Thanks to the dramatic difference in speeds between warp and hyperdrive, despite the increasingly cloudy, miserable path warp drives were being forced to use to transit the frontier, Eyeball arrived at one of Ascension's designated locations almost a week before the rest of the fleet.

The experience gave him a bit more perspective on the Queen's plan; if he hadn't known just where all of these debris fields and ruptured worlds and other problems the Queendom had created over the past month were, he would have destroyed the ship on any one of a number of paths to reach the front. Any Republic fleet trying to advance at this stage would be reduced to a crawl, and actually take years to cross the border; unless someone were guiding them through.

Most likely, multiple fleets had already suffered casualties trying to advance, only to be turned back; this entire region was undoubtedly flooded with Scout ships checking how dense the new clouds were, looking for safe passages.

This particular spot, about a light-month outside the system, was on the edge of a gas cloud formed by the disruption of the star; if he were to trigger the warp drive at a high factor, it would be like slamming into a giant, impenetrable wall surrounding the system a few light-weeks out.

Almost immediately; before the six Ascension craft arrived; he started picking up an encrypted signal; unsurprisingly, it was a low-quality feed of what had been going on in the star system a few hours ago; as well as packets of data to update what had been going on.

Ascension glanced up at Eyeball. A message appeared on his HUD.

~Receiving data. The most recent update is being broadcast on a continuous loop, repeating every forty-two minutes, with minor updates on craft positions each minute. In fifty minutes I will have the complete picture.~

Eyeball nodded at the machine; and looked around at the crew. "Alright, people. We're safe for the moment. All clear. Check your systems, stretch a little; we should be getting updates soon, likely about an hour. Raimi, Porti. You've both been on past your shift, have your replacement take over. We'll probably be out here for a few days before we go in."

True to his own word, he pulled to his feet and stepped off the bridge; he'd been tensed up, squeezing the controls and focusing on not letting any of the seven ships wreck for hours now. Depending on the picture Ascension had for him, he might even take a nap... after a quick jog. They were likely going to be waiting around for a while, unless there was an opportunity presenting itself.

He inhaled deeply; the ship was over two hundred meters long, and the extradimensional space made that a full kilometer; and he no longer carried that extradimensional space with him at all times; leaving it secured to the captain's chair. This meant that, unlike on the Jeanne, he could actually go through the entire ship at need.

He walked through the clearly marked hatch; he'd even set an airlock in place that would snap shut if it detected another gateway getting too close; and onto the track a level below the main deck. A few of his crew were already there, jogging; one gave a nod as she moved, a Shoork pirate girl who looked to be a teenager; but if he recalled correctly was in her twenties.

He started in on a slow jog, as updates started to appear on his HUD.

~Ripper's corpse has been recovered. Ongoing experiments to produce a cyborg with Ripper's body show promise. Project was smuggled out aboard an evacuation shuttle 17 days ago. Shuttle has been taken over, experiment resumed. Shuttle will meet fleet post-incident; protecting shuttle is a high-priority at this time.~

Eyeball blinked. Protecting a new cyborg a high priority? Odd, but fine.

~Enemy ships have been continuously entering the system through the gate for the past 3 months. There are currently over two thousand vessels, mostly in stealth, lurking in the inner system powered down and watching, as well as two hundred and twelve around the outer perimeter.~

Damn. More than the Confederate fleet could handle? Probably. If they could enter at the right spots, and hit them before they got shields up...

~Progress on the Skull draws near a close; the Republic has an array of devices which have been bombarding it with gravity pulses, and its orbit around the sun's core has grown steadily more irregular. It briefly became visible through what was left of the star two days ago. Retrieval will be possible within two weeks, or less.~

Well. That's less than ideal. "How hard will taking out the gate be?" He passed a few of his crew on the track; the subtle curve of the walls and the artificial gravity, it was a nice, comfortable, continuous run, tricking the mind into thinking the space was bigger than it was.

An image appeared on his HUD; a massive circular structure with several ships, a glowing blue mass in the midst of it that was apparently the wormhole; and the thing was massive. It looked like a major fortification of some sort, several kilometers across, studded with guns and glowing with power.

"...That's not what I thought those looked like. I thought they were just... giant rings with a box-like thing at one side."

~Ordinary Gates are build under the assumption they are in a defended system, and have massive backup to call that can arrive before an attacker. This Gate has been heavily fortified; it has clearly been made with the idea of a vessel like your own in mind, subtly randomwalking back and forth, and shielded so heavily that not even the Wrath's main guns can penetrate it out in a single blow. Its ability to randomly drift is reduced compared to a starship, but enough to ensure incoming fire is distributed around its mass or through the gate rather than able to focus on a single shield and armor junction.~

"And, of course, the stealth ships are in position to nab me if I were to just drop in within firing range?"

~Precisely. Based on analysis, the Republic must be aware of Hyperdrive technology, but not possess it themselves, since none of the nearby ships have one. Likely someone reviewed stored footage on Ripper's suit camera and realized the implications; or one of the pirates betrayed it to the Republic, as the navies have the full plans, while the pirates do not, and are all accounted for; I placed trackers and self-destruct devices in those drives in the event the pirates decided to betray us..~

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Eyeball continued his jog, thinking. He looked down at his arm, nodding slowly in time with his steps. "Alright. Any ideas on how to deal with this?"

~The powered-down ships are vulnerable; they are not random-walking, and can thus be hit by extreme-range fire. If we deposit a series of railguns along the edge of the system, not only will it warn the enemy we are scouting; and thus likely prevent them from moving the stealthed ships; but we can have the railguns fire with timing such that they strike at the same time that our forces arrive.~

"...Huh. Clearing the system -might- be possible. How many railguns do we have already, and how many would we need?"

~We already have enough for the job, primarily harvested from planetary bombardment weapons, already designed to vary the outgoing velocity of their projectiles at need. I would recommend deployment immediately; in places with existing debris in the Oort cloud.~

"Good. I've already got a handle on how to deal with the Gate. Lets keep at least one ship visible, but far out, easily able to escape at warp, until we kick things off... and of course it should pretend to only have a warp drive."

***

Duchess Qaki's bridge was dead silent as they stared at the display. Fully three thousand ships were visible within the system; most of them immobile, pretending not to exist, but far more than the present fleet could handle. The gate was vastly more armed and armored than such structures were normally; and intel apparently showed there might be a hundred thousand, or more, ships on the other side, waiting for the arrival of her own fleet to ambush them.

If she were crazy enough to have stripped every garrison in her duchy and bring the full royal fleet from the other Duchesses in the Queendom, she could have brought enough ships to handle the ones in-system. But she hadn't.

She'd been so focused on the gloomy outlook, watching the feed, that she hadn't even noticed the translator's buzz as the human gave his presentation to the assembled fleet. For some reason, red lines were running through the various downed ships, as if they wouldn't matter in the upcoming fight; and he displayed images of their fleet emerging, scattered, each firing its full loadout at point-blank range as soon as it emerged.

She blinked. Hyperdrives caused distortions in sensors, in shields, left them vulnerable briefly... but... if they knew where the target was before they emerged, it just might work. She rewound the image to the reason behind the red lines.

"We've planted thirty-two orbital bombardment railguns around the perimeter of the system. By now, the first volleys of the battle have already been fired, and soon, those railguns will make their final shots; and go silent until its time to pick them up. The enemy knows we're here, and watching, now. They've stopped slipping ships through the gate, the stealthed ones have stayed silent, and they're pretending not to have noticed us. Within the span of four seconds, multiple railgun rounds will pass through the vicinity of each of these vessels. Odds are that most of them will be destroyed before they can even power up. The fleet jumps in, destroys any easy prey, then forms up."

She blinked; and forwarded it closer to the current statements.

"The only purpose of the fleet after this point, after securing any easy initial kills, is to draw in the enemy on the other side of the gate. There are millions of ships over there. We want as many as possible to come close. As such, we're going to be deploying decoys; thousands of them around the edges of the system. The enemy will think that we've brought an enormous fleet to hopefully defeat them, destroy the gate, and seize the neutronium. They'll mass an enormous, decisive fleet at the portal... and then your people will withdraw."

The image shifted, showing the six hundred active Republic ships. "We might just be able to clear the system... aside from the gate, and the ships defending it. I'll be handling those personally. You've got over four hundred warships, and hopefully, enough surprise to do the job. You'll be jumping in seconds after the railgun strikes, with the coordinates of every enemy ship. Don't risk yourselves; as soon as you start taking shield hits, withdraw. I don't want the Republic getting any functional hyperdrives."

She fast-forwarded to the present. Some of the fleet captains were asking questions. Making comments. She tapped her own alert button; the camera in the holographic meeting focused on her. "Exactly how do you plan to handle the gate, and the surrounding ships? There's over forty enemy ships there, and over three hundred stealthed. If even some of those survive that railgun bombardment..."

The silver helm flicked back into focus. "The Gaze of Wrath carries over fifty thousand anti-ship missiles aboard and can kill any enemy target but the gate in a single volley. I've got this part handled; the Ascension flotilla will join me briefly, to fire a single missile volley to support me and distract the enemy, before joining you in trying to sweep the system; but after that, I've got things handled."

***

Commander Drakth stared at the displays in irritation as he paced the bridge of his flagship. He'd been waiting for the encounter for months now. Building his forces. Baiting the trap. But of course, the enemy would wait until the neutronium had emerged from the star, and could be easily collected; and had a scoutship, light-hours away, watching everything.

The scout was a vague blur, but real, carrying the distinct signatures of a warp drive; and represented an enormous pain.

Ships weren't designed to be power-down but occupied for months at a time. Until this recent scout's arrival, he'd been able to resolve that by having them take turns; quietly slide one ship from view while another activated itself, none being offline for more than a few days at once. Now? Everything that had been lying in wait from the moment the scout ship arrived had to remain still, silent.

So... he'd had to issue batteries. Ration packs. Hundreds of packets of supplies were being scattered around the system to be retrieved by the scouts, as quietly as possible; and when one was missed, another had to be launched as soon as possible... without being visible by that distant scout.

They needed to lure the enemy in. The visible ships would be more than enough to handle the Rogue and his ship, no matter how advanced it was; but obviously he would have backup. Some Swarm fleet or other, likely hundreds of them. They'd see the Republic defenders, move in to pounce with whatever drive had been witnessed in use in the recordings... and be utterly crushed by vastly superior numbers.

In the unlikely event that he'd somehow united all of the nearby swarm races under his banner; extremely unlikely, but still possible; he might be bringing as many as ten thousand ships. In which case... Drakth would be dead. His entire purpose, and that of his fleet, would be to delay the enemy long enough for one of the other Republic Commanders waiting on the other side of the gate to arrive. No matter how many ships the Swarm could bring to bear, the Republic had access to millions; and the gates themselves, and the ability to get them from one end of the galaxy to the other instantly, would, once again, allow them to defeat even the most vast of enemy fleets.

And, of course, grab enough neutronium to make hundreds of thousands more ships, and possibly even capture some useful technology; there were some subsections of the swarm who had only persisted because of the weaknesses of the Warp drive, things Drakth hadn't even thought of as weaknesses until he saw Eyeball's ship vanishing from existence in the middle of a star-system, where it wouldn't be safe for any ordinary vessel; and use the technique repeatedly, in multiple systems, and seen the video of the rogue's ship having done the same in his own galaxy of origin.

This might be a bloody battle for himself, personally. But the string of losses throughout the sector had painted his own failings against the rogue in a very different light; and he might still manage to earn a place on the ruling council of the whole fleet if he managed to pull this together.