UGT: 7th Ruan 280 a.G.A. / 8:46 a.m.

  ASF Aurora, near Karesh-Ti, Karesh-Ti’Varn system(yellow dwarf), Inner-Noran sector, Ruidan Raider Association, Milky Way

  The silence before battle was different this time. It was probably just the knowledge of what was at stake in this battle, but I still felt slightly uneasy. I stood at the center of the ASF Aurora’s Bridge, hands clasped behind my back, eyes locked onto the holoscreen before me. Karesh-Ti, the capital of the entire Inner-Noran sector, loomed in the distance like a cursed jewel, almost mocking us for our resistance. Around it, the Association fleet had formed a shield of steel and defiance. By now we had the first truly detailed readings ready as well. Karesh-Ti itself filled most of the holoscreen, blue-green oceans ringed by jagged continental shapes, its atmosphere faintly hazy in the orbital light. Beyond it, the silhouette signatures of eighty Association ships painted a clustered web in high orbit, each tagged with type, tonnage, and energy output.

  [ Still eighty Association ships. Two Battlecruisers, seven Cruisers, 16 Destroyers, 19 Frigates, twelve Corvettes and ten Cutters. Also 14 Patrolships. They’ve stacked them tight above equatorial orbit, seemingly no deep-space pickets. The formation says they’re not worried about someone dropping in close, clearly much more focused on our advancing fleet. Reasonable from their point of view. ]

  His assessment matched what the tactical layout suggested. The Association hadn’t spread its forces along an outer cordon. They’d drawn them in, near the planet’s critical stations and orbital docks, ready to respond to attacks once they closed in. That meant they were not all that confident in defeating us, otherwise they'd try to engage us further away from the planet itself.

  [ The SHF fleet is holding position. Admiral Thorrison has confirmed their combat readiness. ]

  "How long until we have to jump in?"

  [ Whenever we want to, really. We’re clear to start. ]

  I nodded once, a small movement, but the bridge crew caught it. “Then initiate the jump. Time to show them they’re still underestimating our capabilities. Inform Admiral Thorrison that we’re about to start.”

  [ Done. Emergency Jump calibration in fifteen seconds. ]

  Fifteen seconds. In normal operations, that was barely anything, but when you were deliberately about to tear the fabric of space and hurl yourself into the heart of 80 Association ships, it felt like a slow, drawn-out drumbeat before a plunge into madness. I exhaled slowly, keeping my focus tight. The ASF Aurora’s emergency jump drive wasn’t meant for finesse. It had been born for flight, for desperate escapes, for clawing your way out of a collapsing star’s gravity well or a surprise ambush in an asteroid field. The Aetherian Empire had repurposed it into something else entirely that could be used in combat operations as well, but it still wasn't something you were supposed to use multiple times in quick succession, like Fen and I planned to. I’d told Admiral Thorrison it could be done and that was the truth. I hadn’t told him that the technology might not be quite as perfect as I wanted him to believe.

  [ Ten seconds. ]

  The Bridge was silent except for Fen’s even voice and the faint, predatory hum of the ship’s weapons cycling too hot. Targeting grids began to crawl with red outlines, not yet locked, but waiting for us to appear in range like wolves scenting blood.

  [ Five… four… three… two… ]

  The ASF Aurora screamed. Not in sound, but in the bone-deep vibration that told you space was no longer quite obeying the same rules. The deck shuddered under my boots as reality buckled around us, stars stretching into liquid lines of light, sensors howling in protest. The jolt took hold, that single, almost imperceptible moment when the ship stopped being where it had been, and then the ASF Aurora slammed back into existence in the heart of the Association formation.

  It was a moment of perfect chaos. Cruisers scattered like startled prey, emergency maneuvers tearing them from their neat formations. Energy signatures flared across the spectrum as shields spiked in hurried activation. A Battlecruiser less than ten kilometers away pivoted toward us, her heavy batteries swinging like the gaze of some great predator, but far too slow.

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  “Fen,” I said quietly, “tear them apart.”

  The Aurora’s systems reacted like a well-tuned instrument. First came the siphons: fifteen Enhanced Energy Siphons arced out, ghost fingers that found the seams in enemy shield matrices and tugged. I watched the shield readouts tumble on the display. A Cruiser’s outer lattice blinked, then went gray. Two Destroyers that had been bracing for a long-range exchange found their capacitors sapped before they could even cycle a flare. The siphons didn’t kill, but they significantly weakened their shields and would fry their technology outright should they break through. The Siphons may lack range, but with the ASF Aurora being so close to its enemies, that didn't matter.

  Next, the Disintegrators woke. Twenty long-range Matter Disintegrators unfolded across the forward banks and punched precise holes in the formation. They were not indiscriminate; Fen’s targeting made them surgical, specifically searching out the Association ships that hadn't yet activated their hypershield, out of misplaced greed to save antimatter. One Battlecruiser, centered like a command pivot, ate nine synchronized beams. For a few terrible seconds its hull read as an impossible geometry of white heat and leaking vacuum, then nothing. The flagship went from full telemetry to a diffusing gas cloud with the clinical speed of a snapped string.

  The Gauss Cannons fired next. 22 gauss slugs found purchase in two Cruisers and three Destroyers, punching through weakened belts and detonating internal magazines. One Cruiser folded in two, a Destroyer’s spine sheared and it cartwheeled into the void in a cascade of shrapnel.

  The Whirlwinds followed as a counterpoint, fifteen intelligent antimatter missiles, each programmed to split and hunt. Fen unleashed them in three salvos. The first salvo split and struck a cluster of Frigates and Cutters pressed to screen the fleet’s midline. Four Frigates and three Cutters flared and dissolved under coordinated impacts. The second salvo seized a crippled Cruiser and a Destroyer that had tried to cover it, finishing both with tidy precision. The anti-missile fields that had looked plentiful minutes before simply evaporated in the face of coordinated, multi-vector flight patterns and the ASF Aurora’s own point-defense suppression. We did not stay to admire the wreckage. The opening strike had bought us time, but the Association would counter soon.

  [ We're out of here in eight seconds. We'll have to tank the counterattack from the Association fleet first though. ]

  Almost at the same time as Fen's announcement, the Association ships weaponry roared to life. Energy bolts, railgun slugs, and missile salvos streaked through the void, but without proper firing coordination and with the ASF Aurora’s ECM beams still disrupting targeting solutions, their attack was mostly scattered. The ASF Auroras staggered hypershield drank the remaining impacts almost lazily, the staggered cycling ensuring no single shield plane collapsed under focused pressure. The two backup hypershields weren't even needed to block the chaotic and disorganized fire. On the ASF Aurora itself, the hits weren't even felt. A lucky salvo of high-velocity slugs from a Battlecruiser struck a single point hard enough to cause the outermost hypershield layer to ripple, but the ASF Aurora's shield hardeners kicked in in time, absorbing and dispersing the concentrated energy before it could strike deeper. More missiles detonated prematurely as point-defense autocannons and gamma particle lasers shredded their incoming wave. A handful survived long enough to reach shield range, but they blossomed into harmless fireballs against the Aurora’s hypershield wall as well. Eight seconds later, the ASF Aurora vanished into the next emergency jump, reappearing next to Admiral Thorrison's approaching SHF fleet. Meanwhile, Fen was already plotting the next strike vector.

  "Fen, give me the enemy losses, as well as a connection to Admiral Thorrison. We'll jump back in as soon as our weapons are reloaded."

  [ The Association has lost a Battlecruiser, two Cruisers, three Destroyers, four Frigates and three Cutters. We have to expect the next jump to be much less effective, with the Association now knowing we're capable of disrupting their lines like that. We'll also have to expect more incoming fire next time. ]

  "Got it. How's the connection to Admiral Thorrison looking?" I asked.

  "Standing now, Captain Lunaris," replied the unmistakable voice of the Admiral, as his projection appeared on the holoscreen in front of me. "I must say, the entire time some people were unwilling to believe in your capabilities, but the FSF Aurora truly is a formidable warship."

  "Thank you, I completely agree. Anyways, based on the Association reaction and on the stability of our emergency jumpdrive, the FSF Aurora will be able to do two more such strikes, with us stranding inside the enemy lines after the last. Therefore you'll have to advance now and pressure the Association fleet from your front as well," I said.

  Admiral Thorrison nodded curtly. I completely understand. The SHF will start advancing. Good luck, Captain Lunaris." With these words the short tactical talk ended.

  "Fen how's the weapon reload going?"

  [ We're done in a few seconds. We can jump back in, but the Association already started realigning their own positions. ]

  "Well, then it's best not to waste time. Let's jump back into the fray."