and projected energy. A moment later, her entire hull shuddered as she smashed through the expanding gases of their remains. With her sensor data flowing through me, I watched her gather the energy to warp space, to steal a wormhole from the quantum foam, charge it, and throw one end to our destination.

Space warped, and the world went black.

***

I surged up out of my bed, finally free of memory's clutches. Halfway to upright, my breasts ran into a steel post someone had set across my bed. Quick blushed and yanked his arm away so fast I thought I imagined it. The ache of a rapidly forming bruise told me I hadn't. I took a moment to check my specifications; an unaugmented Cadet shouldn't be bruising me.

Cadet Quick is partially augmented, and your augments are down to save power.

I shook my head to clear it of post-sleep mugginess, adjusted my sweats as much to ground myself in me as to make sure nothing had shifted while I slept, and then swung out of bed.

"Is there a reason you woke me, First?"

"Yes, sir. We jumped at five hours, as per your orders. Echidna spotted what she thinks was an incoming 'Sect jump footprint moments before we jumped out, and she just completed the post-jump scan of the system a few moments ago."

"The 'Sect followed us?"

"No, sir. They were here. Waiting."