* * * *
“Captain, the last of the squadrons has arrived. The entire fleet is assembled.”
“Excellent. Get me all of the other squadron leaders,” Senior Captain Tra Mastul ordered.
The leader of Squadron 1 wanted to be sure all the other Senior Captains understood their parts in the battle plan. The Thorian was acting as admiral for this assault—a rank that didn’t exist in the Unity. The other Senior Captains were his commodores, each leading a squadron. Normally, policing activities were coordinated from the commissioner’s office. However, due to the magnitude of this assault, Commissioner of the Fleet Boutan’Mourn’Froul felt that during the attack there must be no question about who was in charge. And someone had to have the authority to change the battle plan as needed while the fleet was out of touch with HQ. As the most senior of the Unity’s ship captains, Mastul got the nod to head up the fleet.
Once the conference call was set up among the eight ships, he began. “Ladies and gentlemen, unless any of you have a mechanical problem that would prevent it, we jump in an hour.”
* * * *
“Tarl, sensors have detected several large disturbances in hyperspace. The Unity ships appear to be coming from eight different vectors. They will reach the system within minutes.” Ishtawahl appeared calmer than Penrod would have expected.
“And so it begins. Do we know where they’ll arrive in the system? I know they’ll end up here eventually, but do we know where they’ll be staging from?”
“Not yet. I will let you know as soon as we determine that.”
“Good. Tell all the pilots to stand ready. When this happens, it’s gonna happen in a hurry.”
* * * *
Adventurer re-entered realspace just inside the system’s Kuiper Belt. Having billions of ice objects at their back masked the presence of the fleet from anyone viewing from a distance, at least temporarily. Nearly five billion kilometers distant, the yellow dwarf sun of the Borhtar system appeared barely larger than the stars that served as a backdrop.
Kalen knew that even if there were sensors nearby to register the fleet’s presence and transmit the data to the fortress, the radio signals would take more than four hours to arrive. By then, the battle would be well under way.
“We’ve arrived, Captain,” Hal announced. “Scanning for bogeys.” He waited for the data. “Nothing way out here. It looks like there’s several dozen ships in the general target area. I count…thirty-seven bogeys. There may be others obscured by asteroids or in hiding. That’s a lot more than the reconnaissance holos show is normal. I guess they’re waiting for us.”
“That’s not surprising. The pirates clearly have a mole or two inside Unity HQ. Still, they can’t know our battle plan. Only the Senior Captains and a few others were privy to that before we left. We didn’t expect this to be easy; now we know it won’t be. But that doesn’t change the mission.”
“No sir. Still, we know they have a lot more ships than we’re seeing. I wonder why there aren’t more of them in-system.”
“Could be they don’t think they need any more, what with the fortress to cover them. Besides, they have pirating to do. If they keep all their ships here waiting for our arrival, then we’ve effectively won already. Or perhaps they’re lying in wait somewhere else. As soon as we jump in, they’ll do so as well. Keep your eyes and ears open. In the meantime, what’s the status of the squadron?”
“All sixteen ships present and accounted for. The other squadrons are on schedule, coming in on different hyperspace vectors. The combined fleet should be gathered in another twenty-seven minutes.”
“Excellent. Coordinate with the other squadron pilots so we all jump together on schedule. If we do indeed have the element of surprise, we need to take advantage of that with a synchronized attack.”
“Will do.”
* * * *
“Is everything ready, Jern?”
“Yes, sir.”
We’re back to ‘sir’, are we? So he’s feeling the pressure after all.
“Good. Then all we have to do is sit back and wait. This is going to be fun.”
* * * *
Over the next forty-plus minutes, the eight commodores coordinated the activities of their respective squadrons. Finally, it was time.
“We’re jumping in ten. Everyone hold onto your hats.” Hal took a moment to compose himself. He’d survived dozens of battles before, through a combination of skill and luck.
Will that be enough this time?
He signaled Conflict Alert, sounding the klaxons and raising the shields. “Five…four…three…two…here we go!”
At the designated moment, all eight squadrons, comprising 128 ships, pounced from eight different directions at once. Square in their figurative crosshairs was a rather large asteroid, surrounded and obscured by a cloud of smaller asteroids—asteroids festooned with the nastiest surprises the pirates could devise.
Thus began the battle for control of the spaceways.
Further Acknowledgments
I decided to try something new for this book release. I heard about an intriguing promotional tool, called Thunderclap. In order to initiate a Thunderclap campaign, an author must find 100 or more people willing to support the campaign by allowing Thunderclap to post a one-time 140-character message to their Facebook, Tumblr, and/or Twitter accounts. (My message was about this book.) I managed to find 103 supporters (including my two accounts), with a total global social reach of nearly 97,000 people. To thank the other 101 participants, I’d like to list their account names here, in chronological order of support:
Charles Avant
Chad Franklin
Glenice Taylor Minardi
Betty McIntyre
Stanislava Dobnakova Kohut
Tom Chlebus
Barry Flux
Chris Hawkins
Barbara Merritt Chapman
Claire Bear
Jonathan Meyer
Dionne Washington
Meghan Hamilton
Author Hugh B. Long
Dawn Napier
James Farley
Jamie Dietz
John Dowlen
Bruce Slaven
Brenda Lacy
Venus Morales Author
Krowdster
Bob Morrow
Denise Ellyson
Patty Haupt
Julian Barker
Linda Mefford
Clarissa Silva
Darryl Pierce
Gowtham Dravidian
Shaun Donovan
Susan Foster Hagy
Casey Harvell
Anthony D. Lombardi
Tony
K.s. Crooks
Dale Stiffler
Janet Smith Brown
Kristin Lundgren
Linda Bouyea
Michael Peirce
Matthew Pittaway
Jay Brown
P.D.Roberts
Roy Goodwin
Kate Watson
Princess Sin
Mikki Hoffman
Kenneth Coe
Calvin Dodge
Danielle Pasca
Dominick Dobson
MT Bostick
David A. Rupprecht
Sam Gregory
Acevongo
William Reece
Valli Pherson
Scott Michael Decker
D. Neil D'Silva
Brian McLaughlin
Norma Seitz
Blaine Coleman
Bex @ Aurelia {Lit}
Glenn Lockley
Brett Uren
Lisa Medley
Toneye Blakk
Biswadeep Pattnayak
Shane Rees
Larry Diane Nebelung
Susie Hawes
Carolyn Hamilton
Marcha Fox
Carl Plumer
Andrea Gibson Mann
Heather Kirchhoff
&nb
sp; P. Katherine Barkley
Scott Salow
Sean Leas
Gemma Carter
David M Crossett
Pamela Sims
Imani Jones
Julian W Thompson
Beau O'Dell
Kevin Davis
Rose Marie
Delores Walker
Wholohan Gffb James
Shelley M Hall
Angela Fristoe (USA Today bestselling author)
Michael Levy
CM Kaser
Alejandro Campos
Marie Kathryn Casalaspro
Michael Nelson