Ajora crossed her arms over her flight jacket and considered the Turani. She was fairly sure the Turani wasn't mentioning dozens of other factors at the moment - relative sizes of Ententes, details about what her fellows had actually run into out there in the Kharak system, what she knew about the Kushan. But at the moment, Ajora had a job. And that job was to get these ships moving in generally the right direction. And one thing that Turani couldn't really step back from and that...was a challenge.
...at least she hoped it was true, because she knew no proper Imperial captain could step back from a challenge to his or her honor.
She grinned. " Sure. Unarmed civilians. The gravest threat in space," she said, her voice wry. Huntara frowned at her. "You're not being paid to fight, you're being paid to scout. If you run into anything serious, you can hyperspace back to the fleet and drop the intelligence off."
Huntara snorted. "Kid, you know how long it takes for a hyperspace drive to recharge after a short jump?" she asked, standing slowly up and up and up from the seat she had taken. She stepped closer to Ajora, looking down into her eyes with a warm smirk that made Ajora's belly do a tumbling flip flop like she was in a cockpit and had forgotten the off-center characteristics of her fighter. She wanted to uncross her arms and brush a strand of hair back behind her ear, or fidget, or do anything other than just stand still. Huntara brushed that strand back and Ajora felt the rough tip of her finger graze along her ear, a momentary contact flaring brighter and hotter than anything Ajora had ever felt.
The stomach flipping was joined with some completely inexplicable guilt.
"Yeah," Ajora said. "I-It depends on the size of the solid state quantum capacitators. Uh...bigger ships take longer time. The RC-09 we have outside s-should have charged in a minute or two."
"My precious little
Crimson takes four and a half minuets to warm up her hyperdrive." Huntara's voice was edged with a warning tone that jerked Ajora's eyes from somewhere over her shoulder to her butch face. Her smirk had become grim. "Do you know how much damage you can take in four and a half minutes?"
Ajora, who had definitely read the accounts of the Battle of Sighs - where the Imperial Core had been stopped from being ravaged by Vag-Yiar invasion fleet in a fleet action that had taken a grand total of thirty two seconds as the negotiations broke down and the two fleets had begun to exchange fire at nearly point blank ranges. Now, admittedly, that had been nearly three thousand years ago, when the industrial capacity to make really durable ship armor had been beyond everyone involved...
But the point stood.
"Then be careful," she said, trying to remain calm. "You are a pirate, aren't you?"
Huntara narrowed her eyes.
Then she burst out laughing. Her palm clapped Ajora on the shoulder and she stepped back. "I like you, Princess," she said, turning her back to Ajora and getting another glass of that stolen wine. "All right, we'll be scouting for these big bad Kushan. Whatever they are." She knocked back the drink. "Transfer the RU to our holds and...unless there's anything else, you'll be on your way, right?" She flashed a grin over her shoulder. Ajora felt the impulse to say more or stay longer. The sudden, vivid image of the large, comfortable bed dominating the room filled her mind. As did the expansive length of Huntara's arm. The strength of her bicep. The breadth of her shoulders.
Ajora's voice cracked: "No, C-Captain!"
Huntara's grin was knowing.
***
Loniie, Kyle and Roj were waiting for Ajora when she returned to the hanger bay, and all three of them were looking increasingly nervous as they stood off against their Turani counterparts - Kyle was smiling nervously, Roj was standing stoically beside Loniie, and Loniie was scowling. Seeing Ajora, she nodded. "Negotiations going all right?" she asked before adding a belated. "Sir?"
"Yeah," Ajora said. "RC-09 is already transferring the RU, we're good to go. They're going to be scouting and getting more information..."
"More?" Loniie asked, quietly, then shook her head. "Come on, lets get in the 'vette and get out of this kids club playhouse. With all the scribbles." She directed that at one of the Turani, who gave her a rather good natured gesture that Ajora was fairly sure was equivalent of the backwards V that Taiidani preferred for letting know just how much you didn't like someone. Ajora leaned in close as they stepped into the umbilical.
"Was that wise?"
"Ahh, we were shooting the shit," Loniie said, grinning. "How about you? You look like you ran into a hovertank."
"A-Ah, uh," Ajora said, blushing.
"...I saw how you looked at that pirate captain," Loniie said.
"Oh, how did she?" Kyle asked, clambering up to his gunners roost.
"Kyle!" Loniie groaned. "Pay attention, by the old Emperor's balls."
"This is a very inappropriate conversation for me officers, your! For your officers, take us out of here!" Ajora stammered.
"Right. Sir." Loniie said with a very insolent smile. Ajora glared at her, but the glare slid off the stocky woman's shoulders like water off a sleeba's back. The carrier's hanger bay whipped past them as their magnetic grapplers launched the little corvette into open space. Once free, Loniie brought the ion engine on and kicked them towards the resource controller, which was surrounded by a little constellation of Bandit fighters - jouncing and moving around it in little erratic spurts, playing as much with one another as they were with the poor officers on the controller. Though they didn't transmit it in the clear...but Ajora could still practically hear the sighs of relief from the men on the controller as Loniie locked into the controller.
"Hyperspace in five," the RC-09's captain voice came over the line.
Ajora looked up at the Turani carrier. She imagined Huntara was looking back at her.
Her cheeks flushed.
And her belly knotted.
The hyperspace waveform wicked away the fleet, the stars, and the distant sun, replacing it with the sight of the Taiidani fleet - and the sight of what was clear and present battlefield jump preperations. The frigates were moving into the most stable configuration for a short jump, the resource collectors were cruising into their hangers, and the CAP was bringing their wings in for a quick landing. Ajora blinked, then heard the com crackle from the CIC. "Good timing, AC-01, we have just gotten a black alert from command, jump in H-minute two minutes, thirty seconds. Get in here quick, kids."
"Bring us in," Ajora said, quickly, frowning. Black alert meant immediate threat to the Empire. What was going on?
The hanger loomed and the corvette crew, focused on bringing their ship in or trapped inside of the engineering section of the small ship, missed what Ajora saw.
The heavy black tipped torpedoes of the ADWs were being taken out of their moorings and floated, in a tearing hurry, to the blunt, rectangular 'wing' protrusions of the Kaark class attack bombers. The torpedoes took up significantly more room than anything else the ships could carry, were one use only (as opposed to their nominal payload of plasma warhead emitters, which shunted drive plasma from their fusion reactor) and made each of the Kaark that had been picked look misshapen and ugly. It also made Ajora's blood run cold.
"What's going on, LT?" Loniie asked.
"I'm going to find that out," Ajora said, nodding. "Uh...report to your normal corvette."
"This is our normal corvette," Loniie said.
"Then stay here!" Ajora said, shaking her head as she swung herself to the airlock. She emerged to find that Commander Bejik was waiting for her.
"Did you get the Turani on our flank?" he asked, immediately. Ajora nodded, but before she could specify, he jerked his hand. "Come on!"
"What's going on, sir?"
"It's...imperial orders, Eytapea," Bejik said, his voice grim. Ajora frowned. He had never called her that before and she didn't like the way he seemed to be clinging to it. "We need your word on that."
"What?" Ajora asked as they came to one of the lift tubes which whisked them up to the CIC, which was in utter turmoil. The hyperdrive preparations were being done in a tearing hurry - and the center of the bridge showed a wobbly quantum waveform indicator - but it was...Ajora stopped, gaping as she saw the scale indicators. At first, she had thought that the scale on the display was zoomed in, like they had been trying to study the specifics of the waveform pattern for ship identification purposes. Instead, she saw the scale meter was normal tachyon scanners.
The quantum waveform was for a ship the size of a small
moon.
"Emperors Before," she whispered, the old oath feeling the only one that was even faintly appropriate - but what Ajora wanted to say was
holy fucking shit.
Commodore Hajiak turned to face her, nodding. "Princess Eytapea, welcome aboard."
"S-Sir, I-"
"M'lady," he said, gesturing. "At 0891, in the Kharak system, we detected this hyperspace signature. Declassified Imperial documents make it clear that immediate black level response is the only possible answer."
Ajora felt cold. Declassified documents had to have been given out back on Hiigara. Not out here, not nearly a year away from the Court. She saw, for a moment, the subtle machinations of her mother behind this - and a sickening lurch in her belly made her wonder exactly...who had approved her position in such a good ship, in such an important fleet as the Ninth. She tried to control her features, but the anger was clear enough that Commodore Hajiak gulped.
"The documentation is here, if you need to see it, Princess-"
"I'm just a lieutenant, Sir!" It almost came out like a scream. She just wanted to be
Ajora. Herself. Her chest throbbed and the old wound felt like it was getting fresher and fresher by the moment. "What is going on? What do the documents say?"
"Hyperspace in H-minute thirty seconds."
"Prepare launch wings."
"We have our kinetic point defense up and running, long range telemetry is good...nothing but SASRs out there."
The murmur of men and women and their professional tones cut hard against the situation. Everyone's voice was edged.
Hajiak stepped closer. "This is the prison planet of...of the Hiigaran Exiles. Emperor Riesstiu has confirmed it in a direct letter to myself. If they demonstrate hyperspace technology, they are in direct forfeit of the Treaty."
Ajora wanted to throw up.
It all...
It all made sense now.
Why the fleet wanted Turani dogs on each flank. To get a total encirclement of civilian evacuation ships. Why the fleet wanted her aboard. It wasn't because of her test scores or her piloting abilities or her duty or her dedication or her soul or
anything. They wanted her not as Ajora the friend or Ajora the comrade or even Ajora as the technically proficient deep space combat pilot.
They wanted
Princess Ajora Eytapea, sixty seventh of her line, Daughter of Lady Sadha Eytapea, the Keeper of Keys and Holder of the Sky's Ear, Liaison to his immortal majesty's most respected Imperial Navy, future heir to the Imperial Astronomic Survey Service and duchess of the planet of Re'aks. They wanted someone to stand in the Imperial Court and tell everyone that the black alert and the rolling out of atmosphere deprivation weapons had been
nice and
legal. They wanted her to speak to the Galactic Council and justify this...if...
If it ever came out.
The hyperspace waveform flickered and Ajora felt time stand still as she looked through the forward window panes of the
Emperor's Finest.
The only habitable planet in the Kharak system looked barely that. The massive expanse of equatorial desert sprawled, up and down, until the clear signs of geoengineering and polar civilization became clear. Thick bands of green, visible even from high orbit, marked off where the people dwelling there were trying to keep the desert back from their homes, while the night's terminator sliced along the nothern pole, revealing the blaze of gleaming cities, crisscrossing that relatively small portion of livable planet.
"Launching alert fighters. Black Squad-1 in space. Group Two in attack positions."
"Put out a screen," Commodore Hajiak said. "Prepare to intercept their defense grid. Punch a hole...for the bombers."
This isn't some backwater outpost or uninhabited planet.
The sword at Ajora's hip felt very...very heavy.
The a line of white light shot down from the heavens - streaking down, down, down, down, towards the horizon. It struck without a sound - instead, there was a blaze of brilliant white light. The horizon seemed to bloom with fire, a wall of flames reaching up towards the heavens. The flames spat snakes made of smoke, and the snakes writhed into the shapes of Taiidani imperial banners. Their fangs tore into one another, writhing and twisting, and then blew away as the wall of flames drew closer and closer.
Ajora blinked.
She knew what she had to do.
---
HEAT: 4/6
[ ] Attempt to order the fleet to stop this madness, leveraging your position as a Princess (Leadership check Diff 10 - you will fail because 13 heat is so overheated that you'll instantly die, but at least your heat will be reset.)
[ ] Draw your sword (begin combat - this will also likely end poorly, but at least they'll have a harder time ignoring your displeasure.)
