"Did you see how the Old Man told those pricks up in Cradle to piss off like the big fat babies they are?" The cheerful chatter of Catboy rang through the locker room as Biovarie stashed her jacket. The last run in the simulators had been brutal, and Fearsome One - the queen bitch of this entire battlegroup's wing of Shermans and Barbarossas and Everests - had made sure to put them through every single trick and trap she could dream up. She clearly saw boarding in her future, and Bio was anything but happy about that.
Catboy was, though.
With his tail twitching excitedly, the young hotshot who was eying her position in the squad turned and flashed her a grin. "Well, did you?"
"I don't really care for politics," Bio said, which was a classic Armory response that her father would have been proud of. Raised in Armory space since she had been decanted, Bio's parents had been in the Armory's naval service, and in their ground service, and in their wet-navy service, stretching back to the earliest point on her genealogical chart. It wasn't saying much compared to some of the fussy old bastards in the Baronies who could chart things back to the Anthropocene, but it was still something that kept her back straight when on parade.
"It's not politics. It's the Old Man showing them what we think of them," Catboy said, grinning.
Bio grunted.
The low trilling alert that rang through the locker room drew grumbles and glowers from dozens of pilots. Someone one row over muttered. "Can't they give us at least a little time to take a fucking shower?"
"No," Bio said, letting her voice carry. "Come on, no one wants to be jam in the next few hours."
"Might be an improvement in some of us," Nest said, leaning up and over the locker to grin down at Catboy, who flipped him off.
"Come on," Bio said, putting her still bare foot on Catboy's back and shoving him away from the locker. He stumbled, flailed his arms, then shot a liquid glare at her, his bright green eyes shimmering and vengeful. Bio was pretty sure she'd have to double check her locks on her chambers next time she got to take any rack time. She and the rest of the lancer pilots made a show, despite the alert, to not hurry - while naval crew bustled about, checking and double checking and quadruple checking the locks, bolts, and containers that were keeping everything fastened and sealed up tight. The
Fearsome was just about to pull more Gs than Bio was comfortable thinking and while the contragravitic generators built along her spine would work hard to keep the squishy human beings aboard from being turned into so much red paste...they couldn't project the CG field over the entire ship to an equal degree.
That much energy would take more power output than half a dozen longspool lances, and most of that energy was going into the stabdrive.
Once, Bio had asked a techie to try and explain a stabdrive to her.
She hadn't slept well for a week.
The Lancers arrived with minuets to spare at their gravity harnesses. Deck Chief Mandala glared around himself as people walked past him to their assigned harnesses. "Get locked in and prepped, ladies and gentlemen, I don't want any of you assholes to stroke our on me. It's a hell of a lot of paperwork."
"But I stroke out all the time!" Catboy jeered, his hand gesturing around his crotch.
"Get in the damn chair, Wallstein," Mandala grumbled.
Catboy swung into his harness, while Bio was already strapping herself in. The harnesses were all specifically placed to be as near the center of the CG generator of this part of the ship. The idea was by spreading the load across many CG generators, if any one failed in particular, it wouldn't kill the entire crew. That didn't make Bio feel any better about the idea of being the one under a failed, shorted out piece of trash, getting smeared across the deck as the ship decelerated from nearlight cruise.
The harness did have more to offer than just a comfortable seat. Injectors pricked her neck, spine, and thighs. A gushing, warm flood filled her body, making her feel bloated and heavy. Her eyes half closed and euphoria buzzed through her.
Gravity? Who gave a shit about gravity?
Ah, better living through pharmacology. It wasn't just that she was now stuffed with liquids that would try and reduce the chances of her blood vessels exploding under pressure. It was that they came with anxiety reduction and euphoria induction chemicals that made the switches in her brain all go to
everything is fine.
Outside, beyond Biovarie's perceptions, the
Fearsome, as well as the other ships in the gathering 1st Diamond Shoal's Fleet, prepared themselves. Inconvincible energy focused to singular points, punching into a realm beyond normal causality. From these pinpricks of space-time, more change in momentum than could be fit onto ships without turning them into nothing but floating remass tanks exploded into space, stabbing beams lightyears long. If anything had been below the ships at that moment, it would have been obliterated, reduced into subatomic haze and buffeted away by artificial magnetospheres before even that dirty vacuum could mar the hull plating of the
Fearsome, the
Chastity and the
Davey Crocket.
When the nearlight deceleration was finished, they were only a few thousand kilometers away from the nexus of gathering ships.
Pretty as a picture.
Bio groaned as she felt the needles pop out of her body. THe sludge they scraped away left her feeling aching and throbbing. She lifted her hand and didn't see any blood on her palm. She closed her eyes.
"Fuck me," Catboy groaned. "I wish I was jam."
"I wish you were dead too," Nest said, lifting his arm to flip Catboy off.
"...okay, the fact you can move your arm is impressive."
Catboy even sounded impressed.
***
Sven couldn't sleep. He was in the captain's cabin of his very own ship - the past few weeks had seen him walking up and down the spine of the
Hurricane, taking in her every detail - and he should have gotten a good, refreshing amount of sleep before the big meeting tomorrow. Those weeks had been spent maneuvering the fleets together. His battlegroup, under Admiral Shane, had linked up with two Union Battlegroups, Diamond and Orchard. There was hope that a third battlegroup would manage to arrive before the Harrison Armory fleet. There was also hope that a diplomatic solution would work out.
Fat Chance, had been his signals and intelligence officer's response. Gala had ticked the reasons off, reasons that now burned in his head.
Union was already leery of the Armory's power. Union wanted to enforce the Utopian Pillars, and those were contradictory to the Armory's goals. Admiral Garrison was already wanted for crimes against humanity, and he was in command of this fleet.
Of course, if the Armory responds to this response by escalating, then... Sven thought. He could see the spiraling consequences as well as anyone else aboard his ship. If HA took unkindly to Union providing military support to protect a Diasporan state over their interests, and if they took this engagement as an act of war - and how could they not?
Sven felt the same sickness and eagerness that had kept him tossing and turning in his bed.
Finally, he sat up and his comp/con came online, immediately. "Coffee?" a soft, feminine voice spoke from his console.
Sven rubbed his palm against his face. "Yes, and fleet bulletins. Any news of BG Uranium?"
"No, Captain Halston," the computerized voice said.
"That's not good," Sven said, softly.
After coffee and a quick shower, he came to the circular main bridge of the
Hurricane. Vid-screens showed the thrust plumes of nearby ships, streaking across the midnight dark sky. Sven smiled at his gunnery officer, Lieutenant Galapagos, and said: "How's the fabrication problem?"
"Techs have worked out it was a feedstock jam," Apa (she had hastily switched her nickname from Gal to Apa once she had met and become fast friends with Gala) said, shrugging her shoulders. "It was hidden by the framework of the articulated arms for the final bit of the designing and building stage. But now we can fabricate torpedoes from feedstock at a combat capable rate for a solid week."
"Excellent," Sven said, taking his drink from his coffee bulb again.
"Captain," Gala spoke up. "We're getting a tightbeam com request and Legion synchronization from the D."
The chill in Sven's belly got worse.
The tightbeam might have been a fleet communique or a message for him or a course correction request. The only reason to ask for the
Hurricane's NHP compliment to synthesize into the greater mind of a Fleet Legion was because the balloon was going up. He sat down in his chair, set his drink bulb into the container, and gave his best grave captain's voice.
"Hook us up, Lieutenant."
"Aye aye, sir," Gala said.
The bridge came to life and glowing holograms of the other ship captains appeared, in their chairs, while Admiral Shane stood next to a representation of the Diamond Shoal's system. His face was grave.
"Captains," he said, nodding. "SIGINT and TELEINT have both confirmed - as of three fleet-days ago, Battlegroup Uranium was caught between nearlight accelerations and blinkspace transfers by the forward edge of the Harrison Armory fleet and mission-killed. Initial tallies put effective losses at total, 100% captured, killed or destroyed." The soft sound of swearing and quiet gasps was all the more chilling for the fact it was being projected through holographic representations. "We hoped to force the enemies to take the defensive with an aggressive posture, bolstered by numeric superiority. As it is, we appear to be at parity...or maybe less..." His lips pursed. "It is currently being decided as to our final disposition before the upcoming battle. Be prepared for imminent nearlight maneuvering. Have you crews online and prepared. That is all."
The holograms faded and Sven swore under his breath.
"And here, I was hoping for a t'rill shoot, sir," Gala said, dryly.
The hours crawled by on hands and knees. The bridge was quiet, save for orders being passed down to tell the rest of the crew to remain near their acceleration harnesses.
Then-
"SHIT!" Gala exclaimed.
"Sir!" Apa said, at the same time. "We just registered a- a-"
"Big boom, sir," Gala said, throwing the screen up. The telescopic view was of a glittering blue white spark. "I think it was DST-02."
"The deep space telescope," Sven said.
"They nuked it," his helmsman, the bland and redheaded Samuel Varine, said.
"We're getting more hits in the outer-system elements," Gala said. "That means, by light lag, they got hit an hour ago - but by sublight maneuvering, if those were torpedoes...they'd have to have launched a few days ago and we missed it."
Sven nodded. He tapped in commands on his armrest.
The order he expected came and he felt a warm rush of pride.
Nearlight maneuvering, and his crew were ready within the second.
The
Hurricane and the rest of Battlegroup December flared and vanished from where they had been lurking - joined seconds later by the rest of the Union fleet. The bolt took only a few agonizing minutes, passed through with a haze of painful drugs pumped through Sven's command chair and into his body. Once it was done, they had withdrawn to the asteroid line, and were well out of whatever kill-zone or sighted range that the enemy had established.
When the comlink was established, the only thing to come through...were orders...
---
INCOMING...
INCOMING...
INCOMING...
TELEINT IDENTIFIES ENEMY FORCES - FLEET DISPOSITION TO FOLLOW
Fleet Intelligence Notation Included
PCV-DN Ra:
This is Garrison's flagship. Expect Hivequeen system modeling. Expect the worst.
PCV-DN King Charles:
We think she's nothing but armor plating and guns - big, heavy. Turtleback for sure.
PCV-GC Fearsome, Chastity, Davy Crockett:
A trio of closely intercooperative ships, using Corsair pattern attack systems.
SIGINT thinks there's an ace squad on this ship - they're also carrying enough Diluvia drone swarms to match our numbers.
PCV-GC Alliance:
This ship's old enough to be a non-issue. We think they're bringing it purely to add their Stalwart cruisers to the fleet and plan to abandon her to her fate once she's launched her ships.
PCV-L Langley, Trouten, Gilgamesh, Atilla:
A quartet of drone-carriers, repurposed for escort use, arranged in Battlethread formation.
TOTAL COUNT: 3 Capital ships, 8 Escorts
we think that Admiral Bryce Garrison can be counted as a whole escort by himself. Be careful out there.
FORECASTING: If we lose this one, Harrison Armory knows they can get away with murder, will occupy this system and turn it into new guns and ships and conquering more of the Dawnline Shore. Don't let them.
...POSTURE ORDERS COMING IN
...BG DECEMBER?
[ ] Conservative Posture (deploy at EXTREME RANGE (5), may use +1 tactic at the start of combat
WARNING: This will put you into close proximity to Shoal-Proper, and thus, risk collateral damage
[ ] Nominal Posture (Deploy at LONG RANGE (4). No modifiers.)
[ ] Aggressive Posture (Deploy at SCOPE RANGE (3), during the first round of combat, you can only use ONE maneuver OR tactic, not both)
...BG DIAMOND?
[ ] Conservative Posture (deploy at EXTREME RANGE (5), may use +1 tactic at the start of combat
WARNING: This will put you into close proximity to Shoal-Proper, and thus, risk collateral damage
[ ] Nominal Posture (Deploy at LONG RANGE (4). No modifiers.)
[ ] Aggressive Posture (Deploy at SCOPE RANGE (3), during the first round of combat, you can only use ONE maneuver OR tactic, not both)
...BG ORCHARD?
[ ] Conservative Posture (deploy at EXTREME RANGE (5), may use +1 tactic at the start of combat
WARNING: This will put you into close proximity to Shoal-Proper, and thus, risk collateral damage
[ ] Nominal Posture (Deploy at LONG RANGE (4). No modifiers.)
[ ] Aggressive Posture (Deploy at SCOPE RANGE (3), during the first round of combat, you can only use ONE maneuver OR tactic, not both)
PLEASE SUBMIT POSTURE AS FLEETWIDE PLAN
. We must avenge them! 
