"Jump completed, Admiral."

"Confirm targets! Battle stations, fire at will!" Mirtan shouted. This first step had to go fast. However, the answer he received from the speaker wasn't what he had expected.

"...there are no targets, Admiral."

"Then close the gap and get them in range, quickly!"

"No, Admiral, I didn't mean the targets aren't in range. I meant that there are no targets at all."

"Are you telling me that they aren't guarding their entrance point?!"

As he spoke, one after the other, all remaining ships confirmed their jump as well, and soon, the entire home fleet had gone through the hyperlane and gathered at the entrance point. Why were there no Tystrie ships? Granted, the Vanaery weren't guarding their entrance point either, but that was because their planet was basically right next to it. This one was far away from Eroas.

"Were they maybe expecting us and withdrew the patrol so they wouldn't get pointlessly destroyed?" one of the operators asked.

"Only if they assumed their plan would fail. No ship left for Eroas after the ambassador was caught, they can't know it yet."

The Admiral then opened the general com channel, addressing all of his ships simultaneously.

"To all captains! We have entered hostile space! All ships, go into formation Kipa! Make the Fleet appear as small as possible until you receive further orders! I want at least twenty telescopes pointed at Eroas and its surrounding space at any time, and you will inform me about even the slightest movements of their fleet. We won't be able to move very fast, it'll take us an estimated eighteen to twenty days to reach our destination! Once your weapons are in range, you will only attack your designated targets, and you will immediately disengage once I give the order! Beyond that, you are only allowed to take actions that are necessary to protect your ship! Outside of your designated targets, only fire to incapacitate! Remember, this is supposed to be a retaliatory strike, NOT an all-out attack!"

Thankfully, the orders he'd been given were vague enough to interpret them this way. Mirtan was not versed in politics. In fact, he had become a soldier specifically to escape that. But he was fairly certain that bringing this matter before the alliance would have been the smarter move, even if the process would've been slow and tedious. Sure, the attack on his niece was undoubtedly an act of war, and personally, he agreed that it was unforgivable. He could absolutely understand the anger his sister-in-law and her partner felt. On a subjective scale, he wholeheartedly supported this operation. The problem was that they had no information about the enemy numbers, and even Mritan knew the common theories that tried to explain the Tystrie's isolation. His fleet was powerful, but not invincible.

Affirmation came from all sides. The fleet went into formation and started to move.

There was no point in rushing things. Even if they traveled at full speed, it would still take many days for them to arrive, more than enough time for the Tystrie to notice, so it wouldn't be a surprise attack anyway. And once Eroas saw the fleet, they would know what was going on, no matter how convinced they were that they would've gotten away with the assassination. Once the Unifier was visible to them, they'd know it had failed. In other words, they would be fighting a prepared enemy whom they knew nothing about other than the fact their numbers were presumably very large. Not a good starting point. And all the more reason to be cautious.

"Are we getting any transmissions?"

"No, Admiral. In fact, I can't even connect to the relay station. It seems to be offline."

Offline? How? That makes no sense!

First the missing guard, and now this... something about this didn't feel right.

Days went by. Nothing happened, but tensions were high. All battle stations had to be constantly at arms because while surprise attacks in space were both difficult and unlikely, one could never know what hid behind a random asteroid. Finally, they were close enough so their telescopes could get a clear picture.

"Status!"

"Nothing, Admiral. No ships in sight."

Confused, Mirtan looked at the operator.

"None? Not even a basic planetary defense?"

"We can't see a single ship."

Were they hiding? Maybe behind the planet. They couldn't be on the surface, starting a big warship took way too much time and was simply inefficient to counter an attack. Unless they were planning on starting them a day or so before the Vanaery fleet arrived, but what purpose would that serve? It was way too slow of a maneuver to give them any strategic advantage.

"Keep advancing and stay vigilant!"

More days passed, and they kept getting closer, but still no Tystrie ship in sight. The only thing that became visible as they drew closer was some debris, but that wasn't anything noteworthy.

"We are now in communication range, Admiral!"

"Are we getting any messages from them?"

"None so far, Admiral."

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Eventually, they reached the planet and stopped in high orbit. Still no ships or any kind of reaction.

Something is wrong here.

"Go on open frequency, try to contact whoever you can reach! Corvettes, go into low orbit and search the planet!"

----------------------------------------

"And that's pretty much it until now," Mirtan finished his retelling of the events. After leading the group to the Unifier's bridge, Silgvani had asked him for details, which he had readily provided. "No one answers our attempts at communication, and the cities we have been able to search so far are completely deserted."

He went over to a console and opened some images on the big screen.

"The streets, the buildings, everything empty. And, strangely enough, not a single corpse. Can't say anything about the state of the city itself though. Our data on Eroas isn't exactly up to date, and since none of us know what it's supposed to look like, unfortunately, no clues there. Although... now, we actually have someone who knows."

He turned to Kykla, who was still standing between Sligvani's guards.

"As much as I'd like to shoot you in the face, I'm willing to ignore that for now if you cooperate. So?"

The former ambassador was quiet for a moment, seemingly going through a multitude of different emotions and ending on a glare directed downwards at the notably smaller admiral.

"I have nothing to say to you," she finally spat.

Mirtan shrugged and addressed his niece.

"Do you still need her for anything? You were the one who brought her."

"That was mainly so she could help us tell you what really happened so you could stop the attack, but I guess that's a moot point now."

"Then, should we just... I mean, she's sentenced already anyway, and it's unlikely we're going to get an answer from her people anytime soon. Could save us all a whole lot of headaches."

"Uncle."

"Fine. You! Lock her in one of the cells!"

The guards did as ordered. Kykla neither resisted nor said anything as they guided her away.

"So it was all her?" Mirtan asked once the door had closed behind her.

"As far as we know, the High Council had at least not directly ordered her to. Let's hope the guards have found the final spy by now," Silgvani confirmed.

"To think that we were undermined this deeply... and that we fell for her trick. This could've ended badly. But why would she do something like this? No one profits from a war, and what would the richest planet in the alliance want with reparations? Unless we are overlooking something."

"Maybe it's less about gain, and she just wanted to hurt Hohmiy," Mirtan's second-in-command suggested. The admiral nodded.

"Possible. But guesses won't help us right now. I hope we'll find at least something before we have to return. While I have a few ideas, none of them hold up. If they evacuated, we should see a reason why. Something that makes you evacuate an entire planet must leave traces. Do you think that r- ahem. Do you think her surprise when she heard the news was real?"

Silgvani thought for a moment.

"She has tricked me before, but her reaction to the empty planet seemed genuine. I doubt Lady Kykla knew about this. Why?"

"Well, I momentarily feared that she baited us into this operation so that Hohmiy's defenses would be weakened and they could mount an all-out attack on us. But word travels too slowly beyond the hyperlanes, and to avoid us meeting them, their fleet would need to wait in another system connected to the same hyperlane. The timing necessary to pull that off is simply not realistic. And our reserve fleet is by no means weak. But this idea doesn't work anyway because the civilians should still be here. We, of course, haven't searched every single building, but there should've still been some traces. And with the relay station offline... if we at least knew when exactly that happened. Well, at least we only have to check a relatively small portion of the planet."

"Why?" It was the first time since entering the Unifier that Nadine had spoken, and now, many of the bridge staff eyed her with curiosity. In response to her question, Mirtan opened an image of Eoras on the screen.

"Because most of the planet is uninhabitable, so we won't find anything in these zones."

"You mean those desert areas?"

"Exactly. No one can live there, so no point in looking there."

"What's so dangerous about them that you can't live there?"

The bridge grew quiet as everyone who had been listening stared at the small alien.

"Oh come on, what did I say this time?"

Finally, Doctor Githaiy was the one to respond.

"Nadine... it's a desert. You can't live in a desert."

"Huh? Of course you can! About one-tenth of Earth's population lives in deserts, and have been since ancient times! Sure, it's difficult and depends on the exact layout and water sources, but it's doable."

Before they could respond to that, a voice came through the speakers.

"Admiral! This is the Cariyca speaking! We found something!"

"I am here," Mirtan answered. "What did you find?"

"A ship that crashed into the planet's surface. Judging by the looks, it might've been shot down."

"Military or Cargo?"

"Um... I apologize, Admiral, but the damage is really severe, so it's hard to... correction, we confirmed some cannons. So yes, likely military. Going by the diameter, it might have at one point been big enough to be a destroyer, although in that case, not much of it is left."

"Examine it regardless, it's our only clue so far."

"Understood."

The channel closed.

"One destroyer, huh?" Mirtan sighed. "Hardly our missing fleet, but it's a start. If the examination reveals that it got shot down recently, it means Eroas got attacked."

"But by who? Assuming they didn't try the same thing with another alliance member... could the Kiroscha be behind this?" Silgvani proposed, causing Nadine to flinch at the mention of the species.

"Ah, Nadine I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"No, it's fine," the small alien blankly stated and went over to the window to look down onto the planet.

"Well?"

"You know that that's not what we mean when we say the Kiroscha don't leave corpses, right?" Mirtan reminded his niece. "Besides, they never attacked a planet directly, not even during the alliance war. We also never saw them operate large fleets, and they definitely would've needed one to overwhelm the Tystrie to this degree. Unless something decisive changed for them, this is too big of a paradigm shift."

He sighed.

"But ignoring the who for a moment, let's think this through. There is only one hyperlane entrance within a reasonable distance of this planet. And the ambassador used it. In other words, whoever did this could've only entered the system once she left it, and had to leave again before we arrived, or else they would've met either her or us. If we include the time they'd need from the entrance point to the planet and back... um..."

He went back to the console and opened the calculator function.

"Sil, how much time was there between her arrival and the trial?"

"Twenty-two days."

"Then... no. Not even closely. Argh, First Ones, this just doesn't add up! Whoever did this would've needed time travel to make the timing work!"

"Or have a ship that can travel FTL without the hyperlanes."

All heads turned to Nadine. The small alien was still at the window, now looking into the endlessness of space. The bridge was silent for even longer than after her previous statement, as everyone, even those not well-versed with technology knew how completely absurd that statement was.

"If there actually existed a ship that could do that," Mirtan commented, "then I'd really like to know its name."

His attention then returned to the screen.

"Anyway, as I was saying-"

"Skíðblaðnir."

"I'm sorry, what?" Mirtan asked as he once again looked over to Nadine, slightly befuddled over the word that didn't make it through the translator.

"The ship that can travel FTL without the hyperlanes. You said you wanted to know the name. It's Skíðblaðnir."

Finally, she turned around and faced the group again.

"That's the colony ship I was on."