MFS PESMOD
“Our new friends wouldn’t just ghost us without saying goodbye, right?” Speinfoent questioned, his eyes narrowing.
“No. They’re very big on parties. Amelia said they were going to come over for one last ice cream delivery. Something could be wrong,” Grionc mused.
“Maybe it’s a practical joke?” Captain Pliont asked, shuffling in his chair. “They seem to understand humor similarly to us—”
Speinfoent shook his ears dismissively. “No. No way. We’re too close to the frontlines. They wouldn’t mess around here, especially knowing the way our escorts are.”
“Sensors on full, all sectors,” Pliont ordered.
“Scanning as we speak,” the sensor officer chimed in. “Nothing on my end.”
“It’s the Terrans: you won’t see them with this ship if they don’t want to be found,” Speinfoent remarked. “No offense, Captain.”
“None taken.” Pliont turned to Grionc. “High Fleet Commander, do we still refuel in this system as planned? We have just enough to get back to Malgeiru; it’s up to you.”
Grionc was pondering the options when the communications officer remarked, “Captain, the new module that the Terrans installed for secure communication is making some noise and the lights are blinking.”
“What? What are you waiting for? Activate it!”
Admiral Waters’ face materialized on the Pesmod’s main viewscreen. “Be advised, Pesmod and escorts, there are six enemy ships in system. One is at the system limit behind a comet, and five are hiding in the rings at the gas giant McMurdo-6. We suspect they’re getting ready to ambush an upcoming Malgeir supply fleet.”
Grionc squinted at her display. “I don’t see them.”
Amelia hit a few buttons, and the Terran ship started sharing sensor data with them via its data link system. The ships popped up on the Pesmod’s sensor board.
“What do you recommend we do?” Grionc asked, hoping the experienced Terran commanders would have a good battle plan in mind.
“Get out of dodge, probably,” Amelia suggested. “The Buns might be suspicious that a whole task force just came into the system from this direction and left without refueling. But if you just head for Malgeiru from a higher orbit, they probably can’t catch you as you go. They might follow it up with a system sweep, but space is big, and there’s not much of ours they can find here. More likely they’ll just keep hiding until someone else comes along. Do you have a better idea?”
“We can fight them,” Speinfoent offered. “With your ship and ours—”
“Why did I even ask?” Amelia rolled her eyes. “Listen, Sphinx. There’s absolutely no reason to pick a fight here. Much as I really want to blast these creeps to smithereens, if we are to go after them, we should trail them until they get somewhere far away from our systems before we strike, maybe even call a few bigger guns in just to be sure… I’m just saying it’s not worth hitting them here.”
“What about our incoming supply ships?”
“You can warn them. Divert them somewhere else. You don’t even have to tell them the truth. Say there’s a storm in the gas giant making it unsafe to refuel or something.”
Convinced, Grionc nodded. “Okay, that seems sensible, and we’ll defer to you since the secret of this system belongs to your Republic. We’ll let the escort task force know. Captain Pliont, alter our burn: let’s take the long course for the Aurfucui system and avoid the Buns.”
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“Alpha Leader Euntribent, we’ve received word from the Terrans that there’s a Znosian fleet at the McMurdo-6 refueling point waiting to ambush ships that refuel there. We are going to take a slightly longer orbital transfer before heading to Malgeiru,” Grionc urgently informed the escort fleet commander. “Do you have any ships that can’t make it home without a refuel?”
“Grass Eaters? Here, in this system?” Euntribent curled his lips as he scrutinized his console’s sensor panel. “I don’t see anything.”
“I assure you, Commander, they are there,” Grionc said with as much patience as she can muster. “They are hiding right in the rings of the gas giant, occluded by some of the asteroids there.”
Euntribent remained skeptical. “Send me their coordinates.”
With a sigh, Grionc punched a button, transferring the Pesmod’s sensor data to the rest of the escort fleet. “Done.”
She could almost see the gears in his brain turning. “They’re not waiting for us,” Euntribent finally replied after inspecting the data for a minute.
“Yes, we believe they’re waiting for one of our vulnerable supply runs to catch off guard.”
“Well, we can’t just leave. They’ll kill our supply ships!”
We went over this with the Terrans, Grionc thought. And if you hadn’t cut us out of your communications network…
Instead of expressing her exasperation overtly, she replied, “We can warn them to reroute away from this system.”
Euntribent looked contemplative for a heartbeat. Then, he shook his ears. “No.”
“Excuse me, Alpha Commander?”
“I said, no. These Grass Eater ships pose a threat to our supply line. If they do not ambush us here, they will ambush someone else later. So we will eliminate this threat today,” Euntribent replied. “Fleet, arm weapons and prepare to engage.”
“The Terrans said you can’t win with just these escorts, especially—”
“I can’t care less what some jumped-up half Grass Eaters say about us,” Euntribent cut her off with remarkable calmness for someone who just decided to commit suicide.
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“They are ready to ambush you. You are literally walking into a trap against the advice of our more experienced allies!”
Euntribent smirked. “I only see five of them near McMurdo-6 and there’s eight of us. Plus, we know where they are now, so if anything, we are ambushing them,” he pointed at his battlemap. “And if our friendly Grass Eater allies aren’t total cowards, I’m sure they’ll join us in battle. If what you say about how good they are is true, I’m sure this will be an easy battle. And if not, perhaps our glorious deaths will inspire them into action.”
“Glorious death— Are you a moron?!” Grionc shouted before she could restrain her frustration. “There are over four thousand spacers under your command! You’re going to get them all killed!”
“High Fleet Commander,” Euntribent said unflinchingly, completely disregarding her outburst as if she were a mere pup throwing a tantrum. “Please remain calm and professional. The enemy is here, and our task force is engaging them. Let our new… allies, or whatever… know that is our intention. And since you are in a lightly armed civilian ship, I recommend that you follow your own advice and make your own way to the system limit on your planned course just in case we don’t succeed. Good luck. Seuvommae out!”
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TNRS MISSISSIPPI
“What. The. Actual—” Amelia mouthed, her eyes widening in complete disbelief, as the Malgeir escort task force ships ignited their thrusters to full, racing directly towards the enemy. “Get the Puppers back on the phone, now!”
All color drained from Carla’s face as she relayed the message from her headphones. “Grionc says the task force commander has lost his mind. He intends to directly engage the Bun fleet with or without—”
Cutting her off, Amelia swiveled towards Chuck, her face set in a grim line as she prepared to leave the bridge. “Captain Harris, we are entering combat. Carla and I are heading down to the flag suite. Jam all FTL bands. Fight your ship and eliminate all enemies in system. And let me know if you need McMurdo. I’ll coordinate from the suite.”
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ZNS ZVONTRU
“That should be impossible. We are fully occluded here, except the low-emission reconnaissance buoys,” Atluftrosh complained. “There’s no way the Lesser Predators saw those from this distance. Did they spot the Sruakrach?”
His computer officer replied after querying the ship. “Eight Whiskers, even if they did see the Sruakrach, the combat computer says they shouldn’t know our exact position. But look… their flight paths are coming straight at us. This can be no mistake.”
And she was right. Space was far too big for such a perfect interception to happen by accident.
Atluftrosh tapped his paws on the armrest. “Maybe it is a true miraculous coincidence, and they are going to decelerate once they get closer…” Then he shook his head. “… but we can’t take the risk. Our engines need to be warmed up for the fight. We must assume they have already seen us. How does the combat computer recommend we engage?”
“The Digital Guide says to go out and meet them in battle. Full combat burn to ramp up to full engine acceleration. We can win a head-on fight with them easily. It’s only eight of them, plus the unarmed ship. We outrange them, and we are much better at this than they are.”
Atluftrosh nodded and grinned, revealing his flat front teeth. “Do as the combat computer say.”
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OUTPOST MCMURDO
“Huh! The Malgeir destroyers are now boosting straight for McMurdo-6. I think they saw the Znosians and are planning to engage,” Bert exclaimed. “The Znosians figured it out too. They’re boosting now to engage them.”
Zwena raised an eyebrow. “That is… not ideal. What is Admiral Waters thinking?”
Bert shrugged, scanning the readouts. “No idea. But the Mississippi started jamming FTL comms and our gravidar says she just deployed two Thunderbirds,” Bert said, marking the projected trajectory of the two low-observability strategic ship killer missiles on the main screen.
“What are they targeting? If the Mississippi wants to coordinate strikes, they can task our four strategic tubes—”
Bert’s face scrunched up in confusion. “Looks like the missiles are going… the wrong way? They’re heading back up the gravity well to where they came into the system from…”
“Ah, Bert, you haven’t been read in on Raytech’s new missiles, have you?”
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ZNS SRUAKRACH
The Seven Whiskers Captain looked in surprise at the new developments on her sensors as she observed the battle from the system blink limit far from the predators. “Something is wrong. Why did the Eight Whiskers rush out and reveal his position for no reason? What does the combat computer say?”
“Combat computer says this is the right move. The enemy fleet somehow spotted them, and they were clearly making a direct run for them. Typical predators: brave but foolish. They should be dispatched without an issue.”
Smiling at the enemy’s obvious blunder, she said, “Interesting. And worrying how they somehow deduced our positions. Report this back to Gruccud command via FTL radio.”
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TRNS MISSISSIPPI
“Grionc,” Carla said urgently, speaking desperately into the comm unit as she had been for hours. “You need to tell your ships to slow down. We are at low acceleration to maintain combat stealth. If they—”
“Carla, we are trying to reach them. But the Seuvommae and its escort ships are no longer responding to us,” Grionc shot back, her own voice tinged with frustration.
Carla repeated, “Grionc, we can’t get there in time if they’re going that fast. We are trying to help. Can you at least get them to slow down?”
After a few minutes, Carla shook her head, looking sadly at Amelia. The obstinate escort fleet commander was not going to cooperate, not even with his own people.
“Should we tell Chuck to abandon EMCOM?” Carla suggested. “We can catch up to them if we—”
“No way, I don’t trust those Malgeir rust buckets any further than I can throw them, and I trust that idiot in charge over there even less,” Amelia snarled. “If we’re going to end up fighting them, we aren’t going to start by burning our biggest advantage and our entire species’ secrecy for free.”
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A few hours later, Chuck’s voice echoed from the ship’s hardline. “It looks like the accelerating Znosians are going to soon come into effective range.”
“I’m guessing the Malgeir are going to get in range about ten minutes later?” Amelia scowled.
Samantha’s voice was emotionless. “Affirmative, Admiral.”
Amelia tapped her fingers on the console. “What about our Thunderbirds? How far off are they?”
“They’re going too slow to matter. They’ll approach after the Malgeir have intercepted the Bunny formation.”
“Intercepted their formation,” Amelia snorted. “I doubt they’ll make it alive to the interception point. Any luck hacking into their systems?”
“Negative. We’re trying to jack into their navigation systems, but these aren’t shuttles with their dumb docking autopilots and we didn’t get to install our comm systems onto the escort ships. We’re still trying, but time’s running out.”
Amelia glanced at Carla. “Tell Grionc to contact the other ship captains in the escort task force. See if she can get them to see sense and back off. I get the impression this Euntribent isn’t the most popular kid on the playground.”
Carla shook her head, looking desperate. “We tried that angle a few hours ago, but it seems like he has completely shut Grionc and the Pesmod out of their systems. Can we give them a warning shot or something?”
Amelia tightened her grip on her chair. “No, no. Like I said, we’re not breaking stealth. The idiot has made their bed, and now they’re going to die in it.”
Carla stared at the holographic tactical display on her console, her eyes narrowing at the flickering dots that represented the Malgeir fleet. She shook her head and sighed, “The inexperienced Malgeir commander deployed his ships way too far apart. Their wings won’t even be able to cover each other with point defense.”
Amelia took a deep breath, closing her eyes. “Tightbeam McMurdo. Instruct them to remain in stealth but tell Commander Tanith to get their search and rescue shuttles ready.”
Carla blinked. “How many lifepods should we tell them to prepare for?”
With a pensive look, Amelia quickly ran through the grim calculations in her head. “Best-case scenario: about four thousand Malgeir.”
Carla’s face paled. “F—four thousand lifepods. Mein Gott! And that is the best-case scenario? What about the worst case?”
“Worst-case scenario: much, much fewer. We wouldn’t need to prepare for many pods in the worst-case scenario, would we?”